PORT ELLIOTT & GOOLWA HISTORY PROJECT
Interview with Wif & Harold Bedford on Monday 18th October 1999.
Interviewers : Dorothy and Linton Jacobs.
Emended by Dorothy, Tony Bedford
Emended & Formatted by G.W. (Frodo) Krochmal
TAPE 1 - SIDE A.
Dorothy: Thank you Harold and Wif, for allowing us to share what some of your life experiences have been, and I hope that you will enjoy telling them to us as much as we are going to enjoy hearing them. Harold, I'm wondering what your full name is?
H.B.: It's Harold Herbert Bedford.
Dorothy: And you were born on what date?
H.B.: On the 9th of March in 1914.
Dorothy: And your parents were?
H.B.: Dad lived here as a child, all his life eventually. Mother came to work - I think it was Eckerton's (sounds like) - when they had the factory down there. That is how they met, and eventually they got married. Bernice was the eldest, my sister, and then my brother Alf - that needs a bit of an explanation too - I'll come back to that immediately following going through names - Bernice-Alf-May-Harold-Connie-Lloyd-Jack and Joan. My eldest brother, the second one in the family, left school and was working with Dad. On this particular day he came down on his motor bike and hit the train up there by Reed's - Fenchurch street train crossing - and was killed instantly, and that sort of changed our whole outlook on what we intended to do - so that fact, especially my life as I was taken out of school to help Dad farming and fishing.
W.B.: Your father's full name.
D: Your father's name was?
H.B. Frank Morris Bedford.
W.B.: Your mother was Ruby.
D: Good - that's put you in perspective. Thank you. You were born here in Goolwa.
H.B.: Yes.
D: And where in Goolwa did you live originally?
H.B.: Well the house has been knocked down, but it was two miles up stream from the main street.
W.B.: Quebec street.
H.B.: Yes. Quebec Street was the name of the street.
D: Off of Liverpool Road?
H.B.: Yes.
W.B.: But the property was from the corner of Liverpool Road up Quebec street - that was sold in later years, but the dairy was up there.
D: Your father had a dairy, or what was your father's occupation?
H.B.: Well - No - we had sort of a dairy, it was three or four cows but we eventually - after the barrages came into operation - we irrigated, and that is when we expanded the dairy; that would have been 1940's – we later expanded into market gardening and ran a local milk round as well as supplying vegetables to local outlets, but before that, of course, the barrages came on the scene and altered things around a bit. Dad lived in the same house that, as I say, has been knocked down. Mother came from outside - she was outside the District.
D: Where did your mother come from Harold?
H.B.: Well she was in Adelaide.
W.B.: Her name was Cook.
H.B.: Yes.
D: Cooke with an "e" or without?
W.B.: Without. She lived at Mitcham.
D: It is interesting to think about where a couple of generations ago they found their spouses because of travelling - often they looked around locally to who was there, and you found brothers were married to sisters and things like that happened because they didn't look very far afield. But obviously your dad got out and about a bit. (Laughter).
W.B.: His father fished a lot and took fishing trips down to the mouth, that sort of thing - they lived on the property. He didn't actually do a lot of work, but he was getting on in years anyway.
D: So your Dad was a fisherman and really made his living from fishing. In the Murray?
W.B.: Yes. In the Murray. Down the other side of the mouth.
H.B.: There was a pattern that the fishermen had to follow, you know - the fish would start to come around here – mulloway, in season, were near the Mouth, and as time went on, you would get more, and eventually when the river stopped running out, the fish came in. That was when fishermen would make their best catches. And when Dad got married, as far as I remember anything of, he found milking three or four cows wasn't going to give him a living - so that is when he started fishing. He was pretty handy with different things; he was getting on all right, but when the opportunity arose to get out of the fishing and look at tourism, was when to change direction again.
D: What did he do then?
H.B.: Well, like this - during the summer months, tourism was a business and Dad eventually got into it. He started taking fellows out with him in his boat when he went fishing, and it was something for people to talk about - went down the Coorong, that sort of thing. And then as the weather got colder about end of April, we gradually cut out the tourism – it dropped off, and there wasn't enough and we had to depend on a lot on Victor Harbour for day tourists. It's different from Adelaide, and really you could put it boldly - half the year I was a fisherman, half the year I was a tourist operator! (Laughter). Just the growing up part of it was just like anyone else, except the fishing was forced on us partly because of the death of Alf, having to give up formal education and become a farmer-fisher-tourist-operator was forced on us partly because of the death of Alf.
W.B.: He was born…(could not decipher) work.
D: A loss of an adult child in a family seems to alter all the directions in the family. I've seen it over and over again, as well as our own experience.
H.B.: Yes. Well I was only thirteen when it happened.
W.: His father took him away from school - he's not going to tell you that - because he wanted him home on the farm, and old Mr. Coglin was the headmaster of the school, and he had a fight with Harold's father about it. He got an exhibition on his qualifying certificate and he could've gone ahead and had a academic career was what he wanted to have, but his father took him home to work on the farm, and that was it.
D: The same thing happened in Linton's family and his brothers had to leave school and come home and work on the farm as well. That's how it was back in those days. And you went to school in Goolwa?
H.B.: Yes. One little thing I can remember Bernice - she was the eldest child, she was six years older - when I went to school, someone went and told Bernice - "Your little brother's up there and crying - I think he's lost." You know how kids get - they bought Alf along - of course I wasn't there then - any rate they smoothed it all over. I was actually pretty good as a scholar, as far as I got to grade seven.
D: And you got your exhibition.
H.B.: If you ever put this bit in - any of what you do, I talk about the whatever grade I was in - somewhere in the school was a list - every Friday we had a test, and if you got four sums and no errors your name went up for the week.
D: Honour Roll.
H.B.: Mine went up every week - I'm not boasting, but just I had no trouble at all, and I assumed I was a little better than the rest of the class and it showed up a bit more. But I don't think it made much difference to my life except that I would have had more time to read other books that I wouldn't have read.
