The following is an extract from Harold's Memoirs that recalls aspects of daily life during the late 1930s at Fordleigh. The old cottage was eventually replaced by a larger, more 'modern' home that Tom built, but Harold's early childhood recollections here, are of the original.
Fordleigh was our home. It was very small and modest with only two bedrooms, a lounge room and a kitchen. There was a veranda on the east side overlooking the Serra mountain range and a huge orchard. The veranda had a child proof, slat fence around it, which became the ‘playhouse’ for the little kids where they couldn’t escape.
We were a big family – 8 boys and one girl - and even though we had a very strict upbringing, there were always some lighter moments with a bit of mischief going on. In fact, it was not an uncommon sight to see our father, Tom, sprinting at full pace down the paddock, taking off his trouser belt as he ran, in heated pursuit of one of us for some kind of misconduct. He was a very fast runner in those days, so usually the guilty culprit copped a few good belt lashes when he caught them!
We had no electricity, no gas, no running water, no sewage system - but that was just how it was in the bush. We knew no different. Everyone had to pitch in to help and despite a few scuffles along the way, it worked.
Fordleigh cottage
Inside our kitchen, we had an old wood stove with very wide hobs where the bread mixture would sit to rise after being well punched and kneaded. As kids, we found this chore quite dull and boring, not to mention hard work, but we knew that if it wasn’t done well enough, the bread would have big holes in it and our jam would run straight through.
Kneading dough for bread Freshly baked bread
Once the loaves had risen to about double their size, they were placed in the oven to cook. Regulating the oven temperature involved a lot of guess work - you had to put your hand in to feel if you thought it was hot enough and if it wasn’t, more wood had to be thrown in. Too much wood and it would be too hot; the top of the loaf would burn. None of us were too keen on burnt crusts, but luckily our kitchen table had a convenient ledge underneath which came in handy for hiding anything we didn’t want to eat. I vividly remember Mum used to make us wait for the bread to be several days old before we were allowed to eat it - if it was too fresh, we would eat too much of it!
There were large, black, cast iron kettles that sat to one side of the stove and this was our hot water supply, which had to be topped up, periodically. There was also a small tin whistling kettle for making a quick ‘cuppa’.
Old style wood stove with kettles and pans A typical old kettle
Meal times were always a tight fit around the table and ruled with almost military precision. There was an odd collection of home-made chairs, all of different heights and sizes that Tom had mostly made himself. The high chair was back a bit near Mum and very often there was a rug on the floor with a little one chewing on a crust or a Milk Arrowroot biscuit.
The table was set with a crisply ironed white table cloth and before anyone was allowed to start eating, Tom would say ‘Grace’ to bless the meal. There was to be no talking during the meal, no one was allowed to rest their wrists on the table and manners had to be spot on. We were never allowed to put butter on our bread if we had meat on our plate as this was considered too extravagant!
Our meals were always pretty simple. Eggs on toast for breakfast with milk or tea to drink. A slice or two of cold meat with tomato and lettuce was Tom’s favourite breakfast and sometimes that is what we all had. If we had a slice of toast to finish off, we had dripping with salt and pepper on it. (Dripping is the fat that drips from meat that is roasting and sets hard when it gets cold).
The midday meal would be mutton and vegetables (it was never called 'lamb' in those days) or more often than not, stewed, curried or baked rabbit - sometimes even rabbit pie, if Mum had time to make it. Dessert, or ‘sweets’ as we called it, would be stewed fruit and custard.
Rabbits prepared for roasting Freshly baked rabbit and potatoes
The evening meal was similar, but for sweets we had bread and butter custard or rhubarb and apple and blancmange, which was made with eggs, cream, sugar and cornflour. Often in the colder weather we had Jam Roly Poly or Golden Syrup Dumplings. Sometimes, if food was a bit scarce around the place, we would have bread and milk in a bowl, with some sugar on it. (If times were tough and we didn’t get enough to eat, we would raid the orchard!)
Jam Roly Poly Golden Syrup Dumplings
At the end of each meal, the kids took it in turns to clear the table and do the dishes. One day, when it was my turn to wash the dishes, I was taking the big kettle of hot water to the sink, and because I was so small, I had trouble lifting it high enough. The bottom of the kettle hit the edge of the sink and boiling water poured all over my chest and ran down the front of me to my feet, scalding me very severely. Most of the skin came off and the pain was unimaginable!
Scalding burn Skin beginning to heal
I was taken to the doctor who prescribed a jelly-like substance called Tanifex that Mum had to paint on me twice a day. This treatment brought me great relief. I was in a bad way for weeks and it was a long time before I could bear to touch the scalded area. At least I didn’t have to do the dishes for a bit!
Outside the kitchen, we had a walk in pantry with a low roof that was built into part of the verandah. Here we kept bulk supplies of flour and sugar stored in big bins and other supplies, including home-made jams, tomato sauce, chutney, pickles, bottled fruit and honey. It also housed a yeast plant, to which potato water was regularly added, and from time to time, a ginger beer plant.
