In Sicily, when Joe was about 8 years old, his father stopped his truck on the road at the bottom of their farm. The farm sloped back up the hillside on the high side and the ground fell away sharply on the other side of the road to form a ravine. Joe's father told him to follow, and he got out of the truck and looked down into the ravine.
He took a big lot of notes out of his wallet and held them in one hand. "You see all this money, Guisseppe?"
"Yes father, I see it."
Joe's father had supernatural strength, he was the strongest man Joe's ever known, but he concealed his strength and was never one to show it off. He worked all day without stopping, not even for lunch. With his other hand he reached down and grabbed the front of Joe's shirt, lifting him off the ground so he could see well down into the ravine.
"If you fell down there Guisseppe, you'd break a leg or be badly injured in some way, and you wouldn't be able to climb out. If you had all this money in your pocket it would do you no good. But if you had a friend up here who knew you'd fallen, he would help you and you would get out. Remember this Guisseppe all your life, wherever you go, having a friend is more important than having money." Joe said this was planted in his brain, right in the front, and he's lived his life by it.
Joe told me that just as his father was gifted with great strength, and his brother with the ability to see the future, his gift was healing hands. He's been a trainor at Gembrook Football Club since 1962 where his massaging of injured players is legendary. He showed me his massage room, also adorned with photographs, where he massages anyone who rings up for no charge. He's the fourth person, one each in four generations of his family who has this gift. His grandmother knew he had it when she saw him nursing a sick lamb when he was a small boy.
Not once in all his life has he charged for this service, despite being a qualified masseur. To legally perform his role at the football club he did formal training. He showed me his certificate with pride. He says it's a gift he must share, and his reward, which makes him so happy, is when people ring him up to say they are better.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Licodia Eubea
Marguerita rang last week, about 7.00am one morning. Lib wasn't working that day so I hadn't been up long. I croaked my first word for the day, "Hello."
"Is that you , Mr. Williams?"
I didn't answer straight away, trying to pick the voice.
"Did I wake you up?"
"No, I've been up a while. I'm sorting some washing. How are you Marguerita?"
"I'm good, very good. Hey listen, did you get any of those plants for me?"
"What plants?"
"I can't remember their name. You know, the ones I asked you about a while back. You were going to try and get some for me."
"Oh yeah, the white iris. No, I haven't found any. But now that you've reminded me, I'll have another crack. I forget things you know."
"That's a sign of old age. It happens to me. It'd be good if you get some. Now's the time to split them up and plant. How's your wife?"
"Not bad, a little better I'd say. She's not working today so she's in bed. She still gets very tired."
"That's what I was like. She needs lots of rest. What's happening about the tumour? What are they doing about it?"
"She's booked in for another MRI in February. They want to check it to see if it's grown. You made a good recovery after your operation."
"Yeah I did, but I've had more treatment. They found more tumours, more in the head. I can't have those MRI's, because of my pacemaker. They do blood tests and other things. They bombed the tumours with chemicals and stuff. They reckon they got 'em. Do you help with the washing?"
Marguerita always asks about Lib's tumour on her pituitary. It's what she had. Lib and her have never met. Marguerita wants me to take Lib out to her place so they can talk about it, but Lib hasn't taken up on it.
"Yeah, I do most of the washing, I suppose."
"You're a good boy, that's what she needs, lots of help. And going to work is the best thing for her. She's got to keep doing that. I gotta go, it's goin' to be hot today. Bye."
I hadn't really tried to find any white iris for her, I've been so busy. Where the bloody hell was I going to find them? One of those things I'd not get around to!
A couple of days later I was at the farm and I saw a new garden bed in the front lawn that had been recently planted out with what looked like iris, and edged neatly with timber slat, reminding me of Marguerita's request, so I told mum about it. She laughed and said, "I've got lots of white iris, that new bed in the front is all white, and all them along the side of the back shed are white. There's too many there, it'd be good to take some out, do the others good. Help yourself, as many as you want." Well that was an easy one, I thought.
Before going home on Friday afternoon I dug a big bag of iris tubers in less than five minutes, happy that Marguerita would get her iris, and that it was so easy the way it evolved. On Saturday afternoon about 3 o'clock I drove out to Marguerita's farm and knocked on the door. The big shed door was open and there were two vehicles inside, but no one answered. I thought maybe Marguerita and Joe were having an afternoon nap so I took the new pair of pruning shears from the van and started on the big biotis conifer encroaching on a flower bed of petunias and pansies. I'd told Marguerita some time ago I'd be back with some shears to do it one day.
After a few minutes Joe came out the back door. "How are you my friend?" he said, coming over to shake my hand. He'd been having a sleep after working all morning in his tomato patch, before getting back into it when it cooled off a bit, he explained. I'd never had a long conversation with Joe. He's always friendly when we meet in town, he knows and appreciates I'm helpful to Marguerita, but he's not at the farm when I am, which is usually during the week. He works at Red Gem.
I showed him the bag of iris which I'd put in the shade of a big camellia and said I brought along these new sharp shears to test drive. "If you don't mind me asking Joe, when did you come to Australia? Marguerita told me she came to this farm in 1958, the year she married. Had you been out here long?"
"I came to Australia in 1954, I was 17 years old, born in 1937."
"Did you come because there wasn't work in Italy?"
"Nah, there was heaps of work, but it was all hard, a lot of people had migrated, looking for opportunity. My brother was out here, he came in 1949, so it wasn't surprising for me to follow. Would you like to come inside and have a drink and I'll tell you my family's story?"
I jumped at the chance to learn more of the Italian/Gembrook connection. I'd never been in the house before. Joe sat me at the kitchen table. He offered me a beer, although he said didn't drink alcohol himself. He went outside to the shed and came back with a can of diet coke. The kitchen walls were adorned with family photos and blow up aerial shots of the farm and an Italian village. For the next two hours he talked, and brought down photos to show me up close. His story centred on his father. The stubby of beer Joe gave me had been in his fridge a long while. It was flat as a tack and tasted odd when I finally got the cap off. I didn't mention it, out of courtesy, and drank it slowly, right down to the last cloudy sediment in the glass.
Joe's father migrated to America in the early 1900's and lived and worked 12 years in Brooklyn New York. He came back to Italy during WW1 to serve in the army. On the way back on the boat he knew he was making a big mistake and suffered severe depression. He tried to suicide by jumping overboard but this was prevented by other passengers. After army service he returned to his home village, Licodia Eubea in the provence of Catania, in Sicily. He did not speak one word to anyone for a period of time, recovering eventually to marry. Joe showed me a picture of his mother and father taken soon after they married. He was 31, tall and strikingly handsome, she was 15, tiny by comparison. They had eight children in all, six born alive. Joe was the youngest.
From their farm you can see Mt.Etna in the distance. In the winter the snow line comes well down to about halfway and in summer it remains on the peak. the land is fertile and grows everything imagineable. The farms are small, and people live in the village and travel to their farms to work, a family might own three or four, of say 10 acres each. Joe's father had 300 olive trees on one farm and cropping land elsewhere. They grew wheat, barley, broad beans and all manner of vegetables. Each year they'd trek into the mountains maybe 8 hours away by horse and cart and stay for two weeks at a time, growing share crops on bigger properties. The landowners would provide the seed which had to be paid back two or three times over before the farmer made anything. Joe said, "Just as today and always, the rich get richer while the poor do the work."
The Romans thousands of years ago prized the Sicilian farmland. The crops were prodigious and the harvest came weeks earier than the rest of Italy. There was an abundance of good clear water, as there still is, underground and easily reached by well and bore. Marguerita's family also came from Licodea Eubea. The D'Angelo's had quarries from where rock was taken and 'cooked' with big fires in a time honoured method dating way back, before being smashed manually into crushed rock and used as building material.
One of Joe's older brothers went into the army near the end of WW2. This brother had phsycic ability. When he came home he said to his father, "There's no future here for me, I want migrate to America or Australia." His father advised him to choose Australia, it was a newer nation that needed building, with more opportunity.
I told Joe that Joe Lamendola once told me a story about his father who made a huge amount of money growing spuds in 1956 and then went 'home' to Italy, only to find he was not happy there, returning again to Australia. Amazing to me, the land that Joe Lamendolas father farmed when he made his fortune was the one and same where we sat, which Marguerita's father bought with the profits he also made just over the hill in 1956. When Joe Lamendola's father went 'home' to Italy, it was to his home village of Licodia Eubea.(He came back after missing the big farms and open space.)
