Syd SMITH

 

 

Oral History is "A picture of the past in people's own words" (B. Robertson, 2000 Oral History Handbook). 

It is a spoken account, reflecting personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning. 

 

TAPE 1, Side A, recorded July 2005

 

Syd: I was born at Goolwa, 31st of October, 1918. I was born in a cottage belonging to Captain Johnson. That part of Goolwa is known as Little Scotland. I was born within a couple of hundred yards of the river, so I was born on the banks of the Murray.  I had a mid-wife deliver me - the doctor got a bit late - but a Mrs. Orr done the job, she was a mid-wife, acting, at the time.         I stayed there for a short time, then we moved up closer in  the town. My father built a house in 1923, and I lived there then for the rest of my junior life, in that house, opposite the Catholic Church, on the other side. He quarried the stone, for the house to be built.     I started school in 1923, and I left school at an early age, and I went and worked for a cousin. He had a touring picture show. We showed it at no less than about 20 different towns, and the Adelaide Hills, and Fleurieu Peninsula way.

Barbara: Was he a projectionist? Did he own the movie-house?

Syd: That's right. We dismantled it and put it together every day. I didn't get tired of it, but I loved bees, and I had an opportunity of working at Victor Harbor with a beekeeper. So I went and worked there for six months, to learn all about bees. I'm very fond of them. I wouldn't kill a bee.  Things were tough. there wasn't much work around. The Depression was on, and I worked on a dairy for about six months, milking cows. Then I got a job on the Goolwa Barrage. I went down in 1936, and I left in 1938, so I can tell all about the first coffer dam. I saw the first pile driven, and also the first concrete. The job there was under the foreman named Angus McKinnon.    My duty was to go and check up, a couple of times a day, that all the different gangers had the work done for him, and find out whether they wanted any tools or anything. He'd give me a requisition - I would go to the store with the requisition to get the article, and take it out. It meant that the men weren't held up.

B: How many men would be working around there, at that time?

S: About 200. Goolwa was a big job.  I realised it was being finished in 1940. Looking for work, I then joined the railway. I transferred from the Water Works to the South Australian Railways, and I started as a Junior Porter at Eudunda. There, the Stationmaster said - "If you do as I tell you, you'll go a long way in the job."  He had no boys of his own. I qualified in quite a few things there, and I transferred over to Saddleworth. I stayed at Saddleworth for a couple of years.

B: Can I just ask you, where is Saddleworth?

S: North of Riverton, South of Clare. It used to be a busy place.

     And then I went to Peterborough, and it was terribly busy - the War was on. The hardest jobs I ever done was to go down as guards on the train, and I took ammunition shells 20 pounds in weight up to Cockburn, which is on the border of New South Wales, so I knew all the station operations in those places, and, at night-time, very often, I had to shunt in the dark. Then, I qualified while at Peterborough, and I passed Telegraphy. I wanted to go further, so I asked the Department - I heard there was going to be a vacancy at Goolwa - would they agree to a transfer here so I could study more? So they granted the request. I passed the exam - there was many. many who sat for it - I passed it, but I didn't go straight to take advantage of it. I wanted to stay at Goolwa a little bit longer.

            My first job was Parcel Clerk at Murray Bridge, and in a matter of a few weeks, I was appointed as a Station Clerk at Tailem Bend. In the absence of a Station Master, the Station Clerk takes the responsibility of Station Master. There was three of us in the same Class, so in the absence of the Station Master, whoever was on duty was in charge. Well, there were eight clerks at the Station, on the Freight and Parcels and that, and the Stationmaster made me the senior man. I was more qualified than the others. I stayed there till 1954. I was appointed Station Master at Sedan. I wasn't there long - I opened and closed it.          I was the last one to be there. Then I went to Manoora. I didn't last there for very long, because I put in for a job as Relieving Stationmaster, Adelaide, and I got the appointment. The region north of Gawler and just below Red Hill, Yacka and White-Yarcowie, and all between those stations - there was about 20 of them, I believe. I did all of those.

B: The Railways were very important in those days, weren't they?

S: They were. I worked at some places with 24 men working under me.

            My wife took ill, and....I wanted to get off relieving. I had over five years of it. I didn't want to, but you had to take that relieving position to get promotion. Then I put in for Saddleworth, and I went back there as Station Master. I was only there for about ten months, and I applied for Morgan. I got the job at Morgan as Station Master, and then I got further promotion to go to Nuriootpa. I stayed there 13         1/2 years. It's a great place - a lot of work, a lot of responsibility. The quarries up there - Penrice Quarries - big quarries, our railway trucks were supplied to them. There was the wineries, and other plants at Nuri.

B: When you changed these jobs each time, did you have to pick up your family and move on each time?

S: Yes. My wife got tired of it. We lived in ten different towns in our married life. My wife said - "I'm fed up. Don't take another job. I want to stop here." Her parents lived at Greenock - mother, then - and she knew everyone.

B: This is Greenock in Adelaide?

S: It's out from Nuriootpa, four miles from there.

B: Not Scotland Greenock?   (It is to be noted that our interviewer is a 'wee Caledonian', with more than a slight accent)

S: They have the band up every year, the Scots Guards Band, and they have Scots Day.

            So my wife wanted to stay put, and her mother was living at Greenock. I was happy, and my daughter was able to get work there in the shop, and we stayed there, because it was always a problem of her finding something to do.

            I bought this block at Goolwa in 1966.

B: This is the house you're in at the moment?

S: I bought the block '66. In '73, built a holiday house.   I could see them fishing down in the salt water, with the binoculars.  I came here in 1980 to live for good. I've been here ever since. My wife and I used to have a lovely garden. It's neglected now, but I just can't do any work much in the garden.

B: Well, I'm going to contradict you there, about your garden, because when I came through that gate today, I thought - "What a lovely, tidy garden this is!"

S: I'm waiting on the man to come and cut the lawn and tidy it all up.  My wife and I had a wonderful garden.

B: So, you bought this block here in 1966, and you moved here in 1973?

S: I got it built [in 1973], and I used it as a holiday home until I retired.  I got a builder to add on to the house. I thought the children would stay in that part, but they never did. That was a waste of time. There's seven rooms all together.

B: Going back to when you moved to Goolwa, what where you doing then, what was your job?

S: I was Stationmaster at Nuriootpa. We had, in the busy days, 16 rail cars went through - big freight trains - Nuriootpa was a junction to Truro and Angaston. It was the busiest station in the Valley.

