Chapter 8 – The Blacksmith’s Daughter Vol 2 by Fay Berry 2015 © – 1970

Chapter 8 – The Blacksmith’s Daughter Vol 2 by Fay Berry 2015 © – 1970

In the school holidays in December 1969 and January 1970, Jeff and I drove to Perth to visit Don and Una Strempel who were living at City Beach, right on the sea front there. Don had given us a list of interesting places to see across the Nullarbor, and so our trip was made more interesting by us visiting places not on the “tourist” map. This was the trip where Helen went by plane with David Hurn, and we drove by car with Debbie, Judith and Jim. Oh, and we took our poodle Pepi with us! Big mistake!

Don had given us instructions about a place to visit at Ceduna. It was 12 miles out of town on a dirt road. We measured the distance exactly as Don had advised and then we got out of the car and walked towards a great chasm in the ground. There was a ladder there, as Don had said, and we climbed down this ladder to the bottom of the chasm. On our left he told us, we should find a small cave opening into the wall of the chasm and we were to climb through this hole. There was, and we did!

Don had told us to take torches with us, towels and a cake of soap. Inside the cave we were to go quietly because there would be bats on the roof of the cave, and in the middle of the cave would be a mountain of scree and bat droppings. We were to walk around this and follow a path downwards. Once again there was, and we did.

Then Don had said, watch your feet because soon you will come to water which is so clear you won’t see it and you will get your feet wet. Well, we didn’t see it and we did get our feet wet. Then came the interesting part. Don told us to shine our torches out in front of us and we would see a great artesian lake that would stretch in front of us into the distance. This was the town’s water supply and there would be pipes going up into the roof of the cave that piped the water upwards. Don had dared us to train our torches on the water and then to get into the water and swim in the lake. We soon saw why he had made such a big deal of this. The water was so pure that you couldn’t see it, and what you SAW was that you were standing at the top of a great cliff. If you wanted to swim you first had to convince yourself that there WAS water there and that you were not jumping over a cliff to plunge into the abyss below.

Well, you have no idea what strength of will it took for me to get into that water. I was terrified, but get in I did, and swam for a very short while and then clambered out again. Jeff DIDN’T get in and nor did the kids, but I was not going to let Don win! When I look back to that time, I cannot believe that we actually went down there with three small kids, all under 10 years old, but we did.

We drove on to Perth and to Northam where we visited Bro & Sis John Carder who had a property there. When we arrived at City Beach, we found that there was a flea plague and the moment Pepi put paw to ground they all found a new home. Every morning I would wash Pepi in detergent and get rid of the first lot of fleas. We tried to lock him out of the house, but he scratched and yowelled so badly that the kids would take pity on him and let him back in. Then he peed in the doorway of the Strempel’s lounge room and on top of their NEW white carpet. What a disaster! Then Pepi ate Sue’s pregnant guinea pig and we and our dog were not popular at all. Sue Strempel was in a rage at the loss of her guinea pig, and was found chasing Jim down the driveway brandishing a tomahawke!

One day Don decided to take us to see some caves that he said were very beautiful and very interesting. It was just after lunch before we got away, but Don told us there was enough time to get to the caves and still be able to have an hour and a half or so to look around the caves. He had invited Jimmy J and his wife to come with us and so we set out, three cars in convoy. We had only gone a short distance when Don rang David M to see if he was okay. When he came back, Don told us that David was not coping and Don thought he should go back and be with him.

I was really disappointed because we didn’t know Jimmy J very well, and it would have been good if Don could be with us, but it was not to be and we traveled on with Jimmy J in the lead. I noticed that Jimmy J had his elbow leaning on the door of the car and was tapping his fingers on the car’s roof. His driving speed varied all the time. He would slow down and then speed up again, then slow down again. I was driving our car, and this meant that I had to vary my speed in unison with Jimmy J. I began to get a bit irritated, and then I got upset, and then angry, and finally I was wildy angry. I told Jeff that I was going to drive right over the top of Jimmy J if he didn’t get moving. I wanted to pass Jimmy J and take the lead, but Jeff said “No.” By the time we got to the caves my anger was white hot. I was even more angry, if that were possible, when I found that the caves were about to close, that we had missed out altogether on seeing them because of Jimmy J and his erratic driving. I was so angry I could barely speak to Jimmy J and his wife and we ate our afternoon tea in absolute silence. Patience was certainly not one of my virtues at that time.

On the way home from Perth, we had car trouble, well actually trailer trouble. One of the spring leaves broke and Jeff had to stop the car to try to fix it. We had broken down in a very bad place, near Yalata Aboriginal Mission, a place where you were advised not to stop. Not only that the bull-dust on the road had built up at the sides of the road and formed a “cliff” of about 1ft high, so you couldn’t get off the road. I had to go around the corner and put a stick in the road with a nappy on it to warn cars that we were on the road, so they would not come ploughing into us.

