An Outback Nurse Read online

  After the boys started drinking my apple wine, I suddenly had doubts. I thought of the container and its former contents: What if I killed them all? No way would I have any! But they all drank it, praised the wine and became quite merry. Thank goodness they survived.

  29

  The curtains

  In May 1964 Tom told me and Ralph that the governor-general, Lord De L’Isle, was coming to visit Wave Hill. His daughter Catherine Sidney, a French maid and an aide-de-camp would be accompanying him. I knew before Tom asked me where they would be staying, as we had the only decent house on the station.

  I told Tom that they could have the cottage, because I wouldn’t be there. ‘I’ll be in Darwin giving birth to my second child,’ I said.

  For a reason I can’t recall, Tom and Anne weren’t going to be at Wave either, so they asked the manager’s wife from Nicholson Station, Robin Hill, to come over and act as hostess. ‘The First Lady’, as they called Robin, ran a very efficient homestead and was the perfect choice.

  After hearing the news of the impending visit, I thought, Aha, this is my chance to get curtains for our house. I’d been studying interior design in the House & Garden and Women’s Weekly magazines, and getting ideas on what type of curtains would look best. I had a fair idea of what I wanted.

  When I asked Tom about it again, he just mumbled. So on Peter Morris’ next visit, I made a point of going to morning smoko to speak with him. I didn’t want Tom to hear me.

  Smoko finished, everyone went back to work, and Mr Morris and I were left.

  ‘You wanted to talk to me about something, Thea?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Morris. As you know, the governor-general and his party will be staying in our cottage. Although it’s very comfortable, unfortunately we have no curtains, which I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate.’

  ‘Well, let us go up to your house and have a look.’ Which we did. ‘Yes, you are quite right, we must get some curtains made before they arrive.’

  ‘I’m quite happy to make them, Mr Morris. We just need to order some material.’ I was thinking that David Jones, Myer and Mark Foy’s always had beautiful materials.

  ‘Oh no, I’m sure that the Wave Hill store will have material. Let us pay a visit.’

  I was horrified. The old devil, a true Vestey man—he was always worried about the budget.

  Jack Niven, the storekeeper, greeted us. And, yes, he had some rolls of dress fabric for the Aboriginal women: brown head cloth, pink head cloth and a nursery pattern on blue seersucker. Jack was on my side and mumbled about the limited amount he had to show us.

  ‘Maybe we could order some material, Mr Morris,’ I suggested.

  But no, Mr Morris wasn’t going to spend any more money. Dear Mr Morris! Well! That was all I was going to get. I made the curtains; they served their purpose, but only for the bedrooms. I decided that curtain-less windows looked better in the lounge and dining rooms.

  30

  Cudge and Jack

  Several months later, I flew to Darwin to await the birth of my second child. I left my beautiful fifteen-month-old son, Anthony, in the care of his father and grandmother. My mother-in-law, Mary ‘Cudge’ Connors, had come to take on the cooking at Wave Hill some weeks before, with her second husband, Jack.

  As a young girl in Queensland, Cudge had been a champion Lady Rider, and had ridden for the Duke of Gloucester. By 1964, she’d been in the Territory for nearly thirty years. She was a great cook and a great organiser of the Aboriginal female staff. She and Jack had worked at Mount Bundy Station in the 1950s, which had cattle but mainly wild buffalo. Ralph had gone up to work with them for a few years before he’d come to Wave Hill.

  Jack was a bush poet. I’ve included this poem of his, as it reflects a little of what the old Wave Hill was like.

  Wave Hill

  Navvies in jodhpurs

  Women in trousers

  Lubras in jeans and living in houses

  Bras on their teats and even wear scanties

  Now I’m wondering what else they will wear.

  There are boisterous jackaroos laughing and gay,

  And some old time ringers with nothing to say

  There’s all kinds of germs and you should hear them curse

  For there’s three women here and each one’s a nurse.

