Move to Eltham

When we shifted from Fitzroy to Eltham, Dad had to hire a horse and wagon to move our few sticks of furnature.

Going up Sherbourne Road, a steep hill, the horse lifted it’s tail and let go some wind. Dad prodded the horses back-side with his whip and Mum said “Oh, you dirty brute!”

We moved into a shack on Mr. Banks’ orchard. The place had no bathroom. We bathed in a galvanised wash-tub on the floor.

On fine mornings Mum would put me outside in the pram, presumably to get some Vitamin D. I still remember the musty smell of the old cushion. Some months later, in autumn, I was a lot better. I remember Phyllis and myself wandering in Banks’ orchard, picking up pretty apricot leaves. We were both very happy to be able to play there. There were possums around. We used to watch them come down to feed at dusk.

When I was about three, Dad had an “acciddent” walking home drunk one night. He was crossing a log bridge over the Diamond Creek and tripped, injuring his wrist. He was up most of the night bathing it in hot water. The next day he went by train to hospital. They discovered he had a fracture. Later he returned home with his arm in a wooden splint, which he had to leave on until it healed.

I remember going to the shops in Eltham to get meat and bread. It was about two miles, and Mum and I had to walk.

I wasn’t much more than a toddler and it was too steep to take the pram. There were no deliveries, and we had no car, of course. It was all “shanks pony” which means walking on two legs.

Sometimes we visited Grandma, Mum’s mother, at Surrey Hills. We had to get up in the dark and walk to Eltham station. It was a steam train to Flinders Street, and then an electric one to Canterbry station. Later, when we lived at Briar Hill, the Eltham line was electrified.

At Grandma’s we had sandwiches and a cup of tea. Grandma always welcomed us. Going along the footpath to her place, Mum would pick a couple of sprigs of a scented shrub, pittosporum, for me to give to Grandma. Occasionally Uncle Allen was there. Bert, his older brother, worked, but Allen only had an odd job or two.

There was almost no employment and Uncle Allen got a little job, putting in a small path for a resident. All he had to do was get the materials for the job: (a) sand (b) crushed stone and (c) cement.

One day when I was there, he took me on his bike to a nearby timber mill that had a large heap of sand. When the lunch whistle blew, he sneaked in and filled the bag with sand. On the return trip I walked, while he wheeled the bag of sand on the bicycle.

To get crushed stone, he raked up stone from Grandma’s garden path and took great pains to camouflage all sign of his raking, so Bert wouldn’t find out.

Sometimes Alan and Bert would get into an argument, probably over Alan not working, and once I saw them come to fisticuffs.