U3A Benalla and District Inc.
  • Home
  • Benalla
    • Benalla
    • Benalla District
    • Who, What and Where? - Benalla Rural City
  • About
    • Our U3A
    • President's Page
    • Executive Committee
    • Policies
    • Convenors >
      • Convenors
      • Convenors A - Z 2025
    • Program Ideas
    • Newsletter
    • Website
  • Groups
    • Groups A - Z
    • Recent Groups >
      • Armchair History
      • Chess
      • Cooking Solo
      • Demystifying Psychology Course
      • Enjoying the Internet (S2)
      • Family Research Drop In
      • Sky's the Limit
    • Archived Groups >
      • A - M >
        • A Different View Of German History
        • Armchair History (British)
        • Armchair Traveller
        • Booker Reading Group
        • Bushwalking - Mid-week Walks
        • Comparative Religion
        • Facebook for Mentors
        • Family Research - Advanced
        • German - Beginners
        • Google Apps/TS Plus
        • History - An Introduction to Western Civilization
        • History - Moments in Australian History
        • Hot Topics/The News - Fact or Fiction?
        • 'In the Lap of the Gods'
        • Investment I (1996 -2015)
        • Jane Austen Book Club
        • Legal Matters (Short Course)
        • Meditation
        • Making the Most of the Internet
      • O - Z >
        • On Target - Learning to Shop Online
        • Opera
        • 'Over There'
        • Rail and Tourism
        • Russian Literature
        • Tech Savvy Apple - 'Pages'
        • Tech Savvy Apple Devices - Intermediate
        • Tech Savvy Community Projects
        • Travel Group
        • Wise Guys Book Group
        • Zoom Short Course
  • A-Ch
    • A-Ch
    • 'A Taste of Art'
    • American History
    • Art Appreciation
    • 'As Time Goes By'
    • Australian Shares and Stock Market
    • Be Connected - Android
    • Be Connected - Tech Advice
    • Birdwatching
    • Brain Games
    • Bushwalking - Easy Walks
    • Car Torque
    • Cards '500'
    • Chat n' Chew
  • Co-E
    • Ch - E
    • Coin Collectors
    • Collectors
    • Colour Mixing and Watercolour Techniques - Botanical
    • Come and Learn Croquet
    • Community Singing
    • Creative Writing
    • Demystifying Psychology - Discussion Group
    • Demystifying Psychology - Perception
    • Exercises for Fun
    • Exploring the Universe
    • Exploring Writing Children's Books
  • F-Pa
    • F- Pa
    • Family Research
    • Film Discussion
    • French at the Table
    • Garden Appreciation
    • Garden Team
    • German >
      • German Home
      • Lessons
    • Let's Talk Books
    • Lifeball >
      • Home
      • Lifeball Videos
    • Mahjong
    • Meet and Mingle
    • Music Appreciation
    • Page Turners
    • Patchwork and Craft
  • Ph-W
    • Ph -W
    • Photography
    • Play Reading
    • Politics & Current Affairs
    • Recorder
    • Singing for Fun
    • Spanish
    • Stock and Land
    • Sustainability
    • Tech Talks
    • Train Buffs
    • Ukes4Fun
    • Wine Appreciation
  • Join
    • Join Us
    • Membership Application/Renewal Form
    • Program Guide
    • Timetable with Dates
    • Venues and Maps
  • News
    • News Update
    • May Newsletter
    • 'What's On' Calendar 2025
    • Monthly Calendar
    • Website & Facebook
  • FB
  • Gallery
  • Links
    • Resources and References
    • U3A Network Victoria
    • Seniors Online Victoria
    • U3A Albury Wodonga
    • U3A Beechworth (Indigo U3A)
    • U3A Bright
    • U3A Goulburn Valley
    • U3A Murrundindee East
    • U3A Wangaratta
  • Contact

'New Boy in Town'

