Chapter 9 – The Blacksmith’s Daughter – Vol 2 – Port Broughton, 1971

Chapter 9 – The Blacksmith’s Daughter – Vol 2 – Port Broughton, 1971

Our Port Broughton Holiday – Friday 27nd August 1971 to September 10, 1971. Those present, Grandpa O’Connor, on weekends only, Grandma, Jeff, Fay, Deb, Judy, James, Helen, Jolene Hackett, David Hackett, Pepe the white poodle.

Grandma and Grandpa, Deb and Judy left first, at 6.30 Friday night but we didn’t leave until fairly late, Saturday morning. At the early hour of 9.00 am we dragged ourselves from bed and most unenthusiastically began to pack the trailer and car. The children, impatient as children always are, berated us for our tardiness, but at last after a short prayer for protection on our journey to Port Broughton, we drove merrily on our way. We sang rounds and hymns and chatted as we went. As far as Jimmy was concerned, the highlight of the whole trip was a rusted out army tank alongside the road.

We arrived at Port Broughton and were met by an excited Debbie racing up the street towards us. Grandma had lunch all ready, it was a rather dried up mornay, since we were so late. After dinner, Mum produced a pair of ding bats, and these kept the children entertained for quite some time though the rubbers kept breaking and in the end Jeff refused to fix them any more, so they stayed broken, much to the children’s disgust. Joylene, Debbie, Jimmy and Co. discovered a boat ramp like a long railway line with planks of wood across and raised up from the water with big round stumps. They had great fun jumping from plank to plank until the children were very wet.

Jeff is very pleased with the set up we have managed to arrange in our bedroom. There are three tables side by side next to the bed. I have my typewriter and books on one and Jeff has the books he has brought to study on the Song of Solomon etc. on another, and his school study books for the two essays he has to do set up on the other. This means that he will be able to settle down and work uninterrupted while he is here. I hope he gets some work done for his sake, otherwise he will go home frustrated. I think what he mainly needs at this time is a very good rest. He has been getting such shocking headaches lately, partly due to hay fever, partly due to tension. He’s just got so much work to do and not enough time to do it in and is finding he going tough.

This is the first holiday that we have had of this nature for eleven years and I am very keen that it should be a success, because I think the kiddies are at the stage where they need to be consolidated together with us as a family and because of Jeff’s family background, he is not quite as demonstrative to them as he can be, and I hope this holiday will provide the opportunity to bond and get closer together.

The lounge and kitchen area runs the whole length of the cottage, and the rooms for sleeping and the bathrooms branch out on either side, and so there is plenty of room for the children to play during the wet days, if any. It is surely going to be fun. I am going to have to be strict with myself to get work done. I want to keep this diary up to date, mainly so I can use it to answer all my correspondence when I get home. I owe so many letters, it is just not funny, so I am making a number of copies and will send my diary with a covering note to some of the people to whom I owe letters.

We have brought thetape recorder with some music and the Hebrew lesson tapes. The children are doing quite well at the Hebrew, and we have started to substitute Hebrew words into our English sentences as they learn them. The kiddies will come rushing into the house shouting “ema babayit,” and I have to answer “Lo,” and then they come back with “abba babayit?” And I reply “gum abba lo-babayit” then from them “Mi babayit?” And I finally reply “Anni babayit.” Even Helen is learning a little, though her pronunciation is a little unique, eg, when asked the name of her family she says “Mish-bucket Berry,”
Chops and vegetables for dinner, then the readings, and some Hebrew, and bed, end of first day.

Sunday 29th August, 1971
Grandma woke up first this morning and fed the hungry children scrambled eggs on toast. Within a few minutes the children all disappeared out the door and onto the beach to touch, taste and handle their new environment. By the time Jeff and I were dressed and having breakfast, Judy and David came rushing in, breathless and excited. In their wanderings up the beach they had discovered a dead shag on the sand and had noticed a ring on its leg. David had broken the leg bone and removed the ring and brought it back to show us. It was a 1” metal ring with the words “write Wild life CSIRO Canberra 13100219!” Immediately Debbie began a letter to the CSIRO giving details of their find and asking for information about their activities.

I can see that a constant round of washing clothes is before me. Debbie fell in the water off the ramp and Joylene soon followed, by now I am resigned to wet children and frequent changes of clothes. We had our memorial meeting after lunch and the reading was 1 Cor 11, and Jeff exhorted. He covered the background to the Corinthian ecclesia and the love and care that Paul gave to the ecclesia and the worry and anxiety it caused him and the special problems that faced this ecclesia. The meeting was conducted in peace and quiet except near the end, Judy crept into her bedroom and crept out again, obviously trying to do so without being noticed. I turned around and noticed that she had changed into her bathers. Since the temperature was around zero, and the meeting was not quite over, I sent her back to change back into her clothes. A minute later once again she tried to creep out, this time wearing a pair of shorts with the obvious intention of paddling if she wasn’t allowed to swim. I promptly hauled her back again to get into her proper clothes. Jeff says she is like me and has the same stubborn determination to climb over every obstacle to do whatever it is that she wants to do. The kids spent most of the day on the beach paddling and building sandcastles in the sand.

After dinner that night Dad left to go back to Adelaide leaving Grandma staying with us. It was about this time that I found that Jeff was missing and had been for most of the afternoon. I sent David and Jim to look for him but when it started to rain I went after them to tell them to come back and I would do the looking. I discovered Jeff walking back from town and I could see the boys out on the jetty. We were all getting wet because it was raining quite heavily. On the way back we discovered Helen who had followed us from the house, and so we all arrived back at the cottage soaking wet from the rain.

We had Judith’s birthday party that night instead of dinner, with a cake and all, and presents. The kids had a riotous good time and around bedtime we all gathered around the heater and I read them from Mary Sanborne’s book “Bible Talks.” The children love it, and beg me to read one story after another. (I have since lost this wonderful book and know it is somewhere in the shed at the back of Jeff’s house, to be discovered when the kids sort his stuff out after we both die).

The children listen with an intensity of interest that delights me, and ask questions that show a real and sincere interest in God’s word. I believe that reading together in the evening is the most important part of the day. Looking back on my own life, we did the readings as a family, from the time I was born to the time when I turned 12, and this was the most important part of my life then because it gave a feeling of security and “rightness,” to my life. When I was 12, we moved into a bigger house, and everyone found reasons why the readings could not be continued it was a big mistake. I believe that it is important, that come what may, the readings be done regularly however many other commitments a family has in each day. At the moment the children love the readings, and I want to capitalise on that, because the time may come, as it did in my family’s life, that they may do it as a chore.

