Charles Errock [1-3] editted

 

Charles Errock [1]

Birth Place

My name is Charles Stuart Errock. I was born in Port Pirie on 25th July 1933. My father, Leonard Charles Thomas Stewart Errock had been in the Third Light Horse Regiment and had been overseas at war. When he came back and he married my mother, Edith Rogers in the Baptist Church in Port Pirie.  They lived at 3 Chain Rd. Solomon Town, Port Pirie. My first memories are about growing up there.

My father's stepfather and his mother's farm was at Coonamia, just outside of Port Pirie. It was my Shangri-la of the early days of my life. It was a magnificent place. It was a big house with a verandah all the way around. Two big, tall chimneys and a green roof, and the front part of the house had all native shrubs and trees.

My father's sister, Auntie Gladys, married Charles Alleman who came out from Vickers-Armstrongs in England to build the powerhouse in the smelters at Port Pirie. They were just opening the smelters in Port Pirie and he came out as an apprentice. They were on the farm because they had been around the world, where they had settled in America.  Auntie Gladys had a thriving hairdressing business in America, however, when the depression hit, they went broke overnight. My step-grandfather was a foreman in Port Pirie for a firm called to Levin and Brown. He managed to get them passage out from America on one of their cargo ships. I don't know how long they were there, but from the work that was done by my Uncle Charles, they had been there for some time. 

The house was in a very good condition. As he walked down from the main house on each side, there were these high pens where he kept a lot of fantail pigeons that went right down to where the dairy was. There was also a very neatly built aviary, which had lots of birds. You could see by this that Uncle Charles was an Estonian, and it was building that for that sort of system. 

About great grandfather 

 I was given a very old family photograph by my grandmother many years ago.

It is my great grandfather and his family.  He was a Scottish engineer, and he was contracted by the Czar of Russia to go and build a railway line in Russia. As far as we can find out, he eventually died there. His name was Thomas Stewart Errock. My father's name was Leonard Charles Thomas Stewart Errock. His father was Charles Errock, the son of my great grandfather. 

My grandfather and his brother were both pressed into the British Navy. The press gangs used to go around London and those big cities and pick up these lads and take them and put them in the navy whether they wanted to go or not. Anyway, my grandfather jumped ship in Canada. He made his way up into hills. We found out there are a lot of Errocks in Canada. We believe a relative probably helped him, we don't know for sure, but he made his way to Australia, and he landed in Sydney. 

He then made his way to Broken Hill and he worked in the mines there. He married my grandmother, Fanny Lovell Smith. They had three children, and he worked in the mines until the Boer War broke out. He went and enlisted, and went off to the Boer War, and left her with the three children, which wasn't good.

When he came back, he worked for the railways at Islington in Adelaide. My grandmother told me that he got badly disfigured during the war, a horse trod on his face.  I have only recently found out, from my family,  through some research they did   he had gone to a secondhand shop in Semaphore and had traded his sword and his blanket. They were the two things that were obviously given to him when he left the army and he bought a pistol. Then he went looking for his wife and children with the intent of shooting them all, he had been drinking heavily and was in  an intoxicated state. He couldn't  find them because they had been taken into shelter by neighbours who were protecting them, so he shot himself. He is buried in the West Terrace Cemetery. 

 

Grandmother

When that happened, my grandmother, sadly, had to put the three children into an orphanage at Crystal Brook because she had no way of supporting them. She went to work in Port Pirie at a hotel. Then she met and married James McConnachy and he had a dairy at Laura.  Then she was able to get the children out of the orphanage at Crystal Brook, and they went up to live at the dairy in Laura.

 

Father

Before the First World War, my father was helping to deliver the milk and everything, and then he shot off to join the army. Of course, he still had his job, but he had to give up the dairy which he left him without aid. The first thing I remember about going to the dairy was when I was a young boy. Uncle Charles and Auntie Gladys  were there with their daughter Elizabeth Louise Alleman. They had been there for some time. 

I did a lot of work around the place as I used to go there in my early days when we had the house in Solomon Town. My father used to carry his swag around, looking for work, which he found in the gang in the railways. Then he got a job in the railways at Stone Hut. He used to go backwards and forwards from Port Pirie to Stone Hutt,  then he got transferred up to Yunta.

I don't remember very much about Yunta. I can remember that emus used to put their head over the fence when I was in the pram, I have visions of that.

 

Peterborough

Dad got transferred to Peterborough as a blacksmith striker and we had a terrific house there in Elizabeth Street, Peterborough. It was a strong railway town, and there was a population between 3,000 and 4,000 people. Peterborough West was where most of the railway workers lived. It was a terrific community. 

I remember a lot about the place. I remember the kids I used to play with, and a lady called Nelly Keith. She used to go around on the push bike with some string bags and call in and ask people if they needed anything from the shop. My mother was disabled, so she used to rely on her a lot. She used to go and get her things from the shops. Then one day she said she was a member of the Peterborough Methodist Church Committee, and that part of her Church work was to help people in need out.

She said to my mother one day, "Would the children like to go to church and Sunday school?"  I had a brother, James, two years younger than me. My mother said, "Oh, I don't know." And she said, "Well, you get them dressed up on Sunday, and give them a few pennies to put in the plate, and I'll take them." And so that's how I started going to the church, and that was the best thing that ever happened to me.

The people there were very good. They realized that we were poor and needed help. Right through my life, I have been connected with them. I used to go to church and Sunday school. There were lots of children to play with. Those days, on Sundays, all the churches, the Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, were very full of people. People always went to church, and they had Sunday Schools.

The people in that church were fantastic. They looked after me right throughout my life, you might say. And there were different groups to play with when I got a bit older. One of the groups used to play tennis. They had two dirt tennis courts on the side of the church. The wooden iron church at Peterborough West. I used to go and sit on my bike and watch them play. And they came over one day, and said, "Would you like to play? Have a game of tennis?" And I said "Yeah." "Have you got a white shirt and shorts? Have you got a tennis racket?" I had an old wooden tennis racket.  So, I began to go there, and they taught me to play. They would play doubles and singles.  They would all drop out of one game to give me a hit.  They did  that for a couple of years until they had taught me to play tennis and that was great.

I did not have any relatives in the town. It was only my mother and father, my brother and myself. 

All the time I was going to school in Peterborough, come the school holidays, we used to go to Coonamia down near Port Pirie, and to the farm, mostly for the September and the Christmas holidays. I used to love it there. It was my Shangri-la.  We would go to the beach, we'd catch the rail car in the morning.  I'd hop on the rail car which would take us into Port Pirie, and we  would go down to the Solomon town beach and spend the day there. We would then catch the rail car back because it used to run backwards and forwards, from Peterborough to Port Pirie every day, and so, we would catch the rail car back to Coonamia. I lived in Peterborough for a long time, until 1963 when I transferred with South Australian Railways to Port Lincoln. I got married to Nancy in Peterborough and we had four children while living there, Stephen, Michelle, Deborah and Dennis.

 

Peterborough Primary school

I went to school at Peterborough Primary school all through the war. And of course, it was a time when we all thought that Australia was going to get invaded. 

One thing that happened while I went to the Peterborough Primary School was, because the government wasn't very happy with the physical condition of a lot of the troops that signed up with the army, they introduced a physical exercise program into the schools. We had two teachers who were keen to start the program.

They said, "Well, if you're prepared to come to school an hour early, we'll do the gymnastics and a fitness program."  On the first morning we went there was only half of school. By the next week, the whole school was turning up and were doing physical exercise.

We had a terrific school, and a terrific committee. Most of the men on the committee worked in the railways. They were carriage and wagon makers.  Others were boiler makers and foreman. They got all this equipment and brought it to the school and made a playground and seats etc.

We were very well treated. They were so thrilled that everyone went to school early to exercise, they ended up putting some showers in, so that we could have a shower before we went into class because we were sweaty after the exercises. So, the Physical Education started this way, and it never stopped for me.

I remember all my schoolteachers. One was Miss Thomas. When I was in Grade 3 and 4. I had a lot of sickness, and she saw that. I think you  could say that she mothered me from then on. She kept an eye on me and had done a lot of things to help me, realizing that I probably wouldn't go on to high school because of my family's position. The last day I was there, and I got my progress certificate, she was at the gate to see me off, she put her arms around me, and made me promise that I read every book that I could get my hands on. So that was a great advice.

