Mother of Ten (3 page)

When
Myrtle arrived in Orbost in 1944 pregnant with George’s first child, she
was now almost 400 kilometres from Albury where she had been forced to leave
her three young children from her first marriage. At this time, her home in
Orbost was with George’s parents but, thankfully, her new mother-in-law
welcomed her with kindness and generosity. George was still a soldier in the
AIF but was desperate to be discharged so that he could go home. His desire to
find a way out of the army increased after Myrtle gave birth. His letters to
her reveal his distress at being separated from his wife and child.

In
a letter dated February 20, 1945 from Seymour, Victoria he talks of ways of
getting out of the army to be with Myrtle and ‘young Bobby’. If all else fails,
he suggests that Myrtle and Bobby might be able to join him.

It
wouldn’t be much for you, love, but everybody else is getting their wife up
here, I don’t see why I can’t be doing the same. I mean I seem to be the
loneliest guy about here, Myrtle.

He
returns to the idea later in the same letter.

I’ll
have to try to persuade you to come up here, love, because I can’t live without
you, darl. See what you’ve done to me, love, made me love you like that. 
I never think of going out with another girl. It just doesn’t appeal to me
anymore, darl. Yet one time I used to be the biggest flirt going ... all I want
in this world is to get home to you and get with you. I’m not worried about
home, love, it’s you I want.

On
the last page of the letter he returns again, but with less optimism, to the
suggestion that Myrtle and Bobby join him in Seymour.

I
guess it’s not much of an idea, love, because we are not in a position to
afford it, are we darl?

In
another letter, undated but written around the same time, he once again laments
that he is unable to get out to be with her and asks if there is anything she
wants.

I
want you to have anything you desire, love, and if I can get it you will have
it love
.

Myrtle
apparently asked him to get her a camera because in another letter he
apologises that he was not able to get one in Seymour and promises to try to
get her one in Melbourne when he is transferred to the hospital there.

Not
all his letters have survived the years but they must have written daily to
each other because later in the same letter he comments:

I
haven’t had a letter from you today, Myrtle. I guess I will get it this
afternoon, love.

All
of his letters start with ‘Dearest Myrtle’ and end with ‘your ever loving
husband’ and several rows of kisses. Wherever he could find space on the
lettergram he added more kisses and messages like ‘all my love to you, darl’.
He asks about his son in each letter. In one he writes:

Gosh,
Bobby is getting a big fellow, isn’t he? He’s not very tall though.

Myrtle
apparently took a photo of Bobby, probably with a camera borrowed from her new
mother-in-law, and sent it to George. I am not sure how tall he expected a
child of less than six months to be!

 Myrtle
must have also made mention of Bobby being ill, for George goes on to say:

Myrtle
what’s this about him dying? He’s not looking that bad is he love? He’s not
going to die - look who his parents are! Anyway, if he is sick, send me a
telegram and I will see if they will give me some compassionate leave.

The
reference to Myrtle’s fear that Bobby might be dying is interesting. Mothers
who have been separated from their babies have reported experiencing such fears
with subsequent children, believing their child might die as punishment for
‘abandoning’ their previous child or children.

After
receiving a bone graft at Heidelberg Hospital in Melbourne to repair a wrist
injury, George was finally reunited with his family when he was discharged from
the army in March 1945 and returned to Orbost.

The
township of Orbost is a small community in the East Gippsland Shire 375
kilometres east of Melbourne. It is part of the territorial home of the Kurnai
people who once occupied the whole of East Gippsland. The town is situated on
the banks of the Snowy River with its mouth a picturesque ten-minute drive
away.

Established
in 1842, Orbost was initially a farming community but a significant timber
industry developed due to the area’s rich forestry resources and the 1939
fires, one of Australia’s worst natural disasters. It had been a hot, dry
summer during 1938 and 1939 with fires breaking out over the state. On January
13, 1939 (known as Black Friday) temperatures reached over 45 degrees Celsius.
A northerly wind hit the state and the fires became one massive fire front. Seventy
one people died. More than 20 000 square kilometres of land were burnt
including several towns, 1300 homes and 69 sawmills.

Prior
to 1939, Victoria's major sawmilling industry had been concentrated in the
mountain ash forests of the Central Highlands close to Melbourne. However, the
fires destroyed the bulk of the forests and mills in this area. The demand for
timber to service the post-war housing boom was urgent. The sawmilling industry
had to be restructured and relocated. East Gippsland, with its rich timber
resources, was the ideal choice. It was the timber industry that later provided
my father with an income that enabled him to (just) support his growing family.

