Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 335
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 335]
165
-ence of pay between Captain, Australian Imperial Force, and Major, Royal Engineers (Indian Military Works Service) and the sum of three hundred and sixty five pounds was to be paid to me forthwith. Because of the Indian Rupee's increasing rapidly in value from 1/4d to 2/6d in the meantime, this amount was nearly twice as much as I had expected to get.
Despite my interest in developing the "Frenchmans", I was still feeling rather unsettled after my unusual experiences and extensive travelling during the war, and in a spirit of wanderlust I decided to spend some of the windfall on a visit to the U.S.A. early in the coming year (1921). So I hurried on with the completion of the subdivision fencing, and with finishing the house to an occupiable state. Working ten hours a day, I, myself, cut, fitted and fixed every piece of timber, laid every brick and stone, and laid every corrugated roofing sheet, until the outside was finished, and only two of the ceiliings and the back verandah remained to be done.
I also employed another bushworker, Farrelly, to split an indefinite number of fencing posts, to be used later in the replacement of nearly two miles of old deteriorated common-boundary fencing between my neighbour, Aubrey, and me, on the South. A very competent fencer, Joe Healy, contracted to clear the line of trees for a chain on each side, and erect the replacement six-wire and netting fence for sixty pounds a mile, labour only. I obtained rabbit-proof wire netting for this job through the local Pastures Protection Board on long terms of repayment.
Farrelly had a thin little wife and twelve children - a thirteenth died in infancy - and he was proud of the fact that he had successfully accouched her for every one of them, in a big bark hut of his own construction, miles away from any town. He shifted this hut about from job to job with an old four-wheeled wagonette and a big rangy horse. At the "Frenchmans" he set it up on a shady level spot near a waterhole in the central creek; where he also established quite a rewarding