We played a lot of sports at that school. We played football and cricket. It was a great time. When I was in Grade 6, there was a boy same age as me, his name was Thomas Edmonds. He would become a famous singer later. He came and sat next to me for a while. He was very shy and did not say anything. But, of course, I remember him. Mrs. Young, the singing teacher at Peterborough, taught him to sing. There was this one song, his signature song, Beautiful Dreamer. That was the first song that I heard him sing. That is quite a bit of history because he went on to become a famous opera singer and sang all around the world. He now lives in Adelaide Hills. The song, Beautiful Dreamer, I have heard him sing it so many times. I know that we didn't have a lot in common because I don't remember much about him apart from the fact that he was sitting next to me in that Peterborough classroom.

So, Peterborough Primary school was a fantastic place. I didn't go to any other schools,  I cannot complain about my education, I learnt a lot.

 

Pictures of the primary school time

I have some pictures of my primary school time in a copy of the magazine from December 1940. I was seven. I still have some school reports and certificates too. I found one of my merit certificates and my athletic certificate from 1947. I went to school the whole time that war was on.

When I was in Grade 7 at Peterborough High School, we had a teacher called Tom Stroller.  They used chalk in  those days and I was his blackboard monitor. I had to wipe the backboard off every day. He pointed to the top where he had written, "If you want to get ahead, use your own!”   “That's got to stop there,” he told me. 

I got into strife within months. I didn't do my homework. I stayed up late and listened to the Test cricket in England. I made some excuse about having a pain in the stomach or something, and he said, "You stay back after school." I said "OK". Then he made me write out, "I will always accept a reason, but never an excuse." And I've never forgotten that. Yes, I’ve always accepted a reason, but never an excuse.

Three things that you need to remember

When I was in the last year in Grade 7, we had a new headmaster, Major Cochrane. He'd been to the war and retained his title. He took the first session in Grade 7. Every morning he'd bring the newspaper in, and he would point out all the things that he thought we needed to know. I used to write down some of the names he mentioned. I have always been very interested in politics.

I remember the last session he had with us. He said there are three things that you need to remember. We need: first, help with the beef roads in Queensland; then water conservation; and then trade. 

That's what he left us with. And that's probably right up until today, still the needs today. He was a very gracious man, a very great man. They were all good teachers.

 

Brother James

I have a brother, James. We went different ways. I was more interested in sport. When we were around ten and twelve, we rode horses together for a while after the war. The Peterborough Show Committee folded, and they used to always have a gymkhana every year, and that committee folded too. And so, that left us with nothing. So, they looked around to see if any friendly young lads were interested in horse riding, and we both were.

We were both assigned a horse and a saddle. And we used to go and practise for the flag and barrel races, and the bending races in the gymkhana, and then later there were a few blokes who were interested. They used to have a few races for registered horses. My brother was lighter than me and was a lot better rider. He used to ride quite a few winners. I had a couple of rides, but I wasn't much good at it. I've kept doing it  until I was about 13. And then I decided to go and play football instead.

Most boys played tennis and football in those days. They were very competitive. We were encouraged to do that. Overall, I had a great education. I had just one year at high school. Then I had to leave and go to work.

When I got a little bit older, I spent a lot of time with my Auntie Gladys who lived in Adelaide and was a hairdresser. She lived at Whitehall Berry Rd, Lower Mitcham. She spent a lot of time there, and then she moved to another place on Wattlebury Road, Lower Mitcham. I spent a lot of time with her. She taught me a lot about the world from her travels to America, I was very fond of her.

Parents

Through the church attendance, I had a Christian upbringing. But my parents never went to church. They had a sad start in life. My mother was put in an orphanage when her parents died, and she was left in charge of her elder brother. She came from Victoria and then he committed suicide. Then she was put into an orphanage. And of course, my father also got put in the orphanage after his father shot himself which I mentioned earlier.

My father joined the Army. He was in the Third Light Horse Regiment and went to Egypt, and then on to Gallipoli. He was badly affected by it. He lived into his 90s, but it was a terrible time for him. He never forgot it. In later life, he had become paranoid and had a very hard time handling it. That was one of those things that I had to get used from when I was about 14. I used to be able to talk to him and he would tell me quite a bit about his experiences. But from then on, I started work, and we sort of drifted apart. He was back home in the early part of the war. He was transferred to Adelaide, and worked down here for a while. Then we went back to Peterborough. The Railway Cottage we lived in was in Peterborough West. After a while we went to Victoria St, right across the town, and he rented a house that had light but no power so we couldn’t plug a radio in.

It had a 10-acre paddock. And he bought a cow, and he ran a lot of chickens. He used to garden a fair bit. He was great at growing cucumbers and tomatoes. In those days, it was easy to grow them.

My mother was basically a housewife. We had a small farmhouse. It was just a squillion roofed house and had four rooms. My brother and I had one room, and we were lucky because that was a new room built on to the original old structure, and it was a lot nicer than the rest of the house. And of course, we both had a horse.

My father used to grow quite a few vegetables, especially before he went to Peterborough. We all used to grow vegetables; it was just after the depression.  At that time, no one had money, everyone tried to grow as much as they could in the garden. There used to be a place where they had washed out sheep vans and cattle vans, and you'd see people from all over Peterborough going down there and getting vegetables

 

He used to grow mainly cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflowers and cabbages. Of course, the climate was a lot better in those days. And there was no problem growing them because there was plenty of water. I don't think they had to pay for the water. 

We had a wireless radio that used battery. We had to put one of those big batteries in it, and it used to last about a fortnight. So, just before they got paid, every fortnight on Thursday, it would become just about flat.

 

War

When the Second World War started, there was Mr. Power. He lived next door. He was an engine driver. One Sunday morning, he threw a stone on the roof. That was the way he got our attention. Dad went out, and he told him that they had declared war on Germany. That was the start of the Second World War for us as I remember.

During the war time, there were some changes in daily life.

We were on rations. My mother used to sit around with some of the other ladies, and when they got their ration tickets, they'd swap them because some would want to get ration tickets for clothes, and some would want ration tickets for food. That's how they used to do that.

My mother was tiny. She used to sell off a dozen eggs or so, and we used to eat well. She used to make butter. We had jersey cows. We used to separate the milk to make butter, then sell some of the butter.

We did not make bread; the bread was delivered every day. No, she never got into baking. Instead, she used to make soap. You couldn't get washing soap. And that used to be made that way. To have a bath, you needed a bit of that soap. But we didn't have bath often. Had to wait for a couple of weeks to have one. It was nothing, not that bad.

 

About the old historic picture of the great grandfather in Moscow, Russia

I have an old historic family photograph of my Great-Grandfather's family taken in Moscow. My grandmother gave it to me. We'd love to find out more and make some inquiries. He was an engineer and went to Russia to build the railway.  It appears like they might have been wealthy from the table setting with all the silver, their clothes, the garden and the home in the background. There are a few notes on the back of the photograph which appear to be stamped with a family crest. His name was Thomas Stuart Erroch and it was taken in Moscow. I took the photo to a Hutt Street Camera Shop for some restoration work. James is in the photo and with his wife too. Unfortunately, we couldn't see her face so it was restored to the best it could be.

A few stories that my grandmother told me confirm there is a family connection.

She also told me once that while my father was at Gallipoli, fighting, his cousin was on a U boat (submarine) in the German Navy. He was sinking the boats. Family was at war. Yeah, it was stupidity of war, wasn’t it? So, it was very interesting. I would have liked to have found out a lot more. 

When I was living in Port Lincoln, I had a mate who was a manager in an  airline. And he said there was a bloke there from Canada looking for me. And I said, “Oh, did he give any details?”

“No, no.”, he said. “He just wanted to catch up with you.”

OK, must have been related to my grandfather jumping ship in Canada. Yeah, it must have been, there are a lot of Errocks in Canada.

We've never done better research, but from what we can say from this photograph, they had quite a big family. We only know about James and of course Charles, my father is not in the photograph.

 

About the surname Errock, and its family line

It is now spelt ERROCK. It apparently has a meaning in the Gaelic language. I don't know whether there are other Errock families in Australia except for my brother and his children.

