CITY TO THE BUSH

From the city to the bush, chapter two.

From this point onward one will have to be on my best behavior, you dear reader have subscribed to the narration of john D Farley, he is just an old dude with the syndrome of: “No guts,no glory”.

BORN IN THE CITY 2.

Importantly, in my early days city life was never far removed from the bush, I have outlined in the preceding the city schools that I had attended and you will gauge constant movement occurred in the years leading up to and commencing work, but we will get to the bush soon.

This section will outline some of the experiences we may well call extra-curricular, IE; they did not happen at school. If it’s OK we will call this period;

CRADLE TO WORK, or WOOLLOOMOOLOO ESSENTIALS or KINGS CROSS STUFF or GORN FISHEN’ or MOVIE STAR. GRAND MA, PAPER BOY AND OTHER GREAT THINGS.

Well the cradle has got me shagged, the earliest memories of “My Town” will have to be 34 Bayswater Road, Kings Cross in Sydney or (Potts Point), the building was (3) stories and was situated on the right hand side as you proceeded down Bayswater Rd. to Rushcutters Bay from the “KINGS Cross”. It is conceded that my father Denis Payne farley owned the premises, (open) to conjecture; however, during the war years this place became an official ‘Billet” for American Navel Service Personnel. While I can reliably suggest we lived there, my age would have been 3, 4, and 5? What I do remember is walking hand in hand with two Officers to a small convenience store at Kings Cross and being treated to “real” COKE, pink ice cream and cinnamon chewing gum, the original tastes still linger.

Impossible, improbable, maybe mum told me and I can see the images as she described, boy, the memory may be vague but the taste still remains strong, like toast, see later, Kings Cross can be the essence of BORN IN THE CITY. Incidentally, Grand Ma Lovegrove / nee Menzies managed these premises before moving to 112 Palmer Street Woolloomooloo just down the hill, heading west.

Situated at the top of William Street not far from the “W’LOO” this area known as the “Cross” has many childhood memories, adolescent memories and adult memories, most I can relate, some the censor will cut.

TRAMS, BUSES WOOLLOOMOOLOO PAPER BOY.

Farm Cove on the left and W’LOO BAY to your right, look left and see THE Opera House ‘SAILS’, the misty vision of an edifice not built yet, see the panorama of the wonderful harbor and the “Coat Hanger”, look over right and take in the Finger wharf and the W’LOO docks, there will be passenger / cargo ships along side, a little north is the Garden Island Navel Dockyard and that great crane mounted on railway lines, several gray vessels will be moored alongside the docks as well there will be a navel ship high and dry in the graving dock or dry dock. Many sailors and civilian workers and waterside workers are observed going on about their business, years later I found myself inside this facility going about my business as well.

Looking behind, you would observe the Domain and the Art Gallery and The Botanical Gardens great places to walk and observe, in the near distance is Sydney CBD, the great tower is called the A.W.A. radio tower, situated at Wynyard it is the tallest structure in town. I am having a vision of going there in the future.

It seems to me some memories come back by association, describing SYLVIA CHASE for some unknown reason reminded me of another famous but “infamous” lady from WOOLLOOMOOLOO. I don’t intend to dwell on the “TILLEY DEVINE “ saga. An older friend suggested that if you lived in ‘THE LOO’ YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN her. He was wrong; I knew of her, she lived in the same street. She never touched my family. Many memories of my W’Loo contain tragic events, I am not a Journalist, I won’t need sensational repartee. Somewhere mention of ‘Red Light’, running errands for the girls is mentioned, nod nod, wink wink. Everybody knew Tilley, she was reported to be an intellectual person. You have noticed my reference to good people and fringe people; Woolloomooloo is no different from any Metropolis. She was a naughty lady, she never did me wrong.

BUT THIS IS ALL ABOUT 112 PALMER STREET WOOLLOOMOOLOO.