W.B.: Except that he got a bossy wife! (laughter.) Well I'll tell you this we both played tennis for the Tennis Club here and we use to have dances, and they used to wear their white tennis pants and striped blazers, and Harold was walking down the hall towards me - in the big hall, this is the Centenary Hall - he was walking down to ask me to dance, and I had a look at him and thought he is for me. (laughter). That was it! He didn't have a leg to stand on after that! (laughter) and my father went up the pole at me the first time - he was going to Lodge and he expected me to stop home with mother, and he said to me - “What are you doing tonight?”, and I said, “I'm going to the pictures with Harold Bedford.” He said “Tying yourself down to a local boy!!!”, and he hit the roof, and I just ignored him because when I came down here, I had been out from under his wing for ten years, and suddenly he had a twenty-two year old daughter he couldn't do anything with! (laughter).
D: You knew what you were taking on though, didn't you, Harold?
H.B. Probably I didn't - well it just shows how people get mixed up. Now you're talking about me - okay, I did this - the next one did something else - then inevitably sooner or later they all got married. Joan was the youngest - she would've been the last.
D: You have just celebrated your diamond wedding anniversary - on the 23rd September 1999 - well done - and you have four sons.
H.B.: Yes.
D: Who are they?
W.B.: Trevor is fifty-nine. Tony is fifty-six. Philip will be fifty-five tomorrow. Tony is taking us into Julia Farr tomorrow to see Philip and our youngest son Eric (Ricky) is a detective sergeant in the police in Brisbane and he is fifty. July was the mad month here - three of them! ( Laughter).
D: Did you have a holiday?
W.B.: No. I was only thinking about it this morning - they were all born at South Coast Hospital - Doctor Graham Shipway was the best baby doctor anybody could ever have.
D: I've heard that before.
W.B.: He was wonderful.
D: Yes. He delivered them all around.
W.B.: You didn't go through all this hoo-hah they go through today. He looked after you - he was fantastic.
D: And he didn't have to pay $18,000 a year insurance to cover him against litigation. It was very different wasn't it? Your interest in the river has been life long?
H.B.: Yes - well when I left school I was thirteen. I only heard mum and dad talking about it - dad and Mr. Coglin didn't come to blows but rather heated, I believe. But a kid doesn't know these things, we just go on. But anyway, dad and mum had the right to say what would happen. Dad could see he couldn't afford for me to go on to a further education - not only would he have to finance me, but someone to take my place, probably. The person who took my place on the river - gradually, he would get several times as much money as I would, see far less expertise and running of boats. In that sort of thing you don't just say - well today I'm going to be a tourist operator and tomorrow I'll be a fisherman - it's just - looking back on it, there's lots of things happened - probably things I heard and didn't realise, but finished up I stayed at home, working, and going with Dad when he went fishing, that sort of thing.
D: "Bedford's" were the fathers of the tourist industry in Goolwa?
H..B.: One of them yes - the tourist industry during those years, when they had the horse and dray to come up - those were the years when I was still growing up, and I just did as I was told, but looking back, you could see Dad was looking out for that. I didn't make too many mistakes - which can always happen out on the river, if you are not careful.
D: Was the horse tram from Victor Harbour still operating when you were a child?
H.B.: As far as I remember yes. I don't think it had a break down.
W.B.: He is talking about the horse tram, which went across to the Island.
D: Oh! I meant the horse tram that came across from Victor Harbour to Goolwa. Was that still operating, or had they got a steam engine into it by then?
W.B.: That horse tram used to come over here when I first came here to live.
H.B. Oh well, I was only a kid growing up - you don't take particular notice.
D: Well you probably just took it for granted.
H.B.: Yes there are certain things you just take for granted. Other things you just have to go through a process and so on.
D: And did you get to a point where you just concentrated on working on the boats on the river, instead of the dairy farm and vegetable growing? Or was it always just a sideline? Or was it the whole life?
W.B.: Harold ran the whole lot - he was in charge of everything. The boats were our concerns, not his brothers. But the dairy, well he was the main stayer of the dairy - and Jack for a while - and when Lloyd came home from the war, Jack went off to town to work, (because he had married a City girl), and Lloyd worked on the farm. He and Harold ran the dairy and Harold and I ran the boats.
D: How many boats did you have Harold?
H.B.: Well we had the smallest number was three - there was a boat called The Rose - The Heather Bell - Agnostic .
D: (Laughter) That doesn't sound like you.
H.B.: Well, as I say, Dad sort of got into fishing in the winter time because anybody could get a licence and make a few bob to keep going, depending on the nature of the beast; but the years when I was still growing up, I couldn't get a ticket - that is a ticket to run a vessel along the river - until I turned twenty-one in 1935 - actually I had been sneaking, I sort of got into it - occasionally Dad would have the Rose booked, and I was told to take out the Ernabella - occasionally Lloyd would also be in it - he would take the Agnostic; and then at any rate Lloyd went off to the war, Jack and I stayed home and did the rounds, the fruit and vegetable round, then we got hold of the milk round, did that around Goolwa.
D: I had forgotten you did the milk round.
W.B.: We had a vegetable and milk round.
H.B.: That went on for until…
W.B.: It was 1960 when we finished everything. We had a herd of seventy jersey cows.
D: I guess you had some interesting things happen when you were on the milk round, the vegetable round.
H.B.: There wasn't much on the milk round happened, because I sort of kept out of that - Jack was in charge of that – (I do remember the horse bolting once, and the milk cart and the horse ending up in the river) - but things which happened on the boat, things like that, especially after I turned twenty-one.
D: Did they deliver the milk with horse and cart?
H.B.: Yes.
D: And the vegetables with horse and cart?
H.B.: Yes. I used to go around the town twice a week.
D: Everybody?
H.B.: Horse and van.
D: And everybody put their billycans and money hanging on a nail on the front fence. (laughter).
W.B.: I was thinking about…. (Could not decipher) when we were married - with the milk round, you used to get a lot of pennies and halfpennies like that, and of course Harold's father, when he was doing it, he would just take the bag of cash down and dump it on the Bank's counter - and the Bank people hated it. Then when I took it over, I did it all up in five shilling lots and all that sort of thing, and one of the men said to me one day - "I wished to God you always did it!" (laughter).
D: So you did it from then on.
W.B.: Yes. I did but we didn't have the round that many years and Murray Smith worked for us for a while. Poor old Murray is very sick.
D: Yes he is. With the vegetables they would load the cart up with their vegetables and then the housewife would go out to the cart and...