I have always been intrigued about the mystery around my Great Grandfather's life. He went to help build this famous railway line in Russia, remarried and he died there. My Auntie Gladys and her husband went around the world and when they were in England, they tried to find out some information. They found out there was apparently an estate  being held in trust in England.  They consulted a solicitor, and he said  it might cost you more than what it's worth to find out what's in his estate, and who is in it.  So, she dropped it and we didn’t find out anymore about it.

It is spelt ERROCH. But my father's surname changed. It was spelt ERROCK by us because it was changed when he went off to join the army. His stepfather had been to see the recruiting officer in Port Pirie and told them my father was underage and couldn’t go. So, he said, “If he comes to join, send him home.” A few weeks afterwards, the recruiting officer changed and my father went down and signed himself in, then went off to war. The bloke said ERROCK, that's near enough. But if we ever get a letter from an insurance company or anything like that, it always gets ERROCH.  

An Irishman I work with in Port Lincoln told me what it meant in the Gaelic language. It had a meaning in the Catholic language. So, I think it was more Irish than Scotch. They said he was a Scottish railway engineer. But I think there was more Irish than Scottish in it. We will never know even though we've tried to find out.

 

 

Charles Errock [2]

Illness in Primary School

I do not remember a lot about Grades 3 & 4 at Peterborough Primary School. In Grade 3 I had a teacher called Miss Thomas. I had a lot of sickness at the time, and she was very kind to me. Miss Thomas signed me up for the Children's Lending Library in Adelaide, and every month I would send off requests for what books I wanted to read and send the other books that I had borrowed back. It was all free and I read all the Biggles books through that scheme. The books would be sent to Peterborough from Adelaide and back.

 

When I was in Grade 4, I used to get one sickness after the other. Then I started getting these shocking pains in my stomach and ask to go to the toilet. I'd get to the toilet; it was a fair way from my classroom, and I wouldn't come back. They'd send someone for me and I would be doubled up. They would get Miss Thomas, and she would bring me back to the classroom, lay me down and give me a couple of aspirins. When the pain went away they would send me home. Usually, one of my friends would donkey me home on their bike.

 

When I went home my mother would call the local Doctor. His name was Dr. Flaharty. After he came a couple of times, he decided that I probably had a twisted bowel and he recommended that I go to Adelaide to see Dr Britton-Jones, who was a leading surgeon there. He examined me and put me in the Children's Hospital. I don't remember how long I was there, but one thing I do remember about the place was that every

morning I'd go out on the balcony. There was a depot across from the hospital, and because it was during the war, they would come out and all line up and salute the flag. They would parade in the morning so I would watch them.

 

They then found out that I was suffering from kidney stones. I didn't require an operation. They said I was OK, and I could go back home to Peterborough because my mother was there, but I had an Auntie who lived at Wattlebury Road, Lower Mitcham and I said I wanted to go and see her. Auntie Lorna was my father's cousin. She had a hairdressing salon in the York Theatre in Rundle Street. The hair salon had a big photo of Joe Stalin on the wall. Auntie Lorna came to the hospital to pick me up when I was ready to go home. She took me to the Civic Theatre in Rundle Street to see the film Hit the Ice, with Budd Abbott and Lou Costello.

When we got outside the theatre, there were two aboriginal chaps, two American soldiers and two Australian soldiers having a scuffle. Next thing there was screeching of brakes and two American MPs turned up in a jeep. They didn't say a word to anyone and both had a bat. They went to the American soldiers and hit them across their heads, threw them into the back of the jeep and tore off. Apparently, during the war, they had on office at the opposite side of the Adelaide Railway Station. Someone must have rung up and reported it. They came to fix it,  they didn't say a word, just went bang and put them in the jeep like that. So, I remember that. That was one of my first impressions of Adelaide. A few days later I returned to Peterborough a lot healthier than before.

 

Milking and Shearing

 

One day, my friend was donkeying me home on his bike. There was a big stormwater drain that ran right through the middle of Peterborough. They used to get huge storms around April and May. It was empty this time, thank goodness, as we fell off, when he lost control of the bike. We went through the fence and fell into the drain, which was about 8 feet down and 6 feet wide. As we fell, this chap, Ivan Lang, who had a dairy at the turn of Victoria Street, where I lived came and got us out and took us home. That started a relationship with him because he got to know me and my brother. They used to milk eight cows a day, it was only him, his brother and his elderly mother and father.

 

One day Ivan Lang pulled up and asked my mother “Would the boys like to come out to the farm?” They had a farm about 12 miles out from Peterborough. Mum said “Alright!” and he said “I've got a bit of work to do out there, they can come out, just cut their lunch and I will pick them up.”

A lot of fences had been washed down with the rain, so he had to put all these fences up and there needed to be someone to hold the post while he pounded them in. I learnt how to put up a fence, how to use wire tighteners and everything.

 

Another year Ivan Lang came back. They were shearing, but his brother had gone off to study to be a motor mechanic. That left “Techie” (Ivan Lang) on his own so he would take us out with him. He taught us how to shear the sheep and showed us how to throw a fleece onto the table, and pick all the other bits out, follow up and put the fleece in the bale.

 

When we were done with that, he'd get us to jump in and press them down. We would be out there all day while he was shearing so we got to know him very well, and that was something for us to do, especially in the school holidays and later on in the year.

 

The Gibbs brothers had a milk round. They lived on the other side of Peterborough. Jim Gibbs came in one day and he said to me “Would you like to earn some extra pocket money? I need someone to come on the milk round with me.” I said “Yes, I can work for you.” Those days they used to have a milk can with a ladle in the top and you ladled the milk into whatever jug or saucepan the person gave you to put the milk in. I remember milk was 4 pence a pint and tuppence halfpenny for half a pint.

Jim had a model A Ford car. He used to go on the round and we'd have the big milk cans in the back, and the smaller ones were in the front. We would go out and serve about 40 to 50 customers. I used to get two shillings for each milk round. I remember a strange thing that used to go on, it was during the war, and it was against the law to serve cream to people. People had to go to the butter factory to order it. Jim used to scold his milk at night time and give scolded cream to his cusomers if they asked for it for birthdays or special occasions. He used to have these little condensed milk tins, he would cut the top out of the can and fill them up. I used to charge them two and sixpence for one of those. It used to be funny because he would wear a hat as a disguise with a dust coat to cover the can of cream. He would hide to make sure no-one was looking, he always had a few of those tins in the back of a box with a wet bag over it.  I worked there for a few years while I was in Grade 5, 6 and probably Grade 7 too. All the other milkmen used to go early. They'd be coming off their round when we started, and they used to call us midday milkies.  I helped him wash out the cans and they would make a nice lunch for me. Jim always took me home afterwards.

 

Chaff cutting

One day Jim Gibbs asked me if I would like to earn a bit more money because he needed someone to cut up some chaff.

What do we do? Well, he bought an army disposals truck, a Chevrolet, and we used to go down to Canowie Belt. We would load the truck up with hay and bring it back to Peterborough. When we got there, it had to go through the chaff cutter to feed the cows. They had between 28 and 30 cows. I would work from two o'clock in the afternoon until it got dark. I would be up there putting sheaves of hay out for the chaff cutter. I would get another two shillings for that, so that was OK. I had to get whatever I could because we were a poor family, but we were well looked after.

 

Collecting Newspapers and Bottles

Then, apart from doing that, to earn a few more shillings, about once a month, I used to collect newspapers and bottles from nearby households. I had a billy cart that I had made. It could carry those for a good mile and a half to the butcher shop and he would buy the newspapers. Month by month I would load up the bottles and take them down to Rusiaks where I had to wait until 12 o'clock on Saturday mornings when the shop opened. Then they came out and bought the bottles from me, I might make 3 or 4 shillings out of that.

 

Christmas time

When I was in Grade 5, one morning, Arnold Pink, the butcher came. There was a relationship with our family through his late father. Every Christmas Arnold Pink turned up on our doorstep and gave my mother either a duck or a fowl. That was under instructions from his late father because he and my father were great friends. Apparently, no-one said anything anymore. Anyway, Arnold turned up and he is leading this butcher's cart alongside as they had those days. The baker had a bakers’ cart to go around delivering bread and the butcher had a butcher's cart to deliver the meat and everything.

 

Getting a Brumby

Arnold Pink had this horse alongside him. He said “I've brought your kids a horse to try!” He said it was a Brumby and a lot of brumbies from the north are slaughtered, but he saw this little bloke and thought he looked like he might make a good little horse to ride in the Gymkhana. “You'll have to break him in”, he said.

