​I grew up the day I started boarding school in early February 1953. I was 10 and a half years old.

My mother, in her late 90s in 2013, said one of the saddest sights she ever saw, was the reflection of my glum, close to tears face in the rear vision mirror of their rapidly receding Vauxhall car.

I don’t think I cried myself to sleep that first night, or thereafter, but I can’t remember for sure. And I didn’t resent my parents for depositing me there. I just never really liked the school until my final year, year eleven in 1959.

But I did grow to appreciate, through my seven years there, the privileged education I was getting. The school had been established nearly a century earlier, specifically to educate the sons of Western District farmers. I was certainly one of those and it was that free for all farm life, including driving utes and tractors, I missed from day one.

On that day we were issued with a specially made, dark blue Onkaparinga school rug/blanket and I quickly discovered, although it was summer, it was a vital piece of equipment. That was because our big, east facing dormitory windows, just holes in the walls really, were open to the elements; a canvas blind sometimes kept out the coldest winds. We wore shorts all year round for the first three years and just accepted cold showers, so I don’t think I really felt the cold at that age. Still don’t. And I was never cold in bed and had that rug for many years after I left school.

One of the first scholastic things we did was to complete an intelligence test: they were all the go at that time and for years afterwards. On the basis of those tests, we were allocated to class groups, presumably matched to our supposed levels of mental acuity.

My first class was Latin, a day or two after the term started. But presumably there had been a rethink about my intelligence and I was hauled out of that class minutes after it started. I really resented that insensitive act and still do.

My cohort did not come anywhere near learning a language other than English until year 10. At that time a hugely enterprising teacher, much against the wishes of the headmaster, wangled French lessons for us “dullards”. We embraced those lessons and enjoyed them and I’d like to think the headmaster eventually congratulated our teacher on his initiative. 

I grew up from that time too in making friends. Until then nearly all my friends were cousins from nearby farms. Three were at school with me but they were one or two years ahead or behind me and we just didn’t mix because of the age difference. I was desperately shy anyway and it took me another decade before I more or less became a little less introverted.

So it was serendipitous that Donough O’Brien, a boy my age, took me under his wing as it were. He later became a doctor so I suppose there was a caring element in his make up.

He discovered I liked to take photos and he quickly taught me how to take better photos and then develop and print them. I don’t think we had cameras any more exciting than box brownies. But the developing of the films and then printing them was really quite exciting. Twenty odd years later, as a photo journalist, I really enjoyed too, the much more precise challenges of developing and printing colour films.

Donough also taught me how to seriously catch fish. Limeburner’s Bay which was only a 10 minute walk away, seemed under Donough’s tuition, to be chockfull of flathead and small sharks, because I think we always caught one or the other. We pretty much had that part of the bay to ourselves which helped I suppose.

And thanks to the school cooks, we and some of our friends, were able to eat what Donough and I caught. I know at least one of them, as an ex shearers’ cook, would never have cooked fish for shearers. We never had it at home then. Too far from the sea you see!

I know too that we all grew up, puzzled I’d have to say, in our second or third year when a special school assembly was called. There was a message and that was that boys – it was a boys only school - had been seen walking with their arms around the shoulders of their friends and that must cease. No explanation was given and I can’t remember when we discovered, that the inference was that we might have become gay if we persisted. Now like most schools, there are boys, girls, gay kids, transgender kids and everything else at the school. That is fine now but we all needed to really grow up in 1953.
 
​
David Palmer

When I was twelve we moved from Melbourne to a farm on Phillip Island. My brother and I attend the small school at Ventnor. The teacher is a larrikin who is averse to teaching lessons of any kind. “Okay, you mugs, outside and I’ll challenge you to a game of alleys.” School requisites are your lunch and a bag of marbles.

The winter gales have arrived. Sometimes we walk the mile to school rugged up in jackets and rain coats, as the wind is too strong for me to battle against on my bike with John on the back. There is no such thing as being driven to school.

One wet Monday morning at the weekly flag raising ceremony, we stand at attention around the flag pole in the rain and salute the flag and recite. “I love God and my country. I honour the King. I salute the flag, etc. It’s considered too wet today for lessons, which means too wet to play outside, so we clear the desks from the school room and play cricket indoors. King George the fourth’s picture is still on the wall. He cops a blow to the head as it is struck by a ball hit by the teacher.

The result of this wonderful non schooling is boarding school in Melbourne. Through means both fair and foul, I persuade my parents to let me leave early. Happily I pick up my share of the farm work. It’s a great outdoor life but the wind is a constant challenge.