Monday, 30th August, 1971
I did the washing his morning and then Jeff and I and the children went for a walk along the beach. I love to watch Jeff at a time like this. He has a child-like intensity of interest in apparently mundane things and he seems to be able to change the unnoteworthy into the something to remember. Jeff searched for parts of old boats under the sand and tried to reassemble them and as he did he would build up a verbal picture of those old boats going out to see with men now dead and buried. The children listened eyes wide, the old broken bits of boats taking on new meaning to them. Jim absolutely adores Jeff.

We came to a swampy area which had apparently once been the local rubbish dump and it was completely covered with broken bits of glass, the edges were rounded and weathered with the action of the sea upon them. Jeff spent ages sifting through the stuff making every piece of crockery and glass seem to the children’s fascinated gaze to be a piece of buried treasure. Every piece was discussed as to age and previous and present value. A man and two children and a dog had been watching us for some time, obviously intrigued to know just what was so interesting that it held the interest of a grown man and woman and six children for so long a time. Finally he could not resist any longer and walked over and joined us and soon he was scrabbling in the sand trying to fit the pieces of crockery together. I was convinced it was most out of character for him to do so, but there is something about Jeff’s interest in things which is catching to anyone who is with him. Pepi was in her element, sniffing and snuffling, hither and long. By the time we were finally ready to return to our cottage, the children had been invited by the man and his two children to come and play on the rope which hung from the tree in front of their cottage. Lunch was toasted sandwiches. We walked along the jetty after lunch and for the rest of the afternoon, Jeff worked on his slides and a letter to my brother,
Graham, asking him to print them for him. Dinner, readings, bed.

Tuesday 31st August, 1971
Everyone is in a good routine now. The children get up and get dressed, make their beds and have breakfast and then go out to play. Jeff is in an excellent routine! He reads a book in bed, has breakfast in bed, consumes 2 cups of coffee and simply refuses to budge. Lazy creature! But still, that is exactly what I hope he will do plenty of while we are here on holiday. I think it is a very good thing that Jeff and I both love to read. I think it would be horrible if he liked to read a lot and I didn’t. I guess I would be very miserable and dissatisfied. The only problem that we do have is that he likes to read and hold a conversation at the same time which is most disconcerting to say the least and because he can do it he expects that I should be able to also, but nothing makes me more furious than to have somebody talking to me while I am reading. And nothing makes Jeff more furious is that most times when he talks to me when I am reading that I don’t even hear him. He goes right through the ceiling which is a dangerous thing to do in our house considering what is stored up there.

It is quite strange staying again at Port Broughton so many years after the holidays that I spent there with Mum and Dad. I think I was about 16 years old last time I was here. It was summertime and I was staying with Mum and Dad at the hotel. Nothing much has changed except that the change shed at the end of the jetty seems to have fallen down since. I remember I played lots of games of tennis smith a lad who was also staying at the Hotel. His name was Harry Quick and he and his younger brother became good friends with me and I remember we spent much of our time engaged in a very exciting feud with some of the local lads. One of the locals started by jumping off the jetty with me into the water and holding my arms so that I couldn’t swim and I was sure I was going to drown. Thus commenced a war that continued on and off practically throughout the whole holiday. We did everything from lobbing paper bags full of sand at each other, to sinking our respective row boats. It was fun. Looking back of things like that it gauls me that my children will not be able to have the freedom that I had. My brothers and I used to be free to go anywhere we pleased, and we used to travel miles and miles on our bikes and have such exciting adventures. Admittedly some of them were pretty disastrous in their results and on at least on of our escapades I ended up in hospital but at least we were free. Our children can’t have any of that freedom, particularly because we have girls at the head of our family and not at the tail. I hadn’t realised until recently that most of my freedom was due to me having three elder brothers to protect me. Still, if we can manage, God willing, to take the children away on trips with us they will be able to do their adventuring and discovering with us.

I took the children for a walk along the jetty. The water was clear and calm. Fish and crabs were swimming and crawling int he water and could be seen as plain as could be. The Jetty i s a T shaped affair with a rail track running the full length of it with a turntable in the middle of the T-shape. The fishermen load their fish on it and push it up and then down the jetty. There are two quite large fishing boats moored at the end of the jetty. One is the Mary Ann Sims and the other is the SARtuna and it is very well equipped and painted, but the Mary Ann could do with a good coat of paint. Some fishermen were unloading some fish from another smaller blue painted fishing boat which must have come in last night. I purchased three large whiting and three large snook from them and we drove back to the cottage. Each child carried a slimy fish and ran into Jeff saying that they had caught them and that they were better at fishing than he was.

Later Grandma and I and the children drove the three miles to Fisherman’s Bay. The sea was flat calm, blue and shining, and the fields were shimmering with moving wheat, the atmosphere was lazy and still. Fisherman’s Bay is a higgledy piggledy heap of small cottages with a ghastly block of toilets set on a rise behind the cottages. The beach of the small Bay was scattered with a few boys and a few dogs. Pepi soon bounded out to join them and disgusted Debbie by rolling in some smelly seaweed. She took his coat off and refused to have anything to do with him until he was bathed. The rest of the children tumbled out of the car and rushed to the play ground. The Ocean wave was most popular and Jimmy and Helen, Judy and David, stayed on it for ages, bouncing up and down, dragging their shoes on the ground. Debbie and Joylene strolled along the shore looking at the small boats. They have all got on amazingly well together. Debbie and Joylene have teamed up and apart from an occasional minor tiff, have really enjoyed each other’s company. David, instead of turning out to be company for Jimmy has teamed up with Judy, and they seem to be quite inseparable. Jimmy seems quite content to either play with Helen, tag long with Judy and David or with Joylene and Debbie. I asked him, once when he was playing on his own with no one else in sight if he minded playing by himself, and why wasn’t he with the others. He assured me he was perfectly happy. So Grandma and I sat in the car, drowsily, watching the children, and with half an eye on the books in our laps. It was so peaceful.

