A Country Nurse Read online

  As keen as we had been to move south, we had years of debt from school fees, and for the next untold number of years there were vast improvements needed at the farm and homestead, with only a little money coming in from the dairy.

  We needed a cash flow—a business to keep us afloat and keep our children boarding at Downlands.

  We decided to buy a business in Toogoolawah. The choice was a café or The Corner Store. I have never been a good cook, but loved playing shop as a child, so The Corner Store won. The owners were more than happy to wait six months until we left Wave Hill, promising to spend two weeks with us to ‘put us through the ropes’.

  So, that was what was waiting for us on our arrival in Toogoolawah.

  3

  The Corner Store

  The Corner Store in Toogoolawah was at the end of the main shopping centre. The shop came with a three-bedroom house and garage at the back of the block, and a small backyard with a lawn. The shop was on a corner—which was a small relief—hence it was named ‘The Corner Store’. On the other side was a laneway, an old butcher’s shop and the Exchange Hotel. Diagonally across the street and across a railway reserve lived Ralph’s mother Mary and her single sister Eanie. Mary was known to everyone as Cudge—which is an Indigenous word for white woman. Mary had lived most of her life in the Northern Territory, bringing up her family at Rosewood and Waterloo Stations in the Northern Territory, and after her husband Dick died, she cooked on both Elsey and Wave Hill Stations.

  How lucky we were to have family so close at this vital time of change in our lifestyle—and be able to stay with them on our arrival from the north. We spent two weeks with Cudge and Eanie, and our son Jason was there too, having spent the term at the Toogoolawah High School. Then Ralph, Jason, Penny and I moved into our new home behind The Corner Store. We had an extension made to the boys’ bedroom to accommodate the three of them.

  We didn’t own any furniture, as the Vesteys had provided everything at Wave Hill. Our only possessions were our clothes and personal objects, a radiogram and a pianola. The first thing we needed to do was to buy furniture for our house. Down to Brisbane we went, and with the help of Ben Humphries we purchased furniture from antique and second-hand furniture shops, some of which I still have today. Ben had toured the Northern Territory and the Kimberley for years with his hawker van, arriving at Wave Hill twice a year selling Western gear to the stockmen. We enjoyed Ben’s visits. He would always stay with us for a couple of days before continuing on to the next station. After selling his business he decided to go into Federal politics; he joined the Labor Party and became Minister for Veteran Affairs from 1987 to 1993.

  Two weeks after we arrived in Toogoolawah, we took over The Corner Store. We went into the shop like babes in the wood—it was completely foreign. I now know one needs to be born into the retail business. A bit late now!

  The store was open from 7 a.m. until 6.30 p.m., 363 days a year, with only Christmas Day and Good Friday off. I had to do the bookkeeping. Did I remember the Business Principles and Bookkeeping subjects I had learnt at school? Of course not. Fortunately, two weeks tuition in the running of The Corner Store from the previous owners did make quite a difference.

  We had a cool room where we kept a variety of cold meats—devon, corned beef, salami, chicken rolls—plus an assortment of cheeses, and where every evening, all the fruit and vegetables were transferred for the night. On the counter was the meat slicer, which Ralph would clean every evening. Invariably, just as he had finished cleaning off all the accumulation of meat and fat and the slicer was gleaming and spotless, someone would rush in to order a couple of slices of ham or corned beef and Ralph, furious but trying not to show it, would say with a snarl of a smile: ‘Oh! That’s okay …’

  We had to purchase a vehicle—a panel van—to pick up all our stock from Ipswich, seventy-five kilometres away. Every week we had to make an order to replace the stock that had been bought. It took half a day to count everything on the shelves. Then one of us had to go to Tickles, a wholesale store in Ipswich, to buy the stock, which took all day. I usually went, as I wasn’t game to ask Ralph. He wasn’t very happy as a storekeeper and I was concerned he might get angry with the tradesmen down there. On returning to the shop and unloading tonnes of goods, we then had to price it all and put it on the shelves. A couple of days later it was time to do another stocktake and go to Tickles again.

