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I have just been thinking of all the years long gone. I am now in my sixty
ninth year and I was thinking of all the changes that has been made during
my lifetime. The present day young ones now take for granted all these
changes without a second thought as to what once was. If they had to now go
back to what we had they wouldn’t know how to exist.
When I was a child we used to buy our household kerosene in 4 gallons tins
in wooden crates of two. This was used for lamps because we had no
electricity, we also used Kerosene for lighting our wood stove. Wood stoves
were used to do all our cooking making cakes etc and all oven types of
cooking and baking. Vegetables, boiling meats stews, soups, frying etc was
done on top of the wood stove. For toast we used to wait for the fire to be
at the stage of glowing coals. We had a wire frame we used to sit the bread
on over the coals, it made beautiful toast, or a long handled fork made out
of wire to piece into our bread to hold over the coals. For cooking in the
oven we had to learn what temperature was in the oven by opening the door of
the oven and putting our hand in to feel the temperature to be able to gauge
what the temperature was. The stove was good for cooking. When we went
outside we used what we called a kerosene lantern to find our way around.
If you go now to a museum you will find different types of lighting which
was used in those days. Some of these are on display as they belong to the
antiques, although you can still buy the hurricane lantern from the camping
places.
Clothes for school you were lucky if you owned two sets for a change but
mostly the same set of clothes had to do for a week without washing as wash
day was only on Saturdays. The schools didn’t have uniforms either. We
lived in the country and water had to be conserved most of the time. We
only had tanks to catch the water when it rained so we had to always
conserve water as it was an essential commodity for running the house. No
washing machines, no dishwashers to drain the supply either as they didn’t
exist. There was only cotton materials no such thing as drip dry as these
fabrics didn’t exist. So ironing was required for all clothes.
There was no nylon only cotton or wool. To make the cardigans and
pullovers, there was only the true dinky dye wool or cotton for crocheting
cardigans, pullovers etc. The wool used to mainly be bought in skeins and
to save tangles you had to roll it into balls to use it. I remember lining
up with my two arms stretched out and putting my arms through the skein of
wool and my mum winding the wool into balls. If we were at school or such
like then the skeins were draped over a couple of chairs instead.
Wash day consisted of Dad helping Mum with the washing as Mum helped him
with milking the cows. I was very young when I first had to help. On farms
and especially when you were the oldest one in the family you were taught to
work at a very young age. The washing consisted by having a large tub,
mostly the tubs were made of galvanised tin and round and you had different
sizes. One to wash the clothes and two for rinsing the clothes. Our
washing tub for the dirty clothes my dad made out of galvanised tin it was a
rectangle shape as we didn’t have a large enough round tub. For the second
rinsing tub we always had a Reckitts bag of blue to squeeze the right amount
of blue in to help whiten the clothes as there was nothing else available to
whiten the clothes. The first tub was used to put the dirty clothes in and
by putting soap on them and rubbing between your knuckles of your hands. The
work clothes were put on a board and scrubbed with soap and a scrubbing
brush. The clothes were all made of cotton and after washing they were
boilt in a copper boiler, usually with Persil powder. The boiler fitted in
a stand and you used a fire made with wood to heat the water so as to boil
the clothes. Then after boiling the clothes you used a long stick to lift
the clothes out of the boiling water and put them into a wooden draining
stand to drain them. After draining you rinsed them in two lots of water
before putting them on lines.
We had no clothes hoists like today, they were instead lines with two poles
with a cross piece attached to them, the poles quite a distance apart and
then plain wire strung up to the cross arms and a long forked stick in the
middle to prop the lines up higher in the air so as the clothes didn’t drag
in the dirt. On washing day you always sorted the clothes out first, this
meant the whites first and you left the work clothes last as they were the
dirtiest. The water was never changed so when you was finished the work
clothes being last, the washing water was more like soup.
Dishwashers, air conditioners, clothes dryers, electric blankets drip dry
clothes, panty hose was all unheard of. Women wore stockings held up by
suspenders certainly no panty hose.
Soaps was often made on the stove in empty kerosene tins with dripping kept
from suet rendered from the killing of animals, which was needed to make the
soap. When the soap was made it was taken from the stove to outside and
poured into a container and when cool cut into cakes ready for use.
Baths at one stage we used a round tub to bathe in and it wasn’t every day
either because you would run out of tank water too soon. You also all used
the same bath water the cleanest ones first. In later years we had a proper
tin bath shaped like the present day long bath tubs.