A police van drove up carrying a group of aboriginal prisoners who were being taken to Penang for a night “in the cooler.” While Jeff and the police officer tried to fix the trailer, I stood at the window of the car and talked to the police officer’s wife who was nursing a little baby. As I stood talking to her a gust of wind came through the window and it was redolent with smell of the unwashed bodies of the aboriginal prisoners in the back of the ute, and it was overpowering.

The policeman and the prisoners all got out of the van and tried to help Jeff get the trailer fixed enough to drive to Nundroo a few Ks down the track. Eventually they succeeded and we were able to drive on to Nundroo where we stayed overnight.

The next day, Jeff found some wire in a paddock and was able to use it to hold the leaf in place and we limped along towards Penang. Our car at the time was an old ambulance and Dad had built three bunk beds in the back where the kids slept and underneath we had a mattress so that one of us could sleep while the other drove. After a while I asked where Pepi was and the kids said “under the bunks,” but I wasn’t so sure, so I looked. No Pepi!! When I told the kids, they all began to cry. “We’ll have to go back,” I said. “We are not going back,” Jeff replied. “We are going back” I responded. The kids all yelled louder. “I’m going back,” I said. “Well go back,” said Jeff. I glared at him and he glared at me as I got out of the car, walked over to the other side of the road and put up my thumb, and stood there, still glaring at him. Then to my surprise, a car pulled up and before I knew it I was in the car heading back the way we had come. Here I was, in a strange car in the middle of the 300 k of dirt track, heading back to Nundroo with no money, no luggage, Nothing!! And Jeff?? My loving husband?? Heading unperturbed in the other direction!

Well, we drove to Nundroo, and my car dropped me off at Nundroo. I went into the little shop there and asked if our poodle had been seen there. “Yes,” was the reply, “He’s been driving us crazy. He’s somewhere outside.” I went outside and in the distance saw a little white body tearing towards me. Next minute, Pepi leapt into my arms and covered my face with kisses. Well! What to do now? I watched some cars come in and decided they didn’t look too promising. I waited hoping for someone who did not resemble the “axe murderer” or similar. At last a car came towards me towing a boat and within was a man and his two young sons. He looked respectable, so I asked for a lift, and he agreed. He drove me the 90 k to Penang and dropped me off at the police station there. By this time I was not feeling too happy with Jeff. I walked into the police station, and there was Jeff and the police officer poring over the police officer’s scrapbook. Jeff barely looked up, he was obviously not one bit worried about his missing wife.

The police officer was recounting to Jeff all the adventures he had in his job as a police officer in such a remote area and how the locals all work together to recapture missing prisoners who were trying to cross the Nullarbor to Western Australia.

Just then an aboriginal man came staggering into the police station, covered in blood. “You come, You come quick, Aquila he killum Priscilla,” he said. The police office asked if we would like to “improve our education.” Of course, Jeff said “Yes,” and Jeff and I and the kids and the aborigine all clambered into the Police officer’s four wheel drive. We drove out into the bush with Jeff and the kids looking out for wombat holes for the Police Officer.

The police office told Jeff that aboriginals from Yalata mission walk the 90 k to Penang and buy a flagon of wine which they take out into the bush and to the place where they intend camping for the night. They light a fire and heat up the wine, because that makes it go right to their heads when they drink it. After that, anything can happen and usually does. Under the influence of the wine things often get out of hand and a tribal fight will erupt, and this is what had happened on this occasion. When we came to the camp there were a group of aborigines there with three or four mangy dogs hanging around. We were told that Aquila had hit Priscilla over the head with a nulla nulla and Priscilla’s scalp was split open and a large piece of skin and hair was hanging down over her eye.

“You take me ‘ospital, you take me ‘ospital” Priscilla cried out to the police office. “No, you be right, Priscilla” said the police officer. After after checking things were now reasonably quiet, he began driving back the way we had come. “You’re not going to leave her there like that are you? She needs to go to the hospital” I queried the officer. “Look,” he said, “the aborigines get every disease except blood poisoning, and their heads are hard as a rock, you can’t do much to damage them.” So after our little adventure, we drove back to the police station and then went into town to get our trailer fixed and finally continued on our way home to Adelaide.

