2 - CHILDHOOD MEMORIES THAT LAST A LIFETIME
Maybe it is because as a kid, you are still innocent and the world through your eyes is still just as innocent and uncomplicated. Whatever the reasons be I take some great memories out of my early childhood days.
I grew up in a time when not only was the world travelling much slower but also everything about life was done at a less hectic pace. We seemed to have time to ourselves and had time to spend with family and friends. Yes, it was an innocent world compared to the society we have grown into. I know that I would not swap the era I grew up in for any other.
As a kid I always remember having at least the basic mod cons in life unlike my parents as example whom just one generation earlier had none of what we had even from the 50’s going forward. We always at least had electricity, running water, sewerage, a car, and the things that made life just a little more comfortable. Maybe growing up we just thought life was tough, and I reckon we did but reality would show otherwise.
Reflecting back on my early childhood days I guess the worst case of doing it tough we endured at home is having a chip heater in the bathroom for a number of years, meaning hot water was a little bit hit and miss. Of course, some luxuries like TV were not around for us in my early days but you made do in so many other areas. However, with or without mod-cons being on hand, I know that I was lucky to be a kid when it was still a safe world to grow up in.
So, what about the memories from this time other than what I recalled from the places I lived at as a kid. What were the family traditions? How did we make life so much fun? How did we improvise to make playtime the adventure it was? How did we manage growing up in an ever-changing world? How did we transition into being teenagers? Look, it was a challenging time but really it was oh so simple and fun.
Christmas was such an exciting time to be a kid. There was so much going on with life as the festive season unfolded so this was a season of cheer, get-togethers with family and friends and we embraced everything this offered us.
It was like everybody in the town and district converged on the main street on this night. It really was wall to wall people: I guess it was also a way for the town people to catch up with each other.
I remember that I loved the atmosphere, and Christmas feel that Barmera had in this time of my young life. The top pic on the left is a later year photo; the bottom pic is from pageant night in Barwell Avenue in 1984.
Dad's workplace, the Barmera Co-op had a Christmas party for all employees and family in the weeks leading into the holiday break. I am guessing that the Barmera Co-op had some kind of staff social club because each year it would put on the most amazing Christmas party.
It was held at the Co-op in the canteen area and surrounds; it really was a kid's Christmas paradise. I remember things like Father Christmas arriving on the local fire truck, all of us kids would go wild with delight. Father Christmas would bring a present for every kid, and the presents were always something of significance and not just a token gift.
I remember getting things like a tennis racquet, a massive model aeroplane kit and a camera over the years. And the party itself was full on with stacks of food, ice cream, drinks and entertainment. Outside of the building, where the party was held a playground would be set up for us kids to use during the evening. It was one hell of a big show and a great Christmas tradition for me.
Midnight Mass was a great way to welcome the day, again lots of people. We would sing Christian based Christmas Carols and when Christmas morning finally arrived, it was always my favorite piece of family life. We had a tradition that no presents were ever opened before the day, they would be placed under the Christmas tree in the lounge room and would remain there until everyone was out of bed in the morning.
As a family we gave presents to each other so there was a huge pile of gifts to be given out and received. We would take turns at handing out the gifts and you would wait until the unwrapping was complete before moving on to the next one. It was a time of great excitement for me; we kept this tradition for all the years that I can remember being at home in Barmera.
The odd thing is that I do not recall what we did for the remainder of our Christmas Day but the mornings with the presents were so very special for me as a kid doing life with the family. Guess the rest of the day simply took care of itself. To this day, I still follow the same idea; I do not open my Christmas presents until the day. Old habits die hard; I guess!
For the record, I remember that our family Christmas tree was always a live tree, sourced from out bush, cut down and carted home. It was placed in a drum of sand in the corner of the lounge room and mum would decorate the drum with crepe paper to make it look Christmassy! Naturally it needed to be watered but I reckon each year the tree lasted the month of Christmas.
The tree was always elaborately decorated with colourful ornaments and tinsel, and the spirit of Christmas was very much on show at our house. I recall that mum had her own traditions with the tree, it could not go up before December 1st and had to be taken down by New Years Day. Once the Christmas tree came down the decorations were carefully packed away in a brown cardboard box and stored in Mum's room until the following December.
As for Father Christmas, as we knew him in the days of our childhood and not as Santa as he is referred to in this day and age, I guess I thought he was the real deal until about 1964. That year I was getting a train set for my gift, as a family we had all been to midnight mass up at the church and us kids were put straight to bed once we got home. For some reason I was sleeping in Jan’s room, and I remember seeing mum standing by my bed putting something down beside it. I looked and knew it was a train set so I questioned her only to be told to, “go back to sleep.”
However, the trap had been sprung and despite her denials the next morning, I knew it was mum who had placed the gift. Hey, how long can you keep us in the dark for mum? What I reckon happened is that mum was tired, wanted to go to bed, and did not wait long enough for us kids to be asleep. So, for me that ended the myth surrounding Father Christmas.
On pageant eve we had gone to bed as normal, no thought or mention of the pageant. But at some strange hour of the morning Mum woke us kids with the news that we were about to head off to Adelaide and take in the pageant. It was a left field decision made by Mum and Dad the night before but here we were loaded in the family car and headed to the big smoke.
It turned out to be some day; the magic of the pageant was amazing. Any of the trip details and what we did afterwards are not with me, but I do know this was a really special day. What year it was I am not sure, but having a stab I would say around 1965?
Once TV became a thing the pageant was broadcast live and that was always a must watch. Black and white coverage at first but with great commentary the show was simply magical. Father Christmas was always on the last float and once he finished his duties on pageant morning, he would head to the Magic Cave in Johnnies and spent the time here leading up to Christmas.
And as I am now a dad, I attended the Pageant a number of years including 2003 when I went with Mitchell Thomas and his mum so that he could see his very first John Martin’s Christmas pageant. And he loved it; despite being just 15 months old, he was captivated by it just as I had been all those years before. The Christmas Pageant had thankfully lost non-of its magic for kids or adults alike.
Living at 132 Nookamka Terrace in Barmera gives me many of my early childhood memories. We moved to this house in April 1960, and I left home for the first time in February 1973 when I moved to Tailem Bend with my work in the South Australian Railways. Even then I returned home every few weeks, so the place was still important in my young adult life. It was still my home.
Back in the early time at the house, my brother Rod was keen to have an aviary and collect birds. He and a couple of his mates, I would think Gary Campbell and Steven Sander was included, built an Avery on the side fence between the structure Dad built and the car shed that had been erected some years earlier. Rod and his mates populated the aviary with birds that they had collected from the wild and I remember with some budgies, parrots and doves, but I would think some were probably purchased rather than caught.
But one bird collecting exercise that I recall was to do with pigeons. About a mile out from Barmera on the old Monash Road was an historic building that at one time had been built as a butter factory. It was never used as intended, it had been sitting idle for many years and was in a neglected state, but it had become home to flocks of pigeons.
Rod’s great master plan was to go out to the building at night, use torches as spotlights and trap the birds in the light, catch them and bring them home to his aviary. Then the plan was to keep them caged for a period of time and make them into homing pigeons. So, I remember Rod, myself, Paul Sander and I am not sure who else riding our bikes out to this old butter factory building at night and trapping as many pigeons as we could bring home. We caught plenty; that was easy and fun and the plan looked good at this point.
