INTERVIEW WITH HAROLD FARRELL born 1921 AT BOMBALA died May 2003
INTERVIEW DATE: January 6th, 1999

Harold Farrell

Harold and Norma Farrell now live in Bombala. Harold worked hard from an early age, driving bullocks and drawing timber from the forest around Burragate and Pericoe. Norma (nee Hobbs) grew up on 'Nangutta Station'. As Harold said of himself, 'I was only good for workin' and swearin'.' But he is also good at relating how life was for him in his early years and despite years of hard work, he has retained a sense of humour. With many relatives around him while growing up and in later life, he has a true sense of who he is and has seen many changes in the bush worker's lifestyle.
Norma, who was the principal target for this interview, was reluctant to be recorded. 'The past, ' she said, 'Well, that's all gone now.' However, she contributed a little towards the end of the interview.

Harold and Norma are Leo Farrell's parents. (Leo Farrell Interview.) Harold Farrell also had a brother, Leo. Some confusion could occur here.

KATE. CAN YOU START WITH YOUR GRANDPARENTS? WHO WERE THEY AND WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?
HAROLD. Yes. That bullock team there (referring to a photograph) in front of the Rocky Hall pub...you never seen the pub at Rocky Hall.....
KATE. NO.
HAROLD. Neither did I. That's my grandfather, there (pointing to photograph) coming up here (Bombala) to Currawong, for wool.
KATE. WHAT WAS HIS NAME?
HAROLD. Dave.
KATE. DAVE FARRELL, RIGHT..... AND HIS WIFE WAS....
HAROLD. Agnes Beasley before she married him.
KATE. OH! FROM THE TOWAMBA BEASLEY'S?
HAROLD. Yes. Jim Beasley's sister.
KATE. WHO WERE HIS CHILDREN?
HAROLD. Mrs. Archie Brodie from Eden ....she was Eva Farrell, she was the eldest, then there's Dad, he was Jack Farrell, well he was known as Jack Farrell, his name was John, then there was Christie and George, you'd know Eileen Beasley....
KATE. NO. I'VE ONLY BEEN IN TOWAMBA SIXTEEN YEARS. I'M NOT A LOCAL YET.
HAROLD. (Laughter) No.......she was Eileen Walters and she married George Farrell and they had four children and they had a place at Rockton and they sold it and they bought Ben Beasley's place and George had hardly got settled in and he got run over with a bullock wagon and got killed.
KATE. LEO MENTIONED SOMETHING ABOUT THAT. WHERE DID THAT HAPPEN?
HAROLD. Well, you go up past where Jack Beasley used to live.....
KATE. YES. UP THE TOP OF TOWAMBA, ALONG YAMBULLA FIRE TRAIL.....
HAROLD. Yes. It was up past his place and then out along old Gordon Road, they used to call it, it goes out and on to the top of Ryan's hill. He was out along there getting wood and coming out on to the road with the wood on....I don't know how much he had on because I hadn't seen it but what happened, I don't know....he must have fell over and the wagon ran over him. And George Parker said he'd never seen anything like it. The track where the two wheels run over him ....across and up over the shoulder, never broke the skin.
KATE. WELL, HE WOULD'VE BEEN UP THERE FOR A WHILE BEFORE SOMEBODY RAN DOWN TO GET HELP. WHEN WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN?
HAROLD. I can't give you any dates. I was living at Burragate then. Bruce....not Bruce, Wallace Brotherton, he was with him when it happened and I suppose he ran down to town and rang for an ambulance. I don't know where he run to, to Eileen or who but he got there and.....
KATE. HE WAS YOUR UNCLE?
HAROLD. Yes. George Farrell.
KATE. WHO WAS YOUR MOTHER?
HAROLD. Dickie. She lived down there in Towamba.
KATE. WHAT WAS HER FIRST NAME?
HAROLD. Eileen. Eileen Dickie. There were six girls in the family and Jack Dickie was her father and Alice.....she was Alice Ryan before she married Jack Dickie.
KATE. THAT WAS MRS. DICKIE.....
HAROLD. My grandmother....
KATE. WAS SHE RELATED TO ISSY RYAN IN TOWAMBA?
HAROLD. No. Not as far as I know. Ray Love lives in Jim Dickie's old place now. He (Jim Dickie) was married to one of Dad's auntys, another Beasley, and they had George and Linda and the oldest one I can't remember.
KATE. DID JACK DICKIE NOT LIVE WHERE RAY LOVE LIVES NOW?
HAROLD. I understand he lived there for a start and Jim Dickie had the place down near Mitchells creek.
KATE. 'PUCKAWIDGEE'?
HAROLD. I don't know what you call it now....down near the river there.
KATE. WHERE THE BIG CHESTNUT TREE IS?
HAROLD. Yes, that's right. Well, they swapped places for some reason. I used to call it Callara? Cottage. But I think the house was on top of the hill before he went down closer to the river. Yeah......there was George Farrell and then there was Andy Farrell. He got killed between Wyndham and Burragate on the road, he bust a horse and got killed there. He was a little red headed feller, and I can remember him. And the next...I think Annie was the next, she married Jim Rixon. And then there was Dick, he died on that march the Japs had them on in Borneo, well he was one that was there. Well Leo, my brother, he brought the paper and showed me the names of the fellers on it, (in Borneo) there were quite a few of them. We was kids and they were men. I think there was some other Towamba fellers too might have been on it. Les Mitchell, someone said he fell off a boat or something and they pulled him out by the hair on his head, but they couldn't do that because he didn't have a bloody hair on his head! Les Mitchell, I knew him and we was grown up at that time. He was one of those Mitchells from Lower Towamba. And then there's Pat..... Lee Farrell. Lee was Stanley William Joseph, was his proper name. And there was Freda, she was the youngest of nine.
KATE. SO THE FARRELL WHO WAS KILLED ON THE BURRAGATE ROAD....
HAROLD. Between Burragate and Wyndham, yes, Andy Farrell. I finished the horse off when I grew up a bit.
KATE. WAS THAT ON A BRIDGE OR SOMETHING.....
HAROLD. There would've been a culvert in the creek and in the old days, apparently, I'd been there plenty times. It come off this bend and they'd come around and they'd turn and ride into the creek and apparently the horse propped to take the turn, because he'd been going flat out, and he went over its head and there were all big boulders in the creek. I remember him shoeing the horse at our place where we lived, that's where Mason's live now....
KATE. 'BY JINGO'
HAROLD. Well, it was called 'Liddesdale' then. I was reared there and after the war when I got married, we lived there for a time. I remember he (Andy Farrell) come there and was shoeing a horse and Mum was sitting on it and us kids were there and he looked at the horse and said that'll do until Tuesday because he was going to Wyndham. And Mum said 'Well, take it off and put it on properly.' But that wasn't what happened. The horse didn't fall.
KATE. WHAT WAS YOUR WIFE'S MAIDEN NAME?
HAROLD. Hobbs. Norma Hobbs.
KATE. SO SHE WAS A HOBBS FROM 'NUNGATTA'?
HAROLD. Yes.
KATE. IS THE HOBBS WHO IS BURIED OUT THERE ('NUNGATTA STATION') A RELATIVE?
HAROLD. That's her father.
KATE. WHAT YEAR WERE YOU BORN?
HAROLD. 1921.
KATE. DID YOUR GRANDPARENTS COME FROM IRELAND....
