Those Foreigners

Lou Lane’s article “Those Foreigners”, from Investigator, Vol. 31, No. 3 (September 1996), pages 85–94:

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THOSE FOREIGNERS

The Shepherds lived in an old villa with iron lace ornamentation along the front verandah and one stout chimney. It was built, originally, for one Alfred Barnes in 1889, on the Surrey Hill Estate, facing onto Barkly Street, named after the Victorian Governor, Sir Henry Barkly, K.C.B., who opened the Geelong Grammar playing fields between Kilgour and McKillop Streets. This paddock had a line of peppercorns along the southern border and an avenue of gums along Normanby Street, with a kissing-gate at the corner. There was a double gate in the Kilgour Street picket fence so that carriages could enter the grounds.

The Barnes family traded from a shop in St. Albans Road—a genuine turn-of-the-century Aussie butcher’s shop with sides of bloody beef, whole carcases of mutton and pork, strings of sausages, bone saws, and cleavers hanging on steel hooks and a section of a whole tree-trunk for a chopping block. They owned a two-wheeled delivery-cart with a hopper door at the rear from which they dispensed their wares. The horse was generally driven by Charlie who was very good at cracking the whip but hadn’t much understanding of anything else. Olive, the younger sister, rode along to take orders and deliver the parcels. “Jockey” Barnes, their father, took a circuit on the outskirts of the town as far out as Waurn Ponds from where he bought his stock. Mabel, the eldest, as big as a mouse, worked in the shop. She wielded a wicked cleaver. [There was no such thing as an electric meat-saw in those days.] People said that when Mabel helped her Pa lift down half an ox, Jockey grunted while Mabel lifted. That rumour may have been started by Herbie Godfrey, the butcher’s boy who was grinding sausage-meat when he made a mistake in the recipe, adding two pounds instead of two ounces of pepper. He forthwith got the sack.

A Tempting Orchard

The local kids didn’t know where Barkly Street was. It was laid down in macadam, the upper screenings missing. It had never been sealed, had pot-holes here and there and basalt ashlar guttering—an altogether unpretentious thoroughfare. But they knew where the Shepherds lived, by golly, for they had an orchard. Bold ones could hop over the post-and-rail fence at the bottom of the second block to raid the trees—two peaches, two apricots, four apples, a green-gage, a pear, an enormous fig-tree which produced the most luscious buds and a Black Prince grapevine planted by the Barneses before Alfred sold the property to those foreigners—why they came from Tasmania, for goodness sake, and Geo. H. clipped the boxthorn hedges on the Sabbath, don’tcher know? What’s more, he returned an impertinent answer when rebuked by the erstwhile owner—worse, he paid cash for the four-roomed villa on its three-cornered block! Mr. Barnes, butcher, had expected to receive a low down-payment and thirty years of instalments as extra income. That deceitful Taswegian had asked, particularly, about easy instalments. He wasn’t a tenant, so the frustrated butcher had no way to enforce his Christian principle that Sunday was a day of rest and that clipping hedges was not to be tolerated. Besides, Geo. H., who had fought in the Boer War, had a steely eye and also owned a ferocious bulldog which he left to protect his family while he was away working at the Naval Base in Western Port.

Self-sufficient

The Shepherds cultivated a productive kitchen-garden. They kept chooks and beehives. No need to patronize Lugg’s green-grocery in Garden Street, or the itinerant Chinaman who sold fr. & veg. round East Geelong on a Thursday: nor, for that matter, the Honey-man who came in a buggy, crying his wares, now and again. They bought no honey from him. In fact, they sold him beeswax from frames from their own hives. They purchased rabbits from Mr. Binch, the Rabbitoh. You picked your rabbit, paid your sixpence and the carcase was divested of its fur coat on the spot. While the pelt was eased onto a wire stretcher, Mr. Binch, who lived near Reedy Lake, dispensed gossip from round and about. Geo. H. said he was a real old woman!

Flowers and Fruit

Ruby grew flowers for sale—lily of the valley, jonquils, daffodils, violets, chrysanthemums with many old-fashioned roses and scented lilacs just to keep the vases on the mantelpieces full and for posies for friends and neighbours. She never visited without a bouquet and a pot of jam or a bottle of tomato-relish or fruit in season.

