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    Great Australian Stories Western Australia
    Great Australian Stories Western Australia
    Great Australian Stories Western Australia
    Ebook266 pages3 hours

    Great Australian Stories Western Australia

    By Bill Marsh

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    Master storyteller Bill 'Swampy' Marsh travels our wide brown land collecting yarns and memories from the authentic voices of rural Australia. the people you will meet in these stories will touch your heart as Swampy brings to life all the drama and delight of life in the outback. By turns frightening, hilarious, wonderful, tragic and poignant, these tales are sure to get you in, hook, line and sinker.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers Australia
    Release dateApr 1, 2011
    ISBN9780730498230
    Great Australian Stories Western Australia
    Author

    Bill Marsh

    Bill ‘Swampy' Marsh is an award-winning writer/performer of stories, songs and plays. Based in Adelaide, he is best known for his successful Great Australian series of books published with ABC Books: More Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories (2007), Great Australian Railway Stories (2005), Great Australian Droving Stories (2003), Great Australian Shearing Stories (2001), and Great Australian Flying Doctor Stories (1999).

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      Great Australian Stories Western Australia - Bill Marsh

      A Shearer’s Life

      Well mate, you could say that I’ve been shearing for far too long. That’s how long I’ve been at it and I guess that I’ll continue on with it for a while longer yet, as least as long as my body holds up. But no, I must admit that I’m well past the best of me years. Well past. And I know that I should’ve given the game away years ago. Me mate Ted’d even tell you that. A lot of people would. But I didn’t and that’s it. But that’s just the way it is with shearing.

      See, shearing gets in your blood. It’s a way of life; a good way too, I reckon. I mean, you’re out there, there’s the freedom. You’re with your mates. You don’t have anything to worry about except the next sheep coming up the race so you just get stuck into it and do the job. Basically it’s as simple as that, really. You take them as they come, one after the other.

      Mind you, it’s pretty hard work too. Don’t get me wrong. It’s very hard work. Bloody hard. But see, I started in the sheds when I was a youngster of around fourteen. And when it’s all you’ve done since leaving school, you just don’t know any different, do you? I mean, imagine a bloke like me working in some office in Perth, or a factory for instance, even in a bush town over here in WA. You couldn’t, could you? It’d bloody well kill me.

      But no, you get to meet some characters alright. There’s the good and the bad there too but there’s some real characters, I can tell you. See, I work the long run, have done for years, and the long run goes from up the north of Western Australia, right down to the south. So we cover some ground. We’re away for around ten months at a time, see. And some of these places can get pretty isolated, and it can get to you if you haven’t done it a few times before.

      I remember one year, we had this shearer bloke join the team. A religious nutter he turned out to be, from over Victoria way. Anyway, he hadn’t sheared out in the donga before, where it’s real dry and the sheep’s fleece gets so tough that you just about need a bloody chainsaw to hack the bloody stuff off. And, what’s more, I reckon that this feller, the one from Victoria, hadn’t spent more than a week away from wherever his home was.

      So anyway this bloke joins the team. I forget for the moment just what we called him. It was some sort of nickname. Anyway, of course, we didn’t know that he was a religious nutter to start with. If we had’ve I’m sure that the contractors wouldn’t have taken him on. As sure as hell us shearers wouldn’t have wanted a bar of him, that’s for sure. But by the time we found out, it was already too late and we were miles away, away up the Kimberley, up at some station or other, up there. And anyway we notice how this bloke’s starting to take out his Bible.

      ‘Here’s a real go,’ Ted said when he saw what was going on. ‘Here’s a real go,’ he said.

      Anyway, this religious nutter used to sit separate from the rest of us shearers and mumble away to himself. Pray or something. Real queer it was. It started to give you the heebie-jeebies. I mean, stuff like that really buggers up a team. Shearers are all in it together. They’re the same sort of blokes. Different but the same, if you catch my meaning. That’s how the best teams run.

      Anyway, at lunch this religious feller would go and do the same thing. Read his Bible, like, and mumble away to himself. Every break he did it—smokos, the lot. He’d grab a mug of tea and a bite to eat and go off by himself and sit with his Bible.

