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MEMOR I ES

By Marianne Benson

Wirremah Dad had a bad war. This was the background mantra of my early childhood. Not that he ever said so, ever.It was revealed in asides and whispers ‘Dick is in Concord again’ between mother, daughter, sisters, aunts, never explained, but later in screaming night terrors and long nights, dozing sleepless, never explained directly, but snippets pieced together, between funny stories.

‘He skipped over those rocks pretty quickly’, ‘He dodged those bullets and saved the beer’. Overheard, stories told only in the company of men.

Dick’s Service & Casualty Form

Dad was a talented man, beloved son and brother. His father had given him a small acerage outside Young. Dad had established this as a small orchard. He had worked in Forestry for a number of years during the Depression. ‘Tumba-ruddy- rumba’ and always was happiest outdoors.

He enlisted immediately at the outbreak of War and left the orchard. He returned, terribly ill, to recuperate for some months at the end of 1942.

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He married Mum, conceived my eldest sister, and returned to the fray. Mum tried, briefly to maintain the orchard, but soon returned to Wagga.

So Dad returned from war, extremely ill early in 1945 to a run-down property and in the middle of a now familiar, devastating drought. The farm had dams, but these soon dried up leaving Dad carting water in large wooden barrels on a horse drawn dray. They now had two children, one of them a small baby - me and, again understandably, Mum returned to her mother, taking us with her.

Dad sold the farm.

And in the War years

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Dick Fleming during his retirement years, still with a kind of military stance

Tubbul Road

The thought had been that Mum would run the shop while Dad worked on the railway and on surrounding properties as casual labour. Mum was soon expecting again and my brother was born jaundiced and sick.(R.H. negative what is that?) So mum gave up the shop, with its shadowy recesses and wooden counters.This then became the playground of my older sister and myself. Stale musk sticks, mouldering onions and potatoes, old Arnotts biscuit tins as well as a yard with the usual assortment of defunct utes and tractors plus a huge pepper

tree to climb.

My sister began correspondence lessons, so I spent much time roaming, sometimes in the company of the rabbit-oh or other wanderers in the landscape. Surprisingly, I came to no harm. Across the road lived an old woman, who still dressed as she would in the Edwardian era, all in black, with starched white bonnet on Sundays. She was very tolerant of a small girl. Down the road through the railway crossing, lived another couple vaguely remembered. You reached their home by means of a wobbly, plank bridge across a deep culvert, which

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There was a wooden structure and out buildings, roughly understood to be a shop, post office and attached residence, set in the vast, sun soaked country between Forbes and Young. A very small town. The Store with a post box nailed to a very large gum tree in the middle of the road, (convenient from both directions) several old houses, a railway station and crossing. Plus heat and more heat, dust and more dust, rabbits and more rabbits, sheep, flies, pepper trees and cats.

The two little figures sitting on the floor at the front are Marianne & Yvonne.

In the background, Tubbul Railway Station!

Dick & N

ance with M

arianne, Ian & Yvonne

was, very occasionally full of water.

I lost my sister’s doll and pram off this bridge.They were deemed unsalvageable and were the cause of much angst, especially when the culvert dried up to reveal the remains, buried partially in soft mud. Much mourned, never forgotten.

Marianne, Yvonne & The Peppercorn Tree

Mum and Dad by now had four children and so it was decided to sell up and move to Denman. I returned, some years ago, to find everything had vanished. As in The Wizard of Oz, a mini hurricane, common enough here, had gone through, taking everything with it. All that remained were pieces of flyscreen and bubble glass, from the louvre windows.

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Marianne, Ian & Yvonne

Random Memories of Tubbul Road

Polio The Christmas I had turned four,Mum and all of us children went to spend Christmas with my Grandmother, my aunts and cousins while Dad had gone to Lane Cove to his own family. Mum and Grandma Michelle did not get on for reasons that belong to another story. Dad had become very ill and Mum was sent for urgently.

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Dancing Children attended any event, including the dances held in the local hall. Babysitters were not heard of and anyway everyone attended. The older children joined in, or slept in the car. The younger children, myself included, were deposited on rugs and pillows, behind the piano, and some actually slept. I remember looking out from this place of safety, watching all the glamour. Bush dance it was not. The ladies all wore elegant evening dresses with long gloves, and the men were in suits. The Foxtrot, the Pride of Erin and the Gypsy Tap were the order of the day, followed by a seated supper. The children were bought a plate.

Going home in thedark car, Mum and Dad in low conversation, me pretending to be asleep. She’s old enough to walk! But Dad carried me anyway, deposited me in bed in the sleepout and then I watched his shadow dancing on the walls, full of love and affection.

The CatsWe had at least a dozen cats, I am now ashamed to say, not named, outside cats, and they were a ferocious bunch.

While the shop was still in operation, the few customers had a problem with their dogs.

