An Outback Nurse Read online

  48

  Educating the children

  Madeline had been my boys’ governess at Gordon Downs, and Joanne followed at Wave Hill. In between I taught Anthony and David myself, but I always expected too much of them. Whenever visitors came knocking at our door, I’d bring them in for a cup of coffee and tell the boys to continue with their sums while I entertained. I should have hung a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign, but Ralph thought this would be a little rude. By the time I’d return to the schoolroom, my pupils would be gone—off to play with Bronwyn and Sally Clark, and always very hard to find.

  The Sydney Correspondence School was excellent, not only for Anthony but David too. They had a fantastic art course in their curriculum; for every painting that was set for the boys, they had to use live models. Sometimes one of the Aboriginal women would pose, sometimes me. Every week they did a painting and I still have them all filed away. Subjects included: Woman Fumbling in Her Purse—Old Ida, the Aboriginal lady from the soup kitchen, sitting on the floor and fumbling in her purse; Woman Washing Her Hair—me, and I looked ghastly.

  Anthony was now eight years old and the last governess, Laura, had found teaching him to be very difficult. She gave up because he was just not interested. I had to take over and found it difficult too. After much thought, we decided to send him off to school. Believe me, it was an extremely hard decision to make.

  We booked him into Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College (OLSH) in Bowral, in the highlands south of Sydney, which was run by nuns. Mum was not far away in Wollongong, where he would spend any free weekends. We’d receive very sad letters from Anthony, but he worked hard and the nuns were pleased with him.

  A year later, David told us that he wanted to join Anthony at OLSH. We didn’t want to send David, but he was so insistent that we gave in. Then, unfortunately, he was very miserable there. The boys claimed that they were given dog food to eat—you know how little boys carry on.

  Jason went two years later. Ralph and I missed them terribly, but we wanted the best education for our children and at the time it was the way to go. The boys have never let me forget that they were only eight years old when they were sent to school down south. But I look back and see how independent they became.

  However, when I think of Anthony having to go back to school by himself after his first holidays, I cringe. He left on a MacRobertson Miller Airline plane from Wave Hill to Alice Springs, where a family friend picked him up and off-loaded him onto the Qantas plane to Adelaide. Then it was up to the hostesses and Anthony to get on the next two flights, to Melbourne and then to Sydney. My mother met him at Sydney Airport and drove him to his school in Bowral. What a different world it is today; children would rarely be allowed to travel by themselves. In those times it was relatively safe.

  In 1970, before Jason went away to school, I booked him into the Katherine School of the Air, a distance education school under the control of the Northern Territory Department of Education. Until heading down south, the older boys had continued with Sydney Correspondence School, which we thought excellent. We believed at the time that there was no point in changing them to the Kimberley school when it became available.

  A radio transmitter was supplied to Jason and lessons were sent out on the mail plane. Every day his teacher would communicate with her pupils, scattered around the northernmost part of the Territory. We would sing songs, have discussions, and read out stories the pupils had written. One song we loved was ‘The Dying Stockman’, with lyrics first published in 1885 and written by Horace Flower, a Queensland station owner. About this time there was a mobile ‘caravan’ school for both white and Aboriginal children with a teacher, Rosalie, who’d come to visit. But by then our children were away at school.

  One day we heard that there was going to be a School of the Air gymkhana at Delamere Station, 350 kilometres away on the road to Katherine. I radioed Liz MacLeod of Delamere to ask, ‘What can I bring?’

  ‘A piglet for the greasy pig race,’ Liz said.

  No worries, there was a litter of piglets in our pigpen.

  We must have looked a sight rolling up at Delamere with a caged piglet on the roof of our Land Rover station wagon. We greased the animal with fat before we let it go—then the children had to try and catch it. What a hullabaloo!

  Jason rode a Delamere Station pony in the barrel and bending races. He even had his photo taken for Hoofs & Horns magazine.

  The boys flew home every school holidays and loved going out to help pull bores with the bore mechanic, or to the stock camps with Ralph. They all had their slug guns and the crows became very wary. Standing targets, like fence posts and trees, became fair game too.

