A Fortunate Life (Puffin story books)

by A B Facey

  Sixteen

  Our troopship arrived at Fremantle near the end of November 1915. I was very ill; the doctor on the ship had kept me in bed. He suspected that the shell bursts had affected my heart badly and that this was what was making me feel faint and giddy so often.

  About one hundred of us were taken straight to the No. 8 Australian Military Hospital at Fremantle. I was ordered to bed and remained there through Christmas time. Late in January I was allowed to get up. My right leg, which was severely crushed in the blast, never really recovered and walking was difficult. I was allowed out on daily leave on the condition that I move slowly and keep away from crowds.

  One day I went to Perth with another soldier from the hospital. We were walking down Barrack Street when we saw two girls coming towards us. We were in uniform. To our surprise the girls stopped us and one of them said, ‘You’re returned men from the Eleventh Battalion, aren’t you? We are from Bunbury.’ I replied that I was with a lot of boys from Bunbury at Gallipoli and I mentioned several. Both girls knew the names. I then asked the girl who had spoken to me her name. What a shock I got. She said, ‘My name is Evelyn Gibson.’ Straight away my mind went back to the trenches at Gallipoli, and the pair of socks that I had received along with a note wishing the soldier who received it the best of luck and a safe return home to his loved ones.

  Although I had never had any real schooling, I knew what the word providence meant, and that here it was now. Evelyn was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. I felt as if I had known her all my life. I managed to suggest that the four of us go and have a cup of tea and talk about the boys from Bunbury, and the girls agreed. After that Evelyn and I often met, and when I had to stay in hospital she used to visit me as often as she could. And that was how Evelyn and I started our courtship.

  I went before another medical board and was told that I was unfit for further military service and would be discharged and put on a war pension. I was advised that I would have to be very careful as the board couldn’t guarantee that I would live more than two years. This gave me a shock as I had proposed marriage to Evelyn and she had accepted me. I felt very sad. I couldn’t expect a girl to marry me under such a cloud. I decided to let Evelyn make the decision. That night I told her and she said that she wanted to go on with the marriage; she didn’t believe the board’s decision.

  My health improved and I started to answer advertisements to try to get a job. When I left hospital I went to live at my stepfather’s place. Grandma was still up at Wickepin with Uncle Archie and Aunt Alice. I would have liked to have gone to visit her but my health, and needing to find a job so that Evelyn and I could marry, made that impossible.

  In June 1916, I qualified as a Perth Tramways conductor, and Evelyn and I fixed our wedding day for August the twenty-first. It was a small, quiet affair; the war was still on and there were so many sad and worried people at that time.

  The Repatriation Department, formed by the Commonwealth Government to care for returned soldiers, was offering free education to those who were unable to do heavy work. I applied for this and started night-school at Fletcher’s Business College in Perth. The first week in September 1918, the Superintendent of the Tramways said that he would give me a permit to learn to be a motorman (driver). As a motorman I would be able to sit down while driving and this was much better than being a conductor.

  My wife and I were very happy. Our first son was born in February 1919. We called him Albert Barnett (Barney). In January 1921, our second baby came along, a lovely little girl we named Olive. Evelyn loved babies and she was a very capable person. She made all their little woollies and clothes and dressed them so beautifully that I used to feel very proud of them.

  In June of that year I had diphtheria and I didn’t seem to recover properly, so I arranged for an appointment with the Repatriation Department. The doctor told me that I would have to leave the Tramways, and advised me to get out of the city and into the country.

  When I told my wife the bad news, she reminded me that it was nearly five years ago that the same doctor had given me only two years to live. Then all of a sudden it came to me—the Government was settling returned soldiers on the land, and as I had a lot of know-how about wheat and sheep farming, I thought I stood a good chance of being selected. On a farm I would be my own boss.

  I made an application for a wheat and sheep farm, explaining my background. I came through fine and eventually took over a farm in the Narrogin District, ten miles from Wickepin in July 1922. The property consisted of approximately twelve hundred acres, a nice house, several horses and a number of badly neglected farming implements. There were six hundred acres of cleared land which had been partly fenced, with an abundance of grass for sheep, so I could see a grand chance of doing well by grazing sheep.

  We decided to fence as much of the cleared land as possible and purchase some sheep to graze on it as soon as we could. My wife worked as hard as I did and by the end of August we had two hundred acres fenced and ready. I purchased two hundred Merino ewes with lambs at foot and one hundred red hoggets (year-old sheep), mixed sexes. The lambs’ growth when their mothers found the delicious feed at our place was amazing; we sold the lambs in early October and the price they fetched covered the cost we paid for the ewes with the lambs at foot. This was a very encouraging start.

  By March 1923 we had six hundred and eighty acres fenced in. We were employing a man to help with our heavy work and by April we were ready to put in our first crop, and we also purchased some young pigs and built pigsties.