Our cats had worked out a strategy, for stray dogs. Our house was up on piers, with a small slope from back to front. One cat would issue a challenge and entice the dog to the chase. Under the house would go the cat, up to the low end where the cats had a decided advantage with resulting carnage. Consequently all dogs had to be tied up, with one dog refusing to come anywhere near the shop.

We had dogs but I have little memory of them.They were certainly working dogs only. However, I was told by Mum of one cat who thought she was a dog. All the animals slept outside of course. In winter there were hard, hard white frosts and all the dogs slept curled around each other, in a big heap, for warmth. Come morning, emerging from the centre of this heap, would come a head then a paw. The cat had slept in total warmth and comfort. Why the dogs

tolerated this is a mystery.

I remember being down the backstairs in the now chain-flush toilet. I had locked the door and my male cousins were banging on the door, peering under and pleading with me to

come out. My usually taciturn huge, red-haired Grandfather Freebody battered the door in, scooped me up and deposited me upstairs. He was very concerned and anxious. The doctor was called. She was a lady doctor, still unusual for the time, but she was very popular. I was duly pronounced to probably have Polio and needed to be removed immediately to the infectious diseases ward.

Mum was distraught. Grandma was trying to calm her, my Grandfather disappeared, probably to the woodheap to smoke. My Aunts were trying to gather up numerous offspring to remove them out of harms way.Meanwhile I was forgotten. My older sister found my pyjamas, helped me in them, and sat holding my hand, until the ambulance arrived and carried out a very sick, but bemused four year old, to the waiting ambulance. All the neighbours had heard by now, and all turned out to see the sad event. For a small girl, used to a quiet and repetitive life, it was all puzzling.

My memories of the hospital are of a long dark echoing corridor. I was housed in a cot in a room with what I saw as a grown man although he was more likely a teenage boy. I thought he was deranged. He had a small car that he trundled over his head, up his arm,down his legs and along the curtain rails, all the while making suitable noises. It wasn’t until some years later, that light dawned. The poor man (boy) had been trying to amuse the little girl, who stared at him over folded arms, leaning on the rail at the end of the cot. Anyway, he was sent home.

It was Christmas. Santa arrived with great excitement. I was given an aeroplane. But I wasn’t allowed to take this aeroplane home, as everything leaving the ward had to be autoclaved. I had a non-paralytic form of Polio, more like flu, so I arrived home to a very late Christmas.

I don’t know if Mum ever visited Dad at Concord, but I have a vague recollection that he was there when I was released.

Denman I have never been clear how it was that we came to live in tents beside the railway line at Denman. Mum had always missed her home. She loved Wagga, had grown up there and went to Wagga High where she met Dad at the age of sixteen, and returned to teach at the same school. Her family came from Cooma and Numerella and her mother’s family were from Melbourne. Anything north of Goulburn was a foreign land. Dad on the other hand had family in Murrurrundi and had lived in Newcastle as a very small boy. His family were in Sydney so Denman had no particular fears for him. They were saving to buy a home outright. Dad hated debt and they had lost money. Mum told me they could have bought a house in Denman but she was afraid they would never leave. Apparently there were no rentals.

We moved from Tubbul when I was four and left Denman just before Christmas when I had

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just turned nine. Dad was not particularly worried by our new home. I guess he saw it as temporary. Neither was I and the other two children were very young. However my oldest sister found the change extremely difficult. We were not camping. The tents we lived in were large, army style with full flooring and a double roof system. They were supplied by the railway for its workers and were a fairly common solution. We were not exceptional. We had four large tents plus a Dad built laundry which also housed the fuel stove.The place was furnished in regular fashion - kitchen, dining room, children’s bedroom and Mum and Dad’s room, floors covered in lino and rugs. We also had a large covered play area in the middle.The bathroom was a problem. At first we did the large tin tub in front of the stove routine, but later Dad installed a tent within a tent with rudimentary plumbing. The toilet was the pit variety but this was still completely normal in country areas. Air conditioning? Roll up the side of the tent. Mum cooked on the fuel stove. We had kerosene lamps, a meat-safe, a radio, an ice-box, but no car, no phone. Water was delivered by rail, pumped into tanks. Dad worked out a rudimentary plumbing system to bring the water close to the house. There was a motor train to Muswellbrook, very convenient to the house and if this didn’t suit there was always the milk lorry, who would give you a lift in the half-light of early morning.

We had always lived close to nature and this didn’t change. The boundaries blurred and shifted. The fly over roof had certain advantages for the local wildlife. Mum waged a continual war with the possums. They would sleep in the space between the ceiling and the roof, their presence revealed by a tell-tale bulge in the ceiling. Mum would give an almighty poke with broom, which worked fine until one such shove revealed the bulge to be that of a very large bush python who proceeded to majestically descend by means of one of the tent posts ,into the corridor between the bedrooms.He made his escape before Mum had a chance to collect herself. Dad’s rather dry comment was that we should have left him where he was, it would have solved the possum problem.

