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Stories about Frederic Male. – Jim Male’s grandfather
There are so many tales told about my grandfather, that I have been reluctant to write them down, but it was pointed out that they would be lost if not documented. I do not have them in order, but have typed them as I remembered them. In his younger day, the old bloke was a tough cookie, but in latter years had mellowed, especially after his heart attacks. He had that unhappy knack of putting himself when on a job where others had to work flat out to keep up. My earliest recollection was that I had to hang onto the reins of the draft horse while grandfather loaded a dray with dead wood to take into the home saw mill, where it was sawn up into blocks to keep the wood stoves burning. I was aged 4 or 5 at the most. Most of the stories were told to me by my father. It is a pity I didn’t take more notice of them. Bear with me. Here we go.
My father, his brother Ron, and Grandfather would go west for a few months each year rabbit trapping (for skins ). Sometimes Nev Sommerfeld would go and other times George Male was there. Grandfather never mastered the basics of engines. Would not know how to turn the engine off in the Ute. When ready to return home, after everything was packed on the Ute, he would ask who was going to drive. If it was my father, he would get into the front seat of the Ute. If it was Ron, he would take a length of rope and tie everything down
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The old bloke was out trapping west of Manilla with a mate, and they had ordered a new Bell Tent. On the morning they erected the new tent, there was still an hour or so before mid day, so Grandfather and his mate left the tent site and went round their traps. On return the sight that they saw was the rear end of a cow protruding from the tent. Grandfathers mate, without thinking, picked up a branch and whacked the cow across the rump. There was only one way for the cow to go. Grandfather took the torn tent down, carefully folded it up as the creases could still be seen, and sent it back to the manufacturer with a complaint that a tent should not be sold in that condition. Times were tough then. It was depression time.
Grandfather purchased a bicycle to get round on. After a few months the inner tubes were perished. He took them back to the agent, but the agent said that they weren’t perished enough for him to replace them. Grandfather pulled up at the blacksmith’s shop, and with a hammer and the anvil soon had them perished enough.
Grandma saved her pennies and bought grandfather a wrist watch. The first time in his life that he had a watch. One day he took his rabbit skins into the Tamworth station to send away, only to find he had missed the train because the watch was slow. The only time he ever missed a train with his skins. On the way out of Tamworth, the Namoi River received a wrist watch.
My father tells the story of he and grandfather out trapping. They pitched the tent in a bit of a depression under a dog apple tree, and then it started to shower. Too wet to trap. Every time the rain stopped, a Jonsey ( Green Tree Frog ) would crawl out of a hollow limb and start croaking, stopping only when it started to rain again. Dad said that he was reading by the kerosene lamp, the frog croaking when BANG, the tent echoed of gun shot. “ That will stop him from calling down the rain “ was all grandfather said as he lowered the shot gun.
Telling that story, just reminded me of another of grandfathers exploits. He and my father were camped. Just on dusk, they looked out of the tent ant there coming down the track towards the tent were 3 emus. Emus are notorious for being curious, apparently, and the 3 pulled up and were giving the tent an inspection from about 20 yards away. Grandfather said, the 3 heads were in a row and a good shot would take the 3 out in one hit. And that is just what he did. Up with the gun and killed the 3 with one shot. You would not appreciate the following event, unless you have ever beheaded a cockerel. The 3 were thrashing around like a chook with their head cut off. The big thigh muscles giving the dead bodies extra leverage to kick and buck round. Blood everywhere. Dad said it was hectic for a while. Had to use branches to push the dying birds away from the tent. Made a mess of the side of the tent. “ So that what happens if you kill 3 at once “ was all grandfather said.
My father had a saying he used if he thought I was carrying on about something I was not really sure of. “See the black stump on the other side of the Swamp “ was what he would say. Means nothing to anybody else. Grandfather was an impatient bloke. Full of ideas. Needed to get things done in a hurry. One day the old bloke decided that they would subdivide a paddock with a fence. So he and Geoff got a post hole borer each and started to bore the holes. They lined a black stump up on the other side of the swamp as being the goal they were heading for. Take 3 paces and bore a hole. About half way across, they accused each other of getting out of line. After a heated discussion they realised they were both going for different black stumps as their goal. Rather than rebore the holes in the ground, Grandfather insisted they be left there. Dad and Ron came along and put the posts in, bored the holes for the wire and run the wire and strained. Where grandfather and Geoff realised they were getting out of kilter, ever 2nd post leant the opposite way to the previous post after the wires were strained. An old timer, Jack Smith, a WW1 War vet, who regularly came across from his house to Grandfathers said, “ I know I get drunk, but I’m sure I am not drunk now, although that fence tells me I am “.
