My First Job

My mother didn’t want me to work on Glenbede. I think she wanted me to have some trade, as she didn’t think there was any future on the land, as Dad and her had done it pretty tough during the time they had spent on Glenbede, up to that time, and didn’t want me to have the same kind of tough times that they had. By the time I was ready to go into the work force ,she had bought a house in McKinlay, in order to send Mary and Carmel to the State School there, not wanting to teach them correspondence herself. Because of the age gap between Noel and I ,and Mary and Carmel. They were more or less starting school when we were finishing.
Anyway the year I left school there were a team of builders, building a new police house in McKinlay, and they were looking for a labourer to build a new fence around the house. So on Mum’s persuasion, I applied for the job, as I already had a lot of fencing experience helping Dad repair fences during school holidays, and these were the days when you didn’t have any mechanised ways of digging post holes, so it was all done with a crowbar and shovel, which is hard work. Anyway I got the job, and completed the new fence, and got paid, and that was probably the only work, other than working on Glenbede I done for the next 53 years - I thought bugger getting a trade!!! My ambition was to work with sheep and cattle, and ride horses, which I’d had been doing since I was 5 year old, and even though I didn’t know it at this time I had the best teacher you could find. You have to grow up with cattle and sheep or any animal really, to be able to handle them successfully, in any of their different moods, and their moods change a lot, depending on the condition of the animal. There is a hell of a difference between handling a fat animal and a poor one, and where I have spent most of my life, they were poor just as many times as they were fat, outback Queensland being a low rainfall area most of the time. Other things that affect the handling cattle and sheep on bigger areas, are climate conditions -- heat and wind in particular. For instance it is better, if possible to drive cattle during the cool of the night, than the heat of the day if travelling if you want to travel a long way in a short time. With sheep, they always walk into the wind, so the direction the wind is blowing comes under consideration when you are planning to do a muster, in bigger paddocks, such as 4 or 5 thousand acres, and of course the earlier you start mustering the better.
In the city, most people are not interested in which direction the wind is blowing from. Their main concern as far as the weather goes is if its hot or cold wet or dry, whereas at Glenbede, it mattered a lot. If you had no wind to work your windmill you had no water. A north wind indicated there might be a chance of rain. A south wind usually indicated there was no chance of rain. If you had rain you got up as soon as you could see to measure the rain, to see if it would be beneficial to growing grass, and as soon as the roads around your farm were trafficable, you would go round the many rain gauges you had to see if there was more or less rain in different parts of the property, because when you have 40,000 acres, you can have rain in one portion and not the other, just as in Sydney for instance you could have a lot of rain in Hornsby, but none in Redfern.
In these days, the late 1940’s, the first job you did was to walk down the horse paddock, and run the horses up into the horse yard, so you could catch a horse, saddle him up, then you might ride him around the property checking fences, checking the watering places, to see if the stock were alright. You carried fencing pliers, and quartpot, to use for making tea in for lunch, and you had a saddlebag attached to your saddle, in which you carried sandwiches. If the blowflies were bad in your sheep, you carried a pair of blade shears to cut the affected wool of the sheep ,making it bare, so as the blowfly had no wool to lay its eggs in. On some days you might 20 or 30 kms before you got home. The only drink you would have is when you boiled your quartpot at lunch time, that is on some of your day rides. On these long rides, towards the end of the year, all the waterholes dried up, and you might find only a few places where you could find water, to have a drink, and by the time you found that place, you were perishing.Most good bushman would train themselves to only have one drink a day and that was when he boiled the quart at lunch time. I often think that the best thing I ever bought during my horse riding days was a set of neck water bags ,which fitted over the wither of the horse, and were attached to the saddle. I would never do long rides without taking them, after I bought them. You could have a drink any time!!!
In these early days we only had one car, and it was only used when it was absolutely necessary. During the war years we couldn’t use it much anyhow, as petrol was rationed, and our was 80 litres a month, which is about one tank full of the car I have now. Everything was rationed during the 1939 to 1945 war years, and for some time after the war ended as well, and everyone had “ration tickets” for a lot of different things, such as flour sugar and numerous other things. We would only use the car during the war years to go to town, maybe once a month, for Mum to go to the CWA meetings, and Dad to the Graziers meeting, and Noel and I would play with other kids on these occasions. The only other time we would use the car was when we had to take fencing material out to repair fences after a flood, or to go to a bush fire to try to put it out ,and other important and necessary jobs. All the rest of the work was done with horses, so the horse was a very important animal during these times, whereas in the present times trucks, and motorbikes and quad bikes are use all the time ,and in some areas helicopters are used to muster ,but I never found it necessary to use one on Glenbede.One way to overcome the lack of petrol during the war was to have what was called a “Gas Producer” fitted to your utility car.This gas producer was run on coal,and the coal was lit up ,and it produced gas ,and the car was run on the gas produced by this gas producer.The ‘oversear” at “Eulolo” had one fitted to his utility,and I remember he visited us at Glenbede once and he was leading a horse beside the car.Dad asked him why he was leading a horse,and he said “these bloody gas producers,break down that bloody often,I lead a horse,so as I can ride home on,if it breaks down”The other thing ,it used to start bush fires,as sparks used to fly out of the chimney.