8Yvonne, Marianne and Ian during the Denman Years

PIPER I need to say that Piper was not my pet. My older sister and he were soul mates. We found Piper at the bottom of a large gum tree. Dad gave his usual advice to let Nature take its course, advice which we promptly ignored. Out came the shoe box and the cotton wool. Piper was fed on pulverised worms until he could take the same diet chopped, supplemented with minced meat. One would hold his beak open and the other push the food as far down his gullet as possible. Eventually he could pick up food for himself. He went around perched on my sister’s shoulder, pecking gently at her ear. Although he would, at times go to others. He was supposed to be confined to a cage but this usually happened only at night.

He was very fond of butter and he learnt the trick of perching under the table. When the meal was finished, he would attack the butter leaving beak marks all over.That dratted bird is in here again! Mum would grab the broom and check all the hidey holes, chiefly the top of wardrobes. Mum never revealed her secret soft spot for Piper. My sister played the dreaded recorder and Piper joined in with vigour. He always felt that he could do better. We didn’t ever clip his wings, so he stayed with us from choice even when we moved house.

Snakes weren’t as much of a hazard as might be supposed, considering where we lived. We loved goannas and took great delight in seeing them scramble up a tree, then play dead, as long as they could then trying to shuffle themselves around the other side of the tree.

THUNDERSTORMS ....... were incredible. After long, hot summer days, clouds would gather to the south. First would come the flash of sheet lightning, followed by a faint warning rumble. This would rapidly change into violent zigzags bouncing around the surrounding rocky hills, accompanied by pouring rain and thunder.We had little protection, living as we did, and were pretty much exposed to all the violence of the wind and rain. Another memory of hot summer days, is of Dad loading us onto the rail trolley and pumping us all the way along the line to Sandy Hollow, where we could swim off the sandy reaches of the Goulburn River. Obviously, the line had little traffic as it stopped at Sandy Hollow.

THE TOWN Ogilvy Street had two Grocery stores, the doctor, the cottage hospital, the bank, Campbells Department Store, the butcher, a cafe, a women’s dress shop, barber and hairdresser. The town was very well serviced. As well, there was the Primary School, a Catholic Church, a convent with attached boarding school, a Church of England, a Methodist church, a Town Hall with movies on Saturday, and a library as well as the dreaded travelling dentist.On the way to school we could watch the Blacksmith, always busy, as well as the bakers with the all-pervading smell of white high top and pies. Behind us was the Common, with its loosely described golf course, the race track, show ground and all important football ground. The Chinese market garden was over the bridge, and two pubs completed the picture. A prosperous and complete small town.

THE COWS 9

My sister and I had a job. On alternate mornings we bought in five or six cows for a small holding down the road. The owner had obtained the right to graze his cows on the common behind where we lived. So, one or other of us, on alternate mornings, donned our gumboots in the dark, and set off to find the cows.

They where a docile bunch and, led by the boss, Strawberry would amble out, in the dark, warm breath puffing, ready to line up correctly and move up to wait at the gate. That is all except one, Pet. The name was ironic. Never was a cow more misnamed.Pet was a small Jersey-cross, ornery, awkward and stubborn, always last. Inevitably she would be behind something, stuck. Nor would she consent to go under the racing rail. She would walk for seeming miles around the racing track lowering, trotting, snorting until she found a gap. No persuasion, no demonstration of correct behaviour, no bribery with lucerne hay, ever changed her mind. Sometimes she gave the impression she might. She would stop, look at me, snort,toss her head, and then turn on her heel. Eventually, she would find a gap she liked and then break into a trot, an almost gallop, finally taking her place at the end of the now jostling line-up, not forgetting to give a final nudge of disdain, at the small girl, who was very much, last in the line. I often thought. that our real job was as Pet minders... otherwise redundant. The rest of the cows could have found their way without any help from us. But I still love the gentle lowering and warm smell, of dairy cows.

THE CHURCH We were Catholic, Dad was not. The compromise was that we would be christened Catholic but attend public school, basically ensuring that we were viewed with suspicion by both camps. In a small town, religion was identity. Even in larger towns, religion was a constant divide. However, Dad did bridge the divide to some degree. He supplemented our income by working as a gardener at the convent and boarding school providing a constant source of amusement and anecdote for him.

I was to make my first communion.This meant attendance at the Catholic School for some time, ensuring adequate compliance with all rules and regulations.This was followed by first Confession before first Communion.One absolute condition was that one could not go to Communion with a mortal sin on ones soul. The definition of this was very involved, so this was reduced to a very simple list for small children. What we understood was that non-

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Marianne as Little Miss Muffet

compliance was a sure and certain road to the eternal fires.

Most sensible children took all this with a grain of salt and to enjoy the jelly at the Communion Breakfast, without beating yourself up too much. But I was a serious and literal minded child.

