Rememberings (A lifetime of adventures)
                                                    By George Kyros

I have very few memories of my early childhood, something my mother couldn’t understand. I suppose that the impact my birth had on her life, the changes that caused, were so total that she felt I should remember every detail.
How much do other people remember of their own babyhood? Are they all like me, or do some remember every detail. I don’t,  I just have occasional glimpses until I was around 5 years old, so in my mind that is when my life began.

I was born in 1942, right in the middle of the Second World War.
 At the time of my birth my father was a serving member of the 2nd fourth machine gun Battalion stationed in Singapore, and shortly to become a POW until the Japanese finally surrendered in 1945, and he finally returned to his wife and a  son he had never met. I had been raised by my mother and maternal grandmother for the first three years of my young life with no male influence. My father must have wondered what he had come home to.  When he had left his young pregnant  wife to go off to war he had given her specific instructions regarding the naming of the yet unborn child. He had instructed her that
: if it was a girl, she would be Christina Maria after his mother,
: if it was a boy he would be George Jack after his father.
 This was a Greek tradition but my mother was not Greek, her maiden name had been Kathleen Mary Quinn.
 She was a very strong minded and independent thinking woman who had a particular dislike for the name George, so when I was born she named me John Barry.As I discovered many years later, I was in fact, the reason for their marriage. A matter of honour rather than romance.
With my fathers family disowning him because he hadn't waited to make sure his older sister was married  off first, and to top it off, not to marry  a nice Greek girl but an “Englesi” to boot.
On the other side of the coin my mothers family weren't too keen on the new member of the family being a “Dago”. Not an ideal way to start married life.
 I  suspect I was somewhat of a disappointment from the beginning.

I have a memory of living in a large house opposite a park in South Fremantle, where we lived with my “Nana” my maternal Grandmother.. Memories from this time include being given a gift from my Mum and Dad. It was a pressed metal pedal car, red in colour, with the words JET CAR painted on the side. I imagine this was top of the range, and probably cost more than they could afford at the time. I loved that car.
Dad owned and operated a fruit and vegetable shop in Napoleon Street in Cottesloe.My earliest memories are centred around this time., I was 5 and attended kindergarten  
That same year my first sister Christina  was born, and my life was never to be the same again. Tina as she was soon to be called remained my only sibling for another 5 years when Marjorie was born, and it took another 10 years before Jacalyn came to complete our family.
Tina and I formed a strong bond which still exists to this day. We are both very different people, strong willed and often totally opposed in our opinions, but we still share that bond of love that was established from the moment we met.
My paternal grandparents lived in far off Kalgoorlie where they operated a fruit and vegetable shop. I once went off to visit with them. My first adventure – I was put on a train at Perth station in the afternoon of one day and arrived in Kalgoorlie  the morning of the next day. Neither of my parents travelled with me and I suppose I was in someones care, but I don’t remember who. In my mind I was on a big solo adventure. I remember that at the rear of the carriage in which I travelled was a small platform area on which hung a large canvas water-bag with an enamel mug hanging from it on a chain, That water was cool and, to the mind of a young boy, the most marvelous drink in the world.
It is time to explain my family blood lines before I go any further I think. My maternal grandmother -“Nana” was born a Dickenson in England, and had been married to an older man named John Quinn. I always imagined he was Irish, but in fact he was born in New Zealand, and was long dead. He had died before my Mother was born. Mum was the youngest and only girl in the family and had three older brothers,  two of  them  were to have a profound influence on my life as I grew up.
My paternal grandparents were Greek migrants , they had arrived in Australia on a ship at Darwin where my father was born . I’m not sure of the actual date of their arrival, but Dad was born in 1921 according to him, under a great big tree. He was born second child and oldest son  in a family that included 3 brothers and 3 sisters
 My only grandfather – “Papau” met me at the railway station and delivered me to the fruit and veg shop which was also their home, in Wilson Street. We travelled in a cart pulled by a horse.Papau had a thick accent, but spoke English quite well, I was soon to discover that my Grandmother -  “YAya” did not. She spoke only greek, had no teeth and loved me like only a grandmother can.