My father was in the 3rd Light Horse Brigade during World War 1, so he knew the first thing we had to do was mounting, he was able to help us with that. So we took him in. We had a 10-acre paddock and went out there. There were two horses there already and we just shoved the brumby in. He took a little while to settle but he seemed to be OK. We gave him a feed bin and fed him at the same time as the others. We tried to pat him and calm him down as much as we could. When he was calm I put a halter on him and we left him for a couple of weeks. Then Dad started to put a bridle on him with a bit in his mouth so he could teach him to accept it.

They have to be mouthed, so that when you pull on one rein they come around, so we got him mouthed. We put the saddle on him but my father would not let us ride him, he said no, he would get someone to ride him when the time comes. We left him with the saddle on for a couple of hours, then we took it off. We would get on one of our horses and lead him around the paddock and that got him fairly quiet.

 

The brumby was very young. He was only about 16 hands high. He was just above pony size, still a couple of years old.

When we got him reasonably quiet, the O'Toole brothers, Jack and his brother Ronnie, used to break in horses and educate them at a place in Terowie called The Ranch. There were a few horse yards, and they'd built a little barn, and put all their saddles and gear in. It was a meeting place for us all.

 

So, we would go out there to practice for Gymkhanas. I said to Ronnie one day “We've got the brumby ready to ride but Dad won't let us ride.”

He said “Alright, I will come over tomorrow and I will jump on and see how it goes.”

 

So Ronnie came. Well, the brumby squealed and bucked and bucked but he couldn't buck him off even though Ronnie was heavy. He came two or three nights after he finished out at the ranch and jumped on him. Eventually he got the brumby very quiet. We used to ride our horses quite often bareback without putting the saddle on.  The brumby would not us let him ride him bareback. No, he bucked you off straight away. You get on and he bucked you off, but with the saddle on, he wouldn't buck.

 

Collecting Firewood

We used to burn wood like firewood.  Mum and Dad used to buy firewood. We had a little green cart, so we harnessed the Brumby and put him in his cart one day.

I knew a chap, Mr Retallic out at Minvalara on Orroroo Road. He had a lot of dry wood available in his paddock. I went to him and asked if we could use some of the firwood. He said we could take all the dry wood we liked but not to touch any of the green because it was mallee. He said we could take all the dry wood soon, but we would get bit by bit. My brother and I would go there on a Saturday morning and have lunch with us.

We used a saw and an axe, dig up a few stumps and we'd load the cart as high as we could. The cart had a seat across the front and the back was open. The brumby gave us no trouble. So, at least once a month, for a couple of years, we would go and get a load of firewood. That helped and we made enough not to buy firewood and that was a real experience for us. It was about when I was in Grade 5 and I think that's when things started to get better for me.

School Sport's Day

We were having a sports day one day, we were playing cricket and I was fielding at silly point when this boy cracked the ball as hard as he could. I put my hands up in front of my forehead to catch it, but it went straight through and knocked me out. I remember they had to bring a stretcher out over the drain and down to the oval.

So the same old thing: they put me on a bed in the restroom, gave me a couple of aspirins, and then when it was time to go home a teacher would ask me if I was alright. I said “Yeah I'm OK.” So that was done and a friend, Don Anderson, took me home on his bike. I don't think Peterborough ever had an ambulance until after me. Anyway, there was no such thing as calling the doctor or an ambulance, we just went home.

 

Boxing

 Then I became very interested in sport and boxing. Boxing was great at that time and a big thing among boys. Four or five lads used to come around to our place. We couldn't afford boxing gloves, but we used to make up materials. We used socks and stuff, together with newspapers and go in and fight.

I wanted to keep doing that. I wanted to learn to box. Then I found out I could join the YMCA. That was a club that made a big difference to my life. We use to have 40 minutes: you'd go into a room and first there was a prayer session and perhaps a bible reading. Then we would have a debate. We would split into two groups. There were 40 people so 20 on each team. You have a debate for or against, you learnt how to do it. It taught me a lot. You get a lot of confidence from public speaking. After 40 minutes you go out into the gymnasium, they used to have tumbling, and there was a chap who used to teach boxing. So, I got into that squad. Most students from our school went to the YMCA. In the boxing group a lot of us were the same height and weight. They would teach us to throw punches using a punching bag. At the end of the session the coach would pair up two boys and say “You have a fight with him.” He'd sort boys out to try to make it even streghth.

We would get big 8oz boxing gloves and have two rounds of boxing. The coach didn't like to say “You are the winner.” but you sort of knew who won. He would just tap you on the shoulders and say “Well done.” I did that for several years. They used to send a manager from Adelaide to manage that side of it. The YMCA had a big brick building and they took boarders. Mrs. Nottle ran the boarding house. She used to make the meals for the boarders too. Eventually they couldn't get any blokes to take over the club part that I was in, so that eventually died. You could still go down and use the gymnasium on your own and some of us did, until I left school and joined the Railways in 1948.

Shortly after that Peterborough had a big wave of migrants. They built a big migrant hostel under the Mass Road. They got all these blokes from the Baltic states. They were under contract to the Railways and Waterworks for two years. When they came out we started the boxing and athletics club. I got into boxing again. We had a chap named Nicky; he was very strict: he wouldn't let us put the gloves on for at least a month. He gave us a list of exercises, to skip and run and use the punching bags.  After several instructors taught us how to throw punches Nicky did the same thing. He would pick out who would fight, and we would go three rounds once a fortnight.  It lasted for a while and I didn’t go any further, I was happy but not winning as many as I would have liked.

Later I got called up for National Service Training for three months. When I got there I went into the sporting section and of course I tried

boxing again, but I got out of it because I decided I wasn't going to

make it.

The National Service training is done for up to two years with CMF (the Citizen's Military Forces), it was a two year thing but we did 3 months training at Woodside.

I went back to Peterborough and worked in the railways. Kevin Turner, a mate, came around and he knew a lad who had been sent to Peterborough who was a fitter and turner. He was an amateur fighter who was practicing for a title. His father used to be the Station Master back in the 1940's and he was an amateur champion boxer. He had two boys and this lad had come up from Adelaide.

He asked Kevin if he knew someone he could spar with and he said he would ask me. So I went down to the gym and said “Look I haven't done much training yet but yeah OK.” He was much bigger than me and I said “OK, well you know, I will give it a try and see how it goes.”

For the first round I thought “this is alright”. I was keeping up with him half way through the second round but I was starting to get puffed out.

When we came up to the third round we only went for about a minute and he put his hand on my head. He said “ Yeah you were right to give it away.”  That was the last time we were put in the ring. I said “It is OK”. He said “No, give it away I don't wanna hurt you, you haven't got it.”

I had a mate that I met in the national service training and he filled in for me. He was a good boxer and turned professional when he was 15 or 16.  He went to Melbourne and fought the top preliminary bout in Melbourne.

Most of the trainers at Woodside had just come back from the Korean War. We got trained very well because they had just come back from the war. Strange times, a lot of terrific memories there. We got a lot of basic military training and when we came out we could use a brennan gun. It was very good.

 

Entertainment

Going back to my schoolboy days there were things I used to do for entertainment.

It was during the war, they were always collecting money for the Red Cross and Fighting Forces Comfort Funds. I remember the penny prick cards. I walked all around Peterborough to fill these cards up and raise money voluntarliy. When someone gave me a penny, they pricked the card and I would take the card and money back to school.

 

I also loved sailing and I would've loved to join the Navy but my father would never sign the forms for me to go. I used to make boats at the end of the big drain that went through Peterborough and float them in the railway dam, it was a huge dam. When the wooden blocks got bigger, I could make these wooden boats and put a sail on them. I would take

them over to the dam and watch them go around the dam. There were many different sorts.

 

One day I saw someone who was dabbing for yabbies. They were about 6 inches long. So, I tried on a Sunday afternoon, with a chop and a bit of string and a little dab net. I could fill the bucket full of yabbies. I'd take them home and Mum would cook them. She would make a salad, and we would have them for dinner on Sunday nights for quite a few years.

 

A bit later, during the war, there was troop training running up and down, they passed in front of our place and we would go out to see them.