When
Myrtle and George, my mother and father, began their life together in Orbost,
Australian society was similar to that in countries like the USA and Britain at
the time. Mainstream Australia was predominately ‘white’ people descended from
the early convicts and settlers who, in the main, were from the United Kingdom.
England was considered ‘The Mother Country’.

People
were conservative and resistant to change. New ideas, even concepts as simple
and innocent as coffee espresso machines, outdoor dining and kerbside cafes
were met with horrified opposition and legal wrangles. The resistance to any
modification of the clearly defined roles of men and women was such that
changes were inconceivable. Men were expected to fill the role of family bread
winner. Women were expected to be good wives and mothers by staying at home and
caring for their children and their husbands. Divorce was condemned as
shameful. The woman, whose job it was to keep the family together, was
considered to be at fault in the event of a marriage breakdown. There were no
support services for divorcees with or without children. Any woman on her own
whether a divorcee or a widow was viewed with suspicion. They were often
socially excluded, especially in country towns.

Australian
society was transformed during the 1950s by thousands of new migrants from
Britain, Greece, Italy and other European countries. These were boom times for
the island continent. The national shortage of workers was filled by the new
migrants who were employed on construction projects such as the Snowy Mountains
Hydro-Electric Scheme, which diverted water from the Snowy River to make
electricity.

With
a growing family and little money, my parents would not have had time to think
too much about the changes taking place in Australia. By this time, Orbost was
well established as a prosperous centre for forestry and agricultural
industries and a service town for the outlying areas with a population of
approximately 2000.  In the 1950s, Orbost’s local timber industry began to
expand dramatically in response to Australia’s need for timber to supply the
building trade. Dad, who trained as a butcher’s apprentice before the war and
worked on local farms immediately after the war, had now joined the timber
industry where future prospects were promising.

Sometimes,
during the school holidays and at weekends, Dad would take us all out to the
woodcutters’ camp.

There
were men everywhere, some with axes and some with saws: strong men with the
broad shoulders and calloused hands of hard-working bushmen. White Australians
with faces tanned to mahogany brown from daily exposure to the sun were barely
discernible from Aboriginal Australians. Some men worked with shirt sleeves
rolled up, revealing their tanned forearms. Others wore blue or white singlets
fully exposing their muscled arms. They all wore long pants and boots and most
heads were covered by hats or berets.

The
work environment of these tough men exposed them to danger at every turn. Death
could claim any one of them without notice.  Men were sometimes killed
when trapped under trees or tractors or killed in accidents with machinery. If
they were bitten by a spider or a snake they had to do the best they could
without medical expertise. Accidents with a saw or axe could result in
injuries; serious and not so serious. Men with finger tips missing, half a finger
or a toe missing were not an unusual sight among the timber workers.

They
worked ten to twelve hours a day for six days of the week with Sundays reserved
for sharpening tools and any housekeeping they deemed necessary to do. What
time they had free was spent playing cards, telling tales and singing songs.

Despite
the rough conditions, they were a happy lot; calling through the trees to each
other, insulting each other with cheerful grins and joking together. Italians,
Australians and men from Eastern Europe worked and lived as a large family
unit. Most of them were family men who enjoyed having Mum and us kids visit.
When we arrived, they waved to us and called out various welcomes.

“G’day.”
“Ciao.” “Hey, kids.”

 Working
out in the bush and camping out for a week or more at a time, the men became
accustomed to using uninhibited language so one of them would issue a warning
for everyone to be careful when we were there.

“Righto,
you blokes, mind your Ps and Qs now.”

Mum
smiled in acknowledgement of their respect.

My
brothers and I loved to watch the felling of a tree. When we saw Dad sizing up
a tall tree we could hardly contain our excitement.

“Are
you going to chop down a tree?” my brothers asked.

“Maybe,”
said my father, revealing his broad forehead as he pushed his hat back slightly
and craned his neck to scan the line of the tree.

He
was assessing the distance and direction of the tree’s drop to make sure it
would fall clear of other trees. Plummeting branches from above, or ‘widow
makers’ as the men called them, were swift and silent killers. Affected
branches that did not break off were even worse because, although they stayed
on the tree, they could fall at anytime, catching workers below unawares to
cause serious injury or death.  Dad also needed to make sure everyone was
clear of the path the tree would fall along.

The
other men continued with their work: some trimmed fallen trees and cut away any
remaining branches, some men barked trimmed trees and pairs of men with
crosscut saws sliced trunks into logs. Dad, sleeves already rolled up, took up
his axe and stood legs apart by the tree. Mum gathered us into a spot where we
would be safe but still able to observe.

