INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM (BILL) McDONALD born in 1939, died February 27th, 2005
INTERVIEW DATE: May 1st, 1999

Bill McDonnald

Bill McDonald, the eldest of a large family started his working life in the bush at thirteen, sending his wages home to his family. Stripping wattle bark and cutting sleepers was a way of life that can only be seen as hard work in retrospect. 'We didn't think of it as hard work because we didn't know any different'.
Despite this sudden start to adulthood, Bill found time to get up to mischief, go to dances and to visit the city.

KATE. WHO WAS YOUR DAD?
BILL. Walter McDonald.
KATE. AND WHO WAS YOUR MUM?
BILL. Mable Law.
KATE. AND DO YOU REMEMBER WHO YOUR GRANDFATHER WAS?
BILL. Alec Law. Mum's father.
KATE. AND ON YOUR FATHER'S SIDE?
BILL. Jim, I think. I can just remember him. I was just a little kid. And my grandmother, too. We used to go up there and he used to give me peanut butter sandwiches.
KATE. DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR GRANDMOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME?
BILL. Oh, its on the tip of my tongue.
KATE. WAS SHE A LOCAL?
BILL. Hite. She was a Hite.
KATE. DID YOUR PARENTS LIVE IN TOWAMBA ALL THEIR LIVES?
BILL. Yes.
KATE. WERE THEY GOOD DAYS?
BILL. I reckon they were better than what they are today. But then you wouldn't know because you never had a car, you never went anywhere. You didn't know any different.
KATE. YOU HAD YOUR DANCES THOUGH......
BILL. Dances every Saturday night. You'd probably have a ball of a Friday night and a social on a Saturday night. Don't have them now. If you went out Friday after you had a dance to have a drink of beer, like you'd have a big bottle, on your own, one each. Not hand it around. You'd have one each. You'd drink that and then you'd go and have another one.
KATE. SO IT WAS DRINK UP AND DANCE, DRINK UP AND DANCE. DID
YOU GET UP TO MISCHIEF?
BILL. Oh, we used to do some bad things to Charlie Laing.
KATE. I FOUND OUT RECENTLY THAT THERE WAS A 'TOWAMBA CHARLIE' AND A 'PERICOE CHARLIE'.
BILL. We used to call one bloke White Charlie and one bloke Black Charlie.
KATE. WHY?
BILL. Well, the bloke in Towamba was a bit dark. And the Pericoe Charlie was white. He used to live out at Letts Mountain. And he used to prospect for gold in the Letts Mountain River. (Wog Wog River?)
KATE. THAT WAS ILEEN UMBACK'S BROTHER.
BILL. Yes. And he'd come in and sell his gold. Enough to buy butter and sugar and stuff.
KATE. WHERE DID HE SELL IT?
BILL. To the bank.
KATE. OH, IN EDEN.
BILL. Yes. He used to pan it out in the Letts Mountain River. So there must be a gold mine there somewhere. Yes, Pericoe Charlie and Towamba Charlie.
KATE. SO THE TOWAMBA CHARLIE WAS THE ONE WHO DROWNED IN LAKE CURALO.
BILL. Yes. He was a good bloke but, ah, terrible bloke when he got on the grog. Oh...... He'd leave Towamba looking like a million dollar man and he'd come home like a swagman. Hat on back the front...trousers on back the front or inside out. He'd torment us that much at a dance when he was drunk, we'd get him down on the ground and we'd put his head underneath the barb wire fence that runs along past the shop and every time he'd get up his forehead would hit there. 'Oh, oh,' he'd go. Leave him there, drink his bottle of beer and then we'd snig him out. (laughter) One other night at Towamba coming home from down here we were bloody drunk in the truck and he wanted to go to the toilet so Trevor Tasker pulled up on the side of the mountain and let him out and next thing you heard crash, bang..... it must have been twenty foot down to the bank before he hit the ground. How he never got killed, I'll never know. He'd never miss the next day. There used to be an old cream shed there near the shop, down below the shop on the corner. It was up....ten foot off the ground so the truck could back in and there was a board missing out of it and we used to get him up in there and Colin Whitby from Wyndham, and get them fighting.
KATE. HE NEVER GOT MARRIED, DID HE?
BILL. No.
KATE. THERE WERE A LOT OF BACHELORS AROUND THERE THEN. I WAS SPEAKING TO HEATHER AND PETER MATTHEWS AND THEY CAME TO TOWAMBA IN 1974 .........
