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THE
SIGN WRITER
During the latter years of my time at
Glenbede,I had plenty of visitors ,
as having 12 nieces
and nephews ,and a brother and 2 sisters in Sydney,
there
was always some of them out visiting me, at one time or
another,
and quite often they would bring friends along,
as well.
I would have to say,that my brother Noel
was the most regular visitor,
as he used Glenbede ,as
his holiday destination nearly every year
between the
years say 1970 to 2001.
He used to take his
holiday from Dentistry, to coincide with the
Annual
Branding of the calves at Glenbede, which is a pretty
big event,
on a cattle property, as nearly every beast
on the place, has to be
mustered. Also in early days
before 1974, I never had a decent cattle yard
on
Glenbede ,but John Fegan let me use the Eulolo cattle
yards which
meant it took extra time, by the time you
drove them there branded
them, and then drove
them back to their paddock on Glenbede.
There was
no branding cradle on Eulolo at this time which meant
you had to head rope every calf, pull them up to a yard
post then
put a leg rope on a front leg and a back leg
on the same side of the
beast, pull them down and brand
them all, and castrate the male
portion of them.
Sometimes the branding job would take 3 days,
so we
would drive back to Gleneden a distance of 20 klms., cook
a feed, stay the night and cut lunches for the next
day, and come
back to finish the job.
Nearly
every year that Noel would come up, he would bring a
couple
of his friends with him ,or at times 3 or 4, guys
with city professions,
and even though they knew little
about cattle, or mustering, they filled
in doing some
jobs, such as driving a Toyota behind a mob of cattle
,
and keeping the tail of the mob up, and it later years
I had a 2 way radio,
on my quad bike, and one in the
Toyota, so could give them instructions
as we went
along.
In earlier years when Noel and I were on
horses, and no radios, everything
was much harder, and
by the time they went home, I had usually lost
my voice
,from shouting instructions, above the noise of the
cattle
bellowing.
One particular year, Noel
brought up 3 guys that he had met at the
Bankstown
Sports Club, which is a big club in Sydney, and one of
these
guys, Harold Neville,I think was the
President of this Club and the others
were on the
Committee of the Club, Harold was also Noel’s Dental
Mechanic,so Noel had been to the Club and had met these
guys, and
had a few drinks with them an invited them out
to Glenbede for the
branding. One of the other guy was "wrinkles" ( forgotten his real
name) who was a diamond
dealer, and the other guy was Norm Barkle,
whose nickname
was “Dobsy” and was an electrican, for the City
Sydney Council, and one of the first jobs he undertook
at Glenbede
was to see the frig. was full of beer, and
he made sure, he got his quota
at the end of every days
work. We all did of course ?????
Dobsy took over
my Honda 100 motor bike, and had a camera slung
over his
shoulder ,and rode along at the tail of the mob of
cattle,or at
other times drove the Toyota behind them,
if some other person wanted
the bike. In these early days Noel and I were on horses all the time at
branding
time. Anyway we got the branding done, and Dobsy proved
to be very handy around the place. Only had an engine
driven 32volt
power plant at this time,and he fixed up a
few electrical problems ,around
the place, and he was
handy with a hammer and nails and did a few jobs
down at
the Shearing Shed--made all new boxes for the Shearers
to put
their combs and cutters in. He would just see
things that would want
doing, and find the material
around the place, and the tools to do it with,
and in
time, would do it.
Anyway after the branding was
finished, and they all booked their plane
tickets back
to Sydney, and as I was seeing them off at Mt Isa. I said
to
Dobsy ,“you better come back next year for the
branding “ .He said
“I wouldn’t be able to come back
next year ,as I had to borrow money
from a finance
company to pay my fare up this year ,and I’ll have to
pay
that all back” I was talking to Noel on the phone a
few months later and
he said “did you hear about Dobsy” I said “no-- what happened to him”
Noel said “he won the
Lottery” I think he shared it with another bloke but
Dobsy ended up with half a million dollars ????
He
was back next year ,with his wife Gwen, in a Caravan,
which he
parked beside the front steps of the house and
was back every year for
the following 10 years,usually
in July, so when he would tell me he was
coming, I would make sure there were plenty of “Stubbies” in the
frig,
as I found the first year back that Gwen could
drink as many “Stubbies”
as he could !!!!! But this was
the start of a long friendship with Dobsy
and
Gwen.
They had frequent visits to the Pub in
McKinlay,and they got to know
almost as many people that
I knew around McKinlay, but on many
occasions they got
lost coming back to Glenbede at night, so the next
thing
Dobsy started doing was making signs.He had signs to
everywhere,
signs to the Cattle Yard, signs to the
Mailbox, signs to Keloshiel which
was an adjoining
property to Glenbede, also made signs showing where
there was a sharp bend in the road going to McKinlay
,and put reflector
lights on this one, so as he could
see this bend coming up at night time.
One night
we went to the McKinlay Pub in different cars, and he
and
Gwen left just after me late at night, after quite a
few “stubbies” I arrived
at Glenbede, and after looking
up the road to look for his car lights I couldn’t
see
them. I waited and waited, and eventually I saw his
light coming from
the Julia Creek road which was the
opposite direction to what he should have
been coming
from. There are 2 turn offs into Glenbede, coming from
McKinlay,and he had by-passed both of them, and
eventually got to
McAllisters crossing, which was 25
klms. past the Glenbede turnoff ,
before he realised he’d
gone too far ,and turned back and this time found
the
right road to Glenbede. Next day there was another sign
made, so as
he wouldn’t get lost again.
His most
famous sign was one where there were 2 roads forked, one
leading to McKinlay,and the other leading to the Mail
box, where he
used to quite often go and get the mail,
which was 10 klms from the
house. He made up a simple
sign which said Pub to the left and Mail
to the Right,
with a drawing on it showing the roads to take to these
2 destinations? ? This sign was noticed by someone and
they took a
photo of it ,and put it in the R.M.Williams
Outback Magazine, This
sign and all the others he made
was still there when I sold Glenbede.
I put in 3 grids
on the road McKinlay ,during the time he was there
instead of opening gates, which he didn’t like to do, so
he made grid s
igns to put beside each grid
also.
If you live in that country you have to
know where you are going ,as it
is
notoriously famous for having no road signs to
any where but thanks
to Dobsy, and his many visits to
Glenbede,it was the best signposted
property, of any
other in N.W.Q’LD. He made most of these signs, on
his
visits to Glenbede, but sometimes, he’d make up a sign,
at his home
that he thought was necessary ,and bring it
back at his visit the following
year.
The other
thing about how good their visits were, was that when
they
were there, Gwen did most of the cooking
during their 2 weeks stay (and
always only 2
weeks),which was a luxury for me, for my visitors most
of
the time, were men visitors, and I didn’t find too
many that could cook a
feed !!!! They had wives at home
that did all that for them?
During these years
that Dobsy and Gwen visited me once a year ,they
actually lived at Wamberal near Gosford, and in my
retirement I live
20 mins. from there now, at The
Entrance. They had a lovely house there,
and on my
holidays, I always visited them and had a meal with
them.
The first time I went there I had as much trouble
finding their place ,
as they did finding there away
around Glenbede ,but I am a “bushie”,a
nd couldn’t read
the signs, even though there were plenty there, as there
is now at Glenbede, thanks to
DOBSY.
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