  49

  The problems of stress

  From the time we’d arrived back at Wave Hill, Ralph had been trying to ignore a nagging pain in his abdomen. He didn’t talk about it, but I knew there was something wrong. ‘Oh no, nothing wrong with me,’ he’d say. I would examine him and tell him he’d have to see the doctor on the next visit. And so it went on, the pain slowly worsening as the months passed by. Occasionally he’d vomit his food. Men can be so stubborn about their health issues! He was too busy worrying about the station, and not taking the time to worry about himself. And he was smoking heavily.

  In the early hours one morning, Ralph had gone to the bathroom. I heard a crash. Jumping out of bed, I raced to investigate and found him lying on the floor leaning against the toilet bowl. ‘Ralph, can you hear me?’

  The reply was nothing more than a mumble. His pulse was very rapid. I tried to make him as comfortable as possible in the loo, then went to get help.

  Tony and Matt managed to get Ralph into bed and he started to come around, but something serious had definitely occurred in his body. When daylight arrived I contacted Darwin Aerial Medical. Ralph was taken to Darwin Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a deep-seated duodenal ulcer. He was hospitalised for two weeks and advised to see a gastroenterologist when we went south, as the ulcer was likely to erode further and cause a rupture in his small bowel. He came home with antacids, and I’m sure he was on phenobarbital to relieve cyclic vomiting. It wasn’t like today, when ulcers can be treated so quickly with acid-suppressing medication and one week of two different antibiotics.

  On holidays two months later at the end of 1972, Ralph and I had an appointment to see a Macquarie Street specialist in Sydney. He recommended a major operation: half of Ralph’s stomach would be removed and the other half joined to the duodenum, the first section of the small intestine. Ralph was admitted to Sydney Hospital where this operation was performed and thankfully went well.

  During Ralph’s time in hospital, I stayed with my brother Tony and his wife Moira in their unit at Randwick. Tony was no longer a priest. He’d finished his nine years of study to become a Passionist priest, then taken the name Father Fabian. He was sent to a hospital in Hobart to work with another priest as a hospital padre. He then decided, after all those years of study, that the priesthood wasn’t for him, and left. This amazed everyone, but he obviously had his reasons. When I asked what they were, he just said, ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ He went back to being an accountant and married Moira, a lovely widow with one child.

  After ten days in hospital, Ralph was discharged and I took him to the unit. That night he complained of severe chest pains. They were so severe, he said, that he felt like jumping from the balcony. We were on the third floor. I was so worried; there was no emergency number like triple zero in those days, and I was a little apprehensive about ringing the surgeon when Ralph had only left the hospital ten hours before. But the surgeon said, ‘Bring him straight in.’

  So, at two in the morning, Tony drove us back to Sydney Hospital. I thought Ralph was having a coronary—so did the surgeon. The pain must have been excruciating as it turned out to be pericarditis, inflammation of the muscles around the heart that stretch with every heartbeat. This was caused by a virus from an infected bag of blood that he’d been given after his surgery. />
  For several days he was on the critical list. Upset, anxious and thinking the worst, I decided to go and pick up the children so he could see them. Jason, six years old, was staying in Wollongong with my mother; Anthony and David, ten and eight, were at OLSH. I collected them in the new Ford Fairlane that Ralph and I had purchased earlier in the holidays, and brought them back to see their dad. That was the turning point: after seeing them, Ralph started to improve.

  My husband needed more time to recuperate. Mum offered to look after him for another month, while Anthony and David went back to school and Jason and I went back on our own. Knowing Ralph, he would have driven all the way to Wave and then started work as soon as he returned, so I accepted Mum’s offer on his behalf. Jason and I were to drive back with Pat and Gus Ringler, who’d been on holidays in Sydney at the same time as us. We arranged to meet at Bowral. Mum and Ralph were coming to see us off.