BILL. Teddy Butcher used to live there. He used to have the bus run to Bega. He used to have a coal burner on the back of it, (the bus) to burn coal to get it going. And then Arthur Love bought it. (the run) He bought a big red bus and we christened it 'The Red Terror'.
KATE. SO WHERE DID ALBIE LOVE COME IN THEN?
BILL. He had it for a while after Arthur gave it away and then he had the Eden run.
KATE. HEATHER AND PETER BOUGHT THE RUN OFF ALBIE LOVE.
BILL. They used to play billiards there years ago.
KATE. THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A BILLIARD ROOM AT MY PLACE TOO.
BILL. There was. And there was a store there too. Hartneady's had a shop there. I can just vaguely remember the shop being there. I can remember the water (flood) coming up to the veranda at the shop. (Towamba Store) Me and Arthur Beasley .......he used to row the cream across.......get the cream truck and they started teaching me to do it.
KATE. DID YOU ROW ACROSS?
BILL. In a rowing boat.
KATE. DIDN'T IT RUSH YOU AWAY?
BILL. Yeah. You'd start above the bridge and finish up just below the bridge taking it across and you'd start at the bridge and you'd finish up below the school coming back. They started teaching me to row and they finished up building this other decent bridge and they didn't worry about it after that. I only did it a couple of times. He was with me. We used to take Jim Sawers' cream across and Rollo South's cream, in a cream can. And Walter Roberts...I used to do a bit of work for him. One arm was paralysed. He used to own that place that Rollo South's got, down there below the sports ground.
KATE. OH, YES. THAT LITTLE PEAKED ROOF PLACE.
BILL. Yes. Walter Roberts used to have that. When old Mrs. Roberts died, Harold, her son, he was in the Air force and when she died, he didn't come back for the funeral, he flew over in a big bomber and dropped a wreath over the cemetery.
KATE. WHEN WERE YOU BORN?
BILL. 1939.
KATE. SO YOUR BROTHERS ARE.....
BILL. Neil, Bobby, Donny, Jimmy, Richard, David.
KATE. AND SISTERS?
BILL. Gladys, Joan, Dorothy.
KATE. YOU'RE THE ELDEST?
BILL. Yes.
KATE. GEE, A LOT OF KIDS.
BILL. Ten.....and the twins died at birth.
KATE. THE TWINS WEREN'T AMONG THOSE YOU JUST MENTIONED?
BILL. No.
KATE. SO YOU WENT TO SCHOOL AT TOWAMBA.
BILL. Yes.
KATE. AND WHO WAS YOUR TEACHER?
BILL. Joe McKenzie. Old Joe.
KATE. WHAT WAS HE LIKE?
BILL. Good. Got the cane every day for wagging it. Me and Kevin Love. Oh, I was shocking.
KATE. I WAS TALKING TO GLORIA GRANT (nee Beasley) TODAY AND SHE SAID IT WAS A WONDERFUL LIFE WHEN SHE WAS A KID. SHE WAS BORN IN 1928. THERE WERE THE DANCES, THE SOCIALISING, TENNIS AND CRICKET.
BILL. Oh, yes. We used to play a lot of tennis. Me and Dorothy, we used to play mixed doubles and nobody could beat us, in the whole district. And she's still playing.
KATE. SO THE POLICE STATION WASN'T IN OPERATION WHEN YOU WERE A KID.
BILL. No. I think Dad was the last bloke that ever got locked up for being drunk. Oh, a long time ago. He was probably only eighteen or nineteen. I've been in the jail. I used to work for a bloke who finished up buying it. Wally Brotherton bought the police station and the farm.
KATE. WAS HE THE FIRST ONE TO BUY IT AFTER THE STATION SHUT?
BILL. I couldn't tell you. He used it for a tool shed. And we used to go in there every day. You'd wonder how they got out of jail when you see how they built that inside.
KATE. IT'S STILL AS IT WAS. THE DOOR AND THE BARS.
BILL. All the iron inside. You'd never get out! Once you'd be locked in there, you'd never get out of it! Oh...Towamba is not the same now as it was years ago.
KATE. DID YOU WALK TO SCHOOL OR RIDE A HORSE?
BILL. We only had to walk down the hill. I had three horses of my own though, when I left school. A couple of motor bikes.
KATE. RONNIE McDONALD THEN, WHAT RELATION IS HE TO YOU?
BILL. First cousin.
KATE. SO HIS FATHER WAS YOUR DAD'S BROTHER?
BILL. Yes. Cecil McDonald was his father, Ronnie and Clive......
KATE. RONNIE SAID HE USED TO LIVE IN A HOUSE UP IN THE HILLS. HE USED TO WALK SIX MILES TO SCHOOL.