When Joe's brother left Italy in 1949 he came to Melbourne and worked in factories Monday to Friday and then went to Emerald/Avonsleigh on weekends working for the Falcones digging spuds, as did Joe himself later. The Falcones were also from Licodia Eubea.
I told Joe that Gay Fialla told me of her grandfather Galenti who first came to Australia in the early 1900's and you can guess, the Galentis came from the same area. Nearly all the Italian migrants to come to Gembrook came from the same village or nearby. I hope to visit one day. It has about 3000 residents. About 4-5000 of those that left, and descendants, live in the U.S. and Australia. With new technologies, Catania is now a wealthy provence from where wine and table grapes in particular are exported around the world.
"Is that you , Mr. Williams?"
I didn't answer straight away, trying to pick the voice.
"Did I wake you up?"
"No, I've been up a while. I'm sorting some washing. How are you Marguerita?"
"I'm good, very good. Hey listen, did you get any of those plants for me?"
"What plants?"
"I can't remember their name. You know, the ones I asked you about a while back. You were going to try and get some for me."
"Oh yeah, the white iris. No, I haven't found any. But now that you've reminded me, I'll have another crack. I forget things you know."
"That's a sign of old age. It happens to me. It'd be good if you get some. Now's the time to split them up and plant. How's your wife?"
"Not bad, a little better I'd say. She's not working today so she's in bed. She still gets very tired."
"That's what I was like. She needs lots of rest. What's happening about the tumour? What are they doing about it?"
"She's booked in for another MRI in February. They want to check it to see if it's grown. You made a good recovery after your operation."
"Yeah I did, but I've had more treatment. They found more tumours, more in the head. I can't have those MRI's, because of my pacemaker. They do blood tests and other things. They bombed the tumours with chemicals and stuff. They reckon they got 'em. Do you help with the washing?"
Marguerita always asks about Lib's tumour on her pituitary. It's what she had. Lib and her have never met. Marguerita wants me to take Lib out to her place so they can talk about it, but Lib hasn't taken up on it.
"Yeah, I do most of the washing, I suppose."
"You're a good boy, that's what she needs, lots of help. And going to work is the best thing for her. She's got to keep doing that. I gotta go, it's goin' to be hot today. Bye."
I hadn't really tried to find any white iris for her, I've been so busy. Where the bloody hell was I going to find them? One of those things I'd not get around to!
A couple of days later I was at the farm and I saw a new garden bed in the front lawn that had been recently planted out with what looked like iris, and edged neatly with timber slat, reminding me of Marguerita's request, so I told mum about it. She laughed and said, "I've got lots of white iris, that new bed in the front is all white, and all them along the side of the back shed are white. There's too many there, it'd be good to take some out, do the others good. Help yourself, as many as you want." Well that was an easy one, I thought.
Before going home on Friday afternoon I dug a big bag of iris tubers in less than five minutes, happy that Marguerita would get her iris, and that it was so easy the way it evolved. On Saturday afternoon about 3 o'clock I drove out to Marguerita's farm and knocked on the door. The big shed door was open and there were two vehicles inside, but no one answered. I thought maybe Marguerita and Joe were having an afternoon nap so I took the new pair of pruning shears from the van and started on the big biotis conifer encroaching on a flower bed of petunias and pansies. I'd told Marguerita some time ago I'd be back with some shears to do it one day.
After a few minutes Joe came out the back door. "How are you my friend?" he said, coming over to shake my hand. He'd been having a sleep after working all morning in his tomato patch, before getting back into it when it cooled off a bit, he explained. I'd never had a long conversation with Joe. He's always friendly when we meet in town, he knows and appreciates I'm helpful to Marguerita, but he's not at the farm when I am, which is usually during the week. He works at Red Gem.
I showed him the bag of iris which I'd put in the shade of a big camellia and said I brought along these new sharp shears to test drive. "If you don't mind me asking Joe, when did you come to Australia? Marguerita told me she came to this farm in 1958, the year she married. Had you been out here long?"
"I came to Australia in 1954, I was 17 years old, born in 1937."
"Did you come because there wasn't work in Italy?"
"Nah, there was heaps of work, but it was all hard, a lot of people had migrated, looking for opportunity. My brother was out here, he came in 1949, so it wasn't surprising for me to follow. Would you like to come inside and have a drink and I'll tell you my family's story?"
I jumped at the chance to learn more of the Italian/Gembrook connection. I'd never been in the house before. Joe sat me at the kitchen table. He offered me a beer, although he said didn't drink alcohol himself. He went outside to the shed and came back with a can of diet coke. The kitchen walls were adorned with family photos and blow up aerial shots of the farm and an Italian village. For the next two hours he talked, and brought down photos to show me up close. His story centred on his father. The stubby of beer Joe gave me had been in his fridge a long while. It was flat as a tack and tasted odd when I finally got the cap off. I didn't mention it, out of courtesy, and drank it slowly, right down to the last cloudy sediment in the glass.
Joe's father migrated to America in the early 1900's and lived and worked 12 years in Brooklyn New York. He came back to Italy during WW1 to serve in the army. On the way back on the boat he knew he was making a big mistake and suffered severe depression. He tried to suicide by jumping overboard but this was prevented by other passengers. After army service he returned to his home village, Licodia Eubea in the provence of Catania, in Sicily. He did not speak one word to anyone for a period of time, recovering eventually to marry. Joe showed me a picture of his mother and father taken soon after they married. He was 31, tall and strikingly handsome, she was 15, tiny by comparison. They had eight children in all, six born alive. Joe was the youngest.
From their farm you can see Mt.Etna in the distance. In the winter the snow line comes well down to about halfway and in summer it remains on the peak. the land is fertile and grows everything imagineable. The farms are small, and people live in the village and travel to their farms to work, a family might own three or four, of say 10 acres each. Joe's father had 300 olive trees on one farm and cropping land elsewhere. They grew wheat, barley, broad beans and all manner of vegetables. Each year they'd trek into the mountains maybe 8 hours away by horse and cart and stay for two weeks at a time, growing share crops on bigger properties. The landowners would provide the seed which had to be paid back two or three times over before the farmer made anything. Joe said, "Just as today and always, the rich get richer while the poor do the work."
The Romans thousands of years ago prized the Sicilian farmland. The crops were prodigious and the harvest came weeks earier than the rest of Italy. There was an abundance of good clear water, as there still is, underground and easily reached by well and bore. Marguerita's family also came from Licodea Eubea. The D'Angelo's had quarries from where rock was taken and 'cooked' with big fires in a time honoured method dating way back, before being smashed manually into crushed rock and used as building material.
One of Joe's older brothers went into the army near the end of WW2. This brother had phsycic ability. When he came home he said to his father, "There's no future here for me, I want migrate to America or Australia." His father advised him to choose Australia, it was a newer nation that needed building, with more opportunity.
I told Joe that Joe Lamendola once told me a story about his father who made a huge amount of money growing spuds in 1956 and then went 'home' to Italy, only to find he was not happy there, returning again to Australia. Amazing to me, the land that Joe Lamendolas father farmed when he made his fortune was the one and same where we sat, which Marguerita's father bought with the profits he also made just over the hill in 1956. When Joe Lamendola's father went 'home' to Italy, it was to his home village of Licodia Eubea.(He came back after missing the big farms and open space.)
When Joe's brother left Italy in 1949 he came to Melbourne and worked in factories Monday to Friday and then went to Emerald/Avonsleigh on weekends working for the Falcones digging spuds, as did Joe himself later. The Falcones were also from Licodia Eubea.
I told Joe that Gay Fialla told me of her grandfather Galenti who first came to Australia in the early 1900's and you can guess, the Galentis came from the same area. Nearly all the Italian migrants to come to Gembrook came from the same village or nearby. I hope to visit one day. It has about 3000 residents. About 4-5000 of those that left, and descendants, live in the U.S. and Australia. With new technologies, Catania is now a wealthy provence from where wine and table grapes in particular are exported around the world.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
An Italian Adventurer
"I've known you since you were three years old. I watched you work on the farm through your childhood. I know you'll work hard and succeed if it's at all possible. Now that you are married and starting on your own, I'll lend you the money without your father being guarantor."