  The morning of departure we were up at 5 a.m. It was still dark outside. I was in the bathroom shaving my legs, with one leg in the washbasin. Suddenly there was the sound of an explosion from deep down in the earth. The lights went out. The building shook and trembled. I knew at once that it was an earth tremor or quake. In Wollongong, of all places!

  ‘Quick, Ralph, get Mum and I’ll grab Jason!’ I yelled out, as we stumbled to the door. We rushed to a vacant allotment on one side of the units.

  As the sun came up, the residents from the other units in the building, woken by the tremor, emerged from doorways facing the allotment. There we were, all huddled together. I suddenly remembered, as I noticed everyone staring at me, that I only had a bra and underpants on. ‘Hurry, Jason, stand in front of me,’ I said, feeling highly embarrassed as I pulled him over to shield me.

  Half an hour later, normality restored, we were on the road to Bowral to meet Pat and Gus and continue our journey to the Territory. I know Ralph hated having to stay in Wollongong—but he needed time to recuperate before taking on his management role again.

  In separate cars, Pat and Gus and Jason and I drove through Goulburn, Griffith, Hay, Mildura and Broken Hill. On reaching Port Augusta we, together with our cars, boarded the train to Alice Springs. What a relief to relax on the train for four days, and what a difference to my last trip through South Australia in 1960 in the minibuses with the CSIRO crew.

  We arrived in Alice early in the morning. After breakfast we decided to walk into town, as our cars wouldn’t be unloaded for some hours. We were wandering through the CBD when we came to the Alice Springs Hotel. Who should exit the front door but Roy Bell, the Vestey general manager, and Ces Watts, the pastoral inspector.

  After greetings, Roy said to Jason, who was six at the time, ‘How was your holiday?’

  ‘Very good, thank you, Mr Bell. We had an earthquake in Wollongong and Mummy ran outside without her clothes on.’

  For months afterwards, whenever Roy was at Wave and we had new visitors, he’d say, ‘Did you hear about the earthquake in Wollongong and Thea running outside without her clothes on?’

  I had to laugh and so did everyone else.

  An old friend, Tony Guerner, who’d been a jackaroo with Ralph at Wave before my time, offered to fly him back after he’d recuperated. Tony and Ralph were great friends, and we’d often visited him and his wife, Vickie, at their property Yarrawin in Brewarrina.

  So Tony flew Ralph back to us. He looked so much better and it was so good to have him home.

  After staying at Wave for a few days, Tony said, ‘Who do you want to visit in the Territory? I’ll take you there.’

  Jason was the only child at home, so he came with us. We flew to Gordon Downs to see Madeline, Milton, and their now three children, and on to Katherine to visit Lynn and Patsy. Lynn had started a butcher shop in town, and was also supplying the nearby Tindall Air Force Base with gravel. He was making a fortune! We then flew in to Nutwood Downs Station, where Sue and Tony Clark and their daughters were now based.

  Throughout our journey, Jason wasn’t well. He developed a temperature. When we returned home, his breathing became rapid and stertorous, deep and laboured. We grew very worried. In the early hours, after getting onto a doctor in Katherine, Tony Guerner flew me and Jason into town at the very low altitude of 150 metres in order to maintain Jason’s oxygen levels.

  Dr Jim Scattini was waiting for us at the hospital. After an X-ray revealed double pneumonia, Jason was commenced on intravenous antibiotics. We were so lucky. Thanks to Tony Guerner and Dr Scattini, he made a wonderful recovery.

  50

  A penny for our thoughts

  In 1973 we procured a grey pony for David’s tenth birthday. She was a frisky little thing called Moonlight. David, a competent horse rider, came off Moonlight and fractured his left femur, and the Aerial Medical Service transported him to Darwin. As only the patient was allowed on the flight, I had to find a lift. Luckily, someone in a truck came through Wave Hill at the time, heading in the right direction. I was pregnant, expecting my fourth child, but it didn’t worry me going to Darwin by truck—I was just anxious to get there for David. This pregnancy was a lovely surprise, as it had been eight years since Jason was born.

  David was in Darwin Hospital for two weeks. I stayed with friends, getting lifts to the hospital every day. He was then transferred to Katherine.