We
watched Dad’s lithe body and supple movements, as he brought his axe down swiftly
stroke after stroke, to cut a scarf in the tree which would guide its fall. The
smell of the tree’s sap was stronger with each blow.

When
he was satisfied with the scarf cut, Dad went around to the other side of the
tree, removing his shirt and throwing it over a tree stump as he did so. His
white armless singlet revealed his broad shoulders. Wedges of wood whistled
through the air as his axe cut deeper into the tree’s trunk. His face showed
intense concentration and perspiration oozed over his forehead and cheeks. By
the time the tree began to lean forward, the damp of perspiration showed
through his singlet at his shoulder blades and across his chest. He stepped
clear of the tree with a glance at us to make sure we were safe.

“Timber!”
he yelled.

“Timber!”
My brothers exchanged grins as they echoed the call.

Everyone
stopped to watch as the tree leaned and groaned. Its roots separated from earth
with a creak. The lofty giant headed inexorably to the ground, shuddering
through the foliage of its neighbours to land with a loud crack.

Bobby
and Maxie ran to the fallen tree. They scrambled along the trunk, checking the
branches for birds’ nests that might have eggs in it. My mother did not usually
allow them to take eggs from nests but she knew birds could not return to the
nests in felled trees. Unable to find a nest, Bobby and Maxie turned their
attention to the tree itself.

“Can
we help with the tree, Dad?

“Yeah,
can we help, Dad?”

“You
can but not right now. You can help bark the tree later, if you like.”

That
was the job my brothers liked best; stripping the bark off the tree to unveil
the smooth cream trunk, greasy with eucalyptus oil. They also loved gathering
witchetty grubs which they found in some logs after the men split them. They
would give them to Bluey, the camp cook, who grilled them on the coals of the
fire. Witchetty grubs are the fat, wriggling white larvae of moths. I left the
eating of these delicacies, much prized by the Aboriginal people, to my
brothers.

Mum
usually took us for a walk through the bush while Dad was working. Sometimes
the bush was pretty with yellow wattles, brown boronia flowers, crimson
bottlebrush or gum trees with bluish leaves. The smell of tree bark and
eucalyptus oil fused with the smell of earth and damp leaves on the ground.
When you are deep in the bush it is not hard to understand why the Aboriginal
people believe
mrarts
(ghosts of ancestors)
wander there. The
bush can be full of sounds one minute, birds whistling and chattering, breezes whispering
and trees swishing, then deeply silent the next, creating the sense of an
unseen presence. Luckily for us,
mrarts
were mostly only seen at night.

 On
our walks, my brothers would scramble on ahead, jumping over fallen logs,
searching for animal burrows and kicking aside sticks to disturb lizards and
goannas which were always too fast for them to catch. Like my brothers, I loved
to run along the creek beds, stopping to catch frogs and watch them jump from
my hands back into the water.

We
would see beautiful birds like rainbow lorikeets and honey eaters and
occasionally hear the threatening scream of the sugar glider protecting its
food, perhaps from a stealthy bird. Mum would point out the wildflowers to me:
native bluebells and orchids and even native buttercups. Our walk in the bush
was a wilderness adventure.

The
faint smell of wood smoke greeted us when we returned to the woodcutters’ camp.
The men had stirred the camp fire, ready for ‘smoko’. That was when they
stopped work and gathered around the fire, sitting on tree stumps and logs
ready for tea, cake and smokes. Some of them rolled their own cigarettes and
others smoked pipes. I loved the smell of pipe tobacco.

For
making tea, they had an old blackened billy can, fashioned from a tin that once
contained canned peaches.  A wire handle had been looped through holes
punched on either side of the can. The serrated edge caused by opening the tin
with a can-opener had been filed to a smooth finish. The billy was suspended
over the fire on thick wire which was held up by two sticks on either side of
the fire; far enough away not to catch alight. The sturdy sticks had been
forked at the top to allow the wire to slip through and be held in place.

When
the water in the billy was boiling, Bluey threw a handful of tea in. Bluey was
a big man with thick red hair and freckles all over his face. His old hat was
held together in places with large safety pins.

“Hey,
Bluey,” called one of the men. “That’s not dynamite you’re throwin’ in that
billy, is it?”

Bluey
joined in the laughter with the men. Throwing dynamite in the billy was a
standing joke. Apparently, back in the 1800s a man ‘up around Buchan’ took it
into his head to thaw some dynamite in a billy-can over his camp fire. He
thawed the dynamite but, alas, the explosion killed him instantly.