  My wife presented me with another boy—George. By 1928 we had five children—Joseph was born in that year and Barbara was born in 1925. Shirley was born in 1932. As the children got older I used to enjoy gathering them in front of the fire in winter and reading stories to them. Our evenings were very pleasant. We’d all sit around and play cards and other games and listen to gramophone records, and we particularly looked forward to sitting down of an evening and listening to a serial about farm life called Dad and Dave on the wireless.

  Our children were always a great joy to Evelyn and me. In 1932 the State had a baby competition. Shirley was about four months old. She won first prize for our district and was selected to go to the final judging. In this our baby came fourth and the judges told my wife she was placed fourth because she had a small birthmark on her arm, otherwise she was the most perfect baby in Western Australia. This was one of the proudest days of our lives.

  At the time we moved to our farm, Grandma had left Wickepin. Uncle Archie and Aunt Alice had left their farm to their sons and moved to a small property in Bruce Rock, approximately one hundred miles north-east of Wickepin. It was impossible for me to visit her because of the distance involved. So although I had sent her letters I had still not seen Grandma since before I had gone off to the war. I was sad that I was not able to visit this fine old lady who had been so important in my life.

  In the middle of 1932 I received shattering news: Grandma had died at Bruce Rock. She was a hundred years old. Grandma was the closest to a mother that I had ever had, and if it wasn’t for her I would have been completely on my own for all those years before I came home from Gallipoli and married Evelyn. Grandma was respected and admired by everyone who knew her and although it may be expected, the death of someone like Grandma is always a tragedy when it happens.

  The 1930s was the time of the Depression. There were thousands of men out of work. Things were so bad that the city people out of work had to be paid by the Government to just buy their food. Returned soldiers particularly were upset—they didn’t fight a war for this.

  In 1931 we sold eight thousand bushel bags of wheat for the sum of one shilling and sevenpence per bushel. Wheat growing was a failure because of over-production and no export markets. That wasn’t the worst—our wool dip returned us threepence halfpenny per pound. And we owned some of the finest Merino sheep in the district. To top all that was the rabbit plague—they came in thousands. Finally, the worry and a
nxiety were too much. In 1934 I decided to pack up and leave our farm. Evelyn was delighted and said that if we stayed on the farm we would face starvation.

  We rented a house in Perth and I got a job back at the Tramways as a motorman; and in 1935 I applied for a position as a trolley-bus driver and was accepted. My pay was averaging five pounds a week, so Evelyn and I purchased a house and four acres of land in Tuart Hill, on very easy terms. My job was interesting, and I was in much better health now and enjoyed life. Evelyn was wonderful—she knew all the things required for making good palatable meals, and she was truly a genius when it came to making money stretch to cover all our needs. We were a close-knit family, each member helping the other.

  Early in 1939 we got the shock of our lives. Evelyn quietly informed me that she was going to have another baby. Our son Eric arrived in September, a few days after World War Two broke out.

  Our eldest son Barney was twenty now. He volunteered and joined the Second Fourth Machine Battalion, Western Australia. His unit sailed to Singapore and Malaya to fight the Japanese. Our second son, George, also volunteered and sailed with his unit to New Guinea. It was difficult to see our boys go off, knowing what they would be going through. I’d told them all about war many, many times, so they knew, as much as they could, what to expect. We were all involved in the war. I was appointed as an air-raid warden in charge of the Tramways Depot, and Barbara joined the Land Army and went to a dairy farm in Capel. She met her husband there and married in 1945. Olive had already married in 1943 and only Shirley and Eric were still at home.

  When Singapore fell Barney was reported missing and we didn’t hear anything of him until just before the war ended—nearly four years. Evelyn would sit at the kitchen table to write to Barney while he was missing, not knowing if the letter would ever reach him, and tears would run down her face on to the paper.

  On twenty-third May 1945, I received word that Barney had been killed in 1942 during the fall of Singapore. I was devastated. It was Evelyn’s birthday that same day and I had organized a surprise party for her. I decided, after a lot of thought, that it would be best not to tell her and go through with the party. Evelyn thought that the sun shone through her children. Once she knew about Barney’s death it would be a long time before she would be able to be happy again. It was very hard carrying on and keeping it to myself and late that night after the party I told her. It was the worst time of our life. She collapsed, it was too much for her.

  Eric was now nearly six, a bright, lovely little boy, and his cheerful ways helped his mother finally to recover. Evelyn was on top of the world when George and Joseph came home when the war ended.

  In 1947 we set up a small poultry farm on our property at Tuart Hill. I found that we could make a better living than me working for the Tramways. We built the poultry farm up into a very good business; our profits were more than twice the wages that I used to receive from the Tramways. So we sold our home in Tuart Hill and bought forty acres of virgin land about ten miles north of the city, in Wanneroo. We built a house by ourselves, with jarrah timber and asbestos outer walls and an iron roof, and went into the poultry business in earnest.

  It was hard work, but we made a good living, and best of all Evelyn and I were working together and for ourselves. Evelyn would don a pair of bib and brace overalls and help with all the work of raising chickens. It seemed that there were always eggs to clean and pack. I had a truck and every second day would load the eggs up and take them into the market in Perth.