The following winter Dad visits family in England. I’m fifteen now and can run the farm while he’s away. We have a shocking wet winter. The dams are overflowing and breaking their banks. The sheep must be gone around twice a day in the rain as they are getting cast owing to the weight of their wet wool.

The wild westerly gales rip in to the Island with the force of a freight train. Huge combers charge across the shallow waters of the sand bar in Westernport Bay, like the flying manes of galloping white horses. Seagulls with their wings outspread face into the gale, empowered like albatrosses, floating on the up draught of the wind.

At the further uninhabited end of the Island beyond Swan Lake, we have a good over wintering paddock for five hundred merino wethers. This is a very lonely area; there is no one around for miles. The only sounds are the crash of the surf and the wind whining through old broken telephone wires. 

By the time my father returns I can mend broken dam banks, strain a wire fence and shear a sheep with blade shears.

Rain drops spit and sizzle as they splatter on the hot glass of the hurricane lantern as Dad and I make our way through the stormy night to the shed. Tomato sauce bottles of warm milk are tucked inside our jackets to feed the pet lambs who are waiting anxiously for their late night feed. We sit on hay bales and play with the lambs, listening to the storm raging outside, laughing because Mother thinks we are raving mad to go out on a night like this, when the wind is howling in from Bass Strait.

I often visit friends who live several miles away across the island. There’s no traffic when I’m returning home on winter’s nights. Everyone is tucked down in the warmth of their houses. I have a tall bay mare that has a wonderful turn of speed. I give the mare her head and she takes off. Dark clouds scud across the sky. At times they part and the puddles on the unmade road reflect the silver light of the moon. The mare stands off and jumps every one of them in her path. Her hoof beats echo through the night. Farmers often say “I heard you going home the other night. It was a wild night to be out on a horse.”

Spring brings sunshine and a sparkling blue sea. Horses and cattle are losing their rough winter coats. A light breeze blows across the land rustling through the tops of the tall rye grass that is coming to seed in the paddocks that have been locked up to be cut for hay.
 
He arrives one Sunday afternoon wearing a fresh white shirt, with a stock whip looped casually over his arm and bearing a small posy of strawberry clover flowers. “I heard that you wanted to learn how to crack a stock whip and I picked these for you.” Suddenly life takes on a whole new meaning, full of hope and promise.

Amongst my treasures, carefully pressed between the pages of a book, there is a small bunch of strawberry clover. The tiny flowers have now turned to dust, but when I think of them I am a young girl, back on the Island with the wind blowing through my hair.

Bev Morton

July 2020
 

I grew up in several different locations, so will concentrate on the time I spent in Ireland.
 
My earliest memories are of living in Romsey, however when I was eight my father took the family – pregnant wife, five sons and yours truly to Ireland.  He had dreams of buying a farm and settling there.  My brother, Michael was born in Dublin shortly after we arrived. My parents rented part of a castle on the outskirts of Bansha, a village in County Tipperary. The owner occupied one half.  We lived in the top part of the other half, whilst another family of three girls were in the remainder.  The castle was set in acres and was a working farm, providing us with space to roam while still being within walking distance of the village.
 
Those of us of school age attended the local National Primary school and apart from the inclusion of Gaelic in the syllabus was not unlike the school we had attended in country Victoria. I imagine we must have been a source of interest to the locals, but I can't remember ever feeling an outsider.  Here I learned to ride a bike and spent hours riding with brothers or friends around the local area.  In the summer, the days were long.  The school holidays seemed to stretch endlessly. Of course, in winter the days were very short, and we often went to and from school in the gloom.
 
During the summer we started playing tennis at the local courts. Every so often there would be social tournaments which would end up with entertainment provided by the players. I have a vivid memory of myself and my tennis partner singing “The Gypsy Rover” as our offering!!
 
Another extra-curricular occupation of mine was Irish dancing. The occasional competition was held in which we danced on a wooden platform which could have been the cart the farmers used to transport hay ricks from the fields to the barns.  I have the feeling we were awarded medals just for performing as I don't believe I won mine on merit.
 
A highlight of the year was the local pantomime in which at least one of my brothers and I took part - we have a photo as proof.
 
Also, during late summer and autumn we used to pick blackberries. One of my brothers, a budding businessman, bought our blackberries and then on sold them at a profit to the locals.
 
On completing primary school, I started secondary school in Tipperary town, about five miles from Bansha.  A group of us rode our bikes and rain or bad weather was no deterrent. However, one snowy day we were stopped halfway by the local priest who directed us to return home as the weather was expected to worsen. That is the only day I can remember us taking the day off because of the weather.
 
