Reading Dee’s blog post, Making Changes, made me smile. It took me back a LONG time, to when I was a young kid.
My parents had scraped up just enough money to buy a block of land in a country town east of Melbourne, Victoria. There was one main road through the town and our road was unsealed. Dust in the summer, mud in the winter. Our block sloped steeply back from the road with plenty of ti-trees and eucalyptus trees at the bottom. The plan was to live in a small fibro bungalow while my parents and older brother Don built the house. A small loan from a building society and that’s what they did, starting with a thick carpentry how to do it book, basic tools and now I look back, a lot of courage.
Electricity wasn’t connected until the house was built, so we lit ‘Tilly” lamps at night, we had a wood burning stove for cooking and heating water for a bath, which incidentally was a galvanised iron tub in the kitchen. We had an ice chest to keep food cold, the ice truck delivered blocks of ice weekly in winter, twice weekly in summer. The ice-man wore thick leather gloves and a thick leather shoulder pad. He hooked his pick into a block of ice, up onto his shoulder and with a curt g’day to mum, carried it into the house to deposit it into the chest. No time to talk, especially in summer.
At the back of the bungalow was the outhouse – the “dunny”. The ‘nightmen’ in their truck collected the full pan twice a week, replacing it with a clean pan reeking of the eye-watering strong disinfectant Phenyl. To this day, the smell of Phenyl reminds me of the dunny and country railway toilets.
It was a very bushy area, plenty of blue tongue lizards, a lot of native birds, especially bell birds, and thankfully we didn’t see any snakes. I clearly remember a swagman camped at the bottom of our block because there was a small creek and plenty of open land beyond. Mum made sure he was okay and didn’t need anything. He’d light his fire, cook his food and boil his billy, and a few days later he moved on.
The floor plan for our new house was laid out on the ground with wood stakes and string. Armed with shovels, my dad and my brother Don dug every stump hole by hand. In went the redgum wooden stumps. Then the flooring joists. My job was to help paint the weatherboards with pink primer, which I did until my hands ached. Up went the house, bit by bit, because dad and Don worked weekdays. Then the inspection by the municipal building inspector. Was the house built to satisfactory standards? Yes, it received a big tick. Time for the tradies – the plumber, the roof tiler and the electrician. And – at last – we were able to move in. My brother had his own bedroom. I had my own bedroom. Mum had an electric stove. And we had a real bathroom with an inside toilet! But we kept the ice chest, what money was left didn’t stretch to a refrigerator. We now see ice chests in museums but believe me, they are as almost as efficient as a fridge – minus the freezer.
Looking back, it was a perfect life for kids. Sure we walked the mile or more to school and back every day, in the rain or the summer heat, so did all the other kids. There were no luxuries but we had a lot of fun and the best games playing in the bush at the back of the block. I admit I had it easy compared to my brother who was nine years older than me, but that four inch paint brush and endless weatherboards was hard work!
I can still see that carpentry book, and the spirit level, dad used it while digging the stump holes and the floor joists. Heck, a book and a spirit level, dogged determination and hard work built a house…
Jan Selbourne was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia and her love of literature and history began as soon as she learned to read and hold a pen. After graduating from a Melbourne Business College her career began in the dusty world of ledgers and accounting, working in Victoria, Queensland and the United Kingdom. On the point of retiring, she changed course to work as secretary of a large NSW historical society. Now retired Jan is enjoying her love of travelling and literature. She has two children, a stray live in cat and lives near Maitland, New South Wales.