H.B.: Generally speaking, yes, and it didn't happen today and tomorrow – gradually - it got to the stage where Dad could see things weren't going to be too good but, so he started planting vegetables we could take around Goolwa. There was no way you could get a job, it was the Depression years, and gradually, instead of having a two-wheel dray with a frame on the top to carry crates of vegetables. Some of the ladies, call them, would come out to the cart - you had a job to get rid of them - they wanted to stop and talk all day. Others would say - "What have you got today? I want that that and that" - lovely parsley but like all things the edges get very blurred, can't really … (Could not decipher). Basically - okay, we were growing vegetables, then as we got a bit bigger we started buying vegetables that we couldn't grow here, and several years we did the run around Goolwa. We had competition from then -Williamson's at Port Elliot - he was one of the opposition, different ones tried different things, but it was pretty tough going in those years.
D: And what would then be your most exciting experience when you were captaining the boats on the river?
H.B.: I don’t know about exciting but….
W.B.: What are you looking at me for? (laughs)
H.B.: I was trying to think - we used to run the regular trips, were Tuesday - a trip to the Murray Mouth, they would come up from Victor and we would take them down the Mouth, and when we got half-way down I would have the kettle boiling and encourage people to have their lunch while we were still travelling. When we got to the Mouth. I would emphasise they could only stay one hour, because we had to get back, and then to Victor - even that went on - when they got out of the horse and cart and into the truck and buses they had more time to enjoy the river trip. That was all right - but I remember one incident - some woman had made herself a bit obstructive, any rate I said to come back what ever time it was - one o’clock for instance – everybody was back on time, except for this particular lady - “Back”, I said - “No, that lady down there.” She just came out from behind the sand hills, and I started yelling, and she just waved - so, at any rate, I thought - "I'll teach you", so I waited - I knew I had her attention when I started to retrieve the boarding-plank. The way we used to get from the boat to the shore was a plank about from here to the window over there, 10 feet long, and we had a rail along the side for support and guidance, so people could get on and off in a hurry - any way, she wouldn't come then - I started to pull the plank in - oh boy, did that hurry her on! - and by the time she got there, the plank was on board, and the water alongside was deep. She cried, the water was that deep – “Aren't you going to wait for me?” – “No, I've asked you to come.” - I was real mad with her, but I put the plank down again, and then told her to get on board and out of my way. Little things that happened, - but in bad weather, the boats we used in those days wouldn't compare with what we've got now they are real luxury boats, larger with better seats and facilities.
D: Did you sit on boards?
W.B. They had seats.
D: Were they covered?
W.B.: They were hand-covered and padded.
H.B.: Yes, as I say, compared to now the standard was very primitive. Of course, anywhere they went, even going up to the Barossa Valley, there were always handicaps. You couldn't do it in the time allowed, and those sort of things. But honestly, as far as exciting there....
D: Did you ever run aground?
W.B.: Oh no!
D: What did you use to navigate?
H.B.:A beacon there, another one there, and so it went on - and you were never out of sight of them - never more than a couple of hundred yards away from land anyway. That part of it was all right, it was the weather was the biggest killer - sometimes you would start off with reasonable load on, get out, and by the time you were coming back from Port McLeay it had blown up, got tougher, and somebody would be seasick. (Laughs).
D: How far up the river did you go with your boats?
W.B.: To Point McLeay.
D: Only to Point McLeay?
W.B.: That was the regular trip, until they let the jetty deteriorate at Point McLeay and you couldn't get in. It was a long jetty, and you pulled in at the end of it, and you would have to walk quite a distance.
D: When I was a child I thought it was only the very rich people that ever went on a boat anywhere - and probably that would have been a fairly general perception of people who went on boat trips.
W.B.: You could hire the boat privately. Families like the Barr Smith's and those sorts of people in Victor Harbour, they would hire the boat for the day, and just their friends. Quite often it would be just the mother, the maid and a heap of kids. Now and again the fathers would go, but they were always terribly polite - I think it was Barr Smith himself, the eldest son he was - he came onto the wharf and was getting onto the boat, and he was - "Mr. Bedford this", and "Mr. Bedford that", very polite, and when they got back to the wharf or at least they were getting close to the wharf, it was Harold old boy! (Laughs). I was surprised when we were in Victor how deteriorated now the Barr Smith's house looked, as if they don't use it any more - because it is a dead end down there now.
D: The Coate's (sounds like) used to have it. Didn't they?
W.B.: Yes.
H.B.: That boat the Barr Smith's later had their own boat, which was pretty expensive, of course, but it was a disappointment - Tom Barr Smith, he was going to show off to the rest of his friends in a boat that would go fast and the others couldn't beat him.
D: Made lots of friends.
H.B.: Yes, and enemies too - people were most unreasonable. If we get an early start and get out, and get through the barrage, we would have to stop and try to fish, and some days you couldn't get a bite - you would move on a mile or two and you might get one. One day a trip I took out I think they got about five or six little salmon about that long, which was in the limit. Someone got a mulloway……..(tape ceased.)
TAPE 1. - SIDE B.
D: Harold can you describe for us the building of the Barrage?
H.B.: Overall, it's a very long story - the building of the barrage was the final major structure of the barrage works. Let's have it quite clear - the barrage was a structure to prevent salt water coming from the sea up into Lake Alexandrina, and that's what the barrage was. It's performing its duty, as I say, by excluding salt water. It's sort of - you know the fresh water fishing was never very much, even hand line - there is more caught over here now than in those days. The way the business had developed, going to the Murray mouth on Tuesday - Port McLeay on Friday - Tuesday was all right because you could get away on time - always some of the drivers, there was about four different drivers, tourist operators at Victor . Well presumably they found they couldn't - they could get an interest up, down there, for something and came here. For several years they were part of coming to Victor. You would have enough money to look at this and look at that - Jim Abbott, the last one I think, took on the business there - Bob Watson - old Stevie. Did you ever know a chap by the name of Stevens?
Wif: He was the one who had the horse and cart outfit in the early years.
H.B.: Anyway they were - their vehicles would hold perhaps ten or a dozen people, so you would have four or five vehicles all lined up and each one trying to push their interests - by the time I was allowed to go out I had turned twenty-one - I knew a lot about boats that I hadn't learnt before, but, - we kept that going until to the 1960's - the one of the last boats I had was a boat called Sinbad. She had a licence for forty passengers.
W.B.: We brought that ourselves from Murray Bridge.
