the water, the absolute terror of it all. Teddy Small jumped onto the shed’s roof and Col handed me up to him. He placed me a few feet away and then helped to drag the others, one by one, over the jagged, rusty guttering that was almost falling from the excess weight of rotted foliage and the heavy downpour now being thrust upon it.
I thought we were going to die. I sobbed uncontrollably as I watched drowned sheep, dogs, chooks and various other once-living creatures float past, tangled in the debris of the raging flood waters.
Beside the eight in our family there was Mrs McCaw and her five adult children, John, Alec, Colleen, Lucy, Mary; her siblings, Norman and Amelia; along with Teddy Small. Although we were grateful to be safely up above the water line, as the day went on, the rain stopped and the sun came out. The tin roof became unbearably hot and began to burn us. We were all hungry and thirsty as well. Dad told Col and Alec McCaw to go back to the truck and gather some food for us. They managed to fight their way there and collected as much food and water as they could carry. It only lasted one day and night as there were so many to share it with. Who would have thought a tin of green peas would be so satisfying?
For our safety at night, the adults put all the kids in the middle and they slept on the outside, even so Mike managed to wriggle close to the edge and if Alec McCaw had not seen him in time and grabbed him, he would’ve toppled over into the raging floodwaters.
John McCaw had two bottles of rum with him and he was in a drunken state the entire time, much to the adult’s disgust. In the middle of the night, John rolled right off the roof and into the rapidly flowing water. He grabbed onto a log to keep himself afloat and began shouting. Dad heard him and immediately knew what had happened. He jumped in the water and grabbed him and, with the help of John’s brother and Teddy Small, they managed to get him back onto the roof. It had been touch and go, as Dad was the only swimmer among them and it could have ended tragically for everyone, leaving Mum a 23 year old widow with six kids. Of course, the experience gave John a good fright and he sobered up pretty quickly. Dad angrily grabbed his bottle of rum and hurled it as far away as he could into the water.
The shed shook with the power of the water rushing by. The strength of the howling winds helped to make the shed feel more unstable and we were all afraid that it would collapse. My parents also feared losing the truck, which housed every possession we owned.
After a long eventful night, everyone breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the police water boat approaching. They couldn’t take us with them but at least they were able to organise some food for us later in the day. We were stranded on that roof for two days and nights before the water finally receded. Then the mammoth task of cleaning up began. The water had covered two feet over the back of the truck but fortunately, my parents had stored most things up as high as they could, so we didn’t lose much at all.
The McCaws weren’t so lucky and lost most of their possessions. Fed up with the camping-style living arrangements they had endured over the years, the girls decided to move into town but Mrs McCaw, her sister Amelia, and the men stayed where they were and started over again. It is a big move for bushies to settle down to living in a town, surrounded by people and houses. They become comfortable with their bushie lifestyle, free from noisy, nosy neighbours. They love to sit in the shade of a tree and smoke and yarn away the day when they are not working.
Most of Mrs McCaw’s chooks and ducks survived the flood but sadly, three of their dogs drowned. Eventually, the McCaws set out their camping area like a village with tents and caravans in a circle around their underground bore that had a hand pump. Any leftover water made a nice handmade duck pond in the centre of their camp. This pond was very shallow and about 10 feet across. Ducks and various fowl life loved the smelly water and the dogs enjoyed a swim in it on a hot day.
One day Dad was teasing Mum and she retaliated by hitting him and then racing off out of the camp area. She ran around the tents and caravans, ducking and dodging the barking dogs that were straining to the end of their chains, wanting to have a run around too. Dad raced after her and caught her up into his arms. He carried her yelling and screaming back into the camp and held her over the pond. He pretended to draw her back to himself and then suddenly, tossed her fully clothed into the smelly pond. Ducks and chooks ran everywhere, feathers flying, dogs barked madly, and the adults watching this side show were all killing themselves laughing. We kids thought it a great joke. Mum squatted in the pond for a few seconds, a bit shocked. When she crawled out, dripping wet with mud, muck and green slime, she cursed Dad, which everyone thought was funnier still.
Stirring the pond up made the stink more prominent in the immediate area and Mum stank for days afterward. The rank smell was very hard to get rid of. Eventually, she started to smell like our Mum again – cigarette smoke! For years afterwards, it became a joke to make a wide circle as you walked past Mum to remind everyone of “the day Mick threw Beryl into the duck pond”. Dad often threatened to throw her in the pond again but never did. I think he may have paid a high price for that bit of high jinks.
A few days after this incident, Mike was toddling along trying to catch a puppy. It swung away from the edge of the duck pond and Mike could not stop soon enough and fell in face first. John McCaw saw it happen and promptly pulled him out. Mike did not seem to smell as much as Mum had but being small, maybe it was because he didn’t stir the sludge and muck up from the bottom of the pond.
The Namoi River ran past Wee Waa and we quite often camped on the banks when waiting for a job to come along or just resting the stock and the stockmen. There were plenty of ghost gum trees for shade and of course water and grass for the horses. It was lovely to lie in bed and just on dawn be woken by the cacophony of the kookaburras doing their early morning call. The galahs would start squawking and the crows arrrk arrrking. If we slept in too long, Dad would say they were laughing at us for being silly enough to stay in bed. On rare occasions we saw small flocks of black cockatoos and they squawked as they flew overhead rather than when they were resting in trees. The white cockatoos were more prevalent and a more common sight to us.
This area was abundant not only with bird life but with goannas and lizards. One of our games was to try and catch a goanna, so as soon as we saw one, we would give a shout and then the chase was on. Of course, we never had a chance of catching them. Goannas’ bodies are quite close to the ground but when they are frightened or being chased they stand high on their legs and run very fast up the first tree they come across.
Dad enthralled us with a story of a man who was out fencing and he disturbed a goanna. His dogs gave chase and the goanna ran up the horse’s leg, mistaking it for a tree. The horse was in the shafts of a cart that still had several fence posts resting in it. The horse got such a shock, he bucked and galloped off, the cart jumping all over the place, fence posts bouncing out of the cart and with the goanna standing full height on the horse’s mane, as if he was steering the horse. The dogs gave chase and the horse eventually arrived back at his owner’s house a few days later. The cart was missing but he still had the harness on with some bits missing and a few scrapes and scratches on him.
Dad was hired by Dick Holsbourne, a station owner in Wee Waa, to muster stock, do some fencing, horse breaking or whatever needed doing. Dick had lost an arm in the war but he generally managed quite well. After they mustered the stock, the sheep were shorn and Dad got the job of taking a large mob of sheep out on the “long paddock”. The trip lasted quite a few months and we worked for Dick on and off for a few years after that. Dad became Dick’s drover of choice, which was a compliment to Dad.
Often when we were droving along steady with the sheep, Dick would turn up with some newspapers, bread, our mail, fruit and lollies for us kids. He would always spend a bit of time at the camp talking to Mum and with a cheery, ‘Hooray,’ he would get back into his car and continue on to the men travelling with the stock. He was a wonderful gentleman and we loved to see him, not only for the lollies!
When the stock came into