Ironing and no electricity meant other means of ironing. There was Potts
irons which was heavy irons placed on the stove to heat and you ironed with
them until they cooled down too much then back on the stove again to reheat.
Later there was petrol irons which had a tank on it and you bought
shellite to put in the tank. You took the top off the iron and then put
some methylated spirits in the tray and lit it and just before it finished
burning and hot enough you turned on a knob and away it would roar and then
you ironed until the tank run out or the ironing job was complete.
Refrigeration didn’t exist in my young days either. It was 1950 before we
had refrigeration and then it wasn’t electric either as we didn’t have town
power. The refrigerator used kerosene and it run a little lamp to run the
refrigerator. As there was no power there was always wire safes with gauze
around the sides to hang up and to put food in to keep out flies. Some also
had safes with legs and you either put oil or powder around the base to keep
out ants, or to stand the legs in a tin with some water in it.
When I was still very young my dad wired the house up with 12 volt bulbs
for electricity as there was then four of us children and maybe it was for
safety for us children. Henry was one to experiment and at one stage he
tried licking the lamp glass of the kerosene lamp, which wasn’t very smart
and was never repeated again. Dad connected a car generator up to the
milking machine engine and run wires from the dairy for our lights in the
house, he also had lights in the dairy run off it.
In about 1958 my husband and I went share farming for Lucke Bros (who was
my dad, uncle Harry and uncle Jim) at Cedar Vale and there was no
electricity there from town supply for the nineteen years we were there. We
eventually bought a 32 volt lighting plant which consisted of an engine and
generator and wired the house with the power and bought an old 32 volt
washing machine. This would have been just before Delma was born in November
1960. Up to then we only had an old hand washing machine which was like a
round tank with a plug at the bottom to let the water out when emptied and
the top was open. There was a handle fitted on to a cone which was clipped
onto the hand washer and you pumped the handle up and down to agitate the
clothes instead of rubbing the clothes by hand. At this stage I had seven
children, Irwin and myself to wash for. It wasn’t an easy job to do the
pumping either.
Food what changes that has been made, a side of bacon you could buy and
hang up in the kitchen and cut it off as you needed it. The cure was
different then to now it would keep without refrigeration and the flavour
was also superior to todays. If you did that today after the first week it
would be rotten. The ham was also the same hang it up until required and
then soak it and then cook it. Today it is usually cooked ham and only
limited time in keeping it even refrigerated. The meat if you killed a
beast you had a syringe to pump the meat and you made up a brine to put the
meat in to cure it as there was no refrigerator to keep it. Soups and stews
were usually left on the stove until finished. There was usually early
rising out of bed of a morning to milk the cows so the fire was lit early so
as to make a cup of tea before going to milk.
In the country you grew what vegetables you could down on the creek bank,
no frozen foods for quick meals. There wasn’t problems in those days either
with grubs etc, so it must have been healthier for us with no insecticides.
We had an orchard with lemons, oranges, grapefruit, grapes and citrons. We
always loved our fruit. Towards the end of the year apples, pears, plums,
onions and grapes used to be advertised for sale in the paper by the case so
they were always ordered by letter and a cheque sent and they would be
railed and when they arrived the carrier would bring them out for us. No
such thing as ice cream no facilities to make it or keep it so custards was
made, rice puddings, tapioca which was named big cats eye and the sago
pudding was called little cats eye. Steamed puddings, jellies, bread
puddings and also tarts when the fruit season allowed it. My brother George
always got sick after eating jellies which was usually a Sunday treat, so no
more jelly for him when it was worked out what was causing his problem. Tin
food was kept for emergencies even camp pie. I remember during the war
years having tinned Rex cheese long since gone but I thought it was
beautiful. We used to have rib roast meat and keep the fat from meats to
make our cakes and biscuits. I used to enjoy my bread spread with this
dripping then slices of cheese and onion with salt and pepper, I haven’t
tasted it for many a year now. Health experts now condemn the dripping for
eating.