H.B.: The boat called "The Rose", she had a licence for eighty passengers. Sometimes you would get near that many, sometimes it would be a lot less, but that was part of the living. It was never good enough, really, to make a living off, so that's what I said earlier on - it was fishing in winter and tourist in summer.
D: How did they go about building the barrage?
H.B.: Well - they dug a section of the river out.
W.B.: They built a coffer dam.
H.B.: Wait a minute - and they had a wall about five or six feet deep - coffer dam wall.
W.B.: It was at least six feet wide.
H.B.: Out from on the shallow side, they just built up a sand wall to make an edge of it; in the deep water, then, you had to start using reinforcements, which in this case were mostly iron and there would be an edge like that -
D: Round about two inches in diameter?
H.B.: The - wait a minute.
D: What was round?
H.B.: Of course it wasn't, it was simply sort of a lock and key, I guess they were about fifteen to eighteen inches each individual - they would put that one in, drive it in - bring the next one, drive it in.
W.B.: Maybe I could describe the construction as my father, Samuel Parker Limb, was the Superintendant and Chief Mechanical Engineer for the barrages. Let me tell Dorothy - you better switch it off. First they built the coffer dam from the land and from about half way out from the river. Down here was a steel interlocking coffer dam wall, inside of which the inside wall was timber, making a gap about six feet wide; then it was all filled in with earth and sand, then they pumped it dry - the land inside was pumped dry, and the building of the actual barrage started, and whatever itself was on the bed of the river, and the pumps went all the time - because my father was the Chief Mechanical Engineer and he - I can remember one night - (we lived up in the town) - and somebody came after him because one of the pumps had conked out or something, and he banged on my bedroom window (laughter). “Mr. Limb! Mr. Limb!” I said - "Go around the front room" (laughter). But there were two coffer dams - they built that one, and the Captain Sturt was moored on the end of the coffer dams and that is where all the power came from. That is where their power plant was, on the Captain Sturt, and because they worked twenty-four hours a day - they worked right through the day, different shifts of men, of course, - and then when the work in that coffer dam was finished they built the other one, from the other side, and built the rest of the causeway. The first coffer dam was important because that had the lock chamber itself in it, and that was the most important part of the wall. The construction method started with very large wooden piles.
Piles were driven into the bed of the river. Piles were driven on an angle into, not straight down, they built - I haven't got any photographs of any of those things they - I'm afraid my brother collared all those photographs of the actual workings of the Lock itself. Dad was the first superintendent when the barrages were completed because he was - he came down here in 1935 when they were started, and mother and I came in 1936 but he was on Lock 5 - 6 & 8 on the river, and because it was all the same system, but the piles went in angle with a straight row down the middle and the other piles on an angle, and then it was all paved in stone which was called ricrac, around the end or the sides of the actual causeway itself, and then the concrete piers were built up on that which you see there now, and the walkway was built at the top of that, and people used to be able to stroll out on the barrage at their leisure, and that has all been changed now down here. I think they have only one walkway where people can go out - before you could just stroll out to the barrage, but now it's all monitored all the time.
D: Did they begin building the barrage in 1935?
W.B.: Yes, in 1935.
D: And finished in 1940?
W.B.: They were completed on the 7th February 1940. There is five - there is Goolwa, Mundoo, Boundary Creek Ewe Isalnd and Tauwitcherie. There's a lock here at Goolwa and a small one at Tauwitcherie – that is only for small boats, and the other four run right across. This is something which always bugs me about the bridge here, and all the fuss and bother about the natives. There was never a thing said – nothing - during the building of the barrages. There's a Lock here and there's a small one to Tauwitchery - that is only for small boats. They were finished on the 7th February 1940 and they came into operations on 17th February 1940, which happened to be my father's birthday and he was.
D: We have a daughter and grandson on 17th February.
W.B.: Have you! Then he was there as superintendent till 1947 and then he retired - during those years there, he was on the Mannum and Whyalla pipelines. He installed all the relief on the pump houses. He had to see to those - if the power went off, they had their own to work - he did a lot of work after he retired, actually. He worked here in Adelaide - Perry Engineering Company had a lot of the iron work for the Warragamba dam, and he was the inspector for New South Wales.
H.B.: Can I just put in about the coffer dam - the barrage? I wish to describe they were wooden piles around that round.
D: About two feet in diameter?
H.B.: Probably more than two feet in diameter, but any rate they were put in ….(could not decipher) lift off. You would have a pile there, would be leaning, you would hook it on - this was the steel work before the concrete was poured in, hook it on.
D: They would hook the steel onto the wooden pile?
H.B.: Well not necessarily over it - made a real web to - if.
D: Made a web of steel onto the wood?
H.B. We were amateurs and we asked all sorts of questions. What I didn't know, I'd ask Wif's father to find out what was what. But the different ones said to me - "Those timbers will rot if you drive it down to the bottom", but apparently it didn't. When Dad was fishing in the Coorong - this is a bit of a flashback - they use to drive long pegs – sticks - to tie the nets to; and wind and water, where those two mixed they rotted away there in a very few years, and pulled a few of them out. The only way you could get them out was to make a loop in the chain and drop it over, then wind away. The boat would be pulled down, but you would pull the pile up, and eventually they had to clear them all out. The ones they use, of course. I was just thinking which part of the barrage - I can't remember, Wif might remember. Do you remember them catching the mulloway inside the coffer there?
W.B.: I remember that once there was a big fuss about it. (laughs)
H.B. Well they weren't allowed to get anyone there, but when it got real dark, the fellows who were watchman - give the watchman a …(could not decipher) and go up the other end - these are little things you had, but what I was going to say was - when Dad was putting nets out in the river some way, you would put a stick down and lie the net on, then go on, put a stick down and tie the net on, and go across the river like that, and when it came to pulling them out - well some were pulled, some of them weren't there, but a chap called Jim Berryman…. You remember Connie? Anyway, I went fishing with Jim, one of the winters, and we pulled up several of these and it's hard to believe - when we cut them in the strip, I can't remember where Jim had arranged it all - you cut into the bark, and the pile itself was about that round.
D: That's about eight inches.
H.B.: Yeah - I had to go like that - I'm only giving an illustration, but what I'm getting at, you'd pull them up, you would get about half a dozen of these water logged posts, we called them, put them out on to the bank and such - for curiosity, I was mucking around, I was still a lad, and I cut one to see, and the green bark was showing green under water for several years, been driven through the water and mud underneath, and as it went down it was greener and greener and you could cut it and the sap would come out.