      That’s right, ‘Creepin’ Jesus’ we called him. Creepin’ Jesus.

      And the worst of it was at night when he’d go to his room and go on and on and on. Pray and stuff. I tell you, this feller put the wind up the young roustabout what was bunking in with him so bad that we had to move the poor kid out. It was that bad. So bad in fact that no other bugger wanted to share with him neither, and what’s more, you couldn’t blame them.

      But then after a week or so it all starts to get to this Creepin’ Jesus. See, he’d been used to the greener pastures where the sheep were easy to shear, and he’s used to getting home and having a decent feed every now and then, and he’s probably used to going to church and getting together with his mates each Sunday and mumbling away. But out where we were, he had none of that. What’s more, he had nothing in common with the rest of us and we had nothing to do with him. I mean, the bastard didn’t even swear.

      So anyway, as I said, it all starts to get to this Creepin’ Jesus feller. It’s as dry as all shit, every way you look. You can’t see anything for miles and miles, nothing all the way to the horizon. It’s as hot as bloody hell and this bloke’s got no other company than his Bible, and he starts to crack. He starts hearing strange voices in his head.

      Then before too much longer, while he’s hacking away at these iron-fleeced bastards of sheep, he starts answering to these voices what he’s hearing. I mean, it was enough to give you the willies it was. But it didn’t get any better. It got worse. It got hotter and hotter then, the fucking wind come in and it blew and it blew and it blew. God it was terrible.

      But see, the rest of us blokes had seen it all before. Most of us had been going away up north in the same team for years, so it didn’t get to us that much. We just put our heads down, arses up, and we got on with the bloody job. But it got to Creepin’ Jesus. It got to him something terrible. And he kept talking to these voices what he was hearing and when he wasn’t doing that he had his noggin stuck into that bloody Bible of his and he was talking into that.

      ‘That thing won’t fuckin’ save yer,’ Ted said to him one smoko.

      And it didn’t neither because one day, between smoko and lunch, with the wind blowing a fucking gale outside and the temperature well into the hundreds, this Creepin’ Jesus feller, well, he cracked good and proper. His eyes went all crazy and he started frothing at the fucking mouth. Then he chucked down the old bogghi and he went into howling like he was a dying dingo. Then bugger me, it was like something was getting into him, eating at him, and he started ripping off his singlet. Then he started taking off his strides. And he was scratching at his-self and yelling out in some weird language that we’d never heard in our lives before. I tell you mate, it was something fearful.

      So after this Creepin’ Jesus had just about ripped off everything apart from his underdaks, he grabbed his Bible and he took off out of the shed and he took to the bush like a madman. Almost starkers he was. Hardly a bloody stitch on. Just like that, he took off out into nowhere, just him and his Bible. I tell you, I’d never seen anything like it, neither before nor since. But it was all too much for him—the heat, the dust, the wind, the isolation—and eventually the voices got to him.

      ‘Fuckin’ Victorians,’ Ted said.

      But he was gone.

      Now, there was no way known that we were going to go out in those sorts of conditions and go after this feller. So we kept on shearing. And when the heat and the wind didn’t get any better, we reckoned that he’d eventually come to his senses and return. Of course, that’s if he had enough sense to return, or he didn’t get lost or nothing, which we reckoned was a strong possibility because with all the dust and shit flying about you could hardly see ten feet in front of you.

      So anyway, when the bastard hadn’t returned by teatime we started to get a bit worried. What should we do, we thought. But see, the thing was, while you’re shearing you get paid good money and if you’re not shearing you get paid fuck-all. That’s just the way it is. That’s how shearing is. I mean even if the cocky rang the police and got them to come out and start up a search party, even then the bloody coppers would’ve got us shearers to stop work and join in the search and we would’ve been back at square one, like, with the cocky’s sheep not getting shorn and us shearers not getting paid.

      So anyway, by the next day we started to think that we’d better do something. I mean, there’s this Creepin’ Jesus out there somewhere wandering about the donga almost stark naked. And with him coming from Victoria, you could imagine what his survival skills in the desert would’ve been like, next to fuck-all.