B: So Goolwa wasn't a station on the level of Nuriootpa. Was Goolwa more for barges and boats, or...?

S: Nuriootpa was a Class 4, Goolwa was a Class 7. There was nothing here much, mainly passengers. They used to send the cheese away from the Hindmarsh Island Cheese Factory, and trains come down on some Saturdays, and there would be a train-load of people - perhaps up to 200 - and they would catch the paddle-steamer Renmark, and they would go for a trip on the day around to Mundoo and back, and they'd catch the train at night. But during the War, it was terribly busy, and - as a passenger - I had to stand up until Strathalbyn before I got a seat.

B: You can't imagine that today, can you?

S: No, that's how busy it would get. And, to get my wife a seat on the train, I used to get in quick. I would open the window and she would climb in and take the seat.             

 I loved fishing in the launch that I used to go away in, but they brought fishing restrictions in, and I'm limited now, I don't know whether I could fish, but I've still got some nets, and I've still got a licence to set a net.

B: So you did a fair bit of fishing, then?

S: Yes. The biggest school of mulloway I ever helped catch was 4 and-a-half tons, and they weighed anything from 12 pounds to about 25 pounds (each).   I've had a vast knowledge of fishing, because Godfrey's Landing - Charlie Godfrey and I used to go out, and we used to go 50-50 with our fish, and I got his knowledge of fishing. To look for them, you get up a mast 40 or 50 feet, and you look down (into) the water, and each school of fish has got a different colour - if it's a golden colour, like a beer bottle, then that was mulloway; if it's blackish, they were mullet - you could judge from up there. We used to go up the top there, and the man down the bottom - generally, there was three of us - you stop up the mast, and tell him where to go, and he'd go right around them, and then they'd pull them in.

B: Well, that was fishing, wasn't it - not standing on the beach with a little rod, is it?

S: No-one knows that now. Bert Lundstrom might know, perhaps.

B: Was that how most of the fishing was done, around that time, with the nets?

S: Yes, mainly the big catches in the season, from October until March, was the mulloway schooling,  when they come in through the Murray Mouth in schools. But it's blocked up now, and they can't  (get through?). They're not allowed to set that type of net, either. The nets were mostly made in Scotland, the big mesh nets for the mulloway. Other nets you could buy other places.

B: See, they don't even do that in Scotland anymore. They're really restricted in their fishing rights, now.

S: I told you that I was interested in the Masonic Lodge.  I continued to take an interest in that - I've been a member for over 60 years.

B: Which Lodge were you in?

S: The Corinthian Lodge.

B: That was here in Goolwa?

S: Yes. We all put together and raised funds to buy a hall. But the town didn't have a hall suitable. I'd like to say something about Mr. (P.M.) Wells. He was a chemist, and he came to Goolwa when he was a verywealthy man. He built the Centenary Hall out of his own pocket.

B: The Centenary Hall in the main street?

S: Yes. He paid each man, and he paid them by cash. My father was a contractor, and he supplied all the limestone to build the Hall. 

B: Is that where you held your Lodge meetings, in the Centenary Hall?

S: Yes, that's right.

B: So that still is the Lodge Rooms?

S: Yes. But you can't see it at the back of the stage. That hall's huge! (30-40 foot wide).

            (ADDED FOOTNOTE: The Lodge bought the Centenary Hall from Mrs.           P.M. Wells after her husband died, and gave it to the town of Goolwa).

B: I've been in it, but I've never noticed it as a Masonic room.

S: It's blocked off. It's a big room, as wide as this room, (large-ish lounge-room)  and it goes for the full width of the hall, but it's in behind the (back of the stage).     We bought the hall from Mrs. Wells - she owned it when old Percy died. Mr. Wells, he had a dispute with the Institute Committee, they wouldn't agree to something he wanted to do - he was the Mayor of the Town at the time - so he said - "I'll build my own Hall", and that's why he built it. He was at the Boer War, and he got hit in the head, and he had a plate in his head, but that didn't matter. I've got a photo of him, and her.

B: Do these people still live in Goolwa?

S: No, they're all dead. They had two girls. I found out afterwards that my grandfather Davies and Percy Wells were cousins.  I got on well with him. There's so much about the town, I don't know where to start. When I was a kid, everyone had a cow. If it wasn't for the cow, they would have starved as there was not much work. The Council - we paid them a pound a year - and you got a medal, and you put the cow out the gate, and it went all around the town - it was unfenced - and at the right time, the cow would come into the gate, and you'd milk her. Those cows all wanted chaff, so there was a chaff merchant, used to go around on the Saturday, and say "Do you want any chaff?", and of course, you'd keep three cows, so you'd buy your chaff off the chaff merchant. Another thing which applied - and people don't think of it now  - every house had a fire-place, and they only cooked on wood-stoves. That meant there was a wood-carter,....  In those days, it was entirely different. I remember the first motor-car coming into the town.

B: When was that?

S: About 1924. I'm guessing that.  I was about 6. When my father played football here, and he said - "Come over and have a look at this!"   I've got a photo that my father had of the Goolwa Football Club of 1923, taken there.

B: The car, what make was it, can you remember?

S: Might have been a Buick, or something like that, or an Overland or a Ford - might have been a Ford. I rememberthe horses - we'd be riding along on the road and - "Here comes the Motor-Car!" - the horse would bolt! We'd have to pull the horse in.  All the roads were metal. My father had a motor-bike and a side-car, and we'd go into Adelaide through Ashbourne, and took him all day to get to Ashbourne, the road was so bad. We camped in a shed at night. It was full of possums, and I thought they were rats! The next day we come back to Goolwa.

B: So you had to stay overnight?

S: In a shed. We got permission. Papa knew someone out there, and we slept in their shed, and then back home again. That was our trip to Adelaide.

B: Changed days. It would take all day to get to Adelaide from here.

S: The roads, or no roads. Made it hard for the funeral people - they had to walk a long way to the cemetery, at the Creek (?Currency Creek?) - They couldn't get by, they were carrying the casket, the coffin, right in from outside off the road - they couldn't get in because the roads were all boggy.

            I went down to the Coorong - I can remember it, and I was only 5. We went down with a gentleman called Harry Hay - he was a German, and he jumped ship and come to Goolwa, and he was a fisherman. We went down to the Coorong, and to get down to the Coorong, he had to wait for the tide to rise - and at two o'clock in the morning, you'd have to get out of bed and sit in a dinghy while the boat floated over. There was wild ostriches down there, and we went ashore and there was an ostrich nest. My father took the eggs, and, coming out, we saw the ostrich coming back! We got into the dinghy and he followed it out till he couldn't go any further - he couldn't kick us, but he followed us out. That's the earliest I can remember, because my sister wasn't born then.