  I remember giving him his school lessons, which the nuns from OLSH had sent up. David was in no mood to do schoolwork; I tried cajoling him, but it didn’t have much effect. So we played games, read stories, and David wrote letters to his grandmothers. There he was, a very active ten-year-old, confined to bed for six weeks.

  Not long after David and I returned from hospital, him on crutches and me heavily pregnant, we had to start preparing to head for Sydney, where I was to have my baby. Jason was coming with me and David, because this was when we’d decided to send him to school with the other boys—what horrible parents!

  Ralph drove me and the boys to Darwin. What a pathetic bunch we looked, a pregnant woman escorting two little boys, one on crutches.

  For some reason the plane had to go via Cairns where there was a curfew, and we had to stay the night. Being a pessimist, before I left Darwin I made sure that my doctor notified a good obstetrician in Cairns, just in case I went into labour. Well, you never know! Nothing happened, of course.

  Mum picked Anthony up at OLSH and met us at Bondi Beach, where I had a unit booked for the school holidays. We had an exciting time beside the sea at Bondi, visiting Luna Park and Taronga Zoo, and going to movies, although the boys were just as happy watching TV in the unit, a great novelty for them. At Wave, as well as all over the Territory, there was no TV except for in Darwin and Alice Springs, and this was 1974. We depended on the radio for world news. Ralph and I didn’t even know what or who The Beatles were until one of our Sydney visits coincided with their first trip to Australia.

  At the end of the holidays, Anthony and David went back to school, and Jason went for his first term. A week later I was admitted into Crown Street Hospital to spend the night before my third caesarean. Once again, the wonderful Dr John MacBeth was my obstetrician.

  I was sure I was going to have another boy, but I was still hoping for a girl. A fellow in the Bondi chemist shop had looked at my protruding belly and announced for all to hear, ‘Lady, you are going to have a boy.’ That night at the hospital I wandered around to the nursery, counting the number of newborns: eighteen. I noticed that the boys far outnumbered the girls, twelve to six. Wow! I thought. Maybe I have a chance of having a girl after all.

  On 12 September, my baby was born. Unlike today, one had a full anaesthetic during a caesar. I regained consciousness in my room, and low and behold there was Ralph. He’d flown down that morning from Darwin to surprise me; it was the first delivery he had attended. And he was trying to tell me something.

  ‘It’s a girl!’ he kept saying.

  In my fuddled state I thought I must be dreaming. Then I couldn’t believe it. But it was true—Penny had f
inally arrived! How wonderful. We’d talked of the name Penny for twelve years. Maybe it was now a little old hat, we thought. Mum had said how she loved the name Sarah, so we’d decided to call the baby Sarah Penelope. But as soon as I saw her, it had to be Penny.

  What a hit Penny was with all the stockmen and others on our return to the station three weeks later. She was a beautiful baby. Life was perfect.

  Anna and Cowboy Collins, Lynn’s in-laws and our good friends from Katherine, came out to Wave Hill for Penny’s christening, Anna to be godmother. We hadn’t decided on the godfather, and upon mentioning this fact to the staff, we were inundated with volunteers. Penny ended up having one godmother and nine godfathers—anything to keep the peace!

  Father Nicholas, the priest from Wyndham, came to officiate the christening, although we were hoping to have Father Michael Banks from Katherine, who’d recently put on a beautiful christening service at Kirkimbie Station.

  Father Banks was very much like Father Flynn, who’d married me and Ralph: caring and compassionate but lots of fun. He was also young and extremely handsome, which was quite detrimental to his vocation. We heard that all the young women in Katherine were chasing the poor father, and unfortunately for us he found it a bit too much. Leaving both Katherine and the priesthood, he moved to Adelaide, married and divorced.

  Many years later, my sister-in-law Patsy Hayes, who was then sadly a widow, was shopping in Darwin when she heard a familiar voice in a neighbouring shop. It was Michael Banks! Cupid shot his arrow and now they’re happily married and living in Queensland.