Gay Fialla was greatly relieved at her bank managers words. She had been petrified approaching him for the loan of 300 pounds*. (*I don't know if it's possible to find the symbol for pounds on a computer-- for anyone too young to know, a pound was money before the introduction of decimal currency in 1966. A pound was the equivalent of $2 at the changeover. I would guess allowing for inflation 300 pounds would be worth $50,000 plus today. When talking of pounds I usually use the slang word 'quid' to avoid confusion with the imperial weight scale but this doesn't seem appropriate relating Gay's story. She didn't use the word quid.) This was the early 1960's when bank managers often stayed at a branch, and money was hard to borrow.
The bank was in Emerald where Gay grew up, living on a farm about opposite to where the secondary college now stands. Gay and husband Bart made no profit on their first crop, the spud price was poor that year. Gay fronted up to the bank manager again the next year. Again he lent the necessary 300 pounds. The second year was also a bad year, the price again poor. They couldn't pay the bank debt. Gay and Bart were ready to walk away with nothing, Then Bart said one night, "Let's give it one more go. Go and see the bank manager and see if he'll lend us more money." Bart knew nothing but growing spuds.
To Gay's amazement, the bank manager lent them more money. Maybe he saw it as the best way of getting a return on the bank's money in the end. The spud crops were on land owned by Gay's father at Gembrook. The third year was the bonanza crop and price of '65/66, (previously recorded in this blog when Julian Dyer married and made enough money to pay for his first house). Gay and Bart paid their debt to the bank and purchased their own farm in Gembrook.
I enjoyed coffee and cake in Gay's kitchen as she told me this story. One of her daughters, a nurse, is doing a cake decorating course as a hobby and the cake was one of her projects. It was superb cake. I asked Gay when her family first came to Australia as I find the Italian influence on the district a fascinating story.
Gay's maiden name was Deluniversity (pardon please if spelling is incorrect). Her father worked initially for the Falcone's in Emerald, and met and married Gay's mother, a Galenti, who came to Australia with her parents as a thirteen year old girl. Her father, Gay's grandfather Galenti, must have been a bit of an adventurer, and first came to Australia almost a hundred years ago. He made 4 trips to America and three to Australia, each time returning to his wife in their village in Italy.
After returning home the last time, having lost a 27 year old daughter to illness while he was away, he said to his wife he was going back to Australia to live permanently. He was tiring of the travel and two of his sons had migrated to Australia, living I think on a farm at Corinella. His wife didn't want to leave Italy so they more or less agreed on a permanent separation. After this decision was made, Gay's grandmother overheard neighbours discussing it and one of them said something to this effect, "Oh well, it won't be long after he's gone, she won't bother to cook and she'll lose her other daughter." This galvanized Gay's grandmother to pack up and leave her village and accompany her husband to Australia. I wondered, on hearing this, if the lost daughter suffered anorexia, which would not have been undersood then.
The Galenti history is recorded in the Pakenham library, if I'd like to find it, Gay told me. Her grandfather worked at the spud farms around Corinella, then hitched rides on trains to Queensland with his swag on his back to work on the canefields. The Italian workers, she said, got on well in Australia because they didn't take offence at the dago and wog jokes and took it all in good fun, and worked hard.
I will follow it up in the library one day. I only wish Gay's grandfather wrote a book about his travels through America and Australia. He must have been an amazing fellow.
Gay Fialla was greatly relieved at her bank managers words. She had been petrified approaching him for the loan of 300 pounds*. (*I don't know if it's possible to find the symbol for pounds on a computer-- for anyone too young to know, a pound was money before the introduction of decimal currency in 1966. A pound was the equivalent of $2 at the changeover. I would guess allowing for inflation 300 pounds would be worth $50,000 plus today. When talking of pounds I usually use the slang word 'quid' to avoid confusion with the imperial weight scale but this doesn't seem appropriate relating Gay's story. She didn't use the word quid.) This was the early 1960's when bank managers often stayed at a branch, and money was hard to borrow.
The bank was in Emerald where Gay grew up, living on a farm about opposite to where the secondary college now stands. Gay and husband Bart made no profit on their first crop, the spud price was poor that year. Gay fronted up to the bank manager again the next year. Again he lent the necessary 300 pounds. The second year was also a bad year, the price again poor. They couldn't pay the bank debt. Gay and Bart were ready to walk away with nothing, Then Bart said one night, "Let's give it one more go. Go and see the bank manager and see if he'll lend us more money." Bart knew nothing but growing spuds.
To Gay's amazement, the bank manager lent them more money. Maybe he saw it as the best way of getting a return on the bank's money in the end. The spud crops were on land owned by Gay's father at Gembrook. The third year was the bonanza crop and price of '65/66, (previously recorded in this blog when Julian Dyer married and made enough money to pay for his first house). Gay and Bart paid their debt to the bank and purchased their own farm in Gembrook.
I enjoyed coffee and cake in Gay's kitchen as she told me this story. One of her daughters, a nurse, is doing a cake decorating course as a hobby and the cake was one of her projects. It was superb cake. I asked Gay when her family first came to Australia as I find the Italian influence on the district a fascinating story.
Gay's maiden name was Deluniversity (pardon please if spelling is incorrect). Her father worked initially for the Falcone's in Emerald, and met and married Gay's mother, a Galenti, who came to Australia with her parents as a thirteen year old girl. Her father, Gay's grandfather Galenti, must have been a bit of an adventurer, and first came to Australia almost a hundred years ago. He made 4 trips to America and three to Australia, each time returning to his wife in their village in Italy.
After returning home the last time, having lost a 27 year old daughter to illness while he was away, he said to his wife he was going back to Australia to live permanently. He was tiring of the travel and two of his sons had migrated to Australia, living I think on a farm at Corinella. His wife didn't want to leave Italy so they more or less agreed on a permanent separation. After this decision was made, Gay's grandmother overheard neighbours discussing it and one of them said something to this effect, "Oh well, it won't be long after he's gone, she won't bother to cook and she'll lose her other daughter." This galvanized Gay's grandmother to pack up and leave her village and accompany her husband to Australia. I wondered, on hearing this, if the lost daughter suffered anorexia, which would not have been undersood then.
The Galenti history is recorded in the Pakenham library, if I'd like to find it, Gay told me. Her grandfather worked at the spud farms around Corinella, then hitched rides on trains to Queensland with his swag on his back to work on the canefields. The Italian workers, she said, got on well in Australia because they didn't take offence at the dago and wog jokes and took it all in good fun, and worked hard.
I will follow it up in the library one day. I only wish Gay's grandfather wrote a book about his travels through America and Australia. He must have been an amazing fellow.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Heinz
Heinz snapped. He grabbed his antagonist, his boss, by the throat and squeezed. His boss was English. Heinz migrated to Australia from Germany in 1960, aged 25. He was from Koln, a German city destroyed by allied bombing in WW2 and rebuilt amidst post war poverty and hardship. First thing every morning Heinz's boss would come in pretending to fire a make believe submachine gun at him, then put two fingers sideways under his nose doing a Hitler imitation.
As the boss gurgled his eyes expanded, resembling two light bulbs. Heinz dropped his his right hand down and grabbed his balls. Squeezing, he picked him up and tossed him across the room. The boss screamed hurtling through the air then lay motionless after crashing into the opposite wall.
Heinz was sacked from his job as a head baker at Tip Top. The job was well paid, 28 quid a week, fitting for a skilled pastry/cook baker experienced in large commercial operation. There was hell to pay. The union became involved, and after a great hullabulloo the boss was also sacked, but Heinz was not reinstated.
He was desperate for work, night shift; his wife Lotte had a job in the pay office at Bosch and their daughter, who was 10 months old when they migrated, needed care during the day. He found a night shift at Humes Pipes. He picked up pipe making quickly. Not long after starting in the plant at Westall, Humes got the contract to supply pipes for the Cribbs Point/Bangholme sewer pipeline, requiring big numbers of 72 inch concrete pipes.
Management approached the pipe makers, Heinz and another German, a Hungarian, and two Maltese, explaining the urgent need to increase production and asking what length of shift they would like. The men decided a 12 hour shift from 6pm to 6am and they were paid on the basis of how many pipes they made. It was hard, dirty work but they worked well together and Heinz was earning 100 quid a week or more. In a little over 18 months he'd saved enough to buy a house for cash in Springvale.
After some years Heinz heeded a change from the heavy, dirty concreting and did a management course. He got a job as a production supervisor at a laminating and insulation company. He had no knowledge of laminating/insulation. It was a new company, and the owners and Heinz learnt together as the business expanded from one shift of eighteen workers to 3 shifts of 90 odd in total.
