Jobs Fun Times.
Pioneer Farming had its share of
FUN AND GAMES
Job Haddleton
Western Mail – Perth
15 February 1951 – p14
MEMORIES of Coompatine and farming in the latter half of the last century included not only hard work under primitive conditions, but kangaroo hunts and parlour games, according to Job Haddleton.
There were sports at Woodanilling on Boxing Day, 1898, and this was the first time I had the opportunity to try myself at running. I had a very successful day, winning a maiden race and the Sheffield. I won several Sheffield’s in later years. In the same year a football club was started at Woodanilling, and in 1900 the Marracoonda Football Team was formed, making three clubs, Katanning, Woodanilling and Marracoonda. These were the days that you had to play the ball and leave the man alone under the old Victorian rules.
Our nearest neighbours were the Cronin’s (eight miles), Quartermaine’s (seven), and W. Andrews (six). The Cronin’s were a family of ten and the Haddleton’s ten also. We used to take turn about going visits on Sunday. The Sunday morning search for our saddle horses might entail a walk of eight or ten miles.
After dinner we would saddle up two or three of them, put one in the spring cart and go off to spend the afternoon and evening. The afternoon might be spent playing hockey or rounders; after tea, if it was moonlight, we would be out again playing games. If the evening was dark or wet, we would have a singsong or play games such as hunt the slipper, find the button or old Mother Shipton.
We might get home about 10 p.m., then one would have cows to milk, pigs to feed, and horses to stable. The ponies would be turned out in the bush as we had no horse paddock. They had to find their own living until next time we wanted them.
My brothers, William and Don, Frank, Harry, Edwin and Will Cronin and I would go out to the sand-plains on Saturday night with five or six dogs and in the morning have a kangaroo hunt. Occasionally there would be a nasty spill when after an old boomer. When he was blown out, we would put the horse at him. Sometimes the horse tripped over the roo’s tail, then horse, roo and rider would all be in a heap on the ground.
A roo hunt was one of our best sports. Once my brother Tom and Eddie Cronin had two ponies training for the Katanning races. Tom and Eddie came to a hunt to give their horses a run. They said they would not gallop them but follow and watch the sport. We had not gone far when five or six roo’s jumped up. The temptation was too great for Tom and Eddie, they came past us like the wind, It was nice open sandplain country. The roo’s split in all directions.
Tom took one, Eddie another. Tom’s roo got off to the right, Eddie’s to the left, and presently they both took a turn in to meet each other. They were both right on the tail of their roo’s, each watching his prey. The roo’s crossed, just missing each other. But the two horses met; Tom’s horse knocked his shoulder out and Eddie’s horse dislocated its stifle joint. Eddie was unconscious for a couple of hours and Tom had a bad gravel rash. The two horses never raced again.
In 1902, Tom, aged 23 years, and I decided to take a trip around the North-West coast to have a look at the country and do a bit of shearing to pay our way. When Don Cronin heard of our plan, he said he would go too. We took a bike each with us from Perth and booked our passage to Cossack on the Bullara. We stayed in Roebourne three days and then started on the bikes for a shearing shed 100 miles up the Fortescue River. We were two days doing the 100 miles’ and arrived at Balmoral station on June 5. Shearing was not to start for a fortnight, but the boss offered us £1 each head to break in horses. The agreement was to ride them for a couple of days until they were well mouthed and had given up bucking, and then pass them on to the aboriginals for mustering sheep. At the end of two weeks, we had broken in 20. We sold our bikes and bought saddle-horses, and after shearing was finished we started off for Towera station owned by Henry Smithson, 140 miles from Balmoral station, taking four days to do the trip
At Towera shearing had just commenced with a team of ten aborigines shearing, two gins picking up the wool, the boss wool classing, one while man and two darkies wool pressing. The boss put two of the natives off and gave Don and me their stands. Our pay was £1 per 100 sheep and food, it was all blade-shearing.
Pay for the aboriginals was their food and a stick of dark Conqueror tobacco each week. These tobacco sticks were about six inches long and about as thick as a finger. The boss would cut the stick into six 1-inch plugs, and they would be given one of the plugs each night, missing Sunday.
Our tallies with the blades were 100 a day, the darkies doing 40 to 50 a day. The boss said that we were the first two white shearers he had in his shed. Shearing hitherto had all been done by the station aboriginals.
From Towera we took the road to Carnarvon and reached there on September 4. We had travelled 500 miles by road, broken in 20 horses, and shorn 6,000 sheep. We sold our horses in Carnarvon and helped to load 5,000 sheep on to the stock boat “Cloncurry.” The sheep had been bought by Holmes and Co., Fremantle butchers, and we were given a free passage to Fremantle to assist with them.
We returned to Coompatine and started our own shearing on October 1.
Return to HADDLETON FAMILY Page
Return to HOME Page
Jobs Fun Times. Jobs Fun Times. Jobs Fun Times.