BILL. He did too...up near Rigby's camp.
KATE. WHERE'S THAT?
BILL. Go down towards 'Log Farm'. Up in the back of there. I think Bill Winnell has got a place up in there now.
KATE. WHAT WOULD RIGBY'S CAMP HAVE BEEN? SLEEPER CUTTERS?
BILL. Yeah. That's all.
KATE. AND THEY WERE STILL STRIPPING BARK WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG?
BILL. Yes.
KATE. DID YOU USED TO STRIP IT?
BILL. Yeah. I did a lot of bark stripping. And cut sleepers with a broad axe and a crosscut saw. I'd be one of the last ones left of the sleeper cutters. I started when I was thirteen.
KATE. SO YOU WORKED IN THE BUSH FROM THE AGE OF THIRTEEN?
BILL. Yeah. About forty-eight years. I used to work with my father until he got crook. Keeping all the bloody kids at home. Mum would take all my money off me. And I never got any thanks for it. Didn't matter then, see. You never went anywhere so you didn't need your money. If you did need any money you only took a few bob. (shillings) That would get you drunk and a mixed grill!
KATE. WHERE DID YOU GO TO GET DRUNK AND HAVE A MEAL? IN EDEN?
BILL. Yeah.
KATE. SO HOW WOULD YOU GET THERE?
BILL. I used to go down with Tony Dwyer. He had a little ute. Or go to the plonk shop. But I couldn't go over there. I had to put my age up to get in the plonk shop over there.
KATE. DID THEY ONLY SELL PLONK?
BILL. Yeah.....that could tell some stories.
KATE. COME ON THEN, HOW ABOUT A COUPLE.
BILL. I don't know. I used to get too drunk. There used to be an old cricket ground there. On the flat. I woke up there one morning one side of the cricket pitch, crook as a dog, looked around and there was Laurie Beasley on the other side just as crook. We played a game of cricket one day and the water was over the bridge and in the curb (the raised wooden edges on each side of the bridge) they had gaps cut in them so the water could get through....so many feet apart. I said to Laurie we shouldn't be going over here, you see. Well there was me and Laurie and Arthur Beasley. We went over half drunk and coming back I was walking along and next minute you hear 'plop' and Laurie fell in the drink. He couldn't swim. And I got him out underneath the bloody school! Only for me, he would have drowned. And everybody in Towamba knew about that the next morning. I don't know how they found out. Somebody must've seen us. But above the bridge there, years ago, there used to be a big island in the middle. Real big one. Over the years it just washed away and washed away.
KATE. SO YOU WOULDN'T REMEMBER ANY BRIDGE OTHER THAN THIS ONE?
BILL. I remember the one before it.
KATE. THE LOWER ONE WHERE THE CEMENT RAMP IS.
BILL. Yeah. I remember that one. You used to be able to ride a horse under that, when they built that. And it filled up and filled up with sand and they had to build this other one. But I don't remember the one that got washed away down near the school, in 1919. There used to be a big hole of water there. Oh, gee, it was deep. We used to go there catching eels of a night.
KATE. WHO WERE THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU, LIKE YOUR NEIGHBOURS IN THE VILLAGE.
BILL. There was Laurie Beasley and Aunty Florrie. That was his mother. And then there was Roger Doyle. He lived down the hill a bit in the house on that side...towards your place.
KATE. WHERE TERRY AND LOLA KNIGHT ARE?
BILL. No. That was Gordon Beasley's house, near the church.
KATE. YOU MEAN WHERE McGOWAN'S LIVE NOW.
BILL. Yeah. Roger Doyle used to have it. And he had a place down the river a bit too. About four kilometers down the Towamba river. A couple of flats there. Mrs. Jack McLeod. She lived up where Gropler's are. I lived there for a long while too when I got married. And then she had that place over where Roberta's parents are now.
KATE. SINCLAIR'S?
BILL. Yes. And then there was Uncle Jack McDonald, he lived up on top of the hill where Shane (Mitchell) used to live (opposite the sports ground) near the tennis courts. And then Albie Love lived across the road in the other one, on the same side where the tennis courts
are. Arthur Love lived where Col Veness lives now. And a Beasley lived next to him......... Hampden Beasley lived there. Then Arthur Beasley used to live behind there. And Walter Parker, he lived up on the hill where Jeff Knight is now. And Bob Greer had the next house down from there on the corner. And there's another house got burned down along the flat coming back along the flat, Alec Brownlie used to live there on the top side and George Parker used to live on the bottom side.