A few years later he left this job to go into business with a German friend in a business installing suspended ceilings. Heinz and Lotte bought a weekender at Gembrook and they liked it so much they came here to live a year later, in 1972. Heinz worked his last 9 years before retirement at the Dandenong Town Hall, in maintenance and then co-ordinating facilities and functions. He loved this job as he enjoyed dealing with people. He says he always had the gift of the gab. Lotte worked in the pay office at the protea farm. She died a couple of years ago after a long battle with cancer. Heinz continues their habit of walking their dog most mornings.
I often meet him on my walk. He's fit and debonair belying his age, with a healthy head of well groomed hair, a Prussian(?) moustache, and a walking stick under his arm. He likes a yarn. Given his personal history, it's no surprise he's a well of knowledge on many subjects. He's particularly well versed on European history. He's excitedly told me today of his grandson, an electrician, who plays 20/20 cricket in the burbs as an allrounder. He has three grandkids, the others a teacher and a nurse, children of his baby girl who came out in 1960.
I wanted to write this outline of Heinz before I forgot the details. It's a stinker of a day, a Total Fire Ban with a gusty north wind. A bushfire is a real possibility. The dog's tongues were hanging out (what long tongues dogs have!)up the Quinn Rd. hill as early as 7.15am. I have a dentist appt. at 1.15 pm and a museum meeting at 3.30. Light duties before and after is the order of the day I should say.
As the boss gurgled his eyes expanded, resembling two light bulbs. Heinz dropped his his right hand down and grabbed his balls. Squeezing, he picked him up and tossed him across the room. The boss screamed hurtling through the air then lay motionless after crashing into the opposite wall.
Heinz was sacked from his job as a head baker at Tip Top. The job was well paid, 28 quid a week, fitting for a skilled pastry/cook baker experienced in large commercial operation. There was hell to pay. The union became involved, and after a great hullabulloo the boss was also sacked, but Heinz was not reinstated.
He was desperate for work, night shift; his wife Lotte had a job in the pay office at Bosch and their daughter, who was 10 months old when they migrated, needed care during the day. He found a night shift at Humes Pipes. He picked up pipe making quickly. Not long after starting in the plant at Westall, Humes got the contract to supply pipes for the Cribbs Point/Bangholme sewer pipeline, requiring big numbers of 72 inch concrete pipes.
Management approached the pipe makers, Heinz and another German, a Hungarian, and two Maltese, explaining the urgent need to increase production and asking what length of shift they would like. The men decided a 12 hour shift from 6pm to 6am and they were paid on the basis of how many pipes they made. It was hard, dirty work but they worked well together and Heinz was earning 100 quid a week or more. In a little over 18 months he'd saved enough to buy a house for cash in Springvale.
After some years Heinz heeded a change from the heavy, dirty concreting and did a management course. He got a job as a production supervisor at a laminating and insulation company. He had no knowledge of laminating/insulation. It was a new company, and the owners and Heinz learnt together as the business expanded from one shift of eighteen workers to 3 shifts of 90 odd in total.
A few years later he left this job to go into business with a German friend in a business installing suspended ceilings. Heinz and Lotte bought a weekender at Gembrook and they liked it so much they came here to live a year later, in 1972. Heinz worked his last 9 years before retirement at the Dandenong Town Hall, in maintenance and then co-ordinating facilities and functions. He loved this job as he enjoyed dealing with people. He says he always had the gift of the gab. Lotte worked in the pay office at the protea farm. She died a couple of years ago after a long battle with cancer. Heinz continues their habit of walking their dog most mornings.
I often meet him on my walk. He's fit and debonair belying his age, with a healthy head of well groomed hair, a Prussian(?) moustache, and a walking stick under his arm. He likes a yarn. Given his personal history, it's no surprise he's a well of knowledge on many subjects. He's particularly well versed on European history. He's excitedly told me today of his grandson, an electrician, who plays 20/20 cricket in the burbs as an allrounder. He has three grandkids, the others a teacher and a nurse, children of his baby girl who came out in 1960.
I wanted to write this outline of Heinz before I forgot the details. It's a stinker of a day, a Total Fire Ban with a gusty north wind. A bushfire is a real possibility. The dog's tongues were hanging out (what long tongues dogs have!)up the Quinn Rd. hill as early as 7.15am. I have a dentist appt. at 1.15 pm and a museum meeting at 3.30. Light duties before and after is the order of the day I should say.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Norm and John
A voice called out to me from the main road as I picked up an empty stubby in J.A.C. Russell Park this morning. It was Norm Smith on his way to buy newspaper, as he does most mornings. I didn't hear what he said but, knowing Norm, it would have been something jocular or good natured. I waved and continued walking, calling out "G'day Norm, looks like it'll be a beautiful warm day."
I did my loop through the pub car park, where I picked up four empty beer cans, and was crushing the cans with my heel on the pavement in Red Rd. when a voice called, "That's a big noise you're making." It was Norm on his way back home, by now in company with John, another regular morning walker to the newsagency/post office. I crossed the road to join them.
I first got to know Norm in the early 1980's not long after Lib and I came to Gembrook. He was a regular in Col Turner's butcher shop (now 'Rubee Rose' hair dressing salon) on a Sunday morning, when Col would clean his shop and prepare for the week ahead, then have a couple of beers with whoever had turned up. Col didn't mind serving the odd customer (meat) on Sunday, and somehow beer on the morning of the Sabbath tastes extra good.
"You told me once Norm that you started work at U.S. Bus Lines in 1949, in the depot at Belgrave before you turned 15, but I can't remember what happened after that. Did you work for them all your working life as I know you drove a U.S. bus when we moved to Gembrook, before you retired."
"Yes I finished in 1996, I worked for U.S. all my working life, 47 and a half years, starting as a grease monkey. After I came back from National Service in the early fifties they moved me to the depot in the Gully. One of the drivers often didn't turn up, and by then I had a car licence, so they'd send me out with the bus so as to not upset the schedule, then because I didn't have a bus driving ticket, one of the other relief drivers would meet me along the way and take over the bus."
"That's a good effort Norm, living in the same town all your life and working for the same company."
"Yeah, my memory goes back to the thirties, somebody interviewed me a while ago for the fire brigade's website. I was about five years old when the '39 fires came. We lived in Launching Place Rd., on the high side. There was only nine houses along there then, six on the top side and three on the other. A spark started a fire somewhere down Le Souef Rd. and it took off in the grass and burned right round our house and left it standing. Mum sent someone up the pub and dad and a few blokes came and sat under the house with wet hession bags to put out embers that blew in."
I haven't known John for long, in fact I don't know his surname, but we always say hello and have a bit of a chat. He's amiable and articulate. I asked him how long he'd lived in Gembrook.
"Since 2006, when I retired. Before that we lived in Bayswater, for no particular reason except that you have to live somewhere, and it needs to be somewhere near work or transport. Like Norm I worked at the same place all my working life, 45 years at the The Herald Sun. We always liked Gembrook. We came up here a lot when we lived in Bayswater, often on weekends we'd go for a drive and have a barbecue or a picnic, at Kurth Kiln or out near the big dipper on Launching Place Rd."
"You must have started work in 1961. What did you do?"
"I started as an apprentice graphic reproducer at 15. That's to do with setting plates for newsprint. Over the years I did about 13 different jobs and ended up a manager. My last job was managing the new West Gate plant.
"So where'd you grow up if you don't mind me asking?"
"Elwood, then Heathmont by the time I started work. We had a good double brick house in Elwood but not much money. We couldn't afford a TV or many of the new things that were available, so mum worked out we could move to Heathmont into a weatherboard house and have money left over to buy some things. Funny when you look at it now, the Elwood property would be worth a $million plus, four times the value of the Heathmont house, and mum wasn't happy at Heathmont anyway."
"How'd the Herald Sun job come about?"
"I used to do a paper round. At 15 I was too old for that almost, but I was having trouble getting a job. I'd left Ferntree Gully tech in acrimonious circumstance and with poor school history, I admit I had a problem with authority, employers wouldn't look at me. The newsagent said I was the best paper boy he'd ever had and he'd put in a word for me at the paper where he had a good friend. They gave me a trial and after some time put me on. Over the years there were many changes and new technologies and after my youthful dislike of authority, I ended up in a position of authority. It's funny how things work."
I had no idea when I started walking this morning I'd be hearing stories like Norm's and John's. That's the great thing about life, and walking and talking. It's what makes Gembrook such a good community, and I hope it never loses it. I suppose it's up to us.
