Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 93
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[Page 93]
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the needs of the more prosperous householders; this arrangement was of course subject to the consent of the latter. Telephones had not yet arrived, and a shop assistant on horse or bicycle, called regularly at the houses to take the orders, which were delivered promptly, and the bill debited to each customer's account. Credit was freely given for as long as six months for townspeople, and even longer for farmers.
Syrian and Indian hawkers travelled around the farmhouses with well-stocked horse-drawn caravans, their wares including many exotic importations: Dad treasured some very good silk handkerchiefs he bought from an Indian hawker; artificial silk was unknown. Every Christmas, a Chinaman, for whom he had once stood bail at the Peak Hill police court, delivered two wicker-covered pots of fine Chinese ginger, as a gift, to our home no matter where we were. We always looked forward to his arrival and were very sad when he announced that he was going back to China to spend his last years there, and this would be his last visit, and our last ginger.
After living at "Ulster" for about eighteen months, we moved closer in to the centre of the town, to a smaller brick cottage in Currajong St, the weekly rent being six shillings. The Public School was now only about three minutes' walk away, instead of the previous half-hour walk.
About this time I became the devoted chum of a tall handsome schoolfellow, Todhunter ("Ikey") Chapman. His father had been an underground boss in the big Bushmans gold mine before it finally was worked out, but he remained as the manager of the big ore crushing battery, which was now crushing many tons of rich gold-bearing quartz, carted to it in horse drays from other mines in the district; principally the Phoenix mine in the middle of the town and the Dayspring at Currajong. This battery was terraced down the slope of a low ridge at the north end of the town, its tall square red brick smoke-stack being a prominent landmark. To a boy, the mine premises was a very interesting place, even in its partly closed down condition. The buildings comprised the long cavernous battery shed; the winding-engine house, with its shining