Bushy Joe

 I did this for Sgnpost before we left and I liked it so I post it. 

 BUSHY JOE FROM GEMBROOK

Joe Hilder lived with his maternal grandparents in Launching Place Road in Gembrook for four formative years in his early childhood. He’s unsure of the circumstances leading to this, but it was during the Great Depression, and he was the oldest of eleven children born by his mother Gertrude.

Joe speaks fondly of his grandfather, ‘Ganna’, whose real name was Karl August Rissinich, a kind old man of German origin, a sailor who jumped ship, an illegal immigrant. WW1 was difficult, ‘Ganna’ having to leave various towns, and he was locked up more than once as an alien. He came to Gembrook in 1917 where he was tolerated and did odd jobs like scything grass, fencing and cutting maize.  

Joe was not happy when moved to Fairfield in Melbourne in1934 to attend school for the first time. His mother was devoutly Catholic and wouldn’t let him go to the Gembrook Primary School.

“I was nearly eight years old and was put in what they called the “Bubs” with the very young kids because I’d had no schooling. I was like an elephant in a dog kennel. I’d never seen a nun before; they frightened the daylights out of me.  The other kids called me ‘Bushy Joe’. They didn’t hurt me, but they did pranks like locking me in the dunny.”

Joe came back to Gembrook at eleven years old and attended St. John’s Catholic school in Ferntree Gully. His future wife, Peg Kermond, whom Joe had known since they were very young, also attended St. John’s. Joe recalls, “The bus, 'Old Emma', had no windows. It was a freezing trip in winter.”

Leaving school Joe moved back to Fairfield, hating it. His first job was delivering groceries on a pushbike for thirteen shillings and nine pence a week. He worked hard and one day his dad saw him and pulled his truck over, telling Joe to get in. “What about the groceries,” Joe protested.

“Never mind about that, just get in,” his dad said.

Later dad took Joe to the boss and gave him the groceries back saying, “If anyone’s going to kill this kid with overwork it’ll be me not you.”

Joe got a job with another grocer and this time had a horse and spring cart for deliveries. After a while he was sacked for galloping the horse, which you weren’t supposed to do.

Another job was with a firm that made wooden throat swabs for hospitals amongst other things. Small blocks of wood were boiled in a copper, removed by a worker with tongs, and put in a guillotine. Joe picked up all the slivers of wood after they fell.

“We had a Christmas party and although young I had a glass of beer. Mum smelt it on my breath when I got home and that was the end of that job.”

The family moved to Greensborough into a house more a big hut. It had no windows, only flyscreens. At that time Joe,14, worked on a chook farm and constantly smelled of chooks which he didn't like.

“A letter came from Auntie Ag in Gembrook saying the store wanted a boy. I rode my bike to Gembrook and started work at Ingram’s. Dad had taught me how to drive and I did deliveries in the Bedford ute. A woman complained to the policeman that I didn’t have a license so he came and said if I gave him two shillings and sixpence he’d give me a license.”

When old enough Joe joined the air force in WW11. They asked anyone with a license to step forward, Joe did and they gave him an airforce license and he drove trucks in Brisbane helping the Americans load their equipment on to ships. He returned to Melbourne, was discharged, and went back to Gembrook, resuming at the store which had sold to a man named ‘Head’. Peg now worked there. They married in 1947. Joe built a house himself, learning as he went and asking advice from builders. His neighbor Jack Birtherwell had the bus run to Pakenham and offered Joe work driving the bus. He went to Melbourne to get a bus license. They gave him one without a test as he had a semi license. Joe never sat for a license test. 

Sixty years ago Joe started the sawmill JW+PJ Hilder in the main street opposite the school, where he also had a hardware business. He and Peg also ran the Blue Hills cafe and ice cream store in the 1950's for a time.

The mill was relocated it to its present site on the Pack Track /Launching Place Rd. corner thirty years ago. It’s now operated by his son Wayne.

Joe and Peg have raised eight boys and two girls. Joe built ten houses in Gembrook. He once drove the whole family to Cairns for a holiday towing a caravan he built himself. As a hobby he built model ships and you can see his model saw mill and steam engine at the Gembrook station. He's had poetry collections published and was a member of a bush band that performed for age care facilities all over Victoria, playing accordion. Not bad for ‘Bushy Joe’.

Joe and Peg have 28 grand children and nine great grand children.  Joe’s eyesight has failed but he retains a sense of humour and love for family, life and Gembrook.