D: It didn't rot in the mud?
H.B.: Yeah - but any rate.
D: What difference do you think the barrage made to Goolwa?
W.B.: Tremendous.
D: Right, what were the differences?
H.B. Well - for a start, there was employment on the barrages itself - permanent gang, and a lot of maintenance, that sort of thing - but Goolwa itself, it didn't make much difference. After once they reached a stage on the Mannum pipeline, the men were offered jobs in other parts, but with the war coming on, I don't know.
W.B.: Well, it didn't - but it made a difference to us - in respect of it, we were the first people to irrigate, when the water became fresh. Harold eventually irrigated sixty acres of pasture for the cows when I was pregnant with Trev - well, in 1960 – no, Mother came down and stayed with me, it was 1940 he was born because old Mrs. Haynes - she use to tick her calendar up as soon as a girl was married, and we were respectable by ten days. (laughs). After we were married. But the what was I going to tell you - it's popped out of my mind – I've just remembered something I was going to tell you about our boats, what Harold hasn't - we had a barge, a cattle-carrying barge, the Radia (sounds like), and Harold used to go across to Loveday Bay on the Lakes, and bring cattle back here to load them onto the train before the big truck came in to being, and he did that for first two or three years of our marriage, I suppose.
D: The barge went to Loveday Bay but where was Loveday.Bay?
W.B.: Lake Alexandrina.
D: Near Point McLeay.
W.B.: Further on than Point McLeay, wasn't it?
H.B.: No.
D: Where is Loveday Bay?
H.B: Well, I need a map or something to show you.
W.B.: The map is down stairs on the wall.
H.B.: You must have a look at that before you go. The map showed where Loveday Bay is. We started off well - old Hain Dodd - he started this off, he retired from the river, he was a (could not decipher) skipper and he sold the barge-powered. It had two engines in it, and it could carry about thirty bullocks, and they would bring them down here in the afternoon and put them in the cattle yard, and early the next morning, load them into the cattle truck, and the train would pick it up, and away they would go. Gradually, as we said, with the advent of the long distance trucks - first off they couldn't carry enough sheep in it, then gradually.. but some of those bullocks, they kept them for several years, and they were huge great things - what they did with them I don't know, but that was - we only kept that going for about five years, because the trucks they could come over in the early hours of the morning, load up, and be back in the market in time to open the market. We couldn't do that here, because it took half a day to round the bullocks up over there, and it was not good putting them on then, you had to do it early in the morning. Load them up, bring them down here, and the train would have already gone that day, so you had to wait for the next day. It was three days involved in carting a truck-load of cattle.
W.B. The Rose was tied up in front of the property up there, and eventually it was tied up there because we weren't using it any more, and we took the little cabin off it, and that was moved over into our backyard, and that was the boys playroom outside. That was there for quite a few years - eventually the barge sunk, and just recently Tony said something about it - the remains of it is still up there under the water. (laughs).
D: What caused you to become interested in the Council, Harold?
H.B.: Well, I suppose, ultimately what persuaded me to go there was - along the river bank on Council property, there was a row of holiday cottages. Do you remember them?
D: Yes I do.
H.B.: Well I think there were seven or nine and it was becoming apparent that the people who had them would have to move off the river-bank. The owners were becoming concerned, and after several attempts, persuaded me to stand for election. Apparently, these people on the frontage, they were a bit scared, because they knew it was illegal - Milang was the same sort of thing. Any rate they got on to me one day and said that there was an election coming this year, and would I stand for election? and I said - "I haven't got the time" - any rate, they persuaded me to give it a go, and I said - "I'm not going to do much towards getting elected. I'll do what I can", but that's what started it. It was actually, we were having a conference, I can't remember who was there, and somebody said - another person's name was mentioned, and I knew a bit about this character - I said, “Well, if you want me, I better make myself available, I suppose.”, and that's how it started, once you get interested in it.
D: It's addictive. Isn't it?
H.B.: Yes. (laughs)
D: What year was that Harold?
W.B.: He was over fifty. It has been fourteen years up to 1984.
D: 1970 - You must have been elected to Council in 1970?
H.B. Could've been.
D: These people didn't want to lose their shacks along the shore?
H.B.: No. They didn't want to be tipped off the land. It was always understood once they built down along the foreshore, if I or Lloyd decided to ever sell any of the land, blocks of land, in front of their place, they would have first offer, but eventually that is what it came to, they – we, had a conference and I worked out what I thought was a fair go and.
D: Were those last cottages – shacks - were they removed from along the riverbank?
W.B. We sold them the land.
D: During your Council time. Were you in Council when the last of those shacks were removed? Were you still in Council when that happened and they cleared it right off?
H.B.: Yes I think so, because they'd bought the front the land across Liverpool Road from their shacks, Quebec street, along there, and rebuilt. Those who wanted to keep their holiday houses, some of them – well, some of them, the kids weren't using them, they didn't worry - several of them , they bought the land - they didn't actually all build a place there.
W.B. Once they got an agreement, Lloyd and I weren't so fussy, because they had our assurance that we wouldn't sell it from out under them, irrespective of anything.
D: The riverbank along there has changed considerably in twenty years hasn't it?
H.B.: I don't know, has it changed much? Well it has houses on it, of course.
The fencing now, - they used to have all the fencing was higgledy-piggledy, what was left over from where ever, so as long as it made a fence - but now they all have to be alike all the way along, and it's all kept nicely mowed, whereas some of them were a bit high with the grass and rubbish along there, but now it's all clean.
D: Burke's Birk's Estate - when was that put there? And why was it put there?
W.B. Burke's Birk's Estate - they have a subdivision there now, but originally it was the Birk's family country retreat.
D: Did they buy it off of you?
W.B.: No. Our land didn't go down that far.
D: One question - I'm just going off Council business for a moment. But I think it is an important one, just to go back to your boating days. Did you use to see Aborigines living down around the Coorong and the Lakes when you were around in your boats or had they gone?
H.B.: You rarely saw more than one little group - a family - there might be seven or eight in it. But just down here at Aggies Knob - (it has been flattened now, and is the area around and in the alongshore marina) - that was Godfrey's wife, mother and wife, but no, they didn't seem to get together, not as we have seen photos.