In 1970, our daughter Judith was seven years old and was attending West Beach Primary School. Judy was an average student, more interested in socialising than working hard. Her Grade 2 school report at the end of the year read, “Judith can cope with the work quite well. Her reading is especially good and she enjoys it. This is a wonderful asset with all learning. Her voice is rather timid and so her expression is rather marred. A good average ability,” and then “Judith has continued to progress in all subjects. With just that little extra care she could become and excellent student. The challenge of Grade III might just do this.

A number of things happened in 1970. Murray and Jenny Lund were in Suva on holiday, and wrote to us from Fiji telling us about the work they were doing over there amongst the brothers and sisters there. We received a letter from May Frederickson who had visited us in Adelaide on her way to Townsville. She told us she was living in Townsville now, and Peter William Berry, Jeff’s cousin, married Carolyn Brown at Albertons SA and later their daughter Karen Berry was born. My brother Charles and sister-in-law Beth, had their third daughter, and named her Miriam Claire O’Connor.

I had been studying for my Real Estate Certificate, doing Real Estate Law and Real Estate Practice. On 15th April, 1970 I received my registration as a land salesman. At the time I had part time work at Adelaide University doing secretarial work and had just applied for two positions, one in real estate and the other a permanent position at the University. I had decided that whichever job accepted me first, I would take that job. Well, the real estate position came in first and the University job came in later an I had received acceptance for both positions. Well, when one looks back over one’s life, in hind-sight, there are certain pivotal points in one’s life, a cross-road, if you like, where the choice you make mean that your life goes in one direction or another. I chose the real estate job, and always felt that I had made the wrong choice, that if I had taken the position at the University, my life would have taken a different direction, a much more ordered and peaceful direction. But I did not choose the university job, I chose the real estate position. I think this was such a turning point in my life, that if I had taken the University job, I may now still be married and not separated from my husband as I am. Maybe God wanted me to take the real estate job so that I could have the rough edges knocked off me, so that I would grow and change.

On the 8th June I took a job with a real estate company called Murray Hill where Bro Jeffrey worked, but I had also been I accepted for another position with Woodham Biggs, and so in the end, I declined the position with Murray Hill and took the one with Woodham Biggs. I teamed up with another Salesman called Tommy Thompson. He was a Scotchman with sandy coloured hair and long sideburns and he drove a beat up Holden, and yet he was Woodham Biggs best salesman. He said during a bet up car and wearing a pink shirt, made him more relatable and approachable to people.

He was full of a billion stories and he was fascinating to be around. However, I never believed one word he said. He told me all sorts of stories about being quite famous in Scotland for driving in their “grand prix.” Years later Tommy visited Scotland again and when he got on the plane to come home, he had a heart attack on the plane and died. Then the Advertiser published a story about him  and to my utter disbelief and amazement, I found that everything he had told me about his life was true!!

Tommy used to take me in his car to a district where he wanted to find houses for sale. Together we would walk up and down the street, and Tommy would engage anyone he met in conversation and soon we would both be inside their homes drinking coffee and eating biscuits. Tommy would ask them if they knew anyone who could be interested in selling their home and he would pick up numerous “leads” in this way. I sold my first house in the first week that I was with Woodham Biggs, but that was because Tommy let me open one of his and said if I sold it he would split with me 50/50%. I remember that the second house I sold was to John and Lyn Darren, 16 Balcolme Avenue, Findon.

On June 12th 1970 Jeff and I received a letter from Ian Leask telling us that he had a hernia operation and also that John Ullman was expected soon in South Africa. HPM was in America doing some studies there and also attending some specialist doctors there about some problems with his health. On 12th May, 1970 we received a letter from John Carder asking when we were intending to come back to Perth.

Forrest and Mary Ann Brinkerhoff who had been our close companions since their arrival around 1968 decided to go back to America. I was utterly devastated. I loved Mary Ann and Forrest and all their kids. Forrest and John Roper had been working with my brother Maynard on the production of a Hydroponics machine. Maynard was to build the machine and Forrest and John were to organise the marketing of the product.  The machine prototype was finished and the “opening” was advertised on Televesion and newspaper advertising. It was built like a rainwater tank and had multiple shelves inside in layers of pie shaped growing shelves each row had seven pie shaped compartments and grass was grown in various stages from seed to complete grass. It was intended to stand in a field and each day the grown grass would be thrown out to cattle for them to eat.  Well, it all came to a halt when my brother had a bi-polar episode. I don’t know all the details of why it all came to a crashing halt. But I think after this was when Forrest decided to go home.

In September 1970, Jeff and I drove Mary Ann and Forrest Brinkerhoff to Sydney where they were going to catch a boat back to America. It was a very sad occasion for us and we had tried so hard to get them to stay. Mary Ann wanted to stay, but Forrest was itching to “get back home” and part of his plan was to persuade Jeff and I to follow them over in a few months time. I knew that Jeff would never be able to get his act together to do so, so I knew that this would be the last time we spent time with the Brinkerhoff’s, unless by some miracle they one day returned to Australia again.