 

We used a lot of firewood and we used to go to the railway bridge with a bucket to get coal that had fallen from the engines and take it home. The first time it was one of the troop trains coming back from Darwin. Suddenly, they threw these cans of preserved apricots, we would pick them up and take them home. Mum was really pleased with the apricots. We would have custard for dinner that night. They were big cans and that was something that always went on. As the train went past, they recognised who we were and they would throw a shovel of coal or cans of preserved apricots to give us a bit of help.

 

We had a cow that Dad bought and we would go over by the dam where there was plenty of green plants for feed. We would take the sickle and a chaff bag and come back with a filled chaff bag. Sometimes we would fill a couple of bags because the horses liked it too.

 

A gymkhana started up where we used to ride in the bending races, the flag and barrel races and the musical chairs competition. They would always have a hack race and I used to race my own horse in the hack race. There were a few chaps there that brought real racehorses out, they always put on a race for them, and my brother used to ride in those races. He was a lot better than me, a lot lighter. So, that was a bit of fun. I used to ride them in a bit of track work and it became quite a hobby.

 

They were always breaking in horses at The Ranch. They had a big horse called Lofty half the draft horse half the same. They used to put him in a cart. If they were having trouble breaking in a horse they put Lofty in and they would go around the track and Lofty would know what to do.

We decided with some horses we would try and jump them. I had a pony I was trying to make it jump and it just wouldn't. At any rate, Mr Maloney, he was the oldest man in South Australia holding a trainer's licence. He trained hundreds of winners back in the 1920's and 1930's. He was well up into his eighties, and he was a big man. He was on his horse this day, and he was watching me try and jump this pony. He said

“Bigger than a pony, yeah abut 15-16 hand high.” Anyway he jumed off his horse and said “Give it here, I'll show you how to do that. So, he left the stirrups and jumped on his horse, and wheeled it around back-to-back that way, and then taught it to jump straight over the top. He trained lots of steeplechase winners and hurdle winners in his training career. He was a very interesting man.

 

Ken Sleep was the butcher, and he brought these young steers to our 10 acre block to feed on the grass. My brother any I thought at the time we would start buck jumping. At the gymkhana you could ride steers for buck jumping. So, we would try ourselves out on these steers. We ran a bit of wire across, behind and in front of them. When we got out there  we put a rope around him and he bucked like hell.  We've done that for several days but someone must have told Mr. Sleep.  He came down on his horse with a big stock whip and threatened, that if we got on the steers again, we would get his whip around us. That was the end of that, we didn't do it anymore.

 

We never got bored. My grandchildren and other people are bored at times. They have got all these mechanical things. We never had time to get bored, we were always doing something, riding horses, boxing, and playing a game of football. During the school holidays we would get enough people together for two teams and go to the oval to have a football match. There was no difference between the rich and poor families. Peterborough was a working class town and everyone got on well together.

 

That was virtually all that happened during my school life and my younger life in general.  Iv'e done like most kids at the time. I had done only one year of high school at 14. Around this time, 70-80% went to high school. But, with us, in the position we were in, my Mum and Dad needed our help. I remember my first payday. I couldn’t get home quick enough to Mum 5 pounds for my board.

 

Mr. Jack McCarthy was my Maths teacher at school. He was a great athlete and ran second in the stall gift and he always said he had won and that was a hometown decision. Nowadays, they have got a camera photo for the finish. But in those days, they gave it to the local lad. He said, “I am absolutely certain I beat him.”

 

In wintertime there were four football teams in Peterborough. One combined team Peterborough and Jamestown because a lot of people had moved away. Mr. McCarthy tapped me on the shoulder one day and said “If you go down and practice with the Railway Football Club, you might get a game this week, they're very short of players.”  So that was a story. I went down because I was very excited. I put my shorts on and ran out over there and went to pick up the ball and this boy said “Hey, have you paid your subs?” His name was Huey Stevens. He was the captain of the Railway Football Club, and I didn't even know what he meant.

The Town Football Club used to have half of the oval and trained on the same night. Reece Bowsance was running past and overheard. He said “Charlie come over here with us, don't mess about there, you can have the ball now over here.”  So, Towns Football Club took me under their wing. Instead of playing for the Railways Football Club, even though I was working there, I played for the Towns Football Club instead. I played with Huey Stevens in combined sides later in life.

Sid Twigden another Towns player helped me a lot with my football.

 

Finding a job and learning to work in an office

Sid Twigden asked me what I was going to do after I left school. I told him I would like to go to Adelaide and live with my Auntie, I get on really well with her.

Then he said “Oh you might want to go to Adelaide, but you might also like a job here.” I said, “I'll try and let you know.” Then, in a couple of weeks, he came back and said “I've got a job for you.”

 

He told me he had been in the Store's Clerk Office since he was 14 and now he has turned 21 he has to go and work in the Store. He had asked his boss Mr. Harris if he would give me the job, he knew who I was, and said yes, no worries.

 

So, my first job was the office youth in the Stores. Mr Harris was fantastic. He was the best boss I've ever had. I owe him a lot. He had a little office. He had his desk facing out over where the stores were. Mine faced against a wall so I couldn't get distracted. I had a certain amount of work to do every day and he had a drawer down alongside the desk. If I ran out of work he'd put his hand down and say ”Need something to do laddie?”

 

He tried very hard to make me go back to school. He didn't want me to leave school. He said “You go back to school. If it does not work out, you come back here. You will always have a job here.” but I said, “No I need to help Mum and Dad.”

 

The store held all kinds of things that were needed in the railway workshops, no groceries. It was all nuts and bolts and parts for steam engines and parts for royal cars. Yes, it was like a hardware store.

So, anyway I stayed there for a few years and I never left the railways

after that. I worked there for forty-one and a half years.

So, that was my start but Mr Harris's office had the old brown lino that all government stores had. Every Monday morning he used to come in an hour later. I used to come in abut 7am and he'd normally be there by 8am and sometimes he wouldn't come in until 9am. What I had to do when he wasn't there was scrub the floor one square yard at a time and then wipe it off. When it dried I had to polish it all on my hands and knees. Mr Harris might say ”I think you better do it again laddie.” So I would have to do it again. He taught me to work, he was very strict that way but he was a good boss. The store itself was part of South Australian Railways. I was there from 14 to 21, then I went out to the store.

 

Becoming a Carriage and Wagon Maker

They used to bring the ore, lead, zinc and silver down from Broken Hill through Peterborough to Port Pirie to be smelted. It was at a premium at the time and they couldn't get enough trucks. A lot of trucks needed fixing and they couldn't get any of their carriage and wagon makers to come up from Islington (Adelaide) to Peterborough. So, they put us on as untrained carriage and wagon makers. It was a lot better money and a lot of overtime and that was a big thing. It was out on the trucks which always needed to be repaired. Trucks came in the morning and went out at night. You might get 20 trucks in some days and working flat out, getting only three of them ready in one day. There would be some skilled technicians to help us to learn the trade as we went along. Because you were working with tradesmen you eventually became one. That is how I became a carriage and wagon maker. Today it would be called an automobile mechanic.

 

In 1963 I was transferred to Port Lincoln where I had to work on everything, rail cars and coaches. We rebuilt brake vans, we took the vans into the workshop on four blocks and tackles and pulled off the roof and worked on them with the wooden machines. The doors were sent over from  Adelaide, they had to be specially made, but the rest of it, we had to do ourselves. It was interesting work, and it is still an occupation today. They closed this part of the railways in South Australia, despite changes in technology and material, and I think the Victorian Railways are still run by the government and still have carriage and wagon makers.

Charles Errock [3]

Horse race

Back to an earlier time. I rode horses and loved practising for football.

My brother rode a horse at a meeting at Terowie. They had a special meeting at Terowie to raise money for the hospital, and he won the Flying Handicap on a horse owned by a Mr. Woods. Mr. Woods wanted to take the horse to Manna Hill to race a few months later, but he had to go shearing. He asked us if we'd take the horse home and keep it and get it ready for Manna Hill races. My brother seemed to lose interest in it. So, I took him over the track a couple of times a week. I gave the horse a slow work, and then, the week before we went to Manna Hill, I took him over and did a couple of laps of slow work. Then, I brought him home over two Furlongs and opened him up to see how fast he could go, and how his wind was. He was very quick and in good condition. We were ready to take him to Manna Hill. We used to take them up to Yongala and Manna Hill on the train, in a horse float on the train. We had to go with them.