HAROLD. No. My great grandfather. Dave Farrell's father, old Mickie he came from Ireland and his wife was born at Goulburn and she was Mary Bell. They lived at Wog, or somewhere around Wog, and he got a buster there somewhere and he died there, old Mick Farrell. They had four kids....two girls....the oldest one was a girl, she married old Bill Smith. They used to call him Bidgynook, I don't know why, I can't remember him myself. But this
George Farrell .....he was a happy-going bloke this George, and old Bill reckoned he was the best one of the Farrell's, he said, he used to call him Uncle. I can remember Christie saying, 'Call me Uncle Will and I'll give you a cake of toffee.' There was Dave Farrell and Bob Farrell but I don't know which one was the eldest. And there was another girl. And anyway, after old Smithy died, she married Hyde (spelling). I don't know what his first name was. I always thought she had eight then (children) to Hyde, but I got a list in there that says she's only had six. I knew two of them. I knew Agnew and Agnes and I thought they were twins but I found out afterwards that Agnew was a twin but I think it was two boys that was twins. Might've been Dan Hyde, I think. There was Peter Hyde and Dan Hyde and Alf Hyde and Agnew Hyde and Agnes and there must have been another girl. You're too late. You should be talking to Dan Bray. He knew everyone at Rocky Hall.
KATE. I'M TRYING TO CONFINE MY INTERVIEWS TO JUST THE TOWAMBA, BURRAGATE AND PERICOE AND 'NUNGATTA'......
HAROLD. Well, it was 'Nangutta'. In Weatherhead's time, it was 'Nangutta'.
KATE. YES, ON THE MAPS IT'S 'NANGUTTA' AND SOMETIMES IT'S 'NUNGATTA'.....
HAROLD. Napiers changed it when they bought it. That's as near as I can remember it.
KATE. OR JUST GOT THE NAME WRONG.
HAROLD. No. They'd changed it, see. 'Nangutta' ...the 'gutta', I suppose, didn't sound too good so they called it 'Nungatta'. I don't know.....but I read Weatherhead's book about when he bought the place and about packing stuff out from Eden on the bullocks...you see there was no roads much and he used to pack the stuff....probably there was no road to Towamba, I don't know. It used to take him two days to get from Eden to Towamba with his pack bullocks and then he'd go to Pericoe and on to 'Nangutta'.
KATE. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY PACK BULLOCKS?
HAROLD. Well, instead of pack horses he'd have pack bullocks.
KATE. SO HE'D JUST SADDLE THEM UP AND PUT BAGS ON THEM...
HAROLD. Pack saddles of a type.
KATE. WOULD HE LEAD THEM IN A TEAM?
HAROLD. No. He drove them like they were pack horses and just drove them loose like you'd drive a few loose bullocks. He didn't state that but he used to get them in the yards at 'Nangutta' and put the pack saddle on them to break them in and he'd pack rocks on them until they got used to carrying the pack, see. He'd saddle one horse and I think, six bullocks and he went to Eden. Had a lot of trouble the first trip 'cause when he unpacked them they took off!
KATE. TOO MUCH LIKE HARD WORK.
HAROLD. Yes. Anyway, Tom Napier told me about it, that he packed bullocks but I didn't take much notice even then. But then when I read the old boy's book, his life story, that his son didn't carry on. If he'd carried on and wrote the next part, that would've been interesting too.
KATE. WHY DID YOUR WIFE'S FATHER GO OUT THERE? WAS HE A FARM HAND?
HAROLD. He'd been a miner and a station hand and like, they done whatever was handy. He worked at Wog ('Wog Wog Station') bark chopping. They used to chop the wattle bark up into little bits.
KATE. WAS IT TRUE, THAT THEY USED TO HOLLOW OUT A LOG AND CHOP THE BARK IN THAT?
HAROLD. Yes. You got a shallow log, you've seen them, a log like a shell, they'd cut out so much of it and put hessian around it and chopped up the bark. Some feller said, you know, you gained a bit of weight because at the end of the year, you'd chopped up a couple of box logs and you'd mixed the chips up with the bark, see? (laughter)
KATE. WHAT WAS IT LIKE WHEN YOU WERE GROWING UP? DID YOU GROW UP AT BURRAGATE?
HAROLD. I grew up at Burragate, went to school at Burragate. I done twelve months at Rocky Hall (school) with my aunt. Dad was in the Randwick hospital, he was a returned soldier see, and he had a bad leg and he'd done twelve months in Randwick hospital and when he come back I went back to Burragate and went to school. I didn't start school until I was seven and a half. And I went to school there. Sometimes we used to play cricket with Towamba school but I was no good. I was only little and no good anyway when I grew up. They used to lend us some players. There was Tom Parker, Alf Beasley, and another one I can't remember whether it was Roy Roberts or not. They used to lend us three big boys to sort of even it up a bit.
KATE. DID YOU EVER WORK OUT AT 'NUNGATTA STATION'?
HAROLD. Yes. I only ever got casual wages, I never got the manager's wages. I wasn't the manager. Tom (Napier) done the managing himself. He said when they bought it every now and then some feller would turn up and want a job as manager and when I told them I was going to manage it myself none of them wanted a job. They didn't want to be digging out scrub.
KATE. WHAT DID THEY BUILD THE HOUSE DOWN ON THE CREEK BANK FOR? IT SEEMS A SILLY PLACE TO BUILD. IT GOT FLOODED OUT, I WAS TOLD.
HAROLD. Well, I suppose it could get flooded out but it didn't while we was there but then we was there in the 40's drought. There wasn't any flooding then. One bloke who used to live there was a bloke by the name of Bob Campbell. Well, he left and went away and they didn't have any men working. That cottage up along the road a bit from when you're coming out, along the flat there, two workmen were living in there and there was Gill Macintosh and Don Douch living in the station house. I don't know whether they had any workers living over in the shearer's hut or not. Jim Jeffs lived there....well that was his headquarters when he was dingo trapping. The shearer's huts...I went there on the 5th of January, 1959 and joined up to try and learn how to trap dingoes. They sent you with Jim for three months.
KATE. WERE THERE MANY DINGOES OUT THERE?
HAROLD. Well, they got a lot before I went there and we got quite a few. They got a lot more after I left. I was only with him for three months. Then I went back and went down from Towamba down to the Timbillica river, or Wallagaraugh as they call it now, down through Boggy creek, down through that way.
KATE. WITH 'NUNGATTA' THEN, WAS IT MAINLY CATTLE OR SHEEP OR MILKING....
HAROLD. Well there's a story about that too. It was cattle in the early days and then one lot bought it and took a mob of sheep in there and they tell me they took them to the head of the run and left them, I don't know how many. But the front ones ate the grass and the ones behind had no grass and they all died. But when I was there to work, they shore 7,000 sheep first year I was there and they had a lot of cattle too. But there was 12,000 acres of the Station and 60,000 acres of bush lease...grass lease, like they run the cattle in the bush.
KATE. WHO WOULD THAT BE LEASED FROM?
HAROLD. The Lands Department or somebody. I'm not real sure what they call it now. He (Tom Napier) told me that when he bought it, that was after the '23 drought and there was kangaroo grass on it that high and they put....I think he said 370 bullocks on it and they started to die on the kangaroo grass so they took the bullocks to the bush and set fire to the grass and he said they never lost another bullock.
KATE. WAS THE KANGAROO GRASS NO GOOD?
HAROLD. Too old and wouldn't go through them, see. In the bush there was some green feed, scrub. But they used to burn the grass in the paddocks. They used to burn some when I was there.
KATE. SO THEY ACTIVELY BURNT IT TO KEEP IT.......
HAROLD. Burnt it like the black fellers. Burnt it to keep the green feed.
KATE. YES. FIRE MANAGEMENT.
HAROLD. Yes.
KATE. WERE THERE ANY ABORIGINES OUT THERE WHEN YOU WERE THERE? HAROLD. Not when I was there. No.
KATE. WAS THERE A BIT OF A DARK HISTORY WITH 'NUNGATTA'?
HAROLD. Well, Jack Brindle.....Jack Brindle's mother was supposed to've been a black. She'd 'sposed to've reared him in what they call a 'wee wong'?