The pigeons were kept caged for months and eventual let out in the hope that they were trained as homing pigeons and would come back to Rod's aviary. Well, trained they might not have been but homing pigeons they certainly were, and they flew straight back to the old butter factory building out on the Monash Road that was clearly home to them! That put an end to the pigeon keeping and I am not sure what happened with the other birds.
Other than the birds, we never officially had a pet. I remember a cat named Fluffy being around for a time but I do not recall any more information than that. There was another cat that called our place home for awhile in the early days at Nookamka Terrace. Again, I do not remember where it came from or how we came to have it but it was never really allowed to be our pet. It did not even have a name.
At one stage, our neighbor Art Farrow and his mate Lionel Island took the cat to the family farm at Parilla in the Murray Mallee. However, I remember within a few days the cat was back. It surprised everyone as Art told us later that the cat was actually let loose in Parilla. The thought was the cat must have escaped from the bag that was on a trailer and somehow, as cats do, it came back home. And poor Art was probably embarrassed to say he lost it so just said the cat made it to its destination as was the plan.
And it was the only cat I know which could fly. I will not elaborate here other that to say this cat could fly from the back door of the house and land up in the back yard. You will have to work that one out yourself. But the positive side to this is that true to legend the cat always landed on its feet.
Anyhow, one day some months after the Parilla episode I walked out into the yard, the cat was by the tap up the back of the shed, and it was dead. It looked to have simply fallen over and died. That ended the cat story once and for all.
In my teenage and young adult life I did have a couple of pets. At one time I had a budgie, it was known as Percy, sadly I came home one Saturday after footy, and it was dead in the cage I had placed in the back porch. Then during my working days at the railway, I had a cat named Ernie, but he died after a few months. Ernie made a big impression on us all in the short time I had him and it was a very sad day when he died. Seems like we never had much luck with the pets we did or did not have!
Next to them lived Mrs. Hogan, she had two grown daughters living at home, Kay and Judy and Mrs. Hogan’s grandson Kim also lived here. The next house belonged to a family named Dawe, a widowed Mum with children, I am not sure if they were the first people to live in the house, but they are the first lot I remember.
One street back was Bice Street, and I remember a family named Best lived here. Mrs. Best was widowed, and I remember a Jimmy, John, Ray and Helen. A family named Perotti lived in the street as well as families Rowe, Packer, Markof, Green (no relation, I think his name was Bill) and Hastwell.
The house at the back of ours fronting Bice Street originally belonged to a family named Neighbour. Mrs. Neighbour lived here with her children including son Philip whom I was apparently friendly with at the time. He attended the Convent school so naturally the family was known to mine through the school and Catholic Church. I am told I had play time with Philip but my memories of that is told rather than my own so I cannot elaborate. He had a sister Deliah who was older. Mrs Dowling later moved into this house and she and her daughter Bev were long term residents.
Later, when nearby Hawdon Street was extended down the hill to join Nookamka Terrace. The houses were prefabricated homes that were transported from Radium Hill in the North of the state. Radium Hill was an experimental mining town in the early years of uranium mining but when the town closed all buildings were sold off.
One of the houses that found its way to Barmera had in fact been the Hospital at Radium Hill. The Norton family, Nev, Mavis, John, Ian, Denise, Brian and Sandy lived in that house at number 9. Others living in the new homes were the Scarlets, Graham and Helen Hastwell and Mumford families. Eventually a house was built on the corner and the local milky, Jack Baarton and his family moved there.
Others that I remember from nearby were Needing, Sefang, Gartner, Mick Haywood, the Haslam’s, Bill Wright, Skubalas, Bourke and of course there were more but I am not sure now who they all were. Over the years I would suggest that every house has changed residents at least once and that probably Dad and Mum are the only originals left in the immediate vicinity of Nookamka Terrace.
In the bushland out the front of the house there was a creek flowing through that drained into Lake Bonney. The creek had the unfortunate name of ‘Shit Creek’ but it was not as bad as the name suggests, in fact far from it. The creek was fed by water that was a flow-off from the massive local fruit block irrigation system and not from the town sewerage as the name probably suggested. The water was just run off. We would spend copious number of hours playing at the creek with kids from all around the local area.
Together with my siblings we played in that creek and bush so often. The pic left was taken in the back yard of 132 Nookamka Terrace and is my younger sister Jan and I, guessing about 1964 so this was who we were at this time.
The creek was not deep, but it was a long walk and was marked with twists and turns and a number of obstacles. Then on the lake end, the creek flowed through a thick patch of water reeds and it was quite difficult to negotiate a way through. But once the walk was conquered it was a tick of approval for a task well done.
In the bushland, we made bike tracks and again spent hours on our ‘deadly treadlies’ riding the tracks. The bush area extended all the way to the shacks that had been built on Queen Elizabeth Drive. The area was large and again it provided some great play times and even the area between the houses on Hawdon Street and Draper Road that in these days ran down along the outside fence of the golf course was a bushland patch. It too got plenty of use.
Push bikes were a necessity as kids, hey, some of the bikes were so basic and cumbersome but they did their job and hacking around on bikes was a big part of life as a kid. We rode all over the place, it was transport and we made the most of them. I am also guessing the roads in this era were a touch safer, slower vehicles and not so many on the road. Without having a push bike, life would have been tough at times.
Away from the bush-land areas surrounding the house one of my most cherished childhood memories from living in the area was having races around the block. Each of the houses in the immediate vicinity to our home were built on quarter acre blocks with the four allotments surrounded by a lane way. This is the block I referred to where we would go racing around both on foot and on our bikes. It was great fun, great fun indeed, the block made for the perfect racetrack.
The races were full on, it was dead set dinky di stuff, we raced to win. I even remember making hurdles in the back and side lanes to have jumps races. And the footpath along Nookamka Terrace had the fencing alongside so it made the run up the home straight seem like a real racetrack. The stobie pole at the front edge of our property was the finish line, ah, wow, so darn good.
Using these makeshift items gave the thought that this way the damage to mum’s garden was kept somewhat in check or yeah, well, that's what we told her anyway! Because Mum was always very much a gardener and had so many plants and flowerpots and things growing.
But unfortunately, mum had no idea really, she insisted on planting things and placing her pots that got in the way of the football or the cricket matches that were regularly played in the back yard at 132 Nookamka Terrace. And as a result, we kids were continually breaking branches and limbs from her prized plantings, or knocking over the pots, I mean, how could it be any other way.
And even though we got into trouble for the damage we caused, that did not stop us. Poor Mum would rant and rave and have a fit! And now looking back, I feel for her, but sadly at the time I guess Mum's garden was just a long-suffering casualty of the games us kids played in the back yard. Sorry Mum, but I reckon you were ok with having your kids close to home.
And for me personally, it did not matter if other kids were around to play with or not, if no one came over I just played games by myself which was ok because this way I always won. As an added thought, it did not matter what game was being played I always called the action giving a kick by kick or ball by ball description and I guess my ability to be a caller of sport stemmed from this time in my life. Mind you my broadcasting of everything that moved in our backyard must have driven the neighbors mad.