Even though most properties in the McKinlay area had a telephone, we had none. Dad drew Glenbede in 1924, and we had no telephone until 1951, when Tommy Porter and I put up 400 poles, 3 feet in the ground and 12 feet out .We put this line up in 14 days total time, and celebrated in the McKinlay pub on completion of the job. Before we put up this line, any urgent messages we wanted to send we went down to Cairo ,6 kms away and rang up or sent a telegram. The Cairo telephone line was connected to Gilliat Post Office, and we could have connected to this line by just putting up 6 kms of posts and wire, but there was about 8 other parties on this line, and the line itself was in bad repair, and you have no privacy, with all these other parties on the same line ,as everyone can listen in if they want to, just by lifting the receiver, so Dad waited until he got enough money to build his own line, and we were the only party on it ,and only the exchange girl could listen to our conversation, which she did, as many stories got around McKinlay, which could only be spread by the exchange girl. It was a big job for Tommy Porter and I, and we were very proud of ourselves both in the quick time we erected the line, and the straightness of the line, and when we celebrated in the pub on the last day someone said to him “is it straight Tommy?”. “Straight? he said “If someone fired a 303 over the top of those posts it would hit the exchange girl fair between the eyes!” Tommy Porter was a real wag and a lot of the sayings I have I got from him. He was a prisoner of war during the 2nd World War for 4 years, and spent most of the time in Kobi, working in the shipyards, and his one ambition when he got out was to have a good time, and his way of having a good time was to work for 6 months, then hit the Gilliat Hotel, and drink and drink until the money ran out, which usually was about 2 weeks, so he worked for 6 months to have 2 weeks fun! But he was a real good guy and worked hard fencing all the time at Glenbede, done a lot of the cooking, grew a vegetable garden, while he was there, and used to water it before he went to work, and after he came home, because of the intense heat at Glenbede. I watered it a lot of times if I had time and wasn’t out doing other jobs on the property.
We lived on mutton at Glenbede, which we liked ,but was always anxious to get some beef for a change, and one day I said to Tommy “I’d kill a bullock if I knew how to cut it up, and Tommy said if you shoot it and skin it I’ll soon cut it up.” So we killed this bullock and brought it in, in quarters, hung it up it the butchers shop to set overnight, and he must have cut it up in 1 hour flat, 600 kgs of meat. What I didn’t know was that he had worked in the meatworks for 3 or 4 years before he joined the army, and knew every cut in the book. So after this first episode we often killed a bullock, and I learnt how to cut them up myself, trained by Tommy. Other ways of getting some beef was to get some from drovers ,when they camped at the 49 waterhole, on the Stock Route, on their way to Gilliat, from where they trucked cattle on the train to send to the meatworks, to Townsville or Brisbane. In these days all cattle were walked to the railhead, the trucked on the train. There were no road-trains in those days. I was mates with the Malone boys, who done a lot of droving for Eulolo and Strathfield, and if they were coming down the stock route, that passed Glenbede, with a mob of 5 or 600 bullocks for sale they would usually kill a bullock when they got to the 49 waterhole, and they would let me know they were going to kill, and give me some beef. There was always a price to pay, and they would say, “You had better come and do a watch for us” and they would give me some meat. A “watch” meant you had to ride around the cattle for 2 or 3 hours during the night to make sure they stayed in the same place for the night-usually in the corner of a paddock. The night would be divided up into the number of drovers in the camp e.g. If there was 4 men in the camp they would do 2 hour shifts, but if I came and done a watch for them they would only have to do 1 ½ shifts therefore each of the drovers would get an extra ½ hour sleep, which meant a lot of them.
Talking about droving, in 1951 we had a drought year around McKinlay, and most of Julia Creek was drought stricken also, and 1000’s of sheep and cattle went out into the Boulia area on adjistment, but as there was no feed on the Stock Route, between Julia Creek and McKinlay, and as truck transport had just come in ,a lot of people going on adjistment, would truck their stock to 80 odd miles on the south side of McKinlay, the walk them the extra !00 miles, and further to their adjistment paddocks in the Boulia area.
