Well It Was a Good Day

Yes. A good day.

I took Lib some breakfast in bed- juice and peppermint tea with vitamins before toast and black tea- before I had to dash at 9.30am to open the museum for a bus group of seniors that was coming at 9.45am.

I was 2 minutes late. And there were three other people there to open the museum so I was a little pissed about that. They came at 10am, the 9.45 was a ruse to make sure we were there. There was no reason for me to be there at all, when I was under the understanding that there was no one to do it but me.

The bus group were good. They could not get the bus past the arch, as the go around was restricted by two limbs on the red oak. The bus was a very big high bastard. The patrons had morning tea where they could go no further and then walked down to the museum.

They left at about 12 midday. I dashed to Shirley's to cut some grass. Shirley died just before Christmas, pancreatic cancer. I'm still looking after the place for her daughters as they are preparing to sell the property, just starting now.

I was back at the museum at 1.30pm as I was on roster duty. Beryl and her grandson James were also there. Beryl is an English lady by descent, in her eighties, who goes to the museum every Sunday and shares duty with whoever is on roster. I could write a lot about Beryl. I did a Signpost article on her once, if I can find it I will copy it here.

                                                           TAKE OPPORTUNITIES

“I’ve used one of them,” Beryl Bartacek said to me once in the Emerald museum.  She was talking about a farm implement I can best describe as a scoop, pulled behind a horse for moving soil. She explained her first job on leaving school was on a farm.

Beryl was born in March 1929 in London. Her family moved to Hornchurch Essex where Beryl spent her childhood and attended the junior girl’s school.

She remembers bomb shelters being built in the school grounds during the war. Until they were finished the kids came to school for half a day then were sent home for the other half with homework to do. Hornchurch was between London and the coast and a large aerodrome right next door was often a bomb target.

Beryl and her friends watched dogfights above during the Battle of Britain. With the airfield so close most of the boys, including her two older brothers and the boys across the road, wanted to be fliers. They survived the war, but the other end of the street did not fare as well and many sons were lost. Everybody hoped the telegram man didn’t stop at their house, knowing what it would mean.

Beryl wanted to attend agricultural college and needed do a year’s full time work on a farm first. Her father, who worked for a wholesale fruit and veg firm at Covent Garden, had farmer contacts and in 1946 Beryl moved to Suffolk to a large mixed farm which grew many grain and vegetable crops including potatoes, sugar beet and kale. There were 1000 black faced Suffolk sheep, pigs, and milking cows. There were three tractors that did the heaviest ploughing; other work was done by draught horses of which there were fourteen in work and three stallions. Beryl worked in all areas of the farm progressing to working a team of three horses harrowing.

The manager of the farm was an Englishman who’d moved to Australia and married an Australian girl. Just before WW2 he’d gone home to England for a holiday with his bride but was caught out by the war and couldn’t return. His stories gave Beryl a desire to one day travel to Australia.

Much to her disappointment Beryl could not gain a place at agricultural college, preference being given to returned servicemen. At her mother’s insistence she left the farm and started work as a bookkeeper for a Swedish import firm. She enjoyed this and often lunched by the Tower Bridge. London still had plenty of vacant land after the WW2 bombing.

One day on a bus going past a school she looked into a classroom at the kids and was moved to say to herself, “That’s what I’d like to do.”

She enrolled at teacher’s college and after two years of hard work, most days being from 9.00am to 7.30pm., she qualified as a teacher and worked in new estates where the schools were crowded and class sizes large.

At the end of 1954 she boarded a ship and alighted in West Australia. She went to the Education Department in Perth telling them she was a qualified teacher looking for work. She was posted for six months to Pengilly in the south west wheat belt, then to Roebourne near Karratha in the north, teaching indigenous children of all ages who’d had little schooling.

Roebourne had three shops and a pub, where Beryl stayed as there was no alternative. Texas oil men with their rigs parked in the street were fellow guests. ‘’They were rowdy and hard to like.” She received an allowance for her accommodation and saved all her wages as there was nothing to spend it on.

At the end of the year, cashed up and keen to see more of Australia, she caught the Trans Australia train from Perth to Adelaide, then Pioneer bus to Melbourne and Sydney. She met future husband Karel on a visit to the Tooronga zoo. He had been working in Tasmania for 8 years after coming to Australia from Czechoslovakia as a displaced person.

On to Brisbane, then Mackay, where she walked into the hospital and said she was looking for work. They gave her a uniform and she became a nurse for some months. It was then another bus to Mt Isa, Tennant Creek, and Darwin, then Alice Springs, back to Adelaide, and to Tasmania to visit Karel.

Now out of money but still with a return ticket she left for England before returning to Tasmania in1958 when she and Karel married. Karel worked at a newsprint mill and Beryl worked as a teacher. They moved to Melbourne in 1965 with their three daughters, living in South Oakleigh before coming to Emerald in 1993 where they enjoyed retirement and made valuable contribution to the Emerald Museum.

After a recent interval which saw the passing of Karel and Beryl undergoing hip replacement, she has rejoined the museum committee with typical enthusiasm.

“I’m fortunate that my Christian faith has held me in good stead.” Her advice to young people, including her seven grandchildren, is “to take opportunities as they come, and follow through. Things work out.”

So i have a long standing relationship with Beryl. After an hour or so of chat wit Beryl and James I went out and pruned a couple of of fruit trees. I have been going through the little orchard there pruning in my spare time as the council failed to do it in the winter.

We had a lovely roast beef for dinner and I'm now well and truly ready for the sack.

 Good night.