When I was married and we had the eleven children to feed, we were share
farming but money wasn’t always plentiful. We often bought cartons of baked
beans, tin peas, canned fruit and such like in cartons and our sugar by the
sugar bag, jam by the 5 pound tins, syrup by the 4 gallon drum, potatoes by
the sack bag and pumpkins by the sack bag. We made sure with our money,
food came first and if nothing was then left over after paying the farm
bills we went without. I did all the sewing of the clothes for our children
and myself and Irwin and I kept up home cooked meals as well as milking cows
twice a day so the hours were long, but I have no regrets as I am very proud
of my family today by the guidance we gave them. I used to buy the
materials for sewing the clothes from a firm in Sydney or Newcastle who sold
remnants they advertised in a book. I had them posted through the mail I
used to get a good variety they were good to deal from.
Honey well we had bee hives in the cattle camp which had been collected
from hives in trees. Being wild bees they could be very vicious at times if
you went near the hive. When it was robbing time uncle Harry used to go
with his pipe to smoke them and with a cover over him to keep the bees away
from his head area, of course long sleeved shirts and long trousers as well.
After robbing the bees, the honey in the wax was placed in a sugar bag and
hung on the clothes line and the honey squeezed out into a tin and then
strained through a cloth and put in bottles. One time uncle Harry looked at
one of the hives when they were savage to see if it required robbing and
they flew out of the hive to attack him so he was lucky the creek was close
by and he ran for his life and dived into the creek to stop the bees getting
him, we was some distance away and we laughed and laughed it looked so
funny, but it could have been serious, lucky they didn’t turn on us.
Tea was always made with tea leaves, tea bags didn’t exist. Coffee was
brewed as there was no instant coffee, but there was coffee essence which
was a liquid and it required I think a tea spoon to a cup of coffee. This
coffee liquid still exists today, but the instant seems to be the most
popular now.
Toys well there wasn’t any plastics they hadn’t been invented, neither had
plastic bags. The shops always used newspaper to wrap up stuff after
placing it in a brown paper bag. White paper was also used sometimes like
you get with your fish and chips today. Most of todays toys are vastly
different to what they were in far off days the present day ones weren’t
even invented. Dolls always existed and teddy bears and pop guns that
popped a cork. There used to be a putt putt boat which was only small about
six inches long and I think it was a candle operated. There was always
skipping ropes, all types of balls (but of course not like your plastic
ones) and sporting equipment was but to name a few. You just look around
you now and imagine what it would be like without plastics and synthetics.
Mattresses were usually made of fibre from coconuts. The fibre was teased
and then put into a cotton cover and then a long needle used to put right
through the mattress from one side to the other and leather tabs put on each
side and it was then pulled firm and repeated until the mattress was
finished. Kapok was also used for a mattress. Beds were usually iron framed
beds, I remember when we were young we slept in a double bed with two of us
girls one end of the bed and our two brothers in other end. Mum and dads
iron bed had beautiful painted china pieces of decorations on the end of
their bed and shiny knobs as well, our bed was just a plain iron bed.
Toilets was a separate little building away from the house. A box with a
hole in the lid for a person to sit on and do their daily deeds that is
required when you go to a toilet. The box also had a door so you could
slide a tin in under the hole so as to hold your daily deeds. When the tin
was full of deeds it was then carted away from the house area and a hole dug
so as to be buried. We had no toilet paper so we used our newspaper so we
cut this into the required size and then hung it on a nail ready for use.
The ink didn’t come off the paper like it sometimes does today.
For flies I remember we used sticky paper rolls you bought and then you
would pull it open and hang these papers up and the flies would land on them
and be stuck and when it had a lot of flies caught you would then burn it in
the stove. This type of paper rolls I believe still exist today. Mum also
had a glass fly catcher. It was like a glass bowl with an opening like the
size of a twenty cent piece at the top. I think it had three glass or maybe
four legs at the bottom of the bowl and it had a curved up opening there
about three inches across so as to hold water. You put soapy water in it
before placing it on the table and under it you spread some sugar to coax
the flies and then when they flew up they ended up trapped in the bowl.
There was also a bush that grew on the farm and it used to get some small
berries on it and we found it was also good to hang up in the kitchen and
when the flies landed on it they would die.
As a child on the farm we used to send our cream to the Gladstone P. C. D.
Butter Factory by means of a cream carrier to Mt Larcom. Another carrier
then used to transport it to Gladstone from there, this was Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays. Our local carrier on the way into town with the
cream used to also pick up any mail we wanted posted and also bags with
orders attached for the butcher and the baker and also if we had an order
for groceries as well. On his return home that day he would bring back
empty cream cans and bring home the orders as well. In those days you
relied on your local shops to feed you and you would have accounts and pay
them at the end of every month. You would also get your local paper from
the paper shop even when it was a day or two old sent out by the carrier as
it was the only means of knowing what was happening in the world as there
was no TV’s invented then lucky if you had a wireless.
