Tish Lees - Lonely for My Land: Tales of Karratha Station and the Nor West

Karratha Station Layout Circa 1960

Published in Australia by Sid Harta Publishers Pty Ltd, ABN: 46 119 415 842 23 Stirling Crescent, Glen Waverley, Victoria 3150 Australia Telephone: +61 3 9560 9920, Facsimile: +61 3 9545 1742 E-mail: author@sidharta.com.au

First published in Australia June 2010 Second edition This edition published August 2010 Copyright - Tish Lees 2010 Cover design, typesetting: Chameleon Print Design

Digital Edition published in December 2010 by:

Port Campbell Press

www.portcampbellpress.com.au

ISBN 9781877006555 (Epub)

The right of Tish Lees to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The information in this book is based on the author's personal experiences and opinions. The publisher specifically disclaims responsibility for any adverse consequences which may result from use of the information contained herein.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Author: Lees, Tish.

Title: Lonely for my land : tales of Karratha Station and the nor' west / by Tish Lees.

ISBN: 9781921642364 (PB)

Subjects: Lees, Tish--Childhood and youth.

Leslie family.

Karratha (W.A.)--History.

Pilbara (W.A.)--History

Sheep ranches--Western Australia.

Dewey Number: 994.1304092

This work represents the honestly held views and recollections of the author. Should any part of this work prove to be inaccurate, the author offers a sincere apology but can accept no responsibility and/or liability for any resulting inconvenience to or offence taken by the reader or any other party.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

May thee to whom this book belongs

Light sorrow know, if any.

Your hours of grief, may they be few,

Your happy moments many.

The Lesser Wanderer Butterfly - indigenous to the Pilbara.

From a painting by Philippa Nikulinsky.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are warned that this book contains the names and photographs of some people who may no longer be alive. This is not intended to be offensive.

For Mum, Dad and Marnie.

Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

The magnitude of my sense of loss

is measured by my past happiness.

* * *

Thank you to my husband Richard

whose stoic support, wisdom and patience

has made my dream a reality.

With enduring love...

With love and gratitude I recognise and thank the

innumerable people who have contributed in incalculable ways

with time and energy towards helping bring this book to fruition.

Foreword

1. Whence I came

2. Demolition and devastation

3. Back to the beginning

4. The reluctant pastoralist

5. Mum

6. Born to the bush

7. The horizon my boundary

8. A matter of life or death

9. The war that almost was

10. Populate or perish

11. Lang

12. Vagaries of vehicles

13. Oh, Christmas!

14. A recalcitrant student

15. Boarding and boredom

16. Holidays and a bomb

17. Expanding horizons

18. The fledgling jillaroo

19. Earning my keep

20. Barefoot over bindis

21. Wily wind

22. Critters, cows, and killers

23. Community glue

24. A dusting of friends and aliens

25. An unusual playground

26. Sheep to shore

27. Getting it licked

28. The way it was

29. A generation not stolen

30. The beginning of the end

31. And so life endures

32. Reflections

Glossary

Endnotes

About the author

Iron ore, natural gas, and many more mineral discoveries have so transformed the North West of Western Australia during the last half-century that it is hard to remember the region before the boom took place. Yet behind the expansion of recent times there were a hundred years of struggle when settlers tried to establish a pastoral industry in a hard and unpredictable environment, and when Aborigines and newcomers went through the difficulties of coming to terms with each other. That pastoral North West is a world we have lost. It was never a world that most Australians knew at first hand. It gave rise to a pastoral society which, although it was mostly sheep country like many others, it was different in a number of ways from any other pastoral region of Australia: more challenging, more remote, more dependent on human ingenuity.

We do not have enough records of that old North West, and that makes it doubly important to record stories such as what Tish Lees has given us here. She is unusually well qualified to serve as a witness of that time and place, as she grew up on Karratha, the pastoral property that was fated to give its name to the modern town whose facilities - and whose endlessly booming real estate prices - would have astonished the old breed of Nor' Westers who made their living there. These are the people of whom she gives a sharply observed and entertaining picture. She does not gloss over the hardships or the improvisations that were part and

parcel of life in that community, but she also makes it clear that there were pleasures enough, and often a good deal of fun. Her narrative is enriched by a rich photographic record and a shrewd eye for character.

Tish Lees has given generously of her time and energy to making sure that this book is worthy of the people whom it commemorates. Qualities of empathy and insight ensure that she succeeds. This is a story which is well worth having.

Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Bolton

Senior Research Scholar

Murdoch University

Western Australia

16 October 2009.

The three of us - Mum, Dad and I - returned to the Pilbara, our hearts leaden with sadness, our eyes swollen from grief having buried my younger sister and only sibling, Marnie, in Perth a few days earlier. We were shrouded in sorrow and numb from disbelief. She was just eighteen, on the threshold of a life filled with promise, her death unforeseen. We felt desolate and ravaged by anguish.