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FOREWORD
Cameron, it’s July 1st 1997. Your mother has been in intensive care at I was in fact, burned out. Now though, memories have been coming from
nowhere. I’ve woken during the night recalling people, places, and events that
have long been hidden, and I feel the time is right to commence documenting a
little family history for you. I hope it’s informative and that the good, the
bad and even the ugly give you an insight into the life and times the family
went through, and how they were affected by events of the twentieth century. Now for some housekeeping, the girls in this
story, although real, are composites for their sakes (and my legals). Bondy is
not an entity. She embodies many others - a body corporate! Everything within this book indeed happened, but I
must disguise all the lovely ladies concerned - and embody them within the
pseudonyms chosen. So it is with ‘The Adviser’. The bastard
existed; so did his actions, but he’s hidden from legal sight, which is in one
way rather unfortunate. ‘Jerry’ is based on Sally, but is again a
conglomerate. No single person joined in each and every one of the escapades
I’ve outlined. But those Sal missed, I suspect he’d have enjoyed as much
anyway. All the conversation quotations may not be
verbatim, but they certainly do express the gist of whatever was said at any
given time. I make no apologies for specific details of sexual awakenings before
marriage, and the tertiary education in the same subject I received (and taught)
between marriages. As the experts say, ‘What happened, happened as a result of
what happened - and cannot be unhappened.’ Perhaps there should be a BSex
(Hon)? What a way to graduate! Appreciation, and much love is expressed to
Kathleen, you Cameron, Thel Tuckey and our siblings and cousins. What you will
read is how ‘Life’s Ball Bounced’. I hope you consider it worth keeping.
R - Dad Beginning the Background
The three grandfathers and grandmothers were young adults at Federation in
1901. Alf Plant was a miner and a butcher. Joe and Dick Crawley were bakers. I don’t know much about their individual early
days - Pop Joe had married Sarah Elliott from Port Melbourne. Mum was their
fourth and last child after Joe, Frank, and George. No one seems to know what
happened - suffice to say that Mum was brought up by Dick and Nell (Ellen) Pop Dick had a number of souvenirs from WWI where
he served (literally) in the kitchens in Dad was born in Rutherglen, but my memories of the
Plants and Webbs are from Wonthaggi where Pop worked at the coal mine and hung
his own meat. He was active amongst the workers, and was a past President and
Life Member of the Wonthaggi Working Man’s Club. Wonthaggi was a coal-mining town. The mine/s were
State-owned, supplying coal to the Railways. Some other mines in nearby
Leongatha and Korumburra were private concerns, but they also supplied coal in
competition. There were trying times in the forties when major
strikes held up production and the State wanted their workers to ‘scab’ at
the private mines. Eruption! There’s a TV documentary series about those times
(and earlier I suspect) that I’m told is quite accurate. Also, our cousin Amy
wrote a poem of the time, which is included in my “Other Writings”
postscript. Pop used to campaign vigorously for the miners and
the party from the back of a dray, whilst Dad and his cornet plus a few other
members of the Salvation Army band would try to drown him out. Ben Chifley,
former train driver, was their idol. Arthur Warner, State Minister for Transport
(their boss) was not. Two major things happened on the eighty-mile beach
near Wonthaggi. First, a whale was washed ashore. Its jawbone was preserved and
placed over the corner verandah of Taberner’s hotel right opposite Wonthaggi
railway station. Visitors carved their names on it. Second, (Sir) Arthur Warner’s yacht was washed
up on the same beach during or after a storm. Wonthaggi folklore alleges the
locals left it there. High and dry. Pop and Nammy hosted the Webb brothers from time
to time. Paddy Webb went to George Webb, former bullock driver, went to
Glenhuntly where he was one of the last woodmen - horse and cart - supplying and
delivering firewood locally. Betty and Les Linklater shared the place with him
and a Webb sister I knew only as ‘Little Aunt’ - real name, Mary. They lived
behind a drapery shop that they demolished to build the house you might remember
in Another brother ‘Sloke’ - real name Frank,
lived with One thing stands out in my memory about all these
men. They were hard. Hands gnarled. Tough. Working men not from the cities. And
yet they were gentle, even though their tough old leather belts, probably
fashioned by themselves, also served as effective disciplinary tools for the
youngsters of their day. I would have liked to have known them as a man. Their ladies were brought up in the Victorian era.
They ruled the home, served their men, educated the children, and all without
pre-packaged foods and work-easy appliances. Wood stoves were the norm. Coal
burners in Wonthaggi. The fire never went out at Nammy and Pop’s. The
embers of the coal fire at nighttime would light the stove in the morning, and
the embers of the stove would ignite the coal in the fireplace at night. This
was the generation who were born in the horse and cart society, and who saw the
effect of steam, petrol and oil – the generation that experienced the birth of
the automobile, the aeroplane and electricity. They lived through the hell of two world wars –
they served in one and watched and waited through the other. I remember being with Pop Plant watching Sputnik
soar above our back yard in
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