Jack O'Toole had a couple of horses he was taking up, and I had Mr Woods horse from Terowie. I went up with them. There was a big crowd there, and a lot of top riders from Broken Hill. I never expected I would be riding because I thought my brother was going to. But he didn't turn up. I said we will have to find another rider. He then went around to look for someone, but did not find anyone. He then said, "You'll just have to ride it." I said, "OK." I rode the horse before I took it up there and of  course, I'd been riding in a Gymkhana mostly in  what they called hack races. There were top horses there. I got on and went round to the start with all these professional riders. Of course, I had no hope. They bumped into me and pushed me around. But, to make the story short, they got away, and I dropped out. I was the last, of course.

 

They were going hammer and tongs, and I felt my horse was going pretty well. Then they came to turn into the straight, and they all went wide, and I had no idea why they've done that, but the trouble was that the man that had the Manna Hill Hotel, had a couple of horses, and he used to work them around the track, and always on the rails. 
The track was all dust and from about two horses out it was just loose dirt, and all these other jockeys knew. I didn't know. I pushed up between them, and she started to go very well.  Then, suddenly, she stopped because she hit this dust. That was the last race that I ever rode, and Woodley wasn't very complimentary afterwards. 

At that stage, I would be about 13 years old.  I still rode in Gymkhana, but I didn't ride in anymore after that. We had a lot of problems getting horses. We used to get them from Dawson. We used to ride them to Dawson the day before, just to taking it slowly. Then, I got more interested in football than riding horses. 

 

Broadcasting

Somehow, I got into doing broadcasting. Jimmy Love, a mechanic at Cox's Garage, had a set up with the microphones so that you can broadcast on the course. He said to me one day, "How about you doing it? You've been riding in the Gymkhana and you understand the race?" Apparently, he also thought I had a good voice for radio and that sort of thing. So, I got into doing the broadcasting, and used to get paid a few pounds at each event. 

 

A bit later, when I was around 16, they started greyhound racing  in Peterborough. They couldn't get a mechanical hare because it was banned. But at Paynhem Oval in Adelaide, they used to use a pilot dog. The dog would go out past the where the starting boxes were, and they'd chase him instead of chasing the hare. It worked well. 

Jack O'Toole, a horse rider, worked out that he could put the boxes, to let the dog in, over by the point post on the other side of the oval. Then he would ride past, on a horse , with a piece of bamboo loaded with skin of some sort to entice the greyhounds. That worked very well and the only time he had any trouble was on a windy day. Sometimes the wind would catch up with the lure and then  there'd be no race, but not often.

 I used to sit up in the grandstand and commentate on the races and I could see all the people.  The business owners used to donate money for me to advertise their goods. I would be talking about Craven's latest fashion shirts by Thomas Pinks, the special sausages, and things like that. It all worked very well. It brought the money in, and they used to get dogs to come from Broken Hill and down around Crystal Brook.  Greyhounds from all over SA used to get there.

Bookmaking

Those were the days of the SP bookmakers. There used to be four hotels in Peterborough, and there was a SP bookmaker operating in every hotel.
The police were told that when the dog racing on, people couldn’t bet in the pubs. So, they used to come down to the races to bet. The blokes brought the dogs and used to bet with the SP bookmakers there.

Betting was illegal at the time, but it was tolerated. Every now and then, the police force sent what they called a Flying Squad to these country towns, and they pinched the bookmakers. What happened there was going on for a couple of years and going very well until there was a big argument between one of the bookmakers and one of the big punters.  The dog owners made a complaint, so they sent a couple of detectives from Port Pirie up to Peterborough. And they pinched the bookmaker, and that was the end. Then the bookmaker was not going to go down there anymore. So, it folded up. But it went on for a couple of years. This was in 1952 and 1953.

My father had a good dog called Worthy Speed. She ran quite a few good races, and won in a few, but he never made anything out of it. He couldn't afford to put money into anything. That was what happened in those days then, because I used to go around to the Gymkhanas and do all the calling too.

I would call the races and the different events like the Sagging Bell Race

 the Bending Races, and all that used to make it a pretty good job. It was something to do, and something I enjoyed doing.

Everyone always went to the Dawson Gymkhana for some reason. Dawson was a little town about 16 miles from Peterborough. All it had was a hotel and a shop, and a dance hall.

 

Playing Cricket

At odd times, we used to go to Dawson to play cricket.  We would take a team to play there. Later, I found out that I wasn't good at cricket, but I tried hard. There was a team of blokes there who were older men. They had played a lot of crickets and they formed the team. They called themselves The Tourists. 

They would play anywhere like Orroroo, Yatina and Black Rock, wherever anyone had a team, and they won.  They would pick me up, and take me with them. They tried to teach me to play cricket, but I reckon they would say, "Every batsman's got a blind spot." I had about five blind spots.
They were not after prize money. It was just a social game. It was for enjoyment. They were all in their 50s. But they had all been good cricketers and they used to pick me up and take if they were short. You know if someone dropped out, they said, "Get young Charlie," They tried to teach me, but I was hopeless. I used to play for couple of weeks, every now and then, but I didn't make very many runs. 

Going to the Melbourne Cup

It was 1948 I started working as an office youth and seven years later I went out to the store as a storeman, and then I got the job as a carriage and wagon maker. 

Every payday, we would put in two shillings. This was for a trip to the Melbourne Cup.  They would pick out three names, and three of us would go to the Melbourne Cup, and would have our airfare paid, including a fair into Flemington Racecourse, and 10 pounds to spend. 
There were 300 to 400 people working for the Railways, so the fund built up. I'd never flown before and I was one of the lucky winners. I got taken down to the airport, my family with me. I got on the plane and got to my seat. It was an inside seat, and the window seat was vacant. I thought, "Well, if no one gets in there, I'll hop in there!" But then, just before the the plane took off, the English Cricket Team, who were in Australia at that time, five of the English players got on the plane, and one of them came and sat next to me in the window seat. He said, "Oh, excuse me while I get my briefcase to put it on my knee." He wrote something, and said, " So, that's a few lines off to my wife."

Only then did I realize who it was. It was Ted Dexter, the captain of the English cricket team. The press used to call him Lord Ted, because they said he was so aloof. But I found he was a real gentleman.  He wrote his letter, and he put it down, and he said, "OK, who's going to win the Melbourne Cup?"  I said, “I'd bet on Even Stevens, it's virtually a certainty.” I said “They were brought over from New Zealand. They've been running hack races, Even Stevens was in the bottom weight, it's here and it has been winning every race it has started. And, since they've come, they will win.”

I said, " Even Stevens, you can just about put it down as a certainty to win the Melbourne Cup!”  It won like it too! Then I said, "There is another horse, in last race called Beau de Frank, who was beaten last Saturday, but it'll win the last race today.” And so I wrote it down for him. Whether he backed him, I don't know. Just before they took off, the Duke of Norfolk, the manager of the English cricket team, sent his secretary with five envelopes to give each of them. I guess it was some money to bet on. You know they each got an envelope just before the plane took off.
I reckon the year must have been around 1962. Anyway, that was a wonderful experience I had. And of course, once we got to the airport in Melbourne, there was a helicopter waiting for the cricketers, and there was a bus waiting for us.  We had a bit of trouble on the way home, we got to the airport and there was a storm and the plane was delayed.  We  were sitting there in the lounge, and having a couple of drinks. And this fellow came over and he said, “Where do you lads come from? We told him. His name was Appleby, and he was from SA and they had a big win. Mm-hmm. So, he said to the bloke behind the bar. “OK, drinks are on us. Don't take any money off these lads again.”  “OK, whatever you want to do.” said the barman.  So we had a couple of extra drinks. And then I've got my wish to be on the seat next to the window.

I was right opposite the wing. And, of course, it was still stormy. 

And the wing was going up and down. I was really scared, but it was a good day, I’ve always remembered meeting the captain of the English cricket team, and he was nothing like people had painted him. He was a real gentleman, and I got on well with him.

I concentrated mostly on my football, and I got chosen to go to Western Australia to play in a National Railway's Football Carnival. I hadn't put my name down, but the sports manager at the Royal Institute in Adelaide had seen me play in a couple of games, and he rang me up and asked if I'd go over because they needed a forward flanker in the team.  I said “Yeah.” I had a fortnight's notice, but I went and enjoyed the time over there.