 

 

 

 

TAPE 1, Side B

 

Syd: We always used to go down the Coorong, because the mullett  would go up there in the winter. There was big money to be made out of mullett, so they went right up to Meningie after mullett.

Barbara: Have you seen a lot of changes in the town, has the town changed very much?

S: Oh, in the last fifty years - there was only one house on the left side of Beach Road, the Governor Hindmarsh Hunting lodge, with grey roof. The Castle  [Graham's] , and there was only one house up there. There was no houses this side.

B:What was in the main street of the town at that time? There'd be the two hotels...

S: The Australasian building, the Hall - up till 1930, then there was the Goolwa Hotel, that was built in 1853, it was the oldest, third one, Corio Hotel, built approximately 1858. Hotels were built by a Mr. Verco, Cornish man, and then the Town Hall, and the Church of England; the house on the corner was originally built in the 1860s, a saddler's shop. There was nothing much at all.

            Getting back to the early days, I'd like to mention that my great-grandparents were Scots, and they came from near Killmarnock, in Scotland, and arrived in Australia in 1853, on Christmas Day. With him, he brought the remainder of the families, because two sons settled here in 1848. He was a butcher, and we've got a record all about him. His son was a butcher also, but he was thrown from a horse in 1865.

 

            Arrival of visitor.

 

B: Syd has a visitor now, and you're related to Syd in what way?

Visitor: Syd's great-great-grandfather was a brother to my great-grandfather.

S: Your great-grandfather, Hugh, is a son of James..

B: Your great-grandfather is a son of Syd's great-great-grandfather?

V: They were brothers. that's how we're related.

B: Have you always been in touch?

V: No, it's only this year that we've really got to know each other. I came in to help Syd with his chores, since I moved down here from Adelaide, so that's when I asked him did he know the Smiths at Yankalilla? I knew his forebears in the book, the Smith book that was written back in 1972. I only knew Geordie, I didn't know where the rest of the family went to.

B: Tony - is it Tony? - did your family settle more around Adelaide?

T: No, not really - my mother was brought up on a farm first, she was born in Minlaton, on the Yorke Peninsula, and her father farmed there, at Brent Wood for a number of years. Then he moved to Adelaide and semi-retirement, because my grandmother was ill. But then she got better again, and then she had another child - a boy - previously she'd had two girls, and then Grandfather moved to a farm at Roseworthy, which was on the outskirts of Roseworthy. Now that farm has been split up into blocks.

B: What relatives are we talking about, in connection with Syd?

S: Tony's relations?

B: Tony's father, who'd be then, perhaps your nephew?

T: No. It's through my mother.

S: ...my great-great uncle..

B: It's not a male connection, it's a female connection?

T: Yes. My grandmother would have been a niece of your (Syd's) great-great-grandfather's.

S: Yes. It all goes back to Scotland. My family came from Kilmarnock near Glasgow, Lauden Kirk Village, Kilmarnock.

B: What's possibly happened, like Tony's just saying about the old farm being there, now it's into blocks, and they tend to change the name of the areas when they put houses in there. So I reckon it's been an old village, and it's got built out, and it's come in with a different area then, and it's got a different name, now Lanarkshire.

S: I realise you said that they've done research all over Scotland -

T: Yes. Your book there, has a lot of research into Scotland.

S: And Barbara knows all about that part -

B: Near where I lived.

S: We're probably relations!

                                    laughter

B: I'm a Gifford, my maiden name is Gifford.

S: McPherson, was it - the clan she belonged to, the great-great-grandmother? You'll see it, you'll read it.

 

 

 

 

 

Tape 2, Side A, recorded August 7, 2005

 

S: In regards to the barrage, the first I knew that was active was that the Captain Sturt arrived at Goolwa with three barges tied to it. Permanent barges on the side, done up with a rope at the back. The first thing they had to do was establish somewhere where they could get wood, because it depends on the wood for the bollards. They went just north of the Aquatic Club, and they had a bucket dredge included, and they dug a hole. That was the nearest firm ground, going that way, in which they could go into the growth to collect wood. All the homes that were over lock 7 and possibly 9, belonged to the workmen, and they brought them down also on the barges. It started from where Bristow-Smith joins the Barrage Road, and right to the barrage, was houses. They were timber-framed, but well made. I guess, only from memory, I don't want to tax my brain out, that  there were over 30 houses along that road. Anywhere you could get a house built, there was a  house. Then, when you got down to the barrage, down there where you turn off now to 19 beacon - before, staff had little cubicles along there, and then when you got down to where the first house is, there was huts, cubicles for men, single men away from home, and then  there was a big mess that covered for the meals, built behind that. In regards to the buildings of the barrage, the first place on the right was the carpenters' shop; attached to that was a big machine shop, then the blacksmiths' shop, and the store room.  Blacksmiths' shop, and then the store. Big building, and then at the end was a first-aid attendant, who was on all day, in case of accidents.

B: Is there anything there of this now? It's all gone?

S: All gone.

B: How long would that have been away now, some years?

S: 1940

B: You're talking about 1940?

S: No, I'm talking about 1935, 1936. The road was only metal, and on the eastern side - I'll go on about the buildings. The first place was a big high gantry - three storeys - they put the metal in the top, the next landing there was a big mixer, where they put the cement in with the other, and underneath was room  for the train, a little steam-train that used to take the concrete down to the piers that they were building. Then the next place was a great big shed, a cement shed, and the next place was a big string of offices,  they'd have clerks and engineers in there. That concluded that part of the buildings which I've mentioned.

            Below the barrage, they dredged what's a little island now - they used to take gravel down there to build up the supply. That has been made by the barrage. The other two islands were cleared away when they completed the barrage, but there was one other island where the men were preparing the barrages and things were kept on that island. Then, coming down to the left, before we got down to along the coffer-dam, there was two boilers continually in operation, for the machine shop - always in use - and another one on the land, which was for emergency when the other barge required three boilers to maintain the steam. Run entirely on wood, there was eight men in a wood-gang. The majority of wood was brought down by steamer, from near Swan Reach. The amount of wood is something about 120 thousand ton, I think.

B: That's a lot of wood.

