 |
Margaret, my sister and I going off to Meckering State School. She has a bunch of flowers for the teacher.
It was 1950 when dad was transferred to Meckering Police Station. It stood on a stand alone triangular block of land at the western entrance to the town. On the side of the police administration office were attached two holding cells.
From our front door, we could look across the Great Eastern Highway which entered connected Meckering to Northam and Perth and continued along the main street to exit and connect eastwards to Cunderdin and eventually, Kalgoorlie.
We could look across salt marshes to the huge wheat silos that stood beside the railway line and water pipeline. They dominated the scenery. It consisted of a huge structured roofed with silver corrugated iron and had several huge grain augurs which looked like praying mantises, which forced wheat upwards and sprayed it into holes in the roof where it fell and formed huge conical heaps.
Meckering township, 130 km from Perth on the Great Eastern Highway, is the centre of an important wheat-growing area. The town was originally built on the south bank of the Mortlock River, as a siding and watering point of the Goldfields Railway. It reached its peak about 1906, and in 1913 had a population of about 600.
As the surrounding land was cleared, the water-table rose and the Mortlock River became progressively saltier and the townsite liable to flooding; population declined to the gain of the adjacent centres of Northam and Cunderdin. The original site was eventually abandoned and the town moved to the south side of the railway, 750 m northeast of the earlier location.
In October 1968, the population of Meckering numbered about 230; a further 300 people lived on farms in the vicinity. Apart from the two-storied bank and hotel, all buildings in the town were single storied, and built of a variety of materials, ranging from unfired mud brick to reinforced concrete. There were a few modern dwellings, but otherwise the buildings were a reflection of the past, and several were unoccupied. The most substantial modern constructions were two new grain storage silos, each 11 m in diameter and 30 m high, and a horizontal storage shed 90 m long and 30 m wide.
Apart from its local importance, Meckering lies astride all the main arteries connecting Perth to Kalgoorlie and the eastern states of Australia. The Great Eastern Highway, Standard and Narrow Gauge Railways, the Goldfields Water pipeline.
Although the Meckering earthquake of October 1968 was not the largest in WA's history, it was certainly the most significant in term of damage done and cultural upheaval. It caused ground rupturing nearly 40 km long, some of which is still to be seen today. The maximum heave was 2.4 m, max vertical displacement was 2.0 m, and the maximum strike slip movement (dextral) was 1.5 m. The maximum felt intensity on the Modified Mercalli scale was 9. The damage exceeded $5 million ( in 1968 dollars). Meckering's population at the time was approximately 240 persons.
A car astride the earthquake fault on which was the Great Eastern Highway.
This was the hotel in the main street. The top portion toppled onto cars parked beneath.
* * * * * *
My sixth birthday…on the front lawn of our house in Meckering.
My Meckering School photo. I am in the back row left. Dulcie Wilson ( front row extreme left) and Nancy Reynolds ( front row second from the right) later ( 1962 – 3) attended Graylands Teachers' College with me.
I loved going to Meckering State School.
* I missed one day there…the first since I started school at Leonora Convent, before I moved to Gwalia Convent. This day I had my ride in an aeroplane. Mr Don McKaskeill, who was a flying pardre asked Dad if I like a flight. He had to fly so many hours each year to keep his licence.
It was great flying over paddocks and seeing sheep like little dots below. As we flew over the school I felt a twinge of guilt…but it didn't last for long.
* When I started at the school I was in Miss Carter's class…she seemed very old, tall and wrinkled. A new boy asked me who the teacher was and I answered, mistakenly…..she Miss Carter, on old stick! I didn't know she was standing behind the cupboard door till he hand came down on my head. She was also very thin.
* Near the school we had a vacant block. At playtimes we would often sneak up the and have 'gang fights'. Our ammunition was plants that we pulled from the ground and a clump of earth stayed with the roots. We called them 'coondies'. Grabbing the dried leaves one was able to swing the earth clump around your head and let it go. As part of the gang warfare we had hidden caches of coondies. Part of the game was to raid and steal the caches.
One day Mr Brown came to the vacant block and walked into the crossfire of our warfare. I don't know if or how many coodies hit him but quite a few of us were caned.
* * * * * * *
We kept goats in Meckering and Dad would get mad with us if we let them escape. One day my sister, Margaret and I, were bringing the goats home when the large nanny she was leading bolted. She refused to let go the rope and was dragged , face down, through the mud which had been made by the rains we'd had recently.
* * * * * * *
On the vacant block near the police house we allowed our hens and roosters to roam but had to bring them in each night for fear they be taken by foxes.
One cantakerous hen always played up for me. If I wanted it to go one way it went the other. So I found my self a long thin stick to shepherd the hen. I was waving the stick about when it came out of my hand. In my horror to see the stick had entered its neck and pinned it to the ground. It gave its last sad squawks.
I buried the hen, secretly, and when Dad came home, I said the cantankerous hen was missing…..probably taken by a fox.
* * * * *
Dad once took us out to look at a strange house. The owner had constructed all the walls, fences and even the water troughs by using bottles…..mostly brown beer bottles….which were laid sideways and cemented into place.
When inside the building, the light effect shining through the numerous bottles in the walls was great.
* * * * * *
To supplement our diet and save money money I often went with Dad to set traps. We went late evenings and had to return early the next morning in case a fox would sneak in and take our catch.
I can remember Dad straddled over a trap as he set it. Suddenly a rabbit or most probably a cat, rushed out of the burrow causing Dad to move slightly and set the trap off. The end of his finger bore the brunt of the trap teeth !
Sometimes he took his rifle and I can remember him chasing after a rabbit taking several shots at it before he finally bought it down. As he fired each shot, the rabbit gave a little jump into the air and continued on its way. When Dad finally bought the animal down, we discovered it was infected with myxamotosis, the disease introduced as a control measure over rabbit numbers.
