A Local Century - Part I

Of all the things I love about writing, what I love most is getting the opportunity to tell a person’s story. It’s such an honour and an incredible challenge at the same time. They sit opposite you with a personality. They have facial expressions and tones in their voices that portray the happy parts of their stories, there’s a sadness in one’s eyes when recalling a memory and a lift in their shoulders when excitement and delight come into play. When I return from an interview to put words to paper, that’s all I’m left with - words and paper. Somehow I have to capture all the passion, pain and everything in between and do so in black and white lines. The challenge could not have been greater than when I sat down opposite George to listen to his life story. His life of 100 years.

On Thursday the 19th November George Westlake, a resident of Lovegrove Lodge celebrated his 100th birthday. When I popped in a week before hand to ask if I could do an article, I found George in the kitchen making himself a cup of tea, dressed immaculately in a checkered button up shirt, brown slacks and black shoes. His silver hair was softly styled and his blue eyes bright with life. I introduced myself and said where I was from and what I was looking for. George burst out laughing and replied “I’m beginning to think that hitting three digits is a big deal!” He then shook his head and said “You don’t really want to hear all about my life do you?” I replied with a nod. He shrugged his shoulders as if agreeing in wonderment and offered me a cup of tea. “How long have you got?” he asked.

George didn’t have an easy start to life and it became very apparent early in the interview that he would prefer to leave his childhood out of this story. During our time together I came to realise that even his family weren’t aware of exactly how tough those years were and that he suffered through a great deal more than he was letting on but George is a count your blessings kind of chap. I gave him a soap box and he chose to focus on all his “strokes of luck” instead of his misfortunes. For that reason we start his journey with him in 1931 on the MV Centaur passenger ship from Fremantle when George was 16 and heading to the upper Gascoyne region. From what he refers to as the institution, he was sent to his first job on Minnie Creek Station. He was on the ship for 3 days before he stopped over in a boarding house to wait for the weekly truck that did the circuit of the stations in the area. “I remember the drivers name was Eddie Bird” I interrupt him to ask how he remembers that because I haven’t yet realised just how incredible this man’s memory is. “I will always remember that I was never able to score a front seat in that truck because of all the passengers going in the same direction, I had to sit on a load of general cargo.”

“250 miles from the nearest town, I was working as a yard boy doing the odd jobs around the half a million acre station. My wages were 10 shillings a week. After 12 months I was promoted to stockman on the outcamps which was a rugged life and I got a pound a week plus keep which in those days was valued at £25 a week. In the outcamps there was no social life whatsoever. No radio and obviously no tv. The station owner had a radio that could sometimes get reception when conditions were right. The only time we were invited to listen was when there were some German Aviators that had gone missing in the area in early 1935. In those days you were expected to work for 2 years before you were allowed an annual holiday which is what I did, only leaving the station once in those 2 years to visit the dentist in Carnavon”

When it came to George’s first annual holiday, he was barely 18. Raised in the institution and then sent straight to the remote Minnie Creek, he is first to admit he was exceptionally naive. He docked back in Fremantle and didn’t have the first clue on how to catch a train by himself. Luckily there was a taxi driver there who drove George to the YMCA in Perth. “He was a lifesaver” George explains. “He took my bags right up the front desk for me.” George later found out that he could have got from Fremantle to Perth for about a shilling on the train but was charged 25 shillings for the taxi ride; 2 and a half weeks pay. George spent a total of 4 years at Minnie Creek Station throughout which The Depression was in full force. At the time, the Stations were given Government Grants to feed people who were unable to work. “Some of the people who came through Minnie Creek,” George begins and then stops to compose himself as tears fill his big blue eyes. He takes a few deep breaths but struggles with this place in his memory “Anyway I started to wake up when I was approaching 21. The other blokes told me I was a screw loose because at that point in time farm workers were the lowest form of life and they wanted to bet me that I would go back” He smiles a cheeky ‘I was right, you were wrong’ smile. “Is that thing still on?” He asks me pointing to my recording device. I nod and he smiles again, shaking his head, still in disbelief. “How can I make this shorter?” he asks and I answer very quickly. “You can’t, you can’t make 100 years shorter.” I don’t want him to start leaving things out or shorten his story as he tells it so well and I hang onto every word.