P.S. I was intending to write about something else today but wanted to record the above while it was fresh in my mind. (Last weekend I went out to Gay Fialla's and swapped honey for fresh eggs. I'd met her in the town during the week and she told me she had new chickens and to come out and get some eggs. We had a chat about her family's origins in Australia and Gembrook so that 'll be next. I'm behind with my blogging but I've never known January to be so full on work wise. And I have bee work to do, and wood splitting, so it dries out for winter. When I'm about to flag a big voice in my head says, "PERSIST".)
I did my loop through the pub car park, where I picked up four empty beer cans, and was crushing the cans with my heel on the pavement in Red Rd. when a voice called, "That's a big noise you're making." It was Norm on his way back home, by now in company with John, another regular morning walker to the newsagency/post office. I crossed the road to join them.
I first got to know Norm in the early 1980's not long after Lib and I came to Gembrook. He was a regular in Col Turner's butcher shop (now 'Rubee Rose' hair dressing salon) on a Sunday morning, when Col would clean his shop and prepare for the week ahead, then have a couple of beers with whoever had turned up. Col didn't mind serving the odd customer (meat) on Sunday, and somehow beer on the morning of the Sabbath tastes extra good.
"You told me once Norm that you started work at U.S. Bus Lines in 1949, in the depot at Belgrave before you turned 15, but I can't remember what happened after that. Did you work for them all your working life as I know you drove a U.S. bus when we moved to Gembrook, before you retired."
"Yes I finished in 1996, I worked for U.S. all my working life, 47 and a half years, starting as a grease monkey. After I came back from National Service in the early fifties they moved me to the depot in the Gully. One of the drivers often didn't turn up, and by then I had a car licence, so they'd send me out with the bus so as to not upset the schedule, then because I didn't have a bus driving ticket, one of the other relief drivers would meet me along the way and take over the bus."
"That's a good effort Norm, living in the same town all your life and working for the same company."
"Yeah, my memory goes back to the thirties, somebody interviewed me a while ago for the fire brigade's website. I was about five years old when the '39 fires came. We lived in Launching Place Rd., on the high side. There was only nine houses along there then, six on the top side and three on the other. A spark started a fire somewhere down Le Souef Rd. and it took off in the grass and burned right round our house and left it standing. Mum sent someone up the pub and dad and a few blokes came and sat under the house with wet hession bags to put out embers that blew in."
I haven't known John for long, in fact I don't know his surname, but we always say hello and have a bit of a chat. He's amiable and articulate. I asked him how long he'd lived in Gembrook.
"Since 2006, when I retired. Before that we lived in Bayswater, for no particular reason except that you have to live somewhere, and it needs to be somewhere near work or transport. Like Norm I worked at the same place all my working life, 45 years at the The Herald Sun. We always liked Gembrook. We came up here a lot when we lived in Bayswater, often on weekends we'd go for a drive and have a barbecue or a picnic, at Kurth Kiln or out near the big dipper on Launching Place Rd."
"You must have started work in 1961. What did you do?"
"I started as an apprentice graphic reproducer at 15. That's to do with setting plates for newsprint. Over the years I did about 13 different jobs and ended up a manager. My last job was managing the new West Gate plant.
"So where'd you grow up if you don't mind me asking?"
"Elwood, then Heathmont by the time I started work. We had a good double brick house in Elwood but not much money. We couldn't afford a TV or many of the new things that were available, so mum worked out we could move to Heathmont into a weatherboard house and have money left over to buy some things. Funny when you look at it now, the Elwood property would be worth a $million plus, four times the value of the Heathmont house, and mum wasn't happy at Heathmont anyway."
"How'd the Herald Sun job come about?"
"I used to do a paper round. At 15 I was too old for that almost, but I was having trouble getting a job. I'd left Ferntree Gully tech in acrimonious circumstance and with poor school history, I admit I had a problem with authority, employers wouldn't look at me. The newsagent said I was the best paper boy he'd ever had and he'd put in a word for me at the paper where he had a good friend. They gave me a trial and after some time put me on. Over the years there were many changes and new technologies and after my youthful dislike of authority, I ended up in a position of authority. It's funny how things work."
I had no idea when I started walking this morning I'd be hearing stories like Norm's and John's. That's the great thing about life, and walking and talking. It's what makes Gembrook such a good community, and I hope it never loses it. I suppose it's up to us.
P.S. I was intending to write about something else today but wanted to record the above while it was fresh in my mind. (Last weekend I went out to Gay Fialla's and swapped honey for fresh eggs. I'd met her in the town during the week and she told me she had new chickens and to come out and get some eggs. We had a chat about her family's origins in Australia and Gembrook so that 'll be next. I'm behind with my blogging but I've never known January to be so full on work wise. And I have bee work to do, and wood splitting, so it dries out for winter. When I'm about to flag a big voice in my head says, "PERSIST".)
Friday, January 16, 2009
Snarly Snowie and Tom the Vet
Most days on my walk I tie the dogs up in front of the post office/newsagency and go in and read the Herald Sun for two or three minutes. I check Melbourne's reservoir levels on the weather page (it fascinates me on a daily basis to see whether the levels rose or fell the day before and correlate this in my mind to the weather.... the levels are falling rapidly now that we've had hot temperatures for this week, although amazingly, due to the cool and moist December, the overall level is higher now than it was on December 1), and flick over the day's horse racing page to see if there's a horse I'd like to put a dollar on ($1 place bet only.... just makes life a little more interesting). I don't buy the paper, why would you when you can glean what you want without paying, which saves me a dollar plus (funding the bet). The newsagent doesn't mind.
A couple of weeks ago while I was checking the form, an old bloke came in and said that the older dog outside bit him on the hand when he went to pat her. He thought she was only being protective of my backpack which I leave outside, adding that it was only a warning nip. He was sucked in, he said, because the young dog is so friendly and tried to lick him to death and jump up on him, so after patting 'Pip' he went to do the same to 'Snow'. I apologized for 'Snow's bad manners. "No worries", said the old fella, "I should be more careful."
Last week 'Pip' and 'Snow' had an appointment with the new vet for annual heartworm injection, and Snow was also due for C5 vaccine (parvo etc). 'Snowie' hates vets so I was a bit worried how she'd go when Tom started sticking the thermometer up her bum and jabbing her with needles. There was no problem with 'Snowie's behaviour, Tom seems to have excellent skills. In fact when examining her teeth as part of the general check up, he found she had a split tooth. This would need extracting under anaesthetic after a week on antibiotis. If left it would, sooner or later, become infected.
The tooth was extracted on Wednesday. While she was 'out to it', he found the tooth next to it was loose so he took it out too, and while polishing her other teeth he found another small one which was decayed so out it came as well. 'Snow' made a quick recovery after a "textbook" anaesthetic and operation, and she seems a lot happier. As well as the biting incident at the post office I'd noticed she'd been snarlier than usual for a while. Probably the broken and decayed teeth were upsetting her.
Tom the vet is making quite an impact in the town. I often see him talking to people in the street and it seems his services as a vet are greatly appreciated. And he's a good man... he walks to work from somewhere down Launching Place Rd. He's coming up sometimes while I'm going back down. When I took the the dogs up for their shots he explained he's walking to work to lose some of the Christmas cheer he put on, as well as reduce by a tiny amount some carbon emission. I told him however small his contribution seemed he was doing a great thing for the earth, every day, by doing that, and his attitude needs to flow on to everyone.
"One thing I've noticed," he continued, "when you walk it makes you more aware of things like the clouds.. you have an eye on the sky wondering if it's going to rain and get you wet."
"Dead right Tom, and not only that you'll notice you become aware of a lot more...trees, birds, noises, scents, you start to use all your senses more. The car robs us of much of this, makes us immune to our own senses. And distances and seperates us from other humans."
"Youre right you know. We noticed when we were in Africa a while ago, people are so carefree, happy and friendly. Most have never owned a car."
"We noticed the same thing in rural Peru. I don't like to be critical of my own countrymen, but we've lost our way."
"Yeah. But it's different in the outback. It's somehow different there."
I had to agree, not that I've spent a lot of time in the outback, but there's a huge difference in attitude. I haven't talked to Tom at any length about his background, but I know he was a vet in outback Qld. and got his pilot's licence so he could get around better in the bush. I read that in a local paper that did a story on him.