Another play activity in the yard as kids was to be a part of World Championship Wrestling. Back in the 60’s wrestling was big, World Championship Wrestling was a must watch on TV. And as kids, we would attempt to emulate our TV wrestling champions, The Scott Brothers, Skull Murphy, Brute Bernard, Mario Malano, The Destroyer and the likes. We would borrow the car cover from dad’s shed; stretch it out on the side lawn and use that as the canvas on our imaginary wrestling ring. We figured the car cover was about the size of a ring and it worked, we wrestled each other into oblivion. I remember it being fair dinkum fun!
Also, on this side of the house was the TV antenna stand. The stand was a structure of about 60-foot from top to bottom; you needed this sort of antenna height to be able to receive the transmission of the Adelaide television stations. However, the structure was great to climb, it was an easy way to get up onto the roof to retrieve balls that had been hit, kicked or thrown onto the roof. The antenna was close to the wall at that side of the house, and you climbed like Spiderman to get onto the iron roof. From here, you walked around and collected your ball from a gutter. Getting down you simply slid down the pole.
Another roof that we spent time climbing onto was the car shed. Unlike the house roof it did not have gutters so when we hit things like tennis balls onto the roof they would simply run off but when we used that collection of other toys as footballs like the plastic rabbit or the socks then they could stay up on this shed roof. That meant it was time for a climb, to get onto the roof you used the fence railings at the side of the shed as a way of getting up and to get down you simply jumped. Simple, we had our makeshift footy back and more often than not this process was repeated over and over.
Table tennis is something that I played a lot of in the yard at home. I know that will need a bit of explaining. When I first started work one of the things I treated myself to was a table tennis set. Through the hardware shop at Dad’s work, I purchased a tabletop made from chipboard, I painted it and lined it into the configuration for table tennis, just as a proper top would look. Dad had a work mate, Snow Tschirpig make up two steel frames for me to use as legs to sit the board on. It was ideal as I could move it to wherever I wanted.
In the summer months I set it up outside the sleep out window at the back of the house and in the cold wet months I would set it up in the car shed. I had an outside light rigged up at the back so that I could play table tennis at night and when playing in the shed the light could be transferred there. Nighttime play was a regular thing.
Along the journey, I added bits and pieces to the set and in the end, I had a great collection of bats, balls, nets and anything needed to play the game. I spent many hours honing my skills on that table, it truly was a great investment, and I so enjoyed the many hours I used that table playing such a fun game.
Summer months in Barmera were always really special. The lake, tourist activity, school holidays, Christmas, ah, so much going on. You would not swap this season for any other, Barmera and the Riverland really did have it all and summer was the season.
An ongoing summer nighttime ritual from the hot days and nights, of which there were plenty, is sleeping out on the back lawn. After days of continued stinking hot weather, the house was like a sauna, it became so hot that sleeping inside was impossible. Air conditioning was not a luxury we had; it was not something we knew. So, we would take our bedding out onto the back lawn and sleep there. Daylight saving was not an issue at this time, so the nightfall was true to the sun. By 8-30 it was dark, still hot but dark.
Some nights it would cool down enough to go back indoors in the early hours of the morning but some nights we would stay out all night. The mosquitoes could be a problem, but we had a product known as Dimp that we would rub all over our skin and it seemed to work in repelling the darn mossies. Mind you it stank, it stank big time, but it was the product of the day that kept the mossies from eating you alive.
Then as the yard at our family home developed and grew over the years it was just a great place to just be in, to relax in. It has very special and happy memories for me. Things like on a Friday evening Mum fed us her cooked chips, we would eat outside, chips on greaseproof paper, simple but enjoyable. Or we would get to eat Mum's homemade ice blocks, milk based and generally strawberry flavor, ice blocks wrapped in newspaper so as we could hold the freezing cold block. Ah, Mum, very simple but you knew how to create memories.
For me, as I grew into the teenage years I would spend hours with backyard activities. Table tennis was a goer; another odd fun time would be that I would throw a golf ball against a concrete brick that I placed against the side wall. The golf ball would fly off the brick at varying heights and directions, and I would catch it to practice my cricket reflex skills.
I would use my wicket-keeping glove on my left hand to catch with. Being very much a right-handed person, I used this arm to throw the ball with and tried to strengthen my left side play by catching with that glove. It probably looked odd, but it was fun for me, I enjoyed the time and I guess it was a handy way to practice when no one else was around to go and have a hit of cricket with.
This yard and house was my home and it felt very much like home to me. Even to this day, the yard is such a big, beautiful place to simply be in, it has changed a lot but still has lots of lawn and lots shade and for me lots of memories, such good memories.
It was the place to swim and congregate. The lake had everything, and while safety was clearly important the emphasis was never on what you cannot or should not do, it was about what you could do, and that was have fun, enjoy the friendships and it gave so much enjoyment.
The swimming enclosure at the big jetty down from the shopping area was a work of art, jetties high and low, diving boards, shallow and deep water, it was like a structure that had so many great spots to explore and swim. The centre area was actually an Olympic size swimming pool.
I remember Mum would say, “You kids do not need to go to the big jetty, surely a swim is a swim.” Yeah-right mum, get with the program, no the big jetty was more than just a place to swim; it was the social hangout for one and all. It was a magnet for us kids to be drawn together to swim and play.
It was at the big jetty that some of us local kids had another local test of ability and character. Out from the jetty on the lake was an old 20-gallon oil drum tethered as a buoy to indicate to the powerboat drivers using the area that the swimming enclosure was nearby. The buoy was about 500 yards out from the jetty on the lake and the test was to see if you could swim out to it, climb onto the drum then swim back to the jetty. It showed that you could swim of course but it also said you had the guts to tackle the test.
But really the whole of the big jetty area was ideal, and it was a great area to learn about swimming and being confident in the water. It turned us into water babies and the long hot summer days were more manageable having a dip in the lake.
Sure, we swam at other areas, but none had the amazing drawing power that the big jetty had. On the lake front down from our home through the bush land was an area we called Bishop's Jetty, that was a great place to go, and we spent lots of time here. You could walk out from the foreshore, and the water would get deeper the further out you went, it was a perfect spot.
A favorite memory of mine from the lake days is having picnic tea at the lake during summer days. It was not a regular occurrence, but when it happened, we kids would go with mum during the day to swim and then dad would join us later in the afternoon after work. There were shelter sheds between the road and the lake and most of this area was grassed meaning it worked well to host a picnic.
The pic on the right shows our family descendent Jack McBride with his young son Phillip standing in the middle of the lakebed, a wheat crop was grown here at the time the lake dried up. Jack McBride came to the district with his family after WW1 and settled at Cobdogla, Philip Phillip was sadly killed in WW2.
Fishing in Lake Bonney was something we spent a lot of time doing. As a kid and then as a teenager, I would fish for hours and when the fish were running it was always easy to catch a feed, mainly Redfin. I recall that at times you could use any coloured object like mandarin peel to get the redfin to bite. Other times earth worms were the go, and small shrimp could be used. My Dad would tell of some massive fish hauls in the days he first came to Barmera in 1955 and that included Murray Cod but for me, only redfin, callop or brim were caught.
On weekends summer or winter, I would often get up at dawn and go to the lake to fish off what was known as Bishop's Jetty, it was directly down on the lake from where we lived on Nookamka Terrace. Most times I remember at least getting a few fish, the water was only about 6 feet deep here, but it produced some good catches. I made a real outing with the fishing mornings. I would take a thermos with a hot drink and sometimes I had a fire on the beach and cooked toast and maybe a few snags. It was always a fun time for me.