Off to the Beach

Geo. H. and Ruby were great believers in swimming as an exercise for their family of three. Sometimes, during the school holidays, everyone got up early. Lunches were cut and packed in a huge, square case: bathing-togs in a jute sugar-bag disguised with embroidered daisies and a knotted fringe. Meanwhile, the tent was strapped onto the bicycle which was Geo. H.’s vehicle for getting to work as the foreman-carpenter for Bernie Murphy, the building contractor— [all for the princely sum of £5.19.6 per week, according to Geo. H’s. journal]. Up Normanby Street went this strange, heavily-laden caravan, across Eastern Park by way of an avenue of tall gums, down the ramp onto the sand between the Men’s and the Ladies’ Baths. This was shorter than trailing along to Swanston Street and down the steps from the rose-pergola which was opposite the Men’s. The sand, here, by the way, was a touch of La Plage—it was imported as ballast in sailing-ships from France.

Mineral springs

The arrival was rather early in the morn; for, after erecting the tent, Geo. H. had to cycle off to work by eight. Some of the time waiting until the day warmed up was spent paddling along the shore to drink from the mineral spring in a little grotto under the cliff: Lou said it tasted like coconut until a horrid urchin declared that the mineral-water filtered down from under the cemetery. That spoiled the taste! On the way back there were rocks to be turned over to find crabs or shore-eels and time to marvel at the wandery tracks the whelks made on the muddy bottom or to collect cockle-shells on the sand.

The Botanic Gardens

Alternatively, a brisk walk to the Botantical Gardens, to have a look at the monkey-pussle trees which, in those days, grew outside the southern fence line; or to play hide-and-seek round a big clump of aloes in the vicinity. Once the gates opened, a trip through the fernery, gloomy and dank, to perpetuate the joke of asking someone did they see a monkey, then leading them to gape into a mirror set in a tall rockery at the eastern end. On the way out, the Shepherds, and the satellites they always seemed to attract, would count the read and grey “gold” fish hiding under the water-lilies in the circular pond presided over by three stone dolphins (with magnificent moustaches) right near the front gates. Ruby never minded the extra kids. They may have been fascinated by the sailor suits that Victor wore, the embroidered tussore silk dresses of the girls or, maybe, the feldt-schoon Geo. H. made them for beach-wear. Nothing like them had been seen outside South Africa.

Ready remedies

Meanwhile, and this is a wry commentary on the present day, the tent and its contents were safe from intrusion. The beach was almost deserted by adults in the morning, but what holidaying kids were about did not contemplate interfering with other people’s belongings. Now, change in the tent. Then, sand-castles, decorated with cockle-shells between dashing in and out of the briny, squatting on the sand to dry off a little and stop shivering: sometimes coming out bawling if there were red jelly-fish floating in the bay. Ruby was a sort of unofficial nurse on the beach. She was always ready to dab some metho. and a smear of coconut oil on any weeping child’s jelly-fish bumps. They were truly painful and she couldn’t bear to hear a little-one crying.

Luke-Warm Lunch

Coconut oil applied lavishly after lunch in the tent with Dad, if he were near enough to cycle down to see if everything was serene. Meat sandwiches, jam sandwiches, thick slices of Adams’s fruit-cake with weak, sweet, black tea to drink—all luke-warm by noon. A rest after lunch—no-one must enter the water for an hour after eating—buckets and spades. It’s remarkable what one might find in the sand—keys, coins, hair-combs, hair-pins. Victor found a half-sovereign, once. When the Edina left the pier, dead on four Pip, Emma, and the family hastened to gather a feast of cockles, scuffling in the sand with the toes and bundling the booty into old damask-linen table napkins tied at the corners.

Packing up

Change quickly, quickly. Hang those togs on the box-thorn hedge to drip a little. Gather the towels, the tin buckets, the wooden spades. Fold the tent for Dad to pick up on his way back. Quickly, he’ll be here, soon to wheel the tent home. Whose turn is it to jump on the sand-castle?

Tea time

The shellfish were boiled for tea in a great, black, iron pot and were served with salt-n-vinegar and bread-n-butter, with stewed rhubarb and a good egg-custard for afters—bread and butter-n-marmite should there be any spaces to fill, with tea from a large, brown, glazed tea-pot. Lots of milk in it for the younkers.

Dairy remedy

While the table was being set, togs, towels and the jute bag were washed out in cold water and Sunlight soap, then pegged on the line. The jute had bleached nearly white with many washings. Togs faded, too after a couple of seasons—grey & white they were, now. If noses and cheeks were a little pink from sun-kisses, a spoonful of cream from the top of the milk-jug was applied and one went round smelling like a dairy until time for wash-before-bed. No one needed any rocking.