He seems like a hell of a good bloke, our new vet Tom, and I hope he and his wife Kath have a long, happy and successful association with the Gembrook community.
A couple of weeks ago while I was checking the form, an old bloke came in and said that the older dog outside bit him on the hand when he went to pat her. He thought she was only being protective of my backpack which I leave outside, adding that it was only a warning nip. He was sucked in, he said, because the young dog is so friendly and tried to lick him to death and jump up on him, so after patting 'Pip' he went to do the same to 'Snow'. I apologized for 'Snow's bad manners. "No worries", said the old fella, "I should be more careful."
Last week 'Pip' and 'Snow' had an appointment with the new vet for annual heartworm injection, and Snow was also due for C5 vaccine (parvo etc). 'Snowie' hates vets so I was a bit worried how she'd go when Tom started sticking the thermometer up her bum and jabbing her with needles. There was no problem with 'Snowie's behaviour, Tom seems to have excellent skills. In fact when examining her teeth as part of the general check up, he found she had a split tooth. This would need extracting under anaesthetic after a week on antibiotis. If left it would, sooner or later, become infected.
The tooth was extracted on Wednesday. While she was 'out to it', he found the tooth next to it was loose so he took it out too, and while polishing her other teeth he found another small one which was decayed so out it came as well. 'Snow' made a quick recovery after a "textbook" anaesthetic and operation, and she seems a lot happier. As well as the biting incident at the post office I'd noticed she'd been snarlier than usual for a while. Probably the broken and decayed teeth were upsetting her.
Tom the vet is making quite an impact in the town. I often see him talking to people in the street and it seems his services as a vet are greatly appreciated. And he's a good man... he walks to work from somewhere down Launching Place Rd. He's coming up sometimes while I'm going back down. When I took the the dogs up for their shots he explained he's walking to work to lose some of the Christmas cheer he put on, as well as reduce by a tiny amount some carbon emission. I told him however small his contribution seemed he was doing a great thing for the earth, every day, by doing that, and his attitude needs to flow on to everyone.
"One thing I've noticed," he continued, "when you walk it makes you more aware of things like the clouds.. you have an eye on the sky wondering if it's going to rain and get you wet."
"Dead right Tom, and not only that you'll notice you become aware of a lot more...trees, birds, noises, scents, you start to use all your senses more. The car robs us of much of this, makes us immune to our own senses. And distances and seperates us from other humans."
"Youre right you know. We noticed when we were in Africa a while ago, people are so carefree, happy and friendly. Most have never owned a car."
"We noticed the same thing in rural Peru. I don't like to be critical of my own countrymen, but we've lost our way."
"Yeah. But it's different in the outback. It's somehow different there."
I had to agree, not that I've spent a lot of time in the outback, but there's a huge difference in attitude. I haven't talked to Tom at any length about his background, but I know he was a vet in outback Qld. and got his pilot's licence so he could get around better in the bush. I read that in a local paper that did a story on him.
He seems like a hell of a good bloke, our new vet Tom, and I hope he and his wife Kath have a long, happy and successful association with the Gembrook community.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Lionel Smedley
I mentioned the Smedley family at Mt. Burnett in my last post. I don't think I've written about Lionel Smedley before, so I should.
I first met patriarch Lionel in the early 1990's when he was already an octogenarian. I picked various foliage and blossom in his established garden including beech, camellia, magnolia, rhodie, wintersweet, pieris, bay, pittosporum, and viburnum. Lionel loved nothing more than to walk around his garden showing trees and shrubs he'd planted and nurtured over the previous 40 years. He loved "the blooms" and grew a paddock of daffodils and jonnies just for the flowers, and a large vegie garden. Every visitor left with bunches of flowers and vegies.
Often he'd offer me a cuppa and usually I made the time as I loved talking to him about gardens, sport, history, and life in general. He was genuinely interested in my situation and offered good advice, somehow rolling it into an anecdote from his own personal experience. We became good friends.
He was born at home at Black River near Stanley in Tasmania in 1911. He remembered being sick on the trip across Bass Strait from Tassy in 1917 on the 'Marawah', a boat which carried general cargo and cattle as well as passengers. The family moved to Victoria so his father could take up a job as manager of a vegetable farm, 'Beach Farm' at Numerella, owned by three businessmen, near Port Welshpool. Lionel had 3 sisters and two brothers and went to primary school at Hedley, a 7 mile horse ride each way. It being wartime, the kids had trenches in the playground and used to throw clay as pretend bombs.
Lionel's father got crook a couple of years after moving to Port Welshpool, (he died of cancer when Lionel was 16 or 17) and the family moved to Clayton in Melbourne. Lionel went to Caulfield Tech and learned blacksmithing but couldn't get a job at that, eventually finding work at the Diamond Dry Cell battery factory in West Melbourne. From there he moved to the E.M.F. Electric Co. after being sacked for being late for work due to poor public transport. He moved to the Kiwi Boot Polish factory at Burnley, easy to get to by train, for 12 months, where every pay day they'd give you a free tin of boot polish, presumably because they knew you'd knock it off if you weren't given it.
He then worked at B.S.Spark Plugs West Melbourne for 3/4 months until they went broke. He went back to E.M.F. Electric Co. and shifted to Nth. Carlton where he lived with his boss who'd befriended him, but who could be "a bit cranky" at times. He'd lost a leg in the war and Lionel had to take his 'leg' to Repat for repadding. He was a Footscray supporter who drank at the footy and when he came home he wouldn't come out of the lavatory in the backyard. His wife would send Lionel out to try and coax him in. He was good to Lionel and taught him welding after work. Lionel worked for three months for C.J White and Sons making locks, welding fences etc. by arrangement with E.M.F.
The Depression bit hard and Lionel was sacked. He saw an ad for rural workers at Exell's Labour Bureau and went to a mixed farm at Dimosa, out from Charlton, for 15 shillings a week plus his keep. It cost 30 shillings to get there on the train. His boss was a bloke named McNicol, a Wycheproof councillor. Lionel slept in a tent at the back and his bed was a stretcher on four kerosene tins. He stayed for the wheat season and his time was spent loading wheat, cutting thistles, and building fences. On Sunday they would divert water from the main channel using sandbags to replenish dams.
McNicol's wife milked the cows and separated the cream, but there was no butter milk for inside, it was all sent away. There was no sheds for machinery, it was all left outside in the weather. There was a mice plague. Galvanised iron sheets were used to make fences eighteen inches high around the haystacks to keep the mice out. Less than eighteen inches and the mice would pile on top of each other till the those on top could jump over. The same was needed around Lionel's tent, or the mice would eat his clothes and bedding, a fate suffered by the previous worker.
He went back to Clayton, market gardening with his stepfather. They grew beetroot and Lionel would leave with a load by horse and cart at 9.00pm. after a day's work picking and packing, to get to market by 5.00 am. More than half the time he couldn't sell so he'd buy other stuff for variety to sell around houses door to door at Oakleigh on the way home. He did this for a couple of years in the early thirties till things got a bit better, when he went back to C.J Whites in inner Melbourne, doing welding around houses and banks. Metal fences were popular, and elevators containing metal cage and surrounds, were now common.
Before he was married in 1937, he took a job welding for A.I.Steel(Aust.Iron+Steel) as he needed the higher wage, but it invoved travelling. He worked on the wheat silos at Geelong and the Bogong Kiewa Hydro scheme. He stayed with A.I.Steel through WW2, during which he spent six months on Cockatoo Island off the Kimberley coast building the pier. After the war he lived in Caulfield and was well paid as an experienced heavy welder; his salary was 14 quid a week in 1952 before he sold his house and moved to Mt.Burnett where he bought a farm and the Post Office agency and the mail run Cockatoo to Mt.Burnett.
The Post Office agency paid only 4 quid a month and the mail run a similar amount, but Lionel had a strong desire to farm. In November '52, not long after he and Vera and the three young boys moved to the farm, 9 inches of rain fell for the month. The post office operated in a room at the side of the house for many years before later being relocated to a small building on the main road. Whilst he'd had a large drop in income, it didn't worry them as they grew their own food and the annual council rates on their 39 acre farm were 4 quid and four shillings. Lionel grew spuds for a couple of years but "couldn't sell 'em", so he changed to dairying and made cream, supplying the Dandenong Butter Factory.