  The Corner Store had a ‘book up’ system, which we had inherited; we had no choice in this matter and if we had refused, we would have lost customers. Our customers could ‘book up’ a tab until they decided to pay their bill—and if one reminded the customer of a very overdue bill, they would get very upset.

  We also had customers who bought only one product per week or month. One such customer had a standing order for a two-litre Triple Treat ice-cream—the only item she ever bought from us (the ice-cream man only came once a month). One month this lady didn’t turn up, so I sold the Triple Treat to someone else. How indignant she was when she eventually came in, putting her head in the air and marching out. Good riddance, I thought, making a rude sign to her departing back. She turned around and saw me, but I didn’t care. It was worth it to have one less horrible customer.

  Another customer wasn’t very happy when Rumpole, our Ridgeback pup, went visiting a young Apostolic couple across the road. The German Apostolics, a very close-knit community in Toogoolawah, came out to Australia assisted by several churches, one of which was the German Apostolic Church. H.F. Niemeyer came out with his wife in 1883. He was responsible for arranging an immigration scheme with the Queensland Government, bringing over 700 German migrants to Queensland.

  The wife was home alone and terrified of Rumpole, the gentlest of creatures who wouldn’t hurt a fly. She relayed a frightening story to her husband when he returned home. Over came the husband—peak time early evening—and started abusing Ralph in front of a shop full of customers. Oh dear, there go all our Apostolic customers, I thought, but it wasn’t that bad. We did lose that couple but not many. Still, no more roaming for Rumpole!

  As you can gather, life was extremely busy. Ralph would open the store at 7 a.m., while I cooked breakfast and got Penny and Jason off to school. No cook to prepare breakfast, no Aboriginal women to wash up, clean the house, do the washing and ironing. I had to learn to be a housewife, as well as run a corner store and do the books for the business.

  Ralph hated The Corner Store; putting up with the old ladies squeezing the paw-paws and the tomatoes; cutting ham on the meat slicer after having just cleaned it. It was a far cry from running a large cattle station.

  After the first week he said, ‘Put it on the market!’

  Eventually Ralph was able to escape from the store, as our dairy farmer Owen, who had very sadly lost his wife, decided to leave. Ralph moved out to the farm to do the milking, which he didn’t mind at all—anything to get away from the shop. He was luckily quite experienced with dairying, having spent time at his uncle’s dairy farm at Maryborough after his father died.

  4

  Living in Toogoolawah

  Penny started preschool in Toogoolawah, which was so very different to Katherine School of the Air at Wave Hill Station, where she was the only pupil, with her teacher on the two-way radio 446 kilometres away. Anthony and David had done their schooling with the Sydney Correspondence School, but by the time Jason started school the School of the Air had started in Katherine.

  By the time we finished in the shop each day, Ralph and I would collapse in front of the TV, which we hadn’t ever had at Wave Hill. I remember watching Mash quite often in the evening, before preparing dinner.

  We finally met our neighbouring dairy farmers from Scrub Creek, who we had never seen, even though we had been coming to the farm each holiday. And of course, we met all the Toogoolawahites, who came into The Corner Store out of curiosity. We tried our best to impress them, as our competition, the Co-op, was just down the road and sold everything except delicatessen g
oods.

  Ralph joined the Lions Club. I went along on mixed nights, though not as a member. Meetings were usually held in the Exchange Hotel, which was conveniently practically next door.

  I went to parent–teacher meetings and worked in the tuck shop at Toogoolawah Primary School—things I had never had the chance to do in the Outback and had envied those that did. It wasn’t that exciting! I also started playing golf once a week, thinking that as my mother and father had gone on a golfing honeymoon, I might have inherited their golfing ability—but not so.

  Jason completed two years at Toogoolawah High School, moving out to the farm with Ralph to help with the milking until he went to Downlands to become a boarder in grade eleven.