W.B.: There weren't any here, really.
H.B.: There was the odd one.
W.B.: The odd ones, yes – Whitneys, Rigneys and some others, those were good families. But, Dorothy, where a lot of confusion is the Coorong - the Coorong proper doesn't start until ten miles past the Mouth. See, people have the idea that once they are through the barrage, they are in the Coorong, but they are not. The Coorong channel runs from the Mouth right down for ten miles to the end of the Tauwitchery barrage, then it is the Coorong - it's a long way away, really, from here.
D: Then there were not many Aborigines obviously living around the town area?
H.B.: No.
D: Right back in your memory?
W.B.: The Rigney's and Sumner's, they were here.
H.B: They were half-caste.
W.B.: They were good families.
H.B.: Rarely saw a full-blooded native.
W.B.: The Sumners boys were fair-haired and blue eyed, you would never have thought they had any native blood. The Rigney boys had much darker skin. I always remember saying to our Tony once - we used to go to the pictures on Saturday nights, when the boys were old enough, in the big hall, and Tony was very fair when he was young. I remember I looked down the pictures one night, the children were all sitting down near the front, and there was Tony in the middle of them all, these Aboriginal and half caste and quarter caste children either side of him. (laughter) When he came out I said – “Don't you know any white children?” (laughter).
D: I used to have aboriginal friends up in Murray Bridge when I was a child.
W.B.: I always remember talking to the boys once on the wharf when I was waiting for Harold to come in on the boat, when one of them - Phillip could've been, the baby, - I remember then saying to them - “You must never ever refer to them as niggers. They are friends not niggers.”
H.B.: I can give you an incident, Dorothy - it's not typical, but I think it does show that there was - a Mr. Laurie, a school teacher, of that business there, and we got to know them quite well, and his ambition, he said, in his life was he could take an aboriginal and put the effort in and try and put him up to grade seven. There was not a grade seven representative of the aboriginal tribe. Well, Mr. Laurie said of this particular aboriginal was pretty smart, and so decided to try on him and anyway after about three months Mr. Laurie was telling us afterwards, he said this lad came to him and said – “I'm not coming any more.” “What do you mean?”, Mr. Laurie asked, “You were getting on all right!” “ I can't do it!”, the boy said. It was then, Mr. Laurie said, he should have realised he was butting his head against a brick wall. The boy just made up his mind. He was doing all right, but the discipline it was that knocked him.
W.B. The Laurie family did a wonderful job at Point McLeay absolutely - Max is still going.
D: When I was a child living at Murray Bridge, I can remember David Uniapon visiting my dad and my dad relish....(could not decipher) a great respect almost of awe of David Uniapon and what he was doing for the aborigines. We will just go back to the Council. What was your most satisfying achievement while you were in Council?
H.B. As far as I was concerned, Dorothy, I think that the drainage of water just there by the Oval, and it had been talked about doing something with it for years (laughs) and eventually something was done. They put the pipeline down into the river - I suppose you wouldn't be allowed to do that now. There was something that we all – well, not everybody, but most of the Council - delighted in saying that was something we could say - we did that, and that was good. I probably class that as the highlight of my time there.
W.B. I remember how delighted you were when we got that one going.
H.B.: I don't remember that, but I know the feeling of satisfaction over all those several years we chased it up. Then it meant you could seal some of the streets around Goolwa. (side B of tape 1 finished.)
TAPE 2. SIDE 1:
D: Harold, what were relations like between Councillors when you were in Council?
H.B.: Well, generally speaking, there might be a bit of an argument - it depended on the individual, doesn't it?
D: Yes.
H.B.: Take Wally Perry. When Wally got worked up, he was hard to stop. (Laughs). But I would guess they were a fair average. Qualifications? - put it that way, lot of us there, I didn't go to High School, but I did a lot of reading. Wally Perry, well once he got started, it was hard to stop him. I got on well with Lee the short time I was there – Ron, Ron Wellington.
D: That was the District Clerk?
H.B.: Yes - I know, but I was going to say, we had several - two or three - Freemasons in the Council. Ron was one and that sort of, not suppose to say that, OH Dear! Who cares, anyway? - but I think, on the whole, we got on all right. I did never hear really any strife or such - a bit of abuse perhaps - but I think it was a good thing that we were a mixed Council. Despite what people think, that we were not a cruel looking lot. But other than that, I would guess from what I've heard from other Councils, much about the same.
W.B.: I think we got on very well together. What was the name of the one from Mount Compass?
D: Geoff Duffield?
W.B.: No.
D: Don Black?
W.B.: Don Black. Yes. I had Philip home, with his leg in plaster. He had seven broken legs since 1971, but this was in the early stages while we still had him at home. He would have been fourteen, but I got him into the wheel chair. We had little ramps out. I was taking him out to put him into the car, and, as I was going down this little ramp, the chair tipped over and laid him out on the ground. I had to say to him “Look, you will have to stop there - I can't get you up.” , because he was heavy, and I remember rushing into the phone and ringing Council, because Harold was at Council, and it was Don Black which brought you home. To get him up again, I always remember that, and thought then - a good Council.
D: I think the Councillors develop really good relationships of trust with one another, if the Council is working properly, and really look to be helpful to one another, rather than fight one another. I think that’s what I would see. I will tell you something - they used to look upon you as the patriarch with all the wisdom, when you were there. (Laughter). And you would lead us down the path of wisdom. (Laughter). I will never forget about managed inactivity, which was your philosophy when it was a bit hard that day, so you would say – “I think we better get into some managed inactivity.” (Laughter). You have also been a Freemason, and of course you still are, and you have been active there, so you have that support group in the community, too, and besides that, you have been active in the Anglican Church all your life.
W.B.: How old were you when you started ringing the bell?
H.B.: That would've been when I was about eleven.
W.B.: You were only quite young.
H.B.: Ten or eleven.
W.B.: Harold’s mother was an Anglican, his father was agnostic.
D: That's why the boat was called Agnostic?
H.B. No. It was named before Dad ever got hold of it.
W.B.: He was not a believer. We don't go to Church very often now, its an 8.30 a.m. Service, and if nobody else rings the bell, Harold will get up and do it. He still does. Of course I played the organ for twenty-seven years.
