by A B Facey
Penguin Books
a fortunate life
A. B. Facey was born in 1894 and grew up on the Kalgoorlie goldfields and in the wheat-belt of Western Australia. His father died before he was two and he was deserted by his mother soon afterwards. He was looked after by his grandmother until he was eight years old, when he went out to work.
His many jobs included droving, hammering spikes on the railway line from Merredin to Wickepin and boxing in a travelling troupe. He was in the Eleventh Battalion at the Gallipoli landing; after the war, he became a farmer under the Soldier Settlement Scheme but was forced off the land during the Depression. He joined the tramways and was active in the Tramways Union.
A. B. Facey, who had no formal education, taught himself to read and write. He made the first notes on his life soon after World War I, and filled notebooks with his accounts of his experiences. Finally, on his children’s urging, he submitted the hand-written manuscript to the Fremantle Arts Centre Press. He died in 1982, nine months after A Fortunate Life had been published to wide acclaim.
a fortunate life
A. B. FACEY
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROBERT JUNIPER
Penguin Books
I dedicate this book to the memory of my wife, Evelyn.
It was her patience and understanding which
made it become a reality.
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First published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1981
Published by Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 1981
This revised edition published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2005
Text copyright © Albert B. Facey, 1981
Illustrations copyright © Robert Juniper, 1981
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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CONTENTS
STARTING OUT 1894–1905
1 A Prelude
2 The Journey Begins
3 On The Goldfields
4 A Long Walk
5 Uncle’s Settlement
6 Cave Rock
7 A Christmas Celebration
8 Journey At Night
BUSH SCHOOLING 1905–1908
9 A Snake Bite
10 Taken Again
11 A New Home
12 The Boar
13 Killing The Pig
14 Mum’s Snake
15 A Proposition
16 A Bitter End
17 The Bibbys
18 An Eventful Christmas
19 My Wild Life
20 The Cattle Thief
21 Police Witness
22 Goodbye
23 Travelling Home
24 Arrival
25 Mother
JOURNEY 1908–1909
26 Travelling North
27 Road To Mullewa
28 Another Christmas
29 Signing On
30 Preparation
31 The Ride North
32 The Drive Begins
33 Lost
34 Deliverance
35 Back To Work
36 The Drive Ends
KNOCKING ABOUT 1909–1914
37 City Life
38 Back To The Bush
39 Solid Advice
40 Return
41 Settling In
42 Taking Charge
43 Dingo Killer
44 Kicking Around
45 Solidarity
46 Prize Fighter
47 Marking Time
48 Mickey Flynn’s Boxing Troupe
WAR 1914–1915
49 Military Training
50 The Middle East
51 Before The Storm
52 Gallipoli
53 The First Days
54 In The Trenches
55 Fighting On
56 The Battle For Leane’s Trench
57 Another Birthday
ANOTHER LIFE 1915–1976
58 Evelyn Gibson
59 Work And Marriage
60 A Strike
61 On The Trams
62 Soldier Settler
63 Good And Bad
64 Depression
65 Return To The City
66 Another War
67 Poultry And Pigs
68 Grinding To A Halt
AFTERWORD – Jan Carter
STARTING OUT
1894–1905
MANY PEOPLE HAD LITTLE FEELING OR SYMPATHY FOR THOSE IN NEED.
1
A PRELUDE
I was born in the year 1894 at Maidstone in Victoria. My father left for Western Australia just after this, taking with him my two older brothers, Joseph and Vernon. The discovery of gold in the West had been booming and thousands believed that a fortune was to be made. At that time there were seven children in our family: I had four brothers – Joseph, Vernon, Eric and Roy – and two sisters – Laura and Myra. My mother stayed at Maidstone with the younger children and my father arranged to send money over to support us until he could find us a home.
In 1896 Mother got word that Father was very ill. Typhoid fever had broken out and hundreds were dying of this terrible disease. A few days later Mother received the sad news that Father had died. When Mother had got over this terrible shock, she decided to go over to the West, as Joseph and Vernon were still only teenagers. Mother left the rest of us with our grandparents at Barkers Creek. I was then nearly two years old.
Barkers Creek was situated sixty-three miles from Melbourne on the Bendigo road, three miles from the small town of Castlemaine. Grandpa and Grandma, whose surname was Carr, had a small property with a few acres of orchard and a five-roomed house. There were no aged pensions in those days, nor were there any free doctors, hospitals and medicine, nor baby bonuses or endowment payments. So my grandparents had to live, and keep us children, on their own resources. Our mother was to send money to support us, but although she wrote many letters she always made excuses for not being able to send us anything.