He also built a storage shed for the boat, and it was in fact this shed that the Donald Campbell troop used as a base for Bluebird and his world water speed record attempt on Lake Bonney in 1964. When Reg used the shed for his boat storage a set of twin railways tracks ran down into the water, and his boat could be moved up and down between the shed and the lake.
Across the years we always referred to the boat shed as Bishop’s shed, but now it is known as The Bluebird Cafe. The jetty is long gone and was called Bishop’s jetty by us locals who used it for fishing or swimming.
With the lake being home to a multitude of water sports as well as swimming, I was able to learn to water ski at a young age. Greg Wright was a schoolmate, and his parents' Neville and Joan had a speedboat used for water skiing. I was lucky enough to tag along with the Wright family on days they would spend skiing at the lake. Greg was not a skier, and I think his dad sort of taught me in a hope that Greg might be interested. I loved to ski and did so with the Wright family for many years. It was like I always had an open invitation to be a part of their skiing life and family.
My first attempt to ski was from the area by the boat ramp on the Barmera foreshore, I was able to get all the around a circuit on the lake without falling off. I was not able to stand upright, I simply squatted with my bum dragging in the water, but I held on refusing to let go of the rope. I am guessing I was probably about 10 at the time.
From my next attempt, I was up and away, I stood on two skis and from that day onwards I never looked back as it were. I did fall on my second try, but I made it most of the way around and only crashed off when heading for the shoreline. I had always had good balance and this no doubt meant I was somewhat of a natural for this water-skiing caper. Eventually I progressed to one ski and that was something I loved, it was exhilarating and so much fun.
Another water sport for me during my early years was sailing. A schoolmate Nigel Wittwer had a Holdfast Trainer yacht, and he asked me to be his crewmember. While it was something I had never done, I loved it and sailing was fun. We gelled as a crew, and we were good at what we did. In our second year of competitive sailing, I am guessing 1967 we were leading the club championship with just two rounds left to sail. However, Nigel was struck down with a virus, and we missed the last two Saturday competition races. Sadly, that meant we were narrowly beaten for the title by David and Ricky Garrard.
It was a big disappointment as sailing was a prestigious sport in the town at the time and to have won the junior club championship would have been a big thing. The next year the Lake Bonney Yacht Club committee offered me the use of one of two club boats, a holdfast trainer so I took the opportunity. My crewman was Greg Dymmott, a cousin of mine but we were ordinary and always fished well back in competition. I made this my last year of sailing and played cricket in the summer months from then on.
So clearly for me the lake holds many great memories, but a very special time was in 1964 when land and water speed ace Donald Campbell used Lake Bonney in an attempt to break the World Water Speed Record. Campbell had earlier that year lifted the World Land Speed Record at Lake Eyre (a dry salt bed) in the north of South Australia driving his Preteus Bluebird and he wished to take the world water speed record in the same year.
It was so exciting being on the lakefront watching Campbell’s jet propelled Hydroplane Bluebird race at speeds of over 200 miles an hour across our lake. What a fantastic sight it was as the massive spray and wash created by the boat spewed out behind as Bluebird raced across the water. Campbell unfortunately never did crack the water speed record on Lake Bonney; he packed up and left in mid-December without success despite many attempts.
However, on December 3rd he did manage to set an Australian water speed record of 216mph for the two runs needed to count as a record. I remember that day very well and thousands packed the lakefront and other vantage points on this afternoon once word was out that Campbell was having a crack at the world record. After setting the Australian record he had a couple more runs over and back on the lake, but darkness beat him and that was the last time he raced Bluebird on Lake Bonney.
The interest that Campbell and his group of workers created was enormous and I am sure the town has never seen anything else like it to this day. The day he arrived in town was special, the turn out from the townsfolk and many visitors in Barwell Avenue was a sight to behold. Massive crowds and much excitement to finally have Campbell and his boat in our town.
When Campbell left Barmera, he went to Lake Dumbleyung in Western Australia and claimed the world water speed record late in the day on December 31st 1964 to achieve his dream of breaking both land and water world records in the same calendar year. This superstar of his time had been a living legend of speed racing both on land and on water. And Barmera had been a part of his world history. How good was that.
Campbell was unfortunately killed on Coniston Water in England on January 4th, 1967, when the same Bluebird boat that he had driven on Lake Bonney flipped and crashed during a further attempt on his own world record. It was a very sad thing to learn that this great man who just a short time earlier had been in our town had lost his life in such a tragic way. I remember the night when he was killed, we were watching the TV in the lounge room at Barmera and the TV station interrupted its normal program to bring us a news flash about the accident. RIP Donald Campbell.
The pics above tell the story of the time Donald Campbell came to Barmera. The top shows Bluebird being rolled out of Bishop's Boat Shed to be readied for a run across the lake, Campbell is shown at different times as he partnered Bluebird on those runs over to north lake and back again. A bulletin board was erected on the town clock in Barwell Avenue and was updated to list when Campbell would be out with Bluebird and the Barmera locals always turned up in force to watch any world water speed record attempts on Lake Bonney.
An official video was made at the time when Campbell and Bluebird came to Barmera, it is a decent look at our town and tells the story of Campbell and his attempts to break the world water speed record on Lake Bonney. To watch the 15-minute video, click on the link below ...
Video | Facebook - Donald Campbell and Bluebird - Lake Bonney Barmera
Another story from the lake with a tragic end is that of Bill Flewellyn. He was not a local, he was a Kiwi but he married Barmera girl Peggy Caddy, and we sort of adopted him as one of our own when he settled in Barmera. Flewellyn was a daredevil so to speak and in January 1972, he flew a hang-glider around Lake Bonney for just over 15-hours to claim a world record. The hang-glider was attached to a speedboat and towed around on the lake from just on sunup to when he came down at sunset.
This too was an enormous operation of logistics and planning and drew massive crowds to the lakefront waters. As darkness fell on that Sunday evening and Flewellyn landed on the lake down in front of the yacht club the big crowd erupted, and the birdman was given a hero's return.
The sad part of the story is that Flewellyn was killed a few years later at the Brisbane Showgrounds where he was performing his kite man stunt around the show arena. A gust of wind had him misjudge a landing and he hit a grandstand wall at speed. Another sad ending to a Lake Bonney story.
Mum was an avid Blue Hills fan, this Gwen Merideth serial was on every day at 1pm, ran for 15 minutes each episode and over the years Mum must have listened to thousands of Blue Hills episodes. As a fun fact, this radio classic ran 27 years on the ABC and covered 5795 episodes. I guess it was the radio version of Days of Our Lives. And there would not have been many episodes Mum missed, my memory is that her daily life was time structured around being able to sit and listen to her show.
The introduction of TV in South Australia from 1959 was the death knoll for the radio serial, and it seems it died a slow death over the next decade. But they had served a purpose, and memories are a great thing to have. Other than Life with Dexter, Green Bottle was a serial I did enjoy at times.
My brother Rod and I had a few activities that we shared over the years but in general the two-and-a-half-year age gap meant we had different friendship groups, and we moved in different circles. In his teenage years Rod spent a lot of time in his room; he was a good student who studied for hours. He also always had a radio on and at night, we listened mainly to Victorian stations in particular to Rod Spargo on 3UZ from Melbourne.