S: And, of course, there was the other barrage, but this one was the largest - big barge lanes were built, and the gangs'd unload the barges, and they were continually feeding the boilers out on the steamers, and the floating cranes.

B: They would have to have made accommodation for these men, wouldn't they, because the town wouldn't have held that many people?

S: Any place in Goolwa, a lean-to, a verandah on the back, would be occupied. The Departmental houses were built of wood and iron, and they put  a lining on inside. They finished up with Advertiser-plastered walls, and they wall-papered it, and they looked quite comfortable.

B: A little bit like the pre-fab housing that came after the War, in Britain, when you had to get homes up in a hurry?

S: They were larger than the pre-fabs. They added to them. They built two or three rooms, and then those that required four rooms, they added to it if their families were too big.

B: The ones that I know of, because my aunty had one, and it was a beautiful little home, like a little cottage it looked like, and there were normally two bedrooms and a kitchen and bathroom and lounge-room.

S: In regards to the barrage, how they built it, they had tongue-and-groove steel pylons, and they went right around where they wanted to make the coffer dam - I well remember the pile-driver that completed it, and then they put sand on the inside, to stop the pressure of the water pushing it over. Then they pumped out the water, so the pile-driver could work, and then they went in with the pile-driver, 60 foot high, and they were all 40-foot piles, because the ground was only silt, nothing else - it's not sand, it's silt bog. That created a line of poles then, upright. Then came the other pile-driver, it drove the poles in on an angle, on both sides, to take the weight of the concrete and the piers.  In the centre, they went along with a different pole-crane, and they drove a string of iron poles, one side of the river  to the other, 40 foot deep, to stop the sea seeping underneath, because it would wash all the silt away. They were also tongue-in-groove and they are in there for all time. They didn't have any metal for re-inforcing it, and there was no men on the job who could do the re-inforcing rods. They were all different shapes and sizes. They got a loan of three men from the Harbours Board that came out to do all that work. Then, of course, they put the piles in.Then came the setting up of the boxes for the concrete, and it was all poured in one day, from time to time.

B: There's a lot of hard work there then, not with our modern machinery.

S: It took four years, or five, to build them. It wasn't an easy job. They had the pressure of the sea to contend with. One of the engineers told me that the concrete, they knew, would last for 500 years. So there wouldn't be any earth movement - eruptions - out to the coffer dam, they put a sheet of brown paper in sections, so that only one piece would slide up, up and down, rather than break.

B: You can't visualise it, unless you've seen it like you have.

S: Yes.

B: Did you want to go on to your family tree, now? Last week, we were talking about, was it your grandfather? We've done your history, Sid, so next really should be your father, if you're going down the line.

S: Yes, my father went to the First World War. He left Australia when he was just 17. He went to the Sinai Dessert in Egypt, with the 9th Light Horse, and there was a shortage of water out there, it was really only good enough for the horses to drink. He got a germ in the stomach - I've got all the details of it here, from 1916. He had as many as 12 bowel movements a day. So Dad was there for a considerable time, in the hospital. They couldn't treat it, it was eating the lining of his stomach. So he had to come home, and he came home.

B: Did he have a long life, with a complaint like that, then?

S: No, he didn't. He came home, and after a while got married. He got a job - not then, he didn't - but he got a job (with the Railways) - there was no work, of course  -

B: They were hard times, weren't they, for the men?

S: Yes. The loco would suit him, perhaps. But he couldn't stand it in Adelaide, with his health, and he asked could he get a job at Gawler as a packer, because he thought he might be able to manage it, and he wanted to be home. So they transferred him, and after, he finished up as a Special Ganger in the Adelaide Hills. The opportunity came for him to share-farm the Graham's Castle. So he went up there in about 1937, or 1936, and it was all rabbits and he cleaned the rabbits up - he poisoned them with apples and strychnine. He got 300 the first run. The man that owned it was trying to sell it, and Dad didn't know that he was only a man that bought land and sold it, and Dad was building it up quite nice. Because he'd run the dairy. So he left, and he took on work as a contractor and share-farming, and they - he had a number of men working for him - supplied wood for all the houses that had to have wood, there were only wood fires; contracted for road-work, and got the men working on the roads, and he contracted for the Centenary Hall, to supply all the stone. Unfortunately, he didn't see it completely built - suddenly, he took ill, and went to Adelaide, and there were other complications, and he died, 30 years of age, I think. I was the eldest of four. thgat was the end of dear old Dad. A wonderful man, and he's buried at Currency Creek.

            Going back further, to my Grandfather Smith, he was born at Yankalilla too, a Scot father and an Irish mother. His father got killed off a horse at a young age. My grandfather did all kinds of things, but he was a councillor several times at Goolwa. What struck me, strangely enough, my father and three brothers went to the First World War, an uncle who went to the First World War put his age back, and two others went to the Second World War, one was a Prisoner of War with the Japs at Changi, and the other one was a Rat in Tobruk. And they haven't seen fit to call a street in Goolwa 'Smith Street'! They can have it - they say they'd confuse it with 'Bristow-Smith'!

            My other great-grandfather came out to Australia, and landed at Adelaide on Christmas Day, 1853. Two sons came out to Austrlalia in '48, and he followed them. He was a butcher in Killmarnock in Scotland, and he carried on butchering at Yucunlug (?).

            My grandfather Davies, my mother's father, he had a shoe factory in Goolwa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tape 3, Side A, recorded September 5, 2005

 

B: Today we're going to go on to Syd's mother's side of the family, who were the Davies -

S: Great-Grandfather Davies came from Wales. He was a bootmaker - when I say a maker, he manufactured boots, and he came to Victor Harbor to live in 1867. The shop is still standing, it remained in the family for 114 years. He was only a young man/boy - and he took up the trade with his father, who manufactured boots at  Victor. He went to Port Pirie but business was poor, and he then came to Goolwa in the 1890s, sometime, and he started up manufacturing shoes at Goolwa. My mother was born in that shop, at the back was a house, and she was born there, in Cadell Street. Mum was always very interested in history, and she used to pass on certain things to me that she knew. I was also connected with a family at Victor Harbor who had Nurton and Harveys, and they were partners in about 500 acres of land out of Victor Harbor. They had that land, according to the records, in 1854. So we had my mother's people  ... from Victor Harbor.  My grandfather went to Adelaide to live with an uncle, because Grandma had died.

B: Where did he go to live?