Dad and I found some adjustment a lot closer than Boulia at a place called Nulgra ,which was owned by Des Collings, which was about 50miles from Glenbede,w here there was plenty of grass, so we put 5000 sheep together, and decided to drove them. We had just bought a new truck so we used it as the cook’s wagon. We got Mick Allen from McKinlay to drive the truck and do the cooking, and rig the “break” to put the sheep in overnight, and Dad and I another bloke ,who was looking for a job set off with the sheep. This was to be my first droving trip after leaving school. The second day after leaving Glenbede. It became very cloudy, and rainy looking. We made Moonamara Boundary Riders hut, that night, and put the sheep in the sheep yard there which saved us rigging a break, a “break” being a rope fence you put up to hold the sheep overnight. Anyway during the night it started to rain, and Dad and I thought the wet season had set in ,so we decided to let the sheep out of the yard into one of Eulolo paddocks, as there was nothing else we could do ,as we thought it would rain for a week or more. We went back to sleep in our swags thinking that this rain was going to solve all our problems!!! We woke next morning to a clear day with the sun shining brightly, so our problems weren’t solved. So we had to muster the sheep again to continue our droving trip. The trouble was that we had let the sheep go into a 30,000 acre paddock, and the fence was down into an adjoining paddock of 20,,000 acres, so it took us 3 days mustering to get the sheep back to Moonamara Hut yards, as the sheep were very weak, and couldn’t travel very far in a day, but eventually we got them back to the yard, and continued on our droving trip. It took us another 7 or 8 days to get the sheep to Nulgra, and let them go into 2 paddocks there, but the next job was to do up the fences, as a lot of the fences were flood damaged. Penola joined our paddocks on the East side and Broadlands on the West side, and Milgery on the north side, so we had some help from these neighbours.
There was a 2 roomed hut at Nulgra,one room being the kitchen and the other the bed room with 2 shearers beds in it.The other room had a table 2 chairs but no stove, but it had a stove recess, so we did all our cooking with camp ovens in the stove recess, so this is where I leaned to cook with camp ovens, and there’s nothing you can’t cook with a camp oven, and we had good wood at Nulgra-Gidyea, which made beautiful coals which are necessary, when cooking with a camp oven, as cooking with camp ovens ,you use coals both in a hole under the camp oven, and also on the lid of the oven to control the heat when you are baking a leg of mutton, for instance or a damper which we lived on at Nulgra. The only lights we had was a carbide light, and a Tilly light.
This was where we lived for the next 10 months. Most of my time was spent looking after the sheep and checking fences, all done on horseback, and this was to be my introduction into catching “dingoes’. Up to this there was never dingoes at Glenbede”, but now we were in hilly country where dingoes breed, so they were a big pest in this area ,and unless you could catch the ones that came into your country they would kill and maim a lot of sheep in just one visit to your paddock with the sheep in.
Teddy Young was managing Penola at the time, and my Uncle Jack Fegan owned it. Ted used to go around the foot of Penola hills every Sunday to check his dingo traps, which were outside the “dog netting “fence ,which was a fence put up by the Government to keep dingoes from getting into sheep country, as it was all sheep country north of this fence at this time. Ted used to get extra money ,both from the Council, and also there was a dingo bonus in some areas where a group of graziers got together, and put in extra money for any dingoes that were caught in a certain area, so Ted was very interested in catching dingoes, and he invited me along to show me how to set a trap. I used to meet hi at a prearranged spot, on the netting fence, and we would ride 30 or so miles every Sunday checking his traps and setting new ones if he found a new dingo track. During this time he taught me the art of setting traps, but wouldn’t tell me the contents of his decoy. “Decoy” is the substance you put on a piece of grass or a log or something, near where you put the trap, so the dingo is attracted by the smell of the decoy, and goes to smell it and at the same time he puts his foot in the trap and is caught. The “decoy” is put in such a place that the dingo must put hisfoot in the trap in order to smell the decoy. The main ingredient in any decoy is dog piss, which you catch from your domestic dogs, and then some blokes find other things to mix with it. I know my Uncle Max used to use aniseed with it ,and would swear it was the best decoy. Teddy Young would tell me about the dog piss but wouldn’t tell me what else was mixed with it, but I caught quite a few dogs with just dogs piss later on after getting these lessons from Ted Young. I have forgotten to mention that a dingo trap is set underground, and a dingo cannot see any part of the trap-the surface of the ground after the trap is set just looks the same as if you had never dug a hole to set the trap. The other thing is that the jaws of the trap is wrapped with light rag soaked in arsenic, so that when a dingo is caught he bites at the jaws trying to get free, and is poisoned by the arsenic ,and so has a quick death.
During the time I spent at Glenbede, there were a lot of droughts through the years, and we took the sheep and cattle ,to many parts of QLD, the furthest was near Clermont where I got adjistment for 500 cows for a 10 month period, so was a long way from Glenbede to go and see how they were going. Other places we took sheep on adjistment were Gilliat Plains, Cornwell Maxwelton. There were all different prices for adjistment, so much per beast per week and by the time ,you transported the stock to the adjistment country, and back home again after you got some rain at home. It worked out fairly expensive, but not as expensive as feeding. Feeding is very expensive, as the feed you buy as to come at least 1000 klm, usually more. Also you might feed a lot of stock, and the get a big downpour of rain in a short time and your sheep or cattle will die ,as even though you have fed them for 10 months or so they can’t survive a lot of rain and bog, and you can’t get the feed out to them when it rains a lot, so they starve.