The Strength of Our Dreams

by Sara Henderson

  But the part of the speech the audience enjoyed most was when I spoke of arriving at the Pan Macmillan offices on a Saturday and being let in by the cleaning woman. We then sat down to cup of tea and I asked her to give me a rundown on James.

  I’m not sure what else I talked about, something followed, then I thanked everyone.

  After I finished I worried about having stood onstage for such a length of time saying nothing. Jeannine assured me it was all of ten seconds before I gathered myself, but to me it seemed more like ten minutes.

  What a day! I had journeyed from the pits of despair when I heard about the book being peddled discrediting From Strength to Strength to standing before the people of the book industry receiving an award for the book.

  The next day I was back at the book fair signing books and still on a major high, when a beaming James came up to me and said there were no takers for the discrediting book. The agent had done the rounds of the publishers, except Pan Macmillan, and no-one was interested! With the threat over, I hit an even greater high.

  Following the award, From Strength to Strength went to number-one position on the bestseller lists—higher than my current book—and I went back to Bullo floating on a cloud.

  While I was receiving the award in Sydney, Marlee was in the yards drafting cattle. She had had the usual cuts and bruises from handling cattle all year, but one day she opened the drafting gate to let a cow into the round yard, but as she pushed the gate closed a very stroppy bull also tried to charge through the gate. Marlee closed the gate quickly to block him and his horn squashed her thumb up against the top steel rail of the gate. As you can imagine, it was excruciatingly painful—the finger split open, the nail went black and the finger resembled a light bulb. The doctor said she would definitely lose the nail, was lucky not to lose the top of her finger. It healed remarkably well and a perfect nail grew in place of the horrible black mess that fell off a few weeks later. Only a slight scar on the inside of the thumb remained.

  July was busy, with mustering, a TV crew filming a segment for 11 a.m. and Franz’s mum and dad, Mama and Papa Ranacher, arriving from Austria. They were very excited about coming to the outback of Australia—well, Marlee and I had to rely on Franz for this information, because his parents didn’t speak English. Before their arrival we madly learnt German, which we knew would only help a bit as they spoke the Austrian dialect, and Franz’s parents took English lessons.

  Once they arrived we were able to exchange a few words but the weeks ahead were mainly filled with constant charades as we tried to get across our message. Whenever Franz arrived back at the house we would get him to translate our conversations and both sides would collapse into peals of laughter. I had one twenty-minute conversation with Papa and didn’t have a clue what it was about. I think he was in the same boat!

  They are wonderful people and everyone enjoyed every minute of their visit. If someone asked me to describe the visit in one word, I would have to say, ‘laughter’.

  We also had another overseas visitor staying with us at this time. At a conference on New Zealand’s South Island a man had come up to me and told me he built roads. He had read in my book what trouble we had with our road over the mountains. He said that building roads over mountains was his everyday trade and was sure he could help us. Having driven around the South Island I knew exactly what he meant, there were roads hanging off the sides of mountains! I explained the job was very extensive and the problem was we didn’t have the millions required to hire people to do the work. I thanked him very much for his concern and went on signing books.

  I should have realised that a roadbuilder from the South Island wouldn’t give up that easily. A week or so after I came home from my tour he was on the phone. He was planning a holiday to Australia and would like to come to Bullo to look at our road to see if there was anything he could do to help.

  So here he was. Over the years since, Bill Ward’s help has been much more than just on the road, and he has become a wonderful friend. To give one example, he once lent us his top mechanic for six weeks when we had urgent repair work and couldn’t find a mechanic with heavy machinery experience.

  I had to leave Bill and Mama and Papa Ranacher in Marlee and Jacqui’s capable hands, because I was off again on the conference circuit. Well, first it was a fundraiser for the Peter Pan Society, then onto a conference for Tupperware at Darling Harbour for about 1,400 people. The 11 a.m. crew wanted to film me at a conference, to contrast with the shots on the station and what a conference this was!

  This was the yearly awards day for sales at all those Tupperware parties. I had no idea they were still going on! When I went back to the Outback in 1970 after returning from America, Tupperware parties were quite the thing. Here it was twenty-three years later and they were still going strong. Just one look at these 1,400 dedicated women and you’d know why. Can you imagine how the dust would fly if we put them into Canberra to spring clean?

  In my speeches I can always manage to link the company I am speaking for to a story about the Outback. Sometimes this has been hard, but a story always seems to surface. But this looked like it was going to be the first time I couldn’t find a story. For weeks I had been trying to think of a story that tied Tupperware into my life in the Outback, and right up until I walked on stage to speak, I couldn’t think of one.

  Then as I was being introduced, I looked at the Tupperware products on the prize table in front of me and the story came to me, as if it happened only yesterday. It had actually happened way back in 1965, on one of my few journeys to the front gate that year.

  I would not drive up or down our first jump-up (a very steep, sharply rising road, up a cliff face) because it was so dangerously steep. The steep grade and the dreadful condition of all our vehicles back in the early days was a lethal mixture. If the brakes failed, the road was so narrow and winding there was nowhere to go but over the cliff, backwards. I would wait at the bottom of the jump-up with the girls while Charlie roared safely to the top of the pass, then the girls and I would walk to the top.

