School Years

Boarding School Year:
I first went to Boarding School when I was 9 yr old along with my brother,who was 2 years older.It was a school run by Catholic nuns,and the school was 800 klms away from Glenbede, so went by road and rail. A very young age to be away from your parents for 6 months at a time.

My Family

I used to live in Outback for almost all my life where a postman delivered mails once a week, my mother had to go 32 km for food, 80 km for clothes or to a doctor.

Where did I live ?

At Glenbede in early days,we used to get mail from the nearest Post Office once a week on a Sunday,which came by truck,so the correspondence school in Townsville sent you an excercise book of school work to do in a week,so you did it helped by my mother in my case,and returned it by the same mail truck the following week, completed and it was corrected by the same person in Townsville each week,given credits,and sent back to you along with another book for the following week to be done.You only studied long enough to complete the questions in this exercise book,along with learning tables and spelling etc,that the teacher in Townsville told you to learn,which sometimes you learnt while riding a horse with my father as we went to muster sheep on the Farm or other farm jobs as in my very young days,we only had one car,so a lot of work was done on horses,especially in the war years,as petrol was rationed,and you only got a smalll quota of petrol,which was only used for essential purposes.

Driving

Well, I could drive a car by the time I was eight years old. Most kids on outback farms can. But of course you can not drive on roads where other cars use.You get a license until you're 17. One day I just walked into a policeman's office. And he gave me a license. No test, of course ! He already knew. I had been driving cars on the farm for years.

Olive In Outback

This house is now owned by my niece and is where we stay when we go up for races in McKinlay.