My father had 3 brothers and 3 sisters living, My mother had 3 brothers. Of all of these, the ones who had the biggest influence on my life were the twins, my mothers brothers Eric and Cyril. This may well have been different if my Fathers entire family had not packed up and moved to the other side of the country, where they took up residence in Melbourne
. I was 18 before I visited that city, and my Papau had passed on by then.
I remember going to market with Papau during that initial  visit to Kalgoorlie, sitting up on the cart. He let me hold the reins and I felt very grown up and important. I think I was about 5 at that time.

Dad took advantage of the returned servicemen’s repatriation scheme to be trained and qualify as a carpenter and joiner, and by attending night school at the same time to become a registered builder. he subsequently qualified for both, no mean feat for a man who had left school as a 12 year old, and was working as a short order cook in a Kalgoorlie hotel when he enlisted.

The family moved into a state housing rental in Rivervale when I was 7 and I started attending Rivervale primary school. I walked the mile or so to school each morning, meeting up with other students along the way. The first time I did this I wore shoes and socks and found I was the only boy in my class to do so. The second day, despite my protests my mother insisted I wear them again. They lasted until I got to the vacant lot at the end of the street.  Here I removed them and hid them up in the bushes. This I did for the entire time of my primary education. Many times I would return home shoeless, because they were not where I had hidden them. This cost me a lot of painful punishments!
We lived in that house until just before my 17th birthday, and I have distinct memories of those years in the early 1950s. A lot of things changed. A lot of these changes was for the better, some were not. These were the days when everybody in our street block knew each other. Friendships were made with neighbours that lasted for years. My parents were fast friends with the next door neighbours to the degree that eventually there existed a gate from one backyard to the other. The Birchs’ had 2 kids, a girl one month my senior and a boy 2 years younger. They became close friends to myself and my sister Tina.
We knew and played with the kids across the street, along the street and,even into the next block. We played tip’n'run cricket in the middle of the street. At each end of our “pitch” we placed a wooden fruit box on end as wickets, the front fences of the houses were 4 runs and over the fence was 6 and out! If you even grazed the ball with you bat, you had to run. As we only had one bat, this meant drop the bat and run leaving your partner to pick it up once he was safe within his “crease”  The advent of the occasional vehicle using the road meant grab the “wickets” stroll of the road until they passed, and straight back out again.
Thinking back on that, I remember that the odd car was never speeding, and the driver usually honked and waved as he drove past – we would all wave back, and sometime shout a bit of cheek, if we knew them and felt comfortable doing so.
We used to have a lot of things delivered to our houses on a daily basis. The baker would deliver fresh bread, the milkman fresh milk (the top 1/3rd of the bottle would be CREAM!) and every 2 or 3 days, the iceman. Each of these had a partner in common, the each had a horse towing the cart. It was fantastic watching the milkman in the early morning in his shorts and tennis shoes sprinting from house to house, leaping over the front fences and back to his cart. The horse plodded along at a steady pace, and always seemed to be where the milkman needed him to be. The baker was very similar, but later in the morning.
 The iceman had a slightly different operation. As he needed to actually enter each house and put the block of ice into the ice box, his horse was trained to stop at each house that needed ice, and wait patiently until the iceman returned. The horse would then plod on to the next house on the list.
Most Mums stayed home and kept house, popped in to next door for a cuppa and a gossip, and were there when kids came home from school, and Dad got home from work. But some Mums went to work or perhaps went into the city on the bus. This wasn’t a problem to the delivery man, nobody locked their doors anyway. This never caused any problems. Well, hardly ever. Except the day Mrs R went into the city and left the German shepherd to guard the house. Did a good job too. Let the iceman in alright, but when he tried to leave, the dog bared his teeth and growled. Mrs R finally returned home some hours later and allowed the poor bloke to escape. His horse had waited very patiently in his spot, with a large pile of manure on the road behind him.
My Mum used to get me to collect the manure the horses left behind, for her roses. She got plenty that day.
 We didn’t get ice though, because we had a refrigerator – in fact we were the first house in the street to have one!