There wasn’t a lot of cars compared to todays standards, not everyone had a
vehicle. Some people used to often go to town for the day with the cream
carrier climbing into the back of the truck and sitting on cream cans or
whatever else was suitable to sit on. The roads were often narrow and rough
no bitumen. There was different trucks for different areas of the district.
The Bracewell owner used to fit long seats across his truck for
transporting people to dances and to the pictures, he also had a long
running board along one side of his truck. Sometimes he had that many
people to transport to fit them all on, people would have to sit on other
people knees and also I have seen a lot of people standing on the running
board and hanging on so as not to fall off while travelling. Those days
vehicles didn’t travel fast as they wasn’t made for speed and certainly no
seat belts.
The monthly accounts would come in and a lot of the people of the district
would go to town and pay their accounts on Fridays and they would spend the
day talking to one another having a great chin wag. They would also go to
Mrs Mc Guires little place and have home cooked three course meals or go to
the cafes in town for sit down meals. This was their hard earnt treats. I
can still see the jars of broken icing biscuits sold cheaper in the shop
when Mc Donald and East used to be there as they were cheaper by being
broken and mum would buy some and it was a real treat. My mum was a good
cook but would not venture into much variety so I guess that is why I like
to try a lot of varieties. Mum usually only allowed me to bake every
weekend jam drops, anzacs or ginger biscuits and a sultana cake. Admittedly
it always meant no modern methods only a bowl and a wooden spoon to mix
things, that is why mum always said no sponge cakes allowed. Mum was in
hospital when I was 12 for an operation and I remember doing the baking by
myself successfully.
Fowls were kept for eggs and eating. The hens when they went clucky they
were given eggs to sit on to bring out chickens to rear. We kept the
pullets for laying and the roosters to eat. The fowls weren’t kept locked up
all day they were allowed to free range but locked up at night so as to
prevent foxes getting them, we also fed them scraps and grain etc but by
giving them corn when we had it gave the yolks a rich colour. When the
chickens were up big enough and you could tell the roosters from the pullets
dad had instruments to be able to make the roosters into capons as he said
that made them better for eating.
When they were large enough we had a chopping block in the wood heap where
we used to cut up wood for the fire. We cut the roosters heads off by
placing the head on the block and swinging the axe, bingo minus a head, if
you then dropped the rooster on the ground minus his head he would jump all
over the place. You then got the heated water to a certain degree and
placed the rooster in the hot water until the feathers were easy to pull out
and then plucked out all feathers. Then it was a matter of taking out the
gut ready for cooking, if odd pin feathers were too hard to get out we held
the chicken over the fire and it would singe the feathers off. We even had
ducks and they were good to have around the place when there was red back
spiders around as they used to eat them. The biggest things with ducks is
they are messy around a house area as they leave so much of their droppings
and it is very smelly then in wet weather and goes squishy squashy between
your toes.
To try and keep cream fresh without refrigeration wasn’t easy so the farms
always had what they called a little dairy just to keep the cream in. It
was a square little building with a hip roof and a cement floor but a gutter
put into the cement inside the room to hold water and then we were able to
stand the cans on the cement in the centre as the water would keep this
cement area cool. The bottom of the walls had gauze in place of wood to
allow the breeze to keep the water and cream cool and of course the air
circulated under the hip roof as well.
We used to make our own butter, to make our butter we got the cream that
was a couple of days old as it was more matured and you was able to make it
quicker. We used a seven pound tin that had been bought with syrup in it.
In this tin we put some cream and placed on the lid and then it was our job
to keep shaking the tin fast from side to side until it turned into butter
which usually took a long time. When it was butter the buttermilk had to be
drained out of it. Then the next job was it had to be rinsed in several lots
of water, then salt added and hey presto butter. In later years my dad
rigged up a pully belt on the dairy engine and connected it to a glass
butter churn with a paddle in to churn the cream into butter. Some people
used the buttermilk to make scones.
My uncle and aunt with some of their children used to sometimes come to see
us in their horse and sulky as this was the only means of transport for
them. When I was going to school in the early days we sometimes got a ride
home from school when the next door farmer was on his way home from town and
he picked up his daughters too. It was a rare treat as there wasn’t many
cars around then.