It was 1935 and from the YMCA George set about finding his own job for the very first time. He went to one of the labourer bureaus as they were called back then and was offered a job in two different places. One was in Calingiri and the other was in Cunderdin. “I don’t know why I picked Calingiri but I did. I was offered a pound a week which at the time was a good wage. I jumped on a train that ran 3 times a week and the farmer’s wife picked me up from the station on horse and cart.” George uses the word rugged to explain the condition of farming life. “The were no unions back then and no tractors either!” he says. “I was a nursemaid to a team of 8 horses. These horses would get you through 20 acres of farming a day. A far, far cry from how many can be covered today in an airconditioned machine. Back then it was up before daylight to feed and prepare the horses for the day and, with no water on tap, it was down to the closest dam to give them a drink. It was a 7 day week, 365 days a year job. “There was no regular means for going anywhere for holidays and come Christmas time the farmers wanted you around to tend to the horses but didn’t want to know you when it came to Christmas dinner.” The Giles family were generous farmers in Calingiri at the time and sent out a message to anybody who didn’t have anywhere to go for Christmas that they were welcome to join them for dinner. “That’s where I met my wife,” George starts tearing up again “She was the daughter of the family who opened their door to workers on Christmas day. That was 74 years ago.” It was my turn to tear up.

After being on the farm for just over 12 months, George then decided that he had tried the North and he had tried the middle, it was time to try the South so back to the Labourer Bureau he went and was offered a job on a farm in Mayanup near Boyup Brook. “It was a little place with an orchid and a dozen cows. My job was milking and general work but it didn’t interest me at all.” Six weeks into his time in Mayanup he received a letter from the farmer he had worked with in Calingiri offering him a job for 35 shillings a week. “That was a good wage and then of course having the interest in the girl I met at Christmas sweetened the deal! I jumped at the chance. The conditions for farm works were still rugged. I worked on 3 different farms back then and never once,” George pauses trying to consider whether to finish his sentence. “Oh well, so what, it was nearly a hundred years ago now. Never once did I have accommodation with a floor in it. It was always dirt floor against a shed. There was no lights and there was” he pauses again “I don’t want my family to know too much about” He swoops his hand as if brushing away a fly “Anyway things were rugged but everyone was in the same boat. It’s just how it was back then”

In June of 1941 George married the girl from Christmas day - Dorothy May. He points to an A4 frame on his dresser “That’s a photo taken on our wedding day. It was a tradition then, if you had never had your photo taken early in life, to get your photo taken on your 21st birthday and on your wedding day. That was it. We married in a registry office and couldn’t afford a honeymoon of course. The farmer I was working for didn’t have married accommodation so we went on the hunt for a couple of jobs for ourselves. We found a married couples job on a farm and were only there 6 weeks when a conscription came through the countryside for single men to report to Watheroo.” When the selecting officers came around George asked if he could join. He ended up being the only married man in his unit. “I had an awful lot of luck because I eventually joined the AIF. “I consider myself fortunate that although I was in the army for three years, I was never sent overseas.” George says. “I know that’s the reason I am talking to you today.

We had been talking for an hour when some of George’s family popped in for a visit. George was looking a bit weary and I didn’t want to take anymore of his time. I explained that I’d be back next week. I shook his hand and left him chatting away to his visitors. I was intrigued to hear how he came about eventually owning his own farm in Calingiri and raising a family there. I couldn’t wait until our next visit but had to practice some patience. In the spirit of trying to capture everything so that my readers don’t miss a thing, I feel it’s only fitting to leave the story here until next week. To give you the same amount of time to ponder George’s story and think about his life of 100 years.

to be continued...