Between Confession and Communion, I committed a crime of such magnitude as to exclude me and damn me to hell forever. The crime scene unfolded thus.

We were all lined up ,for First Confession, on perhaps the Thursday or Friday. It had to be a week day so the nuns could supervise. This gave plenty of time for crimes and misdemeanors before Communion at 8a.m. the following Sunday.

Denman had two places to buy groceries, Mr Mills and Campbells. Campbells was a very grand affair, with shopgirls all in black and men in long, white aprons. We went toMr. Mills. Mum usually spent some time talking to Mr. Mills and his wife amid wheels of cheese, slabs of butter and sacks of potatoes. However, Mum had fallen out with Mr. Mills. She had switched her patronage to Campbells and Campbells lay a considerable way further down the street than Mr. Mills. In fact, you had to walk straight past Mr. Mills, to get to it. Mum, as usual sent me on The Messages and very emphatically told me to be sure to go to Campbells.

Having been given no reason for this, and it was a hot day after all, I decided to excercise my right to free choice and went to Mr. Mills. Did your mother tell you to come here? A nod. On return Did you go to Campbells? Again, a fateful nod. Damned on three counts: one of disobedience and two of lying, a maximum penalty offence. I was in a complete quandary. I

could not possibly go to Communion, despite the making of white dress and veil. What to do? What to do.

Then......... my baptismal certificate could not be found. A halt in proceedings. Incidently, this was because one did not exist, at least not a Catholic version. My grandmother Michelle had had me christened a Methodist- another story. Therefore, I had to be redone, the embarrassment of this being far outweighed, by my miraculous and automatic freedom from my weighty sins, washed away by water. I believed firmly.

To this day I wonder if God had a great, but kindly, belly laugh at my total distress and silliness. As a by-line, I believe the dispute with Mr. Mills had to do with the illegal sale and distribution, of the milk, that was produced by team Strawberry. I was a criminal on one more count.

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Longueville Road, Lane Cove.This was Dad’s home for many years.He had two much younger sisters who were born after Grandpa returned from the war, and he had lost his much loved brother Jim, when he was twelve. Grandma Fleming, nee Michelle, was a truely tiny woman, of Cornish hertiage. Her mother and father had married in Redruth, Cornwell, before immigrating. Great grandfather was a mining engineer, but worked as a cabinet maker once he settled in Sydney. Coincidentaly, Dave’s great grandfather, on his mother’s side was also living in Redruth at this time. They probably knew each other. Grandma Michelle’s family were all strict Methodists. The family had bought land at Pymble when it was still bush, and were now, „comfortable”. Grandpa Binnie Fleming had enlisted in world war two, from Waratah. Newcastle, Where he was working, as a manager for a wool traders.His family came from Edinburgh, , where my great- grandfather, George, was born. His mother , Johanna Kennedy, came from a large family of horse breeders,at Mururrundi. We, that is my older sister and I, loved to visit Lane Cove. The very name still brings a feeling of warmth and security. It was very different from the life we lived at Tubbul and Denman. The excitement of catching the tram to Balmoral Beach,or the ferry to Manly, or to visit the zoo,were never to be forgotten.We had two unmarried Aunts who loved nothing better than to curl our hair, dress us up, and take us wherever they, or we, could think of. At christmas time the treat was to visit David Jones to see Santa. This was no make-do affair.There would be extensive scenes and panoramas,Snow white, the sleeping beauty and bambi were favourities. And etched firmly in the memory.After the visit we would visit the cafeteria,unjmaginable excitement for two little girls from the bush. The lane cove house backed ontoa gully, filled with ferns and rainforest. Grandma kept a great many ducks, so duck eggs were the order of the day.Our job each morning was to search the hydangea bushes for snails, and feed them to the ducks. Grandma, and one of our aunts were particularly fond of, and had a great affinity with, animals.

The house had a regular flow of stray animals and injured wildlife. One story my aunt, as a small girl,having a pet stray cat,that lived under the raised up section at the back of the house.Grandma regularly supplied milk for this cat. Eventually she decided to check on proceedings. My aunt put down the saucer of milk and called the cat.Out from under the house came a rather fat red-bellied black snake, who proceeded to drink the milk, while my aunt petted and patted it.Needless to say, my grandmother, fond as she was of animals,reacted rather strongly to this! My aunt never forgave her for killing that snake. Grandma Fleming also loved music.She both played thepiano and sang. She also had a huge collection of fine china, a love that I share. With great kindness she would open her cabinets and let me handle all her treasures. I do remember someone protesting that I might break something, and Grandma replying thay I was very careful and that she had every confidence in me. I loved her for that. We also attended Methodist Sunday school.My aunts would take us.I remember sitting on small chairs, in a large circle, with our aunts standing behind us.We

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sang songs, played the tambourine. Did action rhymes,and bible stories. I loved it as it was very different from our usual Sunday Latin Mass.