KATE. WHO WAS JACK BRINDLE?
HAROLD. He was a stockman on 'Nungatta Station'. There was a paddock they called 'Brindle's and there was a hut there called 'Brindle's hut'. But he died here, I think, up in Bombala. He told someone he was going to die and he just died.
KATE. THE HUT YOU SAID YOU LIVED IN, (ON 'NUNGATTA') THAT WAS SLAB.......
HAROLD. Yes.
KATE. SLAB WALLS AND HAD THEY RENDERED IT WITH SOMETHING?
HAROLD. Could have done. But with a lot of things, didn't have the time to notice them, see. You worked. Had no time to stand around looking at the walls. (laughter)
KATE. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN WOOD FROM THE PROPERTY.
HAROLD. Yes.
KATE. SO BACK TO YOUR EARLY LIFE......YOU WENT TO SCHOOL. DID YOU HAVE THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU WENT TO SCHOOL?
HAROLD. Oh, yes. Like all kids you had to do some jobs before you went to school and when we come home we had to get the cows and....we didn't rear the calves much on the bucket, we mostly shut them up and milked the cows in the morning.
KATE. DID YOUR PARENTS HAVE A DAIRY AT BURRAGATE?
HAROLD. No. We lived in that place where Mason's live see, ('By Jingo') and it belonged to Harold Binnie.
KATE. SO YOU WERE SHARE FARMING.......
HAROLD. Well, it belonged to Dave Binnie....I don't know what arrangement they had at all. But we was there, and all the kids, climbing the fruit trees and one thing and another and we used to have to get the cows in and get the wood in and so forth, in the night, get ready for the morning.
KATE. WHO WAS YOUR TEACHER?
HAROLD. Well, the first one was Harold Cornford. But the first one I had when I really
started school was Jim Anderson, but I don't think Jim was his proper name.
KATE. SO HOW MANY KIDS WOULD'VE GONE TO SCHOOL?
HAROLD. Twenty-two or three when I was going. And then it cut down when our boys were going and then it was twenty-two or three again for a time. Then that cut down and they closed it.
KATE. SO YOUR PARENTS DIDN'T DAIRY ON YOUR PLACE.
HAROLD. No. Dad had a place of his own and he bought it off a bloke down at Cathcart, a bloke by the name of Harry Stewart. Chris Sawers said he nearly bought the place down there....soldier settlement sort of thing, four pound 10 (shillings) an acre. And he said he was just about to sign up for it and he suddenly thought, "I'll never pay for it. It's not worth it." So Dad bought it off Stewart for twenty-two and six (pence) and Stewart drew up some sort of agreement and he was to pay so much so often and anyway there was a lot of wattle bark on it, so he had Dick Farrell, Jos Williams and Tom Ramsey as far as I know, working with him and they stripped the bark and drew it into Burragate and they had an old chaff cutter with an engine in it and chopped it up good and bagged it and Dave Farrell drew it to Merimbula and he sent it away to Sydney and he paid for the place with the first crop of wattle bark, he said. And then when I was about fifteen he built a house on the place and we lived out there then. We grew crops there for our own use and that sort of thing. We used to grow lucerne and corn.
KATE. SO WHAT WOULD YOUR MOTHER'S WORKING DAY HAVE BEEN LIKE. DID SHE HAVE TO MAKE BREAD AND BUTTER......
HAROLD. Oh, yes. Make our own butter. She had a wooden churn and a separator, that was one of my jobs. The cows were milked in the morning and had to separate the cream from the milk. Some of the time, I suppose when we didn't have enough cream to put in the churn, we had to put it in a seven pound treacle tin, like these three pound powdered milk tins, and these seven pound tins of treacle, golden syrup, and put a slip lid on them and a cloth over them and you banged them up and down on your leg till you got butter. Then you'd have to wash that and salt it and so forth.
KATE. HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU BEFORE YOU GOT BUTTER?
HAROLD. I never timed it but it took a while.
KATE. YOU'D HAVE A SORE LEG WOULDN'T YOU?
HAROLD. I remember Ella Mitchell riding a bay horse to school and she said to Dad, 'He'd be good for churning butter!' (laughter)
KATE. DID YOUR MUM WORK THE VEGIE GARDEN?
HAROLD. I'd say she done most of it.
KATE. WAS YOUR DAD BULLOCKING?
HAROLD. A lot of the time or ploughing out on his own place.
KATE. SO MUM KEPT THE PLACE GOING WHILE HE WAS AWAY?
HAROLD. He was always home at night. See, different ones used to strip bark in the bush and he'd draw it out to where other fellers could get it and take a full load away, bag bark, he'd draw it out in a bundle. But after he came back from the war........ he went on the road with a team when he was young, but after he come back from the war....
KATE. WAS THAT THE FIRST WORLD WAR?
HAROLD. Yes, the first world war. He couldn't walk good enough, his leg had been smashed high up so he didn't go on the road with a team after that. Pat and Christie (Farrell) were on the road there when I was young. George, he was on the road from 'Nangutta' down through to Eden. When he was up here drawing wool, he had the fullest wagon load of wool I ever saw. George Farrell had it on, sent it to Basin creek, at Rocky Hall.
KATE. IT CAME FROM THERE?
HAROLD. No. It came from out here, at Craigie. That's where he was when I seen him. He camped the night there and next day he was yoking his bullocks up there and Dad went up there and he came in there from out the old Farrell place and he........'cause, see, that's where they were reared up there at Basin Creek.....
KATE. WHO?
HAROLD. The Farrell's. You know where the cemetery is at Rocky Hall? Well, they went out that road there up that creek. Way up. Apparently old Dave, he had his first selection up there. It was called 'Poll's? Selection.' And Dad said they were living there and it was dry and there was only one hole in the creek with a drop of water in it and they were carrying water and they were waiting for old Davy and I think it was Ben Hyde, one of the Hyde's anyhow, to come with the teams to shift them away to where there was more water. Anyhow they arrived there one evening and let the bullocks go and it started to rain. So they didn't shift. The next selection, down the creek, I never found out who owned it, he bought that then. And they always called that 'Old Pat's Place'. And that's where most of them were reared there, I'd say.
KATE. SO THIS IS ALL UP THE BACK OF THE ROCKY HALL CEMETERY?
HAROLD. Yes. Head of the Basin Creek. Right out the head of it, Billy Alsizes? Swamp, he lived away out at the head of it. And old Davy bought the bottom place of this feller, I heard Dad mention his name but I just can't remember, and Dave was going to load his stuff on the wagon and shift him in, I don't know where he was going to because the road wasn't real good. But he had a new corn sheller, put the cobs of corn in, turn the handle to shell it, and he said, 'It's not likely, I'm sure Dave won't turn the wagon over but just in case, anyway he loaded the corn sheller on the spring cart and capsized it going in and broke the sheller. And Davy didn't capsize the wagon, he got in all right.
KATE. HOW MANY BULLOCKS WOULD YOU HAVE HAD IN YOUR TEAM?
HAROLD. I never used any more that about fourteen. That's the most I've ever handled. That team there (pointing to a photograph on the wall) there was twenty-two in that. Twenty-two was a full team like, wool teams......
KATE. SO IT WAS ACCORDING TO THE LOAD.
HAROLD. Yes. I used to go down in there, you know where 'Two Creeks' is, ('Two Creeks' was called 'Victory') when you go out at the bottom across that cement causeway, of course there wasn't a cement causeway there then, and got about a quarter of a mile and turn off to the right and go way down there and go down the Wog River and then back up pretty well on to the mountain there and pick up bundled bark for a bloke by the name of Lou King, he lived at what they called 'The Two Mile'. You know where 'Kapunda's' eucalyptus plantation is, well Lou King used to live over in the house on that place and he had a couple of blokes stripping bark out there and then he had me drawing it out. I used to use about fourteen. It wasn't a very big team. Neither was I.
