Hilda Metcalf Hunt - Blackberries and Golden Wattle: The Thorns and Beauty of a Childhood in the Adelaide Hills

Blackberries and Golden Wattle: The Thorns and Beauty of a Childhood

in the Adelaide Hills

ISBN 978 1 76041 967 7

Copyright Jean McArthur 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for permission should be sent to the publisher at the address below.

First published 2020 by

Ginninderra Press

PO Box 3461 Port Adelaide 5015

www.ginninderrapress.com.au

This is a collection of memories from our mother, Hilda Metcalf McArthur, ne Hunt, between the years of 1912 to 1936. Although not unique, they justify recording as her childhood was very different from those of todays children. She wrote these episodes over a period of ten years. We are proud to have collated them.

Jean L. McArthur

Christina F. Carr

If I have a totem, it must surely be the grey thrush, for he sang outside the window of a little house at Bugle Ranges on the day of my birth, which sadly, was the day of my mothers death. My father told me that the last thing my mother spoke of was that thrushs song.

My father was the youngest of the Hunt family. I was cared for by Aunt Mime, wife of Harry Hunt, the eldest brother, until I was three years old. I can still see Aunt Mime, a small hard-working lady, out milking cows or in the little lean-to kitchen surrounded by the aroma of fresh baking. Memories of that time are few but clear. Dad often came to see me on his way from Granny Hunts to his work in Davidsons orchard. I would follow him from Auntie Mimes along the track, just as far as the slip rails, then he would send me back to the house, where the purple hardenbergia grew.

Uncle Harry, who always seemed to be busy outside, was the only man I knew with a beard. He caught hares which the local hotel proprietors bought. The hares were gutted but not skinned, well dressed with pepper and hung on the back veranda until the next trip to town. Presumably the pepper was sufficient to keep the blowflies at bay!

Mime and Harrys daughter May was fourteen years older than I, her brother Charlie was about nine. Charlie had a pet magpie which was the bane of my life. He delighted in chasing me everywhere, pecking at my ankles. When I ran away and jumped down a cutting (made for a cellar which never eventuated), Maggie jumped on my head!

My cousin May took me to visit our grandparents, Eliza and Henry Hunt, one day. It was across paddocks along a track which I later often took alone, past the waterhole with the huge blackwood tree growing on its bank. We saw a roan cow and calf grazing in the house paddock. My only memory of my grandfather is of a bearded man sitting near a sunny window in a rocking chair with a rug over his knees. In later times, I slept in that same room. At the time of his death, I was twenty -months old, so children do remember from an early age.

In front of Bennett and Fishers office in Mt Barkers Gawler Street, my Aunt Mime and others were talking to a woman who was a stranger to me. She was better dressed than they and spoke with self-assurance.

I stared at her because she was different. Later, she became my step- mother. My father married Florence Marian Bishop in July 1915.

Often, she told me that she thought I was peculiar because of the way I had looked at her on our first meeting; indeed, she almost succeeded in convincing me many times over.

Of course, times were hard, money scarce and life as a struggling farmers wife was a long downward step from her former positions. A family help was considered an honourable occupation in the Victorian era. She had even been companion to people named Le Messurier who travelled to England for Queen Victorias Jubilee celebrations in 1898. They spent six months in Italy before returning.

Looking back, I fancy her outstanding quality was her compassion and support for others who were ill or in need. Unfortunately, her sudden fierce temper and acid tongue lost her many friends.

Marian was the eldest child of Joseph and Catherine Bishop, who owned a shop in Port Lincoln and also managed the post office. She remembered her childhood as a happy time, although it must have been busy, as six other children were born and one small boy died.

When a small girl, she had a walking, talking doll which said Mumma and Pappa, a real novelty in the 1870s.

She remembered the weekly bath on Saturdays after which the children were given an apple each and allowed to eat it walking along the beach in their clean clothes. Sometimes, they gathered cranberries (possibly muntries) in the hummocks.

Once, she took her young brothers out into the bay in a flat-bottomed boat. Her mother was naturally very upset at the risk Marian was taking. She stood on the beach waving frantically until they returned.

About 1880, her mother developed cataracts in her eyes. The local doctor suggested that she go to Mt Gambier for treatment, as a suitably qualified doctor was there. For this purpose, she boarded Captain Underwoods vessel, which regularly ran from Port Lincoln to Hobart, stopping off at south-eastern ports en route.

When Marian was twelve years old, her mother died suddenly, from a haemorrhage after a miscarriage. She went to live with her Bishop grandparents and the other children lived with various members of her fathers family. Baby Myrtle became a ward of the state and was fostered by Mrs Cook at Minlaton, York Peninsula. That appeared to have been a happy arrangement.

In 1890, Joseph Bishop married a widow with two school-aged children. They gathered Marian and the other children and travelled on the first train from Burra to Broken Hill. Mr Bishop was the first postmaster at Broken Hill. It proved not to be a very satisfactory time for them. Mr Bishop was walking past the local pawnshop and happened to see his silver watch in the window! There were other incidents such as official cheques being embezzled. It seemed that the new Mrs Bishop was not honest and he was forced to leave the post office. The marriage was dissolved.

The elder boys found work in Broken Hill. Im not sure about the other children at that time. The father joined a religious group and eventually went to Zion City near Chicago in the United States of America, taking his son by his second marriage with him.