D: I'm going to hear of your organ experiences when I put you on tape. What about, how long - are you still a Warden?
H.B. No. As far as the Church was concerned I used to ring the bell, take the collection up, and did little odd jobs.
D: Sidesman?
H.B.: Old Mr. Lackington.
W.B.: Harold was the priest's warden not the peoples' warden.
D: You were the priest’s warden?
H.B.: Oh well, they were interchangeable, really, but old Mrs. Lackington, she used to pay five shillings a quarter to someone to ring the bell and take up the collection, so that was my pocket money for quite a few years. I've always got a tendency, if I see something either makes me laugh or something, and the engravings in the Church as you go in the door, there is a plaque there - I think it's still there, you get so used to seeing it - I'm not even sure, but something about the bell, and this tower, was presented to the people of Goolwa by one of the Higgins or something. This is the bit I may register - happy hours for the many - "How fleeting are the hours anyway before the space in which time will be no more." I would read that, and then look away. I haven't used that for many years now, sometimes something crops up that just fits what you are thinking.
W.B.: The Council do give assistance with the clock and that sort of thing these days - well like Harold, they are all getting very old to go up the high tower - Anthony Presgrave helps quite a bit. We were married in the Methodist Church.
D: Here in Goolwa?
W.B.: Yes. I was brought up a Methodist - as a matter of fact, it was my father who organised the - when he came here for the barrages he - the Limb family was a well know Gawler family - that will all come out when you do the tape (with me), because I could go on forever.
D:That's fine. So you were married in the Methodist Church here in Goolwa. What was the minister like who married you?
W.B.: Old Mr. Nelson it was.
H.B. What was his name?
W.B.: His name was Nelson.
H.B.: Can't place him.
W.B.: The funny bit was Marjorie Dent played the organ, and we had, they had, lots of trouble with her, because all the years I sang in the Choir over there, from when I came here to live Dad organised the Choir.
H.B.: I better go downstairs.
W.B.: What's the matter? Switch that off.
D: Yes well I had switched it off but you tell this story and then I'll switch it off....there will be a little bit of it missing , so Marjorie Dent....
W.B.: She played the organ in the Church; her mother was a great supporter of the Methodist Church over there, and would have a funny on, and she came to Choir practise on Thursday night and if I had the soprano solo in the Anthem, (which happened quite often), she wouldn't turn up, and I would end up having to play the organ on the Sunday night service. And all the sopranos would have to sing the solo, but when it came when we were getting married Clara McKinnon...
D: I've heard of her.
W.B.: Of Middleton, she was a friend of mine, and she played the piano and organ very well, and I asked Clara to play for our wedding, and Mother said to me "No, dear, you can't do that. Miss Dent is the organist of the Church, and you must ask her. But", she said, " You can give her a time limit." So I wrote to her and asked her that I would have to know within a fortnight, and so when I didn't hear anything, I said to Clara “You’re it!” So I did hear afterwards, she did say to someone she did have a letter from me, but she was a funny girl - a sad girl, very sad, she was a bit crippled.
D: Some Church organists have given the rest of us a bad name by their temperamental behaviour. Harold, how did you get on repeating your vows at your wedding?
H.B. What?
D: Your vows - what you had to say after the Minister - what happened, what did he ask you to say? Your wedding ceremony when you were married. You were telling me that he asked you to say I, 'erbert.
H.B. Harold Herbert.
D: I, 'arold -'erbert. (Laughter).
H.B.: Well the ordinary vows you take "I Harold Herbert", and so on, but he was notorious (laughs). Well you don't see that type of uneducated but earnest - I can't remember very much about him, but it's going back quite a distance - fifty odd years - sixty years.
D: So then you must have known some very colourful people who lived around here?
H.B.: Not as many as you might think, Dorothy, because there wasn't much to do. People pottered around their own home - Oh there was always some societies - you read them now, there's a new one every week comes onto the market.
D: But what about Hector - you know Hector Sermasco? Hector Sermasco, have I said it right?
W.B.: Hector Sermasco - Oh yes, we knew Hector.
D: And didn't he live down on the banks of the river?
W.B. No., We lived on Fenchurch Street.
D: No, but Hector?
W.B.: Hector - he lived on his boat most of the time.
H.B.: He kept his boat in the harbour most of the time.
D: That's it - he lived on his boat.
W.B.: He was a funny old fellow.
D: And then - I've forgotten the name - it's connected with Signal Point where they used to build the boats down there on the slip - Armfield - You know Armfield?
H.B.: Yes.
D: You know Captain Armfield?
(Laughter).
H.B.: I didn't know any Captain Armfield.
D: I think it was Captain Armfield.
W.B.: One of the - which Armfield was it that you used to get - Harold loved the fish livers. One of the Armfield's, they used to have a lot of mulloway on the wharf, and Harold sometimes used to get some. I hadn't liked them much until I tasted them, then I regret that I hadn't eaten them as often as he had, but they consider them as an aphrodisiac, and after one of them our children was born - I think it was when Philip was born - I think somebody was going to give Harold some, and he said to Harold –“What in the hell do you want those for? You have already got three boys or whatever , (laughter) you don't need any more!”
D: What about Gertie - what was her name?
H.B.: Who?
D: Gertie that used to drive a horse and cart.
H.B. Gert Bryant was her name.
W.B.: She was after Ricky, was in the Police force in Adelaide, her name was one of the names on the top list that they had to look out for, old Gert Bryant. (Laughter).
D: For what reason?
W.B.: Just for disturbing the peace.
D: How did she make life interesting around Goolwa?
H.B.: Well, we didn't really have a very big Aboriginal population, but it seemed to be somebody leaves and somebody fills it up so there was a thin coat of Aboriginals like that.
W.B.: I think she looked after the Sumner boys for a while, didn't she? I remember one of the Sumner boys…
H.B.: No. I think that was one of the Rigney's. Who were looking after the Sumner's
W.B. Perhaps it was, too.
D: Was Gert Bryant, was she half caste aborigine?
H.B.: No. I don't think she was.
D: She just lived with the aborigines.
H.B.: Oh yes, very casual relationships. (laughs).
W.B.: I think she was Maori.
H.B.: Len Coglin told us that one of the first tests that an amateur policeman had, before he had to go and arrest Ethel May Bryant - she was mixed up with it somehow, but that is what they did - Len said someone would report that this woman, aboriginal woman, would be making - playing up on the footpath there go on off you go - they would grab the rookie and the experienced man - that is how the rookies learnt to handle themselves, not get hurt, because that could happen.