At the age of seventy-seven, Grandpa was a big man, over six feet tall and weighing around two hundred pounds. Grandma was a small woman in her early sixties, about five feet tall, and between seven and a half and eight stone. They were very poor. Grandpa depended on odd jobs, such as ploughing orchards an
d pruning, to get a few pounds to keep us all. He, with my brothers, Eric and Roy, trapped rabbits, and the boys used to go out picking fruit on Saturday mornings during the fruit season.
Early in the year of 1898 Grandpa became very ill. A doctor came from Castlemaine twice a week to give him treatment, but his condition got worse and he died in October that year. I had turned four years old in August and remember Grandpa’s illness and his funeral quite well.
After this tragedy Grandma became very worried as our only bread winner had been taken. She wrote to our mother telling her of our plight and asked for financial help. Although Mother wrote, she was unable to send any money. She said that she had married the man who had employed her as a housekeeper, as she was forced to find work when she found that Father had died not leaving enough money for her to live on. Our two older brothers found it hard to get jobs, as they were too young to go down the mines on the Goldfields. The surface gold had been worked out, leaving the mines and woodcutting in the bush as the only ways of obtaining work.
Grandma was shocked at hearing all this after the terrible ordeal she had just been through. She went out working – house-cleaning, washing and ironing. She was also an expert midwife. Nearly all the babies born in and around Barkers Creek were attended and helped by Grandma Carr and very few women needed a doctor. Grandma knew as much as any doctor on the subject.
My brother Eric, who was then twelve years old, had to leave school and go to work. My eldest sister Laura went to help our uncle who had lost his wife in an accident. He was a hawker, carrying stores, drapery, medicines and anything he could sell. My sister was ten years old, and Uncle’s place was about three miles from Castlemaine on the Ballarat railway line at a place called Campbells Creek. The accident had happened at a railway crossing. Our aunt was killed and Uncle’s spine was hurt so badly that he lost the use of his legs and never walked again. He had three children, all very young.
Early in 1899 Grandma became very ill and was unable to work. In fact, she had to be seen by a doctor, who put her to bed. She had some internal complaint and the doctor came to see her twice a week for about three weeks. She was able to get up after that, but could only walk around for a short while. We were in terrible financial distress but at least Grandma could get around again. My brother Eric’s wages were all we had and they amounted to twelve shillings and sixpence a week – not very much to feed five of us.
Grandma overcame the financial trouble temporarily by getting a forward payment on her apple crop. The apples were a good eating variety and were easy to sell when ripe. Grandma recovered from her sickness but found that the paid work she had been doing had been given to others. Many people had little feeling or sympathy for those in need.
Things got so bad that Grandma decided to try and sell her property and take us over to the West to our mother. She put it up for sale and many people came to see it but they all said the price was too high. She wanted three hundred pounds for the property, which consisted of twelve acres of land, a five-roomed house, eight acres of orchard in full profit and a nice vegetable garden – all good loam. The agent advised Grandma to reduce the price to two hundred pounds. This she did and finally sold it for one hundred and sixty pounds. Some overdue bills had to be paid out of this.
About the second week in August 1899, we left Barkers Creek and went to Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, where one of Grandma’s daughters lived. We all stayed there until everything was arranged for our trip to Western Australia.
2
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
It was the first week in September, 1899, when we arrived at Port Melbourne to embark onto the old tramp steamer Coolgardie. Just before we went aboard I nearly lost my life. The wharf labourers were unloading bananas from the Coolgardie and this fascinated me as I hadn’t seen so many bananas before – there were thousands of them scattered all about the place. They had come from Queensland. I went to pick one up and one of the men shouted, ‘Hey, drop that!’ I got such a shock that I jumped, and being so close to the wharf edge I overbalanced and fell between the wharf and the ship into the sea.
There were steps at intervals leading down under the wharf to the lavatory landings. People used to fish from these landings and, luckily for me, a man who happened to be trying his luck saw me fall into the water. He grabbed me and pulled me out, but not before I had swallowed plenty of dirty salt water. I couldn’t swim. The man carried me up the steps to the wharf. I was sopping wet and feeling very sick. I’ll never forget the look of anger on dear old Grandma’s face. She lost control of herself and gave me a hiding with her umbrella, and to make things worse, she made me strip off all my clothes while she opened one of our travelling trunks and got me a change of clothes. I had only just turned five years old and Grandma had taught us to be modest so this hurt me more than the ducking and hiding I got.