 By this time Dad was works manager for Kelly & Sons builders and even had a company vehicle. A Vanguard utility. Mum worked in the deli dept at Boans department store in the city. I was what you would call a latch key kid. This meant looking out for my sister ( the lady next door did actually). My jobs were to cut firewood for the kitchen stove, and cut up lots of kindling for the bath-heater. I would have the stove going when Mum and Dad got home, and then light up the chip heater and make a hot bath. Tina had first bath, then I got to bath in the same water. Later my other sister Marjorie would get in before me too!
My favourite time of the year was always November 5th, Guy Fawkes night! For weeks before we would do odd jobs and hoard our money to buy fireworks.
 Penny bombs, tom Thumbs, Pin-wheels and Sky-rockets to name the ones I remember
. Penny bombs were the best. One of those beauties dropped in a sheet metal mailbox on the fence of a grumpy neighbour, and boom! No more letterbox. We got caught once and had to buy a new letterbox!
Being the only kid at school with a Greek name caused a few problems. I copped a lot of name-calling, like dago, greasy Greek, stuff like that. Mum told me not to let it get to me, because on the island that my Dads family came from, our name was sort of like royalty and that I was really a prince!
 I believed her!
 In strictest confidence I told this to one of the kids who was friendly toward me. He told the school, and by lunch time I was being followed around by a crowd of boys, all mockingly doing bows with out - stretched arms chanting “Allah prince John”.
 This bullying lead to my first fight. Up to this time I had always tried to avoid physical conflict, to the degree that when the older kid who lived across the street told everyone he was going to beat me up, I hid. My Dad found out and made me stand up to the kid. He beat me up!
Another kid at school must have thought he could get an easy rep and spread the word that he was going to get me after school. As soon as school was out, I grabbed my bike with the intention of getting home before he found me. I pedalled out of the school ground to find a bunch of kids on bikes, including the guy who had challenged me all waiting.
They surrounded me and jeering  as we rode, escorted me to the “fight corner”, this was just near where my opponent lived, and was the spot that was traditionally used for these sort of disputes
. The mob formed a circle around us an shouted insult at me, encouraging Ron ( that was his name) to belt the shit out of me, but to be careful  he didn’t get grease on his hands.
 Something shifted in my mind. I went from being really scared of getting another beating, to a feeling of rage. Ron came at me all cocky and sure of himself, and I cut loose. I had no fight training, so I just threw punches as fast and as hard as I could, until he stood there tears and snot mixing up with the blood from his nose, bawling his eyes out. A lady pushed through the ring and broke up the fight, calling me a bully. I got on my bike and rode away. The crowd that had jeered, now all wanted to be my friends.
The next day after school, I was met on the same corner by a very tearful Ron with his Dad who had dragged him there determined that his son would get a “fair fight this time”. The gang was all there, but this time they were cheering me on. I remembered how my Dad had made me fight the kid across the street, and I just felt sorry for Ron, but he was throwing punches and crying at the same time.
 I retaliated and landed a few solid hits, but neither of us wanted to be there and he was obviously beaten. I threw one wild roundhouse, missed him and punched the lamppost instead. Hard!
 Just then the same lady burst in to stop the fight, but this time she was giving Ron s Dad a mouthful. I got on my bike and headed for home, after telling Ron that I quit so he had won. The way his father looked at him he sure didn’t look like a winner. Is that how my Dad had looked at me?
I remember getting my first bike. A Malvern Star top of the range – a beauty! Only trouble was, I didn’t know how to ride it.
 I tried and tried, but just fell off. Dad held the seat to keep the bike steady while I got going, but as soon as he let go I’d fall. Finally in total disgust my Mum said that if I couldn’t ride it by the next evening she was going to take it back to the shop.
Next afternoon I practiced and practiced, and finally got it! I was riding perfectly, this must have been like flying is to a bird, I had never felt so free!
That’s when the parents arrived home in the Vanguard, I was so proud I looked at them “look I can do it” I shouted- just before I went over the handlebars.
My next memory was of lying on my bed, my Mum holding a wet cloth on my forehead. I’d knocked myself out when I landed on the bitumen road.
I loved that bike, this was my freedom machine.
 On the weekends I would cover a lot of miles riding around with the kid next door. Sunday morning Mum and Dad liked to sleep in. I would take off by myself and go exploring on that fabulous bike, coming home in time for lunch, then off again. I loved that bike!