D: Were there others around? Did you know Mr. Newell - Morris was his name? He was one of the old Councillors around. Did you know him? He was a hundred or something when he died?
H.B.: Yes, just over the hundred, a hundred and one.
D: Are there some other things that you would like to record, that you found interesting about living in Goolwa?
H.B.: I don't know, it would be fairly typical of any country town I think - do what you had to do.
D: How do you feel about the development?
H.B. I'm not opposed to them. I hope they don't overdo it. You have to be careful all the time that you cut a tree down because you can't cut it up.
D: You would like to see that character of Goolwa kept as much as possible?
H.B.: Yes. If we could get someone like Dorothy who is willing to put the time into it - it might come up with ....(could not decipher). (laughs).
D: This area here was all open paddocks a long time ago.,
H.B.: Yes. Richie's farm - this was one of - they got three hundred acres or something, haven't they?
D: Yes I think so.
W.B.: The house is still there.
D: Did Murray Downer develop South Lakes while you were in Council?
W.B.: Lieberman did it.
D: Lieberman.
H.B. Dashed if I know.
W.B.: I don't think Murray had much to do with it, was all Lieberman did all this area - Murray used to have a place over here.
D: Did they keep cows or sheep?
H.B.: Cows. Richie kept cows.
W.B.: It was supposed to be cows around the place - further out the farms had sheep, but not close into the town.
D: Did they have a milk round, too? What did they do with the milk?
W.B.: Milk went to Amscol Factory at Victor Harbour. First off, when we first had cows - the cream was taken off of it, and it was the cream that was sent away, and you had a few pigs to feed the milk on.
H.B.: Those days was case of separator.
W.B. Yes the separator.
D: By hand, when you turned the handle round and round, and if you went fast then the cream was thick, and if you went slow the cream was thin.
W.B.: I had to learn to make butter, when we were first married, because Harold's mother made her own butter.
D: Are you still a Justice of the Peace?
H.B.: Yes, well, unless you are officially retired, it just goes on. I don't sit on the bench any more. I wouldn't qualify for that - occasionally someone would hear I'm a Justice. I can witness the odd
document.
D: You are a life member now aren't you?
W.B. Yes, he is a life member.
D: Do you remember how many years you sat on the bench?
H.B. No. Around about from 1960 I suppose.
W.B. Till you were seventy. You could not sit on the bench after you were seventy. That's fifteen years ago. There's a little plaque up there from the Police .
D: Roy Galpin was the Coroner. Wasn't he?
H.B.: Yes. All Justices' are qualified but ...
D: He used to do it.
H.B.: They used to nominate somebody; actually it's commonsense - the local policeman he would know whether I would be available, or he wouldn't bother, but it is a matter of ordinary commonsense.
D: Did you have any interesting cases?
H.B.: Only what we dealt with - anything of any size would be adjourned to Adelaide - murder or things like that, we would not be in the race.
D: What did you discover, Wif?
W.B.: Well, when Harold finished on the bench, Graham Hann and Bob Rosser (sounds like) were our policemen here, and they turned up at the front door one day, both of them, and Harold went to the door and they said – “Is Wif home?” and he said “Yes”, and they came in, and he said “What has happened?” They said – “It's all right - we want her to be there.” They came up stairs, and they presented Harold with that little plaque over there - for the years he served on the bench. When we showed that to Len Coglin, because Len was right up there in the Police Force and he said that is the first time in all his years of experience he had ever seen anything like that happen, that the Police presented to a J.P. their thanks for what he did for years on the Court.
I'm glad someone recognised you. (Laughter).
D: Have we covered all the interesting things in your life - activities.
W.B.: We'll have three fifty year jewels - that's your Lodge membership.
D: Different sects of Freemansony?
W.B.: Three fifty year jewels as a member - another one to come. Only Harold has withdrawn his clearance from the two Lodges he belonged to in Victor Harbour, the night-time ones, the day-time one he still goes to occasionally. But he still belongs to Corinthian here. So, but he has badges galore for Lodge.
D: When did you move down here?
W.B.: We have been here twenty-two years. We moved down here in 1977 - I can't think of the month Can you remember what month we moved down here?
H.B. No.
W.B.: We had this house built. Vern Schultz built the house and then he said I could sell it for a million. Thanks a lot - I'm going to live in it, not sell it. That was in 1977. None of our boys stayed - Trevor did his apprenticeship with Barton’s at Port Elliot, and then his life has been along the river - and Kangaroo Island and in the City all in the ...(couldn't decipher) and I think he serves only two weeks on the boats - they only run from Monday to Friday, they don't run at weekends, and then the other two weeks he works at their headquarters in Adelaide. And Tony is of course a top defence scientist who has been all over the world, built his retirement house about five or six years ago here. We gave the boys the blocks opposite where we lived at the top, on the second sub-division we had there. Ricky sold his block, because there has been a split - although he was a detective sergeant instructor at Fort Largs Police Academy for several years - he was twenty-three years here in the Police force, and then his second marriage - her - she was an odd sort of a girl, from here, and she was brought up in Adelaide by her grandmother, and her grandmother died, and she only had relatives in Queensland - so that is why they went up there - and then two or three years ago, she left him - he had a son by that marriage, he has two children by his first marriage - they are both married - and Cory is eighteen, by his second marriage. Last December we flew to Brisbane for four days, we had altogether one up and one back, for his wedding to his third wife, and she is a very beautiful girl. We have just had a book from him. He is, I'm not sure without reading the book again, he was President of the Ulysses Bikers' in Brisbane - they are not bikies, they're bikers, and they had - he has had trips over here, rides a great big motor bike - tows a trailer behind it and last year they went to Bungeree in Western Australia. He had several cousins, mainly through my side of the family, but looked him up - knew he was there and then this year they went to Cairns and we have just received the book from him of the trip up there, and next year they will be here, in the Barossa Valley, and we hope they will come down here some of the time.
D:I just want to say how much I appreciate all that you both have shared with us this morning, and I think it’s going to be valuable for the history book, and I've enjoyed talking life with you and looking out over the river, and watching what has been happening while you have been talking, so we wish you all the best for all the rest of your life - thank you again.
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