We watched the liner as it sailed out of Sydney with hundreds of streamers floating behind it, carried on the wind. I was sooo sad, So very sad, to see them go. We drove back to Adelaide feeling very glum. We received a letter from Mary Ann dated the the 6th October 1970 that she had written while on the boat. She told us that whilst they were exploring the ship, they had accidentally wandered into the first class section. They found a hair dresser there and booked appointments to have the children’s hair cut but then had to cancel the bookings because they were not supposed to go into the first class section. We received another letter from the Brinkerhoffs telling us that their bags had been mislaid and got damaged and someone returned their stuff in new cases with a note telling them they needed the cases to be returned to them. I had told them that I had missed my Modern History exam by turning up on the wrong day and Mary Ann was most sympathetic. Mary Ann said that Forrest had asked her to urge Jeff to go and see some desalination people in Adelaide so that he could be informed in order to get a job in America. Dream on, Forrest, I thought, it is never going to happen. Forrest also said that the Australians who visited the ecclesia’s in America to do Bible efforts often cast slurs on the characters of the American Brothers and sisters. He said this had the effect of making the Americans less inclined to listen to the very good talks that the Australians were giving and he wished they would be more careful in passing judgment on Americans.

I sat for both Ancient History and for Modern History in the following year  (because I had missed the exam the previous year) and I passed both subjects to my very great relief.

Jeff received notice from Jeff’s father that his sister Phosy had died on the 14th September, 1970, up in Queensland. Jeff remembered Phosy from his childhood before his Mum died, because Phosy used to look after him for a time in those early years.We have photos of Phosy at that time. Barry and Wendy Williams wrote to us on 28th November 1970 thanking us for the offer for them to stay in our house while we were away at the end of the year. Stephen and Dianne Hill sent us a card from Butchart Gardens and said they had met up with Morry Steward in their travels.

Jeff wrote to Fran and Marg Ryan on 28th November 1970 asking if they would be interested in accompanying us on our travels in January 1971. We would be attending the Rathmines Bible School at the end of the year and then Jeff would be giving a special lecture after the school followed by a short stay, if they were willing, with Fran and Marg at Warners Bay. From there we would travel to Ballina leaving on 5th January 1971 and going to Lismore and Ballina for a 10 day special effort. Fran and Marg wrote back that they would be ‘Berry happy’ to accompany us. Jeff wrote to John and Pam Mansfield organising the printing of the literature for the effort in Ballina.

In December we received a letter from Dwayne and Deanna Tunnell who were on a boat called the “Arcadia” and on their way to Sydney. They told us they had met up with Paul and Janet Cresswell in Melbourne at Lainie at Peter Pickering’s place and then they travelled on in the “Arcadia” to Sydney to stay at Ted Spongberg’s place. Then in the next week they were looking forward to seeing us at the Rathmines Bible School.

On 28th December 1970 we received a letter from Ron Abel saying that by now we would be well into the studies at Rathmines and telling us that he had been bitten by a spider and his eye and face were swollen up and he felt terrible.

In December 1970 I received a letter from Forrest Brinkerhoff. Apparently Mary Ann and I had had a falling out and I had said some harsh things to her in a letter. Forrest wrote that my letter was “the silliest and most irresponsible thing I have heard from you. You are the only true friend Mary Ann has had in her life and you have let her down.” I remember having the “falling out” with Mary Ann, but have no idea what had caused it, so I sometimes wonder what it was about, I tend to block out unpleasant things, but whatever it was we must have got over it, because we remain good friends after all the years.

When Aleck and Chris Crawford visited us at our house in Adelaide after they were married, they told me that Helen had come up to their car and said “You got any kids?” They told her “No kids.” They were very taken with her saying this, and so in a letter to us on 30h December 1970, they wrote “Tell your youngest “no kids.” Aleck and Christ also told us that Dwayne and Deanna would be arriving in Adelaide on Jan 26th 1971. And so, that brought Dwayne and Deanna Tunnell into our lives!

Up until 1970 I had gained the following qualifications.
1970 – Glenside TAFE, Real Estate Sales Certificate Law (Credit) Practice (Pass)
Computing Subjects SAIT – Introduction to Computers, Report Writing, Basic Programming, COBOL,
Pollock & Partners, Training in computer software – Microsoft Wrod and other word processing packages, Exel, Q & A data base, Microsoft Project, Windows, Microsoft Money, Access, Attaché, Peach Tree General Ledger.

 

 

 

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