Lionel had strong interest in sport and was an excellent footballer and cricketer in his day, having played at Oakleigh, Northcote, Springvale and Clayton. He barracked for Carlton, beginning when his father took him to a VFL match, Carlton vs Collingwood. His father, who before going to Tassy was captain/coach of Footscray at one stage in the VFA, barracked for Collingwood. His dad lifted him up so he could see. Horrie Clover, a high flying full forward, and 'Dasher' Donohue were stars for Carlton and Lionel was hooked.
When he first went to Oakleigh in 1928 or 1929 as a seventeen or eighteen y.o., Frank Meagher (ex Essendon mosquito fleet) was coach, and the team included several famous players; George Rudolf (ex Richmond), Eric Fleming (Geelong), Sailor Irwin, (Carlton) Driver(Melbourne) and Gomez(Essendon). Gomez, a Spaniard, "was a good bloke", and gave Lionel his guernsey at training, as he didn't have one. When he moved to Mt. Burnett he played cricket for Cockatoo and despite being in his forties he won the best player trophy in 1953/4 and the best bowler another year. He was a medium pace bowler with a nagging line and length and such accuracy that most of his wickets were caught and bowled, as batsmen were forced to play straight back. Some of Lionel's old teammates from way back still visited him.
I never met Vera, she died in 1988. Lionel enjoyed his garden and fresh air at Mt. Burnett till just before Christmas 2002 when he died, falling to cancer. He was ready to go, having lost his mobility through arthritis in his legs in his last couple of years. When I was trying to box the swarm three days after Christmas, Don and Barb were picking flowers before visiting the Gembrook cemetery where Vera and Lionel are buried.
Lionel is one of the people I feel so grateful to have met. I still pick in the garden. Bob and Dawn, Don and Barb, and Len, follow the family tradition of growing vegies and flowers. They live happily in retirement and show the same warmth, friendship and generosity that Lionel did.
I first met patriarch Lionel in the early 1990's when he was already an octogenarian. I picked various foliage and blossom in his established garden including beech, camellia, magnolia, rhodie, wintersweet, pieris, bay, pittosporum, and viburnum. Lionel loved nothing more than to walk around his garden showing trees and shrubs he'd planted and nurtured over the previous 40 years. He loved "the blooms" and grew a paddock of daffodils and jonnies just for the flowers, and a large vegie garden. Every visitor left with bunches of flowers and vegies.
Often he'd offer me a cuppa and usually I made the time as I loved talking to him about gardens, sport, history, and life in general. He was genuinely interested in my situation and offered good advice, somehow rolling it into an anecdote from his own personal experience. We became good friends.
He was born at home at Black River near Stanley in Tasmania in 1911. He remembered being sick on the trip across Bass Strait from Tassy in 1917 on the 'Marawah', a boat which carried general cargo and cattle as well as passengers. The family moved to Victoria so his father could take up a job as manager of a vegetable farm, 'Beach Farm' at Numerella, owned by three businessmen, near Port Welshpool. Lionel had 3 sisters and two brothers and went to primary school at Hedley, a 7 mile horse ride each way. It being wartime, the kids had trenches in the playground and used to throw clay as pretend bombs.
Lionel's father got crook a couple of years after moving to Port Welshpool, (he died of cancer when Lionel was 16 or 17) and the family moved to Clayton in Melbourne. Lionel went to Caulfield Tech and learned blacksmithing but couldn't get a job at that, eventually finding work at the Diamond Dry Cell battery factory in West Melbourne. From there he moved to the E.M.F. Electric Co. after being sacked for being late for work due to poor public transport. He moved to the Kiwi Boot Polish factory at Burnley, easy to get to by train, for 12 months, where every pay day they'd give you a free tin of boot polish, presumably because they knew you'd knock it off if you weren't given it.
He then worked at B.S.Spark Plugs West Melbourne for 3/4 months until they went broke. He went back to E.M.F. Electric Co. and shifted to Nth. Carlton where he lived with his boss who'd befriended him, but who could be "a bit cranky" at times. He'd lost a leg in the war and Lionel had to take his 'leg' to Repat for repadding. He was a Footscray supporter who drank at the footy and when he came home he wouldn't come out of the lavatory in the backyard. His wife would send Lionel out to try and coax him in. He was good to Lionel and taught him welding after work. Lionel worked for three months for C.J White and Sons making locks, welding fences etc. by arrangement with E.M.F.
The Depression bit hard and Lionel was sacked. He saw an ad for rural workers at Exell's Labour Bureau and went to a mixed farm at Dimosa, out from Charlton, for 15 shillings a week plus his keep. It cost 30 shillings to get there on the train. His boss was a bloke named McNicol, a Wycheproof councillor. Lionel slept in a tent at the back and his bed was a stretcher on four kerosene tins. He stayed for the wheat season and his time was spent loading wheat, cutting thistles, and building fences. On Sunday they would divert water from the main channel using sandbags to replenish dams.
McNicol's wife milked the cows and separated the cream, but there was no butter milk for inside, it was all sent away. There was no sheds for machinery, it was all left outside in the weather. There was a mice plague. Galvanised iron sheets were used to make fences eighteen inches high around the haystacks to keep the mice out. Less than eighteen inches and the mice would pile on top of each other till the those on top could jump over. The same was needed around Lionel's tent, or the mice would eat his clothes and bedding, a fate suffered by the previous worker.
He went back to Clayton, market gardening with his stepfather. They grew beetroot and Lionel would leave with a load by horse and cart at 9.00pm. after a day's work picking and packing, to get to market by 5.00 am. More than half the time he couldn't sell so he'd buy other stuff for variety to sell around houses door to door at Oakleigh on the way home. He did this for a couple of years in the early thirties till things got a bit better, when he went back to C.J Whites in inner Melbourne, doing welding around houses and banks. Metal fences were popular, and elevators containing metal cage and surrounds, were now common.
Before he was married in 1937, he took a job welding for A.I.Steel(Aust.Iron+Steel) as he needed the higher wage, but it invoved travelling. He worked on the wheat silos at Geelong and the Bogong Kiewa Hydro scheme. He stayed with A.I.Steel through WW2, during which he spent six months on Cockatoo Island off the Kimberley coast building the pier. After the war he lived in Caulfield and was well paid as an experienced heavy welder; his salary was 14 quid a week in 1952 before he sold his house and moved to Mt.Burnett where he bought a farm and the Post Office agency and the mail run Cockatoo to Mt.Burnett.
The Post Office agency paid only 4 quid a month and the mail run a similar amount, but Lionel had a strong desire to farm. In November '52, not long after he and Vera and the three young boys moved to the farm, 9 inches of rain fell for the month. The post office operated in a room at the side of the house for many years before later being relocated to a small building on the main road. Whilst he'd had a large drop in income, it didn't worry them as they grew their own food and the annual council rates on their 39 acre farm were 4 quid and four shillings. Lionel grew spuds for a couple of years but "couldn't sell 'em", so he changed to dairying and made cream, supplying the Dandenong Butter Factory.
Lionel had strong interest in sport and was an excellent footballer and cricketer in his day, having played at Oakleigh, Northcote, Springvale and Clayton. He barracked for Carlton, beginning when his father took him to a VFL match, Carlton vs Collingwood. His father, who before going to Tassy was captain/coach of Footscray at one stage in the VFA, barracked for Collingwood. His dad lifted him up so he could see. Horrie Clover, a high flying full forward, and 'Dasher' Donohue were stars for Carlton and Lionel was hooked.
When he first went to Oakleigh in 1928 or 1929 as a seventeen or eighteen y.o., Frank Meagher (ex Essendon mosquito fleet) was coach, and the team included several famous players; George Rudolf (ex Richmond), Eric Fleming (Geelong), Sailor Irwin, (Carlton) Driver(Melbourne) and Gomez(Essendon). Gomez, a Spaniard, "was a good bloke", and gave Lionel his guernsey at training, as he didn't have one. When he moved to Mt. Burnett he played cricket for Cockatoo and despite being in his forties he won the best player trophy in 1953/4 and the best bowler another year. He was a medium pace bowler with a nagging line and length and such accuracy that most of his wickets were caught and bowled, as batsmen were forced to play straight back. Some of Lionel's old teammates from way back still visited him.
I never met Vera, she died in 1988. Lionel enjoyed his garden and fresh air at Mt. Burnett till just before Christmas 2002 when he died, falling to cancer. He was ready to go, having lost his mobility through arthritis in his legs in his last couple of years. When I was trying to box the swarm three days after Christmas, Don and Barb were picking flowers before visiting the Gembrook cemetery where Vera and Lionel are buried.
