Tuesday, August 25, 2009

LIFE ON THE FARM

To tell you a little of the history our farm called Aintree, at Goolmangar, I need to delve into the history written by my father, John Patrick O’Keefe.

Dad tells us that his father, also John, was born in Gerringong on the NSW South Coast in 1864. Both his parents died in 1874, when he was ten. He was raised by the Taylor family. In his teens, he travelled to Lismore, on the North Coast and worked for a time as a surveyor. He then worked for the Beveridge family on their farm at Goolmangar. Whilst there he selected fifty acres adjacent to the Beveridge farm. In an effort to encourage the opening up of farming land, any good citizen could select land, at no cost, provided they then developed it into a productive farm. My grandfather built a house, dairy and bails and became an independent dairy farmer.

In 1890 he married Emily Boyle and started a family. Gradually they bought up surrounding land until they had 200 acres. They built a new house which is still there today and into which we moved in 1953. He moved the old house to become the kitchen of the new house. In those days, the kitchen was always a separate building, because of the fire risk. It has long since been demolished.

Dad was born in 1900 on January 20th, so for all of his life (minus 19 days annually) he was the same age as the year. He was always known as Pat, to distinguish him from his father.

So it was this farm which Dad inherited on the death of his mother in March 1953. His only brother inherited the family home in Lismore. I remember visiting the farm around 1949-50 when Dad drove the family to Lismore, a three-day trip, in the old 1926 Dodge.

I quote here from Dad’s memoirs:

In March 1953 my mother died. I inherited the farm at Goolmangar. My underprivileged sister Lily was declared my responsibility for as long as she lived. The farm at the time was leased to Fred Savins. He offered to buy it for 16,000 pounds ($32,000). Had I not Lily to consider I would have probably sold. But not knowing what might be involved in her future, and realising that property was a safer asset than cash in the hand, I wasn’t game to sell. I took a trip up and had a look at the place and a talk to Fred. He showed me his returns for the last twelve months and they were very encouraging. On my return Mum and I talked it over, and decided there was no better place to rear our family of boys so we sold up and headed north.

So what did we find? The farm house was a typical four rooms with a hall from the front door (which no one ever used) and a veranda on four sides. When we arrived, the back veranda had been converted into kitchen (with fuel stove and no hot water), a dining room and a bathroom (with no hot water). I once went into the bathroom and found a green tree snake had come up through the plughole. There were two other small rooms on each side veranda. Later, Dad enclosed more of the verandas to make bedrooms, an extra kitchen for dual living and a sleepout. I don’t think you got planning permission in those days.

When I arrived in December 1953, the family (and our cousins the Blewitts) had had three months start on me. What did I find? Behind the kitchen door was a string bag, that is, a bag to hold string from packages – Sellotape was still a novelty –another bag for brown paper bags – essential for school lunches – and the Strap. (Mum and Mum only administered this round the back of the legs when necessary.) We kids were expected to make a brown paper lunch bag last a week, though we trashed the wax paper the lettuce and vegemite sandwiches were wrapped in. From the kitchen ceiling hung numerous flypapers – long, spiral, sticky strands which helped to keep down the fly population of plague proportions. (Remember, this was cow shit country.)

Mum cooked the usual meat and two veg for dinner each night, on the fuel stove (which had a constant tub of hot water on one side) and later on the Metters electric cooker. But there were some treats for us kids. Firstly, Mum made buckets and buckets of ice cream, using the Sunbeam Mixmaster on full bore – after all, we had no end of milk – and it was great. (I don’t think that I have said that our farm produced cream for the Norco butter factory at Byron Bay. We separated the cream from the milk in the dairy and the creamless milk was fed to the Tamworth pigs that we raised also.) To make us eat our lettuce, we were allowed to sprinkle it liberally with white sugar. And best of all, when the white bread was getting stale, we could sprinkle it also with sugar and pour on lashings of cream. Why are my arteries still functioning?

The dunny was an outdoors affair and Dad emptied the pan regularly in the bull paddock. The laundry was out there, too. It contained two cement tubs and a copper which got filled with water on washing day and heated by a wood fire. Mum stirred the sheets, towels, etc with a wooden copper stick. It was a happy day when she got a washing machine with a hand-operated wringer.

In the cow bails where there was a source of hot water – everything had to be scrubbed to death – Dad had rigged up a shower. This consisted of a ten gallon drum, a pulley and a rope. You filled the drum with hot water, hoisted it up on the pulley, secured the rope to the wall, and, voila. The drum had a shower rose soldered into its underside, with a tap. Bliss. That’s where Dad and we boys usually showered.