Missing train home and meeting future wife. On the way back, I was supposed to catch the train back to Peterborough, but I missed the train. One could get a locker in those days in the railway station. I knew there was a dance hall near the station. Windsor Ballroom was just down from the railway station on the opposite side. So, I put my suit on, and put my case into a locker, and went down to see what this dance was like. We used to do a lot of dancing. Anyway, I went down there, and I was looking around, and I saw this little red-headed girl. She took my fancy. I asked her for a dance, and had several dances with her during the night. And then, I made a little fool of myself. I asked her where she lived, and she said Peterborough. Oh! I instinctively said, "You're a liar. I have lived in Peterborough all my life. I've never seen you there. I know all the girls there, and I would certainly have recognized you." What had happened was that, while I was over in Perth playing football, her father got a job in the Railways at Peterborough. She was nursing at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and she had transferred to Peterborough Hospital. So, she went to Peterborough while I was over in Perth. She started working at the Peterborough Hospital. Three months afterwards, when there was a Nurse's Ball on, we went to the Nurse's Ball. I told my mate, "Well, see that girl over there, I need to give her an apology." And he said, "Why?" "Well, I called her a bloody liar."

I apologised, and, of course, she accepted. So, that's how I met my wife. And then, we later got married. I was 21 and Nancy was 20.  Nancy died here five years ago. We had been married for 64 years. We had five children together, Stephen, Michelle, Deborah, Dennis and Roxanne.

I was working in the Railways. I was still working in the stores section then, that was the start of a different life.

 

Married life at low wage 

At the time we got married, I was on a very low wage. Moreover, Nancy, my wife could not continue the nursing job as it was the employment rule at the hospital at the time. There was a setup in the railways, all the rest of the blokes were working in the CME (Chief Mechanical Engineer's) Branch, and in traffic control.  They were all working terrific overtime and got the money. But I came under the controller, and we never got any overtime at all. But eventually, I got the job as a carriage and wagon maker, that made a huge difference in pay. But we still had to budget very hard because Nancy could not work as a nurse anymore. 

 

Playing football in married life

That was the way we started off. I was still playing football, and I wanted to give it up, but she said, "No, you play football." So, when we budgeted, we used to allow so much for me for the cost of playing football and having a couple of drinks.
We got paid every fortnight on Thursday. We used to have a set order of things. We used to get a half a hogget, and have the butcher cut up the meat the way she wanted it and get some sausages out of that too. The meat had to last for a fortnight. 

A second job in a hotel after the office job. 

My brother-in-law got offered a job at the Railway Hotel in Peterborough, one hour a night after his day job because it was 6:00pm closing. That was a long time before 10:00pm closing in hotels. It was  seven shillings an hour. It had a tiny bottle department. It had the main bar, the saloon bar lounge, but there was this tiny little bottle department. Everyone used to rush in there about 5:50pm to get a couple of bottles of beer or wine, or something. Serving had to be very quick.
I went down and applied for a job.  The publican said, "Yeah, look, I never thought of you. You'd be great." So, he took me in and showed me around, showed me what I had to do. And he said, "Now, come out in the bar. I'll teach you how to pull beer. When the barman Bill is busy, You can just sneak in this side, and serve a few, and get back into the bottle department.” I started serving, but as soon as the crowd saw me, because all the blokes I was playing football with and against gave me a big “Yahoo!” and that put me off a bit.I was out on the footpath and desperately wanted to say yes to the job, but I didn't know whether I would or not. And he said, "Look, Charlie, don't worry about those blokes, they are your mates and they're just giving you a bit of a razzup. That will settle down."

He said, "I'll give you some advice. I want you to listen very carefully."

I said, "Oh, I will hear it. What is it?"

He said, “Well,everyone of us on this earth has got one thing in common. 

We are different. They're all different.” and he said 

“If you want to be successful, especially in this business, 

you must hail a fellow well met and learn to tolerate the difference in people here.” 

He also said, “If someone comes in Sunday afternoon at 1:00pm.

and is still here at 6:00pm. It is not the same person because he has been drinking all afternoon,you have to remember that and as well.”

It was the best advice I was ever given.

My daytime job was from 7:30am  to 4:30pm. Then, I had to be at the hotel by 5:00pm to work from five till six. Sometimes I worked later because he wanted extra work done. Then, I might work two hours.
I was so thrilled the first time I got my 7 shillings from the hotel bar job.

I had called into the little deli shop on the way home. I had four children, and so I bought pollywaffles  for them and a bar of snack chocolate that my wife used to love. Anyway, I got home, and I was so excited I got out of the car and I put these pollywaffles, one under each rose bush. 

Then, I went inside and said to my wife, 

"Did you see anything out in the garden today?" 

She said, "No, what do you mean?" 

I said, "There weren't any fairies out there. Did the kids pick up anything?"  "Well, no." she said

"I just saw some fairies down round by the Rose bushes." I said

They all went out, and they looked for, and found their treats. 

They loved it, so I had to keep on doing that.

 

So, that's what started me working in hotels, and I was bound to work in hotels for 30 years part time. I worked at the first hotel for 18 months. There were a few problems there. The barman there didn't like the idea of us casuals getting a higher rate of pay than what he got. So, his wage must have been low because I was only getting 7 shillings for an hour. That was for time and a half for casuals.
 Bill Ryan had the Railway Hotel, and one of the chaps who worked said, "Bill Ryan said he heard you weren't happy at the Peterborough Hotel. He said if you want a job, he's got a job for you over there."

He said, "There will be a lot more hours for you because he'll want you to come in and stop on." When I went up there, and he was a terrific bloke, he looked after me well. I worked every night.

As soon as I knocked off work, got home, had a quick shower it was  down to the hotel. It was a real eye opener for me to work there. I worked for Bill Ryan for quite a few years. And then, a fellow with the name Ron Campaign took over the hotel, and I worked for him for quite a few years too.

 

Bookmaking job

Then, one of my best mates there was a big bookmaker. He used to get asked about it. But the smoke used to affect him. So, he said to me, “How about coming and working for me? And do the book?" And, I said, "Yeah, OK." So, I started doing that. Eventually, he talked me to giving up the job behind the bar, and just doing bookmaking. He paid me very well. 

The  bookmaker is taking bets, if you wanted to back a horse, you came to see me, and I'll take you. A mate wins, I pay out if  I see it is OK. There is no office.  Every hotel had someone in there taking bets. People just have to know who is who. It was everywhere, before the TAB came. Once the TAB came, that was the finish except for the big blokes at the top. For them, they still have big bookmakers today, but in a big way.

Like old Henry King in Port Lincoln, he had the whole West Coast, and I used to pay out two shillings in the pound for what they held. He was the best one and was huge over there. 
He was a registered bookmaker, he was a big SP going around the place. Commission was two shillings in the pound too. My boss and I got on very well. He was my mate, we had wins, losses and draws. I always took whatever he was going to pay me, if we had a good day he would pay me a few extra pounds. I did very well out of that, it made a big difference to us.

 I got transferred to Port Lincoln in 1963.

 

Dick Jones Story

I'm jumping a bit here because there's few stories I can talk about. When I was working at the Railway Hotel at Peterborough bookmaking, Dick  Jones was the policeman who arrested Stuart, an Aboriginal man, for the murder of a girl at Ceduna. Rupert Maxwell Stuart was convicted in 1959. Dick Jones was on loan from the Victorian Police Force, and he arrested Stuart, and they had a Royal Commission but he was still convicted.
Dick showed me a sporting globe newspaper. He was rated the third best Rover in the Victorian Football League. He came from WA. He played for South Melbourne, I think. He would swear black was white, and he would never change his mind. And that was the sort of person he was. Well, he allegedly bashed the confession out of this bloke for the murder. Stuart was an illiterate aboriginal man. He admitted the charges, and wrote it down. There is no way he had done that. He signed what they've said he had done. That was huge for years. People just didn't believe it, and they had the Royal Commission, one of the leading legal minds in Australia tried to get him off, but he still served his whole sentence. 

Back to Dick Jones, we used to call him King Richard. He had a crook knee. He tried to play football with us, with the team I played for, but he just couldn't. I retired a couple of years after, as they went to the Northern Areas League. He got the job as a coach. And they were playing one day. He had Slade playing at full forward, and Don Fielding, who was the captain of the B grade side was alongside him, and he said to Dick "Go on Dick, for Christ’s sake. We're going to get beaten if you leave it like that.” He had him at full forward. “You've got to move him.”  Dick wouldn't, and so it was a targeting thing.