MORE STORIESFollowing are a number of stories that sometines expand on those above.

Grandpa Frank (Francis Freebody)Frank Freebody was born in the 1870s into an extended family who owned property in the Snowy Mountains high country. He had by modern standards a hard life. While young, his main job was to help his father Simeon, to transport the wool clip, by bullock train to the closest rail head at Goulburn. The return trip took the best part of six months.

He was largely educated by his mother who must have been a remarkable woman. Apart from living above the tree line, she managed to educate a very large family. Frank read extensively and had a complete signed collection of Charles Dickens’ works. He joined the Shearers’ Union very early and the fledgling Labor Party. He wrote articles and pamphlets, gave speeches and worked on the booths at election time, with help of Mabel. He was a man of passionate belief.

He was also a competitive tennis player, as was his daughter Nancy. He annoyed her by going to all her A Grade competition matches and calling out free coaching from the sidelines.

The memories of his granddaughter are fragmentary. He was very tall man with a bushy red beard and in her memory, cloudy blue eyes, always in a state of puzzlement as to how to cope with thirteen grandchildren.

He had married Mabel late. He was in his mid-forties by the time his children had arrived and in his mid-seventies before the arrival of his grandchildren. Frank escaped to the vegetable garden and to the old stables down the back of their house. Second grand daughter also loved these stables and so they sometimes crossed paths. She would sit and watch him work.

One Christmas, Frank was painting an old bike. You are not to tell anyone. Santa is short of time, so I’m giving him a hand. The fact that the bike appeared alongside her sister’s bed on Christmas morning only confirmed in her mind her Grandfather’s mysterious relationship with Santa.

Frank had a strong singing voice and played the fiddle by ear. He also loved chess and he and Mabel would have games that seemed to last forever.

Frank passed away in his mid-eighties He died young because of the drink. Was Nancy’s explanation.

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Grandma Beatrix Michelle and An Unusual TalentDick’s mother was a totally diminutive woman, but she made up in temperament for what she lacked in size. The two older Fleming girls visited their grandparents and stayed over in company with their father. To everyone’s surprise, especially that of her two tall and beautiful daughters, she was a totally indulgent and extremely loving grandmother. Her granddaughters played on her beloved piano, gave tea parties with her very expensive dinner sets and were dressed and admired in every way.

Beatrix loved animals. There was always an assorted collection of stray and injured cats, and sometimes dogs resident in the house. When her daughter Peggy was a very small child, she claimed to keep a stray cat under the house. For some time, she had been asking her mother for milk to feed this stray. Eventually, Beatrix went to investigate. Peggy put down the saucer and called the cat. Out from under the house came a very large and well fed red bellied black snake who proceeded to drink the milk while being patted and petted by Peggy.

The youngest Fleming granddaughter inherited this bond with all animals. The family had had a pet magpie which was caged at night. One time, a huge hairy tarantula spider was found to be in the cage with the magpie. While everyone else was screaming and flying around wondering what to do, the youngest daughter simply put her hand in the cage, grabbed the spider by a leg and then deposited him safely in a tree. She was at a total loss to know what the fuss was about.

In retirement, apart from volunteering at a reptile park, the youngest daughter became a snake catcher, with a particular affection and love for red bellied black snakes. It would be interesting to know if this talent or madness has passed to a fourth generation.

The Malcolm GirlsThree of Grandma Mabel’s sisters became nuns together, in the same order, in the same convent and all as teachers. They remained together for all of their very long lives. It must have been unusual even then. Mabel was also a teacher, but luckily for us, did not decide to join her sisters in the convent.

The nuns were allowed occasionally to visit Mabel and so they would make the long train journey from Melbourne.

The girls together were a lively group. They would allow themselves a small sherry and a game of cards in Mabel’s front room with much laughter over very slightly risque jokes. After two or three hours, the eldest would stand, brush down her habit and assemble the gang.

Off down the road they would go, rosary beads jangling, heels clicking with the two oldest in front, glancing back over their shoulders at the youngest struggling to keep up. Fading and retreating into memory.

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The youngest nun taught kindergarten with much relish and affection. She also had a reputation for an overactive imagination, full of funny stories about her pupils Now that is not true in the least! was the put down from eldest sister. The youngest nun always took this with total good humour with a sideways glance and a half smile at her young audience.

Our mother Nance always kept in close contact with her aunts, and so, after Christmas, a large brown paper parcel would arrive. The nuns were not allowed, so any personal possessions given by the parents of their pupils and deemed suitable for nuns were sent on to us. Gilded pictures of the Holy Family and the Sacred Heart vividly coloured prayer book pictures, tortoise shell rosary beads, lavender water, lace edged handkerchiefs and even hand embroidered mementoes had to be sent on. We thought it all beautiful and received it gratefully, but we were at a loss to know what to do with the black gloves and thick black stockings.