  Late in 1950 a man called at our place and wanted to buy our property. We told him we didn’t want to sell. He got so persistent that I said to my wife, ‘Suppose we put a price on the place well above its worth and demand cash, that will scare him off.’ We stood firm on the price we had put on the place, and after thinking it over he said, ‘Okay, I’ll buy it.’ That was the end of us at Wanneroo. Well, almost. In later years a street was named after us—Facey Street—and there is also a Barney Street named after our eldest son.

  We then purchased a property of thirty-six acres at Gosnells. I considered it would make an ideal place for raising pigs, cattle and sheep. The old house on the property was so run down that we had to build another one. After the success of the Wanneroo house we had no trouble doing this. We put in some fruit trees and Evelyn established a good vegetable garden.

  We stayed on our property for three years and made quite a good living. Then late in 1953 a man came along and offered to buy the place for more than twice as much as it had cost us, so again we sold out.

  So once again we shifted. We purchased a small property in the hills about twenty-five miles from Perth at Mount Helena. We bought a few fowls and a few breeding pigs. The place consisted of six acres with about eighty fruit trees. I felt that I could manage the work. I became Chairman of the Mundaring Roads Board and was appointed a Justice of the Peace. I was very thrilled and proud.

  Early in 1958 I had a heart attack, and the doctor strongly advised me to give work away. I was now sixty-four years old and my war pension was not very much, so I appealed for an increase. I was thoroughly examined by the doctors, who had studied my war history, hospital files and previous doctors’ reports. One of the doctors asked me when my spleen had been ruptured. I hadn’t known that it was ruptured, and the only explanation I could give them was that I had been blown up by a shell at Gallipoli and buried by sand-bags.

  A week after the examination I received a letter from the Repatriation Department telling me that my pension was to be increased. This changed my life—I could now live on my pension and not have to worry about having to keep poultry and pigs to make my livelihood. My working life had ended; we sold the property and bought a house in Midland, a suburb east of Perth.

  George had married in 1949, and Shirley the following year. In November 1960 Eric was married—so now all our children, except Barney of course, had families of their own.

  On the third of August 1976, Evelyn died in my arms. We had been married for fifty-nine years, eleven months and twelve days. Evelyn had changed my life. After our marriage my life became something which was much more than just me. But now the loveliest and most beautiful woman had left me.

  I now wish to end this story. On the thirty-first of August 1977, I will be eighty-three years old—another birthday. I have lived a very good life, rich and full. I have never ever felt that I was tied down to any one place or any one job; I could sell out or walk off at any time. I never worried about trying something different or having a go at something. I have always believed that if you want to do something you usually can. I have been very fortunate and I am thrilled by it when I look back.

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  BORN TO RUN

  Cathy Freeman

  Hi guys,

  Ever since I was little I only had one dream – to win a gold medal at the Olympics.

  When I was twenty-seven years old, my dream came true. I’ll never forget that night at the Sydney 2000 Games – as I crossed the finish line, it was as if the whole of Australia was cheering for me.

  Sometimes I still wonder how it happened. When I was growing up, I felt no different to anyone else. I loved having fun with my brothers, sleeping over at nanna’s and going horse riding with my dad. But I especially loved to run. With the help of my family, coaches and teachers, I became the best female 400-metre runner in the world.

  I hope you enjoy my story, and that it inspires you to chase after your dreams too!

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  THREE CUPS OF TEA

  Greg Mortensen

  With the first cup of tea you are a stranger.

  With the second…a friend.

  With the third cup of tea, you are family.

  In 1993, Greg Mortenson tried to climb K2, which is the second highest mountain in the world. On the way down, he became lost in the mountains of Pakistan and stumbled into a poor village. There, the village chief and his people offered Greg even more than three cups of tea: they nur
sed him back to health. Moved by their kindness, he promised to return and build a school for their children.

  This is the story of that promise’s extraordinary result. Despite death threats, a kidnapping, and more, Mortenson has built over sixty schools-especially for girls-in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has dedicated his life to promoting peace through education, one child at a time.

  It was announced in 2010 that US President Barak Obama would be dividing the Nobel Peace Prize money between several charitable organisations, one of which is that founded by Greg; The Central Asia Institute. Weblink to the news as follows:

  http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/03/obamas-nobel-prize-money-going.html?hpid=news-col-blog

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  WICKED WARRIORS AND EVIL EMPERORS

  Alison Lloyd

  Illustrated by Terry Denton

  Imagine you’re made King at the age of twelve. You have plenty of ENEMIES. But you also have a MILLION SOLDIERS, armed with all kinds of AWESOME WEAPONS, a hoard of GOLD and a network of SPIES. What would YOU do with all that power?

  It happened to a REAL boy, who made himself China’s first emperor. He was BRILLIANT and BRUTAL. You might even call him EVIL…

  A legendary story of bloody battles, dirty tricks and dangerous people – and it’s all true!

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