Horse and plough was used to plough the land with a man walking behind a
;single furrow plough. Later a team of horses usually four in a team with a
mould board or double furrow disc plough with a seat on for the driver of
the horses to sit on. After ploughing the horses was then connected up to
the harrows for breaking up lumps of soil and tilling it ready for sowing
seed. When ready the seed was usually put in a bucket and hand thrown and
the man walked across the block until the seed was distributed. Then the
horses was teamed up again to the harrows and the seed covered. In later
years when the tractors were available and when they could be afforded they
were bought to replace the horses.
Not many people had a wireless as they used to be called in those days to
listen to. There was no such thing as TV, tape decks, walkmans, cassette
recorders, compact discs, hi fi’s, computers, internet etc. Telephones
usually only existed at a phone exchange which was manually operated at
someones house in certain areas and if you needed an ambulance you had to
travel to an exchange to call for the ambulance. Then it was at least 50
miles to the nearest hospital.
We went to a small school I think there may have been about 40 when my
brother and I first started but it dwindled down in numbers as the years
went by it was only a small country school. I only ever went to the Cedar
Vale state school and left school before I was 14. I did grade 7 but did
not do scholar ship grade. There was no high schools to go to unless you
had rich parents to be able to send you to boarding school. The sport in my
day at school was tennis, rounders, tiggie, red rover and cricket that was
the main games. Once a year we went to town and competed against the other
schools at races. There was only ever one teacher to teach all the grades
up to scholar ship grade without any assistance from anyone else. I think
they did a far better job than most of the schools of today.
We used slates and slate pencils for all our writing in school. We had copy
books with lines marked in it and a test line on top of the page for us to
copy off and we had to use the lines as guides this was to improve writing.
We had to write with pens dipped in ink. We had wooden desks to sit at for
about six children and each place had an ink well to put the ink container
in and we also had a slot to hold our slates. Another slot for pens, slate
pencils, lead pencils, rubbers and ruler. These were supplied by the
Department. We had to do homework and also for home was exercise books to
write in by pens with nibs, biros did not exist. The last week at the end
of the year we had a scrubbing day to scrub our desks, forms and slates. We
had no chairs we had to share a form to sit on. Teachers today are not
allowed to use the cane on children any more. Parents are not allowed to
belt their children any more if they do and leave a mark they can be sued
for it. Now they have uncontrollerable children they burn down houses and
school buildings. Robberies and bashings by children and teenagers for
nothing better to do are out of control. Just outside my house I have lily
flowers just opened out and they have been plucked off in the middle of the
day and left to wilt on the ground and the stems not long enough to do
anything with sheer destruction. Survey pegs pulled out, letter boxes
removed and carted away and found around the block in gutters etc. Lights
smashed all means out of control youngsters idle hands with nothing
constructive to do.
Parents had full control over their children until the age of 21 some ruled
with an iron hand. I always wanted to go nursing but was not allowed as I
had to stay at home and milk cows and help with chipping and picking small
crops as well as help in the house. We grew bananas but they wasn’t really
successful as the rainfall for the year wasn’t really enough to what they
required. We grew strawberries and mum used to pack the boxes while we
picked. The boxes were ply boxes and mum used strawberry leaves for
packing. At one stage we even had cardboard boxes for the strawberries.
Boxes for tomatoes had to be made by nailing boards together to form a box,
as these were the only types available. Stone fruits also were in wooden
boxes but they were in bigger boxes what they called bushel cases. Bananas
were in bushel and a half size and the bananas were packed in nice and neat
singularly. We also grew beans, tomatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers etc. Beans
were sent away in sugar bags and the cabbages and cauliflowers were in chaff
bags. I have run into a lot of problems over the years with sun cancers and
I guess working the small crops in the sun has caused some of it with my
fair skin, as well as getting sun burnt when I was a very young baby when
the new parents went on a picnic. They say it takes twenty years for the sun
cancers to start but I was only seventeen when I started my first treatment
and it has continued all my life.
My grandmother died because of child birth her baby died as well. Today
they have prevented a lot of those type of deaths because of finding out
they can do a caesarean operation to save many a mother and child. Laser
now is used in present day eye operations which has been a big improvement.