Sundays also meant that Mums and Dads would often go off to the Sandringham Hotel for the afternoon session and sometimes take the kids along and leave them to play on a nearby oval, or leave them in the car. This is how one neighbours daughter had her first sexual experience, being seduced by the older boy from across the street. He was 13, she was eleven, and couldn't wait to to share what she had learned with her bestest (boy) friend. I was amazed!
From the age of 11 to when she turned 13 we were intimate several times every week.
This was also the period when stealing Mum's cigarettes and learning how to do the drawback became part of our lives.

Swimming pools were just things we saw on the big screen at the picture gardens on Friday night, and only seemed to exist in America.
 We had “the springs”.
 This was an area on the Swan river not too far from  school. It was set up with two jetties 55 yards apart and had  timber change rooms with timber slat floors and no roof.
 This was where school swimming carnivals were held,and was a favourite spot for us kids on a hot day and weekends through the summer months.
On the other side of the river was Maylands Aerodrome, where you could watch  light aircraft taking off and landing. The planes we saw were all “Tiger Moth “bi-wing aircraft.
One day I remember we all stood around with our heads craned up looking at the sky as the very first jet plane flew over us leaving a vapour trail . No propellors, and mighty fast. We were all in awe, and I remember being aware that something monumental had just occurred, that the world had changed, and would never be the same again.


Another favourite spot of mine was a place we called “dead mans gully”.
This was an amazing area with no buildings and although it was in the middle of suburbia, it gave the feeling that you were in the wilderness. I was about eleven and quite frequently would “wag school” and go there all alone to enjoy the solitude.
There was a stream that ran from Tomato lake to the Swan river, and it made it’s way right through that gully, which was overgrown with blackberry brambles which created tunnels over the creek.
I would walk along in the creek , picking berries and eating them and imagining I was a great explorer lost in the jungle.
 One day I saw a platypus in that creek, but no-one ever believed me. We had been taught  that these creatures only live on the East coast, so therefore I couldn’t have seen one.I learned from that ,some people won’t open their minds  to accept things that are outside their frame of reference.

At the top of the gully was a small slab of concrete about the length of a grown man and about 3 ft
( 900 mm) wide. On it were engraved the words
 “Here lies the body of johnathon Bell, his soul is in heaven but his body is in hell, when the temperature rises you will hear him yell.”
 The rumour was that an aeroplane had crashed in the gully, and the pilot was buried at that very spot! This is how “dead mans gully” got it’s name.
When I came to the end of my primary school years, the question of which high school to attend became a major subject of discussion. Most of the boys who, like me, were in their final year were planning on going to the same trades Forrest  high school. Naturally I wanted to go there too. The idea of starting a new school with people you knew, boys you had made friendships with was very appealing. To me, that is.
 My parents had other ideas. Dad had attended Perth Boys School. That school had long since given away the primary school operation and changed premises to James Street in what is now Northbridge.
 My father decided, I would be going to Perth Boys High School.
I remember my first day, it is branded on my brow – literally. At lunch break the boys all split into their social groups, even the 1st years like myself who had attended the same primary school, had groups of twos and threes at least. I knew one other person from Rivervale, and we weren’t close, or even in the same class. He was 1b, Was 1f. In other words I sat down and prepared to eat my sandwiches alone.
Quite suddenly, out of a clear blue sky I was struck violently on my right eyebrow by a very large bone. Blood spurted, sandwiches flew, and I fell on the ground a little dazed. A group of older boys came to my rescue and helped me up whilst one of them fetched a teacher. One even brushed off my sandwich, put the 2 halves back together and tried to hand it to Me.! I wasn’t really thinking about food at the time.
The end result was 3 stitches, the rest of the day off, and a lifetime phobia of raining objects, specifically bones. Some weeks later my rescuers admitted to me that they were responsible “We just wondered how high we could throw it” they told me.” didn't expect it to hit any one!”
As I was now in my 13th year, I had qualified now for my 1st pair of long trousers. Traditionally a boy stayed in shorts until he was 13.
 No such thing as designer jeans and Nikes for kids in those days, it was a type of rite of passage, a sign you were growing up, soon to be followed by other disturbing things all lumped together and called puberty. That wasn’t so bad for me. No acne, a fairly  swift voice change (when it came) and hair where it had never been before.