KATE. WHAT FLAT WAS THAT?
BILL. As you're coming around the corner from Bob Greer's you come back down along a little flat there. Well there used to be a little house on the top side of the road and Alec Brownlie lived there. And on the opposite side George Parker had a big house there. It got burned down too. But George Parker used to own all them flats from the school right down to Roberts's. He had the lot of that.
KATE. AND HE WOULD HAVE GROWN CORN THERE?
BILL. Yeah. He had sheep and everything on it. A hernia killed him. He used to have a hernia. I used to go down and help him with the sheep some times and he'd walk up the road and he'd have to sit down and it'd stick out like a football and he'd push it back in. He'd get up and away he'd go again.
KATE. HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?
BILL. No. In them days I suppose they didn't know much. Anyhow it killed him in the finish. But he lived to a fair age. And we used to take his sheep from there out to just this side of 'Elmgrove'. Can't think of the name of the place.....there was a shearing shed on the side of the road, it had a special name too. We used to walk them out there, get them shorn and we'd walk them back. I was only a kid then. Old George Parker had a daughter and she was married to a Scotsman.
KATE. WHAT WAS HER NAME?
BILL. He had two daughters. One married Reg Stevens/son in Bombala. Gwen, Gwennie Parker. I can't think of the eldest one's name. Anyhow this bloody Scotsman, he came down for a holiday and he used to get the bagpipes out and he'd walk back and forwards along the veranda and by jeez he was good.
KATE. WHAT VERANDA?
BILL. This house that George Parker had. It's burned down now. It had a big long veranda at the front of it. We used to go down there and listen when we were kids.
KATE. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD TO LISTEN TO .
BILL. By jeez, he was good at it too. I can't think of her name though. And then there was Jimmy Parker. Don't know where he went to.
KATE. WHAT ABOUT THE EUCHRE PARTIES?
BILL. Yeah. There was Dad, Bob Greer, Terry Goward, Teddy Colwell? he was another bloke. He used to live out at the 'Two Mile'. That's out the other side of 'Elmgrove'. 'Bullfighter' we used to call him. He had an old black car with no top on it and two or three greyhound dogs and he used to come around the town selling lollies. All these lollies in packets in the back seat and these big greyhound dogs sitting on top of them.
KATE. WAS THAT TO GUARD THEM? (LAUGHTER)
BILL. I don't know what it was for. Well, they used to play this euchre, eight or nine of them. Jeez, they used to get upset over that. That used to take place down at Alec Brownlie's. The bloke who used to have this little old house on the topside of the road opposite George Parker's place.
KATE. WAS IT BIG BETTING?
BILL. No. It would be money, but not much. But they'd have their plonk there. Oh, I
remember the way Mum used to abuse them. Something shocking. Not only that, everyone
who was there, she'd be in to them. Oh dear!
KATE. DIDN'T SHE WIN?
BILL. No. She used to hate to see them coming. She never played! No! She used to go down after a couple of hours and go and get Dad and jeez, in to him!
KATE. I SUPPOSE IT WAS A BIT LIKE GETTING YOUR HUSBAND HOME FROM THE PUB.
BILL. That happened every Saturday Dad was there. But I suppose, if you lost two pound then that was a lot of money.
KATE. A WEEK'S WAGE THEN PROBABLY.
BILL. Oh, yes. Easy a week's wages.
KATE. WERE THERE ANY BULLOCK TEAMS AROUND WHEN YOU WERE A KID?
BILL. Only Farrell's had them. Harold and Leo and them fellers. And old George who died carting that wood that time. Shirley's (Sproates's) father. See, he came from Rockton. Shirley and them, originally.
KATE. AND SO THERE WEREN'T ANY HORSE TEAMS? NONE OF THE BEASLEY'S STILL HAD TEAMS.
BILL. They were all mad on horses. They used to break horses in but no teams then. Old George Farrell come there and then he died and old Mrs.Farrell finished up......they bought Ben Beasley's place, in the first place. And then when old George got killed, it wasn't long after Ben married her and he got his place back again. But he was a good bloke, Ben. His mother, jeez, she'd make home made butter good. I used to love it. I don't think Ben had any kids either. He used to have an old blacksmith's shop there, Ben did. That's where we used to get all the horses shod. Every Saturday morning Alfie Beasley used to do them mainly. If you wanted your horses shod you'd put your order in and go down on Saturday morning.
KATE. THERE WERE TWO ALF BEASLEY'S WEREN'T THERE?
BILL. Yes. The only one I knew was the Alf that's there now.