  One day, Charlie was at the last steep section of the climb and he changed gears quickly to get more power out of the old engine and he stalled. He restarted the utility and took off with a mighty lurch. It was so violent he dislodged the picnic basket along with quite a few other items out of the back. I watched as various things crashed and tumbled down the road towards me or over the cliff face.

  When I reached the scene most of the gear had been picked up, and Charlie looked at me with his charming sorry expression, ‘Not much of the picnic set survived, we will have to drink water out of our hats. Most of the cups and plates are smashed. But this survived.’

  He handed me the Tupperware container with the sandwiches for lunch safely inside. Mum had packed this handy container in my suitcase on my first journey into the Outback, and I had used it for so many things. It was now covered in dust and quite badly scratched having tumbled down the rocky road, but it hadn’t broken open and the sandwiches were in A-l condition. This story was enthusiastically received. I then retired to the foyer to sign books.

  The announcement for the start of the next session caused a surge towards me. Eager women wanting everything from books to hats to conference ribbons signed, pinning me against the wall in the process. I now know what it feels like to be mobbed! An orderly, very dignified mobbing, but a mobbing nevertheless.

  I signed furiously until the final call then the women noisily withdrew into the auditorium and the foyer fell quiet. The reporter from 11 a.m. was amazed, associating this type of behaviour with rock stars and the young, and asked me if this happened all the time.

  ‘Nope, that’s my first mobbing,’ I replied.

  I dropped by my publishers’ offices, to say hello and discuss plans for the rest of the year. James had another of those great grins he gets when something good has happened.

  ‘What?’ was my only word. I knew it would come out in a rush in the next two seconds, that w
as James! He handed me a letter which said I had been awarded (take a deep breath, this is a long title) The Angus & Robertson Bookworld Australian Author Non-Fiction Literary Medal for 1994. Whew!

  James proudly handed me a large picture frame about two-and-a-half feet tall and there in the middle, amongst lots of writing, nestling in satin, was a gold medal. I headed for home with my picture frame under my arm.

  It was soon back to cattle musters, accounts, office work, tourists, writing, and another interesting event. All kinds of interesting and strange events were becoming the norm in my life of late. On the 30th July a team of thirteen men were arriving to set up camp on Bullo—on the front lawn to be precise. They hoped to locate the lost anchors of the exploration ship, the Beagle, out of the Victoria River’s muddy depths.

  This was the second time this ship had brought interesting people to our doorstep. Years earlier I had had a visit from the managing director of a Queensland-based oil company. He was also a historian and had read in the log of the Beagle that the longboat rowed up the Bullo River as far as an oil slick. So he wanted to send a drilling team to Bullo to find the source of the oil slick. They drilled down to depths of one mile, but found nothing favourable in the core samples to indicate oil. The geologist left me a souvenir piece of the core, supposedly many millions of years old.

  Now we had a team consisting of all manner of professionals on an Australian Geographic expedition. With very modern technology at their disposal, this team, together with the enthusiastic Dick Smith, was confident they would find the anchors.

  Marlee and I knew nothing about the ability of the very impressive machines we saw unloaded, but we did know our area, and especially the mud in the Victoria and Bullo rivers. If the anchors had been there for over a hundred years, we would bet anything they would stay for the rest of time! A forty-five foot fishing barge once got stuck on the mud in the Bullo River and even though it took a few years, the barge slowly slipped out of sight into the seemingly bottomless mud.

  I suppose you could call our mud slow-motion quicksand. We just call it suction mud. Once you’re in it, it’s quite a problem getting out, and if you were silly enough to stand around for an hour or so, you too would disappear.

  It once took several hours just to dig out the four legs of a horse. Anything bigger than a horse’s hoof would take days. Something large could take months. And this does not take into account the tide that turns the mud into syrup.

  We told these stories to Dick Smith when he dropped by one day in the middle of 1993 in his Sikorsky helicopter. He and his wife Pip were off to England on one of his around-the-world trips. This is when we met Jim Hazelton who was being dropped off in Indonesia to pick up an aircraft.

  They all sat in the living room at Bullo and listened politely to our terrible tales of mud. When we had finished the lengthy recital, Dick asked if we would like to go for a fly in the Sikorsky over Holdfast Reach, where the anchors were cut loose. It was clear that mud or no mud, he intended to find the anchors. So we stopped talking and went for a ride.

  Being used to mustering helicopters, we were a little in awe of our surroundings. This was like sitting in the backseat of a Rolls. True, it was outfitted especially for a trip around the world, but it was a very special machine, equipped with a fax machine and nose and rear cameras with an in-house television screen to show you exactly what the camera was viewing. The electronics were staggering to people from the middle of nowhere. We are still marvelling over the remote control to our television! But if you stop and remember the chopper belonged to Dick Smith, the electronics couldn’t be anything else but state of the art.

  After a great flight they deposited us back on the front lawn, Dick assuring us before he departed that a team would be back with him in 1994. We then watched the big machine glide effortlessly off in the direction of Darwin.

  There is a wonderful account of their Beagle adventure in the April 1995 issue of Australian Geographic.

