With stock walking in and over the drains, the drains eventually filled in with dirt and debris, stopping the water from flowing into the next paddock or onto the neighbouring station so their stock would not get any water. When the drain was clogged entirely, the water was wasted and would flood the surface of the land. This was okay in one respect as the grass grew in abundance, but it was frowned upon if it was allowed to go on. To keep the bore drains open, a bore drain delver was hired to clear them. In this team was Tom Bunyan, his wife and daughter and her young child and another hired man. They bore drain delved in the St. George area. It was wonderful to see the huge draft horses walking along pulling the delving machine, two to four each side of the drain pushing all the mud, water and silt up out to the sides and over the edge. In the mud would be various sized “yabbies” as we called them. We would collect them from the mud and water, throw them into a bucket of boiling water and eat them with gusto. What a treat for us all! They were very rich though and we younger ones quite often got sick from eating them.
The delver’s camp was set up similar to the drovers. They had a fair-sized tent put up as a kitchen and living area and they also had their own personal tents away from the main tent. Their living conditions were much the same as ours, although they did not move every day, which had to be a good thing. I was amazed to see they had chooks scratching around, clucking as they looked for seeds and bugs. When they were called to camp, they came running and jumped into their crates. When the Bunyan’s moved camp the chooks were carried in these crates that were packed under the wagon. It was quite usual upon arriving at the next camp to find an egg or two in the crate.
The Bunyan’s also did earth tank making, using a wooden blade with the draught horses pulling it and ploughing fire breaks around station boundaries to stop any grass fires from entering the property. If you were a willing worker there was always a job going.
On this trip, we met another droving family called Wilson. There were quite a few Wilsons who were drovers in and around St. George. Over the years we met most of them and if they were driving past they would always call in to catch up with the news. George and Bertha with their children Georgie, Tommy, Julie (Maud), Shirley, Tony and Betty. The family was rather unusual because although the kids were around our age they spoke like adults. We were in awe of them as they all used bad language and swore like troopers, which we were not allowed to do. They also smoked. The Wilsons senior wanted us to call them by their first names but our parents insisted on us calling them Mr and Mrs or Uncle and Aunty. Aunty Bertha was a warm loving adult and we Kemp kids adored her. She was always ready with a cuddle and a kind word. One day we were camped with them in St. George and she was hand washing for the family and got a bit fed up with the wash load.
‘That’s it,’ she said, ‘they may not be clean but they will smell fresh.’ She dipped them all in water and put them on a nearby fence to dry in the sun, then sat back and had a nice cuppa.
Around this time in the mid-1950s, a dress came into fashion called a Muu Muu. The Muu Muu was a shapeless dress that hung from the shoulders and the men hated them. They had a split up the side to about the knee and they were very roomy. Pregnant woman could use them to the final day and no bump would be seen. This fashion did not stay around for long. One day Crow (Roy) Wilson grabbed the bottom of his wife Marion’s Muu Muu and ripped one side of it right up the seam to her armpit. He did this in front of everyone. We kids were horrified, but the Wilson kids thought it a huge joke and so did Dad and Crow. Marion told Crow off, but he knew she would not buy any more.
My older brother Col had a camp stretcher that he slept on under the stars. Each morning he had to roll his bed up and leave it on top of the stretcher near the back of the truck. Apart from a thin mattress and his blankets, in the winter he had a tarp that was thrown over the bed entirely that kept him dry and of course warm. Our blankets were ex-army and very thin. If we had any men working for us, this is how they slept also, outside on a stretcher. Col would place his hat over the top of his boots to stop creepy crawlies getting into them. He once had an incident where his foot would not fit entirely into his boot. He stood up and forced it in in frustration but when he turned his boot upside down and shook it, out fell a dead squashed green frog!
It was a bitter cold winter with severe frosts and Col could not keep warm at night. In the morning his bed would be white with ice. Mum pulled two potato bags apart and joined them together and then hand sewed an old double blanket around the bags. Col was quite pleased with his new “wagga” blanket and it kept him nice and toasty. Most country women didn’t have a lot of spare money and had to use their ingenuity to keep their family fed and warm.
Christmas 1955 was spent camped on the Namoi river bank. I went shopping with Mum and she bought all these lovely big trucks, dolls and other things that would delight any child. I was wondering which gift was going to be given to whom but was not allowed to ask. Mum used to say, ‘You are like the bird on the biscuit tin, seen and not heard.’ This was referring to the Arnotts biscuit tin that had a colourful parrot on the side nibbling a biscuit that it held in its claw.
Dad bought a wooden crate of Orbell’s soft drinks that was put in the river to keep cool. An extra-large watermelon was placed in a bag and tied to a tree root and also placed in the water. Christmas morning came and I waited anxiously for all the delightful goods that Mum had bought for us. What a dreadful disappointment to discover the presents were given to the Holsbourne children or posted off to Aunty Anne’s children. I cried and cried over the doll that I had thought I was going to receive and love like no one loved me. Instead we received the same gifts we received each year: a colouring-in book and pencils, reading book, a small tin of toffees and some much needed clothing including a new swim suit.
Swim suits came in handy, even though none of us could swim. We could jump in bore drains and dams for some fun, always staying in the shallow end under Mum or Emmie’s watchful eye. On occasions the stock trough was a handy bath. All the stock troughs had a windmill near them so they could pump water into a tank and then into the trough with a bore cock in it to stop it from running over onto the ground. If the tank overflowed it ran into a dirt dam as a secondary water supply. Quite often the trough would be full of dirt and slime and really green. We had to first clean out all the muck then refill it before we could get into the water. If a trough did not have a bung to unscrew at the end, or we could not open the bung because it was too tight, we would use a broom to get the muck off the sides and bucket the water out by hand. A nice clean trough was for our pleasure but the animals benefited too, with fresh clean water to drink. This was not done on a regular basis as some places didn’t have the water to waste.
Sometimes we would dare each other to get in the trough before the stock arrived. We would sit quietly in the water while the stock had a drink close by. We would try and sneak in a pat but we never managed to connect with a beast as they were not that tame. The horses would look at us curiously, as if to say, ‘What are you doing in my drinking water?’
Wash day was a big event that had to wait until we were camped near any sort of clean water. A bore drain, dam, river or ring tank would do. If we were camped near a river, no matter how steep the bank was, we had to bring water up to the camp. I can remember one particular time, we were camped on the banks of the Namoi River between Narrabri and Wee Waa. The bank was quite steep and we had to carry the water up from the river in tin buckets. The buckets were used-kerosene tins with wire handles. Our hand knitted jumpers and cardigans had to be hand washed as well, these had to be drip dried and laid flat on nearby bushes – or on Col’s bed.
DIRRANBANDI 1956
Traditional land of the Kooma people
Dad was offered a job at Dirranbandi to manage a station for a month while the manager, Jack Smythe, went on a well-deserved holiday. The property was owned by the Australian Pastoral Company (APC), one of the biggest landowners in Queensland at that time. Dad had a lot of work through the APC over the next few years.
This station was full of lignum, a plant native to