But right now let me tell you about 112 Palmer just up the road. Grand Ma Isabella Menzies bought the two story premises around 1945 / 6; the description of the building was loosely that of a residential or tenement, it was a TERRACE HOUSE, you could call it a boarding house. We lived here on and off for many years, Grand Ma would let out rooms to working people and it was a place the “boys” that is her sons, my uncles, would stay after returning from the war.

JUST AFTER THE WAR.

Eventually they would leave and go their separate ways, but I can remember great times in their presence. On notable occasions two of Uncle Chris’s war buddies would visit and, “Jimmy and Ernie were their names and singing and drinking was their games”. Ernie would play his ukulele and Jimmy sang, always, “Open the door Richard”.

This story needs vision and sound so without these mediums imagination will have to do. Right, picture the front door of a 22 foot wide rustic two story building; there is a small verandah with wrought iron railing and on the 2^nd floor a similar full length verandah with this priceless railing of cast iron. Two steps were needed to alight on the front verandah. You were greeted by a door with dark glass panels, on your right was a polished knob of brass, go on pull it, hear the tinkling of a little bell inside the house?

Jimmy stood outside and would knock and jingle, Ernie was inside and would commence to strum his ukulele and sing these words; “Open the door Richard, open the door and let me in, open the door Richard, Richard why don’t you open that door?”, over the top of his singing Jimmy was acting the part of, (forgotten), however he was berating Richard for not opening the door, mainly because he was pissed.

He would speak loudly in an inebriated tone; “Hey Richard open that dammed door it’s cold out here, what’s that, yeah I know I am drunk just open the door”, and “come on it’s your buddy don’t be so mean”, and so on while Grand Ma and everybody were laughing. If I had done my homework maybe I could have supplied all the words, any how the entertainment culminates with Ernie still singing inside and Jimmy still knocking and loudly exclaiming; “come on Richard open that door, who’s that?, not you again you old bat!, bag your head, what you say?, of course I’m drunk again, Richard the old bat is calling the cops, Richard open up that dammed door it’s really cold out here”.

We had an old wind up GRAMAPHONE, 78’s? I still have one, anybody remember; “IT’S YOUR LITTLE RED WAGON AND IT KEEPS ON WAGON ALONG, the tune is implanted in my mind.

THE BOY ‘RUNNER’.

What did the boys drink? I guess my age would have to have been seven or eight, I was the sometimes runner with a Billy can and a shilling and up the hill to the corner of William and Palmer, the WILLIAM HOTEL no less, climb onto a bar stool and ask the bar person to fill her up and so I would return with cold draught beer, occasionally allowed a tiny sample, incidentally, some change may have been offered out of the shilling, I have forgotten.

Might stick with money things, we had coal gas supplied to the residential, a rather bulky gas meter was situated near the communal gas stove into which you inserted a penny, and when you cooked the tiny needles in the gauges would turn indicating how much you have used. We had a wooden icebox into which you placed a block of ice as needed, delivered by a man in an ice truck. The milkman delivered milk and ladled an amount into that same Billy; there was a coal man who would bring coking coal in the winter months, sorry, latter prices forgotten.

IT WAS GENUINE TERRACE HOUSE.

OK, I have described the facade of the premises; you will appreciate these tenements / TERRACES were very narrow and had common walls to the next place, sometimes rows of tenements made up the street. Upon entering, a narrow hallway lead to the back of the house, there was a front room and back room to the left along this hallway, also in the hallway the gas stove and the icebox. At the end of the hallway to the right a set of steep stairs led up to the front room and a smaller room.

A lady named Marie resided in the small room, she was always pleasant to me but seemed always sad, she had a photograph of a Navel officer beside her bed, I was to find out later he perished on the ill fated H.M.A.S. SYDNEY off the coast of Western Australia. She lived with us for some time.

