Excerpt: The Rabbit Trappers Daughter

The Rabbit Trappers Daughter

This story has been written for my children Francis, Christopher and Bernadette and of course their partners and my beautiful grand children. I spent so many years of my life wishing my mother and grandmother had documented their thoughts of life in what was to me “the olden days”. These memories are to Francis, Christopher and Bernadette “the olden days” so my darling children here it is, enjoy.

I was born on twenty-eight of August nineteen forty three. At Kingsford (a suburb of Sydney) public hospital, to John Thomas and Mary Kathleen Fulmer. In nineteen forty eight, when my brother Frank was eight months old my parents decided to head for St George, a small town in out back Queensland. They never arrived in St George but the story of the journey is quite a tale. The following narration is mostly my own memories. It started when I was five so the early parts do have loads of hearsay. All events are chronological as much as I can remember and work out.

At four I was sent to school, it seems I was such a handful mum needed the break. The only thing I remember about it is a smoked glass door on my class room. I do remember, more like a dream visiting Katoomba, a tiny village in the Blue Mountains. I remember it was so cold, we stayed in a small cottage with no heating; I recall I wasn’t at all happy with the mountains. Another almost dream like memory I have was, it was a not particularly cold night, I, as a four year old didn’t want to go to bed. I remember laying there thinking about excuses to yet again get up, the usual toilet, drink of water secret that couldn’t wait had already been used. I remember seeing as clearly as the printing on my computer screen a hand came up between the bed and the wall. While we were growing up one thing I remember about Christmas day was mums white linen table cloth. Christmas day or any other special days the cloth came out.

My main instruments of entertainment were books. I read everything I could get my hands on. I read most of the classics by the time I was twelve. Charles Dickens was my favourite author, A Tale of Two Cities my favourite novel. The Bronte sisters came a close second. What girl hadn’t fallen in love and dreamt about being swept off their feet by Sydney Caton or Heathcliff? By twelve, I graduated from the classics to westerns much to mums disgust. I devoured them. Then came Mills and Boon love stories not the stories you find today where half the time is spent in graphic detail in the bedroom. In the stories I read the hero and heroine spent their time having adventures. If there was a sexual relationship between the two, they went to the bedroom and the door was closed. After all, I have never understood why readers need a half novel description. Call me old fashioned but it strikes me as seeming as if the writer can’t find anything else to fill out the story.

Another entertainment I enjoyed was changing the ending of stories if I didn’t feel it went the right way, which I might add was a lot of the time. I grew up without television. I know when I mentioned this to my children when they were small, they looked at me aghast, what did I do for entertainment. Most of the plot changing came from radio. We had serials and radio plays to listen to all the time. There was the Argonauts on the ABC at five o’clock week afternoons, it had great serials. Of course no country living Australian missed out on “Blue Hills” by Gwen Meredith. I don’t think the younger people of today know just how big Blue Hills was. I remember sitting in the class room with other students listening to the daily episode. This wasn’t a part of the curriculum, we had to listen to Blue Hills, including our teacher Mr Mulroney. With all the rubbish on Television now I can’t understand why someone hasn’t turned the novels into a TV soap. A Country Practice was very popular and Rafters is on the top at the moment.

I got off the track; I was talking about my habit of changing stories to suit myself. I would hear a story on the radio or perhaps read a book, the ending didn’t make me happy. The wrong person, in my opinion, got punished or rewarded. Therefore, yours truly re-wrote it in her head. I still do to a degree. So many of today’s television shows have dozens of holes in the plot, I have to fix em. My own novels, five of them, are sitting on my computer desktop or stored on a memory stick. I probably will dust some of them off one day and send them off to see what happens.

In nineteen forty-eight dad purchased a Studebaker utility at the Royal Easter show. One of two demonstration models bought to Australia. It was emerald green. I wonder if the people who bought the other vehicle had the years of hard work and service we had with our Studie. Mum and dad piled all our possessions into the back tray. The back space I remember was immense, much larger than today’s utes. It was really like a small truck. Anyway, the back was piled to the sky. Mum dad Frank and I piled into the front. In those days, nobody worried about over crowding seat belts etc. Off to St George we set.

The first place I remember stopping was Tobeera, a very small town around fifty miles north west of Goondiwindi. That’s where I started school in Queensland. There were only four children at the school, two older children who I remember very little about and an aboriginal girl, Beryl, my age. She was my first best friend. Beryl and I spent every waking minute together. As Beryl’s family lived next door, so this wasn’t a real problem. Mum did have a problem though, Beryl took me exploring and part of out outings was to try all the native plants we could find. Mum was terrified a six year old wouldn’t know good vegetation from bad. We both survived out wandering, so either she did know what she was doing or someone up above was working over time looking after us.

