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Authors: Jill Ker Conway
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wound around the posts and beams, transforming the old hall from its workaday self. On the actual day, musicians arrived, and my mother and her committee memberscarried mountains of delicious food into the supper room at the back of the hall. The actual money for the Red Cross came from raffles, a variety of party games, such as a dart board in the shape of Hitler’s face, which people fought to compete at. At the end of the evening, the cakes uneaten at supper would be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Often the cheerful winner would present the cake back to the organizers for another round of bidding, so that many cakes had accounted for thirty or forty pounds before the evening concluded.
These occasions gave me a fresh vision of my parents. I had never seen my mother in evening dress before, and rarely saw my father in his well-cut navy pinstripe suits. They were a handsome and lively pair, and full of fun and laughter. My father’s gift for storytelling made him always the center of a laughing group, while my mother would dance happily without remembering the hard day of preparations. There being no one to sit with me at home, I came in my best clothes to these functions, and was tucked into bed in the backseat of the car, at what my mother deemed an appropriate hour. It was all very exciting. The sound of “When you come down Lambeth way, any evening, any day” usually indicated that the party was warming up. The music was from the thirties, untouched by any hint of jazz or swing. I thought it quite wonderful. Sometimes the mood of the evening would persist while we drove home, my father’s beautiful tenor voice singing the popular songs of the moment until the lights of our car shone on the windows of Coorain.
It was no surprise to me that my mother’s little Red Cross branch regularly won awards for raising more money than branches five and six times its size. The dances gave pleasure to everyone, and the fund raising gave people a chance to express their loyalty to the Allied cause. My mother was in her element, using her powers of organization for a cause she revered. She could brook no opposition, however, and her efforts ceased as abruptly as they had begun because she disagreed with the easy bush habit of looking the other way when minors bought drinksat the bar. Negotiation not being a part of her mentality, she left the Red Cross work she had launched just as she and my father sadly needed recreation and distraction.
Our other great expeditions were to the town of Hillston, seventy-five miles to the east of Coorain. It was a railroad town, on the banks of the Lachlan River, and it was the seat of our vestigial local government. My father served on the Pastures Protection Board, a body that concerned itself with the control of vermin, the eradication of dangerous plant materials such as Bathurst burrs which destroyed a sheep’s fleece, or certain poisonous plants which were a hazard. It also supervised the public stock routes over which anyone could drove sheep or cattle, and took responsibility for the maintenance of watering places and holding yards along the stock routes. Its meetings were occasions for us all to visit Hillston. The town looked like a stage set for a western town. It had a wide, dusty main street lined with rundown hotels, a dilapidated store, and one stock and station agent’s office announced by a tilting sign from which the paint was peeling. A night spent at one of the hotels was bedeviled by fleas and the days offered few diversions for an adult. The town contained a milk bar and coffee shop which represented unbelievable luxury to me. One could have milk shakes and ice cream, and at the back of the café there was a garden, with a pond full of goldfish, overlooking the Lachlan River and its stately gum trees. If I was lucky, we would meet my father’s friend and our neighbor, Angus Waugh, on the street, and he, a bachelor, would decide to see how many milk shakes a child
These occasions gave me a fresh vision of my parents. I had never seen my mother in evening dress before, and rarely saw my father in his well-cut navy pinstripe suits. They were a handsome and lively pair, and full of fun and laughter. My father’s gift for storytelling made him always the center of a laughing group, while my mother would dance happily without remembering the hard day of preparations. There being no one to sit with me at home, I came in my best clothes to these functions, and was tucked into bed in the backseat of the car, at what my mother deemed an appropriate hour. It was all very exciting. The sound of “When you come down Lambeth way, any evening, any day” usually indicated that the party was warming up. The music was from the thirties, untouched by any hint of jazz or swing. I thought it quite wonderful. Sometimes the mood of the evening would persist while we drove home, my father’s beautiful tenor voice singing the popular songs of the moment until the lights of our car shone on the windows of Coorain.
It was no surprise to me that my mother’s little Red Cross branch regularly won awards for raising more money than branches five and six times its size. The dances gave pleasure to everyone, and the fund raising gave people a chance to express their loyalty to the Allied cause. My mother was in her element, using her powers of organization for a cause she revered. She could brook no opposition, however, and her efforts ceased as abruptly as they had begun because she disagreed with the easy bush habit of looking the other way when minors bought drinksat the bar. Negotiation not being a part of her mentality, she left the Red Cross work she had launched just as she and my father sadly needed recreation and distraction.
Our other great expeditions were to the town of Hillston, seventy-five miles to the east of Coorain. It was a railroad town, on the banks of the Lachlan River, and it was the seat of our vestigial local government. My father served on the Pastures Protection Board, a body that concerned itself with the control of vermin, the eradication of dangerous plant materials such as Bathurst burrs which destroyed a sheep’s fleece, or certain poisonous plants which were a hazard. It also supervised the public stock routes over which anyone could drove sheep or cattle, and took responsibility for the maintenance of watering places and holding yards along the stock routes. Its meetings were occasions for us all to visit Hillston. The town looked like a stage set for a western town. It had a wide, dusty main street lined with rundown hotels, a dilapidated store, and one stock and station agent’s office announced by a tilting sign from which the paint was peeling. A night spent at one of the hotels was bedeviled by fleas and the days offered few diversions for an adult. The town contained a milk bar and coffee shop which represented unbelievable luxury to me. One could have milk shakes and ice cream, and at the back of the café there was a garden, with a pond full of goldfish, overlooking the Lachlan River and its stately gum trees. If I was lucky, we would meet my father’s friend and our neighbor, Angus Waugh, on the street, and he, a bachelor, would decide to see how many milk shakes a child
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