Down stairs to the hallway and leading up another set of stairs was a large room at back of the house. Uncle Chris and Uncle Alex shared this room for some time; to the left hand side of the landing was a tiny room where I slept quite often. Returning downstairs you made your way past another small room as you proceeded down the back yard, on the right was a laundry complete with a large copper boiler and big gas ring, this was the precursor to the modern day washing machine, and you removed the clothes from the boiler using a round stick. There were two cement tubs for soaking clothes, to the left of the laundry was the bathroom containing a large cast iron enameled bathtub you filled from the copper tub, sometimes shared.

AND THIS IS WHERE THE DUNNY AND CHOKO VINE SPRUNG FROM.

Now folks, right down the back yard was the inimitable dunny, flushed of course, complete with the compulsory Choko vine and the local paper torn into small pieces and hung on a piece of string, finally the fences of corrugated iron and the high back gate with a double door allowing Uncle Chris to drive his, wait for it you “Bikies”, his 1940 model Harley Davidson, all black, manual gear change, horse saddle leather seat motor bike complete with “Outfit”, all black and beautiful, that is except for the silver stuff. Must continue with the “Bike”, Chris loved, I loved, and Grand Ma hated this wonderful thing.

This bike was stripped more times than Gypsy Rose Lee; its components caressed more than mother does her baby. Some days, the small back yard was covered with bike parts, the components were cleaned, re-assembled and a bright and shiny black Harley with sidecar re-built. That bike produced some memorable experiences.

112 Palmer St, for some time, or on and off was the center of my universe, every morning Grand Ma at some ungodly hour could be heard scrapping burnt toast in the side drain under the “Boys” up stairs window calling; “Boys, breakfast is ready”, the usual sounds of “OK Mum” could be heard from young men awakening for the days work, me, because of the small confines stayed in my small room until a respectable hour, the burnt toast? I can smell it to this day, can you?

FROM THE COUNTRY TO THE “CROSS”.

Grand Ma was a slight person, she was born on the land, she spent much of her younger years on properties that Grand Pa Ambrose and her owned, (my genetics?), (Lovegrove web site), they sold “Rosedale” and took up Hotels in the Hunter Valley proving to be a disaster, Ambrose was embezzled out of a considerable sum of money causing financial problems they never recovered from, Grand Ma found her self one out with the “Boys”, hence Bayswater Road and Palmer Street, the latter purchased by hard work and a frugal existence. She managed Palmer St. by working as a cleaner at several of the Companies in William Street. She never owned a handbag, her purse resided between her breasts on a piece of string. The piece of string was attached to her bodice by a safety pin.

At any time there were could be as many as nine people residing at 112, at least three boarders and the family. The communal cooker, a small oven and 4 gas burners got a thorough work out in rotation; some of the tenants had small single burner napha? Cookers to heat water for a cup of tea or warm soup and other stuff. On occasion every body was invited to a Sunday lunch, times were tough; don’t know who paid for what it came out in the wash.

PEARS IN SUGAR SYRUP, AL LA PALMER STREET.

Did I mention the choko vine; this vine vegetable was is a fairly bland thing, shaped like a pear, green with prickles and greenish flesh. Cut in slices and boiled as a rule and served with a hot meal it helped to supplement the plate and nourish one. Sneaky companies used a recipe borrowed from my Grand Ma, (fibs), the choko was skinned sliced and boiled, sugar syrup was prepared using sugar, water and some treacle. The chokos were cooled, covered in syrup and placed in the ice cabinet, served with plumb pudding and custard; one was hard pressed not to say they weren’t pears. Hence the reference to “sneaky companies”.

Now, I have a recipe you might like to try;

Par boil fairly small-halved vegetable / fruit until just firm. Add some hot sauce, Wooster of course, to the hollow area where the seed came from. Prepare some bacon by cutting into pieces so as just to cover the slices, place the prepared chokos under the griller and heat until the bacon is just cooked, you had grated some spicy Bega cheese, sprinkle the cheese over the bacon and return to the griller, cook until runny and a little brown, pepper and salt, Farley’s Kilpatrick, enjoy.