At half past eleven we called the children who for the time being seemed to have reshuffled themselves. -Joylene and Debbie were slightly cool to each other, and Judy and David seemed to have fallen out, but as long as they sort it out themselves, I don’t mind. I prefer to refrain from participate in in their tiffs. We had some soup and beautiful fresh baked bread for lunch. Jeff was still in bed, and unashamedly demanded lunch in bed. After lunch we all went for a walk along the beach again, and Jeff started a sand fight. He filled a bag up with sand and lobbed it onto David who soon took up the fight and soon sand and seaweed flew from the boat ramp all he way up to the jetty. The children squirted sea grapes at him and Pepi barked and scampered around getting under everyone’s feet. We arrived at the jetty at last. Jeff and Judy and David will need to wash their hair tonight since it is now full of sand and seaweed. At the end of the jetty, Jeff found some whitebait and a piece of string and a hook and he and all the children climbed down the steps of the jetty to the water, and all the children lay down dangling their hands in the water trying to catch the little fish that swam all around. Jeff is crazy, back at the Cottage there are two perfectly good fishing rods and yet he fishes with a hook and a piece of string. I watched all this lying face downward with my head over the side of the jetty and my feet hooked over the railway line. It was so clear and lovely and warm that I almost nodded off to sleep. Accidentally, Jeff dropped his line and with a grin all over his face, set up a wail, just like a little boy. “I’ve dropped my fishing line, Waaa aaah.” The children all laughed at him

Just then a boat with two men and a catch of fish drew near the jetty and we all watched with interest as they chugged towards us. They had only about four half cases of fish and when questioned told us that it was only about $30 worth and hardly worth bothering about but their other boat was in the slips at the moment being mended. They told us that it would cost at least $14,000 to set up in the fishing business, two boats and equipment. Jeff was most interested in the way they rowed their boats, standing up and sculling with quick, deft movements, he would love to had tried it himself. Tea and readings and then when the children were all bathed and in bed, I realised that Jeff was missing. I took the car and drove down to the Jetty. It was dark and there were only a few lights at the end of the jetty but knowing the fascination jetties have for Jeff, I looked for him there and I found him right at the end, talking to a lad he had got into conversation with and as usual, pumping him for information about the type of life he lived, his occupation, etc. etc.

We all walked back to the other end of the jetty and stopped and talked for a wile longer and then we drove back home to let Mum know that we were not lost or drowned or something. Then we put on coats and went for a walk. We passed the hotel which only had a few locals inside, and then up the Main Street and saw the lights of a basketball court and some girls playing. We sat down and watched the match. There was one rather short, agile girl with long hair, and we couldn’t work out whether she was just a girl or a woman about 30 plus. She was very good at basketball and threw goal after goal.

After the match had finished we walked back down the Main Street. A car with a girl and two chaps in it kept driving around and around the block, and pausing when they passed us. It was quite creepy and I decided that I would much prefer to be home. When the car had started once more on its way around the block, we ran across the road to the toilets and then stood on the beach side and waited. The car drove around up the Main Street again and then on our left side at the beginning of the jetty and shone its lights out on to the jetty. We moved around the other side of the toilet block, and then they backed back and drove up along the street and around the block once more. We ran down onto the beach and under the beach shelter and then began to walk back home along the beach. Then the car came around again and we ran to the beach wall and crouched in its shadow. The car drove past us and then turned left by the empty caravan park and drove right down to the sea wall and shone its lights onto the beach. We back tracked and ran down along the sea wall and crouched in its shadow and they backed back and drove off again. We ran along the beach and then walked on home. Jeff thought it was fun and a game, but I was scared. We walked on past our cottage and sat down in a boat beached up on the shore. The bay was still and the evening was a little bit chill, but quite pleasant. Finally we went back home to bed.

Wednesday 1st September, 1971.
D fed and attended to the children and gave me breakfast in bed. Jeff had got up to listen to the news and the children went outside to play. When we were all dressed we went for a stroll along the beach towards the jetty. The water was like a pool and the bottom was clear and sharp full of tiny little whitebait. We walked out on the jetty and the little blue boat in the middle was preparing to go out. A couple of scuba divers were trundling their equipment up the jetty dressed in their black wetsuits. They had breathing lungs and underwater cameras, but all they wanted to look for were old bottles, thrown over the jetty years ago. Jeff was soon talking to them and helping them on with their equipment. They had snorkels for shallow work and the breathing lung for the deeper work. They went under the water then and under the jetty and the boats moored at the end, letting out large bubbles of air now and then. We sat down near the Mary Ann Sims and watched the owner cleaning down the paintwork ready to paint. He told us it will takes him weeks and weeks to get the boat painted and ready to go out again, and it has to be done twice a year. We moved over then to watch the little blue boat begin load and Jeff had soon joined in there. He put some rubber gloves on that the owner gave him and helped him load the ice into the hold. I talked to his wife who was going out with him and their three children. She said she was a kindergarten teacher and coached Wallaroo’s marching girls and taught Sunday school. She told us that they had another boat that was anchored ten miles our off the west coast, and they were going to live out there below Port Lincoln for about a fortnight fishing.

We waved goodbye to them and then the scuba divers came up and the children all crowded down on the jetty steps to watch them. The scuba divers came up with bags full of old bottles and seemed rather pleased with their takings. The bottle are supposed to be valuable but only if they can find a buyer for them. We walked with them back along the jetty, the children all piled on top of the railway trolley. As we walked back along the beach we saw a young girl giving rides to some children on her Shetland pony. Our children all begged for rides and the girl obliged. The horse was blind in one eye. The girl told us that the pony had been put in the wrong paddock and that another horse had kicked her in the eye and blinded her. The children had a great time, and it was a pity that Debbie and Judy had not come with us to the jetty but had stayed behind with Grandma. She told us that she had taken them for a walk. After lunch which was a lovely salad all prepared by Mum we did the dishes and I went in to type up my diary and to try to persuade Jeff to do some work because I knew he had to get his slides prepared for his lecture Thursday night, but I was unsuccessful, and so he without any qualms lay down on the bed and promptly fell asleep.