There was only 1 motor vehicle used between the 2 farms. As Grandfather’s farm was furtherest away from the railway station, the Ute was stationed there. When Ron drove by, Grandfather would often get a ride as far as our place. If Dad wasn’t home, he would pick up an axe and chop wood blocks into fire wood. If there was enough fire wood cut, he would get a heap of empty sacks, pick up a piece of flat board, get down on his hands and knees in the fowl sheds and bag manure. Many a time Dad has returned home from being away to find a heap of bags of manure that had to be emptied.
In latter years, Grandfather and Grandmother retired. They bought a house and 40 acres not far away. About a mile from here. Grandma had to have her few hens. Grandfather had to have a few choko vines and within about 4 years had a farm as big as ever. The work proved too much for Grandma who had a heart attack and died. Dads elder sister, Dorry Thompson and her husband Charlie, came in from the west where Charlie was a Forest Ranger in the Forestry Dept. Dorry had to run the farm and look after grandfather. Charlie liked everything to be clean looking. Grandfather, if he replaced a choko post would leave it where it lay. Grandfather was heard to yell at Charlie, “ Why are you shifting that post. Don’t you know mother earth is calling out for humus “.
In my teens, about 4 of the farms, once a year on each farm would gather on one night to vaccinate the pullets. 3 would catch, 3 would bag about 7 pullets to a bag, and when all bagged, a shed at a time, would then vaccinate the pullets and let them go. There always was a good supper put on for after we finished. One night, we were running very late, as it was after 11 pm. Bill Thompson was saying how good the sponge cakes would be. Grandfather quietly said, “ Now boys, Don’t go in there and ruin your appetite for breakfast “.
In the early days we had the hens housed on the ground, and there always were a lot of dirty eggs that had to be washed every day. A job no one liked. Grandfather in particular apparently tried to keep out of the way for that chore. Grandma apparently hounded him until he came in and helped. Always one for innovative ideas, he got a bucket, laid a cloth across the bottom and up each side, put in some dirty eggs, and filled the bucket with water. Then he would lift one side of the cloth and then the other, making an agitating action. When Grandma spotted what was going on, he gave an extra lift on one side of the cloth and 4 eggs landed on the floor and broke. Grandma ordered him out of the packing shed.
One of the problems with birds on the ground is the high rate of “cluckiness” when not in lay. We used to have a row of nest boxes which had to have the eggs collected every day. In a shed there would be 8 or 9 clucky hens. Notorious for picking and not wanting to get off the nest. One day Grandfather had to be away, and he asked my father if he would go down and pick the eggs up. Dad rode down on the bicycle. Picked up a bucket and as he approached the first row of nests he had one of his usual ‘smokers cough’. Hens flew out of the nest boxes. There wasn’t a bird left in the nest boxes. When Dad questioned the old fellow about this, he admitted that when he gathered the eggs, he would give a cough before he started and any hen on the nest got dragged out, scrubbed in the dirt and thrown over the roof of the shed. Grandma would have killed him if she had of known. He claims he didn’t get pecked by clucky hens. All he had to do was give a cough as he approached the nest boxes.
At one time Grandfather had 2 of the local teenagers working for him and they stayed at night in a room that had a window on one side and a door on the other with 2 beds in the room. This particular day, he wanted a bit of extra work done late in the evening, but the 2 boys claimed they were too tired. Too tired to walk they claimed. Grandfather let them go and he waited until they were laying down on the beds. he got a fishing rod, tied a heap of news paper to the end, snuck up to the window, lighted the news paper and poked it in through the window. The old bloke reckoned the way they came out of the room they had plenty of energy left to do the job he wanted done.
The 2 original houses were rammed earth walled homes. All the early hen houses were made of the same material. When the walls were finished, there were bolt holes left through out the wall at regular intervals. Grandfather devised a pump, made out of a stirrup pump, to pump wet sand into these holes. Someone would hold a wet rag against the hole on one side, and on the other side, someone, usually grandfather, would pump the wet sand into the hole. Nev Sommerfeld was helping out. He was holding the wet rag on one side. Grandfather became aware that while Nev was holding the rag on one hole, he was looking through the hole above. Grandfather whipped the pump up an extra hole and pressed the lever on the pump. Grandfather’s sense of humor.