  Sometimes I would take the van to Toowoomba to pick up the boys at Downlands and give several lads who lived in the Brisbane Valley a lift too. They would all sit on the floor of the van. It sounds horribly dangerous now, but seat belts didn’t come in until 1983 for the front of a vehicle and 1989 for the back, and no one worried about it back then. They all survived, thank goodness.

  Anthony was in the first fifteen rugby team. We loved being there for the rugby matches, especially the annual game against Toowoomba Grammar. It was Anthony’s last year and he had sprained an ankle but was determined to play. The father of one of the players, a doctor, gave him an injection. The Downlands team won, beating Toowoomba Grammar, with Anthony Hayes being named the man of the match.

  David missed his mates at Joeys and wasn’t happy at Downlands. We gave in to him when he wanted to come home. Toogoolawah High School only went to grade ten. The grade eleven and twelve students from Toogoolawah had to go to Kilcoy High on a bus each day. With such a long day and having had years of boarding school, he found it difficult to study at home.

  Eventually we sent him to Longreach Agricultural College when he left high school. There he got bored, as on Wave Hill he had done everything from shoeing and mustering, to cattle management, and half of the curriculum was on sheep husbandry and David was a cattle man through and through. He also complained about the breaks from work just to have a smoke, while shoeing, drenching and cattle and sheep handling. He eventually got himself expelled by buying a bottle of Scotch (David has never drunk alcohol), and then taking one of the town girls out to the movies on Saturday night (which was also forbidden). The next thing the headmaster rang me to say that David was being expelled. The headmaster discovered that he had done it on purpose, and said if only David had told him, he could have helped him adjust to the college ways.

  David then went jackerooing at Muckaty Station, under Alan Hagen and his wife Miriam, whom we had never met but they were great friends of Robyn and Graham Fulcher, our Territory friends. David stayed there two years, coming home for Christmas after the first year.

  I wanted Penny to become the ballerina that I had dreamt of becoming. We went to Kilcoy every Saturday for ballet lessons. At the end of every year the ballet students performed a little concert in the hall where they had the ballet lessons. They all looked beautiful. One year the students were asked to make up their own dance and costume to match. Penny chose the music from Cats. I made her a dress of orange organza out of an old evening dress of mine. She looked gorgeous and danced divinely and was presented with first prize. So proud!

  5

  The biggest surprise ever

  With Ralph heading off to the farm I needed staff at the store, so we employed several Apostolic women to help, which made life more bearable in the shop. But I still hated being there, and the thought that I could be there for years thoroughly depressed me.

  I kept thinking about ways to get rid of the shop.

  Maybe getting the Mafia to burn it down?

  Of course, I didn’t know anyone in the Mafia, or even anyone who might have criminal connections. I never asked anyone; I was just feeling so desperate.

  One of our neighbours, a very nice couple, were working on the wife’s parents’ property just down the road from us. One day they called in to see us, telling us that they had left her parents’ dairy farm and were now looking for work around the district.

  We had been invited to Pricey’s—one of my nursing friends from RPAH—daughter’s wedding in Sydney and were keen to go. Anne Price and I had become great friends when we worked together at Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Sydney during our three months in paediatrics, a requirement during our general nursing training at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney.

  Ralph and I had been to Anne’s wedding to Harry in Sydney, when on holidays years before. Anne and Harry bought a small, rundown thirteen-bed hospital in the Northern Suburbs of Sydney and over the years enlarged it to a fifty-two-bed hospital with two operating theatres.

  There is no doubt about us nurses.

  We asked the couple who now found themselves at a loose end if they would like to relieve us for two weeks—milking the cows, feeding them on the irrigated pasture, irrigating and running the store—while we went to Sydney for the wedding. They jumped at the chance to be employed for two weeks.

  Off we went, Ralph, Penny and I. We had a wonderful time. Ralph thoroughly enjoyed the break from the exhausting hours of the farm and for me it was such a relief to not have to go into the store. I was dreading the thought of going back.

  On our return, the couple said, ‘We have something to tell you.’

  ‘And we think, Thea, you had better sit down to hear this.’

  I wonder what this is all about, I thought as I grabbed a chair.

  ‘We want to buy your shop.’