KATE. WERE THERE TOO MANY PEOPLE WITH BULLOCK TEAMS? WAS THERE COMPETITION?
HAROLD. Not really in my day. The bloke who lived there, I worked for him, see. But when Lou wanted me to go and draw the bark in, well I drew first what was close there, drew it out with a slide and Jack Beasley came along there one day and said, 'Is this where you got to?' and I had ten bullocks yoked and there was five different owners to them. Some belonged to Alexander's from Pericoe, some was my own, some belonged to the bloke that owned 'Two Creeks', Austy Sawers, some belonged to Bill Hyde and one belonged to my brother.
KATE. SO YOUR TEAM BELONGED TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE.
HAROLD. To a lot of different people.
KATE. HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU STARTED DOING THAT? WAS IT AFTER YOU WERE MARRIED?
HAROLD. No. I was sixteen when I was drawing it out of there for Lou King. I started working for Sawers when I was fourteen, stripping bark and driving bullocks.
KATE. WAS THAT THE MAIN INDUSTRY OUT THERE?
HAROLD. In those days you trapped rabbits in the winter time and stripped wattle bark in the summer time and a few fellers cut sleepers. But it wasn't that many cutting sleepers until after the '39 fire. There were a lot of sleeper cutters on Indigo Mountain, (Pericoe) they come through from Victoria and some of them come from out here, Bendoc way. I know there were eleven or thirteen trucks carting sleepers from out there into Eden.
KATE. WHERE WERE THEY GOING, THE SLEEPERS?
HAROLD. Well the ones they was carting in were going to New Zealand. Seven foot sleepers. Allie Harris had two trucks, he was driving one and another feller was driving the other one for him.
KATE. DID YOU EVER TAKE SLEEPERS OUT WITH BULLOCKS?
HAROLD. Snigged them out of the bush, yeah, but never carted them on the road. They did in the olden days. George Farrell, he carted sleepers to Merimbula.
KATE. WHAT TREES WOULD YOU PICK?
HAROLD. Well, in my day, we mainly cut Stringy Bark. But I've cut Box and Mountain Ash and Gum and Peppermint.
KATE. EVERYTHING.
HAROLD. Anything that had a sleeper in it.
KATE. SO THE BUYERS WOULD TAKE ANYTHING.
HAROLD. Well, there at one stage they would. They'd take anything as long as it was the size, a good solid piece of wood. And then if you got a wattle tree big enough to split in two and make two sleepers you'd cut it in two and send it in and see if they would take it. (laughter)
KATE. SO THERE WERE STEERS YOU WOULD USE FOR........THE BULLOCKS. WERE THEY JUST ONES THAT PEOPLE REARED THEMSELVES?
HAROLD. Well, Alexander's......see they were reared down on the dairy. He had share farmers doing the dairying. Dairy families. That's why they all had a big mob of kids so they'd have plenty of milkers. No milking machines. If I wanted some bullocks and I seen some of Alexander's was any good well I just took them and yoked them. 'Cause, working bullocks, you got more money for them than ones that weren't broken in. You could sell a team of bullocks to some feller who wanted a team.
KATE. DID YOU EVER BOTHER TO USE HORSES IN A TEAM?
HAROLD. I never did. But different people used horses, yes. Jim Beasley's horse team is there (pointing to a photograph).
KATE. WAS THAT FOR A DIFFERENT REASON OR JUST THAT THE PERSON PREFERRED.......
HAROLD. No. Some people were horse people and some were bullock people. You see, Dad had a bullock team and so I learned to drive bullocks. Well Jack Beasley's father, he was George Beasley and he had a horse team. After George died, Jack took the team over and he drew on the Eden Road there. Him and Jim Beasley.
KATE. SO DID YOU USED TO SHOE THE HORSES AND THE BULLOCKS YOURSELVES, OR DID SOMEONE ELSE DO IT?
HAROLD. Well, Jack said he used to get Scanes (spelling) to do his. Frank Scanes. There was a blacksmith's shop somewhere there in Towamba.
KATE. YES. THERE WAS ONE NEAR THE SHOP.
HAROLD. Yes, one near the shop, but not in my time. Frank Scanes had moved to Cathcart
when I was a kid. But I never done much with shoeing bullocks either but I've helped Pat shoe bullocks. Pat shoed some for me one time, pretty well the last drawing I done, drawing bark out, and he shod nine for me and I had three young'ns but he didn't shoe them until they got broke in so they never got shod.
KATE. BACK TO YOUR MUM NOW, WAS IT A CONTINUAL BREAD MAKING JOB EVERY DAY?
HAROLD. No. Twice a week. She used to bake the bread twice a week and have the hot yeast in a bottle and mix up the.......oh, they had a name for it......
KATE. NOT FLOUR?.
HAROLD. Yeah, but they had a name for it. And they set that sort of overnight and the next morning they mixed some more flour. The sponge, that's right. They called it the sponge. That was what you set overnight with the yeast and it swelled up. You mixed the flour with it and you always put potato water in it. When you cooked the potatoes for tea you strained the water off into something and you mixed that into the bread.
KATE. WHAT WAS THAT SUPPOSED TO DO?
HAROLD. Oh, well, I wasn't the bread maker. But it was something to do with it. I seen Mum when she put in the potato water she'd get a potato and mash it all up and mix it in with the flour.
KATE. PROBABLY THE EXTRA STARCH.
HAROLD. Must have been something to do with that, and then she'd keep kneading it back and forward and make it into loaves and there was a brick oven where we was and she'd fill that up with wood and put a fire in it and when it burnt out she'd put the bread in and when the bread was cooked she'd take that out and put cakes in.
KATE. IT MUST HAVE BEEN A GOOD OVEN.
HAROLD. It was brick and well made.
KATE. WAS THIS IN BURRAGATE?
HAROLD. Yes. At 'Liddesdale'. And of course it got pulled down after.
KATE. SO THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A SEPARATE KITCHEN...
HAROLD. It was on old kitchen and the fire place was right across the end of the room and the stove was in one side of it and a (hive/hide?) on the other side with a lump of wood about 8 x 2 or 12 x 2 (feet) for a seat. And it was real shiny from people sitting on it. And you'd build this fire in there with big lumps of wood, big logs and stuff, and with a beam, this big, across there with the things on it for hanging kettles and so forth and it got on fire one time when a feller called Gus Doolan (spelling) was there. He lived in Burragate and he couldn't talk properly, he had no palate in his mouth, and we had tin tacked all around this beam when I was there. But when Norma and I went back there it was pulled down. Dan had bought it. He'd bought the old kitchen and took it out there and put it up out there.....
KATE. OUT AT BURRAGATE?
HAROLD. What they call 'Rocklea' out where Stan and Tommy (Umback) lived at Burragate? At 'Lyndhurst'?
KATE. UP THE TOP THERE?
HAROLD. Well, Dad lived up on the hill there and that got burnt down. My brother (Copper Farrell) got burnt in the house there.
KATE. THAT'S WHERE ESTHER UMBACK LIVED.
HAROLD. Yeah. Well, it's on the opposite side of the knoll. Esther was on one side and we was on the other. On that rough knoll there. Yeah, well, that's how she cooked the bread there.
KATE. SO SHE HAD THE COPPER TO BOIL UP THE WASHING?
HAROLD. Washing, yes. Well, there was about three rooms separate to that. I don't know.
That must have been the first house we had, I think. Dad had one for a feed room and there was this other big room where I used to separate the cream. Mum done her washing over there. She had a big bench with the tubs on it and the copper there. It was set in there. Well, there was another fire place there and it had a tin chimney. And as far as I remember, it was a pretty good fire place just the same. We had a big orchard, see and when the fruit was starting to fall, Dad would buy two or three little pigs off somebody and put them in the orchard and feed them milk and a bit of corn and so forth, they'd eat the fruit and grow up and we'd kill them then for the winter.