I worked at history for a while and soon decided that the type written work that I had done was sufficient to cover the five areas needed to be able to write the five compulsory questions in the exam. I think that all I need to do now is to read over the answers I have prepared and go through the course summary and exam questions and answer books I have brought with me. After about an hour I decided to go for a drive so called all the children, plus dog, and went first of all to the post office to post the tape to Mary Ann Brinkerhoff. Then I hopped in the car and drove right down the first dirt track I could find, why take a bitumen one when there are perfectly good dirt ones just for the asking. We travelled along with the sun and the sea on our right, so I presume we were travelling south. The fields were absolutely luscious and the roads were bordered by the remains of Malle scrub. The sun was fairly low in the sky and all around was a definite spring feeling. We followed our noses and took any old turning that happened to present itself and eventually crossed a cattle grid and suddenly pulled to a stop at the children’s yells. They had seen a tree house up in the branches of one of the trees. It was a makeshift arrangement of boards and ropes and branches, and really didn’t look as though it could take any weight, but the children were enchanted. I gathered that they would all love a tree house. The road soon petered out and I saw that we were on someone’s property and nearing their residence, so we turned round and drove back the way we had come and turned right at the widest looking dirt track. We saw a sheep by the side of the road and I thought it had been hurt and turned the car around and drove back but it was only resting and chewing its cud and seemed quite disgusted at having to get up and move on. Its udder was bursting with milk. We nearly ran down three little pigs, most likely on their way to build their three houses before the wolf got them. A dog chased us, we nearly ran down two rabbits, in fact we had quite an eventful drive, which was topped off with Pepi vomiting all over the car and the children, which made them and me, very happy we must say. She was confined to the floor in the front where she periodically retched and looked at me in misery when I wouldn’t let her go back further in the car but had to spend the rest of the journey home trying to keep from slipping in the mess she had made. We arrived home thankfully, and I spent the next hour cleaning up the mess and doing the washing. Mum and I did the dishes and because I was finishing the washing, Mum did the readings with the children which was rather a break for me because it usually takes the best part of an hour to finish.

Jeff hadn’t even started the slides by this stage, so I am now typing my diary and about to start to type his list of slides and it is midnight. We will have to get up at 6.00 am tomorrow so we can be ready to leave at 9.00 am. Everything has been going along like a dream here. Jeff is relaxing and unwinding and every now and then he says that he hasn’t felt this free and easy for years. He just loves wandering along the beach and up the jetty with nothing to do but to look and talk with anyone he happens to meet. I have made up my mind that since this type of holiday has been so successful, that God will ing it bears repetition at least once a year. The children are loving.

Thursdays 2nd September 1971.
At 9.00 am Jeff and I left Broughton for Mildura and the special effort. We drove through Clare, Tralee, Kapunda, Blancetown, Waikerie to Mildura. It was lovely to be able to go by ourselves without the children, it felt like a honeymoon. We stopped at Clare and bought some pies and cakes and fruit for lunch. The countryside was green and beautiful. We arrived at Mildura at 3.30 and pulled up in front of the CWA hall in the Main Street. Gordon Riddle was sitting in his car in front of the hall and told us that he had been there all day and not seen any of the Waikerie boys and was feeling rather “browned off.” Jeff and he located the key and let themselves in and spent the next few hours setting up the hall for the meeting. I stayed out in the car and read until they had finished. Roger Gore came and talked to me for a while and then to Sister Hollamby. When the hall was finished we drove out to the Palms Caravan Park where a caravan was booked for us. It was a nice little caravan and I set the bed up and took our belongings inside. We both had a glorious hot shower and got ready for the meeting. By the time that we arrived back in Mildura there was not enough time to even get a cup of coffee, so Jeff promised me that he would take me out to dinner after the meeting. The CWA hall was a nice modern little place and there were four electric heaters placed around the walls so that we were able to keep warm during the meeting. I sat too close to one and boiled. The slides Jeff showed were good ones, quite a number I had not seen before. There were four visitors, a Mr Atwood and his wife and two children and a middle-aged lady, and Ralph somebody or other who has been along to meetings before. Jeff’s lecture was “Russia, Israel, Christ and you,” and covered major prophecies against cities and nations of the past which have been fulfilled, hence the trustworthiness of the Bible predictions. Many prophecies which are being fulfilled in the present day leading to a Middle East Crisis and the return of Christ and the consequent responsibility of the individual. Afterwards we talked to Mr Atwood and his wife. He had once been a Plymouth Brethren but had left because he did not believe in a paid ministry. He said he agreed with all that had been said by Jeff and he himself was in the habit of taking his children on picnics with his wife and reading and discussing the Bible together. The CWA hall has been bought by The Crusaders, and from next Monday will no longer be available for Christadelphian use. Mr Atwood told us he kept the Family Hotel, not licensed, and that he had a large hall in the building which we would be welcome to use for meetings in the future if we so desired. I spoke to his wife afterwards and she is Polish and her mother died when she was very young and her father was the preacher in a church and was shot in front of her by the Germans. When she was seven. She had one sister and three brothers and her brothers were taken away. She and her little sister were without anywhere to live and so they hitch-hiked for four months when she was about 9 years old. Later, and I am not sure how old she was, but it was just before the end of the war, all the children under 21 were taken by the Germans and put onto railway trucks and taken further into Germany to prevent the Russians getting them, and the trucks were in the station, and the Allies bombed them and her little sister was killed at that time. She was devastated and broken up because her little sister was all she had left. She then finally ended up in Australia. She met Mr Atwood here and married him. It was her second marriage. She had a boy and girl by her first marriage and two young girls by her second marriage. I was amazed at the likeness of the younger one, Ruth, to Gaby Mednyanski.

After the meeting, Jeff and I went to a Chinese restaurant and we ordered soup and chicken chow min and prawn chow min. We ordered an extra plate and shared the dishes between us. It was absolutely lovely. After this we drove past Mr Attwood’s family hotel and saw that the Hollamby’s were still there, but since it was midnight we didn’t go in but went back to our Caravan and to bed. Next morning we went to Mr Attwood’s Hotel for breakfast. He told us that the Hollamby’s had stayed until a quarter to one, talking to him and to a German man, a scientist, called Erhardt. Mr Atwood kept talking as though he was “one of us” which made me feel a bit dubious. He knows too little of our beliefs yet and does not seem discriminating enough. He seems to have “sprung up” too quickly and I wondered what sort of roots he would have.