Laser is also used for a lot of other medical requirements. Medicine has
gone a long way with tests like scans to detect problems in the early
stages. Ultra sounds, mammograms, biopsies, blood tests, transfusions, knee
and hip replacements, heart operations, hysterectomy operations to name just
some of the advancements in medicine.
Antibiotics didn’t come in until about 1948—1949 there abouts. I lost my
first baby born the eighth of January 1949 he only lived a day. He was
premature but 5 pounds and he was given penicillin and he died quickly after
it maybe he was allergic to it who knows. Penicillin was new then and they
didn’t know much about it. Humi cribs for premature babies didn’t even
exist, they came in later years. Premature babies were put in cotton wool
suits and an oxygen mask put over their little face that was the best they
had so the success rate wasn’t always good. A lot of strong medicines now
exist because there seems to be worse sicknesses around now or the people
have lost their resistance because too many antibiotics have been prescribed
over the later years and now doctors are becoming alarmed at the results of
it.
Immunisation has made big changes as they are finding improvements all the
time and can now immunise for a lot of things. Children died in Bundaberg
because of faulty serum when I was a baby so I was never vaccinated when I
was young because of the fear that this had caused. Polio was a terrible
complaint I had a baby in 1952 affected by it who survived, it is a cruel
condition to overcome, it always leaves weaknesses. They now warn after all
these years that these people who had polio back then can get relapses of
it. I also had a brother with it during the epidemic in 1951 and little was
known about it at that stage. Later they started to immunise against the
disease, my brother was that bad his legs had to go into callipers to stop
them twisting. He was on the verge of going into the iron lung, when he
tried to talk we had to bend down to hear him as his voice was only a
whisper. So thanks go to the scientists for finding a preventive in the
form of immunisation.
The pill didn’t come in until about 1964 and it wasn’t always classed as a
safe method because it was untried for any length of time, they didn’t know
what side effects could develop in later years with its use. Aids was not
heard of, it is something that has developed since people has taken on a
more loose style of living when morals have gone out the window. Gay was
when people was happy now it means when males have male friends instead of
girl friends. These type of people usually end up with the dreaded disease
of Aids, so mostly it is self inflicted.
People didn’t live together until they married, different to todays
standards. If girls became pregnant a lot of parents bundled their
daughters to a home or an aunt in an unknown area and telling people they
had gone away to work or was on holiday helping an aunt out. The baby being
adopted out and the girl returned quite often after the event. There wasn’t
the assistance like todays mothers no government hand outs so times have
certainly changed things. Now when new babies are born some of them have
their photos put in the local paper, you see such a lot of the parents
mentioned are not married, what a pity for society to become like that.
Floor coverings and curtains we never had any of these. The carpets like
today didn’t exist it was usually congolium or lino. Wooden floors was
sometimes painted or polished instead.
When it came to the moon as a child we used to look up to the moon little
knowing that in years ahead there would be such a thing as flying to the
moon and sending rockets into space and statelites. Aeroplanes there was
very little of and only small compared to the ones of today, not the giant
planes like today and certainly not the speed.
Trains have changed a lot as well as they first started with steam trains
and then worked up to what you have today, speed was only slow. Cars have
made the same type of changes with speed and shape. Roads have also changed
they used to be only narrow and dirt. Some areas the roads had loose bull
dust. In Rockhampton I remember my parents taking me there once and
travelling on a tram in the town and I haven’t been on one since. It isn’t
there any more as people have cars to travel in instead.
The creeks when I was a child had plenty of water and we all was taught to
swim. The water was crystal clear, it was great to be able to look into
water about 10 foot deep and see where the weed was and see the fish
swimming about and the jew fish with their collection of stones for a nest
with the jew above the nest. Now days these creeks have been dry a long
time and the creeks that have water are very very dirty and you cannot see
the bottom unless you go to North Queensland where the rainfall is far
better.
Houses have made a lot of changes really the changes haven’t always been
for the better in a lot of cases. The house we were reared in was made of
wood sawn by the family with their own timber from the paddock and sawn by a
tractor and saw on a saw bench. The windows in the childrens room were
wooden shutters pushed up during the day and held in place by a nail, it was
like the dark hole of Calcutta. There was no lining or ceiling in the house
the verandah in front was floor boards just placed on the ground, the back
of the house had two or three steps. The floor had some congolium placed on
it but the boards were not even and ridges soon showed through the lino and
most of the boards were loose. Some people didn’t even have much furniture
as they used wooden boxes instead, we did have the barest of furniture. We
didn’t see brick houses it was mostly wooden houses and then during the war
they started putting up houses with the now dreaded asbestos that they now
find have ruined a lot of people’s health. I know a family who lived on our
property when I was a child who lived in a tent and they had several
children and they lived in this tent for years with no complaints and were
always happy.