The aunts all lived to be close to or just over one hundred years old. Mabel our Grandmother lived to be ninety-six, all loving and tolerant of each other throughout their very long lives.

More Random MemoriesJohanna Kennedy (Richard Binnie Fleming’s Grandmother)Johanna died a few months before I was born in August 1945. She was living at the home of the Gilmour’s in Artarmon. One of her daughters, Doris had married a Gilmour and Auntie Marion, a maiden aunt also lived with them.

Johanna had been born (I think) on the ship coming out from Ireland. Her parents, Mary and Patrick Kennedy were emigrating from Cashel in Ireland. They were horse breeders and trainers and they settled near Murrurrundi in the Hunter Valley, NSW. They subsequently had a large family, mostly boys.

Patrick and Mary are buried just near the front door of the Catholic Church at Murrurrundi.

I know little of Johanna’s childhood, but one story was about how all the girls rode horseback through rough country to the dances. They took the hoops out of their skirts and slung them around their necks while they rode and then replaced them when they arrived.

Johanna was a strong-willed person and at the age of sixteen, met a visitor to the district, George Binnie Fleming. He belonged to a strict Presbyterian Scottish family. There are a number of Fleming graves lined up in the Fleming section of the Murrurrundi Cemetery and I think perhaps he was visiting relatives. In any case, they absconded together and were married at the now Uniting Church in Tamworth. I gather Mary and Patrick swore never to

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speak to her again, but I don’t know that they entirely held to this. Grandpa and Dad certainly knew Johanna’s brothers as they taught Grandpa to ride amongst other things.

Johanna was a very good horsewoman. She visited Mum and Dad at Wirrimah, probably not long before she died in 1945. Mum said to her that she couldn’t still ride. Dad had a horse that he kept mostly for ploughing. Johanna climbed up bareback and promptly rode the horse to the end of the paddock. Admittedly he was a very placid horse.

The family settled at Pymble in Sydney before the bridge was built. Great Grandpa George was a builder by trade and injured himself quite badly. He was off work for six months. To help ends meet Johanna and her daughters set up a small bakery, making mostly pies and selling them to local workmen. At one time Johanna was missing so the girls went to find her. They found her sitting on the edge of the local quarry, joking and laughing with all the workmen. Quite a scandal for the times.

She was apparently beautiful when young and had a big and unconventional personality.

Great Grandfather George Binnie FlemingGeorge was born in Edinburgh but lived in Glasgow. Auntie Nancy, in the 1950s visited the family at Dunbarton and they were very welcoming.

George was a very good long-distance ice skater and had won many prizes, particularly for one on the Clyde River before he emigrated. He came out apparently on his own and as previously related, met Johanna Kennedy and they married at a young age. Their family, as I know it was James our grandfather, his brother George(?), sisters Doris and Marion, but there were other children.

I only remember one story told about great grandfather George. They were living at Pymble and he had to catch the steam train to North Sydney and then the ferry across the harbour to his work.

He was in the habit of jumping the gap to the wharf before the ferry was tied up. One time he slipped and fell into the water. He went down for the first and came up with his tool bag still in hand. He handed this over to someone on the wharf before going down for the second time. He was eventually pulled out fully clothed in woollen work clothes and boots. He then spent the rest of the day going up and down the railway line in the fireman’s box of the engine to dry off. The idea was that his family wouldn’t know what happened. Didn’t work. We still remember to the fourth generation.

Mary Williams and Richard Michelle (Dick’s Grandparents)Richard Michelle emigrated from Hayle in Cornwall, near Redruth along with his wife Mary Williams and his brother.

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Mary Williams came from a mine owning family in Redruth. Richard’s family, according to Beatrix, were French. Well, so they were, but Norman French. From Ian’s research, our Michelle ancestor was a follower of William the Conqueror, given land in Cornwall, given land for his services. They lost most of this land at some stage backing the wrong Henry but retained enough of it to have some privileges and voting rights until the time Richard emigrated. Incidentally, his siter was a schoolteacher. We seem to have a lot of women schoolteachers in the family,

In Cornwall and on his marriage certificate, his occupation is stated as an engineer at works, but in Australia, he worked as a cabinet maker.

Richard and his brother first settled in South Australia, but he then moved on to Sydney where he bought land at Pymble. Richard and Mary were staunch Methodists. Their family and the number of children can be looked up, but I know of Richard Junior, a lawyer, our grandmother Beatrix and her sister Edie who didn’t marry. Edie visited us in the late 1950s and I went to stay with her for a time. Edie still wore black, including a full-length black skirt, but was a truly kind and affectionate person. Edie lived in a house full of furniture that had been made by her father.

We still have an armchair that was made by him, currently in the possession of his great great great grandchildren. It is known as the bouncy chair, much loved by both me and the children. I had it re-covered when Amanda was born in a very fashionable brocade. It needs to go back to its original condition in black leather.