S: Largs Bay. My uncle was working there, so he went down to live with them. He repaired some boots in those days. A job came up, at the end of the jetty at Largs Bay - it was much further out to take sail-boats in those days, and they were out at the end of the jetty putting new piles in, and the wind caught the pile, and crushed my grandfather, and he was dead.

B: What age would he have been?

S: About 67.

B: That was a long life for that time.

S: He was a fine man, a wonderful quiet man - his nickname was 'Cobbler', and my mother never liked that, because he wasn't a cobbler, she said. Anyway, that was the end of Grandfather.    Then the War - my father was repatriated home, sick, and he met Mother. They married, somewhere in Adelaide, and after Sydney came along. I was the eldest of the family, and there was 4 1/2 years before the next one, and the youngest one was only ten months old.

            Mother told me that, before 1915, the water was right up to where the gates are to enter the station, and all that was all filled up with old barges, and boat-wrecks. Also, they built, you'll find in there, Milne built several steamers.

B: Did any of the family from Wales come along after them, or were they the only migrants?

S: One uncle was born in the back of the shop; one, I think, was born at Port Pirie (?) - he's buried in England, he got killed, and he's buried in England, and his grave is still fine, because when the soldiers from Goolwa went to the Second World War, they visited the grave. Then there was one uncle born at Encounter Bay, and there was four sons, and the four enlisted...

B: Four sons, and your mother was the only daughter?

S: The only daughter, and the others, the last uncle finished up as Superintendent at the Barrages at Goolwa. He was well-known in Goolwa. He was Cyril, but he wasn't Syd at all - his name was Cyril Clifton, but they called him Syd! So Aunty - I didn't like it, but, - she called me 'Siddy'.  But it was a mean thing, I didn't want to be called Siddy, it didn't sound too good.

            That's about all I can tell you about Mother. Dad died in 1930 or 31, and Mother died in 1958. She lived in Goolwa all her life. She was a wonderful mother. I never heard her condemn anyone, I never heard her say a bad word. She was a Christian, and she didn't forget to tell me to behave myself every time I went out. She was only small - that's why I'm little - she was only about five foot high. Father died, and she never re-married. She could have, but she never re-married.

B: He died very young, and he left 4 children to bring up..

S: And the youngest was ten months.

            We had a few cows, always depended on that, and she used to make butter, and we had fowls - we had a little block of land up the top, in there. She sold cream, or butter. We always had wonderful cooking. While she was making the butter, she made scones with the whey of the butter, and they were delicious!

B: You've got good memories of your parents, although your father died young..

S: Dad took me everywhere with him. I did my son, too. My son says I'm like a brother to him, because he didn't have a brother. But my Dad took me everywhere. If he didn't want to take me, I'd cry and cry and then he'd take me. He taught me to ride a horse and all those sort of things, milk cows..

B: I don't think we've talked on your own family, Syd - you're saying your son - what family did you have?

S: I had two children, a boy and a girl. Ross was born in '43, and Evonne was born in '46. We shifted around a lot, so Ross was going to high school at Murray Bridge, and then we went out to Sedan, there was only an area school, so he left at about 15, then he joined the Railway. He was the second only signal cabin man in Adelaide Hills who knew every cabin - which means a lot to a person that doesn't understand it, but all the cabins from Goodwood out to Murray Bridge, he could go into them any time and shunt trains. That job petered out, they cut the cabins out, and he got a job as a guard, in Adelaide, on the passenger trains, then he retired from there.

            My daughter had several jobs in the Barossa Valley. She was in charge of a Four Square Shop with four girls, and she hired and fired them. She married - I don't know the year now - she married Warren Short, a local Angaston boy. Warren was working at the winery as a supervisor , and he controlled all the men at Saltram's at Angaston. The Shorts were interested in gardening, all their lives they had orchards and vineyards, and Warren's got a vineyard of his own. He's retired from Saltram's, and he grows grapes, and he sells them - luckily, so far - to Wolf Blass. He's got a special type of shiraz, and they want that grape, because he grows it just as they want it grown. No chemicals go into it, it's all got to be done perfectly.

B: So Wolf Blass buys the grapes from your son-in-law?

S: Blass and Co. - it belongs to Fosters. But Blass's were huge out there. My son-in-law,  he's a wonderful husband, and he's got two girls.

B: It's nice when you reflect back, and you're happy with how your family have turned out, aren't you, and how they've progressed?

S: Yes. I'd like to make sure Ross and Evonne get mentioned, please, because Ross went to school at Goolwa for a while, but Evonne was too young, but they've got Goolwa in their hearts. Evonne might come down Friday, and Ross comes every Friday. They're wonderful children to me.

B: That's good, because some families, as you get older, they drift away from you, don't they, so you've been lucky.

S: Yes, well Ross says he doesn't know what he'll do when I go, because I'm his mate! But Ross has got a bad back, unfortunately. I don't know how it occurred, might have been a motor car accident, I'm not sure. He can't twist now, so he's unfortunately retired (?)  But he's got a launch up at ?, and he keeps it up there. Real fitted out now. "Dad", he said, "It was a fishing boat, but now it's fitted out for pleasure". Couldn't be used for a fishing boat now. We bought it at Port Pirie. It was built  (?) at Wallaroo, and it was a  fishing boat at Wallaroo. We took it to Morgan and motored it down ourselves, down the river to Goolwa.

B: And where is it moored now?

S: Up at Barclay's mooring, past the Captain Sturt -  ? - about a mile up; Barclay, the name is - he's related to Ritchies; he's still living, he's a younger man - when I say younger man, he might be in his early 80s. Barclays came out, and then the Ritchies, the Johnsons and another family, they brought a boat out from Scotland.  Smiths came from Ayrshire, near Glasgow, 20 mile away.

B: Did you ever go to Scotland?

S: No, I never did. Unfortunately, I had to agree with my wife - she flew (from) Brisbane to Sydney, and she joined another plane. and they flew to Adelaide. She got so afraid, that she stamped the ground with her foot when she got down, and she said - "I'll never fly again!" So I couldn't fly. I'd never been to Kangaroo Island. She said - "I don't want to go over on the boat". So we did tours all up the North. She went on opal fields with me. She went once or twice over on the gold field. I went out gold mining in my spare time - hobby - and I got enough gold to make eight rings, and from those rings - I had an opal put in them - and gave them to each member of the family, so they all possessed the gold that I got, and an opal from an opal field. I treasure that. I wish it was here to show you.  It was a big one. It was one ounce.

B: That's the one, you showed me the photograph, and there was the big opal.