My life now divided into 2 distinct areas. High school with all boys, new friends, new enemies ( mostly teachers) a long bus ride to and from school every day, and my other life with my friends on the streets of Rivervale.
Something else new happened that year. Actually several things new, but the most life changing was a moving picture called “Blackboard Jungle” starring Glen Ford as the teacher of a really rough school in the US. The film sountrack featured a new kind of music. Bill Haley and the Comets, who performed“Rock around the clock.”
Rock and roll had arrived! So had denim jeans, desert boots, leather jackets and ducktail haircuts! There were new social groups The Bodgies, the Widgies and the leatheries .
 The main difference between a bodgie and a leathery to a 13 year old boy was whether you wore a duffel coat or a leather jacket. I alternated one to the other, depending upon the current social occasion.
The bike was becoming a bit mundane and needed a make-over. Off went things like mudguards and chain guards. The traditional handlebars had to go too, replaced by a length of water pipe bent to resemble motorcycle handle bars, and short lengths of venetian blind blade attached to the rear fork protruding into the spokes to make a “motor “noise. Naturally these days were leather jacket days.
Our “gang” to use a loose term, was called the Rivervale Saints, complete with a hand painted figure of the saint. You know the one, the one created by Leslie Charteris for his fictitious character. All three of us, we thought we were tough!
We hung out at milk bars and jive pits. 45rpm single records were released, we listened to the hit parade on the wireless and went out and purchased recordings by Little Richard, Bill Haley, Gene Vincent, Elvis Presley and Connie Francis. These records we would take along to the “jive pit,” this was a concreted floor  immediately adjacent to our favourite milk bar where a small record  player was supplied by the proprietor and we would play our discs and jive with the girls who mostly wore full skirts that were about mid calf length, with multiple petticoats underneath. This was very risqué and sexy for the time.  Our parents were convinced we were all “juvenile Delinquents”, (that was the buzz word of the day for the older generation to describe the teen agers..)

At high school, I discovered that I had other Greek kids in my class, that the Italian shop down the street sold all different flavoured “gelati” ice cones ( my favourite was pistachio)and that on the other side of the school, near the railway line, was the infamous” ROE STREET”.
 If you were a bit adventurous, as a few of us were, you could sneak out of the school grounds, head up roe st for a couple of blocks and walk past the brothels shouting out cheek to the prostitutes and feeling really brave and reckless.

I also discovered that teachers didn’t like me, I didn’t like them, and I hated school. I suspect that if I was to be a student now, in this day and age, I would have been diagnosed as ADD or ADHD and fed drugs.
 They had an alternate therapy in my youth, it was called “corporal punishment”and was administered almost on a daily basis by any teacher with a length of cane. At home my Dad just used his hands, and sometimes his fists. Looking back, I think I prefer that to the drugs.

By the time I had completed 2nd year and failed almost every subject miserably, the teachers suggested to my parents that possibly I would be better not attending for my 3rd year. So I was sent off with my uncle Cyril who was a shearers cook to work as a roustabout on a shearing team for two weeks.
There were 6 shearers on that team, at Tibradden station. The average shearer can shear a minimum of 200 sheep over an 8 hour period. My job was to pick up the fleeces as they came off, run down the board, throw the fleece so it landed spread out on the picking table, get back and sweep up the bits, pick up another fleece….. You get the picture. 6 times 200 equals 1200 fleeces a day! 5 days a week
. After 2 weeks this shed was completed and I was returned home. My parents hoped I had learned that school was preferable to picking up fleeces, and enrolled me in a new school for the rest of the year.
A co-ed school! There were girls here! Alright the classes were still segregated, but during the breaks we could meet together, eat lunches together, (sneak off together for a kiss & cuddle) I actually enjoyed that school. The teachers didn’t hate me, I was made into a class prefect, and I don’t remember “getting the cuts” as we called the cane during that period.

While school was much better, things at home were deteriorating, particularly between my father and myself. When I completed that school  year I quit school and found a job. Several jobs actually, one was delivery boy for a spare parts company, then after a few weeks a job that paid more reconditioning refrigerators, until that got boring and then mail boy for the health department.