Then Erhardt came down to breakfast and Mr Atwood put us at the same table as him, well, what an education! Erhardt is German and his whole topic of conversation was about pollution. He commented during the meal about all the countries he had been to which is a great number and gave his opinion about blacks, abortion, and about the filth and pollution in France. Well, that was vey well, but I was sitting opposite to him trying to eat my breakfast but I was in a good position, in fact too good a position, to watch him eating his breakfast. He had cornflakes with milk and sugar, which he proceeded to shovel onto a spoon and throw into his mouth, slurping and slobbering loudly, and talking at the same time. “America is a filthy place, “ slurp slurp, chomp chomp, “black people everywhere, dirty filthy people,” slurp slurp, sniff sniff. I watched him, fascinated, with my tummy beginning to churn as I tried to eat my cornflakes. Then when he had cleaned his plate with much scraping and chomping, he started on his boiled eggs. He chopped he tops off and then called for Mr Atwood and complained that his eggs were hard-boiled when he liked them soft-boiled. Mr Atwood took them away and promised that he would cook some more, so Erhardt started on his toast, butter and marmalad. What he did with that was indescribable. It was all I could do to eat my eggs which were fried just the way I hate them, slowly until they are all leathery with the yokes practically hard. I had to eat mostly looking at my plate. At last he was given his soft-balled eggs which were all runny and sloppy and the egg whites were still watery. He chopped the tops off, grunted his approval at their watery state, picked up the eggs in the egg cup, put the shell to his mouth and slurped the egg and yoke down in two or three sloppy motions. Well, I am telling you, that was nearly the end of me. Then he poured out his coffee into his cup, put three teaspoons of sugar in, stirred it and then still with the spoon in the cup, put it to his mouth and using his lips like a vacuum cleaner, sucked the liquid up. Interspersed with this he turned his head to one side and gave loud hacking coughs with his tongue stuck right out each time. All the time he talked non-stop, continuing with his run-down about the pollution in every country he had ever been to. It was too much for me. Jeff had been kicking me in the shins all the way through this meal, obviously enjoying the spectacle, but I couldn’t stay there any longer and left my coffee which I was sure I would not be able to drink and went outside to wait for Jeff. What an experience.

Colin Hollamby and John Lunn turned up then and took Jeff off to the local paper to fix up about some adverts. Mr Atwood refused to take any money for our meal but told us to put it in our collection. After this we packed up and drove back home. We stopped at Waikerie and weren’t to the Lunn’s orange grove to pick some oranges. John had told us that the navel oranges were finished but that we could have Valencias. When we got there we found that there were trees which had been picked but still had some navel oranges on them and so we went right through the grove gleaning. It had been raining and when we had finished we were both drenched through to the skin and had to change our clothes, but it was worth it, because we got a great number of beautiful navel oranges. We left there and drove to Pt Broughton, and arrived home at about 8.00 pm. I did the readings with the children and then we both fell into bed and slept. Dad had arrived for the weekend.

Saturday 4th September, 1971
We got up late this morning. Dad, Jeff and I took the boat out at about 10.00 am. Dad and Jeff fished, but I read som history, the Frenchs Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte. Dad is disgusted with me for not fishing. Apparently it is sacrilege to go out in a boat and only read a book. My time was the most profitably spent though, because they didn’t catch any fish. On the way back, a porpoise kept pace beside us, diving and surfacing, diving and surfacing. Then it dived right under the boat and it was absolutely beautiful to watch, and it gave me a friendly, chummy feeling, as it was obvious that the porpoise was playing and sporting with us. The sea was as flat as a pond, so I wasn’t sea sick. We came in at lunch time in case brother Steele had arrived, but it didn’t look as though he was going to come. After lunch Jeff and dad went out again in the boat and Mum and I did the dishes and then lay down for a while. Then Heather Burney arrived. She had come to Pt Broughton on the Thursday that we went to Mildura. I walked back with her up the jetty where the Arnold’s were fishing. They are all staying in Heather Burney’s father-in-law’s cottage. Our children and their children together number 14, which means they will have plenty of friends to play with for the next week.

Dad and Jeff took the children for a ride in the boat early in the afternoon. Dad and Jeff came back from fishing very disgusted because they still hadn’t caught anything. We bought some whiting from the fishermen when they came in and went home and cooked fish and onions for dinner. David and Jimmy had their baths and then I did the reading with them and got them all to bed. After the dishes Jeff and I went for a walk up to the end of the Jetty. Jeff had their fishing rods and sleeping bags and looked as though they were going to be there for the night. I left Jeff on the Jetty and then went for a walk around the town to see what the locals were up to. There was a dinner dance in full swing in one Hotel and a 21st birthday party in the other hotel. Most of the local children are a foul-mouthed bunch. It was very late when Jeff joined me and we went home and went to bed Jeff is lying in bed reading and I am typing up my diary. We eventually went to bed feeling exhausted, but pretty good none-the-less.

Sunday 5th August, 1971
This morning Jeff, Dad, Debbie and I and Pepi, as an afterthought, went out fishing. We caught as many as we caught last time – None! I read the next section of history on Napoleon Bonaparte. It was a lovely day again and I lay flat on my back in the brow of the boat with my legs hanging over the side with my orange beach hat flopping over my eyes. It was so peaceful. Debbie spent her time with the underwater viewer over the side searching the sea floor for those elusive fish. We were out past the end of the channel and just cruising along when the most wonderful thing I have ever seen before happened to us. A school of dolphins surfaced near us, about a dozen of them, and they romped along with us for about half an hour. The wonderful, glorious, graceful creatures were playing with us, diving under the boat and shooting up out of the water in an arching dive and back down underneath again. The water was clear and we could see every movement so plainly. One of them as it came up made a noise which sounded like “beep-beep” and another came up and barked at us, and even another came up and whistled at us. I have never, never, never seen such a glorious sight. I got an overwhelming urge to dive in and join them in the water and had it been summer and the water not as freezing, I am quite sure I would have done so. They were so definitely playing with us. When we turned the boat in a different direction, they changed their direction and came with us, zooming and gliding and using their big powerful tails to propel them along. Such grace and clownishness, they were like children, laughing and playing in their own language. Even Pepi stood with his feet on the side of the boat looking over the edge at them, fascinated. As we finally made our way back toward the channel, they left us, and we could see them breaking the surface every now and then with their dorsal fins curing in their effortless, powerful arched thrust. How I love those wonderful, amazing creatures. My head was filled with them all the way home and I will dream about them tonight. How wonderful is God’s creation and how great he is to engineer such perfection of movement and such friendliness and playfulness in such a large sea creature. All the way home I impressed the picture of them in my mind so that I will be able to recall it whenever I want to for the rest of my life. Jeff and Dad kept teasing me all the way home because I was in such a daze because of them, but they loved them too.