  The governor-general, Lord De L’Isle, arrived for his visit accompanied by a small entourage. His aide-de-camp wasn’t very happy with his choice between sleeping in our pantry-cum-storeroom or down at the visitors’ quarters with the steel beds and corrugated walls. Good thing Cudge was the cook, so there were no worries about the food, and Robin Hill from Nicholson was an excellent hostess.

  Down at the site proposed for the new homestead, the contractor Jack Warner finally drew water after drilling for nine months, and drove at speed to inform everyone of his find. Having heard the news, Lord De L’Isle declared his eagerness to go with the staff to the drill site. Someone decided they’d better have a taste of the water, and of course the honour fell to the special guest. He was handed a pannikin filled with this precious liquid. He took one mouthful and started coughing and spitting it onto the ground. It was salt water!

  Poor old Jack Warner: how would he have felt? He’d spent the good part of a year billing Wave Hill for his services. Imagine his distress when the Northern Territory ‘Holy Grail’—fresh water—had come to naught. At least we weren’t going to live up there with rock gardens and daily visits from the settlement folk.

  31

  The big wait

  Leaving a nursing sister called Kathy Dowman in my place, I flew to Darwin not knowing exactly when my baby was due, but feeling that I only had a few weeks to go. No scans in those days.

  I stayed with MaryAnn Napier, whose husband, Dave, was a stock inspector for the Department of Primary Industries, and a great friend of Ralph’s. This was my first time meeting MaryAnn, who’d just had a baby of her own. I felt an imposition on the family, but no one else seemed to mind.

  Every second day I would go into town from their home at Rapid Creek, on the coastal fringe of Darwin, just to give MaryAnn a break. I’d see a movie or just wander around the shops.

  For two nights I stayed at the Darwin Hotel for a catch-up with my sister-in-law Faye, who flew in to Darwin on her way south. Tim and Faye were living in Nigeria at the time, as Tim was working as an aerial surveyor for the Nigerian government. They were given flights home every six months. Instead of returning to Vancouver where they lived, Faye decided to visit her parents in Newcastle, stopping off in Darwin to see me.

  Faye and Tim had been living in Canada and America since the late fifties. They’d met and married in Vancouver, then spent two years in Nigeria. Later Tim worked in Saudi Arabia and Algeria. But America had won their hearts. They lived in Honolulu for several years, moved to Los Angeles, and finally retired to Santa Barbara where their daughter and family now live.

  Faye and I had a great time together in the old Darwin. I remember her saying, ‘How quaint is Darwin?’

  It was quaint in those days. Not much more than a frontier town. Not like the mammoth, modern metropolis it became after Cyclone Tracy.

  The weeks of my confinement dragged on. I was concerned about who would deliver the baby because of the foetal distress experienced by Anthony. I wanted to be sure I had a good doctor on hand in case of complications, so I booked a private obstetrician who’d been recommended to me.

  I missed Ralph and Anthony terribly. Occasionally someone would come up from the stations and we’d meet for coffee in town. When Gus Ringler arrived from Nicholson, he rang me and asked, ‘Haven’t you had that baby yet? What you need is a couple of strong gins. That will bring you into labour.’ At the Old Vic Hotel I had several gin and tonics with Gus, but even that didn’t help.

  *

  On a Friday morning two weeks later, I finally felt something happening. Hooray! My waters must have broken.

  But it wasn’t water—it was blood. No, I thought
. What’s happening?

  MaryAnn raced me to my obstetrician.

  I was shocked when he informed me that I had a placenta praevia, a rare condition meaning that the placenta was coming first through the birth canal. Into hospital I went, where I was commenced on a blood transfusion that continued for two days. The obstetrician waited for me to come into labour. I knew the dangers and couldn’t quite understand in my befuddled mind what was happening. I was relying on this obstetrician to do the right thing.

  Luckily for my baby, and me, my friend Smiddy had come to Darwin for a holiday with her mother, Dr Saunders, a Macquarie Street gynaecologist. Smiddy was there for me and reported back to her mother on my progress—or lack of—during those two days.

  There was no way I could notify Ralph except by telegram. So when the pastoral inspector, Reg Durack, came to visit me, I implored him to ask Tom to send Ralph up to be with me. I needed my husband.