      So anyway, it was still hot that next day but the wind had dropped a bit so we had a vote and the majority decided that we’d better go and look for this religious nutter. It was a bloody nuisance really but that’s what we decided. I mean, if I would’ve had me own way I would’ve left the bugger out there. Stuff him. But I didn’t, so we organised this search and off we went. Then by night, when we hadn’t found the bastard, we decided that we’d give it another crack early the next morning and if we didn’t find him then, then we’d have to call in the coppers.

      Then the next day it started off as hot as fucking hell again but by mid-morning we found the bastard hiding under a rock ledge in a dried-up creek. And Christ almighty, wasn’t he burnt. Almost fried to a cinder he was. And he’d gone all gaga as well because he kept praising us and thanking the Lord for sending us along to save him.

      ‘The Lord be blowed,’ Ted told him. ‘Mate,’ he said, ‘if we’da left it up to the Lord you’da been fuckin’ dead in a coupla days.’

      So we got him back to the station where the cocky took him up to the homestead to look after him. To nurse him, like. And that’s the last we saw of Creepin’ Jesus, thank Christ. We were gone by the end of the next week just as the wind was blowing up again and the heat was still almost unbearable.

      But you occasionally get to meet them sorts, you do. They’re the real odd ones, but you get to meet them.

      I mean, we had a bloody cook one time. A real big bastard he was too, and a fucking drunk to boot. Now, don’t get me wrong, I drink, meself. I admit to that. I drink a lot, but this cook not only drunk a lot, he also drunk anything he could lay his bloody hands on. And what’s more, he also ate all the good stuff then fed us the shit which was why the bastard was so fucking fat. I mean, this bloke didn’t walk, he waddled. That’s how big he was. He would’ve been at least twenty stone and that’s at the least.

      But, anyway, this cook feller got something like piles, or something like that it might’ve been, either that or a chafed arse because he was so fat and the cheeks of his bum used to rub together. Anyway, the upshot of it all was that he had some problem or other in the arse area between his cheeks. So he was talking to Ted one time and Ted told him that he knew a bloke once who had a similar sort of problem and what this feller had done was that he grabbed a handful of flour and he rubbed it up between the cheeks of his arse.

      So that was that. Then that afternoon after work someone happened to look in the storeroom and they noticed that the bag of flour had these two huge bun marks on the top of it. Like, this bloody cook feller, instead of taking a handful of flour and rubbing it up between the cheeks of his arse, he just sat on top of the opened bag of flour and wiggled his buns into it. Christ almighty, can you imagine that! And to make matters worse, this cook feller was going to bake fresh bread for our tea, and we would’ve eaten the stuff.

      Well, he didn’t last long after that, I can tell you. We just about run him out of the shed. It didn’t worry us how it’d take a week or so to get another cook up from Perth or wherever. He was gone like a shot. But the only trouble was that this drunken cook feller had gone and squatted in the only bag of flour we had and of course, bread’s a staple part of a shearer’s diet.

      Then to make matters worse, the new cook forgot to bring up another bag of flour when he came up from Perth. So there we were, we were out in the middle of the donga and we’re stuck with what we had. Just the one bag of flour with two huge bun marks in the top of it. So in the end we scraped off the top part of the flour, the part where the bastard had rubbed his arse in it, then we started using what was left. I mean, what else could we do?

      But there were some pretty queer comments made about that, I can tell you, and some pretty sceptical blokes eating the bread. Real squirmy they were. Some of the fellers used to check it over a dozen or so times before they ate it. But no, the best thing to do was to just wolf it down and try not to think about it. That was the best thing to do.

      But like I said, while shearing’s been good for me, it’s also had its other side. The bad side. Like, I’ve been married three times now, and divorced three times to boot. So I’m fifty-three and I’m on me Pat Malone at the moment. But, I mean, when you’re away for most of the year it’s hard to keep things together on the home front and that’s because things change. So by the time you get back for Chistmas with the missus, well, she’s gotten used to not having you around. And then you start getting on each other’s goat and you end up having a barney or something, so you try and make it up to her by taking her out for a Chinese or something special. Maybe a night out at the dogs or the trots.