We cooked ourselves toasted sandwiches for lunch. Mum came back from the Burneys’ cottage and told us that she had a memorial meeting with them. We plan to have our meeting this evening after the children are in bed. After lunch I took the children back to the Burney’s cottage and we divided the children up into Sunday School classes and gave them revision of some of their lessons. Then we had a cup of tea and cake and the children played together. My there is a crowd of children. Fourteen is quite a number when they are all laughing and yelling together. I drove the children back to dinner and we all enjoyed some beautiful soup, toast and fruit salad for dinner. Then I did the readings with the children and then afterwards as I was putting them to bed, we were entertained by Joylene pretending to be a “Pom.” She is very clever with the mimicking. She should do well at languages. I believe she is learning French.

We then had our memorial meeting. The reading was 2 Cor 13. We sang hymn No 2 and then Jeff gave the exhortation. 2 Cor 13 is about Paul warning the Corinthians, that according to Mathew 18 he had visited them to remonstrate with them about their contentions and errors and when they had not heeded him the first time he had sent Titus. Now he was warning them that he was returning the third time that at the mouth of two or three witnesses should a thing be established. He wanted them to repent of their foolishness and to stop questioning his authority, heal their differences and become steadfast in faith. He wanted to get things sorted out so that when he came their might be no need for destructiveness and cutting off.

During the night it rained a great deal and the walls of the cottage leaked rather badly and Jeff had to move all his books away from the wall because the floor had quite a pool of water up against the wall. I did the washing and was hanging it up and Joylene told me she thought she had seen Jeff walk off down the beach so when I had finished hanging up the washing I walked with the children down towards the Jetty looking for him. Jeff wasn’t on the jetty, and then Debbie told me that it had been one of the Burney children’s birthday, and our children and Joylene and David had gone up to the shop and had bought a bar of chocolate and given it to him for his birthday. Since Jeff wasn’t on the Jetty I walked back home and he was by that time in studying or marking papers or something. I lay down and read for an hour or so. Jeff took the children for a drive up towards Kadina. After lunch I lay down and read again until about 4.30, then Jeff suggested that we go for a drive. We told Mum we were off and sneaked out to avoid the children so that we could have some time together on our own. We drove south along the coast and when we came to the road I went along last time, we turned sharp right to see if we could get to the other side of the channel, the land we can see directly in front of our house and on the other side of the channel. We drove along a dirt track which came to an end at the gate of someone’s property. We parked the car facing the hillside and sat and looked at the view in front of us. It was a bright, smiling day, and everything around was lush and green. The spot where we were was completely secluded and quiet, it was lovely. I wanted to get in the car and drive on and see what was over the other side of the rolling hills but Jeff gave me a long lecture on how I want to always be travelling to distant horizons and I fail to really enjoy and touch and taste and handle the things close by. He’s right, of course, so we both got out and walked hand in down the hill into the swampy, low-lying salt-bushy marshland. The ground was hard sand under our feet, and on our right lay little marshy inlets and coves, laced with white foam and green curtains of slime. There were seabirds all around floating like small sail-boats on the blue sea above. We followed old car marks along the flat, but they had obviously been made a long time ago and had almost merged into the wild-life markings all around. Rabbits had burrowed there, sheep with their cloven-hooves had left their trails there and everything was so bland and flat that stretched away on our right and on behind us like the wake of a boat, and we weaved our way in and out the box thorn bushes on the hillside on our left. A willy wag-tail scolded us when we came to too near her nest, and called out “Alls-clear, Alls-clear” when we passed on our way. We came to an old rusty harrow abandoned in the grass and Jeff explained to me how it worked. We veered to the right slightly as we followed the low hills beside the marsh, and soon came to the most delightful wooded area. Under foot was a royal carpet of wild lucerne, dandelion and wild barley-grass. It was thick and springy and deadened our footsteps. A rabbit sprang up from under our feet and scampered away, it was big and fat and plummy, almost too fat to run. There was almost no sight of human disturbance. There were the old markings of a motor bike which must have been used to round up sheep pasturing here, but it was so old that new grass had almost covered them. Jeff wanted to keep on veering right along the marsh to see if we could get to the channel opposite our cottage, but it looked as though it would be a few more miles to get there, so since it was 5.30 pm already, we finally decided to cut across to our left and try to reach the sea. We crossed one arm of the marsh and came up onto a rise and from there we could see the wild coast line, barren and desolate, with no life visible except the shags and the gulls crying overhead. We could have been at the end of the world or in a new creation where there were just we too. It seemed so old and so wonderfully alone, forgotten and yet secure. We came out at last onto the shingled strand that stretched away in a series of scallops, each with its border of seaweed, seemingly undisturbed for years. At the high water mark the flotsam and jetsome was thick, bottles with their lids on floated from some sea craft onto its shores. Old timber, rubber thongs, an old paint tin with paint forming a solid mass at the mouth, the sand was pure shell grit of large and small shells. The scene was like the skirt of some beautiful sea woman, and the scalloped coast-line like the hem of her dress, embroidered withshells and fringed with seaweed. By now, the sun was low on the horizon. We turned to walk south up the beach to a fence which ran out into the sea. We turned left along this and walked along it through the scrub and on up the hill. On our right the sun hung heavily in the sky, big and luminous, organge with a ring of lighter colouring on top like an old man’s bald pate. Jeff said it looked like a coddled egg. We came to the top of the hill and looked out towards the horizon. On our left away in the distance was the marshlands behind us the sea, and to the right fields of green wheat. The coast was bordered by dark scrub. We stopped at the ruins of the original farmhouse, and we waded through the wheat to walk around the ruins. The walls were built of rendered limestone and it consisted of about four rooms. The cement rendering was mostly fallen away, but the remaining walls of the bedroom had still a faint colouring of blue paint. Jeff and I, as so often happens, were thinking the same thoughts. “Thus smith the preacher, vanity, vanity..” how useless it seems to labor to wrest a living out of the soil raising a harvest each year, smiling with good times and weeping with the bad, when death must finally finally reap us all and leave behind us a crumbling ruin that we once lived in and a crumbling body that we once walked in. And yet as Jeff commented as we walked back, if it has provided and ordered, fruitful, atmosphere for our children to grow up in and enables them to have a chance to develop a love for God, family and ecclesia, which will produce character, the only thing of value to God, that they may subject of the resurrection and new life in the kingdom.

