'What ever became of Howard?

You may well ask, who is Howard.

​Well, let me begin by explaining that he was the figment of a very fertile young boy’s imagination, he was his friend, mentor and protector from all things nasty!!!

Now we have done with the preliminaries, I'd better plump up his character. Howard was present during all day time activities.  Where ever that young lad was, so was Howard.  Any decision that was to be made, Howard was consulted, usually leading to much earnest discussion. Decisions were sometimes made quickly, such as "do we go inside now, because there’s cream cakes for smoko", or rather, "should we tarry a little before going in, what a stupid thought, inside we must go", or the more often varieties of decisions, such as the call inside for a bath, or such like, must be debated and you know these sort of decisions require quite a bit of thought. Often these discussions would be rudely interrupted by the mothercraft nurse, who would come storming out of the house, with all sorts of diabolical threats, if all those outside playing were not inside immediately.   

Now the main activity conducted by Messrs David and Howard was the great road and dam construction. I suppose this must have taken place at about the time that the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme was starting, in about the early 50’s. Outside our home was a large claypan, just the sort of place that you could really get down and build all things in the dirt; bridges, roads, channels and tunnels and, if it managed to rain, there was plenty of mud and water to fill up all those magnificent structures. Of course, there always was a very dusty or muddy little boy at the end of the day, who found his way into the bath, with the usual discussion, with Howard, of what went wrong or right with the day’s construction.

Oh well, such was a life living with Howard, you never really thought about one without him, for he was always sitting, standing, running or hiding alongside of you in all your waking moments and I dare say, most probably in your dreams as well.
 
Well, that was over seventy years ago, so what became of Howard? My guess is that he just faded away, as so many friends do, there one minute, to be replaced by some other more interesting thought or person, you know that’s the way of life!!!

David Lowing
​July 2021

My early childhood, that is after I started remembering incidents, was made up of various pets, “Miaow” my cat, “Danny” and “Brownie”, the two sheep dogs that my Grandfather Tom had, “Creamy” my horse and an assortment of Bantams, Ducks and Chooks in general.
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One of my earliest memories was the chook yard, where I had a favourite bantam rooster, which I called “Chookum”.  I never really found out what became of “Chookum”, but I fear he may have found the cooking pot in our kitchen.   My verbal announcement of the disappearance was forecast to all in sundry, with the words, “who tookum my Chookum?”.  This fell on deaf ears.   Apparently after it was realized that the son and heir’s favourite feathered friend wasn’t in the chook yard, the matter was considered better left alone and not discussed.   I sure did miss “Chookum”, for he was the only member of the chook yard I could hand feed.

Two of the first members of the canine race that entered my life were, “Danny” and Brownie”, sheep dogs by breed and training, the first a champion Border Collie and the other a rather nondescript Kelpie.  The dogs disliked each other with a vengeance and could be easily enticed to have a scrap, by just throwing gravel at them both.  Of course, they both thought that each had induced the situation and didn’t realize that one little boy had perpetrated the whole affair.

There was always much excitement when a visit was made to the “Rabbiting Packs” kennels; for in the late nineteen forties and fifties, rabbits had begun to overrun the whole countryside, so as to enforce the “Rabbit Act”, station owners were required to employ “Rabbiters”, who armed with a pack of rabbiting dogs, shovels, traps and poisons would set out daily to pursue and destroy the erstwhile bunny.  My Grandfather Tom employed a rather laconic Australian, who went by the name of “Bantam Jim”.  I never knew his surname, but I used to follow Jim, sticking to his trail as limpets stick to a rock, for I always knew that there would be some excitement happening during the day some time.  Jim was the fellow that taught me songs and one of the earlier ones was a little ditty that went thus, “Cigarettes and Whisky and wild, wild women, they’ll drive you crazy, they’ll drive you insane”.  Of course, my Grandmother Ruth would run around telling me not to sing those terrible songs and have my Grandfather say something to Jim, who’d not be very happy. Since Jim was a good mate, I did not want him to get into trouble with the boss, so of course, I complied.  As the Rabbiting Pack was made up of both dogs and bitches, there was always plenty of fighting and squabbling amongst the pack, especially when a bitch was “in season” and all of the dogs were trying to “mate” with her.  Of course, the inevitable would happen, two would be “knotted”, so much delight would be had by a little boy throwing buckets of water over them both.   I don’t really know what result was achieved by this, except that both the dogs and a little boy were thoroughly wet to the skin.

My first venture into high finance reared its head during this period in my life, for I had learned how to trap rabbits, skin them, then string the skins onto a bow of eight-gauge wire.  Dried skins fetched a shilling a pound and good quality rabbits were sold to the local butcher for seven and six a pair. Another money-making enterprise was to walk around the paddocks with a chaff bag and pluck all the wool of any unfortunate sheep that happened to have put its four feet into the air; wool was worth a few bob in those years’ of the early to mid-fifties.  So, my bank balance grew!!!!!! 
 
David Lowing
June 2021