I went back and registered with the pastoral labour bureau looking for rural work - anything as long as I wasn’t at home anymore. As luck would have it, a place came up on a shearing team. Maybe it wasn’t entirely luck, Uncle Cyril was the cook on this team too!
To work as a roustabout, you needed to be 16 years of age. I was 15 still a couple of months shy of 16, but I was big for my age and got away with it. We flew on a commercial flight from Perth to Derby in the Kimberley, in a DC3 propeller driven plane. My first flight and I was excited. We landed in Derby in March and as I climbed down on to the landing strip the heat felt like it was something solid. I think this moment set the stage for a great deal of my future and the subsequent adventures I have been fortunate to experience.
We travelled on the back of a truck to Liveringa Station, all 32 of us. This was a big team consisting of 14 shearers, 15 roustabouts, a wool presser, a cook and an “expert”. The wool classer met us at the station.
 Today the Kimberley and Pilbara are mostly cattle, but back in the 1950’s the country still lived off the sheep’s back.
 I loved this life. I loved the freedom it gave me; I lived with and worked with some tough hard working shearers. They expected me to work hard and put me through my paces to teach me. Here I was on equal terms with everybody, I was finally free to be me.
Up to this time I hadn’t had much to do with aboriginal people. Back in the city I had played  weekend footy against some part aboriginal players, my first year at high school I had sat next to, and became mates with a bloke whose surname was Penny, he was the blackest person I had ever met. I remember being fascinated that the palms of his hands were pink like mine, but the rest of him was black. He was a resident I think, of Sister Kates Orphanage,a place I had a bit to do with in later years.
I’d heard the adult talk about how you couldn’t trust a blackfella, that they were all thieves, they were shifty eyed and inferior to us whites. Now admittedly, the only part aboriginal I had met as a kid in Rivervale was a thief. He got caught burgling a house, and took on two policeman with a picket he ripped off a fence. He was called Monk, and I always thought he was pretty cool. I never saw him again after he was arrested. The family who lived a few doors down from us were partly aboriginal, consisting of a single mum and a few little kids. They kept pretty much to themselves, but Mrs Mac  was always friendly. She wasn’t exactly active in the social network of th street, but had the respect  of  the neigbors.
The Kimberley was different; here I met the aboriginal people in a totally different environment. Most of the young men werestockman, the girls  worked at the homestead, they were all shiny black with big smiles. Friendly people who lived together in their own community on the station, whole family units  mums, dads, Kids, Grandparents and dogs all together. No houses, no cars. No worries.
I used to earn some extra working with my uncle in the kitchen after we had finished shearing for the day. That is where I learned the basics of cooking, something I still enjoy doing today.
 The first evening as we were preparing the evening meal an old Aboriginal man with a cloth tied around his head, came up to the kitchen door carrying a tin pan – the sort that prospectors used when panning for gold. He placed it on the ground outside the door, exchanged a few words with my uncle, and left.
 I stood there wide eyed as Cyril explained that this was King Billy, he had 2 wives, (it used to be 3, but he put a spear through one of them and was locked up for a while) and he always turned up with his pan when the team arrived. I noticed that as each member of the team finished their meal, they would scrape off their plates into the pan. Uncle Cyril would cut off a few thick slices of mutton and add that to the pan along with any leftover vegetables.
After some time, King Billy would return, sit down cross legged on the ground and pick out all the choice bits and eat them, and then he would take his pan and go back to his camp. Uncle explained what he took back was for his wives. King Billy did that every mealtime for the few weeks we were at that shed. I used to sit and talk with him sometimes while he ate, he would tell me yarns in his pidgin english, though he was hard for me to understand, you couldn’t have moved me with a big stick.
One Saturday morning he brought two young men with him, about my age. They asked me to come with them. They showed me the billabong, showed me how to set a line for catfish. Told me there were big fish too, and crocodiles but only fish crocodiles. The next day some of the other “rousies” joined us and the boys – they were King Billies grand sons, took us all out to hunt for rock python.