(Sid has a 6 ct. opal)

S: I don't want it cut. It's so beautiful.

B: Who has that now, your son?

S: My son-in-law. I took  it to him. I thought it may be lost when I die. I used to hid it in different places. Some of my wife's jewellery was in a cardigan pocket,  and my daughter-in-law took the cardigan, and she said - "Pops, I found these in the pocket!"

B: She'd taken them off, as we do, to do something.

S: She was hiding them. I hide things. Not all of them, but she had them hidden. My wife's grandparents were at Greenock, she was a third-generation of the German immigrants who came out in 1838. They were the original Lutherans to come to Australia. They came here in 1838 on a boat called the Prince George, which brought the first migrants from Europe to Australia, and they arrived in November 1838. A great-grandfather, we know a little about his whereabouts - he stayed up in the Hills, and was buried at Lobethal. My wife's great-grandfather took up land at Jacob's Creek, and then he took up a lot of land -several hundred acres up at Greenock, and he had more land than he wanted, so he leased some of it. Her grandfather was born in Australia in 1843.

B: So what relatives have you got from the German side of the family?

S: Oh gosh, even at Greenock today, there's about twelve in the phone book!

She was a Dorothye Kalleske, and then there was the Zilms, and Mattner, Linke, then Handkes, and all ours is attached to them! So I come into that side of the family, and I'm accepted as  one of them, and she was accepted by my family. There's no silly business about where they came from - they came from the middle of Poland, Pozan, which is now part of Poland. Naploeon came up, and changed all that, and that part of Poland became part of Germany, and Prussia became part of Germany, just like Scotland became part of the British Isles, so that part was gobbled up by Germany. That's where the Lutherans broke away from the Roman Church, and if it hadn't been for that, we might still be under the cloak of  Rome. The man who brought them out to Australia is buried at the Cemetery, in the main street at Tanunda. You can't see the cemetery, it's a long way back from the main road. They're still burying them there.

B: We've been doing a little bit of history on the cemeteries around the area here, and it's amazing how many little cemeteries we've come up against, that nobody knew about.

S: Raymond Newell knows about the Island - he's older than me. He lives between Shepherd Street and the other one, I can't think of it..  He knows the history of the Island (Hindmarsh), because his great-grandfather bought the land from the house on the Island for the ferryman, through to the monument. He owned all that land. His name was Maidment, but 'Monty' (Ray) Newell's name is Newell, but his mother was a Maidment.

I'll tell you something a bit further now, this history - this side of the Barrage, this side of where they water-ski, there's a high hill, and we always knew it as Black Hill. That's the last place Aboriginals congregated. They call it the Black Hill. It was a safe place, because low tide was dry out of the river. It's only got high since the Barrage. Mother said that Mrs. Walker - she was the last of the Coorong, she called them Coorong Tribe; I knew Mrs. Walker, she used to wear a red-and-white thing, and she smoked a pipe. I knew them well. She had a son killed in France in the First World War. She's the only one that I can swear to, that was full-blood, out of this part.

B: And it was called Black Hill?

S: Black Hill, because the blacks were there. And the shells must have been why they got the cockles off the beach and ate them.  There was a midden down here, but it's been destroyed.  There's another one, good one, on the hill over here - not touched.   I see this things, and I know what they are - the shells  I recognise, no-one knows about them.

B: How does your memory hold all that, at your age now?

S: I told you about the Aboriginal, when he took the duck's head, and he said - "I'll supply you dinner." And I didn't see any food come out. He shot some ducks, and he picked the heart and the liver out, lit a fire, and he put them on the fire. I looked at him . "What?",  he said ,  "There's your dinner." I was only a boy. Another thing they used to do - they tracked the turtles. They'd track them back, and they'd build a hole in the ground, and then build a little cover over them, and the Aboriginals would trap the turtles and get the eggs and eat them. They loved the eggs. They'd get a turtle and cook him  whole - throw him in the fire - smelt awful . When an Aboriginal gets buried - although I don't know about now - as they start to go down to the ground, they wail; scarey thing - you feel a shudder go up your back - it sounds like thousands of dogs or something. It's awful, but I've witnessed it.

S: There was only about four whites there, and I was one. I took some native girls from Tailem Bend down to Wellington (?) She was  buried in the sandhills. Just like ours, just dig a hole and bury them, that's all they want.

I've been duck-shooting with them, and one old fellow used to strip off naked., and he'd strip his clothes off, and he'd dance with nothing on, and the ducks are looking, and they come in closer, they look at him, and they go out, and he saw a couple within gun-range, so he'd pick up the gun and shoot them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tape 4, Side A

 

S: Pass was on the side of the trainline, by the school.  There was a paddock there, and a man , Barber, was asked to plough it. There was a bush growing there, and so he knocked the bush over in 1919. And it was gold, and Spanish dollars, with the hole in the middle. He knocked it over, and there was all this money hidden. I think he got it eventually - it ought to be in the police records. I can't tell you much more than that. I know a little bit, but I daren't repeat it. There was a mystery there. It was a lucky old town in the old days. There  were boats that used to come. Captain Johnston ran a passenger service from Port Adelaide to Goolwa, Captain Johnston. There was a lot of mystery about  getting agreement - I'm not saying nothing to do with him, but occasionally a boat would come in   -  I would like you to look up and see what you can find in the Police Station about 1919. It's about when it was dug up, all this money - his name was Barber. It's a mystery never solved, as to why this money was dug up.  Up past the school was all vacant blocks. I could take you to the place, it's all built on now.  There was another school, built right by the school, that's been knocked down. They don't talk about that.

B: There was a school before this one? That old part of the school, there was one before that?

S: There was another one before that. It was this side of it, and I used to teach woodwork there. The room was there, and the house was up the front.  There's a school-book here. I've got books and books and books! (rummaging through same) I tell you who might be able to tell you a bit about it - Dora Tuckwell might know.  I don't know if there's any members of the family left.

B: What year are we talking?

S: From 1923,  and on - it was there when I was there, and they used to let it. They still own the ground, but they've got another house on it.

B: I'm not talking about the house. This mystery about the gold, what year do you think that happened?

S: 1919. He dug it up then. But it was planted a long time earlier than that. I think I know whose it was. Matter of fact, it was two men.  When one was dieing, he was delirious, and the other one sat by the bed-side, in case he said anything! I can't tell you anymore, because I can't prove it.

Frodo: (who is also present at this time) And there's none of these coins left anywhere, they've all been sold?