There was no refrigeration so a coolgardi safe was used to keep milk, meat, butter and other goods cool. This was like a cupboard that had hessian walls and a hessian door, which were kept damp. The breeze blowing through the wet hessian had a cooling effect.
We also had a meat safe for storing meat, which was like a tin box with lots of tiny holes in it that would hang up under a shady tree in the breeze. There was no way for us to store ice-cream, so this was always a very special treat on the rare occasions we went to town.
Coolgardi Safe - old style fridge Outdoor meat safes
Our lounge room was a special place reserved for when we had visitors. It had a coloured glass door and a big open fireplace, with an ornamental fender on the hearth. A companion set comprising of a shovel, brush and tongs, all with long handles, stood next to it.
The water supply at Fordleigh consisted of two 1000 gallon rainwater tanks, as well as an underground tank of rainwater used mainly for washing clothes. If we needed hot water for washing or bathing, we had to heat it up in the ‘copper’, which was located outside in a stand. Water was pumped from the underground tank with a Douglas pump and then a fire was lit under the copper to heat the water.
Washing in an old copper A Douglas water pump
Our washing machine was like a big drum with legs, and had an agitator that had to be pumped up and down by hand. The kids had to take it in turns to do the pumping, and there was a hand wringer attached to the top of the washing machine for wringing out the clothes. There would be one kid turning the handle of the wringer while another fed the clothes through it. Of course, the person turning the wringer had great pleasure in trying to catch the fingers of the one feeding the clothes through. Needless to say, there were a few tears and harsh words from time to time!
A typical old washing machine Kids using a free-standing wringer
Items like sheets and towels were boiled in the copper. A 'copper stick', which was strong like a shovel handle, was used to poke down the clothes in the copper. When the clothes were ready they were hauled up with the stick, held for a few moments to drain, and then put through the rinse, which was done in two heavy cement wash troughs. A blue bag was used to make the water in the second trough blue, which was meant to whiten the whites. The same blue bag was used to put on bee stings and other bites to calm the sting!
Our clothes line consisted of a piece of wire strung between two redgum trees and tied at about head height at each end. In the middle of the line there was a 4.5-meter long stick to prop the line up so it didn’t sag down with the weight of the wet washing. This prop was always very accident prone. A sudden wind change, a wayward cow or rain-sodden ground could see it take a nosedive and all the washing would end up on the ground!
Hanging out the washing
We made all of our own soap by boiling fat in the copper with caustic soda. This was a very dangerous job and you had to be careful not to let it boil over as it could catch fire very easily. If it looked like getting too hot you had to quickly reduce the fire under the copper. When it was ready, it had to cool until it set hard, then it was cut into manageable blocks. It was always someone’s job on washing day to cut up little pieces to put in the copper with the boiling clothes. Since this was the only soap we had, we used it for everything.
We had a pet “Cocky” that dad had trained to do all kinds of tricks. If Cocky saw a snake he would shriek “Snake, snake!” If dad whistled a tune and asked him to dance, Cocky would start dancing up and down along his perch, singing and whistling, as he went. He was always chattering. “Hello there! Whatcha doin? What’s your name? Wanna dance? Give us a kiss! Here puss, puss, puss” and so on. One of Cocky’s tricks was to run along the fence and knock off a row of jam tins as he went. Then, one day we thought it would be funny to teach him to run along the clothes line and toss the pegs off.
Mum had just finished pegging out a load of clean sheets and turned to see the lot of them dumped in the mud, thanks to Cocky's latest trick. After hauling them back to the copper to be re-washed and then hanging them out again, she turned to find Cocky on a roll, tossing the pegs off the wet washing left, right and centre. Mum, who was usually a very mild mannered person, was absolutely livid and decided to “teach the varmint a lesson”. Having never fired a shot gun before, she grabbed it up, pointed it in the air and let off a charge to give Cocky a "fright". Blood and feathers went everywhere and that was the end of Cocky!”
After washing day, which was always on a Monday, the ironing had to be done; a major chore in itself, since everything - including sheets and underwear - had to be ironed! First, the wood stove had to be hot so that the flat irons could be put on top to heat up. There were no steam irons in those days, so the clothes had to have water flicked over them to dampen them down, ready for the hot iron. (It was always a race to keep a pile of clothes ready for the iron).
A selection of old irons
The irons themselves had to be rotated. When one became too cold it was returned to the stove to reheat and another was taken. You always had to test the iron on a piece of cloth to make sure the bottom was clean, and not hot enough to scorch, or you could have an unsightly patch on a clean white shirt.
There was no bathroom as we know it, today. Instead, we used to wash our face and hands in a tin dish outside and we used a tub to bath in. The water was heated in the copper and several kids would use the same water. Sometimes there might be two little kids in the bath together.