KATE. ARE THERE ANY OTHER STORIES YOU CAN THINK OF?
BILL. No.
KATE. SO IT WAS PRETTY WELL HARD WORK ALL THE TIME.
BILL. Oh well, you didn't know any different. You didn't know it was hard work. When we were out in the bush cutting sleepers, you'd be down over the side of the hill somewhere where the truck couldn't get to, so you'd put one (log) on your shoulder and you'd snig one with your hook behind you, up the hill. Now I couldn't lift the end of one up. But we didn't worry in them days. Didn't know any different. Gee, a bloke must have busted his guts when he was young. That bloody wattle bark, you'd make a big bundle of it and you'd load it, high up on to the truck, chuck it up with one hand. You wouldn't today, strip it even. No wonder a bloke was fit.
KATE. DID YOU REMEMBER ANY STORIES FROM THE WAR?
BILL. I can remember when Mum's brother got killed over in the war. I was about five.
KATE. WHO WAS HE?
BILL. Bill Law. He got killed overseas.
KATE. WAS YOUR MUM FROM AROUND HERE?
BILL. From Eden. We moved into Eden when I was about five or six. Dad was working .........where the cannery (Heinz Greenseas) is now, they used to build boats there and he did a bit of boat building. I used to go to school at Eden Primary school and out at Palastine school. Mum's mother and father were down near where Fraser's are now when word come through that Bill got shot overseas. I remember that. And then about a week later Dave Law, that was her brother too, he got taken as a prisoner of war and he was in a camp for twelve months or more. Three escaped and they shot two and he survived it. Old Charlie here, he was in the Army but he didn't go overseas. I think there was something wrong with him. He was in the Army for a long time because I saw photos of him in his uniform, dressed up.
KATE. WHAT ABOUT CHURCH OUT AT TOWAMBA?
BILL. We used to go once a month. Mum used to make us go. We got confirmed out there.
KATE. AT ST. PAULS ANGLICAN CHURCH?
BILL. Yeah.
KATE. SO THE OTHERS HAD THEIR SERVICES THERE TOO?
BILL. Yes.
KATE. SO IT WAS EVERYBODY'S CHURCH THEN?
BILL. Oh, yes.
KATE. IT'S 111 YEARS OLD NOW AND IT IS LISTED WITH THE NATIONAL TRUST. LORNA DWYER SHOWED ME A SMALL CARD THAT HER , I THINK, GRANDMOTHER GOT WHEN SHE WAS CONFIRMED THERE IN 1888.
BILL. She's some relations to the Clements'. Old Mrs. Dwyer who lives out at Nethercote now?
KATE. YES.
BILL. I used to stay up there. Me and Tony were good mates years ago. We used to get around a lot together.
KATE. TONY, HER SON?
BILL. Yes. He used to work on Clements' farm ('Model Farm') when they had the dairy there. We used to go everywhere together.
KATE. SO YOU DIDN'T GET INTO THE MILKING?
BILL. I used to milk for Darcy Parker some evenings. He'd come down to the pictures and I'd go and milk for him like of a Saturday evening or something.
KATE. WITH MACHINES OR BY HAND?
BILL. Machines.
KATE. DID YOU HAVE A VEGIE GARDEN IN TOWAMBA?
BILL. Yes. And a heap of Bantam chooks.
KATE. DID YOUR MUM MAKE BREAD OR BUY IT?
BILL. She used to buy it. We used to eat a lot of rabbits.
KATE. YOU'D GO OUT TRAPPING RABBITS?
BILL. Yes.
KATE. AND WAS THE SKIN BUYER AROUND THEN?
BILL. Yeah. And the carcass man. The cannery (rabbit cannery at Wyndham) used to buy them. When I was going to school. I used to go up the cemetery lane setting (traps) of an evening after school and of a morning I'd wait under that big pine tree with no shoes on and have one pair (of rabbits) I'd sell to Tom McCory? he was the truck driver. Yeah. No shoes on in the frost. Never wore shoes. And I'd get my two bob or whatever it was and away I'd go to school. I only had four traps.
KATE. WHAT DID YOU DO WITH YOUR TWO BOB?
BILL. Go and buy lollies or something with it. That was a lot of money in those days. You might laugh at it now. For a half penny you could buy a chaff bag full of broken biscuits. (laughter) You'd come to town, a mixed grill was only two bob and you would get all you could eat. And a beer was only threepence. When I first started playing football at Eden, I'd come down with one pound on me. And that was a lot of money. And you'd go to play your game of football, you'd go and have a feed and you'd get drunk and you'd go home with money in your pocket. Jeez, you won't today. Well me and Jimmy Dickie and Tony Dwyer went to a test in Sydney once, 1957 I think. I had twelve pound, Jimmy Dickie had thirteen and Tony had fifteen, we were away for three days and we stayed at a hotel and we came home with money in our pockets. And we were drunk every day.
