Dad a mud map of the station and a quick look around including which cows to milk and a list of jobs to do. Dad and Col were out every day doing the work while we had the pleasure of living a life of luxury. We even had a toilet, rather than having to go behind a tree or bush. Unfortunately, the toilet was the old “long drop”, meaning the hole was about 6 feet deep and the toilet seat was a thick plank of wood with a hole cut in it. It was one size fits all and was not meant for small bums. When we little ones sat, we would end up with our bums dangling down into the hole. It was huge to a five-year-old and I hated it with a vengeance and eventually refused to go in there. I had nightmares over this toilet for years and I wet the bed many a time dreaming I was falling into that great gaping hole. To compound the problem, the toilet was full of spiders, they were also in the great gaping hole under the toilet seat.
The station had a public road going through it and instead of having gates or grids at the fences, a dog was tied to each side of the road. They would run out barking at the stock to stop any that tried to come through. While there, two of the dogs were mauled to death by wild pigs that obviously wanted to go through the gate and did not appreciate the dogs’ efforts trying to stop them. This also gave me nightmares for years as I heard the full graphic story when Col came back and described how the dogs had been eaten by the pigs. I was a sooky sensitive child, and the smallest thing would set me off crying and sucking my thumb.
Dad found milking the cows difficult as some did not take kindly to being milked by a stranger. He had to practically tie them up when he milked them and when Mr Smythe and his family came back, they found that Dad had inadvertently broken in several new milking cows. Dad had milked all the cows that had hung around the shed as he had forgotten which cows were supposed to be milked and which weren’t. The non-broken in cows would have put up a real fuss at the indignity of being milked. No doubt kicking out their back feet and trying to butt Dad away.
While in Dirranbandi we did many trips in other towns. At some stage Dad met up with a couple in Dirranbandi he got on really well with. Tom and Merle Crumblin had several kids and we were all around the same age. Tom was the rubbish man, wood carter and the night cart man. He had a tip-up truck and went from house to house picking up their rubbish and dumping it into the back of the open truck. We loved to pick over the rubbish if we happened to be at their place when he came home for a meal but he was not so popular on the night cart days. Phew the pong!
The night cart job was to go door to door. At the back of the toilet was a door that was big enough to pull the full can out and push the new empty one back inside. Tom would have a potato bag slung over his shoulder and he would hoist the full can onto his covered shoulder and carry it back to his truck. If the can did not have a lid on it or was a bit full, it would slop over onto Tom’s head and shoulders, though Tom always wore a hat. This smell would permeate everything and when home on these days, Tom was only allowed on the veranda, not inside the house. As a side note, if the cans were full before the night cart man was due to come back, then the house holder would dig a hole in his back yard to bury the muck and this made good ground for growing vegetables later on. Tom said often someone would be sitting on the toilet and he would greet them with a, ‘Good mornin darlin,’ if a woman or ‘How ya going mate?’ if a man. If he did not know the sex of the occupant, he would say a cheery ‘Good mornin.’ In a town the size of Dirranbandi, everyone knew each other and quite possibly, someone knew their bowel habits too.
There was no toilet paper in those days for the “poor folk” so they would cut up newspapers and magazines into four inch squares and place a corner of it onto a twirl of wire that hung on the back of the toilet door within easy reach or on the side wall of the “dunny” as it was called in the bush. A luxury we never had was to gather the soft tissue paper wrapped around apples and pears and use that. Quite often a vine of some sort would grow over these small buildings and it would become a haven for snakes, frogs and any living creature that fancied a warm or cool spot, depending on the weather. Most of the time the dunny door was kept closed, if not any animal could go inside. Often as you entered you would be greeted by some creature wishing to get out! If it was in the dark of night it was very frightening for kids and women. There was rarely any privacy going to and from the outside dunnies and neighbours would have a natter with you while you were trying to have a quiet pee.
Tom had a large council paddock on the Noondoo Road where he buried the sewage waste. The day before collection he would dig large holes in this paddock, much like a corner post size and the sewage cans were tipped into these, then filled in with dirt. One day Tom decided to bring his boys and the Kemp boys to help. With the truck filled with cans, the boys sat on top of it and yelled, cooeed and yahooed all the way as Tom drove out to the paddock. The first thing Tom said to the younger boys was, ‘Don’t run around, you will fall over and get hurt.’ Tom carried a can and tipped it into a hole. Col and John carried cans between them. Les never listened to anyone and ran around the paddock, jumping over filled and empty holes in the ground. He tripped over a pile of dirt and splat, went head first into a newly filled sewage pit. He let out a scream, stood up and shook himself like a dog, with brown slime and pieces of paper dripping off him. Tom glared at him. ‘I bloody well told you not to run around. Now see what you’ve done.’ He went to the truck and retrieved a potato bag, wrapped it around Les and sat him down near a truck wheel, refusing to pander to him by not taking him home immediately. Mum was not amused when he arrived home in that state.
At that time Lonnie Donegon’s song, My Old Man’s a Dustman, was popular on the radio and we all knew the song off by heart and when driving into town to visit with the Crumblins we lustily sang it. I am sure we could be heard leaving the campsite about two miles out of town. We had a transistor radio at that time that we called a “wireless” and it could only be used on very rare occasions. Dad listened to the news occasionally, any boxing matches that were being broadcast and the Melbourne Cup. If he was not around and we could get reception, Mum would sometimes let us listen in.
When it was rubbish collection day and Tom came home for dinner before dropping the full load off at the tip, we would jump up on the top and have a good rummage. This scared Mum silly as she was frightened we would fall off and hurt ourselves. The younger ones were banned from getting on the truck, but I am happy to say that no one ever fell off in our foraging.
While John, Arthur and Les were rummaging around one day, John found a big doll fully dressed. She had a lovely printed pink frock, a waist band, real hair and a pair of little shoes. John dusted it off and threw it down to me. What a treat! He had a sister not much younger than I was, but of course she was at school. Mum was never too impressed with our rummaging as she was afraid of diseases but we loved it and lots of good stuff was found.
I loved John Crumblin and wanted to marry him when I was older. I always wondered why the doll had been thrown away like that, as it seemed brand new. Sad to say the doll went like the rest of our toys, lost, worn out or just plain forgotten and left behind at a campsite. Often one of the older brothers would tease us younger ones by holding our prized possessions out of reach for us to try and grab or they would pull the toy apart for a “tease”, so we never had anything precious for long. We two youngest ones were small and the older boys, when we tried to attack them in revenge, would just put their hands on our heads and hold us at arm’s length so we could not reach them. I would get so wild I would cry, then go to a quiet corner and suck my thumb.
Tom and Merle’s house was on the Balonne River bank and they offered us the use of their yard to camp in, which Dad accepted a couple of times. At this particular time, the river was in flood and John, Arthur and Col insisted on swimming in it. Merle got into a ripe old temper. She screamed out, ‘If you get yourself drowned, don’t come crying to me.’
We thought this was hilarious and crowed about it for years. I remember her turning to Mum one day when she was very annoyed with her brood and saying, ‘You got one boy, you got a boy; you got two boys, you got half a boy; you got three boys, you got no boys.’ That puzzled me for years but eventually I understood the truth of it.
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