As was usual in those days, the toilet was an outhouse, about 50 meters from the house with an old kerosene tin with a wire handle positioned under the toilet seat. The 'dunny' as it was called, was always a good distance from the house for a very good reason. Although phenyle was used generously, it was difficult to combat the smell and the flies.
Typical Outhouse or 'Dunny' An old wooden toilet seat
For toilet paper, newspaper sheets were cut into four and the pieces threaded onto a piece of string and hung on a big nail. We were never allowed to use the Weekly Times for this in case we needed to refer back to any useful articles and the Women’s Weekly was never used, either. Too glossy, too ‘scratchy’ or just not up to the task of a good wiping! If ever the toilet paper ran out there was usually a spare newspaper on the seat for reading material, which could be used for emergencies.
Emptying the 'dunny can' - a rusty old tin with a wire handle - was never a popular task. Two boys were delegated and I had to take my turn as soon as I was big enough. The stubborn old can would first need to be carefully hauled out the back of the outhouse through a trap door, then hung precariously on a pole across our shoulders. It had to be handled with care so it didn't splash, which was easier said than done, and always an interesting exercise if there was a big difference in shoulder height between the two kids. The shorter one usually copped the raw end of the deal as they made their way down to find a sandy patch to bury the contents. In a family where sibling rivalry was very much alive and sparking, paybacks of some kind would usually be on without delay – often ending with another chase down the paddocks by Tom to sort out the fight or Mum would intervene demanding the silly nonsense “stop right this moment” or straight to bed without any dinner!
Our main source of lighting was the Aladdin lamp which ran on kerosene and hung from the ceiling in a central position. We used mainly candles in the kids’ bedroom. There was also a kerosene lantern with a sturdy glass to protect the flame outdoors. We used this to see our way to the toilet at night because there were always snakes about during the summer months.
An Aladdin lantern Tiger snake
Our household was always pretty self-sufficient. We milked cows and made our own butter. The cream was sold to the butter factory at Hamilton. Since we had chooks, we always had eggs; the surplus preserved for the off season by smearing 'Key Peg' on them. Occasionally, we would set a hen to hatch out a clutch of chickens. The pullets would become ‘layers’ and the young roosters were a rare tasty treat for a meal.
Often a fiercely maternal hen would steal a nest away in a hidden spot, like under the woolshed, and hatch her own chickens. If you went near one of these hens, they were always wildly protective of their chickens. They'd puff their feathers up to look nearly twice their normal size, then run at you with outspread wings, like some mad demon. They could 'scare the billyo' out of any unsuspecting child who accidentally stumbled onto the scene.
A protective mother hen
We always relied quite heavily on rabbits for meat; both for ourselves and for the dogs. When Stan and Allen were old enough they would set traps to catch them. At the tender age of about six or seven, Max and myself fancied ourselves as rabbit trappers, too. We found some traps and were very proud to be able to catch the odd one.
In the cooler weather, Tom would butcher an old ewe that was fat. It would need to be cooked and eaten before it had a chance to go off. The warmer the weather, the quicker it would go bad, so some of the meat would be salted or corned to make it keep longer.
Salting meat
Our vegetable garden and large orchard always kept us in fresh produce. We grew about an acre of potatoes, which could be kept for a long period after harvesting, by 'pitting' them. They were put on dry straw on a mound out of the wet and covered with more straw. Soil was put over the top and trampled to pad it down so the moisture would not get in.
Vegetable garden New potatoes
We grew pumpkins galore (my least favourite), bush marrow and melons for jam making. Peas and carrots were also grown in large quantities as well as several varieties of beans, turnips, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, beetroot, silver beet, spinach, radish, rhubarb, cabbages, cauliflower and onions. We used to collect our own seeds from the vegetables for resowing.
Pear tree in the Fernleigh orchard Apricots ready to be preserved
The orchard had many varieties of apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, prunes, quinces and Kentish cherries. Almonds hardly ever made it to the house because the kids would raid them. With such an abundance of fruit and vegetables we always had home made sauce, pickles, relish, jams and jellies and bottled fruit. Honey was very often used as a substitute for sugar as we also kept our own bees.
Bees on honey comb in a hive Straining honey extracted from the honey comb
For anything else we needed, we would go across the paddocks to the neighbour’s house with some money and use their old party-line to place an order through to Rust’s, the general store, in Dunkeld. (A party-line was a phone line that was shared by several families. You had to listen to how many rings the phone gave to know if the call was for you or for a neighbour). Since the 'mail run' operated from Dunkeld to Mirranatwa three times a week, any supplies we had ordered on the phone would be delivered to us then. The mail run would also take our big cans of cream back to Dunkeld to go on the train to Hamilton and bring us back the empties to refill. It was a lot more than a simple postal delivery service, in those days - the mailman could often be seen carrying odd passengers and all kinds of goods around the Valley.
Empty cream cans Old phone with hand crank