      But no, that causes some real problems. I mean, after you’ve been away shearing with your mates for most of the year it’s hard to get the knack of settling down with a woman again, even if it’s only for a month or so.

      A Word of Warning

      A word of warning. Look, I know some of these drovers that you’ll be talking to, I know them well, so just be a bit careful because, let’s face it, they’re going to try and lay the bull on. You’ll get inundated with stories about rushing cattle and roping brumbies out of trees and riding them next day, and they’ll be on about just how smart they are, horse-tailing and the like.

      Take for instance, ‘When I got to the Armstrong River it was in flood and the only way I could get the cattle across was to swim them. So there I was battling against the raging current and I was getting a bit tired and that’s when this log came floating by so I grabbed onto it and blow me down if it didn’t turned out to be a 40-foot crocodile!’ That sort of rubbish. Or, ‘One day we had a massive cattle rush. The whole lot of them went. So there I was, riding flat out. Then when I finally got up the front to try and turn them around, blow me down if there wasn’t a wallaby sitting up there on the lead bullock.’

      Now, those bullshit type of stories were okay once because everyone knew that it was bullshit. But nowadays there’s people that think it’s true. And that’s why I say that that sort of stuff should be clearly labelled ‘tall stories’.

      Then there’ll be others saying, ‘I did this and I did that and I did something else.’ Well, to be honest, skites give me a pain in the arse too, I’m sorry to say. And anyway, you’d think that if some of these blokes had been any good in the first place then someone else would’ve been talking or writing about them long before they started blowing their own horns. I mean, all you’ve got to do is to read the books that these blokes write. Some of the things they reckoned they did, well, if you did that sort of stuff with a good boss drover you’d get your arse kicked pretty quick-smart, I can tell you.

      Tell it as it is, I say, because, you can take it from me, you’ll get inundated with crap, all right. Just take them horse whisperers. As a friend of mine says, ‘Nowadays they’re jumping out from under every bush and toilet.’ What a load of rubbish. There’s nothing special there. Because, to be honest, thousands of drovers and stockmen—black, white, bridled and with pink spots—had that sort of insight into animals, and that’s because they liked them. That’s the thing, liking them.

      No one can teach someone to love animals, you know. That’s got to come from within. I mean, there’s a lot of instruction-type books about ‘Natural Horsemanship’ and ‘Australian Horsemanship’, and all that. But if a kid starts off working with a couple of rough pricks well, naturally, he’s going to learn bad habits. I firmly believe that every young feller should work for, and with, good drovers and stockmen because then the good habits will rub off on him.

      But even then, you can teach a bloke the proper ways but you can’t make him love it, can you? It’s like sport. If a kid’s got all the talent in the world but he doesn’t like the game, well, he’s not going to succeed at it, is he? So it’s that love and instinct for animals. It’s like when you go to someone’s place and within two minutes the cat’s sitting on your lap. That’s because he knows you like him. And dogs; there’s that old saying about how you might be able to fool the parents but you can’t fool the dog or the kids. They know if someone’s a mongrel bastard or not, aye.

      So, just tell it as it is, I say. Because the thing about droving is that, when it’s done properly, there’s not too many stories to tell. Just as long as you watch your lead and you do the right thing, then the cattle will, generally, conform. Of course there’ll be times when they’re hard to handle. Take a dry storm, for instance. When that happens the cattle get all tense and move around, trying to get to the smell of the rain, especially when it’s been a dry day and they’re thirsty and there’s rain falling in the distance. They get a bit on their toes then and you can hear their horns clashing. But mostly, droving’s pretty monotonous in many ways, so I think that a lot of these stories are just made up because some of these blokes have to find a way of occupying their time and imaginations.

      But I was no different from a great number of kids back in those days. I just got my swag and my saddle and I headed off. Thousands of kids did that; going to the big stations out around Longreach or Windora. Some went to Bedourie: all over Australia.

      I went up into the Gulf Country first. I was about fourteen. I’m sixty-nine now, going on seventy. I don’t mind saying my age. Then after three years,

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