KATE. DO YOU REMEMBER THE ELECTRICITY COMING TO TOWAMBA?
BILL. Yeah. We didn't get the electricity on for years after it came to Towamba. We never have the money. You know, we used to play up a lot but we never hurt anybody. We never went around smashing things up like they do today. We just done our own thing and that was it. I can't work out why they carry on like they do today. You know I'd like to see a lot of the young blokes today if their old man died, go out and keep about ten kids at home. I did that up until two years after I was married! Then I got that way I just couldn't do it anymore. I was going into debt. It finished up I went down to Club Terrace working there after we finished cutting sleepers, I was down there for about twelve months and every Friday Mum would ring up, 'Put that money in the bank! I need it.'
KATE. WHAT WAS CLUB TERRACE?
BILL. All saw mills. Over the border near Orbost. They was paying about twenty pound a week, which wasn't bad money, but down there where I was, I was getting twenty-eight pound a week. And they'd give you your own hut. I was sitting on about twenty pounds to keep eight. That was a lot of money.
KATE. WAS THERE A BIG GAP BETWEEN YOU AND THE NEXT BOY?
BILL. No.
KATE. SO....
BILL. They never even helped.
KATE. DID THEY WORK?
BILL. Yeah. They worked. You had to work. There was no dole in them days.
KATE. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU CAN THINK OF?
BILL. They used to grow a lot of corn in Towamba, and beans.
KATE. WERE THE BEANS FOR ONE OF THE MARKETS?
BILL. Yeah. And corn! Oh, Parkers used to grow some corn. And Roberts's. On 'Ferny Flat' they got eighteen hundred bags of corn off that one year and its only twelve acres. Me and Arthur Roberts picked them. I used to work for them when I left school.
KATE. SO THE BEANS WENT OFF TO MARKET. DID THE CORN GO TO?
BILL. Some of it . The Bombala blokes used to buy it for their sheep. And most of them here kept it for pig feed. There used to be a lot of pigs out at Towamba in them days. They separated milk, you see. It used to be all cream. They grew beans. Allie Harris, Issy Ryan, all that paddock down in front of the store that used to be all in beans. The whole lot of it. And Uncle Cecil ('Limerick Vale') used to grow it and Mitchell's (Lower Towamba) used to grow it too. All the way down to Kiah they used to grow beans. They used to go to market. And Cecil got a brain wave and went in to growing carrots and parsnips. Oh dear, he had a crop there one year! I think he had two semi trailer loads of carrots and parsnips that went to Sydney markets. They used to make good money out of it.
KATE. I SUPPOSE ONCE TRUCKS CAME INTO THE AREA YOU COULD GET YOUR PRODUCE TO MARKET QUICKER THAN WITH YOUR BULLOCKS TAKING THEM TO THE COAST AND THEN ON BY SHIP.
BILL. Oh, it was a big thing years ago, bean picking around here. Once the dairy farms cleared out of Towamba, it sort of went back. Once the cream factory closed and they went into milk, that buggered the Towamba people because it was too far away to send your milk to Bega and they never had enough cattle to make enough money.
KATE. SO WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SENDING YOUR MILK OR CREAM?
BILL. The cream only used to go to the Pambula Butter Factory and the milk went to Bega. They never had enough cows to make enough milk when they stopped getting just the cream. The biggest dairy out there used to be Clements's, that used to be about forty cows and Darcy Parker had about thirty-five but Cecil and Charlie Laing and them, they only had about a dozen. They probably wouldn't even make a pound of butter with the cream they sent.
KATE. WHAT I'M FINDING CONFUSING IS THIS SEPARATING OF THE CREAM AND MILK. YOU HAD TO SEPARATE IT AND SEND IT SEPARATE.
BILL. Well you'd separate your cream from your milk, you'd send your cream away to the butter factory and feed the milk to the pigs. That's what they made their living out of, see, was pigs.
KATE. SO ALL THAT THE FACTORIES WANTED WAS CREAM. FOR BUTTER.