Great Grandfather Simon Freebody and Great Grandmother Johanna RussellThe Freebody family history is very interesting and well researched, so I won’t relate it all here. It would take a book, so I will simply relate that which concerns Mum’s grandfather Simon Johanna Russell her grandmother.

Simon had inherited the property Arable from his father, John. Arable is near Berridale in the Snowy Mountains. His wife Johanna was a second-generation Irish woman. Unfortunately, in the terrible drought of the early nineteen hundreds, Simon had borrowed money from the local stock and station agency in Cooma and that agency foreclosed on the property one day after the loan fell due. Simon reputedly would have had the money to pay the loan.

This was the cause of much controversy. I do know that Simon was in a position of long-term trust with the agent who foreclosed. I met the present grandson who still holds bot the agency and Arable. Dave and I went to see the property as Mum had talked about it frequently. As we were photographing the sign at the entrance, the owner pulled up and when we explained who we were, he invited us to the house. His main purpose after all this time still seemed to be to justify what had taken place. In the course of this, he produced the stock book where our great grandfather, Simon had year after year signed to accept responsibility for the delivery of the local wool clip to Goulbourn by bullock train. In my mind this simply validated that Simon was treated badly.

Anyway, our grandfather Frank would never have inherited and a more cold and miserable place to live is hard to imagine. However, the Freebodys loved the place and the old stone homestead they built still stands.

Simon died in Goulbourn, but the family must have gone to the trouble of transporting his body back to the Snowy and the local cemetery where his buried.

Johanna died while living in a boarding house in Sydney during the 1930s. I only know this because Nance, my Mother mentioned that she was living in Sydney at the time, training to be a teacher and had been asked to keep an eye on Johanna. After her death, Mum was a little delayed in getting to the boarding house. By the

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time she got there, the landlady had burned everything she owned including all the family photographs. Mum was extremely upset as she was only eighteen. It seems a strange and lonely life and death for Johanna.

This short story ties together a number of family themes under the heading of “resilience”Memory QuiltWhere is it that you start a patchwork quilt? Do you start at the centre or randomly pick a piece, begin sewing and hope it falls into place?

Tubbal Road would be patchwork pieces of pale-yellow ochre, a deep dark brown, olive green, galvanised iron steel grey and the silver of the shimmer or heat haze.

There were some wooden structures near the railway crossing roughly understood to be a shop, post office and attached residence set in vast sun-soaked country. It was part of a very small town: the store, with a post box nailed to a large gum tree in the middle of the dusty road so as to be convenient for locals travelling in either direction. Several old houses, a railway station and crossing as well as heat and more heat, dust and more dust rabbits, sheep flies, pepper trees and cats.

The thought had been that Nance could run the shop while Dick worked as a fettler on the railway line and on surrounding properties as casual labour.

However, Nance was soon expecting the third baby and the boy was born jaundiced and sick. So, the shop was given up with its shadowy recesses and polished wooden counters. This then became the playground of the older children. Stale musk sticks, mouldering onions and potatoes, old Arnotts biscuit tins as well as a yard with the usual defunct trucks and tractors, plus a large pepper tree to climb.

The next patches are more daring. We can fit in small patches of bright red lace, deep blue satin and emerald green silk shot with purple.

Children were welcome at any event including the dances held in the local Hall. The older children joined in or slept in the cars well within clear view of the golden circle of light at the entrance to the hall with its joshing crowd of flirters and smokers. The younger children were deposited on rugs and pillows behind the piano and some actually slept.

Going home in the dark car with Dick and Nance in low conversation and the children pretending to sleep. ‘She’s old enough to walk!’ But Dick carried her anyway, depositing her in bed in the sleep-out and there she watched his shadow dancing on the shiplap walls full of love and affection.

The patches next are of florals. Bright green grass, amber brown, bright blue skies and deep hazy purple for far distant hills.

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It has never been clear how it was that they came to live in tents beside the railway line in a small country town.

The tents were large army style with floors and separate rooms. Dick built a laundry which also housed the fuel stove. Air conditioning was easily done by rolling up the sides of the tents. There were kerosene lamps, a meat safe, an ice-chest, a radio plus a hessian water bag hanging from the water tanks. There was no car or phone, but here was a motor train smelling of diesel, very convenient to the camp and if this didn’t suit, there was always the milk lorry, the driver would willingly give a lift in the half light of early morning.

The family lived close to nature. The boundaries blurred and shifted. The fly-over roof had certain advantages for the local wildlife. Nance waged a continual war with the possums. They would sleep in the space between the ceiling and the roof, their presence revealed by a tell-tale bulge. Nance would give huge poke with the broom until one such shove revealed the bulge to be that of a large green tree snake who proceeded majestically to descend by one of the tent posts into the corridor between the bedrooms. The escape was made before Nance had a chance to find her broom. Dick’s comment: ‘The snake should have been left where it was. It would have solved the possum problem.’