At one point in 1964, from the radio listening we wrote away to 3UZ and asked for some station car transfers and other memorabilia including station DJ pics and info. We received some information along with the transfers. I remember Rod stuck them to his bedside cupboard.
Then from somewhere, we obtained a list of addresses for all radio stations in Australia and we sent letters to them asking for transfers and station advertising material similar to what 3UZ had sent us. Over the next few weeks, we received the replies, and I remember that most radio stations sent us what we had asked for.
In fact, we received so many replies that Rod and I made up a list of who we sent letters to so that when the replies arrived, we would open half to each to keep the balance. It was a time of great excitement. Each day we waited for Dad to come home after work with the mail to see what we had received. Not sure why we did this, but it was great fun at the time. I do remember that we collected other transfers from places like petrol stations, BP, Shell, Ampol, Mobil, Caltex and from any business that had them really. Just a boyhood phase I am thinking but one I remember we shared as brothers.
But mail was the big means of communication in this time, so all letters addressed to us at home came with having a stamp on the envelope. We carefully removed the stamps by soaking the section of envelope with the stamp attached in water and the stamp would come away from the backing. We would have family and friends collect used stamps for us so we had a good stream of stamps to work with.
Having a stamp collection came with lots of accessories, naturally a decent stamp album a must. And stamp hingers were a thing for attaching stamps into an album. The hinges were flimsy little things that fixed the stamp flat onto the album page. Stamps came in many shapes and sizes from across the world and I was particularly interested on Australia stamps. This was pre-decimal times so all Commonwealth of Australia stamps were in pounds, shilling and pence denominations.
I am not sure how we became interested in the stamp collecting but I did continue with it for a number of years and when I started at Glossop High School in 1967, I joined a stamp club as a student activity. That died a quick death, and this hobby time was at an end.
Ranch night at the Bonney Theatre was another shared time with Rod. Friday night was ranch night, even as younger primary school aged kids we were generally allowed to go off on these nights. It was a bit like a weekly ritual as I look back on it. Rod and I would meet up with some other lads once we got there.
But to make this ritual work, it started with Rod and I asking mum if we could go, Mum would always say, “Go and ask your father.” Once Dad said yes, which again was just routine, well give or take, then we would get ready and walk down to the main street where the theatre was. Here we would meet up with whomever was going to the ‘flicks’ on this night, I remember Geoff Dymmott being one regular who we would see, Des Richards and also other local lads who were allowed to be out on a Friday night.
Most nights we would wait until the Newsreel started and the theatre lights dimmed and then we would all sneak in through a second door at the back of the theatre and not pay. If you went in through the ticket booth side then a fellow called Vin Barnden staffed that door and naturally, you would have to have a ticket to go in.
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Anyhow, the ranch nights at the Bonney Theatre were a fun time and two movies were always shown so you had plenty of western adventure to watch. And when the show was over Rod and I would walk on home. I remember in the winter months Mum would have put a hot water bottle into our beds and it was a great feeling to climb into such a warm and snug bed after the cold walk home. Precious memories and thanks Mum for your loving care.
The local drive-in became a big attraction to us as kids once the ranch nights came to an end. The BonneyLine Drive-In was opened in Barmera on September 28th, 1962, by Wallis Drive In Theatres and catered for 200 cars. It would close in 1988 but later reopen and be known as the Riverland Drive-In.
Two movies would be shown, the interval break was important, toilet trips, sometimes spend a few minutes at the playground out the back of the canteen building and importantly, grab a bite to eat and some goodies to get you through the second movie.
Then of course as I got older and had my own car I attended under my own steam. Saturday night at the drive-in was a weekly highlight, take some mates, a few tinnies, chat up the chickie babes and generally have a great fun night. Sometimes we even watched the movie.
Barmera was a very special place to be at Easter time; the carnival came to our town. On the fringe of the town oval was the best sideshow and carnival assortment set-up that I ever attended. The carnival rides were extensive, bucking horses, the gee-wiz, ferris wheel, cherry plane and many more. As a kid, it was so exciting to be at this place.
It was like the Royal Show was in our town; in fact, it was better than the Royal Show could ever be. It only operated on Easter Saturday and Monday, but it was two days of great fun. The area was set up on Good Friday and removed on the Tuesday, in this time there was no Sunday trading at all and this carnival was no different.
We would save our pocket money for weeks and of course, Dad would make sure we had plenty to spend on the rides and sideshows. Food stalls were scattered around, donuts, chips, hot dogs, popcorn, fairy floss and boy they were all very popular, plus the place we knew as the Kiosk was just around the corner near the lake. Easter was such a busy time in Barmera as it was a tourist haven at this time of the year. People came from far and wide to be in our town.
Another special part of the Easter weekend was the community breakfast in the main street. On the Saturday morning a sausage sizzle and free breakfast was available to one and all, local radio station 5RM would have its outside broadcast van at the breakfast and broadcast live. Like Christmas Eve, the streets were closed to traffic, and the main street would be packed with visitors and locals alike. The town simply buzzed, as a kid, boom, it was just the best.
Trotting was another great feature of Easter time; the Barmera Trotting Club raced on Easter Saturday and Easter Monday. And a weekend long sailing regatta was an annual Easter event, and this attracted sailors and boats from right around the state, it was a brilliant sight to see the many boats out on the lake over the three days.
On an entertainment theme, another time I really enjoyed was each January when a family set up in Barmera with a trampoline complex and a mini golf course. Originally, they would be at the Barmera Oval near the old change rooms down the Lake Kiosk end. For a couple of the years they were in town the basketball courts down near the guide hall was the venue,
Names escape me here, but I seem to recall it was a family of four, parents and two boys who were young adult age. They had a good entertainment complex, and the trampoline idea was a winner with locals. It cost 20 cents to go and have a jump, reckon you had about half an hour in time and that gave you the chance to have great fun. The family only stayed about a month each year so as locals we made the most of that time.
I remember that on a Sunday night for example the crowd would number a hundred or so with people jumping and others just coming to watch. It really was a big attraction. And I learned how to bounce on a trampoline during this time. Well, not to just bounce but to do other moves including somersaults and belly flops and to this day I enjoy bouncing on the tramp.
During the summer months a water activity and entertainment that was extremely popular for locals and the many visitors to the town was leisure boat hire. A shed just on the caravan park side of the Lake Bonney Yacht Club was the hire point, my first memory was of a chap named Ron Stewart, he was a boat builder by trade, and the hire equipment was a part of his family business.
Originally the paddle boats were a wood construction but that eventually became a moulded plastic boat. Like everything in life change happened and progress meant the boat design was so much different.
The pic on the left is from January 1990; this is a modern paddle boat at the time far different to the wood-built boats from the original paddle boat times in the 60's. But the spot on the lake is the same, just west of the Lake Bonney Yacht Club site heading towards the caravan park. Shown in the pic with me is my son Bradley James and family friend Lisa Naughton.
Surf boards as we called them were always hired, not that you actually surfed on the lake you paddled around, swam, just had fun with others and enjoyed the time. So popular were the hire boats that on weekends and in the school holidays there could be a decent wait time to hire a craft or surfboard.
A semaphore system operated from the shore by the boat shed, each hired craft had a number and when your time expired your number was played in the frame on the semaphore board. It all worked really well. I also remember that at times there was motorboat hire as well. It was not something I generally did, maybe because of cost, maybe a minimum age limit, not sure but the motorboats were not for me.