There is very little else I remember about Tobeera. I do have brief impressions of the tiny one room school house. There are impressions of the house we lived in, it was a high set Queenslander. Uncle Digs, dad’s brother Edward, and Aunty Betty came to live with us for a while. Uncle Digs was to set traps in one direction and dad in the other. I do remember Uncle Digs coming home each day without any rabbits. His excuse was the aboriginals let them out. Dad thought he was just too lazy to set them and used that as excuse. One morning dad set off to follow him on his rounds. Now here I will mention Uncle Digs was around six foot six inches, and built like the proverbial brick shithouse. Dad was five foot ten or eleven and slimly built. Anyway, dad tracked Uncle Digs and found out four aboriginal men were indeed releasing his rabbits and chasing Uncle Digs back to the house. Dad put a stop to that problem, told the fella’s if they continued he dad would deal with them.

Beryl’s grandmother became very ill one day dad drove her into the hospital. I don’t remember the situation but mum told me Mrs Polton looked as pale as an albino, she was so ill. When she arrived at the hospital, as is usual at hospital waiting rooms she sat and waited and waited and waited and waited. Dad by this time was getting sick of the whole thing so went to the reception desk and bashed his fist none to softly on the counter and yelled “IS SOMEONE GOING TO COME AND ATTEND TO THIS WOMAN” I hear the action was instantaneous, doctors and nurses were running everywhere.

Dad at this time started as I said earlier “rabbit trapping” he kept this up on and off for the next thirty years. He also worked on and off on properties and stations during this time. I will get to some of these places later. I love animals but my experiences over the following years turned me right off the RSPCA (Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). The powers that be in all their wisdom introduced myxomatosis. This delightful man introduced scourge sent the rabbit blind, because of this, the rabbit couldn’t find food, therefore it starved. In those years you could make a reasonable living from rabbits. Dad was known to the freezer owners his rabbits were always clean and fresh. It was very easy to find properties to trap on. The owners knew mixi didn’t work. It sent the rabbits underground to get away from the fleas and mosquitoes. Rabbits underground have nothing else to do but breed: enough said. Ask the powers that be are their rabbits in Queensland? They will say no. I have no idea what those things you see regularly running across the road are. Sheep maybe.

One house we were in for a short time, I can’t remember where, I know we were near Texas. A boyhood friend of dads Mickey Curns lived in Texas so we went into the town to visit occasionally. I remember we had somehow acquired a nanny goat while there. Mother goat produced twin kids. Frank and I decided we were going to milk the goat. Okay problem number one catch baby goats when they don’t want to be catched. Finally we successfully caught the kids, next problem locking them away from the mummy goat. We started with the tractor shed about eight feet by twenty foot. There were two benches table height against one wall. The walls were around seven foot there was a foot gap between the top of the wall and the roofing. Great to let air in yet keep any rain out Frank and I found out very quickly it was no problem for baby goats to ump onto the tables then spring through the gap between the wall and roof. By the time dad arrived home Frank and I were ready to have roast baby goat for dinner. Dad thought it was very funny he helped us build a small cage for a fury Houdini’s. the strange thing is we lost interest in milking goats very quickly.

From Tobeera we moved to Yelarbon another small town between Inglewood and Stanthorpe. Dad went there to help out a station owner for a short time. He had applied for a position on the border gate; it wasn’t to come up for a couple of months. In the middle of a Stanthorpe winter we moved to the border gate near Stanthorpe. We were camping. Dad had the job but the people who were leaving were still in the house. I have no idea why they were taking so long to move. Around that time polio became prevalent in Aust. Dad and Mum decided they had to leave, with polio around they didn’t want to take any risks.

We did have a few camp areas around Inglewood at one of these camps I discovered horses, to be precise a particular horse. Dobbin, I named him that, was a grey and very old. I sat under a willow tree and talked to him for hours. I found out many years later, the owner would have given him to me but he realised his days were numbered. He did give me a Clydesdale, boxer, picture the sight a small six year old on a very large horse. My legs were straight out. A friend of dad wanted a Clydesdale, he had a small black pony he didn’t use. A swap was made and I now owned Nicky. Nicky was a wonderful little pony, but he did have one fault, it was hopeless trying to catch him until he wanted to be caught. I remember the times I walked paddocks trying to catch Nicky. I also remember the times I wanted to get dads shot gun and shoot him. When he decided to let you catch him you couldn’t get a better little horse.

At around this time we went into town, fortnightly, usually Inglewood to shop. I felt like I was grown up at around this time, I was allowed to sit in the back of the Studie all the way into Inglewood. A shop mum used regularly was Hong Yuens a Chinese department store. I remember my brothers and I usually stayed outside while mum shopped. In the window was a gorgeous doll with a pink dress, she was the most beautiful doll I’d ever seen. Every time we went to town, I spent ages with my nose pressed to the window looking at her. One day about a fortnight before Christmas we arrived in town and I ran to see “my” doll. She was gone. I can still feel the disappointment of that day I remember going and sitting in the back of the car. I couldn’t wait to get home.
I think I was pretty agro all that fortnight even Christmas Eve my favourite day couldn’t cheer me up. Christmas morning dawned, there sitting on the foot of my bed was the pink doll in all her glory. Dad had bought her several weeks before.