The two older children had a job. They would bring in five or six cows on alternate mornings. They would don their gumboots in the muffled dark and set off to find the cows.

They were a docile crowd and led by Strawberry would amble out, snuffling and steaming in the dark. On winter mornings with ice glazed puddles and frozen mud crunching and collapsing in frozen shards, they all wandered up towards the gate, keeping strict order with only the odd gentle nudge towards the small girl, trudging behind, definitely the last in the line. Then the swing of the metal gate, fumbling with the chain with frozen fingers, and then the warm smell of lucerne hay.

In summer, after a long, hot day spent on the sandy reaches of the river, remember massing storm clouds to the south, then lightning crackling and bouncing off the ironstone hills to shrieking delight from the children.

Eventually, Nance and Dick saved enough money to move themselves and their now family of five children to the city.

What are the colours of tarmac, multi-storey buildings, railway trains and factories? Within the routine of school to home, home to school, within the crush of children and commuting crowds there are glimpses and flashes of connection. Momentary experiences from when there was no past or future. Now, the intensity of past connectedness: purple hardenbergia, a sunset over stretching wetlands, the chugging of a moorhen, floating reds and yellows, of slimy seaweed in a rock pool and leaving your body to move within the swell and dash of a wave.

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Resilience is a memory as health and social life, carefully nurtured in the middle years recedes with age. Colours now returning vividly within this space of aging. A patchwork of flashing colour intertwined with smell and sounds of earth and bush.

OUR ANZACsI’m posting this as a bit of a tribute to Grandpa and Dad Fleming for ANZAC Day.

Grandpa Jim Fleming was a social and well-liked man, tall and good looking as was his son Dick. James’ mother, Joanna Kennedy came from a large Irish Catholic family of mostly boys, all of whom, it seems were horse trainers and or pub owners. His father George was a Scottish Presbyterian, born in Edinburgh but lived in Glasgow, a builder by trade and not a man to be messed with.

James enlisted in the Light Horse during World War I and Dick followed his example in World War II. Both men were genial and outgoing, but both had a red letter, no entry sign on their war experiences. In the right company, Dick would sometimes open up with stories about his early experiences in Egypt and stories about his war service in New Guinea, but never about the Greek Campaign.

Dick had caught malaria in the middle east and so his health remained compromised for the rest of his life.

James, a few years before he died, became very ill and was admitted to Concord Hospital. While second grand daughter was visiting him, he uncharacteristically asked her what she thought would have been the happiest day of his life. Her best guess was that it would be related to cricket which he loved with a passion.

She was wrong. His happiest day was during the War whilst serving in the Middle East. He told her how they had made camp amongst the orange trees. They then rode their horses down to swim in the Mediterranean Sea.

He also told her what he regarded as a funny story about their entrance to Damascus. Apparently, the population simply ignored them. This was at a time when Jim was currently a Sergeant. They conferred and decided to approach the senior town official for the surrender. You are too early. Go and have a coffee and come back tomorrow was the rather unexpected reply. The Australians did as requested and when tomorrow arrived, so did Lawrence of Arabia in a black Roll Royce and took the said surrender. Grandpa thought the whole thing extremely funny.

Another unexpected story came when his granddaughter commented that she thought Ben Hall the bushranger had been unfairly treated. She was watching the series on the ABC and her interest in Ben Hall was strictly theoretical. That’s something you know nothing about was the terse reply. Under questioning, it turned out that Jim’s aunt had married one of Ben Hall’s brothers. This was very grudgingly revealed. He stole cattle from his own mother-in-law (Mary Kennedy, James’s grandmother). There was no more to be said. He was not at all

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proud of the connection. Jim had his own code of honour and that did not include romanticising bushrangers!

James died peacefully in his sleep at the age of ninety-six. He had been lovingly cared for many years by his second wife, Ethel. He was greatly loved by all his grandchildren.

PS THAT’S ALL FOLKS! But last thing as a note about my parents Nance and Dick.

They met at age sixteen at Wagga High and did not marry until age 28. Mum trained as a teacher and then worked to help support her family, teaching at Wagga High throughout the Great Depression. Dick worked at the same time for some years with the Forestry planting trees at Tumba-bloody-rumba amongst other places and then trying to establish the orchard at Wirrima. They kept in touch but were in no position to marry until finally they threw caution to the winds and married at Brisbane just before Dick was shipped out on his second tour of service in New Guinea.

I lived very close to Nance for most of our lives (within half an hour’s drive of each other) and Mum loved to talk about family. I’ve left out some personal and difficult stuff and also the stories about our great grandparents .... too much information. But I will record these bits elsewhere.

Ian, my brother has researched both sides of the family extensively. I have simply recorded some of Mum’s and my own personal memories.

Marianne Frances BensonHawks Nest NSW

2nd May 2020

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