When he got back to Peterborough, later in the evening with a knock on the door, one of the blokes on the committee at the Football Club said, "We've got a problem. Dick Jones just said, Don Fielding has to go or he's going.” They had a meeting, and they said to Dick, "Well, we don't want to lose you, but we're going to keep Don. So if you want to go you can go." He didn't go and stayed on for the 12 months. I think he might have taken them to the top. They did win a premiership.  He was a real character. He also played cricket. He wasn't much of a cricket player, but he was a good football player. They had a pretty good line of cricketers in Peterborough at that time. And he was a member of one of the cricket teams that was in the Grand final. They were playing a team from Dawson, but the team from Dawson was mostly lads from Peterborough. There was a chap there, called Ian Need, he was six foot three. He had been the fastest bowler in a country carnival for many years, and he was a good cricketer. They were playing this team that Dick was playing for. The team had about four or five players who could make one hundred runs anytime, and they looked a certainty to win. He had the Railway Hotel set up to have the Victory Dinner.
They were lead by Ian Need (Needy). When Dawson had made something like 170 runs, they were out. They should have been able to get those runs easy. So, anyway, Needy got them all together. He said, “Right, I want you to just go out there and try as hard as you can!”Now He went on “I'm going to try something, but they're not going to like it very much, don't you take any notice and we'll just see what happens.” So, he hammered down two or three very fast balls and he turned around and said “I'm going to bowl under arm!”
And of course, in those days, you could do it. You can't do it anymore. You could do it lawfully then. So, he bowled several under arm balls. He had been practising a lot, and it was clever.  And then, you know, he got a couple out. They were swinging and trying to hit him out of the ground.
What Needy had done, he knew there were four of their top players who would get very upset by the fact that he was going to bowl underarm to them. And that's what happened. And so anyway in the end they didn't make enough runs to win the game. They got beaten. 
Well, Betty, Dick Jones's wife told me. She said “Oh, for two days he was hard to live with.” He had just done the greatest disgrace in cricket. And you know, you wouldv'e thought it was a World Cup or something. It was only Peterborough and Dawson. Old Springer was clever and he knew they'd get upset, and that's what happend. He had done it and for him it worked out and they won the game.

 

An episode in playing tennis

I played tennis in Peterborough. I played in one winning Pennant. Tennis costs more money to play, so some people nowadays may think it is more middle class than working class. But in early days, anyone could grab a tennis racket, and go down and practise. You got into a team, and if tournaments would come up, you could enter the tournament. It didn't matter where you come from or who you knew. They were good days. Peterborough was a working-class town anyway and some top players came out of Peterborough. It was when I was still going to high school. I had learned to play tennis on the dirt courts in the yard at the church. I had this old Oliver Racket, and they put this notice up for the tournaments. So, I entered the singles. Then, they had these American Doubles. I had no idea what they were. I thought, "Oh, I'll go in that too." So, I put my name down for American Doubles. Then, I found out that a man was put together with a woman. They pulled my name out the hat, I drew the crow. I have never forgotten that. There were tennis courts all over Peterborough. There was one behind the Woodwork Centre at the High School. That's where I had to play this American Doubles match.  My partner's name was Mrs. Ridge. I did not know that she was a former top player in Adelaide. There were two opponents from Adelaide and they were also top players. And there was little old me. Every time there was a bloke, he would be over 6 foot tall. And every time the ball went, he just blasted at me. “Look, look and keep out of the road!” Mrs Ridge would very politely say, "At least you could try to get the ball!” It was embarrasing, it didn't take long, the game only last 10 minutes. It was funny because her husband was a Sergeant of Police in Peterborough, and he was a terrific bloke. He used to come down and watch the team I played for the football. He never let me forget that tennis match. Every time I rode past him on my bike, he would give me a wave and smile.

Importance of sports, for men, and women.

For most men and women, sports were very important in life. Girls played netball and basketball. That was true in my own family. On Saturdays, in most country towns, the shops close at 11:30am or 12:00 noon, and the sport, football and netball, would start at 1:00pm  When I was in Port Lincoln, my two daughters Michelle and Deborah played netball, and my two sons Stephen and Dennis played colts football. I was coaching the boy's football team.

They had a couple of carnivals when I was at Peterborough. It was very strong there. They used to have big tennis carnivals and netball carnivals. There were people coming from Broken Hill, Port Pirie and Quorn, and all the areas around Peterborough.
A few years ago, my youngest daughter Roxanne who used to play when she was in Adelaide before she got married. Her daughter Georgia wanted to play netball and Roxanne took her along to what they call the grading. They grade all the players in the beginning and my granddaughter Georgia got in the team. A lady asked Roxanne "What about you?" Roxanne said, "Oh, I used to play, but I can't play. I'm too old now." She said, "How old are you?" Roxanne said “I'm 33!”The lady s said, “I’m 50, and I'm still playing. Bring your sand shoes next week."

So, Roxanne ended up playing that season, and they went to the top. She played for three or four more years after that. She had to give it away when she became busy and as a nurse. But yeah, at least she ended up playing and winning a Premiership. 

 

When we were in Port Lincoln, the tourists used to say, "What's wrong with this town? Everything shuts down at lunchtime. And we'd say, "Well, more important business is starting, netball and football."

 

My eldest son Stephen, when he was around 13, he went out to Lincoln South Football Club.  Nancy, my wife said to me one day "Oh Stephen can't get a game. You should go down to one of the training nights, and see what's going on there." So, I went out and this chap called Lou Morgan, he'd been coaching Lincoln South colts for many years, and they only had under 15 year old teams.  I went out a couple of nights, and Lou said to me, "Look, anytime you think you can help me, come down." I thought, "Yeah. Iv'e got a pair of shorts home. I can shove them on and come down. Then, run around with the kids. So, I did that. And then, after I spent about three nights at training Tommy Maxwell came across to me. He used to play football when I was playing football in Peterborough. He told me, "The kids that were left over couldn't get into the under 15 team. Can you get them into two teams together, and give them a game.  He said. “Hey, what are you doing here? You should be at Waybacks with me.” And I said, “Oh no, I said  “My boys want to play for  Lincoln South because they're blue and gold and they barrack West Torrens in Adelaide, and they are blue and gold and it's not far from where I live.”  So then after Tommy had left, Lou said, "You know Tony Maxwell? I said “I used to play football against him in Peterborough."I said he was playing on the wing for the Railways Football Club and I was playing the half forward flank for the Towns Football Club. 

 

Oh, yeah. He said, "What made you come over to Port Lincoln?"

 I said 'My wife’s relatives are over here on the West Coast. My wife's mother comes from Tumby Bay.”  Lou asked “What was her name? “

And I said, “Linda Carr.” 

He turned around and said, which one is your son? And I pointed him out, and he said, “Oh, Stephen, come over here.”

So, he rubbed someone's name out and put Stephen's name there.
He got his first game of football on breeding, because all the Carrs were very good footballers, you see?  So Lou thought, "Well, he's got to have a bit of Carr in him." I thought that was quite comical. 

 

For two years, I was helping him with the colts, and I said one day, we should try to start up an under thirteen side, and anyway, he put it to the  Junior Committee and they decided to do that. So, I took on coaching the Sub Junior under 13 Team. I had so many players to pick from, and always had a heap left over. So, Saturdays  during the football season, I would get up at 7am, have a bit of breakfast, and then go out to Ravendale Oval and all these lads would be there.  Nancy, my wife, had two lots of singlets. She dyed half blue and half yellow to pull on over their clothes. We would give them a game. I've run around, as a coach and an umpire and give them four 10–15-minute quarters.  Then I'd go back and coach the Under 13 side and then I'd go and watch my younger son Dennis play in the Under 15”s. After that I would watch Stephen play in the Under 17”s.

By then it was lunchtime. We'd go home and have a quick lunch. Then I'd take the two girls Michelle and Deborah up to the netball courts at Kirton Point. They played for Imperials Netball Club and were coached by Dorothy Dunbar. That was my Saturday, football and netball. If Lincoln South A Grade were playing in Port Lincoln, we'd all go to the football together after the netball finished. My wife would drop me off at the Tasman Hotel at 5:00pm to start work. And I'd get home about 2:00pm the next morning.