Bobby
and Maxie might have been excited about the possibility of dynamite in Bluey’s
billy but I was glad it contained tea leaves.

After
a few seconds Bluey removed the billy from the fire and placed it next to the hot
coals, beating the outside of it with a stick to make the tea leaves sink to
the bottom. Bobby and Maxie groaned in disappointment.

“Ooooh,
isn’t he going to swing the billy, Dad?”

Using
centrifugal force by swinging the billy was another way of getting the tea
leaves to sink to the bottom. Dad often did it when he boiled the billy at
home. We all loved to watch. My brothers studied the process carefully because
Dad had promised they could do it when they were old enough.

“Why
don’t you ask him?” Dad said.

Bobby
called to Bluey. “Are ya gonna swing the billy, Bluey?”

“Handle’s
too hot, young fella. I’d burn me hand off,” said Bluey, with a wink at my
father.

“Oooooh,”
Bobby and Maxie chorused their disappointment.

However,
Bluey moved the billy away from the coals. After a couple of minutes he checked
the heat of the handle by lifting it up with a stick and gingerly tapping it
with his fingers.

Bobby
and Maxie waited. They nudged each other in excitement when Bluey lifted the
billy from the ground. Then, with arm at full stretch, he swung the billy
several times in a wide vertical circle. My brothers mimicked his swing with
their own arms.

When
‘the show’ was over, Bluey used an old piece of cloth to protect his hands as
he tilted the billy and poured strong tea into each man’s enamel mug. Most of
the men drank their tea black with lots of sugar; it was difficult to keep milk
fresh in the bush. However, sometimes they had a can of Sunshine Full Cream
Powdered Milk and could throw some into their mugs of tea or mix the powder
with water to make liquid milk. My mother often made milk the same way at home.

Mum
usually baked a couple of Madeira cakes for the men for their morning tea. She
cut off a large slice for each worker. They tucked into her cakes and devoured
them in seconds. Except for the occasional appreciative grunt when eating Mum’s
cake, most of the men were quiet during smoko. Bushmen were often quiet by
nature but they also needed to conserve their energy for the rest of the day’s
work. Sometimes, however, they told us stories.

One
day when we were sitting around the camp fire we heard the sound of someone not
far away, chopping down a tree with an axe.

“Listen,”
said Bluey.

Bluey
looked across at Dad and smiled.

“Matilda,”
said Dad.

I
pricked my ears up. Matilda? I had not heard of a woman chopping down trees.

“Can
you hear her, Brigid?” said my father.

I
nodded. I was about to ask who Matilda was but Dad continued.

“That’s
Matilda,” he said. “She copies all the sounds we make.”

I
still did not understand. Did that mean she wasn’t really chopping down a tree?
Bobby, being the eldest, already knew about Matilda so he enlightened me.

“Matilda
is a lyrebird,” he said.

Now
I understood. I knew about lyrebirds. My mother had told me that a lyrebird was
a brown bird about the size of a chook with a tail like a peacock only not as
colourful. She said lyrebirds could mimic any sound they heard. However, I had
not realised that they could represent the sound so accurately. Matilda’s axe
chopping was exactly like the real thing. Bluey grinned at my look of
astonishment.

“It’s
Matilda all right,” he said, his broad grin making his freckles dance. “She can
copy anything and get it spot on like the original. And ya know what? Matilda
can play the mouth organ better than me.”

In
the evenings it was the habit of the men to have a sing-a-long before they went
to bed. Bluey played the mouth organ, some of the others played the gum leaves,
someone else played a tune on a comb and somebody banged on a 44 gallon drum
with a couple of sticks.

Bluey
called out to the other men. “Remember that night Matilda was playin’ the mouth
organ?”

Voices
called back. Heads nodded. Men laughed.

“She
really had me goin’ that night,” said Bluey. “We were all just sittin’ around
here tired and quiet and waitin’ for the billy to boil when we heard someone in
the bush playin’
Waltzing Matilda
on a mouth organ. Fair dinkum! You
coulda knocked me down with a feather.”

“Too
right!” someone called.

Bluey
shook his head and laughed at the memory.

“I
thought it was some codger out there in the bush,” he said to me, “so we went
off to see who it was but whenever we got close to the sound it’d stop. Then
it’d start up again in another direction and further way. So off we’d go in the
direction of the music and, blow me down, if it didn’t move to another spot
again, still playin’ the same tune. I couldn’t work it out.”