Grandfather was known as Fiery Fred at school. In his first week at school, grandfather lost 3 blue Premier readers. Claimed he poked them up a hollow log on his way home from school.
The break-up of the partnership between the 3 male brothers ( Fred, Frank and Alf ) at Myra Meadows, Tara, must have been nasty and bitter. When my father died, I had to help administer his estate with the Union Trustee Co. The General Manager of the Co at the time was Harry Payne. Harry told me that one of his first jobs when transferred to Toowoomba was to help sort out the problems with the Male partnership at Tara.. Harry told me that there was a lot of un parliamentary language used. Sorting through my fathers belongings, I came across a Bushells Tea tin crammed with paper and documents. I did not even try to sort through it after the first letter I read. The contents apparently were all to do with the winding up of the partnership. The letter in question was a copy of a letter written by grandfather to the Trustee Co. It was in relation to a proposal that Frank manage the property until the winding up of the partnership. Quote :: 70 fucking pounds ? I wouldn’t pay the bastard 70 fucking pence ::: Now, years later, I regret not having gone through the contents of the Tea tin. There could have been more of my grandfather’s literary gems amongst the papers.
Just before I went to school, I was turfed out of my bed for a night. Dad and I slept out on the verandah. Mum slept in my bed. Frank and Ella stayed the night and slept in the double bed used by my parents. It was years and years later I found out that Frank and Ella arrived unannounced late one afternoon at Grandfathers place, but wasn’t offered a bed for the night. Dad and Mum put them up for the night. Those days there weren’t motels or hotels anywhere handy.
When grandfather and Grandma retired, they were about a mile and ¾ from the railway. To catch a train to go to Brisbane, you had to be at the Beerburrum railway station at 6 am.. Rail motor to Caboolture and a steam train from Caboolture to Brisbane. 4.30 am was the latest you could rise, a quick breakfast, put the horse into the shafts of the buggy, and get to the rail station. Grandfather used to say that when Grandma was going to Brisbane for a day, the bloody house was haunted from 2 am onwards. Grandma up every half hour or so to look at the clock. No electricity those days.
Some of the exploits the boys got up to, Grandfather was there behind the scenes egging them on. Two that come to mind were the carbide lights and the ginger beer. Grandma was noted for her Ginger Beer. Grandfather reckoned there wasn’t enough kick in the beer and he suggested to the boys that they would be able to come up with a better recipe. So Dad, Ron, George and Nev experimented. Each coming up with a more potent brew. The beer was made in Grandma’s copper. The experiments stopped, and the last batch made, was left untouched when it took the lining off the inside of the washing copper. When Grandfather and the boys went out rabbiting, they lived under canvas and the only lights they had at night were kerosene lanterns. Grandfather suggested that the boys should be able to improve the lighting. So they experimented with carbide lights. Each getting brighter. The experiments ended and they went back to kerosene lights when one of the carbide lights exploded and ruined the insides of the tent.
Dad tells about the cooking when they were rabbitting. Dad and Grandfather in one tent and George and Nev in another. For the main meal they took it in turns to cook. Dad would peel all vegetable before boiling them. Grandfather would peel all except potatoes. George would peel all except potatoes and pumpkins, and Nev wouldn’t peel any. Not even the onions. When camp was to be shifted, Grandfather would cook damper, meat and vegies so as to have a meal ready when and where they alighted. George and Nev would cook nothing and as soon as they made camp would shoot a rabbit and cook it.
Grandfather caught Gold Fever. He left home and chased gold. Dad had to leave school and go trapping rabbits – meat for the family and skins for a bit of money to keep the family going. As I understand it, he just up and left the family and went chasing gold. He never made money from his gold digging. Years and years later after leaving the gold areas, he would sit round a camp fire and talk gold for hours on end with anyone who came through and had been a gold digger. He told the tale about Cracko in Qld. He and some of the others had a claim there and got a little gold before the seam petered out. The pub there at that time was just a weather board shanty, no inside lining. The woman who ran the pub could be heard yelling out at times “ Come inside and piss out you dirty bastards “.