1960s: A time of great change in my childhood
Missed the start of series? Read Chapter 1: Aussie Summers – 1950s and Chapter 2: Aussie Winters – 1950s.
Chapter 3: Aussie Winters – 1960s
The 1960s were for me personally, a decade of changes. From leaving a small country primary school to attending a large high school where I did not know many kids, to leaving school and working on our family farm with Dad and Robin. Later in the decade we changed farms and moved from the district, but that will be dealt with in another story.
During this decade, I became an excellent driver of tractors and farm vehicles. Sport was a dominate feature of my life, about which I had grandiose, but totally unachievable dreams.
Dealing with foxes
Lambing time was still one of the highlights of the year, providing we received enough rain to provide feed for the ewes. We still had our pet lambs, and the first were still called Sally and Jimmy, and they lived their lives quite happily on the farm, with the Sally’s eventually having lambs of their own.
We still had problems with foxes. On really dark nights, I used to go out with Dad and some friends/neighbours, in our Land-Rover with me holding the spotlight. I soon learnt the foxes were difficult to find and were very cunning. Sometimes they were very scarce and we would only shoot one or two, other nights we would get many more. All the neighbours knew us so had no problems with us shooting on their properties. By the time we arrived home (anytime between midnight and 3am) we would be FROZEN with the cold. After a short sleep it was probably back to tractor driving the following day.
Shearing time continued to be great fun, especially after I left school and could spend all day trying to help. Initially I continued just to sweep the floor, but as I grew taller and stronger, I was taught how to do other jobs. I simply loved everything about shearing, the smells, sounds and the sights left me with happy, life-long memories.
Farm “accidents”
The older I became, the more Dad trusted me to do things unsupervised. This was best illustrated with driving the tractor. When I was about 12, Dad had just started cultivating a new paddock. By now I had seen him do this numerous times and it required a fair amount of skill, to pull an implement wider than the tractor, getting as close to (but not hitting) the fence. This was especially difficult when turning 90 degrees in the corners.
After the outside few rows were completed, Dad would allow me to take over while he watched, providing there was nothing in the paddock that I could hit. I tried really hard to impress him, by driving straight like he and my brother.
This particular day, it was starting to get really dark and overcast, and with the wind in the NW usually meant we could expect thunderstorms. After a while, Dad said, “I’m going home for tea, you can take over for awhile”. With a huge grin and pride to match it, I started, trying really hard to keep the lines straight like Dad had done.
A short time later, I could see flashes of lightning and even above the noisy tractor, I could hear the thunder, and it seemed to be getting closer. My rows started to become quite crooked as I was become more fearful by the minute. I didn’t know a lot about lightning but knew that it struck the highest point, so I was trying to work out which was the highest, my head or the tractor exhaust.
By now, it was windy and raining as well and I was pretty nervous and fearful of my life, so I pulled the tractor to a stop (I didn’t know how to turn off the motor) hopped off the tractor and crouched on the ground between the rear wheels.
Finally Dad arrived and I was SO embarrassed for him to find me like that. He said laughing “What are you doing”? I explained my thinking. He laughed again and said, “The tractor has rubber wheels so you would be perfectly safe”. It was a lesson well learnt, and a huge blow to my ego.
Another tractor driving incident when I was about 14. By now Robin drove one tractor and me the other, and Dad would take over on one of them while went home for lunch.
Obviously with two tractors going around and round, very quickly the paddocks became smaller, until it reached the stage there were just the corners (headlands) left to do. It took a fair amount of skill and practice to complete the 180 degree turn, when confronted with two fences fast approaching, especially considering the fact that the combined length of tractor plus cultivator would have been at least 6 metres. I had ALWAYS been told that before turning, to change the tractor down to a much slower gear, thereby making the turn that much easier to complete.
This particular day, we were working in the hill paddock, which was on a fairly busy road close to the house. One of the fences was brand new. Nearly completion of the paddock, Robin and I discussed what we would do. It was decided he would drive off and start in a different paddock so I did the headlands as I had been taught.
On the final one, with the new fence, I decided NOT to change to a slower gear, because I thought I was clever enough to achieve it. However, I left the turn far too late. Suddenly, the front wheels were disappearing through Dad’s new fence and the wires were getting tangled around the front wheels. I pulled the tractor to a halt in total panic and absolute shock, not knowing what to do. To continue would totally destroy the fence, to reverse meant driving over an expensive implement, either way I knew Dad would not be impressed. I decided to leave the tractor and walk home and face the music. As I expected, Dad was not at all happy with me. I’m not sure what happened next, as I think I was too traumatised to remember.