However, one summer I remember Greg Coombe, late 60's, who the son of a family friend of Dad’s, Darcy Coombe, stayed with our family in Barmera and he took Rod and myself out on a motorboat across the lake to an area near what later became Pelican Point. Here we caught what we all thought were wild ducks, the boat powered up alongside these birds, and we jumped in and caught them by hand. We took them home all excited about the catch only to be told by Dad that they were in fact waterfowls so back we went and released them. Look, embarrassing but it was fun at the time.
A memory from my teenage years that I am very proud of was winning what was called the Barmera Walk-a-thon at just 13; I remember this as a great sporting achievement for me. It was a 16-mile event, and I ran my way to winning against hundreds of competitors of all ages. It was a big event in our town at the time; it attracted competitors from all around the Riverland, the surrounding areas and from throughout the state. It's funny but I always knew I would win, well at least I thought I could win. I was never taken seriously about my thoughts of winning so it was like I had to do it just to make my point. And I believe I made a big statement.
On the day of the event, I was sent off in the second group, 10 minutes behind the lead group, there were so many competitors that I recall the race officials thought it better for safety reasons to split the numbers. The first leg was a 10-mile run along the Sturt Highway to the Berri Winery in Glossop and then returning to Barmera. By the time the race had reached Barmera around lunchtime I was up in the leading group, in fact I was within sight of the lead group of about seven runners despite the 10-minute time difference between the two starting groups.
The second leg was a 6-mile run along the Sturt Highway to Growers Service corner down on the Cobdogla Road and then back to the finish line on the lakefront at Barmera. I was fifth across the finish line and just over a minute behind the first competitor home. However, with the starting time difference then I was an easy winner. I remember the race officials being staggered when they realized that I was from that second group.
Neville Wright was the timekeeper and when he checked my time he said, “Jack, er, you’re from the second group that makes you the winner.” Well der Nev, but I knew how well I had performed on the day; I had achieved what I set out to do. The power of being positive and coupled with my competitive spirit it came as no surprise at all to me. It was what I had expected, and I wondered what all the fuss was about.
At the presentation the track announcer had no idea who I was as I guess the event organizers had not expected a nobody like me to win. So, I made my acceptance speech and went home, I suppose it was fair to say though that I had the last laugh. I was going home as the race day winner. I remember my trophy was a suitcase; I used it for years after that and every time that I did it reminded me of that day in 1967 when I upstaged the hot shots at Barmera. I smiled every time I thought about it.
I must add here that I enjoyed athletics as a teenager, and I ran for a couple of seasons with the Berri-Barmera Harriers competing against clubs from Renmark and Loxton. I know it's probably not really a childhood memory but it was from my formative years so I will continue.
But I guess my ability and probably love for running did start when I was a kid. Way back with my days at the convent school when I competed on an age group level at the Berri-Barmera School Sports Day. One year the sports day was held at the Barmera oval and the next year at the Berri oval. I did win my age group race for the years I remember competing.
Little Athletics as we know it today did not exist in my young days, running clubs were called Harriers. I remember being approached by Kevin Modra, a primary school teacher from Barmera and president of the local club, not sure how he knew I could run but he asked if I would like to have a try-out with the Harriers the following Saturday. I did attend at the Barmera oval having no idea really what to expect as I had never run at a club level. It was not something I had really wanted to do; I tried to stay away from any form of competitive running because being in the spotlight scared me.
I recall after my first run in a 100metre sprint that Modra came to me and said, “You must be holding back.” Obviously my effort did not impress him, but I still thought the comment to be odd. After all it was he who invited me to come down and have a go. But I was confident with the knowledge I was a distance runner and the longer the races became the better I would go. Sort of like the saying, “He who laughs last, laughs longests.”
In the mile race later in the morning I was an easy winner in the junior grade. For the record, I have a time of 4 minutes 26 seconds over the mile, and I ran that as a junior, a top time by any standard. And by the way Modra did get back to me on that first outing and offer his congratulations.
But surprisingly for me from my Harrier days when a history book was produced for the fifty-year celebration of Barmera I was listed in the book as record holder for junior running, my record listed was for 800 yards and not the mile. My best 800-yard time was good but nothing like my time of the 4 minutes 26 second over the mile.
Barmera and the Riverland were a great place to grow up, firstly as a kid and then as a young adult. As a kid we always had something to do, some place to go. Being a country town, it gave you extra freedom that I believe the city kids did not get. You were able to do kid things like fish, swim, ride bikes, go camping and bird nesting; many things that seem to be unique to the country way of life. You even walked to school and home again without fear.
Everything and everybody were close by, no hassles getting to or from anywhere in the town or surrounding districts. And we got to see the land and its people at work as the area was founded on the fruit industry. A small thing maybe but as a kid growing up it gave you an appreciation for hard work. Almost everyone in the area seemed to have a fruit industry connection.
But trips to the city were so exciting for a youngster, it was full of unknown and oh so busy, the big smoke was everything the country wasn't. The hustle and bustle, people everywhere, bumper to bumper traffic, traffic stop lights, neon signs, shopping, yeah, so much that we never ever experienced living in the country.
An interesting aspect when traveling the Sturt Highway to Adelaide from the Riverland in my early days was the punt crossings, at Kingston and Blanchetown. It made the trip to the city so much longer with what could be long waits at the punt landings especially in the school holiday times. In the early days, only one punt was at each site and only an average of eight cars would be transported across the river at one time. And you paid to cross on the punt; the operator would come to your car and a payment was required depending on vehicle size.
And if a semi-trailer was in the line to use the punt, then this further extended the waiting time. I remember a couple of incidents where the ferries sank with semi-trailers on board. I seem to recall that it was made law that two semi-trailers could not be taken on the same crossing after one of the sinkings at Kingston, which resulted in the loss of life. And my poor Mum was so afraid of being on the punt with a semi that she would not go on if there was a semi nearby. But I understand her fear, if you did happen to be on the same trip across the river as a semi, then yes it was a very frightening experience.
The pic to the left shows the Kingston on Murray punt in the early 60's, these punts were very simple and small and while they were a necessary evil for Sturt Highway travel, they were very time consuming and inconvenient for the road traffic.
Naturally there was not as much vehicle traffic on the road back in this time, but it was still a congestion issue crossing the river at the ferry points. Small punts and long crossing times was not a good mix for travelers on the Sturt Highway heading in either direction.
The other punt that we had to contend with was at Berri, I remember on a football day at Loxton the line-ups at this punt were long and crossing was slow. Again, in the early days only one punt was in operation at Berri. Another punt was eventually added and then longer punts were introduced. Berri now has a bridge that opened a couple of years ago.
You could see for miles all the way to the river and that is a memory and a look that has never been forgotten. The pic at the right was taken at the top of the hill not long after sunrise and while it is a pic from a later time it is added here.
And a stop at the Crown Hotel in Truro was always a part of this trip, it was a family tradition, and Dad and Mum had a beer or two at this iconic hotel while as kids, we entertained ourselves and probably had a glass of raspberry. Ah, great times and enough great memories to last a lifetime.