It was dusk when we reached the car. The musky, damp smells of evening were wafting into our nostrils. We could see the lights of Broughton twinkling in the distance. A dog barked and was answered by another further away. It is good to be alive, it is good to have a husband and children and it is good to have the chance to stand still and look around and appreciate it. Good old Mum had the dinner ready when we came back, sausages, meat patties, mashed potatoes, peas and gravy, Yum! After we had done the dishes, bathed the children, we did the readings, it was David and Bathsheba and the children listened as always with great attention. Afterwards, Jeff and I dressed warmly and walked along the beach to the end of the jetty. Some men were lying flat down on their stomachs peering over the edge at a school of deep water tommy ruffs that were swimming below and frustrating that the fish would not bight. As we walked back, Jeff did his best to sweet-talk me into getting a rug and going back on the jetty with him with the fishing rods and try to catch them. “Come on Fay, it will be lovely out there, all rugged up and cosy, out on the jetty in the still night, just we too, Please….?” I wavered back and forth all the way home, “Will I? Won’t I,” but when I got home I was tired and so, “No” won! I was glad later because Jeff turned up at 1.00 am with one fish only. I was glad I had been snug in bed and sleeping.

Tuesday 7th September, 1971
Mum gave us breakfast in bed this morning and then Jeff took the children down to the jetty to fish. They looked so funny going off, Jeff had borrowed Mum’s big beach hat and looked a real clown. Jimmy and Judy had the rods held proudly in front of them. Joylene and Debbie had both washed their hair and looked as though they had gone through a bush backwards. Helen was wearing a pair of denim bib front trousers and looked the real little fisher girl. David was there with his usual big smile, and now after typing this I will go down to the jetty to find them. Couldn’t find Jeff, so I drove down in the car to Burney’s and went in to see them. They were in the middle of a late dinner. Heather is working on a five-year course of Sunday School notes so I brought her back to our cottage in the car to have a look at the book by Mary Sanborn, Bible talks, to see what coverage she has given to the Old Testament. We passed Jeff on the way and he waved us away as if to say “Go on, go away, you’ve gone off and left me for the afternoon, don’t bother to come here now.” I laughed and we drove on to the house. Heather looked at the book and thought it was excellent and she could use it. Jeff came in and he is now sitting down and working on a breakdown for Sunday School notes.

We took Heather home and then drove the children to Fisherman’s Bay. The children played in the playground and we drove around town. Jeff was very taken with the place and decided that the people who holidayed there would be mainly working class people because the places were built up out of scrap. Rough and ready as it is he thinks that it would be a children’s holiday paradise. We walked along the beach and looked at the boats. Some of the houses built upon the foreshore were really nice and you could see that many of the owners had a lot of fun putting the places together and establishing some quaint little gardens in front. Water was collected in rainwater tanks and most people seemed to have locks on the taps to prevent people stealing water which seems to be rather precious at Fisherman’s Bay. Jeff would love to have taken some photos of the rows of little box-type outdoor toilets to send to Mary Ann Brinkerhoff as a reminder of Australian “modern conveniences.” After the readings, I had an early night and Jeff went fishing again and didn’t get in until 1.00 am.

Wednesday 8th September, 1971.
Jeff and I both stayed in bed until lunch time today. It was wonderful being so lazy. After lunch I called in at Heather’s place and made myself comfortable in her big lounge chair. We listened to a tape of John Martin’s law class dealing with Lev 16. It was very enjoyable. Mum turned up half way through and settled down to listen to. She asked me if I had seen Jimmy as he had missed lunch and none of the children knew where he was. Heather suggested that he had probably walked to Fisherman’s Bay with her boys who set out at about 10.00 am in the morning taking their lunches with them. It sounded logical, but after a while I began to feel uneasy and decided I would drive to Fisherman’s Bay just to check up. I drove back home and Jeff decided to come with me. We had to leave Helen behind because she was asleep. We drove to Fisherman’s Bay and looked all over the foreshore and up the streets but could see no sign of the Burney boys. Finally we decided we had better go back and get Helen and then start a more intensive search. As we drove back we saw the Burney boys walking in front of us down the road, but they assured us they had not laid eyes on Jimmy all day. I tried to tell myself that Jimmy was playing by himself happily somewhere and had no idea of time, but the biggest thing that was against that was that he had missed out on dinner and had been gone since early in the morning. I know how much Jimmy likes his dinner and thought it most unlikely that he had just forgotten about that. As well, I knew that he usually sticks with at least one of the children and doesn’t usually play on his own. We dropped some of the boys at strategic positions around the town and sent some of them to look up the jetty, but we didn’t find him. We then drove to Heather’s place and she came and helped us look. By this time I had a lump as big as a mountain in my throat, and as much as I told myself that he would turn up and that I was being foolish, the lump kept growing. Just as we were about to go out on a third tour Heather drove up, beeping her horn with Jimmy sitting in the front with her. He climbed out of the car and came to me with his little chin wobbling on the verge of tears that he was desperately trying to control. He threw his arms around me and said that he had been playing with a little boy and his kite up in the town and didn’t even know it had passed dinner time. I told him it was all right, but escaped to my bedroom to howl, because that lump in my throat was still there. Jimmy came in and hugged me and begged me not to cry. It is at times like this that I realise just how much I love the little bloke. I think he is the sweetest natured little chap. The Burney’s stayed for afternoon tea, together with the Arnold’s. We had two plates full of Jatz biscuits with cheese and Vegemite and two round cakes iced with cream. They disappeared before you could blink your eyes, Wow!
They left before dinner time and Jeff went off with Jimmy to fish for a while. They came back at dinner time with four tommy ruffs. He put the fish on some newspaper out on the verandah ready to fillet. Then he wandered back inside and began to read the newspaper. Then when he went outside again, he was back in a trice, roaring, “Who’s taken two of my fish and just left the head of one behind.” He was convinced that one of the children had performed this sacrilege, but then realised that one of the local cats was the culprit. Sometimes Jeff is just hopeless, fancy leaving fish on the ground and not expecting the cats to steal them? He was most offended when we all laughed at him and he stomped out mumbling to himself and scowling at the laughter that followed him from his unsympathetic family. Needless to say, after dinner, the tea and the readings, Jeff was off to the jetty again to make good his loss. He came back at 1.30 am with three or four tommy ruffs.

