Where We Come From....

I made a few notes when talking with my mother, well into her nineties, about some childhood memories....

Geoffry Herbert Carter (Beryl's Father)

• Told stories of his grandfather (John Alexander Carter) sleeping off Saturday night's whisky bender and admonishing grandchildren for whistling on the sabbath - in a scottish accent. (Ian: This accent seems a little imaginative to me as both John and his parents were born in the east end of London. Proper cockneys I reckon!)

• Much more sarcastic about church - both he and Stella became more involved only after Beryl and Elvie became involved in Christian activities.

The motor car was to blame for Sunday School moving to the morning! Wicked!

Georgina Meyer (Beryl's Grandmother)

• Similar temperament to Stella, often comparing grandchildren.

• Quite prim and proper

• Not soft and warm

• Had a hard life

John Birkhead Carter (Beryl's Grandfather)

• Mine manager at West Wyalong and Adelong

• Geoffry was a pupil teacher at west Wyalong

• Moved to Randwick around the time Geoffry was teaching at Cobar circa 1914

• Worked as a boiler stoker at South Sydney Hospital

• Liked the races (at Randwick)

Elizabeth Anne Smith (Beryl's Grandmother)

• Kind nature, sweet and gentle

• Her mother, Elizabeth Ann Powell (Grany Smith), wore a little black bonnet

Beryl

• Trips to Randwick were a "marathon", returning late at night, catching two trams, Lorna screaming

• Playing cards at Randwick was remembered

• Geoffry and his father would go to the races, much to Stella's horror

• Two favourite poems - both by John O'Brien...

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Ten Little Steps and Stairs

There were ten little Steps and Stairs.
Round through the old bush home all day
Romping about in the old bush way.
They were ten little wild March hares,
Storming the kitchen in hungry lines,
With their naked feet, doing mud designs,
"All over the place like punkin vines."
There were ten little Steps and Stairs.

There were ten little Steps and Stairs.

In their home-made frocks and their Sunday suits,

Up through the church with their squeaky boots,

While the folk went astray in their prayers,

They hustled along, all dressed and neat -

oh, they bustled a bit as they fihed the seat;

From the first to the last, the lot complete,

There were ten little Steps and Stairs.

There were ten little Steps and Stairs.

But the years have shuffled them all about,

Have worn them thin, and straightened them out

With the tramp of a hundred cares;

Ay, and each grim scar has a tale to tell

Of a knock and a blow, and a hand that fell,

And a break in the line, and a gap. Ah, well -

There were ten little Steps and Stairs.

The Old Bush School

'Tis a queer, old battered landmark that belongs to other years;
With the dog-leg fence around it, and its hat about its ears,
And the cow-bell in the gum-tree, and the bucket on the stool,
There's a motley host of memories round that old bush school -

With its seedy desks and benches, where at least I left a name
Carved in agricultural letters - 'twas my only bid for fame;
And the spider-haunted ceilings, and the rafters, firmly set,
Lined with darts of nibs and paper (doubtless sticking in them yet),
And the greasy slates and blackboards, where I oft was proved a fool
And a blur upon the scutcheon of the old bush school.

There I see the boots in order - "'lastic-sides" we used to wear -
With a pair of "everlastin's" cracked and dustry here and there;
And we marched with great "high action" - hands behind and eyes before -
While we murdered "Swanee River" as we tramped around the floor.

Still the scholars pass before me with their freckled features grave,
And a nickname fitting better than the name their mothers gave;
Tousled hair and vacant faces, and their garments every one
Shabby heirlooms in the family, handed down from sire to son.
Ay, and mine were patched in places, and half-masted, as a rule -
They were fashionable trousers at the old bush school.

There I trudged it from the Three-mile, like a patient, toiling brute,
With a stocking round my ankle, and my heart within my boot,
Morgan, Nell and Michael Joseph, Jim and Mary, Kate and Mart
Tramping down the sheep-track with me, little rebels at the heart;
Shivery grasses round about us nodding bonnets in the breeze,
Happy Jacks and Twelve Apostles hurdle-racing up the trees,
Peewees calling from the gullies, living wonders in the pool -
Hard bare seats and drab gray humdrum at the old bush school.

Early rising in the half-light, when the morn came, bleak and chill;

For the little mother roused us ere the sun had topped the hill,

"Up, you children, late 'tis gettin'." Shook the house beneath her knock,

And she wasn't always truthful, and she tampered with the clock.

Keen she was about "the learnin'," and she told us o'er and o'er

Of our luck to have "the schoolin"' right against our very door.

And the lectures - Oh, those lectures to our stony hearts addressed!

"Don't he mixin' with the Regans and the Ryans and the rest" -

"Don't be pickin' up with Carey's little talkative kanats" -

Well, she had us almost thinking we were born aristocrats.

But we found our level early - in disaster, as a rule -

For they knocked "the notions" sideways at the old bush school.

Down the road came Laughing Mary, and the beast that she bestrode

Was Maloney's sorry piebald she had found beside the road;

Straight we scrambled up behind her, and as many as could fit

Clung like circus riders bare-back without bridle-rein or bit,

On that corrugated backbone in a merry row we sat -

We propelled him with our school-bags; Mary steered him with her hat -

And we rolled the road behind us like a ribbon from the spool,

"Making butter," so we called it, to the old bush school.

What a girl was Mary Casey in the days of long ago!

She was queen among the scholars, or at least we thought her so;

She was first in every mischief and, when overwhelmed by fate,

She could make delightful drawings of the teacher on her slate.

There was rhythm in every movement, as she gaily passed along

With a rippling laugh that lilted like the music of a song;

So we called her "Laughing Mary," and a fitful fancy blessed

E'en the bashful little daisies that her dainty feet caressed.

She had cheeks like native roses in the fullness of their bloom,

And she used to sing the sweetest as we marched around the room;

In her eyes there lurked the magic, maiden freshness of the morn,

In her hair the haunting colour I had seen upon the corn;

Round her danced the happy sunshine when she smiled upon the stool -

And I used to swap her dinners at the old bush school.

Hard the cobbled road of knowledge to the feet of him who plods

After fragile fragments fallen from the workshop of the gods;

Long the quest, and ever thieving pass the pedlars o'er the hill

With the treasures in their bundles, but to leave us questing still.

Mystic fires horizons redden, but each crimson flash in turn

Only lights the empty places in the bracken and the fern;

So in after years I've proved it, spite of pedant, crank, and fool,

Very much the way I found it at the old bush school.