Aubrey Hall to Joan Hall, 30 November 1947
| Title: | Aubrey Hall to Joan Hall, 30 November 1947 |
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| Identifier: | archives.org.au/Aubrey_Hall_to_Joan_Hall,_30_November_1947 |
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| Date: | |
| Authors: | Harold Aubrey Hall |
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| Related people: | Harold Aubrey Hall · Joan Leake Salom (née Hall) |
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| Keywords: | H.M. Wilson Archives · Transcriptions by Ian Berryman |
| Description: |
File: H_A_Hall_1947_11_30.doc File:H_A_Hall_1947_11_30.pdf
Typed 20 & 21 March 2012 by IB
Transcription
30.11.47
Dear Joanee
Found later I hadn’t posted you the Magazine containing “The unsinkable Mrs Brown”, have done so by last mail. Please return to me after perusal, she is so unique a [?figure] I want others to enjoy her. If you have time to read it, the account of a hurricane encountered by a large well found freight steamer in the Carribean is first class writing, it almost ranks with Conrad’s “Typhoon”. In a book of I think Gertrude Atherton’s “The Conqueror” there is an equally fine description of a hurricane on one of the West Indies Islands, St Kitts if I remember rightly, it is written around Hamilton, an illegitimate born in the W.I. whose force of character and ability raised him to be Washington’s right hand man in the War of Independence.
With this am posting you also an Argus Supplement containing a pseudo scientific article upon Rabbits, somewhat in the Parker style together with a Pocket Book Magazine containing an article on Night Owls that will appeal to you. I don’t want either of these latter returned.
Speaking of hurricanes recalls old memories. I was born in Perth at Grandfather Geo Lazenby’s home in Murray St in 1871 & went to Cossack for the first time in 1874 in the Schooner Clarence Packet, 54 tons, Capt Miles master, a time expired Convict & father of Geo Miles M.L.C. as Mate of a Ship he carried out the orders of the Captain in placing a recalcitrant Seaman in a barrel, [?heading ?leading] the barrel up, driving spikes to protrude within & having it rolled to & fro on the deck until the seaman died. The Captain was hanged & Miles transported for obeying the un-lawful orders of the Captain. However he was a fine seaman & commanded vessels on the W A coast for many years.
I can remember him quite well, tall & lean with a long grey beard & a very crooked leg caused I think by a fall from aloft. Although I was only 3 I can remember the shape & color of the Clarence Packet & details of our embarkation, your grandfather W.S.H. was pearling later on but at that time had purchased the Store & Stock of a man named Crouch & we lived there whilst [?our] permanent home was being built.
From then on I was [?through] every local hurricane until we moved to Wooramel & with that knowledge would say that the writer in the magazine forwarded, in Typhoon & The Conqueror all had actual experience of hurricanes.
In about 1878 when W.S.H. had been engaged in pearling with naked divers for some years, he had to go to Perth for an operation, he was only away 6 weeks, yet during that brief absence his pearling vessel the cutter Industry, abt 15T became a total wreck in Flying Foam, snapped her anchor chains, was cast up over the edge of a low cliff in the harbour & split neatly into two halves from Stem to Stern.
No lives lost as all hands had made the vessel as secure as they possibly could & gone ashore in the early stages of the hurricane.
Also his youngest child a baby boy had died whilst he was away, for want of Cow’s milk, we had a Cow in milk in Roebourne but couldn’t get it to Cossack, brother E & I too little. I can in some measure gauge your Grandmother’s tragic condition, a sick babe, a sick & absent husband & the pearling boat wrecked. Although our home was well built & lined, the water drove through so heavily we had to bore holes in the floor to get rid of it.
A barque the Mariano was smashed up completely & fragments of her piled up along the whole front of the town.
Then it was that your Grandfather took employment with his old friend Fredk Pearse, father of Mrs Rolland & Mrs Sam Gillam of Gabyon, there he & your Grandmother worked & saved for some years until he secured another pearling boat the schooner Ethel in partnership with a seafaring man named O’Grady, this would be round about 1882.
I can remember my mother saying to my Dad in her gentle voice “Shakespeare don’t go into partnership with O’Grady, he is a bad man”. But O’Grady was a smooth tongued Irishman and my Father obstinate & headstrong, so away they went, the Dad was well & favorably known to the Abos in Exmouth Gulf & had no difficulty in engaging a crew of naked divers.
About half way through the season (Oct – March) he together with a number of other pearlers, encountered what was known as the Yamerdory hurricane, one of the worst blows ever known on the N.W. coast, the fleet took shelter in Cool-goo-ra Creek, but the whole Creek was submerged & the vessels blown on shore, one boat the Adela was dismasted & turned completely upside down, the Ethel was lifted on the waves & dashed down upon the mangrove trees until the heavy limbs came right through the hull, she filled & all hands took to the water, this was at 8 a.m. they all reached the shore except O’Grady’s son a lad of [?15 ?18] who was drowned. My Dad, a powerful man & a good swimmer, dragged himself onto land at 1 p.m. almost unconscious.
John Brockman was stranded nearby with a 40T cutter the Sarah, Carson Charlie that fat white bearded old Abo in Carnarvon was one of Brockman’s divers & saw my Dad land. The Ethel after sinking was carried on to a marsh & my Dad came into Cossack took out material, a shipwright & hands, made temporary repairs, dug a canal, extricated the vessel & brought her to Cossack for permanent repair & permanently abandoned pearling.
Meantime he arranged for O’Grady & the divers to work off another vessel that was not fully manned. O’Grady was reputed to have found a very valuable pearl & secreted it, at the end of the season he went South, bought the Clarence Packet, went trading, killed a Chinaman in his crew & was sentenced to 21 years imprisonment.
Mother Constance & Marg experienced a mild hurricane on Jarman Island, ditto a heavy one at Satirist when Samson Jetty was blown away, you wisely timed your arrival to miss these events.
Love
Dad
P.S. Afterthought to the wreck of the Industry.
The Mariano willy willy was before Christmas, this blow was milder in the Flying Foam area & the Industry was unharmed. Early in the New Year, when the Barometer was again falling dangerously & the Industry taking shelter in Flying Foam anchorage, the schooner Rosette appeared on the scene x Fremantle, deeply laden with supplies for the Roebourne District & a number of N W passengers aboard. Val Hester was in charge of the Industry, he boarded the Rosette & told the master of the Mariano hurricane, his reply was, there never occurs two hurricanes in one season, so this falling glass isn’t serious, so he decided to anchor in shelter until the wind moderated. In the morning following, the Rosette was seen to have foundered at her anchors, not a soul saved.
Abo divers later salved the mails and your Grandmother received Perth letters & a parcel containing a silk dress she had sent to Perth to be modernised, the latter little the worse for its ordeal, all this happened whilst your Grand dad was ill in Perth.