During this time, my father was forced to work in Britain and Europe to provide for us, which meant my mother was on her own with seven children for long periods of time. For this reason, in June 1956, we returned to Australia for the next chapter in our lives.
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Margaret McCrohan
June 2020

'I grew up in' a family of six – two parents, three siblings and me.  I was the third child, with an older sister and an older and a younger brother.  So we were two girls and two boys.

We first lived in Healesville – well outside Healesville.  It was a “five mile” drive.  Apart from our grandparents’ guesthouse, and some holiday flats our parents owned, there were no other houses or people around.  Occasionally there were other children at the holiday flats, but I can remember only one.  Most of the time there were just the four of us.  We were one another’s play mates.  We were one another’s only friends.  We did sometimes visit cousins on a farm in the region, or they visited the guesthouse up the hill.  But we only had our siblings for company most of the time.  We had lots of land to run around and play.  As we were young, I am not sure that we even missed having other children around.  But this is from the perspective of number three in the family.  My two older siblings were at school, so perhaps they did have other playmates and friends.

We left Healesville when I was five.  Our first home in Melbourne was a four-room house.  This comprised two bedrooms, a lounge room, and the kitchen.  There was a passage down the centre, the bedrooms were on one side, the lounge room and kitchen on the other.  Although that was not how the house was used – Mum and Dad used the lounge room as their bedroom.  Otherwise we would not fit.  The kitchen was our kitchen, lounge, even bathroom of a sort.  This was an old metal baby’s bath, with water heated on the wood stove – girls first, boys next, and after we were in bed, Mum and Dad.  This house was in the middle of a huge expanse of uncleared land – mostly shrub on sandy soil.  The driveway to the house was quite long.  Could it have been around 500 metres, or possibly even longer?  No other houses within sight meant again that there was just the four of us as playmates.  Although by this time we were all at school, so did have other socialisation opportunities.  Given the size and location of the house, sleep overs and other visits by friends from school just did not happen.  So again, our only playmates were the four of us.  But we had plenty of land to run around.

I was eight when we moved Mt Waverley.  It was a newish area with only a few houses.  I think ours as the third or fourth in the street.  But this time there were other children around.  There was bushland over the road.  So with our extended group of playmates, lots of places to run and play.

Of course over the years, more and more houses were built, we all grew up, had our own friends, lived our own lives.  But we grew up in a family of six, always with lots of open space around us!

Joy Shirley

June 2020

I grew up in the war years. 
 
I was born in Violet Town Bush Nursing hospital in January 1939, the year World War II began. It was an extremely hot year in Victoria with bad fires that January, extending from Narbethong to Powelltown, causing much loss of property and lives. Mum told of smoke hanging over the town for days, stinging the eyes and even tainting the tank water. In February there was a substantial rain that caused floods.
 
Kensay Park, our farm, approximately 5 miles from Violet Town, was bought by Grandad Earnest King in 1933. The house, built on the banks of the 3 Mile Creek, was  a 4-bedroom weatherboard house with a large front verandah which was later fly wired in.
 
There was no electricity.  Hot water was provided by a cast iron fountain on the side of the black wood stove for dish washing and baths.  A copper was lit on wash days and clothes boiled or hand washed, then wound through a wringer and hung on a long line out on the bank of the creek. There was water laid on to the bathroom, laundry and a tap low on the wall in the kitchen. Washing up was done in a tin dish on the kitchen table and drained on a tray.  The stainless-steel sink followed much later, as did the slow combustion stove with hot water service.  Mum’s first washing machine was a Lightburn, closely resembling a concrete mixer.  Water still had to be ladled into the machine and clothes lifted into a spin dryer, but it was a vast improvement on lifting clothes from the boiling copper to the trough and pushing through hand wringer.  Water was scarce, so it was recycled to the garden.
 
Mum must have found it difficult with a small baby! There was no electricity, so no fan or air con- conditioner, but I survived!  There was no refrigerator.  A Coolgardie safe (cooled by damp bags draped on the sides) kept meat and milk fresh for a limited time, but butter was always runny in summer and jellies out of the question. A kerosene refrigerator came much later and was a great help. Grandma King sometimes made ice cream, a real treat served with her home-grown strawberries.
 
Our means of transport was a green Bedford truck, a lidded box on the back for groceries bought every 1-2 weeks.  Dad had a large vegetable garden with lots of fruit trees.  I remember apples, apricots, peaches, pears and apricots, which mum bottled and made into jam. There were two large fig trees, big enough to climb, and well-watered from the bathroom drain. Fig jam was my favourite. Water was pumped from the big hole in the creek, so we had home-grown vegies most of the year. Tomatoes were bottled, made into sauce and relish for later.  Beans were sliced and salted in a large earthen ware jars (but not as nice as fresh).
 