We had a herd of Jersey cows of pedigree standard. Jerseys have the highest cream to milk ratio, Guernseys produce larger quantities of milk. (Black and white Fresians are best for milk, not cream.) In the summer, the herd got up to around 70 to 80 cows and, believe it or not, they all had names and we knew every one of them by name and they knew us. I recall one old slump backed cow with one horn broken that Auntie Pauline christened Madame de la Plonk. Another, called – would you believe – Daisy, would sit in the holding yard waiting to be milked and was quite happy for me to sit on her back. In the winter the herd would drop to 20 or less as their milk dried up, and in the spring there would be all those poddy calves, thanks to the diligence of our prize bull, Bellington Nomad II and his mates. When the calves were weaned we’d hand feed them with separated milk, keep some to build up the herd, and send the others off, with the latest litter of porkers, to market. The milk truck came three days a week to collect the cream and deliver the papers. Though not refrigerated, the cool room kept the cream from curdling – probably just.

I remember that my life on the farm was spent in bare feet. I had school shoes, of course, but no working boots. So I, and Robert, would be up to our naked shins in cowshit, as the dairy yards were somehow always boggy – it was a high rainfall area, of course. In our leisure time us kids would go down to the creek that flowed through our property and dig out cubby houses in the floodbanks of silt on the creek’s edge. Or we’d go to Santo’s swimming hole, a huge lake carved out by floodwaters in a bend of the stream. On one occasion, excavating away, I sliced into my big toe with an axe. Off home to Mum, mercurochrome and bandage, then Dad drove us the ten miles to Lismore to the doctor. No, no stitches needed. I still have the scar.

The only major illness I can recall on the farm was when we all came down with yellow jaundice, a highly debilitating disease, which I believe is today a version of hepatitis. We fell like dominoes and took to our beds. Mum soldiered on and when she went down, Dad took over. We recovered in due course with no apparent ill-effects. Of course there were colds, measles and chicken pox. You know I’m not one to boast, but Mum said I was the best patient. When I’m sick I’m like a cat – I crawl into a corner and worry no one until it’s all over. But if ever I wanted a day off school, I could put one over Mum every time. My sick-acting must have been superb. I remember being rapt in Nicholas Monserrat’s “The Cruel Sea”. It was winter, too, so I spent the day in bed reading while Mum supplied hot lemon and lunch. Shame!

I learned to swim in the creek. One hot day, Dad, Mum, Robert, Chris and myself were cooling off in the water. I was wading slowly when suddenly there was no creek bed under me any more. I panicked into a sort of dogpaddle and Dad, from the bank, shouted encouragement and told me I was swimming and indeed I was. Other styles came later.

Nimbin Road stretched the 15 miles from Lismore to Nimbin. About ten miles from Lismore you came to the Goolmangar village: General store with petrol bowsers (and these days a bottle shop), run by Mr and Mrs Alf Jux, the post office, School of Arts and the telephone exchange. This was a manual exchange. The telephonist would call you on the party line – our ring code was “two longs and a short” to differentiate from other farms that shared the same line. I’m sure she listened in, but I doubt there was much to hear.

Then West Nimbin Road (now called Boyles Rd) branched off – a gravel road with constant corrugations, despite the attentions of Ada the Grader and Lola the Roller – and after you passed the Catholic Church, the Boyles, the McLennans (the Only Protestants!), the McNamaras and the Colefaxes you came to Aintree. Now I appreciate what a beautiful valley it is. Then it was my prison.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The Goolmangar Years

OK folks, it's back to the life and times of. Ryde was behind me. Now read on...

Early in 2008 I wrote to The Northern Star, Lismore's major newspaper, announcing that fifty years ago, I had formed my first dance band, along with Kevin (saxophone) and Richard (drums)Mackney from Tuncester. Richard was a classmate at school, Kevin, a few years older. I was fifteen. We were The Mackney Trio, which was fine by me. We played for lots of the dances at Goolmangar School of Arts and got three pounds each for a gig. Also fine by me.

Both Richard and Kevin saw the letter and replied by email. Later I had a long and charming phone call from Richard and as I hadn't seen him since we were 40, we had a lot of catching up to do. Richard said, among other things, "You were always the flamboyant one." Hmmm... is that code?

Well, let's not get paranoid, let's move along...

My brother Robert has written elsewhere – he is three years younger than me - about his Goolmangar years and as far as I'm concerned, though his account is delightful, it seems we were on two different planets. He loved the farm, hated school. I hated the farm, loved school.

So from the start. I've already told you about Mum's icy reception at Casino railway station. Now I was introduced to the farm, and the rest of the family had had three months' start on me. One of the first things was horses. To backtrack, the Blewitts, (Uncle Mac and Auntie Pauline, Peter, Paul and Michael, who were also living with us at the farm - Dad had optimistically calculated that it could support two families - wrong!) had previously managed a property at Cobbity, near Camden (that's where I learned about the birds and the bees, remember?). On one occasion there Robert and I had been invited to ride the horses. I stubbornly refused - I wasn't getting on one of those things!

Now I realised that for God knows how many years I'd be stuck in this place, I had better try to fit in. There were two horses, big black Ned the work horse and old grey Rex, the kids' horse. So I took the plunge and mounted Rex. He was great - if you fell off (and I did) he stopped within a footstep. He didn't mind how many of us climbed aboard, he was there to be of service. Eventually, I would mount him barefoot, no bridle, no saddle and steer him with his mane. I felt like some Indian in a Western movie. Yes, that bit I enjoyed.