KATE. DID YOU SALT THE MEAT?
HAROLD. Salt the meat, yes.
KATE. DID YOU DO ANY SMOKING?
HAROLD. Not that I know of. I don't know whether they lit the fire under the copper to get hot water to scald them now or they heated kerosene tins in this fire place, I'm not sure about that.
KATE. I HEARD THAT THEY MOVED HOUSES THEN.
HAROLD. Well, the place that I lived in at Burragate, we lived in, me and Norma. It was a two roomed place with a veranda on it and we bought it off old Jack Sawers. He sold me a block of ground, there, and the house was over here and then me and one of Norma's uncles, we took the blocks out from under the house and put things like telegraph poles underneath and made a sort of slide and we pulled the chimney and veranda off it and hooked the bullocks on to it and drug it over and put it up on the blocks at the other block.
KATE. THAT MUST HAVE BEEN QUITE AN ENGINEERING FEAT.
HAROLD. Well, Leo, me brother, had just come back from the army, that was the second world war, and that was the first bullock driving job he done after he come out of the army, pulling that over.
KATE. DID A LOT OF YOUNG MEN GO TO THE WAR FROM AROUND YOUR AREA?
HAROLD. Well, there was quite a few from Towamba, Burragate and Wyndham. Leo and Frankie Umback and Keith Umback went from Burragate and Jeff Umback, he was Stan's brother, they'd bought 'Sheepskin', and he went.
KATE. SO DID THE WOMEN DO ANYTHING FOR THE WAR EFFORT?
HAROLD. Well, they had the women's auxiliary, like, collecting money and one thing and another. Knitting socks I suppose and making cakes. We used to have dances.
KATE. BURRAGATE HAD A GOOD HALL, I BELIEVE.
HAROLD. Yes. Well, Dave Farrell and Joe Schumack drew the timber there. Eve Brodie told me, she was only a little girl when they drew the timber there to build the hall. Wherever the mill was they got the timber from, I don't know. But there used to be a mill up the Wyndham Road somewhere, up what they call 'Glen's' at one time and possibly they got the timber from there.
KATE. WAS EVE BRODIE RELATED TO KEITH BRODIE WHO LIVES ALONG THE BIG JACK MOUNTAIN ROAD?
HAROLD. Keith Brodie's grandmother. She was a little red headed woman.
KATE. WHAT DID THE WOMEN USE FOR THE WASHING? MAYBE NORMA WOULD KNOW? (Norma, Harold's wife was reluctant to be recorded.)
NORMA. Washing soda.
KATE. AND BLUE? (NORMA NODDED)
HAROLD. I used blue. Used it to drench the horses.
KATE. BLUE? DID YOU REALLY?
HAROLD. I seen Dad cut it.....knobs of blue.... up into their nose bag feed for the horses.
Tear it up into powder and mix it in.
KATE. WHAT WAS IN IT?
HAROLD. I don't know. But he reckoned it got rid of worms and things like that.
KATE. AND THEN FOR THE IRON....YOUR MUM USED THE IRON ON THE STOVE.
HAROLD. Yes, down on the open fire or on the stove.
KATE. SO IT WAS A DAWN TO DUSK JOB. DID YOUR MUM DO SEWING?
HAROLD. Not much. Mum wasn't much for sewing.
KATE. REPAIRING SEWING OR DRESSMAKING?
HAROLD. No not much.
NORMA SHOWED ME A FULL JAR OF HOPS. THE TYPE THAT WAS USED TO MAKE THE YEAST FOR BREAD.
NORMA. That was the starter.
KATE. SO IT WAS THE HOPS THEMSELVES. IT WASN'T MADE INTO A PASTE LIKE IT IS NOW.
HAROLD. Oh, no. No. That was only right at the finish. Norma got stuff like Kraft cheese. The last bread making that Norma done. It was like Kraft cheese.
KATE. SO YOU WOULD BUY DRIED HOPS LIKE THAT IN A BAG, SO WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH THEM? DID YOU HAVE TO SOAK THEM?
NORMA. Can't really remember the recipe. It was too long ago, but we used the water to make the yeast.
KATE. SO YOU BOILED THE HOPS AND USED THE WATER.
HAROLD. And you had a bottle, not a big bottle, about a half sized bottle that Norma had and you put a cork in it and tied the cork in and.... you remember the old kitchen with the big fire place I was telling you about...(at 'Liddesdale') well up in the ceiling, there was a big stained patch there where the bottle blew the cork out and splattered the yeast all over the ceiling.
KATE. SO THE PROCESS OF BREAD MAKING WOULD START OFF WITH THE HOPS, BOILING THEM UP, USING THE WATER, AND THEN LETTING THAT.... YOU SAID A SPONGE.......
NORMA. We made that with the flour. I can't remember how it was done.
KATE. SO YOU WOULD LET THAT RISE OVERNIGHT.....
HAROLD. It fermented, I suppose.
KATE. IT FERMENTED OVERNIGHT.......
NORMA. It was like a bottle of beer when it was made. Like a frothy bottle of stuff and then you'd mix it in with the potato water into the flour and sort of make a sponge.
HAROLD. Took the yeast a few days before it was ready to put into....
NORMA. Depends on the weather. It has to work, the same as beer.
KATE. SO BREAD MAKING WOULD BE A CONTINUAL PROCESS.
NORMA. Oh, yes.
KATE. THERE WOULD BE SOMETHING GOING ALL THE TIME.
NORMA. You must have seen somewhere like bottles with....they had a wire thing around them and a thing that used to go up over the cork, well that was the kind of thing you'd have for a yeast bottle so it wouldn't blow, with the wire around there, otherwise they'd blow the cork. It was the same for working beer. You had to work it.
KATE. SO YOUR YEAST WAS ON THE GO ALL THE TIME.
HAROLD. Oh, yes.
KATE. A BIT DIFFERENT TO NOW.
HAROLD. You only took so much out. You always left some in the bottle. So it would be
ready for next time.
KATE. SO THEN YOU WOULD GET A PACKET OF HOPS FROM THE SHOP FOR NEXT TIME.
NORMA. Or you would get a little bit from the baker or send away and get it.
KATE. AND THAT'S WHAT EVERYBODY WOULD USE?
NORMA. If there was nothing else. Then we went on to the dry balm. It was powdery stuff in a tin but the bread was always sort of a bit sweet and it wouldn't last too long. You had to have it fresh.
HAROLD. It was all right while it was fresh. It was no good once it got a bit stale.
NORMA. They had a bit of a turnout here not long ago, like in Bombala, and I said about all the old things I'd collected, and I lent them that and the starch and I got some blue too. It was in a little bit of rag and tied.
KATE. RED AND WHITE WASN'T IT? I CAN REMEMBER MY MUM USING IT.
NORMA. The bit of rag was white...... and the women used to wash their hair in the blue water rinse.
KATE. FROM DRENCHING HORSES TO HAVING A BLUE RINSE.
HAROLD. It was powerful stuff, wasn't it? (laughter)
KATE. WHEN I WAS TALKING TO ENIE LOVE SHE TALKED ABOUT CORN MATTRESSES.
HAROLD. That would be the husks off the corn.
KATE. SHE SAID THAT HER MOTHER USED TO SIT UP AT NIGHT, COMBING THESE THINGS OUT UNTIL THEY WERE FINE, LIKE HAIR, AND SHE WOULD STICK THEM IN THE MATTRESS AND THAT WOULD GO ON THE BED FIRST AND THE KAPOK MATTRESS NEXT. THEN YOU MADE YOUR OWN KAPOK MATTRESS. YOU BOUGHT THE KAPOK LOOSE AND MADE YOUR OWN TICKING.