  According to this article, the team had to wait until they were back in Sydney before they could read the findings. Apparently there are three hot spots that could represent the two anchors and the fifty metres or so of chain that also went down. So they are fairly certain where the anchors are, they just have to bring them up from their resting place.

  Getting to know Dick Smith in the short time he was here, I have no doubt he will be back. But as determined as he is, he will face a mighty challenge. He might know the location of the anchors but getting them out of the mud will not be easy. One of these anchors, the main or bow which is 3.4 metres high, presents major problems. To raise something this size the mud would have to be cleared and kept away while the anchor was being brought to the surface. The Australian Geographic report says the anchors are in ten metres of water, but no-one knows the depth of the mud. My guess is there are about another twenty metres of mud.

  I don’t know what kind of machine could move so much mud under ten metres of water and keep it out of the way. Perhaps a few giant dredges. The biggest problem that will be faced is that the moment you dig a hole it vanishes. To get the anchors out would cost a fortune and even then, I’ll bet on the mud! But the impossible does happen on a regular basis.

  A few weeks later after I had attended conferences on Hamilton Island and in New Zealand, and spent time with Sue and Ralph in Caloundra, I was back home when a charming man turned up in a big flashy plane with a bunch of orchids and a meal from an exclusive restaurant. He had read my book and was fascinated by my Marlee. He thought she would be great for his son, whom he indicated needed to be brought into line and he was sure Marlee was the one to do this. He was most disappointed to find she was married as he had only read the first book. We had a lovely lunch, however, then he boarded his plane and disappeared out of our lives. As I said, strange things happen to me on a regular basis.

  By this time I had received lots of letters and phone calls about the audiotape of From Strength to Strength which had been on the market since April. (I do get the chance to open and read letters, I just don’t get the time to answer them.) There was no tour for the tape, but from all reports it was selling well, and it had been on the shortlist for the audiotape of the year. Well, it did have a lucky launch date—it went onto the market on Marlee’s birthday!

  One woman had been listening to the tape while on a long country drive. When she got to the part where Marlee’s Charlie died she was sobbing uncontrollably and couldn’t see the road. So she pulled over to the side of the road, rested her head on the steering wheel, and had a good cry.

  A police patrol car pulled over and the officer asked if she was OK. In between sobs she managed to say she was all right, but had just been listening to the tape of a book by Sara Henderson. Whereupon the policeman interrupted her and said, ‘Oh struth! My wife is reading that book, I know all about it! One minute she is bawling her eyes out, next minute she falls out of bed laughing! I’ll be bloody glad when she finishes it and she’s back to normal again!’

  Another woman was listening to the tape on a walkman going to work in the train. She stopped when she realised she was the entertainment every morning as the other passengers watched her laugh and cry and go through the whole gamut of emotions. Many people also came up to her on the platform and asked the name of the tape. Another woman got a similar reaction on a plane when people turned around and looked down the aisle each time she burst into uncontrollable laughter or sobbing.

  The biggest disaster in our lives, house-wise, occurred on the 12th August. Jacqui, our wonderful housekeeper, decided to go back to civilisation, leaving the day after the Australian Geographic team departed. In the following weeks while I was away Marlee had to juggle the house, meals, guests and mustering with Franz as her assistant. We had a long line of would-be cooks. But after Jacqui, no-one was up to the standard to which we had become accustomed! The shock was a major one, after such a long stretch of order and neatness and good meals.

  Marlee had a difficult time rushi
ng from the cattle yards to the kitchen to cook for incoming guests, then back to the yards to draft cattle. We kept hoping, and I did some heavy praying, for someone reasonable to magically appear. No such luck, in fact for the fifteen months following Jacqui’s departure, according to the tax records we went through eleven cooks, trying to find her prayed-for replacement.

  Marlee had to carry the full brunt of this situation, with me away almost full-time until December. It was a very hard time for her, but she made it through to the end of the tourist period and we certainly didn’t book in any extra guests for the rest of the year. The poor old house slowly slipped backwards, and gone was our sparkling, orderly homestead. It was clean and tidy, but only just, as staff came and left every few weeks with monotonous regularity.

  These added pressures, along with my diary from hell, had my life spinning out of control again. The workload for the rest of the year had me worried, and I was fearful of slipping back towards the black hole again.

  My looming schedule for the following few months was overwhelming. From the 4th of August to the 25th October I would have exactly eight days at home!

  CHAPTER 6

  September 1994 – December 1994

  After a short writing break at home I flew to Sydney for a dinner speech, then rushed to the airport to catch a late flight to Melbourne and drove to Gippsland to speak at a breakfast gathering the next morning. I returned to Melbourne to speak at a dinner and flew to Sydney the next morning for my following engagement.

  My next conference was one with a difference. This one was in San Francisco. And what I was really looking forward to was that Marlee was meeting me in Sydney and coming with me. The company holding the conference had special travel arrangements and said I could bring someone with me. It was now September, and there was a big enough break in between guests for Marlee to take a well-earned rest, so she was pretty excited about going off to San Francisco for seven days. For me, it was also a much-needed break, and to not be travelling alone for once was simply wonderful!