I was living on a farm with my step Fathers Mother, four Sisters and two Brothers at Perillup Western Australia, 30 miles west of Mt. Barker.
My stepfather Jim we called him Pop, why I don't know, Pop was a prisoner of war, captured by the Germans and later transferred to the Italians, as a prisoner of war Veteran he was allocated a land settlement farm at Perillup, Western Australia. Well lets start with my first interesting experience and major turning point in my life, the day began with a telephone call from my sister Elaine a few days earlier, she had left home to work on a Farm cooking for the Carmody's a father and three Sons, she had only been there a few weeks, the farm was several miles east of Kulin, Western Australia, the call went something like this, they are Shearing here and i have been talking to the shed boss and they need a shed hand, a junior shed hands job is to pick up the wool after the Shearer has finished shearing the sheep, Elaine my Sister thinks the shed boss is interested in her, so she kidded him along and asked him if he could give me a job in the shed, she said to me i believe they pay good money, i found out later for a junior shed hand the money i received per week was 17 pound, i don't remember what i was thinking at the time after the telephone call but i decided i would give it a go. My Sister being the kind and thoughtful person that she is was always there to to help others. I didn't have many cloths, no proper shoes to work in a shearing shed, no blankets but what little gear i did have would have to do, then i came to the conclusion what am i going to use to pack the few cloths i do have, the only suitable thing i could find that resembled a case was a radio in a little wooden box covered with black vynal with a hinged lid, as the radio wasn't working, i thought this will have to do, so i took the radio out and the little box was my case. Train from Mt Barker and arrived at the Kulin Train Station in the middle of the night, old man Carmody picked me up, someone else was there i think it was Morrie, one of the Sons, Carmody's were one of the early settlers in Kulin, we drove to the farmhouse, a big brick building very solid, it was the original building built in the early settlement days. The shearers had already gone to bed, every thing was dark, I had heard weird stories about shearers and my imagination run wild, the twenty miles drive from the train Station to the farm, all these crazy thoughts were going through my head, I'm going to have to sleep on the wool, or in the wool shed on bags, but as it turned out Morrie said i could sleep in his brothers bed on the veranda as he was away for a few days, the next morning i got up a bit late, the shearers had already started work at seven thirty, After having breakfast with my Sister, the shed Boss came looking for me, i think the main reason, he was trying to get on with my sister, we walked over to the shed, it was all so new to me. My first day was hell, the shearers treated the board boys (Rousies) like shit i nealy gave up, that evening i spoke with my Sister and told her how the shearers swore and used all the F words, i had never heard a swear word up to that time, i was horrified, but later on myself working with the shearer's I was becoming just as good as them at swearing and still use the F word quite often, i have to be very conscious of what im saying when I'm with other people, especially when i get a bit agro about something. Previously my only experience with shearer's was on our land settlement Farm, once a year a shearer would come and shear our sheep, and he was bloody rough compared with shearers i had met and worked with in my later life in the Shearing Teams.
Going back to the early years of my life, born in the Subiaco Childrens Hospital on 19th November 1941, Subiaco is a suburb of Perth the Capital city of Western Australia, I was one of eight children, third youngest from my Mothers first Marriage, Laurie, Elaine and myself, Mum remarried and had five more, three girls and two boys. Meryl, Colin, Jillian, Maureen and Ross. My Father had also remarried, and had a girl Sandra and boy Kimberly, i spent most of my life with my Mother and step father, My stepfather worked as a share farmer, during my younger life, we lived on many farms, throughout Western Australia, from what i can remember they were mostly good especially for us kids. Although we were a poor family i didn't think about money or where it came from or if we had enough to live, I didn't have many cloths, and seldom wore shoes, but we always had food on the table, i found out in later years Mum was always finding it difficult to keep us in food and clothing. at Christmas we always had presents, as hard up as we were. My step Father Jim we called him Pop would shoot kangaroos and Rabbits, one particular Farm we lived on in South Australia he would trap rabbits for a living and dry the skins to be sold to a trader who would pick them up about once a Month. Pop would set traps of an evening and i would walk around with him, wearing his long kaki ex army Coat, it was too big for me and almost touched the ground, some of the rabits had kittens (baby rabits) i would put them into the large pockets and take them home, at this time there were millions of rabbits in Australia. we also ate rabbits and kangaroos, Mum made the best baked rabbit stew, Kangaroo tail soup, my favorit and Kangaroo steaks. At thirteen years old on the farm at Perilup, the age where i was able to help around the Farm, my chores were to, chop the wood, drive the tractor, milk the cows, i also had a small vegetable garden, id dig a trench and empty the dunny into it for fertilizer, this wouldn't go too well in the city. My Mother, Pop and us kids lived on farms all over Western Australia, and for short time in South Australia, that is another experience of my life i will write about in a later part of this story. Mum tallied up the places she lived while being married to Jim, was over 100, some of the towns we lived in that i can remember. Pingelly, Walgoorlin, Moora, Mt. Barker, Perillup, Perenjori my Mums home town, her father Bill Payne was a early settler in Perenjori. He cleared the farm with an axe and lived a very hard life, as most of the early settlers did.
A short Story about a time i can remember living in Perenjori my Mothers Home town, i was probably about ten. My cousin Norman came to me and said lets go and get some wood, the wood most people used those days was malle roots from a short shrubby tree, most homes had stack's of them in there back yard, so we leave by the back fence, Norman pulled off a couple of pickets, we climbed through and headed across some vacant land with Norm's small rope drawn cart, we came to a picket fence at the back of some ones property, the same process pull off a couple of pickets and climb through, unbeknown to me at the time it was the local policeman's home, this didn't worry Norman he was up to this trick quite often, they wouldn't miss a few mallee roots in a large stack, as the picket fence behind the mallee roots were hidden, after loading the cart we replaced the pickets and headed home.
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