Dirty and Poor
I had little to amuse my inquisitive mind, a few homemade, wooden toys and the hammer I’d confiscated from Dad. Some children like to bang pots and pans; I loved to bang the hammer, mostly on the nails popping up from the old house’s floorboards. The noise let Mother know where I was playing. At first, I bruised my small fingers. With practice, my aim with the hammer became proficient unlike Dad’s.
There weren’t other children to play with. The yard dog, Woolie, black with curly fur, kept me company instead. The dog was so large that I could sit on its back. Together, we observed the comings and goings in our surroundings, in particular the trains passing the house. The rail motor travelled back and forth from Bethania to Beaudesert twice daily. Steam engines hauled regular goods trains. The most exciting, noisy and smelly were the long cattle and horse trains, headed with two steam engines, going to the abattoir. I’d tell my dog everything. He always seemed interested until one day, Woolie became bored and wandered off. The dog was likely bitten by a snake. Time moved slowly with the same daily routine. Except one day, I heard a steam engine’s brakes.
I excitedly watched it stop on the line beside my house. Whilst I wasn’t allowed outside to investigate the unusual event, this was the best day in my life to date! Men offloaded wooden planks from the train’s freight wagons. This second hand timber had come from Camp Cable, the wartime American Army camp, several miles up the line, near Logan Village. Life became interesting. My family were building a house nearby and closer to Bethania Railway Station. My great uncle had transferred to my father a patch of land considered too small for dairy cows or commercial cropping. This triangle of land had been part of the farm established by my forebears before the railway line and the road had separated it. The military had occupied the land and its surrounds with a transit camp. Bethania had been the intersection point for trains transporting troops to the Canungra Jungle Training Camp and Camp Cable.
Pop, an uncle and a neighbour built the cottage where the military’s tents and mess huts had been. Dad wasn’t skilled in carpentry. The simple home had one bedroom, a sitting room, a kitchen, a front veranda and a bathroom with an open wash house and a thunderbox outside. I slept in a cot tucked behind the bedroom cupboard.
As it was in a rural area, the cottage received no rubbish collection, sewerage or water supply services. Rubbish and effluent weren’t an issue. These were buried when Dad showed the inclination. Maintaining sufficient water in the two small tanks for household use and the vegetable garden was an issue. We were dependent on rainfall. Even then, the high tank had to be over half full for enough water pressure to exist for the bathroom and kitchen taps to flow. Mostly, water was dispensed by bucket. I was bathed once a week, and only if I looked sufficiently dirty, in no more than an inch of water in the bath tub. As I didn’t own a toy boat, I didn’t mind.
The cottage did have electricity for lights and three power points for the fridge and sewing machine in the kitchen and the small radio in the sitting room. Dad installed the power pole near the cottage. He purchased a milled log from the sawmiller. Then, he and his mates met, because that was the only labour available, to dig by shovel a large hole in which to stand the pole. At one metre deep, the men hit hard rock. Whilst they didn’t think the hole to be deep enough, they still positioned and raised the pole. For years after, Dad prayed the pole wouldn’t topple on the house in vicious wind. It held until the electricity company replaced it.
A wood stove sat in the kitchen. Finding wood was a chore and a cost most families struggled with. My father fed the stove with used railway sleepers his maintenance gang shared amongst themselves.
Outside, Dad constructed a fowl house from old tanks, sleepers and wire and dug a garden to support the family with eggs, meat and vegetables.
The primitive house met my biggest wish. The rail track ran along the backyard’s fence line! I loved waving at the passengers and guards. Sometimes, I watched Dad banging the spikes along the track.
I was far happier outside, away from Mother’s sight. In addition to the ambience her temperament created, inside the cottage was a horrid place to be. Mother hated housework. We lived in the continual squalor of dirty dishes, clothes, floors and fireplace. The beds weren’t made. The ‘night water’ wasn’t always taken outside early in the morning.
Mother presented a different face outside the cottage however. She was immaculately dressed as a walking advertisement for her dressmaking skills. She was a seamstress and a busy one. Initially, she received her clients in the sitting room but soon a small room was added to the veranda to keep clients away from the squalor. At one point, she started a dressmaking shop with a friend in Beenleigh. Their venture failed quickly as neither understood how to manage a business’ finances.
Money regularly created tension between my parents. There was father’s, mother’s and the housekeeping. Dad handed over the agreed housekeeping from his wage to pay the bills. There never seemed to be enough though. Appliances had been purchased on high interest hire purchase plans. Whatever Mother earnt from sewing appeared to be hers to spend how she wished, usually on more clothes for herself. Dad wasted what remained of his wage on race horses and alcohol. Their financial struggle was a circular form of hell that they couldn’t escape from, precipitated by their inability to work together. Whilst they didn’t physically abuse each other, verbally they did.