The Sturt Highway we travel today is a different route to the one we took back in this era. Not just with the two river bridges replacing the punt crossings but many towns are now bypassed meaning the road takes a much different line. That is quicker of course and the trip is now really manageable in time. Not sure how some of the towns survive without the highway and if that is better for society or not, I don't know. But progress is progress and we live with the fallout.
As my life has unfolded, I have grown over the years to love the city and its way of life and while I could never live in the country again I would not swap having grown up in a country town for any other way. It gave you the chance to be a kid and to develop so many learning skills that are still appropriate to this day. I believe the kids of today miss out on so much fun and learning that we simply took for granted back when we were growing up in the country. Times do change and I believe that I was born at a fortunate time so as to enjoy living when life as a kid was much simpler and safer than it is today.
In Barmera we had a small business we all called the Bacon Factory, it was built in 1952 for a company known as Murray Bacon Specialists. The factory covered three town allotments and spread over an area of 4,750sqft so it was rather a big place.
I have what is maybe a little odd but at the same time pleasant memory that attaches to this business. Every day the Bacon Factory whistle would sound at eight o’clock each morning for the start of a working day, at midday, at 1pm indicating lunch and again at five o’clock in the evening to signal knock-off time. As the Bacon Factory was on the corner of Lake Avenue and Hague Street it was not far from our home, so I grew up with this whistle being a timepiece.
It was a sound that we all knew so well, it really was a guide for what time of the day it was. I would hate to think how many times one of us would say “There is the Bacon Factory whistle, it must be such and such a time”. Unfortunately, the Bacon Factory burned down in an overnight fire during the early 80’s and the land is now part of a housing estate. But in my time as a kid growing up in the town the Bacon Factory whistle was oddly enough a part of my everyday life.
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Meccano sets were another favoured toy of the day. Lots of work required getting it together into a shape and design, but for as testing as it was, I recall it being fun. Many small and fiddly nuts and screws were used, yeah it took great patience to build with Meccano, but I always enjoyed the challenge. And while I didn't have a lot of this toy, I had enough to make it work.
And I had a favoured stuffed toy; it was a dog that I cuddled with on many nights. The dog was kept for many years but sadly time took a toll and like many of these stuffed animals from this era it fell apart and despite many repairs by Mum it eventually came to an end. But I remember my toy dog with much love.
Comics are hardly toys but another really happy memory from my early years is having a comic collection, this was another hobby I shared with my brother Rod. I am not sure how we first came by our comics, but I recall after we read them we would swap the comics with other kids in our area that also had a collection.
This way every few weeks we had a different set of comics to read. I remember my favourite reads being Disney based, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto and the likes. The Phantom was an action series comic I always read. And just as I do not remember how we came by the comics I do not remember what happened to them! But in an appropriate era, they entertained us for many hours.
So, with that positive look at childhood memories, what were the not so good childhood memories? No doubt I could write much here but hey, why spoil a good story. Somethings are probably best left unsaid. No really, it is kind of funny though how good memories can generally be easily recalled when we want them to be but with not so good and/or sad memories then they are often suppressed or even forgotten totally. Just human nature I guess, we forget what we do not wish to remember.
I do recall I hated drinking those bloody little bottles of milk at school that we would be forced to get down at morning recess during my primary school years. I hated it with a passion. In the summer months the milk would be delivered and sit out in the hot sun in the lunch shed at the Convent school and we would have to drink it regardless of the taste. It had to be off! At times we were even given flavored straws to use but why? Bad milk is bad milk; you just cannot disguise it! On a plus side, the milk bottles came with foil tops and I remember they made great decorations on the spokes of your bike wheels.
Another pet hate at the convent school time was the concert we had to be a part of at the end of each school year. For weeks we would be drilled and taught like parrots how to sing a certain song or act a certain part. I hated the routine and on concert night it was never any fun performing on the stage that was built in the lunch shed. I always felt like a fish out of water being a part of this concert. Whatever the reason behind that feeling I remember it being very real.
What else of the not so good memories? I remember I hated my parents smoking around me especially in the car. On a Tuesday morning, we would attend mass at the Convent and this meant an early start. I recall mum smoking in the car, winding down the window on freezing cold mornings and trying to get the smoke and fog out of the car in between coughing fits. Yuk? Thankfully both parents quit smoking and that was a game changer.
Swimming lessons during the Christmas school holidays I found annoying, very annoying in fact. We loved the water and swimming as kids but being forced to endure those bloody swimming lessons every summer in the school holidays was the pits! For me, they taught little in terms of safety and did nothing to expand on what I had already worked out for myself in the area of swimming. I could never fathom why we were forced into such a silly program.
I was a member of the Barmera Cub Troop for a time, but I hated this, I hated it with a passion. The group leader was a tough bloke with us cubs and as we were just kids, I thought his strict and overbearing manner was inappropriate. It was like he enjoyed the opportunity to belittle us; he delighted in our making mistakes it seemed.
The cub involvement came with having to wear a uniform on pack night, that did not sit well for me, even as a kid I thought it to be a ritual that was actual dangerous. We would have camps at times, that was ok but very strict and while I never fully understood the intent, looking back I see evil in what happened at times.
In the cub movement earning badges as rewards for different disciplines was ok, I did get a few different badges doing the things that interested me. Rope tying was a part I did enjoy, to this day knowing how to tie certain knots is a life skill, I did earn some reward badges for this discipline. And an annual fund raiser within the troop was Bob's for Jobs. I embraced this part of the time in cubs, doing odd jobs for family and friends in the tradition of what this scheme was meant to be. That worked for me. You did the job, collected your bob and moved onto the next task, the idea went on for a few weeks and at the end the bobs you collected were a part of raising funds.
At the end of my cub days, I had the chance to advance to the Scout Troop that was headed by Dave Fewster, but I opted out. I did go for a number of nights to scout meetings with Rod who was involved at the time, but I had no interest in going on after my not so good cub years.
When I started high school, I hated the bus schedule we had. Early to school and late home, it added over two hours to an already long school day at Glossop High School. After school, we waited for over an hour in the schoolyard to get transport home. In the morning, we walked to our stop by the old Barmera Primary School to catch the bus and I remember many a day that I just wanted to turn around and go back home.
Even the bus drivers were a put off. Our morning driver was a grumpy woman who always grizzled at you no matter what you did. I remember being late to the bus stop one morning and just as I ran to the bus door it closed, and this woman drove off leaving me standing. She must have known I was just about at the bus door, as she would have seen me running up but drove off anyhow.
Guess it made her day that I missed the bus; she was a grump of a woman. Gabe Baird was often the driver at night and while he was not as grumpy, he was just an unfriendly type. I remember that there was nothing I enjoyed about getting to or from the high school by bus. It added to my dislike of school in general.
At Easter, we would not be given eggs but instead we would get a block of chocolate. But how the hell would a chook lay a block of chocolate? They lay eggs don’t they? I found that to be confusing as a little kid and it would have been nice to get an egg sometimes. That is what Easter was about for a kid isn’t it, Easter Eggs?
Mum would tell us that the eggs were a waste of money, and you got more chocolate in a block. And then on cracker night, it was legal back when I was growing up to have firecrackers for home use, we did not get any fireworks but instead ended up with more chocolates or one year I remember getting a packet of Arnotts wafer biscuits.
So really my childhood was good meaning the not so good times are minimal. I am sure there were other things I battled with in the early days but thankfully they don't stick in my memory. Maybe now when something awkward in life happens, my mind drifts back and I recall this awkwardness was also something I disliked as a kid. But to be honest, it is not generally something I dwell on.