But there is nothing to be said for getting up at five o'clock every morning (cows don't know it's Good Friday or Christmas Day) and milking cows for two hours before breakfasting and dressing for school. Then getting home from school and having to help clean out the bails (the buggers were milked twice a day!) before tea and homework. So school was my escape.

Marist Brothers High School, Lismore, was situated on a flood plain, just below St Carthage's Cathedral, which was, as in all country towns, placed on rising ground. I entered First Year (i.e., Year Seven) in January 1954. There were 56 in the class. At the end of Term I I came second in the class. Jimmy Grainger came first. Jimmy was a swot and I quickly realised it would take a lot of hard work to knock him off his pedestal. I wasn't into hard work (and still am not, I confess) and felt that second place with little effort was pretty damn good. Subsequently, I always came second or third. Jimmy went off to become a priest and his place at the top of the ladder was taken by Bill Buckley. Fine by me.

We were all caned regularly - this was the norm - myself included, and Robert has already written of poor Brother Julian, surely no more than nineteen, who always got an erection while caning, which was why so many of us lined up. So while I wasn't totally a saint, I was not among the group who got caught letting off the rotten egg gas bomb in the Vogue cinema one Saturday night and were ritually and publicly flogged on Monday morning.

Our Intermediate class (Year Nine) was housed in a room with a very high ceiling and very high windows - you couldn't see out of them without climbing on a desk. One of our games was, in the change of periods, to climb out the windows one-by-one, jump down and rush around and re-enter the classroom by the door before the next brother arrived. Someone would inevitably arrive back to find brother had arrived - a sort of Lismore Roulette. When it was me, Brother Fergus said, "What are you doing out there, O'Keefe?" Something inspired me to reply, "You put me out there, Brother." "Oh, did I? Well, get in here and sit down." "Yes, sir."

I was a great liar - I think I was, because I did it a lot and rarely got caught. At one time, first class after lunch was Geometry, and as I always got 100%, I didn't feel guilty about missing it. I'd go downtown at lunchtime (did we have permission? I don't remember) and look at the new sheet music in Palings and put sixpence in the jukebox at Florian's Cafe to hear "Green Door" one more time (a great sacrifice, as my pocket money was one shilling a week) and be back in time for the next period. One Monday, I was loitering outside a chemist's window, ogling the ad for sun cream which had a couple of boys in cute swimsuits, when who should appear but Dad. I had forgotten Monday was market day.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, not unreasonably. As I was not briskly walking anywhere, I replied "Oh, I'm picking up a prescription here for one of the Brothers. It's not quite ready yet."

"Well, I'm surprised they don't use (he named the Catholic chemist)."

"Yes, me too," I replied and with that he walked on.

Looking back now, I realise that my education was appalling. In those days, with classes in the fifties and brothers hardly out of their mediocre training or on their last legs, school was all "learn this for the exam" - often by heart. Write it out and memorise it. No time for debate, no questioning allowed. The priests and the brothers were God. The only book I ever read at school (and loved) was Treasure Island. To this day, I have never read Austen, Dickens, H.G Wells, Thackeray and, God forbid, Hemingway or Steinbeck. Great grounding for the future school librarian.

Shakespeare. Intermediate year was Twelfth Night and Leaving Certificate was Hamlet. The girls at St Carthage's Convent mounted their all-girl production of Hamlet and we boys were invited. Helen Larrisey was Hamlet, she was great and it was great, but I can't remember why. We just learnt it for the exam.

At the convent two of the nuns, Mother Carmel and Sister Pascal, were distant relatives of ours. Sister Pascal cooked in the convent and my privilege as a relative of a holy nun was to be allowed to visit her at lunchtime (perhaps this was how I got downtown). I'd return with a pocketful of warm, delicious biscuits, straight out of the oven.

I was very much the class wimp - hopeless at sport, but good at running. These days I'd have been a victim of gay-bashing, but none of us knew anything of that. I won my spurs by being the class clown and bashing out the Black and White Rag and hits of the day on the classroom piano at lunchtime. "Please sir, can we go in and listen to Hugh on the piano?" I was never game to ask myself.

And yet, as I said at the beginning, I loved school. Each year I'd think, this is great, better than last year. I can only put it down to having nothing better to compare it with. By the Year Five (Leaving Certificate) we were a class of only six. Most boys left at Intermediate to work on the farms or get jobs in town. We had a considerable camaraderie in my final year, a headmaster, Br Emile, who was young, handsome, decent and manly, and a charming old English teacher, Br Fergus, who tried to instil a love of literature in us, but it was too late. (As a precursor to the cryptic crossword freak I have become, I worked out that our surnames spelt SOMBRE - Smith, O'Keefe, McDonald, Buckley (he was still topping the class), Rayner and Everingham.)

Then we sat the Leaving Certificate exam at Richmond River High School, being forewarned not to put JMJ at the top of the page, or they would know we were Catholics. Our school years were done. I had just turned sixteen.

Hugh