For supper, Grand Ma would heat water on the vent top of the black upright kerosene heater, prepare some “Sao” biscuits by slicing garlic knobs and the spicy Bega cheese. To the hot water she would add Cocoa, that’s supper, Palmer St. fashion.

Must tell you about the medicine cupboard, about every week or so a preparation of sulfur and honey was administered, when the plumbing got blocked you got to take Epsom Salts, Condies Crystals in a solution of warm water helped with mobile dandruff, iodine was used for scratches and abrasions, boils were treated by application of calico bandage with a small hole cut in it, you pull down on the boil to extricate the mess. For relief from the “morning after”, a dose of bi-carbonate and citric acid helped with an aspirin, foot problems? Salt water and Condies. So Grand Ma could cure “coughs and colds and itchy holes and pimples on the knackers”.

THE BUNDEMAR BIRD AND THE DOMAIN.

The bird, the bloody Galah. We came home from Bundemar sheep station with our pet bird, I was about 10ish and it ruled the tenement for several years. Although its wings were never trimmed, “squawker” never flew away it simply fluttered and walked every where leaving odd jobs here and there. He had a cage and seed and water but the door was seldom closed accept at a night time when a cover was placed over it. Basically the bird lived on the nearest shoulder in particular Grand Ma’s. There is photo in the newspaper archives showing her and the bird in the Domain Park on Sunday morning, a place she would frequent often to listen to the radical left and right wingers orate standing on a box.All types of people would voice their opinions on any matter they felt strongly enough; it was great to hear the mixed audience heckle and cajole the speakers. There would be several speakers within meters of each other all with a small crowd of onlookers. The bird would sit happily on Grand Ma’s shoulder as she circulated through the assemblage, no doubt thinking what a bunch of wankers, the bird that is wanker was an unknown adjective to her, put simply its indicates a person of doubtful intellect, some of these people were actually very out there. (http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au).

One-day “squawker”, simply put, fluttered his wings and flucked off over the back fence in the direction of Kings Cross these days Galahs are quite coastal, his precedence? Is out there, he left us with broken heart but with a legacy of remembering some of his tricks, like rolling up a pencil in a piece of paper and then proceeding to shred the pencil and the paper into tiny pieces, remembering his peculiar pigeon toed way of walking, loved ya.

DIGRESSION.

Thursday, October 11, 2007, have just completed two long shifts during a State Emergency, Lismore City NSW was trashed on Tuesday by a violent hail storm, it caused heart breaking damage to houses and cars and infrastructure and crops. Our area of the Byron Shire suffered as well and we went “Operational” dispatching SES crews and NSWFB and RFS and VRA people to fix the mess at about 20 locations, Lismore had over 500 calls for assistance. Hailstones were tennis ball size.

By an in creditable coincidence as a trainer I had been present at Lismore during a Storm and Water Damage course the previous Saturday, we had taken our candidates for a walk discussing various roof structures and how we would provide temporary repairs. One of the buildings we observed was the Splendid Catholic Church resplendent with a very steep slate roof and the beautiful lead glass, regrettably no more.

UNCLE CHRIS, “NELLIE”, THE HARLEY DAVIDSON AND FISHEN’.

Back to past, going fishing on Sunday with Uncle Chris. We loved to fish for Luderick, a blackfish with light vertical stripes. We had three piece split cane rods and a small reel, fishing bags with floats and spare line and split sinkers and the secret green weed and cabbage weed collected around the harbor, aaaannnndd the wonderful black Harley Davidson and sidecar. And a bottle of “Nellie” for Chris.

We traveled far and wide in search for the Luderick, like Watsons Bay, Nilsson Park, The Spit, Lady Macquaries Chair / Point, Lillee Pilly, Lugano, Bobbin Head, Manly and many other places around Sydney. Chris has decided Watsons Bay is the go.