  But nothing happened. We sure had to be strong women in those days.

  That Saturday Dr Saunders attended a cocktail party at the hospital and met Father John Flynn, the ophthalmologist turned priest who’d married me and Ralph. She expressed her concerns about my confinement to him.

  Sunday afternoon found me with nasogastric tube, catheter and intravenous fluids in place, being raced to the theatre. I was thinking, I wonder if this doctor has ever done a caesarean section. Was I going to survive? There was nothing I could do, so I shut my eyes and prayed.

  I awoke during the night with a ghastly pain where they’d cut me open, so I knew I was still alive.

  In the morning they brought in my baby—a gorgeous little boy with a Mr Magoo nose. David had arrived! He was placed in a cot beside my bed. I was so relieved, but so sore.

  A little while after my caesar, Smiddy rang the hospital and asked the nurse in the maternity ward, ‘Has Penny arrived?’

  ‘Yes,’ was the reply, with the nurse thinking Smiddy was just asking if I’d had my baby. My second child was always going to be named either David or Penny.

  Smiddy excitedly sent telegrams to Ralph, my mother and Cudge, to announce the arrival of a girl, Penny.

  The next day, friends started popping in and saying, ‘Congratulations, you’ve had a girl.’

  Defensively I replied, ‘No, it’s a boy—and his name is David.’

  Poor little David. I thought he might hear them and feel unwelcome. At first I couldn’t work out why they believed I’d had a girl, but then I received telegrams from Ralph, my mother and Cudge, all welcoming Penny, and I realised Smiddy had told everyone!

  Smiddy came back with me to Wave Hill a week after I was discharged from the hospital. Anthony was now seventeen months old, and he didn’t know me. It was heartbreaking at first, but he soon came around to accepting me as his mother.

  Everyone was busy getting ready for the Negri Races. I was tempted to ask Ralph not to go, but he really had no option: he was in charge of organising everything, especially the horses. Smiddy offered to stay on, but I didn’t want her to miss out on the best race meeting ever. Off they all went. Tom and Anne were still on holidays and Reg Durack was sent down to look after Wave.

  Anthony, David and I had a very peaceful week, except when ‘Mad’ Maria, one of the dining-room girls, started terrorising Reg. He asked me to go up to the settlement with him to assess her condition. She was running around, lifting her dress over her head and screaming. The Darwin doctor had seen Maria before and prescribed medication for what would now probably be called bipolar disorder. Taking it with me, I gave her a dose that settled her down. Maria was the only mentally ill patient I had in the north, and her disorder only affected her now and then.

  Six weeks after David’s birth, I had trouble with my wound. One by one, every stitch site became inflamed, followed by the eruption of a stitch that left a nasty fissure. I had to go on antibiotics that tainted my milk. David refused to drink, which was most distressing. I was a very good ‘milker’ and wasn’t keen on bottle-feeding. Eventually, I had no other option. There was no formula, just powdered milk. The milking cows had gone by this stage; I’m not sure why. I’ve wondered since if the powdered milk contributed to David having a broken collarbone at eighteen months, a broken arm at two and a half, and a broken leg at seven.

  On one of his visits, Father Flynn christened our second son David James Hayes. Len Brodie, a stockman, was the godfather, and Kathy, the nursing sister at the time, stood in as godmother for Smiddy.

  Ralph, the boys and I went on holidays a little later, driving to Wollongong to see my family, on to Sydney to socialise with friends, and then to Scarborough, Queensland, to visit Ralph’s grandparents, the Taylors. It took around five days to drive south, as it was over three thousand kilometres to Sydney and more to Wollongong. We camped nightly, all in one big swag, always settling on sites hidden away in the bush. I washed the boys’ nappies at service stations, then hung them out the car windows, letting the wind do its job, as we sped along. No disposable nappies back then!

  If I’ve been giving you the impression that our camping trips all went smoothly, I apologise. On that trip, one memorable event in Outback Queensland not only threatened to bring our camping days to an end, but us as well!