S: We had to. A chap called Sumner, he was a baker in the early days of Goolwa, his grand-son, he had two Spanish coins, but I never saw any. I often meant to ask him. He was the only one that we knew had any of the coins. But the Police Station must have a record of it.

 

There is now some looking through books and photos.

 

We used to go up in the mast of this boat, fifty feet high. you sit up there, and you look at all the fish. when you go thirty feet up in the air, all the glare goes off the water, like a mirror, and you can see down deep. And the mullaway show the colour of a beer bottle ....?..and you run around with a net, and you pull them in. The biggest haul I helped catch was 4 and a half ton of mulloway, up to 20 pound in size. They jump over the net and all - they go mad, not until you get near the end of pulling the net in, then they know they're caught. I got a lot of fish.

F: You wouldn't get that sort of a catch now, would you?

S: I think you would, but you're not allowed to use a net. And it takes about three of you to work it  - one at the top, watches underneath and ? two more

F: And, as you say, it's a net about the size of this space, 15 by 20 foot round?

S: The net? It'd go from here to the front gate!

B: These are some photographs you were going to show us, Sid. These were taken on the deck of the paddle-steamer Industry in the 1920s.

S: Here's Thomas Goode (in photograph)

F: Really? The Thomas Goode? The Younger, actually, rather than the Older.

S: That's Bill Lackington, Reg Graham, George Ritchie - they made him Sir George later-

F: And he's related to Captain Ritchie?

S: Brother. And Jim Ritchie, their grandfather.

F: This is your grandfather, above him?

S: Grandfather.    Jeff Gordon. This one is Harold Goode; Bill Tuckwell - that's Dora's father -

F: Harold Goode is the son of that man, of course.

S: That's right, younger son.    That's [afore-mentioned Bill Tuckwell ] Frank Tuckwell's father, on the wharf; Olsen, old Dave Ritchie, he didn't have  a beard then,

F: Now what relation is Dave Ritchie to this other Ritchie that we had here, George Ritchie?

S: Brothers.   That's Captain Sam Armfield. He rode out the Mouth and didn't know where he was going. They never found anything of him.

F: So why did they name the Slip after him?

S: There was Doug Armfield had the Slip, Bert Armfield had ...Old Boney, we called him .          That's Dave Reed, and that's my father.

            Photo of 1929 Back to Goolwa Carnival Committee      His people never had a photo of him, his grandchildren never knew him - Green, had the Goolwa Hotel; he didn't own it, they had the lease on it. It was owned by the West End Brewery until later years.  Ernst Jensen, that's Bert Armfield, he was a Councillor; Coghlan was a schoolteacher, and that's my grandfather - he died 9 months after my father died, in 1930.

F: Your Dad and Grandfather were on that Committee?

S: Yes. His name's Sweetman, Sweetman, Harding - there's Wells, that built the Town Hall. Percy Middleton Wells. he was a chemist. He went to the Boer War, and got hit in the head. Mrs. Wells is there. And Arthur Neighbour.       But I think they don't give any recognition to Mr. Wells. He built that  [Centenary Hall] and paid  for it. He was always paying out money to pay the men who built the Hall.

B: We've got that on tape. What Syd was telling me that day was  - nobody was doing anything about a Hall, and this man decided it was going to happen. He was well-off, and as the work-men did their job, he had this bag of money, he walked around with this around him, and, if you were finished, you got paid. You came back next week to do something else, you got paid again.

S: That was the Depression. No-one had any money.

F: You were saying he got shot in the head in the Boer War?

S: Military at Keswick might be able to give you details of him.

F: Did you meet him yourself?

S: We were friends. We were cobbers.

F: Did he have a big scar on his head?

S: No, you couldn't see it. He's got his hair.

F: Yes he has, too. Quite a handsome fellow here.

S: He was a fine man.

B: He was very blonde. What nationality was he?

S: Welsh. He was a cousin of my grandfather. He was so wealthy and that, we didn't like to go and say we was related to him.   (laughter)     During the War, I was here in the Railway, and he'd bring me down some sherry, and razor blades.  He was always there. I knew him as Mr.. Wells (?)

F: So this photo is the Back to Goolwa Centenary 1929 Committee - but Goolwa's Centenary isn't 1929?

S: No, Captain Sturt's Centenary, and he wanted to name the Hall 'Sturt Centenary', and they wouldn't let him. So he said - "Call it Centenary Hall".

 

 

 

 

SYD'S WIFE & KIDS, & SYD'S WIFE'S PARENTS

 

 

Johann George KALLESKE           Alfreda HANDKE

(12/3/1880 – 1961)                           b.12/5/1899  Greenock, S.A.

 

 

                        Dorothy Dardenell KALLESKE                   SYDNEY ERIC SMITH

                        b. 11/11/1918, Kapunda, S.A.                     b. 31/10/1918

 

1. Eric Ross SMITH        Irene Elizabeth MILLS

    b. 10/3/1940                b. 27/10/1945  Littlehampton, S.A.

 

                                                            Belinda Lee SMITH

                                                            b. 23/11/1967

 

     2. Evonne Dorothy SMITH           Vic BORMANN

                                              b. 20/6/1946

 

                                                            remarried                   Warren Ross SHORT

                                                                                                b. 13/2/1945  Angaston, S.A.

 

                                                            1. Vicki Michelle SHORT

                                                    b.4/8/1971

 

                  2. Debbie Petite SHORT

                                                               b. 13/2/1978

           

 

 

 

Selections from Interviews with Syd Smith on Radio Alex FM

Transcription by G.W. (Frodo) Krochmal

 

Interview by Dee Smith, c.2004

 

S: ....Mother was born at Cadell Street in Goolwa. Grandfather Davies had the Goolwa Boot Factory. He used to make the boots, and the house was at the back of the shop, and Mother was born there.       The Smiths on the other side - I'm a Smith - they started here in 1903, so with both families, it's over a hundred years.

D: And never wanted to move?

S: No, I did move. I had to spend most of my working life - well, there was 2 1/3 years on the Barrages, and later I came back as a porter on the Railway, and I was down at the Station for 7 years. But, prior to that, all my Railway working life was up the North. I was a Railway man for 40 years, and I was a Stationmaster for 26 years. Nuriootpa was the last station, and that was a very busy place, a lot of work there, the stone quarries. I don't know if I should repeat it, but the earnings there was one-and-a-quarter-million dollars a year. It was extremely busy. But I liked the Barossa Valley naturally, so I stayed there. I could have got promotion, but I was happy. The reason I really wanted to come back to Goolwa, firstly, I did have my home, where I am now. We used it as a holiday home, but I liked the climate. I'd had enough of the northern climates. The furthest  I'd lived north was Peterborough. In those years, a lot of the times I was Acting Guard on the trains, which took me to  Cockburn and Quorn, so you were out in pretty hot areas there.

