Dare to Dream. Peter Cliff
by the girls, he was persuaded to resume the walk. I was a little apprehensive about going to the Wonthaggi Technical School because I didn’t know if the bus would stop as I stood by the side of the road, but it did, thus becoming the first of my many journeys to Wonthaggi. It was a drive through country unsurpassed for beauty at all times of year. The rolling hills gradually descending from the high to the low as they neared the sea. The ocean can be seen from Kilcunda to Wilson’s Promontory from different vantage points along the road. Every day it was different because the colours changed with the weather, seasons and farming practices. I quickly learned the names of every farmer on the 14 mile ride and took an intense interest in every change each farm made. This was the best part of going to school as far as I was concerned.
On my first day my teacher was attempting to teach us a song ‘Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes’ which he sang with a high, thin, reedy voice. I thought it was impossibly funny and began to take him off. He caught me – and he was furious. All the kids were laughing. I received two cuts in my first hour at the Wonthaggi Technical School. My previous schooling at Footscray had taught me many bad habits and exposed me to tricks he said were not going to be tolerated in Wonthaggi. In retrospect, I was a disturbed and rebellious boy. I saw no point in being there - I was needed at home.
There was a steady rhythm to running the farm and it could have been pleasant had we’d had some adult help. Stan was preoccupied with inconsequential things like pulling out the boobyalla trees that formed a wind break behind the house. Although they had grown to about 30 feet high and provided useful shelter to the house, Stan was determined to pull them out. He tied a rope around the branches about seven feet from the ground and attached the other end to the tow bar of the Wolsley. After starting the car, he would take off until the limit of the rope was reached and the boobyalla tree was bent like a fishing rod. This lifted the rear wheels of the car off the ground before springing back. Stan was beside himself with fury. He repeated the exercise over and over, eventually realising he had to take smaller pieces. We all kept clear because the task somehow become personal. Stan was determined to remove these trees. The vision I have of him going off his head is excruciatingly funny; a crazy ridiculous farce. The car suffered badly from this and other similar forms of abuse.
Stan began working for the Bass Shire so he left at 7 a.m. and returned after 6 p.m. Consequently, there was not a lot of time left to work on the farm. However, his attempts to milk cows on the weekend were short lived because the cows, accustomed by now to a gentle approach, were totally uncooperative for a man who yelled and used force as if their irritability was a personal matter. He could be merciless, on occasion thrashing them with the back of the shovel. As the excrement in the shed grew steadily deeper, the threats escalated until the ordeal was over. Perhaps it was a deliberate ploy, an excuse not to milk cows. In any case, for some time he rarely returned to the shed. Even Prince would run under the house and refuse to come out when Stan called him. Prince, we realised, was an impeccable judge of character. ‘Prince you bastard, come here, you fucking mongrel, come here! I swear I’ll shoot the bastard.’ His voice topped 100 decibels, his eyes wide and his body shaking with rage while the veins in his neck pulsed madly and spittle hurled from his mouth. No one spoke. Prince wisely crouched under the house, eyes just visible in the gloom. He wouldn’t budge. Stan would swing around looking for someone else to direct his anger at before loudly threatening to shoot the ‘useless fucking dog’ that would not work.
It was the same script he used when speaking to me. When he turned on you, as he did without warning, his face would be contorted by the full force of his rage and you got the hell out of there. Sometimes, he would simply throw a tool or whatever was at hand. I recall seeing him throw a claw hammer at Ross in this way. Stan had long established his prowess at throwing things but Bruce and I were nimble and luckily dodged many a missile.
Tensions in the home were reaching new heights. Stan’s wages were inadequate to meet the loans and the cost of living. We were now accumulating a large debt with the local store.
Ron and Ivy Yann owned the Glen Forbes store, the focal point of the community. They delivered the mail, manned the telephone exchange, sold petrol and provided a full grocery service almost all on credit. At night the store was a meeting place for the exchange of gossip and where many practical jokes had their origin. It was the nerve centre of Glen Forbes for both Ivy and Ron extended not only credit and good will, but provided an organisational function that held this tight knit community together. Of course, running the manual exchange made them a party to all the local drama.
The sense of community was unbelievably strong. In a short time even Mum began to appreciate the support and generosity of these people. She quickly became involved with the other mothers whose kids attended the school and also joined the Country Women’s Association (CWA). Mum began supplementing income by providing a hairdressing service to the ladies of the district. This furthered her sense of involvement in local affairs and the contact was essential to her because we only had the one car and Stan drove it to work each day.
Stan was increasingly violent. The frequency and volume of abuse to mum and me was increasing. We were without witnesses because our closest neighbour was at least 500 metres away on the flat land below. As his loss of control over the farm increased, Stan’s need to blame others escalated. Mum was blamed because we were in debt. I was blamed for everything else.
In June the cows started calving. When a calf was removed from the cow we had to feed it in addition to milking the mother. Gradually the milking herd grew in size, but one cow died of milk fever because we were unprepared. Experienced dairy farmers keep a supply of calcium solutions on hand and an injection kit for milk fever so that when a cow has the symptoms, the injection can be given promptly. Delay or failure to treat the animal can quickly lead to death. At that time we were ignorant of the problem and had nothing to treat the animal with.
Calves too died, some simply too weak to survive while others developed scours, or diarrhea exacerbated by infection. Poor Bruce had the job of feeding the calves but with no sheds, adult guidance on procedure or experience, progressively, most died. Stan became incandescent with rage over that and of course, it was our fault. Bruce’s teacher even informed Mum that when the children in his class were asked to write about their hobbies, Bruce wrote a pathetic tale titled ‘My Hobby Is Killing Calves’. Although we laughed, in fact it was a serious reflection of Bruce’s feeling of helplessness. He was only 11. It is no joke to be feeding calves in sometimes bitterly cold wet conditions without a raincoat, shelter, hot water, a clean environment, experience, electrolytes or antibacterial drugs.
That summer we assisted a neighbor, Cecil Eden, to harvest his hay. We were remunerated with hay for our farm but not before we had learned a great deal about harvesting. Stan lent our draft horse to pull the hay sweep while I was given the task of removing and stacking the bales as they came out of the stationary baler. Cecil forked the hay into the baler while his father Bill threaded the wire and tied the knots as the bales progressed through the bale chamber. On a hot day the dust created envelopes everything, which can be hell for those with allergies.
From our first day on the farm, my father, who had previously been a hard worker, became strangely more distant and lazy, perhaps confused and unable to cope with the practicalities of the farm. Outwardly, he maintained the façade of a friendly caring man in charge of his affairs and one who knew all that was needed to be a successful farmer. The reality was he alone had bought the farm and arranged the finances but had denied Mum any knowledge of what he had done. The bills arrived but were left unpaid. By the end of the first year we owed the Glen Forbes store more than £500. This was a huge debt, with little prospect of us paying it, and it was not our only one.
Although I was thirteen and helped by Bruce, I was running the farm by default. Without cash or the opportunity to shop elsewhere, we lived on the meat, groceries and produce delivered and supplied on credit. Mum and I seemed to be the only ones concerned about the increasing debt and inability to pay. I was concerned and ashamed because the milking and running of the farm had become my responsibility and I could see no prospect of improvement.
Dairy farm income was seasonal. It rose gradually from nothing during autumn to a maximum during spring