1968 Constance to Margaret
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| Title: | 1968 Constance to Margaret |
|---|---|
| Identifier: | archives.org.au/1968_Constance_to_Margaret |
| Parent item: | Five documents relating to Aubrey Hall |
| Storage location: | |
| Date: | |
| Authors: | Constance Boyd Berryman (née Hall) |
| Source: | |
| Format and extent: | |
| License: | |
| Related people: | Constance Boyd Berryman (née Hall) |
| Related places: | Narrogin • Mount Satirist • Mallina Station • Sherlock Station |
| Keywords: | H.M. Wilson Archives |
| Description: |
The 1968 date for this item is due to the place and date appearing in C.B. Berryman family history.
Transcription
Narrogin
23rd March.
Dear Marg,
Very many thanks for your letter a couple of days ago. I've done very well this week, with mail from you, Joan, Jill & Kim ②. I'm sending you Kim's letters in case you think them worth sending on to Judy. I don't want them back. We're delighted about Ian and his job and are looking forward to hearing from him. I do hope that this will end his financial stringency a little.
It's now the 24th. Alan had a long dull day with the election. He estimates that the votes cast at the hospital cost 30c each. I went down to the Evans (chief elect clerk) for a few hours and enjoyed myself. They are English and battlers[?] . When they came out here 12 years ago he started at the bottom, taking his junior, and now has only 3 units of accountancy to go.
We have been sleeping in separate bunks here, but it was so cold this week that we put down the table so as to have a double bed for warmth. It is such a business that once down it stays there and I'm writing on the top of a small cupboard. The refrig isn't doing more than keeping things cool and at night is cooler outside than in. The park is full this weekend, I can only guess that it is for the Buck Carrying Championship of the World. People were milling around in the small hours. It's 9 am and Alan is reading yesterday's paper in bed, very peaceful. We think we'll take some chops and explore the road from Williams towards Quindanning.
I've roughed out a small time table of the early wanderings of the Hall family. There was a hurricane in '25 or '26, whilst we were in Perth and just before Dad finished at Satirist that would be a sure date. '25 I think. He was agent for Alfred Holt & Co, not State Ships. He was mayor of Roebourne & master mason in the early part of the century. If he was ever a protector of aborigines, it was one of those honorary appointments. Isn't it awful that my recollections are so sketchy? I'm glad that he will get his name on the roll. I feel even more that EAH should be there, as he was a real pioneer. He referred to Dad in his young days as a real "townie." How about jogging Gwyn? I have the very nice bit about him in the Dalgetys Review.
Glad that Karen is OK. You will be glad when you can give up the drive in to RPH.
No news whatever.
Love
CB
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XMAS 1923
In 1923 H.A.H. was managing Mt Satirist Station for Mr H.R. Sleeman. One of the economies practised was in wages, and HAH was paid £9 per month plus keep and housing for his family. Out of this he had to pay for extras such as chutney, sauces or fruit. Mt Satirist was literally at the end of the road, on the edge of the never never. All transport on the station was by horse; in addition to the saddle horses there were two paint[?] who pulled the buggy. These were Rocker and Roman, and Bachelor and Fife-and-Drum. HAH handled them skilfully and kindly, and it was very pleasant towards sun-down, when the horses picked up their feet as they came closer home, and HAH clucked encouragingly to them and gave a little friendly whistle. The only telephone was at Station Peak, a deserted gold mine about six miles away. It went to Croydon Station, then owned by Classie[?] Meares and communication depended on whether any one there heard the bell ringing. Once when we drive to the old mine building we found a dead & stinking kangaroo under the telephone table.
The mail came regularly once a fortnight, in a beat up old car without a hood, driven by Bob Brooker. Stores came once or twice a year in a wagon drawn by camels or donkeys. Other visitors were Archdeacon Simpson on a motor bike and a side car consisting of a tray onto which he strapped his luggage, Captain F.[?] W. Wray of the Salvation Army, and Mr & Mrs Sleeman about twice a year. In 2½ years there we were visited by one other family of children, the Stanleys, at whom we looked with curiosity but not much else. We also went once or twice to Mallina Station. It will be gathered then that Christmas 1923 was very memorable for me at any rate, as Cousin Ernest invited us all to his station, Sherlock, for ten days. Sherlock seemed to me such a busy, happy place after Satirist. There were our four Hall cousins, Gwyn, Henty, Theo, Reg, and the McCamey, Winnie, Peggy, Ted and Geoff, children of the overseer. There were natives and white stockmen — the latter lived in thatched quarters, and there was even electric light, which was more than Roebourne had then. The delco plant went thump, thump generating power and was Mr McCamey's special charge. E.A.H. was in his hospitable element. Wild ducks were shot, and plucked by the native women in a whirl of feathers and shrill laughter, fowls were dressed, a sucking pig roasted whole. Ruling over the kitchen was Cousin Winnie, herself a notable cook and full of hospitality. Before the midday dinner on Christmas Day E.A.H. lined up the 11 white children and dosed us all with Eno's Fruit Salts before we were allowed to take our seats at the long tables on the homestead verandah.
Earlier we had had the most wonderful Christmas tree will presents for all the children heaped around and on it. I could see a fat annual & was sure it was for
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me, but I was wrong. It was for Henty, but I had read it before we left. It was the Boys Own Annual, a most wonderfully fat book full of adventures and things to make, like canoes and snow shoes. There was a serial that had me on the edge of my chain — "The Treasure of the Incas." Mother had bought, and dressed most beautifully, dolls for her three daughters. I still have Annabelle but the clothes have long vanished.
It was a marvellous, peerless ten days. We went to a pool — perhaps it was Wandy Wockarena[?] — and fish were netted — kangaroos were hunted with dogs — and we went long long drives in E.A.H.'s car. I read every book I could lay hands on, ate far too much of wonderful food, envied my four cousins their skill at riding — how much I longed to be able to ride well in my youth no one will ever know.
Suddenly the visit was over and EAH was taking us back to Satirist. When we arrived, Mother's room was in a turmoil. The pet kangaroo often slept there because it was cooler than the verandah, and had been overlooked & the door closed. Poor thing, it was still alive, and recovered. It had found water in the bedroom jug and had eaten every bit of paper that it could find.