Finally we boarded the Coolgardie and sailed for the West. I had never been to sea before and didn’t know about seasickness. The trip to Port Adelaide was very calm and we all enjoyed being at sea, but after we left there, bound for Albany in Western Australia, the sea was terribly rough and we all got very seasick.
Owing to Grandma not having much money we had to travel steerage. It was the cheapest way to travel and the passengers were packed together with very little room to move, especially in the cabins. The one that Grandma, my sister Myra, my brother Roy and I were in had twelve sleeping bunks. Grandma and Myra slept together in one bunk, and Roy and I slept in another. The other ten bunks were all taken by women. (Eric, being older, was in an all-male cabin.) Everyone was terribly seasick.
We arrived at Albany but didn’t get off the ship. We went on to Fremantle and disembarked there. At last we had arrived in Western Australia. When our luggage was brought off the ship we didn’t have much – two travelling trunks and a large travelling bag and three travelling rugs. Between us we carried these to the Fremantle Railway Station, about two hundred yards from the wharf.
There was no one to meet us. Grandma had expected our mother or at least our Aunt Alice to be at the wharf. Aunt Alice, who was Grandma’s eldest daughter, had come over from Victoria with her husband, Archie McCall, and their family at the same time as our father. She had five daughters, Alice, Ada (Daisy), Mary and May, and one son, Archie, who was called Bill, and they lived three and a half miles out of Kalgoorlie on the goldfields.
At the railway station we put our belongings near a seat and Roy, Myra and I were told to stay there until Grandma came back. She took our older brother Eric with her and went into the town of Fremantle. They came back about an hour later and we all boarded a train for Perth.
It was only a short ride to Perth – about forty minutes. We arrived at about midday, and were again left at the railway station with our luggage. This time Grandma went out alone. When she came back she brought us some sandwiches, cake and also some bottles of cool drink. We were very hungry and made short work of such luxuries.
After this Grandma had a long talk with the Station Master. There was still no one to meet us and Grandma looked very worried. We waited on the platform until about five o’clock that afternoon (the time went quickly because we were very interested watching the trains coming and going). The railway station at Perth looked very small after the Melbourne stations.
It was between five and six o’clock when we got on the Goldfields train. After a while the train moved out and we were on our way – to our mother, we thought. We were all very tired. I remember the train going through a long tunnel, and just after that darkness came and I went to sleep. I was awakened later, it was still dark, and Grandma said we had to get off the train as that was as far as her money would take us. She said the name of this place was Northam, a small country town – only a few houses, one hotel and the Post Office, which was also a store.
After getting off the train we again waited with our luggage while Grandma had a long talk with the Station Master. He came with her to us and then showed Grandma an unused railway ca
rriage that we could sleep in for the rest of that night. We made ourselves at home in it. Grandma slept on one seat, my brothers on the other seat, and Myra and I on the floor.
Next morning Grandma and Myra went to the ladies waiting-room and changed their clothes and freshened up. We boys had a wash under a tap and changed our clothes in the railway carriage, then we joined Grandma and Myra on the platform where we had a breakfast of sandwiches and a glass of milk.
We then took all our luggage and went to the Northam Post Office. Grandma went into the building leaving us kids outside. She was in there for quite a while. When she came out she said she had sent a letter to our mother and Aunt Alice, asking for money. Then she told us that we would have to find a place somewhere out of town to make a camp until she got a reply to her letters. So we set off all carrying something.
After we had gone a little way along the road leading out of the town a man came along. He had a spring-cart, and seeing us he stopped, thinking we were going to some place out of town, and asked if we would like a lift. He told us that he was a bachelor, his place was fifteen miles out of Northam and he would be glad to help if he could. Grandma spoke to him, explaining our plight, and he told us that there was a Government Reserve about a mile further on. There was plenty of water and we could make a camp there for a few days, as there was plenty of bush and scrub that we could use. He said that they didn’t get much wet weather this time of year.
We got into the spring-cart with our luggage and were pleased at not having to carry the things. At the spot that the man pointed out to Grandma, we got off the cart, thanking the stranger for his help. We carried our things and put them under a beautiful shady tree, then Grandma sent Eric over to the farm-house, about half a mile away. We could see it from the spot where we intended to make camp. Eric was to try to borrow an axe and spade, and to do this Grandma said he was to tell the people why we wanted the tools.