Tuesday 9th September 1971.
After breakfast Mum and I, Joylene, Judith and Jimmy, drove in the car to Wallaroo and Moonta to see if there are any places there that are worth while staying at for a holiday, God Willing, at the same time next year. I was not impressed either place however mainly because they are too big and also they are directly on the coast and likely to be too open to the weather for the September holidays. We stopped at Queens Park at Moonta and walked around for a while, and then when we got in the car and drove on, the car was making a horrible drumming noise. We stopped and I made a tour of inspection and found that we had one very flat tyre. Groan! Theoretically, I know how to change a tyre, but in actual fact I have never performed the operation. I decided that the RAA was the best bet. We walked back up the Main Street to the post office and as we passed a chap sitting in his car. I stopped and asked him if there was an RAA depot in the town. He told me I was out of luck, but if I rang Moonta 31, they would arrange for the RAA to come from Kadina. He told us that if they were as prompt as usual, I could expect them in about three hours. I decided it would be much better if Sir Galahad would turn up and change it for me. I walked along the street, keeping my eyes open for someone who looked as though they would fit the bill. I saw a young chap standing in a doorway and asked him if there was an RAA depot in the town and told him that I had a flat tyre and didn’t think I could change it myself. He told me there was no depot in the town but as I turned to go, he offered to change it for me. I thanked him and we turned and walked back to the car. He had trouble getting the tow bar off to get at the spare, but at last he managed to do so. From there he had no trouble ! when he had finished we all got in to the car, including Sir Galahad and we drove to the nearest service station and had the tube repaired. We asked him if he would like to have lunch with us, but he declined so we drove on towards Port Victoria. Since I didn’t think that Wallaroo or Moonta were suitable I had decided to find out about Wardang Island that Graeham and Joan have raved about so much. When we arrived at Port Victoria, I went to the Post Office and left a message with the post master for Mr Price the manage of the resort at Wardang Island to send me literature. Evidently it is practically an untouched island that Mr Price is trying to establish as a tourist resort. He has imported a lot of animal life out there. There are isolated beaches, beach buggies and boats etc. The post master told me that he would regard it as an ideal place for children to spend their holidays. Anyway I will see when I receive the literature. We then drove to Kadina along some back roads which were awfully bumpy. I called at the Kennett shop in the town centre, but Keith was on holiday and Max was at Wallaroo, so I had almost decided to drive straight through, when Joylene said she thought she could remember the way to Keith’s place and to Max and Marie’s place. We drove around the street at her direction, and eventually found the place, and Marie was home and was pleased to see someone from Adelaide and invited us in for afternoon tea. She is a lovely girl and she has an 8-weeks old baby boy now, so that makes three for her. She told us that Lorna Niejalke lives at Kadina with her husband. We left Kadina at 4.30 pm and drove home.

Dinner and the readings. Jimmy is really responsive during the readings and asks a whole barrage of questions so that we seem to spend anything from an hour to an hour and a half before I can finally tell them to go to bed. Then it seems to take ages to get them to go. Jimmy always throws his arms around my neck in a bear hug and nearly chokes me and insists on kissing me two dozen times. Of course, then the girls have to do the same and then any excuse to get out of going to bed. Well now I have finished typing this I must now go and tackle the most difficult task of the evening, getting Jeff to stop wasting time, and go and do some work.

Friday 10th September 1971.
Drove to Port Pirie, what a terrible dump! It looks like Port Adelaide, only worse. I took Joylene with me. The only place that I thought was rather a nice little town was Crystal Brook. I think that if we ever did get transferred to some place like Whyalla, then I would like to live in a small town, say ten or twenty miles away and have Jeff travel to work rather than live in the town itself.

Saturday 11th September 1971.
I woke up at about 3.00 am this morning feeling sick as anything. I have been eating too much of Mum’s lovely cooking and my poor digestion has finally sent in a protest. I was sick all day, so stayed in bed. By about 4.30 pm I felt a bit better, so got dressed and walked to the jetty to where Jeff was fishing. He had caught four whiting. This holidays has been a real refresher. I think it was the best thing we could have done at this particular time. With Jeff having to go up to head office and work with the Director of Technical Education next term, and being as tired and wrung out as he is, this break has certainly made him more relaxed and happy than I have seen him in a long time. This is the first holiday we have had as a family without night after night Jeff having to give lectures and lead studies, and then come home here more exhausted than he went away. God Willing I would like to repeat the performance this time next year. We walked back from the jetty. Jimmy was all wrapped up in a tarpaulin he had found trying to keep the wind out. Jimmy just loves being with his daddy and fishing. Jim Cowie would be proud of us if he could see us all now. I wish they were here this time next year and then we could do something like go to the Flinders ranges as we did with them and Rob Thiele last time. It would be lovely if the Brinkerhoffs were back here by next year too. I am glad that the Hackett’s are joining Woodville because it has been lonely for the children since the Brinkerhoffs left and Joylene and David have been no trouble and it is good for our children to learn to mix in with other children at close quarters, particularly Debbie, who tends to isolate herself somewhat.

This evening some young gentlemen took the the cottage, in fact a Nissan hut, up from us and have spent the night in a drunken orgy. They have had two of the local girls in there and the sounds and noise that carried on the still air, shows that there is no modesty, shame or guilt in so many of the young people today. The continuous stream of blasphemous filth that wafted to us was enough to make us feel ill. It leaves me with a feeling of anxiety and uneasiness, and a desire to draw our family around us and hide front he blatant Sodom and Gomorrah around us. How good it is to have the truth to cleanse our minds and thoughts. What a blessing it is to have a clean atmosphere to bring our children into instead of the hopeless degradation from which a parent in the world has no hope of protecting their children. We do have angelic surveillance of our children and if we do all in our power to protect them and teach them after school and on week ends and then separate them together with us for school holidays, then we have gone a long way to eliminate the pitfalls that are set for the foolish and the unwary.

Sunday 12th September 1971
It seemed minutes after I had gone to sleep when the breakfast sounds wafted in through the door and the day to leave is upon us. We have spent the morning packing up. It is a glorious day outside and I would love to stay here for another week, but home we must go. It has been a wonderful holiday and good for all of us.

Fay Berry, September1971.