  ‘Wow,’ I screamed with joy and amazement. I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Tell me that again. I can’t believe it.’

  The sale went ahead. We moved everything out to Bidgi Park from The Corner Store house.

  It took me ages to get used to the idea that I didn’t have to go into the store every day. It had taken two years, two months and one week to sell.

  As it turned out, we had done very well in The Corner Store business. We sold the shop for a good price, lived well—despite working very hard—and were able to keep our children educated in a good boarding school.

  6

  Getting to know the locals

  After becoming the owners of our property Bidgi Park in 1976, we realised that living it up on our holidays from Wave Hill would have to stop. No more extravagant wining and dining in the latest fashionable restaurants with our friends. We had responsibilities, so we would spend part of our holidays visiting my family in Wollongong, do a quick trip to Sydney to pick up the boys—who were still at school there at the time—and say hello to friends, and then drive on to Bidgi Park to camp in our caravan, where we would help Owen with the milking and do a bit of maintenance. I don’t remember meeting any of our neighbours during those four years. We did hear that you had to be in the district for twenty years before you were accepted as a local.

  It wasn’t until we took over The Corner Store that we met our various neighbours, who came into our shop as customers. After I became a dairy farmer, I realised that most dairy farmers’ wives have to get up at the crack of dawn to milk the cows, help with ploughing, irrigating, making hay, cooking meals, and looking after both the children and their husband. And thus, most of them had hardly any time nor inclination to socialise.

  While staying at Cudge’s house the first week we moved to Toogoolawah, we had a visit from Gaylene Bourguignon, who invited us to join her and husband Norm at the Toogoolawah Apex Ball. There we met Jill and Alan Roughan. Jill had grown up in Toogoolawah, where her father had been the local chemist. When Jill married Alan, he became the Green Spot Chemist in the town, taking over from his father-in-law. Much later, when they celebrated their 60th birthdays just one day apart, guests were invited to come as either Jill, with long black hair, or Alan, dressed in green and white spots. There were Jills and Alans everywhere at the party. Tilly Gardner went as half Jill and half Alan, with half a moustache, and shirt and trousers on one side and a
pretty skirt and blouse on the other.

  Across the river from Bidgi Park lived Duncan and Echo McConnel—fourth generation owners of Cressbrook Station, which was established in 1841 and covered the whole of the Brisbane Valley in the early days. Anthony and David used to work for Duncan during the school holidays, and eventually for Christopher (the fifth generation), who took over from his father.

  The best party I ever went to was a King Henry XIII party held in the courtyard at Cressbrook. At least thirty of us all dressed in period costumes—low cut dresses and balloon boobs for the ladies—and were greeted with wine and peanuts in shells, which were thrown on the floor, making a rough carpet in the courtyard of the old homestead. After much wine was consumed, we were seated at long plank tables. Large trays of whole chickens, lamb shanks, hunks of bread and lashings of butter, but no cutlery, were plonked on the tables. Suddenly someone started throwing food. Jill picked up a chicken and threw it at me. I got such a shock I automatically threw it back, and then it was on for one and all. Chicken, lamb shanks, butter and wine, hurled or poured by all at all; we were covered in it.

  Not exactly genteel behaviour, but we were the peasants and that was our role. It was the funniest party I had ever been to.

  At 4 a.m. when we arrived home, we wondered why we were so hungry.

  One day in The Corner Store we had a visit from Peter Harpham, one of our stockmen from Wave Hill, who was now managing Carlton Hill Station in Western Australia. He was accompanied by his fiancée Susie Shaw, whom he met when Susie and her sister were travelling around the Kimberley. Susie went to work at Carlton as the cook, an opportunity to learn the trade, then they both came south to Kingaroy to get married at her family home. Peter asked Ralph to be best man.

  It was a magnificent wedding, at the country home of Keith Shaw and his wife Anne on the outskirts of Kingaroy. We’d booked into a motel in town for the night. The ceremony was in the garden, with drinks in the old dairy and a wedding breakfast in a marquee. We made many more local friendships that night.