HAROLD. The bed Leo and I used to sleep in when we was boys, you had what they call a palliasse (straw mattress) and they were hard as a board. It was a three-quarter bed and you had these two palliasses on and then a kapok mattress over the top. As far as I remember, it was kapok. It was like Herbie Sherwood said, 'You didn't want a good bed in a camp.' He said. 'You were bloody glad to get into it at night and bloody glad to get out of it in the morning.' (laughter) They didn't worry too much about getting the kids a too comfortable bed. They were glad to get out in the morning.
KATE. AND SO YOU'D HAVE A DANCE ABOUT ONCE A MONTH.
HAROLD. I can't say for sure. I know at one stage there they were having socials at Burragate nearly every Saturday night, or every second Saturday night.
KATE. DID YOU PLAY TENNIS OR CRICKET?
HAROLD. No. I was always too useless. All I could do was work and swear. (laughter) Leo (brother) he was involved. He was pretty good at cricket and tennis.
KATE. THEY HAD THE CRICKET CLUB, THE TENNIS CLUB, THE RIFLE
SHOOTING AND THEN THE RACES.
HAROLD. Yeah, well, I can remember going to the races at Wyndham and the races at Towamba.......I'm not too sure about the races at Towamba. It was the sports at Towamba. Did I tell you about George Farrell?
KATE. NO. WHAT HAPPENED?
HAROLD. Jim Laing lived at Letts Mountain....
KATE. THAT WAS EILEEN UMBACK'S DAD.
HAROLD. Yeah. And Brickie sold him old Slasher. (a horse)
KATE. WHO WAS THIS BRICKIE?
HAROLD. George Farrell. (Shirley Sproates' father. See Sproates and Beasley Interview) He was always known as Brickie. Everybody knew him as Brickie. Red headed bloke, a lot of
noise, and the woman at the pub in Cann River called him that Ned Kelly bloke. (laughter) But anyway, he went to the sports at Towamba and of course in those days there was nothing fancy, they bored some holes in the posts and stuck a couple of rails across for the horses to jump over, and anyhow there was a Scotsman out there at Letts Mountain ........don't know how he came to be there......don't know anything about that part of the story.....but he arrived (at the sports ground) riding old Slasher and Jim hadn't paid Brickie for him, see, so he got this bay horse off this Scotsman bloke, I remember there was a lot of noise, and Dad said it was a wonder the Scotsman didn't jab him, anyhow, he jumps on old Slasher and got the axe they had for trimming up the pegs, it'd be fairly blunt........ I don't know whether he got his foot (the horse's hoof) up on a block or he done it on the ground, he hadn't had any shoes on (the horse) for a good while see, and his big sprawled feet, so he rounded his feet off with the axe and Mum and I was in the open hunt, which was the big hunt of the day...
KATE. WHAT DID THEY CHASE?
HAROLD. No. Over the hurdles, see. They had two or three hurdles and you went around the ring. He won the open hunt on him (laughter) and all the other fellers in Towamba, supposedly with their horses well fed and so forth, this horse came from Letts Mountain, fed on kangaroo grass and won.
KATE. DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS SCOTSMAN WAS?
HAROLD. No. Can't remember his name.
KATE. SO BRICKIE FARRELL WON THE HUNT.
HAROLD. He won the hunt on Slasher. He had another horse, a bay horse...I seen him get a bust off him there at 'Liddesdale'. He was training horses there, and this horse hit the top rail.....Campbell, he used to call him, him and Austie Sawers had two saddles on him at one time he was that long! (laughter) Dad said him and Jos Williams wasn't going to ride him, he'd fall over, and he said he'd seen Jim Laing racing through the tussocks at Wog...... Dad's horse had rubbed the bridle off and run away and Jim was on this camel, through the tussocks, chasing Dad's horse to run him down so's he could catch him, and they wasn't game to ride him, and Jim had been riding him full gallop! Tom Hogg from Wangrabelle was supposed to be the best man in the bush for running scrubbers (rounding up bush cattle) and he said Jim Laing was the best wing man he ever had. So he wasn't frightened.
KATE. THAT WAS MUSTERING CATTLE?
HAROLD. Running scrubbers out of the bush, yeah, wild cattle.
KATE. WHOSE CATTLE WOULD THEY BE?
HAROLD. His own. Tom Hogg's. They'd be his own. Or they could be someone else's and they wanted him to get them in.
KATE. SO WHAT YOU MEAN BY WILD CATTLE IS CATTLE THAT HAD BEEN LET GO IN THE BUSH TO GRAZE?
HAROLD. Yeah. You see, in those times, they didn't sell vealers like they do now. They never sold calves unless....if you did sell any off the dairy, some feller would buy them and take them away and grow them up into bullocks. They weren't worth anything in those days until they were bullocks. And the bigger and older the better. Doyle's used to bring them up off the coast there when I was young and sell them at the cattle sales at Burragate. They brought up forty bullocks one trip, 39 big Jersey bullocks and one big black and white one.
KATE. THEY SOLD THEM TO EAT?
HAROLD. Well, they'd take them away and eat them, yes, in those days.
KATE. WHAT YOU WOULD CALL A BULLOCK, THEN, WOULD BE WELL OVER TWELVE MONTHS OLD?
HAROLD. See, there's no steers now. They only have calves or bullocks and their bullocks, they were only steers until they were three or four year old, and then after that they were bullocks then until...I don't know what age....... until they died I suppose.
KATE. SO WOULD YOU EAT SOMETHING THAT WAS THAT OLD?
HAROLD. Oh, yes.
KATE. YOU DON'T GET THAT NOW, DO YOU?
HAROLD. Seven year old bullocks was good eating. But the people got too lazy and tired to work, they're too tired to chew! (laughter)
KATE. WHO LIVED AROUND YOU WHEN YOU WERE AT BURRAGATE?
HAROLD. Well, Joe Keevers was on Binnie's dairy just down across the road towards Burragate from......I don't know whether the (cattle) yards are still there or they pulled them down.... from 'Liddesdale', when you went to go towards Burragate, there was a house just up off the road there and the dairy and the yards were all there....and Joe Keevers dairied there for Binnie's.
KATE. THAT'S BEFORE YOU GOT INTO BURRAGATE.
HAROLD. Yeah. Just across the gully from 'Liddesdale' where Mason's are. And then back down the other way, just before you get down to 'Dunblane', there's a house up in the paddock there......is it still there?
KATE. 'TANAHKITA' ?
HAROLD. I don't know what they call it now, it was 'Beverley' in my day. That was Andy Binnie's. After Andy Binnie died, Bruce Binnie sold it and a bloke called Wilf MacKay bought it and then afterwards Doug and Aust MacKay had it and I worked for them stripping bark and drawing it out and so forth, for them. And 'Dunblane'....there was another house on top of the hill from there......you went over across the creek, past 'Dunblane' up on to the top there and Jos and Til Williams lived there. They had two girls. And at 'Hill-n-Dale', that was 'Jerusalem', Mick Sawers lived there when I was a kid. They dairied there for Herbert Binnie.
KATE. SO THERE WERE A LOT OF BINNIES AROUND?
HAROLD. Well, in the early days.......down where 'Log Farm' is, well that was Alec Binnie's place, and when 'Jerusalem' .......I think it might have been Dave Binnie's in the early part......but then he shifted from there to 'Dunblane' apparently and back down there before you got up to there, Arthur Binnie had that place, you know where Wilf Ingram lived.
KATE. 'WIDDEN FARM'?
HAROLD. Yeah. Well, that was Arthur Binnie's. Old Smith (Charlie) bought that off Arthur Binnie and he had another paddock there besides, they didn't get it. Charlie said that should have been ours. Charlie Smith, like, old Ernie Smith bought that. Well, that was Binnie's too, see, and then there was 'Dunblane', Dave Binnie had that. Old Binnie lived at 'Janco'.....
