I came into the world on 7 April, 1940, during the Second World War, in a little country railway town in New South Wales called Junee. The clinic where I was born was called Cromer Cottage and it still stands today. The physician who delivered me, Dr Cuttle (see picture), claimed that at 27 inches I was the longest baby he had delivered!
My brothers Brian, Richard and Robert each followed roughly 18 months apart. I used to think then that every time Mum went out she would come back with a new baby! My father was a sheep shearer at this time.
We lived in a ramshackle old house on a double block which always needed patching up, however this remained our home for the whole time we were in Junee. We had a safe, friendly country life and lived an outdoor lifestyle. In our early days we played a lot in our large double-block garden which had a swing hanging from a tree branch. We played Cowboys and Indians, when I always seemed to be the Indian that got tied up! We built cubby houses. Later, we roamed the nearby streets and local parks. My brothers, as they grew older, learned to hunt rabbits and made some money by selling their fur.
From a cultural point of view the town had little to offer except a cinema and a church. There was also a licorice factory, on the site of a former grain mill, across the railway line from where we lived.
As kids we always fought with the Catholic children, sometimes quite violently, whipping them with skipping ropes and pulling their hair, all the while chanting “Catholics, Catholics go to hell while Protestants ring the bell”. Why did we hate each other so much? Much of this was passed down from what we heard from the adults around us. For example, Dad always called any Catholic/Protestant marriage a “mixed marriage” and predicted it wouldn’t end well. Ironically, my youngest brother Robert was to eventually marry a Catholic girl, and sure enough that didn’t end well!
We had a dog called Paddy, a large black bitser who good-naturedly tolerated our antics such as riding on his back. We also had a family cow called Daisy who was pastured on the common. Brian had the job of bringing her to our home each day to be milked. We were all required to learn how to milk her. From my years of tending to her I was later able to amaze many of my urban friends by demonstrating my skill in milking cows. I loved placing my cheek against Daisy’s warm soft side and drinking her frothing warm milk.
Some of my father’s brothers lived in Junee. There were many such uncles on my father’s side but Doug is the only one I specifically remember being there. Doug had polio as a child. His mother (my grandmother) used to nurse him at home. She applied goanna oil to his legs to try to cure him. It must have had some effect because he grew up with a slight limp being his only deformity. He wore a shoe with a spring attached to help him walk.
We would often go on picnics and go rabbiting with my uncles. They were all handsome, knockabout countrymen who would leave pies to cook on shovels while they went hunting. They always drove recklessly and lived life to the full. My brother Brian used to joke that another uncle, Leo, would take care to drive around a log on the road, but Doug would drive straight over it! My cousins Patsy and Betsy (Doug’s daughters) were a few years older than me. They would teach me to steal fruit from local orchards, and I still bear the scars on one of my legs from a misadventure scrambling over a sharp fence during one such escapade.
Brian and I used to walk to school together over the overhead railway bridge (which to my great delight is still there). School was lost on me in my kindergarten year. I had never previously been separated from my mother before this and consequently cried a lot in my early days at school. One day a particular teacher in assembly took me up on the dais, lifted up my dress and spanked me on the bottom. I have no idea why. I was bitterly humiliated. I like to think that that teacher would be now charged with child abuse for such an act, but it was the humiliation in front of the whole school which stays with me to this day. In all my years at school in Junee I made no lasting friends and instead discovered books, particularly L M Montgomery’s classic “Anne of Green Gables”. Anne then became my fictional heroine. I would read anything I could get my hands on. including such diverse material as Boys Own Annual, Enid Blyton’s books, the school magazine, Women’s Weekly, and much else.
The local GP, Dr Cuttle, delivered all four of us in his private hospital, called Cromer. My mother worshipped him. He took particularly good care of us and was a lovely, kindly old man, now long since deceased.
Towards the end of our time in Junee a major family event occurred. My mother received a medical diagnosis which required her to undertake an immediate hysterectomy. I’m not sure what this diagnosis was, possibly it was cancer. Hurried arrangements were made for us four children to be cared for as we were much too young for Dad to be able to manage while still working. I went to stay with my maternal grandparents, “Pop” and “Nanna” Harvey, whilst the boys went to stay with their uncle Doug, then still living in Junee. He was a lovely man, and very much larger than life. but unfortunately with not much empathy for children. Robert was about three at the time. On one occasion, as I was told later, they filled a bath with water and plunged him in. He screamed, but everyone just laughed at him. He then shut down completely and wouldn’t eat or talk. When he returned home I could see, even at my young age, that he could easily die. He was painfully thin, with dark circles under his eyes. It took him ages to recover. It was a great lesson for me about the importance of “attachment”. In other words children need to emotionally attach to someone, and this is usually to their mother, but any loving, caring individual will do, provided they are consistent and don’t abandon them. Uncle Doug and his family, for all their good intentions, could not provide such a bond for Robert while he was separated from his mother.
In the meantime, Dad had joined NSW Railways and became qualified as a fully fledged train driver. During the latter part of the war he was assigned to driving troop trains to various destinations around Australia. This was a “restricted occupation” which meant that he was not permitted to enlist as a soldier in the war effort. He felt some shame about this in later life, but the fact remained that this was an essential job in wartime and he was needed for this role.
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Much later in life, in 2006, I returned to Junee. More than fifty years had passed. Chris and I were by now retired and had purchased a small A-Van caravan. We travelled in this to many parts of Australia, and it seemed only natural that we should also take the opportunity to revisit the scenes of my childhood.
The first place we visited in Junee was Cromer Cottage, where I had been born (see above). It had been renovated and now seemed to be part of some sort of guest house.
In October 2018, now some 12 years later, a reader of this page was able to confirm that Cromer Cottage does indeed provide visitor accommodation and now has its own website.
Now, back to 2006 . . .
We couldn’t find the house that I grew up in. It was old then so it had probably since been demolished to make way for a newer home.
We discovered that Junee had been transformed a few years earlier by the establishment of a new high security jail just out of town. We went to take a look at this new development, but were rudely ordered away by a security guard before we even got close! Junee is now relatively prosperous, with the extra jobs created by the jail. Many of the old buildings have now been restored, in particular the magnificent railway station (see picture) and its wonderfully ornate waiting room.
We also visited a remarkable steam train museum where the old engines had been laid to rest, called the Roundhouse Museum. My Dad would have loved to have seen this. Perhaps he actually drove some of these engines. We also got to see much of what had been retained from the early days by the town’s historical society, thanks to our good fortune in finding Dr Cuttle’s niece being there and taking the time to show us around. There were even some old photos of the school that I attended, but alas none with me in them!
It was also good to see that the old Licorice Factory that I often walked past as a child, is now a thriving tourist attraction. Chris and I didn’t get around to visiting this, however there is now a website which tells the interesting story of its evolution to what it is now.
So, while it was good to see how Junee had prospered over the years, the fact still remained that in my childhood days it had been just a poor rural railway town.
Next page: My Dad
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