The rock python wasn’t near any rocks at all, in fact it tried to make its escape by diving into a hollow tree, but billy junior grabbed it by the tail and held on. This was a big, powerful snake and as Billy tugged one way, the snake tugged the other, and the tail broke off about 9 inches (250 mm )from its tip. Quick as a flash Billy grabbed the stump and started pulling. The snake emerged backward until its full length was clear of the tree, where upon it started to climb back along its own body to reach its attacker. A hand around it just, back from the head, and one dead python.
I used to have a photograph of this showing the aboriginal boys and about twelve white roustabouts, myself included, all holding a part of the snake, stretched out over our hands as we stood side by side. This python must have been every bit of 15ft (about 5m) long.
I used to check my set line every morning and often caught a good size catfish – some times two in a day, these I shared with my new aboriginal friends. They showed me how to cook them in the hot ashes of a fire, that was good tucker, but a bit muddy for my taste. There were supposed to be Barramundi in that billabong, but I never caught one. What I did catch was a Johnson river crocodile (fish crocodile)about 1m long. I offered that to the boys, but they wouldn’t take it, reckoned it would taste bad.
I hit on a plan to tan its hide and take it back home when the run was over, so I skinned the beast as best I could and then, remembering things I had read in cheap novels, staked it out over an ants nest to clean of the bits of flesh still attached to the skin. I left it overnight imagining that next day it would be clean and I could collect it and start the tanning process. The ants had done a great job – not only had they cleaned the bits off, they had eaten the whole darn thing! So much for cheap cowboy books.
I remember the weekends particularly. The team  would go out on excursions on the truck, which was set up with benches running across from side to side for seating. We visited some incredible places. Dry river beds with billabongs, majestic gorges and on occasion we went roo shooting. Several of the shearers had rifles, an a couple of rousies as well. One of these had the nickname “wanker” for several reasons. He owned a pump – action Westarm .22 rifle. Thes weapons had been manufactured in Perth during the war years specifically for farmers. This one had a tube magazine that was situated along the underside of the barrel, and was loaded by dropping each round, shell end first, down the tube until it was full, it took 15 rounds including one in the breach. Let me explain why I was so familiar with this particular rifle.
For a start, I had never fired a weapon in my life and went along on the shooting trip hoping to get a chance to do so.  As we were travelling a kangaroo broke from cover and was hopping parallel to the road. I was sitting on the left side of the truck and “wanker” was sitting on the same bench, on the other side of the truck, we were the only two on that bench. He spotted the roo I was watching and decided to take a pot shot at it. He totally missed the animal by metres – me, he missed by inches!
I heard the bullet pass very close to my head. I banged on the roof of the truck to stop, an after explaining forcefully to him, that he was, as well as a wanker, also several other less than desirable descriptive terms that I had learned from the shearers.
 They were giving him a very uncomfortable time as well.
I then “negotiated” the purchase of that same rifle, for which I paid three pounds. I figured this was the best way to stay alive! That rifle and I spent a lot of hours together. I hunted for a while, killed a few animals, and before too long decided I preferred target shooting instead. Targets didn’t bleed, and you didn’t have to watch them die.
 Of course I didn’t have a license for the weapon, and some many months into the future, I was visited by Wanker who was in trouble with his farmer father, he wanted to buy the rifle back to get out of trouble, so I sold it back for five quid, and I have never owned any kind of gun since.
Liveringa station was such a huge property that it had two shearing sheds. The first was near the homestead and was set out with a long “board “where the shearers worked side by side on their individual “stands”. Opposite each stand was a pen containing the sheep to be shorn. At one end of the board was the picking table, so there were three roustabouts assigned for picking up and throwing the fleeces. There was the first five, the second five, and at the far end four. The other shed was called Paradise, and was set out with the table at a central location, so there we worked four, six, four. Shearing works 4 x 2 hour shifts per day, so the rousies were rotated each shift.