BILL. Yeah. And that's why they had Jersey cows 'cause you get more cream out of Jersey cows than any of the others. Oh, that was the big thing, to have a little dairy farm out there. Some only had eight cows! They'd probably have forty pigs, see and they'd make a dollar out of them when they sold them. Darcy Parker, he had heaps of pigs, he had I'd say about one thousand chooks. He used to sell all the eggs from them. They'd be running everywhere. Plus he had the plonk shop, he used to run that of a night time and through the day, it was open. There weren't many people through there in the day anyhow. He'd be there of a night time serving.
KATE. WHAT WAS HE LIKE?
BILL. Oh, big, fat........like this. One day Athol Greer had a big row there one day, over corn. He used to do all the corn picking mainly, Athol, Laurie and Alf. Anyhow, Darcy had corn to be picked, a fair bit too, and Clements' had corn to be picked. So they reckoned they were going to pick Clements' corn first.
KATE. SO THERE WERE NO WOMEN IN THE BAR OF AN EVENING?
BILL. No! No women allowed in there.
KATE. NOT ALLOWED?
BILL. There were no women allowed in the pubs either. It's only in the last few years that they were allowed in there.
KATE. SO WHAT DID THE WOMEN DO?
BILL. Well, they would sometimes sit on the veranda and get the blokes to bring it out to them. Or sit in the car.
KATE. THEY USED TO HAVE LADIES LOUNGES.....
BILL. Yeah, but not out there. It was only a plonk shop. Have you ever been in there?
KATE. NO, I HAVEN'T.
BILL. It's only little. Poky place. About from here to that cupboard on the wall. The bar was right across the front of it with a rack across the back with all the plonk on it. (The dimensions of the bar room in the Towamba Wine Saloon: the room is approx. 15 feet long and 12 feet wide. The bar is 9 feet long and 4 feet high. There is a small room behind with an open fire place where they used to hold the euchre nights.) Williams' Dark Port or Sweet Sherry. You'd stand there all night drinking that. Oh, dear. You could have lemonade in it or water or drink it straight. They were only little seven ounce glasses. They weren't middies.
KATE. HOW MUCH A GLASS?
BILL. I don't remember......tuppence or threepence, or something. If we wanted beer we used to have to get Arthur Love of a day, to get it in Bega. If there was a ball that night, we'd always get a dozen....big bottles, and he'd bring it over for you. Then you'd go over to the plonk shop until ten o'clock and get half full and then go down (to the dance) and drink your beer.
KATE. YOU HAD IT ALL WORKED OUT!
BILL. And it didn't mix too good either. You'd walk from Towamba to Burragate to a dance!
KATE. WALK! HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU?
BILL. Not very long. Couple of hours. Get drunk, mightn't even have a dance. You could always bludge a ride home.
KATE. NO WONDER THEY WERE ALL FIT LOOKING PEOPLE.
BILL. I used to walk from Towamba, nearly every evening, out to 'Elmgrove'. Rufie Lucas used to live up the back of 'Elmgrove' where Colin Veness used to live. ('Daisy Hill') Rufie Lucas used to own that and Gary his son, we used to go out there after school and put the boxing gloves on and if he made my nose bleed, I'd walk right home. Every evening we used to do that. That's about four mile. No worries.
KATE. I SUPPOSE THERE WERE NO WORRIES ABOUT KIDS STAYING OUT LATE, OR WALKING BY THEMSELVES.
BILL. Well, you were supposed to be home by dark and in bed by dark in them days. My brother, Donny used to walk to Nethercote to see his girlfriend. He used to walk down to 'Ferny Flat' where the butter factory used to be there, and he'd go straight out over the bush and come out the back of Nethercote to see Marie.
KATE. SHE MUST HAVE BEEN SOMETHING!
BILL. Well, Maxwell Gunn used to walk from where Rufie Lucas used to live out there, down to Beryl McGoven's place at Lower Towamba every Friday evening. Now that's a long way. And that was after a bloody hard week's work cutting sleepers. If he didn't walk back, old Bill would run him back in the truck. Old Bill Harris, her father. That would have to be twenty odd mile. He used to get there about ten o'clock of a night. I used to ride a push bike from Towamba down to 'The Pride' (Lower Towamba) perch fishing and ride it back again that evening. That's a fair way too. If Bob Greer wasn't going in his old car, I'd ride the push bike, get three or four perch, put them over the handle bars and peddle back home again. You didn't know any different, see. You think its hard, but it wasn't hard, really.
KATE. IT WAS A VERY MANUAL WAY OF LIFE. AND IF YOU DIDN'T HAVE A VEHICLE.......
BILL. Not many of us had vehicles them days.
KATE. LIKE ILENE UMBACK SAID, 'WE ONLY HAD SHANKS PONY' MEANING THEIR LEGS.