KATE. OH, I'VE SEEN THAT ON THE OLD ELECTORAL ROLLS AND NEVER KNEW WHERE IT WAS.
HAROLD. Well, its just across the creek.
KATE. JINGERA CREEK?
HAROLD. Yeah, where you're going across to 'Dunblane', well it was just there, on the bank. Well, that was old Binnie's and old Mrs. Binnie used to live there and Dave Binnie built that big house at 'Dunblane'.
KATE. SO IS JANCO CREEK, JINGERA CREEK?
HAROLD. It's Jingera creek because there's no Janco creek that I know of. That's where Janco house was there. I've been there. There was a big orchard there. Then there was Andy Binnie over across the creek and further on there was Bob Binnie and up where what they used to call The Vulture's Nest, in my day, that to belong to Andy Binnie too.
KATE. WHERE WAS THE VULTURE'S NEST?
HAROLD. That was further on up Jingera creek.......when you get to where the bridge is now, you went in....there was slip rails or a gateway there. I don't know what they've got there now.
KATE. THAT'S OFF TO THE RIGHT AS YOU COME FROM TOWAMBA.
HAROLD. You went up in there, well, that first place was Bob Binnie's, 'Box Camp', there was old fruit trees and that up there in my day and that was Bob Binnie's as far as I know. And this 'Vulture's Nest' as they called it, that was a patch of bush.
KATE. WAS THAT UNDER JINGERA ROCK?
HAROLD. No. A bit back before you get to Jingera Rock. Up the creek there...........And over where Ester Umback lived, that was Albert Binnie's and what Mason's got ('By Jingo') was Jim Binnie's.
KATE. THAT'S A LOT OF BINNIES.
HAROLD. And Ginnie Binnie, she never got married, but she was a......what do you call them?........used to go around delivering the babies.......
KATE. A MIDWIFE?
HAROLD. Yeah. She delivered my brother there at 'Liddesdale'.
KATE. HE WAS BORN AT 'LIDDESDALE'.
HAROLD. Yeah. I was born at Pambula (hospital) and my younger brother was born at Pambula and Leo was born there. ('Liddesdale')
KATE. WAS THAT A NORMAL THING, I MEAN YOU COULDN'T MAKE IT TO PAMBULA?
HAROLD. Well, you'd have to go early, I suppose. Stay a week or so. Well, see, when our boys were born, we was at 'Nangutta', well, Norma had to go up and stay here in Bombala for a time beforehand.
KATE. SO NEIGHBOURS WOULD HELP OUT IN THAT CASE OR WHEN SOMEBODY WAS INJURED.
HAROLD. Well, Dad put a little bell on the table or on the side of the bed for Mum to ring if she wanted.........I think it was my two sisters were there, when Leo was born.
KATE. WHAT CAN YOU REMEMBER OF MY PLACE? I CAN'T GET ANY OLD PHOTOS OF IT.
HAROLD. Well, I remember the girl.
KATE. THELDA?
HAROLD. Thelda, yes. Thelda Hartneady. Old Jack bought her a baby Austin, I think it was, little white car anyway and he said, 'The back seat's mine. There's nobody allowed in that. You can have somebody in front with you but you can't have anybody in the back seat. 'Cause when we go to town and I get a few grogs in,' he said, 'I want to sleep there coming home.' Thelda used to drive this car and Dad had a big blue and white dog and if you'd sooled him on a beast that was running away, he'd grab a bit of nose and throw it. And he used to chase motor cars and he always reckoned he'd throw this baby Austin car. (laughter) Thelda got in once to take off and Allie Harris just put his hand down and lifted the back wheel off the ground. She started it up and revved it up and it wouldn't go and he dropped it and it went like a bullet. (laughter) I can just about see Allie doing it too. I knew him pretty well.
KATE. SO YOU WERE A MISCHIEVOUS LOT.
HAROLD. Oh, there was a few that way.
KATE. SO COULD YOU GET ANYTHING YOU LIKED IN THE STORE?
HAROLD. I think so. It was a general store. See, Parker's over the river was a general store. You could buy anything from a needle to an anchor there.
KATE. DID THE WOMEN BUY MATERIAL BY CATALOGUE?
NORMA. I don't know. I know I bought lollies as a kid once there.
KATE. AND THE OLD WINE SHOP THEN, WAS THAT A WINE SHOP WHEN YOU WERE THERE?
HAROLD. Oh, I know all about that. (laughter) The wine saloon.
KATE. WHAT DID THEY SERVE? WAS IT JUST WINE?
HAROLD. They were only supposed to serve wine or soft drinks. I bought rum there. (laughter)
KATE. SO WINE AND RUM DIDN'T COME UNDER THE SAME LICENCE?
HAROLD. Oh, no. No, wine was a different thing apparently.
KATE. SO NO RUM OR WHISKEY....
HAROLD. No. Only wine. It was a wine saloon, see. Or soft drinks, lemonade and that sort of stuff. I bought beer there too.
KATE. DO YOU REMEMBER THAT BEING A GUEST HOUSE?
HAROLD. Yeah. Jack Scott used to stay there and the skin buyers used to stay there. When me and Norma was living at 'Liddesdale' the skin buyers used to come down and stay there the night and then go on out through to Pericoe and I suppose to 'Nangutta' and back round again.
KATE. WERE THEY RABBIT SKIN BUYERS AND FOX SKINS.
HAROLD. Rabbit skins and fox skins.
KATE. DID THEY TAKE ANY OTHER SKINS.
HAROLD. Well, not really. Because Dad said to Jack Freebody one day, 'What're possum skins worth, Jack?' He said, 'Five pounds a piece if you're caught with them.' (laughter)
KATE. SO YOU WEREN'T ALLOWED TO DO THAT THEN.
HAROLD. Not unless you was Yorkie Wilde? He was going down the street here with two ports (suitcases) and the police said to him, 'What've you got in them ports, Wilde?' He said, 'Possum skins.' And the policeman laughed at him, but if he had opened them, they'd been there all right! They thought he was only being funny. (laughter) Yorkie was on his way to Sydney to sell them.
KATE. THERE SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN A LOT OF BACHELORS AROUND. HAROLD. One of Norma's uncles said, 'Rockton was ruined,' he said. 'Nothing there but bachelors.' There was two or three Rixons and some Hayes's and I don't know how many others, but they were all bachelors.
KATE. WHY DID THEY STAY BACHELORS?
HAROLD. Must have been a bit short of women, around there I suppose. You see, even at Burragate....there was Issy Ryan, well he had two brothers at Burragate who never married. Two brothers and two sisters who never married out of that family.
NORMA. A lot of the trouble of that was because of the religion. There was the Catholics and if they couldn't find any other Catholics they didn't get married.
HAROLD. If they'd've gone to Kiah they might have got a wife probably. There was a lot of Catholics there.
KATE. SO WHAT WERE THE MAIN RELIGIONS AROUND THAT AREA AT THAT TIME?
HAROLD. Catholic, Church of England and Presbyterian as far as I know. That's how it was at Burragate, anyhow.
KATE. SO WHERE DID YOU HAVE THE SERVICES?
HAROLD. In the hall at Burragate. And in the church at Rocky Hall. There was two churches. They always called it the Two Churches reserve.
KATE. WAS THAT NEAR THE CEMETERY?
HAROLD. Yeah. Right on the edge of the road, like, but just down from the cemetery.
