YOU CAN TAKE THE GIRL OUT OF THE COUNTRY, BUT YOU CAN’T TAKE THE COUNTRY OUT OF THE GIRL
My name is Annie Cox and I am a long term resident of Coburg. I was born in Bendigo in 1925. My father left school at 12 to work for a builder but, as he didn’t get paid for the first year, had to sell rabbit skins to pay for his tools. When he was 23, he joined up to go to the First World War and served in Egypt, Gallipoli, France and Flanders. My Mother was one of twelve children and married dad when she was 25.
After the war the Government bought large uncleared farms and divided them up in 1920 for Diggers returning from the war. The men had to pay them off in installments. These Soldier Settlement farms were too small to make a decent living and were hard work for the families, especially in long years of drought.
My sister milked the cows and separated the cream from the milk so that Mum could make butter with some, while the rest was sent to the Bendigo Butter Factory. The skim milk was mixed with grain to feed the pigs. I fed the chooks, collected the eggs, wiped them clean and packed them in crates which were also sent to the Bendigo Butter Factory. My young brother collected wood for the kitchen stove which kept the large fountain full of boiling water. There was no electricity or gas, so hot water was used for baths, etc, and washing clothes. A wood fired copper was used to boil white clothes which were rinsed using blue water in the cement troughs. The wire clothes line was kept up with props made from gum trees.
My father never had a tractor but loved his team of horses which he called by name – Flower, Robin, Darkie, Blossom, Fuchsia, etc.
The summer harvest of wheat, barley, oats and hay was a case of all hands on deck to fill the Hessian bags and sew them up before any rain turned the grain to rust. If that happened, there was no income!
We kids walked (later rode bikes) 2½ miles to the one-teacher school which had 24 children in eight grades.
Contact with outsiders was by a wall phone connected to a switchboard at the local store. Our groceries, paper and mail were delivered from there once a week. The battery operated floor wireless brought the news.
I loved writing letters and my Mother was keen to teach us, as she had been, and she wrote beautiful long letters that people liked to receive. I entered every competition in “The Argus”, “Weekly Times” and “The Bendigo Advertiser” and enjoyed receiving prizes as we had few toys or books.
The social outing of the week was Church in Elmore, 6 miles away. Sunday School was conducted in our small school building every fortnight. Horses and gigs were early transport.
The Depression began around 1929 and lasted until 1939 when the Second World War started. We produced most of our own food so were never hungry.
There were plenty of rabbits in the 1930’s, so dad made my brother a billy-cart which was attached to his bike. He would set traps along the creek, skin them, sell the dried skins and we ate the rabbits. Mum was a wonderful cook and we enjoyed her rabbit stews or roast rabbit with bacon on top. A rooster would be killed on special occasions, the outside roasted and stuffed, while the giblets and lower legs were made into soup. Nothing was wasted.
By 1941 Dad showed signs of health problems caused by his service in the previous war, and also the effects of his hard work so, rather than see his son take over the small farm and have his daughters eventually marrying farmers and work hard like our Mother did, he decided to sell the farm, and move to Melbourne.
Now, into the 21st Century, I look back on my first 15 years with happy memories of the good times when life was simpler.