Sewing machines were treadle sewing machines or hand driven machines. The
treadle machine had a large wheel which had a belt around it and it
connected it to the sewing machine you then had to treadle with your foot to
work it. They did a lot of good work as some of the people made all their
clothes. I even in my time used one for years before electric ones took
over. Now a days they even have computer operated ones that you can start
up for embroidery and walk away and it will do it for you without any
further help, the mind boggles doesn’t it.
Hire Purchase came in after we were married and it has done a lot of harm
to the nation as people started buying when they could least afford it.
Credit cards was not invented at that time. Credit cards maybe good for the
banks, but it causes a lot of heart aches and causes marriage break ups
because of lack of money to be able to support their buying. We always
believed if we couldn’t afford to pay cash we went without and because of
that we managed to survive and rear a family of eleven.
Smog has now taken over, so much pollution has entered the air since
thousands of cars and also with the aeroplanes and helicopters in the air.
Industries and mechanical means on the land have all added to pollution as
well, mechanisation has a lot to answer for. In the early part of the
century everything was done by manual labour so most was able to get work to
survive. The cane used to be cut by men with cane knives now look at all the
large machinery that costs millions of dollars through out the country.
Look at all the jobs that has been done away with. Mechanisation in
industries has done away with lots of jobs for men, computers have done the
same.
Blankets were cotton or woollen and some people made their own feather
doonas, from duck feathers. Hot water bottles were also used to keep warm, I
remember when our children were small and we didn’t have much money I hand
sowed sack bags together and they were placed between blankets to keep our
children warm for years. In later years acrylic and electric blankets and
doonas became available. Irwin my husband was having breathing problems for
years at night and by accident we eventually found out he was allergic to
our woollen blankets so I gave them all away to people who wanted to make
use of them. Irwins mother used to heat a brick in the oven and then wrap
it in a cloth and place it at the bottom of the bed under the blankets to
warm the bed in winter.
Now look at the changes in the early part of the century no television,
refrigeration, air conditioners, hi fi’s, stero radios, clothes
dryers,washing machines, dish washers, electric blankets, computers,
scanners, photocopiers, cam corders, all electric appliances such as
blenders, toasters, jugs, fry pans, sandwich makers, crepe machines, cake
mixers, knives, shavers, food processors, juicers, woks, microwave ovens,
ovens, grills, stoves, C D’s, Videos, kettles, freezers, hot water systems,
vacuum cleaners, floor polishers electric guitars, organs and others in the
industrial industries.
Cameras have altered a lot early in this century they had glass slides for
negatives, we have some here with us which belonged to Irwin's father as he
was the local photographer for the district of Gracemere, he did the taking
of the photos and developed them as well. Now they have produced cameras to
take photos and then plug it into the computer to see them on the computer
screen and if the photos are needed the printer for the computer prints out
the photos. I have been going through old photos and scanning them onto my
computer screen and printing out the photos to whatever size I require.
Now if you can only picture what life was like back all those years ago an
entirely different type of life to today. I think in some fields it has
been made worse because the pollutions caused by present day industries,
cars, planes, farm machinery, sending all the stuff up into the atmosphere
has interfered with weather patterns, health and such like. People have
been done out of jobs so the unemployment it very high. I think in time to
come this nation will be starving like overseas countries and at one time it
was a country of plenty. Plastics was brought in and I think it is a curse
in more ways than one. I have a grandson who is allergic to liquid or food
out of plastic and how many more are affected the same.
Children and adults spend a lot of time in front of the computer and
television instead of exercising. Adults also drive their car to the shop
instead of walking there when it is in a reasonable range. Children used to
make their own games and get plenty of exercise playing them but not any
more, instead they rather sit and play a computerised game that you can hold
in your hand. Children haven’t the same imagination in making up games to
play, they complain they are bored. Idle hands make mischief, if they are
bored give them a job to do then they may appreciate their time Quite a few
children get too much pocket money to spend and they waste it on food which
isn’t healthy like junk food or lollies. Potato chips and such like foods
and chocolates and lollies are some of the foods, that are often consumed
while watching television.
Connie
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