'Cause, when the policeman got Pat (Farrell) for being drunk at Burragate, he said........he
wanted his name and address, and he said he was Pat Farrell, and the policeman said, 'Where do you live?' and Pat said, 'Under the wagon.' And the policeman said, 'Where's the wagon?' and Pat said, 'Anywhere from fourteen to thirty mile behind the churches.' (laughter) So he didn't find out much from Pat. (laughter) That was the Two Churches reserve. Well, they pulled the one down and that's the hall at Rocky Hall. They shifted that up there and the Catholic church, I think Joe Williams bought it and pulled it down. Well, I used to go from Burragate up there and all the Rocky Hall ones..........there used to be a lot of Irish in that area in those days. I remember Gilbert Ryan and Bert Underhill used to light a fire and boil a couple of kerosene tins and have a feed after church.
KATE. SO THEY'D HAVE CATHOLIC SERVICE IN THE HALL ...
HAROLD. In the Catholic church.....
KATE. AT ROCKY HALL....
HAROLD. At the reserve. In the church at the reserve.
KATE. IF THERE WASN'T A CHURCH, THE CATHOLICS DIDN'T HAVE CHURCH IN THE HALL?
HAROLD. No. Not there. They'd have it in the hall at Burragate.
KATE. DID YOU EVER GO TO CHURCH AT TOWAMBA? DID THEY USE THE CHURCH FOR ALL SERVICES IN YOUR DAY?
HAROLD. Only to a funeral. Yeah, well they used to have both Presbyterian and Church of England churches there and we used to have the same at Burragate only in the hall. And the same people went to both.
KATE. SO WITH THE CATHOLICS AND THE PROTESTANTS, FOR WANT OF A BETTER WORD, THE CATHOLICS WOULD MARRY CATHOLICS, DID THE ANGLICANS MARRY THE PRESBYTERIANS?
HAROLD. Yeah, there was a certain amount of that.
KATE. SO THERE WAS MORE MIXING BETWEEN THEM THAN BETWEEN THEM AND THE CATHOLICS.
HAROLD. Mum was a Catholic before she married dad.
NORMA. It depended how strict they were. Maria Ryan married Jack McMahon, Josie married Austin McMahon, Eileen married Issy Ryan. When they run out of McMahons there was no more weddings.
HAROLD. Jim McMahon married a Whelan. I can't remember her name.
NORMA. Two of the McMahons was nuns.
KATE. WELL, THAT WOULD HAVE MUCKED UP THE BALANCE A BIT. AND OF COURSE, KIAH AND TOWAMBA WOULD HAVE BEEN A FAIR WAY AWAY IN THOSE DAYS.
HAROLD. Yes. It was a long way. They wanted us to go down there to a dance one time. There was Leo and I and Bill Sawers, we all went to school together, we was going to go down but we never got there. 'Cause we had to ride down there on horses.
NORMA. ? Ryan married a McMahon.
HAROLD. That's right. He married Francis.
NORMA. Mary? one of the older generation, Issy's sister was a nun and then Sarah, a niece, she was one of the younger ones, she was a nun.
KATE. I INTERVIEWED MARIA MCMAHON (nee Ryan. See Maria McMahon interview.) AND SHE WAS TELLING ME ABOUT HER SISTER, ANNIE, WHO GOT BURNT TO DEATH.
HAROLD. Yes. That was at Pericoe. You know where the Pericoe Station house is well, going back towards Towamba, over that steep hill, and down there, there was a house there on the left, going back towards Towamba, well that was the dairying house apparently. Bill Ryan was working for Alexander there and they were up there on the other side of the road there, burning tussocks and the girl's clothes got on fire. Gilbert told me, and he was the
oldest one of them, so he should know. I think he said Leo was getting too close to the fire and she went to grab him and her clothes got alight.
KATE. DID YOU HAVE MANY TRAGEDIES LIKE THAT?
HAROLD. Not a lot, I don't think. Darcy Ryan got........
KATE. WAS THAT TED'S (RYAN) DAD?
HAROLD. No. Darcy was Ted's nephew..... going to school with me, he got rheumatic fever and he was in hospital for a good while. And John? Keys got diphtheria. When we went back to school after the holidays the teacher was scrubbing the school out with some disinfectant and I wanted to know what was wrong and he said that Kelva? Keys had diphtheria.
KATE. SO THE ONLY HOSPITAL THEN WAS PAMBULA?
HAROLD. That was the main one, I think. Pambula and then Bega was next. I remember Dad was in Bega. I remember going over to see him in Bega hospital and he got worse and they took him on to Sydney.
KATE. DID THEY HAVE HOME REMEDIES. LIKE CHEST RUBS FOR COLDS.
HAROLD. Oh, yes.
KATE. DID THEY MAKE THEM UP THEMSELVES?
HAROLD. Well, they used to get Heensale(?) and mix it up.
KATE. WHAT'S THAT?
HAROLD. That was a cough chalk. You had it in a little bottle and you mixed it up and put it in a big black sauce bottle and you took so much for cough cure.
KATE. DID YOU MIX IT WITH SOMETHING?
HAROLD. It was mixed with water.
KATE. SO YOU WOULD DILUTE IT.
HAROLD. Yes. It was in this little bottle and that would make a big bottle. And you used what they called Lysol for disinfectant if you had a cut foot.
KATE. DID YOUR MUM USE FLOUR BAGS FOR UNDIES AND MAKE THINGS LIKE THAT?
HAROLD. Well, we did. After we were wed, me and Norma .....I used to send to some place in Sydney and get perhaps a dozen flour bags ...
KATE. OH, WITHOUT THE FLOUR. NEW ONES.
HAROLD. And make.......
NORMA. You could get them on our coupons during the war.
HAROLD. ......clothes, see, and make pillow cases.
KATE. WOULD THAT BE WITH THE BRANDS ON?
HAROLD. Yeah. Some of them had Chinee writing on them.
KATE. SO YOU WOULD HAVE TO BLEACH THE BRANDS OFF.
HAROLD. Oh, well, you could.......(laughter)
KATE. OR LEAVE THEM ON FOR A BIT OF DECORATION. (laughter)
HAROLD. Well, you see, in those days you'd have a sugar bag up your back when you was going to work. With your bread and so forth, in it and you had it in a flour bag on the inside.
KATE. SO YOU MADE A SORT OF SATCHEL OUT OF A SUGAR BAG.
HAROLD. Yeah. Seventy pound sugar bag and a fifty pound flour bag.
NORMA. I made all the kids trousers with them. When our two fellers were little I used to make their short trousers and line them with flour bags. Up until they went to school. I'd make them trousers out of the backs of Harold's. He'd wear out the fronts cutting sleepers. We'd line them with flour bags because it was soft.
KATE. DID YOU USED TO CUT SLEEPERS WITH THE BIG HAND SAWS?
HAROLD. With the black snake? Yeah.
KATE. IS THAT WHAT THEY USED TO CALL THEM? THE BLACK SNAKE.
HAROLD. Yeah. The cross cut saw. The black snake. And the broad axe and the sledge hammer. There was no mechanical things when I was using them. Chain saws was just coming in when I finished up.
KATE. THOSE SAWS THAT WERE ON WHEELS........
HAROLD. They called them swing saws. The only mechanical one we had was a drag saw. Charlie Brodie, Keith Brodie's uncle, he had a drag saw and we used pay him so much a sleeper to saw the logs off. Saw them up into blocks and there's a photo it up there on the wall with me and Leo and William (sons) and Bill Franklin. I've got the hat on and Bill's probably got a handkerchief on knotted at the corners.

AND THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS.


FARRELL

Harold Farrell's great grandfather: Mickie Farrell, Great grandmother: Mary Bell
Grandfather: David Farrell
Grandmother: Agnes Beasley

David Farrell and Agnes Beasley's children:
Eva, Dave, Jack, (known as John - Harold's father) Christie, and George, (known as Brickie - Shirley Sproates' father. See Sproates and Grant Interview.)

Jack Farrell married Eileen Dickie.
Their children:
Harold, Leo and
Copper (Leslie)
Harold Farrell married Norma Hobbs.
Their children:
Leo and William.