Sporting glory
By now I was totally absorbed with table-tennis and played when I could. The matches were fiercely competitive with our team. Reeves Plains was still one of the top teams, with our main opposition being Kangaroo Flat. Other teams included Wasleys, Two Wells, and teams from Gawler, amongst others. Each team consisted of six players, so with Dad, Mum, Robin and me, we only needed two others. One of Kangaroo Flat’s top players was Janice, so when she married my brother and played for us, that firmly tilted the balance in our favour.
We played in the Adelaide Plains Table Tennis Association, and it was always a great honour to be selected to play for the association against others like Clare and Strathalbyn. In my final couple of years I was selected and it felt great to play with the rest of the family and friends from other clubs.
Every year a local tournament was played in Wasleys and I was always keen to win the Under 15 Boys Single title. When I was 12, I was beaten in the semi-final by an older boy who played for our team. The following year I lost in the final. I was not happy, as I had played him many times previously and had always beaten him.
The following year which was my last, all the older boys were too old, so I won with virtually no opposition, which was almost a hollow victory. Still, it was great to win a silver teaspoon, which I treasured dearly for many years, and have my name in the local paper.
Those cold winter nights I will never forget. To come home after a night of table-tennis, have some of Mum’s cooking, a hot drink of Milo as we put our feet in the ARGA stove to warm up before going to bed, nothing has ever topped those feelings, of un-bridled happiness, and contentment. Then, getting up early next morning sit on a tractor in the freezing cold and rain, it didn’t seem to matter, as my world was perfect.
A time of change
After leaving primary school, I was faced with the daunting situation of high school. My first year was spent at the new school that was being built by the race-course (Barnet Road) in Gawler. To get there, I first had to ride my bike 2 miles to catch the Mallala to Gawler bus.
After our small primary school, where everybody knew everyone, to be faced with at least 200 new faces was rather daunting. With a series of tests completed, I was placed with about 40 others with Mr. Barr, in 1C who was our very nice class teacher. My good friend from primary school, Graham, was in another class so initially I missed him a great deal, until I got to know some of the others, (mainly “townie” boys from Gawler) and some nice girls.
I was just an average student and didn’t really like high school and left when I turned 15 as I had no desire to be anything other than a farmer.
Dad still went on his annual bush trips with friends, but now it was different. No longer being able to shoot kangaroos he now shot foxes on outback sheep stations. To cover their costs, they would skin the foxes, and then sell them to a firm in Adelaide.
Most winters were cold and wet, with the wind from a southerly or south west direction. Sometimes however, we did not receive enough rain which caused all sorts of problems regarding the feed for the sheep, and germination of the seed crops. This lack of rain during the winter and early spring months meant our crop yields would be really low, therefore affecting us financially, a great deal.
In those days, no one had nice warm tractor cabins to sit in. We were outside totally exposed to the weather. During the winter, no amount of warm, waterproof clothing could keep us warm, but as we did not know any different, we just endured it without complaining.
I slept in a sleep-out attached to the house, with solid brick walls on two sides but the West and North sides were louvre windows down to about my waist. Sometimes as a thunderstorm approached on a winter’s night, I liked to watch the flash, and count the seconds to work out how far away it was, because I knew four seconds equalled one mile.
About 20 metres from my room there was a large, high power pole. Suddenly there was a tremendous whizz-bang noise, which almost resulted in me almost hitting the ceiling and soiling the sheets because of the fright. Next day we realised the lightning had struck the nearby power pole. After that experience, I became a little warier when thunderstorms were approaching.
Being married with two children (which a couple of years later became three), Robin was looking at alternative farming options in other areas of the state. Dad was looking to downsize, and I wanted a property with sheep and cattle, and no tractor work, because as much as I loved to drive a tractor, I was not the slightest bit interested in anything mechanical.
Without doubt, the biggest problems were the droughts. In 1967 we had one of the worst droughts on record. In the middle of winter when we should have had lush green pastures, and thriving, healthy crops, we were experiencing strong northerly dust storms which took much of the priceless top soil. We had one sheep trough (where the sheep drank water) that was completely covered in dust. That year, like most farmers, we had to sell most of our sheep, which broke our hearts.
It was time to stop and revaluate and decide what to do next. Despite the possibilities of droughts and associated problems with farming, it was still a great life. I couldn’t imagine my life not involved with farming.