  We set up camp in what we thought was a good spot, with the four of us snuggled in our giant swag. At about three in the morning I woke and let out a scream—I could hear the sound of an approaching train that seemed to threaten to flatten our campsite. We got up and scurried to and fro as the overnight freight train picked up speed, hurtling on towards Brisbane. On closer inspection, it was revealed that a paddock fence separated our campsite from the railway track.

  It was a most unsettled group of campers who hopped back into the communal swag for four or five hours of fitful sleep before the next leg of the journey began.

  32

  Back to Gordon Downs

  Returning from holidays we were given some great news: Ralph was to be the manager of Gordon Downs Station. We were so pleased, not only about the promotion, but also because life with Tom had become a little difficult.

  The water supply for Wave Hill came from a bore and was pumped into an overhead tank. A weight hung on a rope outside the tank with a float inside to show the water level. If the tank was getting empty, the weight would be high, and whenever the weight got high, Tom would start moaning, ‘They’re using that thing again,’ referring to our flushing toilet. Much better we go, and he and Anne could move into the cottage where we thought they should have been right from the start.

  The Vesteys provided all the furniture on their stations, so we had only our clothes and personal effects to take, including our beautiful Samoyed, Dasher. Little boys need a pet, and when we’d seen Dasher for sale in a pet shop in Woollahra, while on holidays in Sydney, we bought him and he fitted the bill perfectly.

  Tom sent a truck over to Gordon with our gear and Dasher. Ralph, the boys and I travelled there in our good old Humber. We were excited at the prospect of taking on our first management job, particularly at such a gorgeous location in the Kimberley.

  The Jones family—Stan, Mary and their five children—were eager to leave, so we only had a couple of nights with them, but that was all right. Stan and Mary had managed a very efficient station, and Ralph knew the workings of Gordon Downs, as we’d relieved there the year before. The homestead looked a picture with its perfectly manicured lawns, first-rate vegetable garden and spotless buildings. Morning and afternoon smoko were served on the lawn under a shady tree in the summer and in the sun in the winter.

  Of the one hundred or so Aboriginal residents, more than half had jobs around the homestead or in the stock camp. Those not employed came up one day a week to do a job. Some women would scrub baking dishes, bread tins, and pots and pans with sand—very effective in removing gunk. A team of men carried flagstones to build a boundary wall at the back of the station.

  Against one wall of the kitchen was a long table where all the Aboriginal staff col
lected their food. The beef house and the large bread oven, which was encased in ant bed, were just outside the kitchen. When we had a killer, the people from the camp, pensioners and children, would come up to get their share of fresh meat. Our meals were taken down to the homestead from the kitchen and kept warm in a fuel stove, in what we called the pantry.

  The downstairs of the two-storey homestead consisted of four rooms: pantry, dining, lounge and recreation. The highly polished floors were made of paint-infused cement. There were three Aboriginal girls working downstairs; each had one room to clean. It would take them half a day to wash the floors and wipe over every bit of furniture. I thought this was overdoing it, but Ralph said, ‘Why change when they’re in a routine and happy with it?’

  Above the dining-room table was the ‘punkah’, a type of fan that originated in India. It consisted of a few flaps of leather hanging from a wooden frame. A rope connected one end to the other, and extended about two metres to the ‘punkah puller’, an employee who would sit on the floor and pull the rope backwards and forwards, creating a cool breeze around the table. One of the house girls, Dora, was the punkah puller. It was her special job; her husband, Paddy, was always keen to do it, but only when she allowed him. He pulled with the rope around his toe. Quite often my little boys would sit on their laps and help pull. Our quarters and visitors’ rooms were upstairs. The infamous Greek boys had worked for Stan Jones and constructed magnificent floor-to-ceiling varnished wooden cupboards in the dressing room. When the old kitchen had burnt down some years earlier, Stan had employed them to erect a platform on four pillars with an entrance from the upstairs verandah. It was known as the Launching Pad. Underneath was a sandpit for the children. They played in it for hours, driving their little trucks and bulldozers, and swearing as they’d heard the men do in the stockyards—much to their mother’s horror.