Date: Sunday, possibly Feb. 1952, about 7am, loaded the Harley, packed some sandwiches and cordial and the “nellie”, intrigued? And off. Out the double gates drives Chris while I close them and clamber into the cocoon of the sidecar and proceed on our journey to Watsons Bay. We will travel up William St to The Cross, down Bayswater Rd., past Rushcutters Bay, Potts Point, Double Bay, Elizabeth Bay, Rose Bay. We pass close by Neilson Park where we also fish, {some times catch the ferry), through Vaucluse past the infamous “Gap”, down the hill to Watsons Bay and park the Bike.

That didn’t take long will it, time frame about 25 mins. From home. We grab our gear and head for the ferry wharf, we set up our position and assemble our rods, commence to bait the hooks, bugger, forget to describe the “burley”. Now any fisher person will tell you that the fish need enrichments and burley is the secret, and Chris will forgive me for letting the cat out of the bag, no you cat lovers, no cat fur! We would mix beach sand and finely shredded green weed and cabbage weed in a canvas sack, I dread to say our secret addition was some rock crabs pulverized and added and all was keep moist, so now you know why the older man and the young fella would catch fish 4:1.

Several hours were spent fishing and talking, Chris never talked about war things, however we would chat away and exchange banter with visitors enjoying the sights of Sydney. Of course we had hand lines and would fish for other species if the Luderick were slow, using our secret burley. From time to time the observer will notice the older man sipping from a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag, it’s the “nellie”. All right, try Penfolds Brown Muscat, a nourishing and warming drink good for the health, so Uncle Chris said.

WERE IN ORBIT.

When we have had enough and that could be several hours because fishermen are very patient, it would be time to head home to Palmer Street. We would wander down the wharf, clean our fish, pack the gear in the boot of the side car and the the big leather bags attached to the “power unit”, gently place the dismantled rods in their covers beside me.

It was then or maybe another day I noticed the distant look on Uncle Chris’s face the “nellie” had taken effect, as a young boy trust was inseparable from respect although wise in the streets. Half way up the hill from Watsons Bay was a very sharp left hander, I realize now that Chris took the corner forgetting about the sidecar and its young occupant, we struck the gutter with the sidecar tire. Up in the air goes the sidecar with me hanging on with great trepidation, and for an eternity the bike and I am airborne. My grammar is crap but you have the picture, down we came and we proceeded home at a slower than usual pace and had fish for tea. This experience did not faze me from other fishing experiences; in fact we went too many fishing holes later including The Spit Bridge.

WHO HAS MUSSELS ON THEIR PILES?

Before the bridge piles were flashed with copper sheathing huge colonies of a bi-valve thing called mussels grew on the wooden piles, Chris and I would collect a harvest and bring them home to provide a meal for the family, want a recipe?;

A large heavy skillet is needed, some butter, some garlic, pepper and salt, flour and Wooster and mustard and some chives, home grown. Add the Mussels’ and the sauce heat until the valves open.

Previous; prepare a sauce of plain flour and Wooster and salt and pepper and mustard. and spoon the sauce on and add chopped chives. Oh yeah, Chris and I had been to Bennelong Steps, that’s where the magnificent Opera House is now, and caught several small yellow tail, preparation; brush the small scales off with a small wire brush, cook the fish with heads and guts lightly in olive oil and add with the mussels.

Don’t use these ingredients from the harbor now.

So that the CIA, ASIO and the THOUGHT POLICE don’t monitor our conversation we must observe secrecy for the following foray into the “Big Bang” story. Somewhere I discovered that some Nitrate substance and Sulfur as a mixture would produce a colorful blue explosion. We would use a hollow key and a nail, fill the key with the concoction, attach a string and belt the explosive against the wall.

Hang on I have an Email, Mr. Farley be careful, signed Mr. Bush, CIA, FBI, NCIS, ASIO

Before they come to take me away a large bolt and a nut was prepared in the back yard of 112 on the ground with a quantity of this substance inside the nut, a yard broom of a triangular dimension was used to drive the bolt into the nut, BLUE BANG, RESULT; no broom head, no bolt, no tea. What was the question? Oh last cigarette?

Ah well progress to Chapter three.