On that, I do need to say though, as a kid I hated eating silver beat, broad beans were not my food of choice, and I hated, really hated having short hair.
Finally, this is not really a bad childhood memory I guess; it is more a non-memory. The one thing that I do not recall from my childhood is birthdays. I find that to be odd, I have such vivid memories of so much from that time of my life, but I cannot remember one birthday. Not one. The first birthday that I have memories from is my 21st that I celebrated in 1975 when living in Tailem Bend. And for the record, I don't remember many birthdays since my 21st. I know that I hate birthdays to this day but probably for totally different reasons to those when I was a kid.
And there it is, that's my childhood memories from my very early days as a kid growing up in Barmera through to my teenage and young adult time. Memories can be funny, looking back on times and life events can be tricky, things that did not mean a lot at the time really do become amazing memories all these years later.
But I know my thoughts are my own, I am happy with that concept, and I know that all the happy and so happy memories I have shared are very real. I am blessed to have had the childhood I did and to take so much personal history from that time in my life.
Finding pics to fit this era has been challenging, naturally all pics shown here are not my own and I thank everyone who has contributed. And many have shared pics with me, that has helped make editing and formatting my Hey Shorty book so much better. But thankfully many of the pics I was able to find and source have added so much to my story. Barmera was a gem of a place to mold a childhood, and now after 50 years of life the history of my town and growing up here remains so strong.
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GROWING UP IN BARMERA THROUGH HISTORY AND PICS
From the time Barmera was a soldier settlement location through to this day almost nine decades later the town and surrounding districts has established some rich history. Built on agriculture and in particularly the fruit growing industries the district has become a gem and was a childhood home for so many of us. Over the decades things have changed so much and from 1954 I have been blessed to have lived with many of those changes.
Like any town anywhere change has been important, the world has changed so much and with that the way we live now does not resemble how things were at the time Barmera was settled. But memories are a great thing to have and while changes have been plenty thankfully, we have a personal understanding of how we were a part of that change.
BARMERA EARLY 1950's - THE BONNEY THEATRE END OF BARWELL AVE
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Barmera has many old buildings, and each has a tale to tell. Some are as old as the town itself, others built in later years, but all have a place to play in the history of Barmera. They were as a part of the town, and we remember them well.
The gateway to Barmera coming off the Sturt Highway from Berri was always the Mobil Roadhouse. Just over the railway line the roadhouse has been there for decades. A traffic island was added on the highway many moon back and a right turn into Fowles Street took you up over the hill past the Irrigation Office building and into the main street of Barmera.
Sprigg Bros car centre and garage was up on Sturt Street in the direction of the primary school. This was an original Barmera business for Tom and Bob Spriggs and later their sons worked at and ran the garage. In behind this building was a vacant lot, just dirt and dusty and it doubled as a car park with a couple of laneways, one ran across to Barwell Avenue and came out by the Bank of NSW building, and another exited on Bice Street by the supermarket. In the early days a walkway also exited onto Barwell Avenue by Rosenthal Motors.
Over the years the business structure of the town changed, as all towns do. Rosenthal Motors had a shop front in Barwell Avenue up near the Post Office for many years including my childhood time but would later move to a new premises on Tonkin Avenue as shown in the pic here. Riverland Crash was a business that came at a later time and Bridgestone Tyres was similar. Both had a good impact on the town, but it was in the 70's onwards.
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The Barmera Hotel has been around almost as long as the town itself. This building would be the best known in the history of the town, a few face changes across the years have meant a slight cosmetic change but the structure looks very much the same today as it did in the 50's. The BP Service Station at the bottom of Barwell Avenue has a long history, from my time we always associated the business with Alby White, he seemed to have the place for decades. I remember Allan Pickering owning the business but that was into the 80's.
The Westpac Bank building as shown here was originally The Bank of New South Wales, it is on Barwell Avenue between the deli and the laneway. In 1982 the Bank of NSW merged nationally with the Commercial Bank and was rebranded Westpac. So, this pic would be from the mid 80's. And check out the cars of the era, brilliant.
From my early days as a kid in Barmera Len and Vera Seyfang ran the local newsagency, the shop was on Barwell Avenue just up from Eudunda Farmers. It later moved down to the corner of Barwell Avenue and Laffer Street into the building that had been the Serv-Well store run by Bruce Garrard. Pendles Bus Service used the newsagency as a parcel depot and a stopping area for passengers. The Seyfang's were a very popular Barmera family and built a home on Nookamka Terrace living there from the 60's.
Ken's Barber Shop was around for decades, originally on Barwell Avenue down near Renfrey's Bakery and then moved over to Bice Street along from the Barmera Hotel. Ken Coats was always the owner and men's hairdresser.
On the corner of Nookamka Terrace and Sturt Street was the RSL Hall. Like many other buildings in Barmera this place has had a few changes to the facade and structure and looks like a different place today to the one shown in the above pic. But for all the years I was a kid my memory is that this place looked very much the same across all that time. The hall was used by the RSL as a meeting place, the members gathered every Friday night in recognition of all soldiers who had served or lost their life from WW1.
And it was a social hall where many cabarets and social nights were held, it was also a venue for weddings and parties for the locals, my older sister Veronica had her wedding reception here in 1963 and my brother Rod had his 21st birthday party in 1973. The RSL clubrooms was an iconic structure in the history of Barmera, it was always a special place of remembrance.
Nappers Bridge at north lake was on the Barmera to Morgan Road. This area was very popular for fishing in my early childhood days, and we spent time here as mates fishing, exploring and swimming. We would ride our pushbikes out to the area and have a long day of fun. The area was originally settled by William Napper, he built and operated the Lake Bonney Hotel in the north lake area from 1859.
My grandfather Henry Danvers worked on a Nappers Bridge upgrade when he first came to Barmera as a soldier settler after WW1. Henry was boarding at the McBride family tent accommodation on the lake front down from where the town was established, each day he and other workers would row a boat across to Nappers Bridge for their day of work.
With my connection to the McBride family and their cool drink and ice works factory from Barmera this pic is significant. The list of old labels for the cool drinks is a great memory and by chance in the second pic a bottle of their drink is on the table in front of me. The pic is May1st 1982, it was at my wedding reception on the day I married Sue Long. The reception was in the Bonney Theatre Hall and the bridal table sits in front of us.
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The Bill Flewellyn story and Barmera connection was one of great achievement that unfortunately had a sad ending. But the day Bill broke the world record ski-kite endurance record at Lake Bonney in January 1972 was a massive occasion for him and our town. On that Sunday Bill stayed aloft tethered to a speedboat on a 230-foot line for 15 hours and 3 minutes and covered 475 miles. The Bird Man of Barmera was now a national celebrity; we all applauded his brilliance.
Now as this chapter in my life ends for the Hey Shorty book, I add these pics from the time Donald Campbell came to our town. His attempts on Lake Bonney to break the world water speed record in 1964 thrust Barmera into the world spotlight. This is the day he left, a summer storm had ruined the chances of another run by Campbell in Bluebird on our lake, so it was time to pack up and leave. I remember being rather sad on this day, I watched as the Bluebird was loaded onto the transport trailer down on the lake front and just like that, Campbell and his boat drove out of town.
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