27/2/2017

0 Comments

 
Elvis Presley, singing Wooden Heart played loudly at 1am, marked the start in 1961 of my year as a jackeroo on Coonong, a Riverina Merino stud.
   The melancholy song, played at full blast, came at the end of a one day 700 km three leg train journey from Terang to Melbourne, Melbourne to Tocumwal and Tocumwal to Bundure, a request stop on the line to Narrandera.
   Certainly the country side was little different at either end; treeless volcanic plains with 700mm of annual rainfall at Mortlake to a practically flat and treeless but drier and hotter 430mm rainfall spot in the Riverina.
    My last leg was on the Red Rattler, an antiquated but picturesque diesel rail motor, which ran up and down the line every day.
    I and my newly acquired sheep dog who was accompanying me, had been picked up by the station overseer, as it seemed everyone else normally on the property, was playing tennis or just playing up in Urana, the nearest town. It had and I think still does have a legendary tennis club.
   The situation was that I would be paid five pounds a week and live with five or six other jackeroos, around a flywire enclosed verandah, near the homestead.
   A cook came in every day to provide breakfast. Lunch was usually cold mutton for making our own take out lunches. The cook provided dinner at night which was usually based on meat from an old wether grazed on saltbush. A taste memory to savour and never boring.
I had previously worked on my family’s farm during holidays and fulltime for a year after I left school.
   We had Corriedale sheep, Hereford (beef) and Shorthorn (dairy) cattle as well as a bit of cropping.
   But that was on about 750ha and Coonong stretched across more than 17,000ha.
   I could ride most horses, drive tractors, cars and trucks and undertake most maintenance tasks reasonably well.
   But I’d not had a sheep dog before and in my time at Coonong I never really trained my dog to do the things I wanted it to do.
   Interestingly, I discovered two years ago at a Coonong jackeroo reunion, that Ken “Biscuits”Arnott, one of my fellow jackeroos, had nonchalantly without checking, sent his dogs into a shed to flush out 30 or so rams and they had left about a dozen inside. That got everyone in a panic for a while and embarrassed Ken no end.
   Meanwhile I had supposedly mustered a 5ha paddock near the homestead and managed to leave half a dozen sheep behind, which bugged me until 2015 when I heard Ken’s story.
   When I went out on a horse I nearly always carried a transistor radio in my saddle bag so I’m not sure I was all that well fitted to big station life.
   In fact I’d only gone to Coonong because my uncle was a great friend of Coonong’s manager in WWII and my parents thought it would be good for me. But during the year I wouldn’t have spoken more than 100 words to Mr Smith and in retrospect neither I nor the others, ever had a meal in the cavernous homestead.
   As a result of the wartime friendship, two of my cousins had preceded me to Coonong and it is strange now that I didn’t ask them what to expect.
   One cousin Oliver, too young to have a driver’s licence, regularly ferried people and goods 150 km or so to and from Wagga Wagga.  No one had thought to ask him if he had one. So in today’s terms of stringent occupation health and safety regimes, we were pretty laid back.
   Twelve months after arriving in the antique and picturesque Red Rattler, I left Coonong on the same conveyance, but continued on to Narrandera.  From there I had a sleeper on the night mail train to Sydney, where I met up with my family to help look after cattle we had at the Easter Show. In the harbour city I was a ‘new boy in town’ too.

 
David Palmer,
February 2017
 
 650!….

0 Comments
    'Our Stories'

    David's page

    One of our original members who has written many stories over the years,  David also wrote newsletter reports for the  'Stock and Land' ,and the 'Sky's the Limit' groups as well as articles publicising U3A in the Benalla Ensign. David still submitted a story from time to time, that's if he wasn't helping someone out on a farm somewhere. 

    Picture

    '500 words'

    All
    Adulthood
    'Advice'
    'A Farm Forged Friendship'
    'A Fortight's Walk In Spain'
    'A Friendship Tested'
    'A Girl In One Port Was Enough'
    'A Love Letter To Travel'
    'A Snake Story'
    'A Story For Children'
    'A Test Of Courage'
    'A Trampoline For Freddie'
    Aviation/Flying
    'A Walk In Japan'
    'Backpacks And Blisters Matter'
    Benalla
    'Car Stories'
    Childhood
    'Cringe'
    Don't Wing It'
    Early Adulthood
    'Faking It'
    Family History
    Fatherhood
    'Fish Out Of Water'
    'For Better For Worse'
    Getting Older
    Gliding
    'Good Vibrations'
    Grandparents
    Growing Up
    'Heartbreak'
    'Here And Now'
    'How We Met'
    ''I Grew Up ... '
    "I Quit!"
    'I Was There'
    'I Was There''
    'Joanie Delighted In Rural History'
    Joan Palmer
    Journalism
    'Life Changing'
    'Lost And Found'
    'My Gap Year'
    'My Mother The Writer'
    'My Other Life'
    'New Boy In Town'
    Palmer Side
    Parents
    Rebellion
    Relationships
    'Right Here
    Right Now'
    Schooling
    'Shaped By Childhood'
    'Stand Up Comedy Set'
    Stock And Land
    Sydney
    'Sydney Writers' Festival 2018'
    'The Moral Is
    'The Sky's The Limit'
    'The Year That Changed Me - 1974'
    'This Beat Up Has No Reference To Journalism'
    'Ticket? Don't Take It!
    Travel
    'Travel Tales'
    'Triggers'
    'Vibrational Big City Move'
    'Walking The Camino'
    Writing

    Other writing by David 

    As David convenor of the Stock and Land group, until mid 2024 David wrote the monthly newsletter reports also posted in our 'Stock and Land'  and 'Sky's the Limit' news blogs. 
    ​
    A number of David's family stories also appear 'David Palmer' on the Family Research page.

    During his time as  Publicity Officer on the U3A Benalla executive committee articles written by David also appeared in the Benalla Ensign.

    Archives

    July 2024
    June 2024
    February 2024
    November 2023
    October 2022
    March 2021
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    September 2018
    June 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015

    RSS Feed

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay our respects to their elders - past, present and emerging.
Picture
News
​Newsletter
Facebook Page
​
Program Suggestions
​CO-VID Safety

U3A Benalla & District Flier 2025
Membership Application/Renewal 
​
Semester 1 Program Guide 2025
Semester 1 Timetable with Dates 2025
Developed and maintained by members, this website showcases U3A Benalla 
​Photographs - U3A members; Benalla Art Gallery website; ​Weebly 'Free' images;Travel Victoria and State Library of Victoria