It was a quiet childhood, perhaps a bit lonely, as my brothers were a fair bit younger, but there were pet lambs, farm dogs and a pet rabbit till it escaped. I didn’t have children nearby to play with, so I learned to use my imagination and play with dolls and draw on any available scrap of paper.
​
I only have a vague memory of the war years, but understood my parents were worried about it. Mum had a soldier brother in Darwin who she often wrote to. Blinds were drawn at night, extended shade on lights and limited lights on vehicles, so towns were not so visible from the air.  A rather exaggerated precaution for our part of the world!  Night driving was hazardous on windy wet roads, especially in winter, when they were muddy and slippery.
                                                                                                    
As there were no school buses, when I got to school age, I did correspondence school at home. In 1945 when I turned 6, I stayed with my grandparents in Violet Town during the week.  School was a new experience. I was like a small fish in a large pond, not knowing many children. I was put straight into Grade 2, where I was a year younger than the others.   I found settling in hard, being a shy, anxious child away from home.  I’m sure Grandma King did her best, but having had boys, a little girl was a challenge. Unfortunately, I broke my arm at Easter and, after time away, had to settle in again. By grade 3 I was happier.  I had received a green Malvern Star bike for Christmas, and I could ride around to visit my other grandparents. Violet Town was a very quiet and safe town in the 40’s.
 
In 1945 the war ended.  I remember the day well. Mum and Dad came into town for lunch, it was a holiday. The school bell rang constantly, and I sneaked over for a turn at ringing it! I remember an impromptu parade of young people around the town on bikes. The older people seemed relieved.
Things gradually returned to normal, the rationing gradually stopped. We hadn’t been greatly affected by it, as we had plenty of home killed meat, rabbits, milk and butter and our vegetables. Fuel and clothing tickets were barely sufficient, but a lot of swapping went on.
                    
I do remember that after the war we got a new tractor and the old draft horses, Queenie and Violet, were put out to rest.
 
A new era had commenced.
 
 
Margaret Nelson
June 2020
 
 

​I grew up in the small country town of Chiltern in the 50s when, except for the movies and sport such as netball and footy, there wasn't all that much to do on weekends or school holidays. We lived out of town a bit so we invented our own escapades for amusement such as the one I am about to relate.

The tone in my mother’s voice was a mixture of panic and frustration as she called to me from the gate. ‘You can’t take the horse and cart out by yourself. You don’t know how to yoke it properly. Wait ‘til your father comes home!’

I brought Dolly up through the gates and harnessed her, ignoring my mother’s pleas. I had assured her there was nothing to worry about as I had watched my father so many times prepare the horse and cart for our trips to get wood. I was confident I could do it too, and besides my friends were watching and that made me all the more cocky. My mother’s brow was creased with worry as she stood by wringing her hands. In desperation she threatened to tell my father when he got home from work.

After putting the harness into place and ducking beneath her belly to fasten the under strap I backed Dolly in between the shafts. I slipped the poles into the loops climbed into the cart and directed the girls to do the same. A gentle slap of the reins onto Dolly’s rump signalled her to move forward towards the gate. Once out onto the road I clicked my tongue, as I had heard dad do so many times, and the big mare broke into a trot that caused my friends to giggle with excitement.

At the time I gave no thought to the concern I had caused my poor mother. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about anyway. But at least she must have been relieved to see that the horse was still between the shafts as we disappeared out of sight.

We trotted along the bitumen and turned off onto the dirt track that led through the forest. The track wound in and out of the big iron-barks and sometimes we had to duck our heads to miss the overhanging branches. Occasionally I had to slow Dolly down to a walk as the track got a bit narrow and there were a few deserted mine shafts close by.  Eventually we reached a clearing near the mullock heaps, where I was able to turn the cart around and head for home.

Although our little trip was only a short one, it was a great way to start the school holidays and a big adventure for the four of us. After all there wasn’t a lot to do in a small town, and it was more exciting than a bike ride. We laughed as we were jolted about by the movement of the cart and giggled when Dolly decided to lift her tail and make rude noises out her rear end .

When we turned into the home gate I saw my mother still standing where she had been when we left, relief evident on her face as we all climbed down safely from the cart.

My father was told of the deed I had done.  Instead of the scolding I expected, he was full of praise for what I had learned just by watching him. I felt as proud as a peacock.

It was not until years later after I had children of my own that I realised the full extent of the worry I had caused my mother. I was only twelve years old and in charge of a draft horse and cart. My poor mother would have felt responsible for the three other girls, and when we headed off towards the bush, the mine shafts would have been only one of the concerns filling her head as she stood waiting for our return.


Betty Milligan
June 2020