BILL. We used to play tennis with her. There was an old Mrs. Umback who used to play a lot of tennis in Burragate. Mrs. Frank Umback. I just can't think of her name. They used to live up at 'Sheepskin'.
KATE. I THINK THEY WERE ILEEN'S HUSBAND'S PARENTS.
BILL. That would be right. And old Jack Farrell lived up there too. And Copper Farrell....he got burned up there one night in a fire. I found him that night. It was after a dance.....in the corner of the house....just his bloody bones. He was shriveled up to about that long. He had the window nailed up with bloody tin and couldn't get out.
KATE. WHY DID HE DO THAT?
BILL. Well, the glass was broken and he nailed it up with tin. He came home from Wyndham pub with his old man, and he must've smoked in bed and she caught on fire. There was a thousand gallon tank about fifty feet away from the house and it was boiling. That's how hot the fire was. Used to be shingles on the roof with tin over the top of it ......and he was in the corner. He was shriveled up to about that long. (one metre) He was a good horseman. He used to go around to all the shows. Only a little feller. Red headed bloke.
KATE. ILENE UMBACK WAS SAYING THAT SHE WAS, AT THE TIME, LIVING
AT 'LYNDHURST', DOWN THE HILL THERE, AND SHE LOOKED OUT THE
WINDOW.......
BILL. That's right! Yeah. Because we called in there, going up to the fire. What did old Jack say.......he said, 'I seen this happen over in the war,' so he said, 'There's nothing I can do about it.'
KATE. HE'D SEEN WHAT HAPPEN?
BILL. People getting burned.
KATE. THAT MUST HAVE BEEN AWFUL.
BILL. I suppose he'd been through enough years ago. But he was a bloody good horseman, Copper Farrell.
KATE. WALKING ALL THESE MILES TO SEE A GIRL, EITHER YOU DID THAT OR YOU END UP WITH NO GIRL.
BILL. Yeah. Well, you never had a car to go anywhere. That was the thing. Well all the young girls out at Towamba, when they got to fifteen or sixteen, they left. There were some nice looking sorts when I was out there when I was going....... Lorris Butcher, Noelene Carragher........
KATE. THEY JUST WENT AWAY TO WORK?
BILL. Yeah. I wouldn't even know them now.
KATE. SO YOU ARE SAYING THAT THE GIRLS WENT AWAY MORE THAN THE BOYS?
BILL. Yeah. Well, the boys went away. Kevin Love, he went away. Never came back. He managed Brambles in Sydney. And Gary Lucas, he went away and he joined the coppers. And all those blokes I went to school with, I wouldn't know them now. I haven't seen them since they left. I used to know Rex and Noel Green too, but they wasn't going to school when I was going. They'd just left. I remember when they sold the farm. See, Jack Slattery owned that farm.
KATE. THAT'S THE ONE WHERE RONNIE (McDONALD) IS NOW?
BILL. Yes. Bill Green, I think, was his name, or Jack. Married Jack Slattery's sister and that's how he come to be on that farm. They had it there for years and years. When they sold that, we used to live in a little two room place just down from where Shane (Mitchell) used to live. (opposite the Towamba sports ground)
KATE. YES. I KNOW THE PLACE.
BILL. Well, that's where we lived. See, Dad owned that, that section there and Uncle Jack bought it off him. And he moved up into that place....Smith's in Bega owned it......that place where Mum was and Dad bought it for two hundred pound. There used to be an old shearing shed up at the police station and when they pulled the lining out, it was good lining, they lined the rooms with it. Big wide boards they were. So that's how they come to buy that. Two
hundred pound but he paid it off in rent. Just so much a week. Wasn't very much.
KATE. I SUPPOSE IT WAS GET OUT OF TOWAMBA OR STAY THERE.
BILL. Yes. That's right. That was the killer, see. When we had to leave, the road them days was shocking. It would take us nearly an hour to come from Towamba to Eden. And if you're travelling it every day to work, like I was working down here (Eden) and living out there, oh dear, it made a long day out of it. Plus knocking hell out of your car. Now the road's not bad. Jeez them days, it was narrow and rough, winding, it's still winding but its a bit wider than it used to be.

AND THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS.


McDonald

Bill McDonald's grandfather: Jim McDonald
Grandmother: ? Hite
Father: Walter McDonald
Mother: Mabel Law
Uncle: Cecil McDonald, Jack McDonald
Walter McDonald and Mabel Law's children:
Not in order of birth. Neil, Bobby, Donny,
Richard, David, Jimmy,
Gladys, Joan and Dorothy.