Lionel is one of the people I feel so grateful to have met. I still pick in the garden. Bob and Dawn, Don and Barb, and Len, follow the family tradition of growing vegies and flowers. They live happily in retirement and show the same warmth, friendship and generosity that Lionel did.
Friday, January 02, 2009
One That Got Away
The phone rang about 3.00pm last Saturday. It was a warm sunny day. Our Christmas visitors had left about midday, I'd been shopping down at Pakenham and was ready for a bit of peace and quiet. "Who could this be?" I thought picking it up. "Hello."
"Is that you Carey? This is Dawn Smedley."
Dawn is Bob's wife at Mt.Burnett. My mind quickly put two and two together.
"Hi Dawn. You've got a bee swarm, yeah?"
"How did you know?"
"Looking out the window at the balmy sunny day, as soon as I knew it wasn't a regular caller, it just came to me. I usually get a call in November or see a swarm well before now. The weather's slowed 'em up this year."
"I'm just ringing in case you want them. They're hanging in a magnolia tree near the track to Lennie's, just past the big oak."
Lennie lives in the old house where the kids grew up with their parents Lionel and Vera. Bob and Dawn live next door on one side and Don and Barb on the other. I met Lionel through his granddaughter Linda who used to work in the Gembrook supermarket before she married and had kids. I picked foliage and blossom at Lionel's for years before he died and I still do.
"I've got some frames and foundation in the shed Dawn, I'll put them together this arvo and give you a ring in the morning. If the swarm's still there I'll come over and get them."
As it turned out I didn't have new frames and foundation in the shed. The parcel I'd had posted up by the beekeeping supplies people some months earlier had a couple of new boxes in the flat and some bits and pieces. I meant to order frames and foundation in the spring so the foundation was nice and fresh but I must have forgot, and then thought I'd done it and the parcel was it, but no. I had sticky combs, but swarms don't like stickies, they love foundation wax as they're ready to build new comb. I washed the stickies and found a box and base and lid thinking I may as well get the bees. I hadn't been to the Smedley's for a while and was too busy to get that way and pick pre Christmas like I usually do.
When I got there on Sunday Dawn wanted to watch me box the swarm. Bob stayed well away as he's allergic to bee sting. I shook them out the tree onto my hession bag and the bees obliged after a few minutes by 'walking' into the hive I'd put on the ground at one end of the bag. Dawn was fascinated.
There was quite a mass of bees still outside the hive, on the front face. Some stragglers flew back up to where the swarm was on the tree branch. I shook them down again. I had to go. I explained to Dawn that I'd come back at dusk and get them when they were all inside. I was confident they'd all go in even though I hadn't seen the queen, but I told Dawn it was still possible they may decide to go somewhere else.
I went back after 8.00pm, expecting to wait a few minutes while the late ones came home before locking them in and taking them home. Dawn saw me arrive and came over, saying after I left earlier the ball of bees returned to the tree, almost as big as before, but when she checked later it had gone and there were bees flying in and out of the box so they must have gone in.
That didn't sound right to me, so I lit the smoker and lifted the lid. There were few bees there. The queen musn't have gone in, instead flying back into the magnolia, causing the other bees to join her. Then they've taken off for a new home of their own choice, leaving only a small mumber of stragglers which were now in my box. Dawn was disappointed that I'd spent time and effort and two trips all for nothing. I explained that when you work with bees you have to be accepting that it's not all smooth sailing.
I put the hive with the stragglers near my other hives. I was up early and reduced it's entrance next morning so that my big hives didn't rob it. I'd put a frame of young brood in to help catch the swarm which would have been surrounded by fresh nectar. I didn't like to think of the stragglers, who were clustering on the frame of brood, being killed in a robbing attack.
A few hours later, after thinking about it, I moved it along a few feet to the end of the row and gave it a couple of frames of hatching brood from the hive next to it. I put three empty boxes on top of the lid, and took the sheet of tin that was on top of the hive next to it and put it on it instead. Now it looked similar to the other hive, so most of the returning bees from the strong hive started returning to it instead, bolstering it's numbers.
The next day the weather turned again and I haven't been back to check, but I'm assuming my 'new' hive is busily rearing a queen, which of course it'll need if it's to survive. I'll be interested to check when the weather improves.
Speaking of the weather, it's been amazingly cool. Too cool for bees and honey really. I hope it hasn't mucked up the red gum flow up north, which needs hot stable weather really to have a big flow. We had 15ml of rain last night and I'm loving it from my gardening point of view, but it must be the coolest summer in my memory. SO FAR.
"Is that you Carey? This is Dawn Smedley."
Dawn is Bob's wife at Mt.Burnett. My mind quickly put two and two together.
"Hi Dawn. You've got a bee swarm, yeah?"
"How did you know?"
"Looking out the window at the balmy sunny day, as soon as I knew it wasn't a regular caller, it just came to me. I usually get a call in November or see a swarm well before now. The weather's slowed 'em up this year."
"I'm just ringing in case you want them. They're hanging in a magnolia tree near the track to Lennie's, just past the big oak."
Lennie lives in the old house where the kids grew up with their parents Lionel and Vera. Bob and Dawn live next door on one side and Don and Barb on the other. I met Lionel through his granddaughter Linda who used to work in the Gembrook supermarket before she married and had kids. I picked foliage and blossom at Lionel's for years before he died and I still do.
"I've got some frames and foundation in the shed Dawn, I'll put them together this arvo and give you a ring in the morning. If the swarm's still there I'll come over and get them."
As it turned out I didn't have new frames and foundation in the shed. The parcel I'd had posted up by the beekeeping supplies people some months earlier had a couple of new boxes in the flat and some bits and pieces. I meant to order frames and foundation in the spring so the foundation was nice and fresh but I must have forgot, and then thought I'd done it and the parcel was it, but no. I had sticky combs, but swarms don't like stickies, they love foundation wax as they're ready to build new comb. I washed the stickies and found a box and base and lid thinking I may as well get the bees. I hadn't been to the Smedley's for a while and was too busy to get that way and pick pre Christmas like I usually do.
When I got there on Sunday Dawn wanted to watch me box the swarm. Bob stayed well away as he's allergic to bee sting. I shook them out the tree onto my hession bag and the bees obliged after a few minutes by 'walking' into the hive I'd put on the ground at one end of the bag. Dawn was fascinated.
There was quite a mass of bees still outside the hive, on the front face. Some stragglers flew back up to where the swarm was on the tree branch. I shook them down again. I had to go. I explained to Dawn that I'd come back at dusk and get them when they were all inside. I was confident they'd all go in even though I hadn't seen the queen, but I told Dawn it was still possible they may decide to go somewhere else.
I went back after 8.00pm, expecting to wait a few minutes while the late ones came home before locking them in and taking them home. Dawn saw me arrive and came over, saying after I left earlier the ball of bees returned to the tree, almost as big as before, but when she checked later it had gone and there were bees flying in and out of the box so they must have gone in.
That didn't sound right to me, so I lit the smoker and lifted the lid. There were few bees there. The queen musn't have gone in, instead flying back into the magnolia, causing the other bees to join her. Then they've taken off for a new home of their own choice, leaving only a small mumber of stragglers which were now in my box. Dawn was disappointed that I'd spent time and effort and two trips all for nothing. I explained that when you work with bees you have to be accepting that it's not all smooth sailing.
I put the hive with the stragglers near my other hives. I was up early and reduced it's entrance next morning so that my big hives didn't rob it. I'd put a frame of young brood in to help catch the swarm which would have been surrounded by fresh nectar. I didn't like to think of the stragglers, who were clustering on the frame of brood, being killed in a robbing attack.
A few hours later, after thinking about it, I moved it along a few feet to the end of the row and gave it a couple of frames of hatching brood from the hive next to it. I put three empty boxes on top of the lid, and took the sheet of tin that was on top of the hive next to it and put it on it instead. Now it looked similar to the other hive, so most of the returning bees from the strong hive started returning to it instead, bolstering it's numbers.
The next day the weather turned again and I haven't been back to check, but I'm assuming my 'new' hive is busily rearing a queen, which of course it'll need if it's to survive. I'll be interested to check when the weather improves.
Speaking of the weather, it's been amazingly cool. Too cool for bees and honey really. I hope it hasn't mucked up the red gum flow up north, which needs hot stable weather really to have a big flow. We had 15ml of rain last night and I'm loving it from my gardening point of view, but it must be the coolest summer in my memory. SO FAR.
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