D: So you appreciated Goolwa?

S: The Southern breezes in the summertime.

D: You were telling me before we came on air that you had to walk to school?

S: Yes. In 1926, Father share-farmed the Castle - it was a dairy - Graham's Castle and the nearest made road was either the Victor Harbor Road or the Beach Road, and sometimes I got a loan of a horse. I was only a little fellow. The other times I had to walk. In the wintertime, I was wet only a few hundred yards in the bushes, they'd touch your clothes and you'd be wet. So you'd sit at school with water in your boots all day.

D: So you had to be pretty tough to survive that.

S: There's another thing I might mention - the first thing my father wanted me to learn was to ride a horse, and the second one was to milk a cow with my full hand. I was able to achieve that by the time I was about seven.   It was hard, but we accepted it, because everyone was in a similar position. It wasn't that it was isolated, but I just mention the fact that it was a long walk in. But I've been told since it's not as far as one family of Lovells - they lived out where the air strip is now. I did have a better walking distance, but they had mud and bog, and they had to come in from there, and that's the furthest I've known anyone had to go to the Goolwa school.

D: And the Goolwa school you're talking about, that's where the Primary school is now?

S: Yes, the old building.  The first day I went to school, a young smart lad - I had a little bag of marbles, and he said - "We'll play marbles", and I said "All right" - I was only five; he said "Give me two, and we'll play keeps", after a while he took the lot! I wasn't happy at all, I went and told the teacher, she said - "You shouldn't have played him for keeps", but I did get my marbles back, but it was an unusual experience.

D: You knew not to play for keeps any more!

S: Yes.

D: I know you worked on the Barrages. This is one of the wonders of the Murray. Can you tell us something about that?

S: Yes. I went there in 1936. They hadn't done any concreting in the dam at all - the coffer dam - and I left in 1938, to transfer to the Railways. I was very fortunate I had someone that was able to get me a job there, because things were tough. I had a job, they called it the 'Nipper' - actually, my boss was the foreman - there were three foremans, one for the labouring section, one for the carpenters section, and one for the fitters and boilers, etc. I was working in the labouring section with Mr McKinnon, whose family originated from Strathalbyn and the local area, but he'd worked up-river most of his life. A fine man. One of the things I had to do was, I'd go around to the various gangs in the coffer dam and all round about early in the morning to see if they required anything in particular, and I'd have to then find the District Foreman - well, he could be anywhere - and he would give me a requisition for what they required. They had a big store there, and I'd go to the store and deliver the requisition, and then take the goods out to the site where they were required. There was probably up to eight men in some of those gangs, and they couldn't spare the time to find the foreman, so I had a really good job there. I practically did as I liked, but I had a lot of duties - sometimes

I'd help the engineers, out surveying; and there might be something urgent - the Barrage Office was over in the Australasian building, which is still there, and there was 7 or 8 men worked there, and they might have something urgent, so they'd get me to push on my push-bike, and bring it up, or come up here and get it and take it back, because the staff-car wasn't always available, it could be some other place.     How they built the Barrage was - a coffer dam, they went right around in a circle with sheet piling, tongue-and-groove sheet piling, and it went out as far as Navigable Pass - that big column there, that's the distance it was from the shore, and then they put soil, or sand, on the inside to stop the pressure from outside pushing the poles over; so that's how the coffer dam was built. There was two pumps - they used the Captain Sturt's boilers for the bigger pumps. Captain Payne (?) lived on it, and there was another, smaller, pump, and that was fed by a different boiler, and they were on duty continuously 24 hours a day. They'd pump it down to a certain level, as it required. That was that part of the section. I saw the first bucket of concrete poured. It was poured in the wing of the Goolwa side of the concrete. They had a large building there for the mixer - it was up off the ground - it was three stages - the hoppers were right up the top and the next stage was the cement mixer, and then below was the train, we had a little steam train, and buckets would come in underneath and fill up. The piers themselves were constructed in one day. Prior to this, below the river level, they drove in piles. I couldn't tell you the exact figure, but I know it's over 5,000 piles, and they drove them in on an angle, to take the weight, because it's only silt, this side of the barrage is only pure silt. The reinforcing was extremely heavy. Then, as I said, they poured the piers one per day, when they started on them. Yes, and then they flooded this side, and (chortles) there were some large springs in the bottom of the dam, and when they were in the second coffer dam, there was a lot of mulloway got blocked in there, and I was down near the pump-house, and I noticed a mulloway about twenty pound. I had a long-handled wooden spade with me, so I hit it, and it turned up, and I jumped in to grab it, but there was one of these blow-holes, with the water bubbling in it - luckily, I was in up to about my shoulders before I knew what I was doing! I got the mulloway, but I was lucky I could swim - I might have been down myself!

D: I imagine from what you've said, and from what I've heard elsewhere, that it was quite hard work, and a lot of people were brought in from other places to work on the Barrage. Is that correct?

S: I can only mainly talk of Goolwa, and the hardest part that I can remember - and I didn't partake in any of that - was over at Ewe Island Barrage, and possibly Tauwitcherie, they were the two ones where the heavy work was, they had to do it by spade. They were brought in. But those at Goolwa, it was an entirely different set-up, because of the way and the nature in which it was built. Goolwa's built on silt. The Mundoo was built on stone, so it wasn't necessary to use piles. It was more mechanical at Goolwa.

D: Would you like to tell us the reason that the Barrage was built in the first place?

S: The Barrages - it was a part of the early agreement with the River Murray  Commission that they started the first lot, I think it was at Blanchetown, and it was stated then that they should build the barrages to keep the salt water back. It used to go up as far - I was talking to someone last night, they lived at Mannum; it depended on the big winds, you get a big wind, and - Lake Alexandrina's like blowing water in a saucer, if you blow on it, it builds up (on) the other side, so it would wash up the river. They was hoping that they'd perhaps use it for more irrigation - they possibly did - I think it was mainly the lucerne, is at Meningie. But then, of course, the reclaimed swamps, they had to use it there. Jervois is the biggest reclaimed swamp.

 

 

 

 

 

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