After we finished at Paradise, we moved south to Mardie station where we had broken down to a 10 stand team, so four shearers and four roustabouts didn’t make the cut. After Mardie the team broke down again to 8. I Was dropped from the team here just after my 16th birthday, and returned to the city and my family. I wasn’t there for long before I received a telegram from the Pastoral Labour Bureau telling me that I was to go to Wooleen station for a two week shed. This entailed me catching a train from Perth station to Mullewa which was then a major country town. The plan was that once there, I would get a lift to the sheep station on the mail truck which delivered mail and stores to all the properties along the way. Sound simple doesn’t it? Not so easy for me, by now I had run out of money and had just enough for my train fare. Arriving in Mullewa late afternoon to meet the truck I discovered the first bit of misinformation given me – the Truck was to leave early the following morning. I spent the night hungry and cold, huddled in a pavilion at the footy oval, and caught up with the truck just after dawn, climbed on the back and we set off. Wooleen station wasn’t “just down the road “as I had been misinformed, but was deep in the heart of the Murchison. We arrived at the station very late that night, and I was dropped off along with the deliveries at a shed. As it was late there was nobody in attendance, so I spied a large American automobile parked up in the shed, and it wasn’t locked, so I crawled in and slept on the back seat. The station owner discovered me there early the next morning, and demanded to know who I was, and why I was there in his car. I explained to him that I was there to join the shearing team , and now I learned the third, and most devastating part of the misinformation I had been given. The shearing team wasn’t due for another two weeks! I was stranded! I had no money and nowhere to go. The station owner was a pretty good bloke, hi name was Sharp, and I had worked on his brothers’ station – Mardie station – with the previous team. He didn’t offer me any work, but he did give me a bed and tucker until the team finally arrived. My board and lodgings for that period were deducted from my wages on the shearing team, so I didn’t leave there with much.
I was given a bunk in the shearing quarters and ate with the station staff. During the days I did what I could to help, which wasn’t much as most of the stockman were of mustering the sheep and bringing them in for shearing, so I spent a lot of time exploring the dry river beds and the surrounding country. It was in a river bed that I came face to face with the biggest lizard I had ever seen! The Bungarra is a large monitor lizard that can grow to over two metres in length, and this one was every bit of that! I was petrified and probably pumped a full magazine of bullets into the poor beast, which just clambered up a huge rivergum and probable expired stretched out on a limb. I’ve always felt a bit guilty about that!
It was during these days exploring, that I came across an old aboriginal man herding feral goats with the assistance of a couple of dogs. He explained to me that he would ship these animals to Geraldton where they would be transported to overseas for meat. He was very proud of his endeavour because he had been able to send his son to see a dentist. This man had his own regular business, and this all back a full decade before a nationwide referendum would give aboriginal people the basic human rights that we white people were born with. I was hugely impressed by this old man, and have never forgotten that meeting,
Finally the team arrived and we completed the shed, and we all went into Mullewa and stayed overnight in a hotel. During that night I lost a borrowed leather jacket and my entire wages, stolen from the room whilst I slept.
I returned broke to the family home in Rivervale, but just couldn’t settle to city life, plus the relationship with my father hadn’t improved, so I took on a job as a junior farmhand at a property in Katanning in the southwest. Here I spent most of my time stripping bark from mallet trees, and bundling it for delivery to the tanners who used the bark in the process of tanning leather. I also helped at shearing time, shore sheep, picked fleeces and baled the wool. The last job I had on that farm was to stook hay.
This was not a happy time for me, I succumbed to pressure from my Mother to return home and take up an apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner. I was apprenticed to my father, who by this time had his own business as a registered builder. Dad didn’t actually work with tools anymore, so  he “loaned me out “for training  with the team of carpenters who subcontracted all his work . This was good, there were 4 tradesmen and 3 apprentices and we did a variety of work, including quite a bit of country work. I didn’t actually live at home much, but instead boarded out with various families, only returning to live at home as Mum would talk me in to it, saying things would be better with dad now, but it never lasted.
When I turned 17 the family moved from our state Housing rental in Rivervale to the house that my parents had built in Mt Pleasant, a posh neighbourhood. Again I tried living at home, and this time stayed for a fair while. In Rivervale, my room was actually a sleepout on the back veranda, but here I had my own room inside the house.
Living in Mount Pleasant felt alien to me, I had grown up in a close knit public housing neighbourhood, and now were were living in “snob city”, up on a hill overlooking Bluegum lake.
On the other side of that lake, down on the flat ground was  the State housing suburb of Brentwood, and this area was more familiar to me, I liked it here. From this side Bluegum lake became the Brentwood swamp.