Ruby reckoned she started “open-sea bathing” at Eastern Beach. When Victor turned six in 1918, he was no longer permitted to enter the Ladies’ Bathing Establishment. So he was undressed behind an enormous length of towelling & left to play in the shallows. Ruby and Helen went out along the board-walk, paid twopence each and left their clothing in a bathing “bunk”. They then walked out by the front entrance, no doubt scandalising the Matron, climbed down a wooden ladder near the dinkums and swam to shore, forging along strongly in breaststroke.

Independent but discreet

Ruby didn’t care all that much for conventions. She had a vigorously independent and forthright spirit. She had learned to swim in the open sea off Devonport, in Tasmania, as a girl and later braved the rough water off Penguin Beach. She wasn’t to be intimidated by the ripples on Corio Bay nor the disapproving glances from a mere bathing attendant. Yet she was discreet enough never to emerge on the strand. After Victor had been led out by his seven-year-old sister and had had a good dog-paddle round, he was carried out of his depth and taught to float, either side up and to practise his breast-stroke, “just like a little frog”.

When Mum and Sis started to chill off, the process was reversed. They returned, respectably clad and accoutred, to dress Junior. Togs were dried on the boxthorn while the children played in the sand. Ruby sheltered under a fancy parasol & saw the girls kept their sun-bonnets on. The boys tanned.

Now, in this era, most females who ventured to go bathing at all patronised the baths and couldn’t have been coaxed out the door in their togs for any money. One reached the bathing-enclosure along an elevated board-walk. In times of high tide, salt water splashed up through the decking. In the porch was the den of the Matron, Miss Hill, where she took the entrance fees—twopence to the right, fourpence to the left. Miss Hill had a huge bottle of iodine on the shelf next to glass jars containing pink cinnamon-sticks (2d.), liquorice-blocks (2 for a penny), bath buns (1d. each), conversation-lollies (4 a penny). These she dealt out in her fingers in exchange for coppers. The young Shepherds longed for a bath-bun—a flat wheel of biscuit containing currants—but Ruby considered the method of service too unhygienic and supplied malt biscuits, instead.

Primitive sanitation

Opposite Matron’s cubby was a large, square compartment with a bench fixed right round the walls and hooks mounted on the studs. Here late patrons were directed if all the bunks were fully occupied. Next, on the eastern [cheaper] side, two conveniences with bench seats. The perfume of these was pretty high on a summer afternoon. The night-man had a narrow board-walk branching off to the right. If you got there early and he was a little late, you might be lucky enough to see him open the little trap-doors, substitute empty cans for full ones and stride off with his burdens on his shoulders—the local intelligence was that this worthy was “the best-dressed man for his job”.

Fourpenny luxury

The bunks on the fourpenny side were roomier than those opposite. Their doors were provided with wooden toggles to keep them closed from the inside—on the tuppenny side, no toggles. If two or three were in a bunk, one leant against the door for privacy while the others undressed, piled their clothes on the bench and slipped into the neck-to-knees (navy and white) and a tight, rubber bathing-cap which, theoretically, kept one’s long hair dry. If one was really lucky, one had rubber bathing-shoes as well. Most tuppennies didn’t bother about such impedimenta—or couldn’t afford them.

Thievery rare

If you were a lone occupant of a bathing-box, it was likely that, in the middle of the change, the door would be pushed open without by-your-leave and you would get a hearty smack in the back while putting on your bathing-drawers. After taking a swim, it was common to find one’s pile of clothes moved over, neatly, because another had been squeezed in by Miss Hill; but thievery was hardly known, then, so there was no trouble.

The paint on the fourpenny doors was fresher—maybe painted more often or maybe because they were shaded from the hot afternoon sun. On the tuppenny side, the painted doors were frankly scaly. Nevertheless, that side was always crowded with bathers sunning themselves every afternoon.

First aid

At the shallow end of the baths was a wide shelf of slats from which the intrepid could plunge into the water after going down the “shallow” steps, testing the water with one toe and a squeal. This platform was permanently under water; at the beginning of the season, the surfaces were clean but later they became encrusted with coral. This explains the necessity for Matron Hill’s supply of iodine, which she freely applied to coral abrasions with a feather stuck by its quill into the top of the cork. Such applicants for medical aid went back with thighs, knees and elbows painted the colour of an Indian. Near the “shallow”-steps, down which the timid crept, a stout rope was suspended across the baths to remind paddlers that deeper water was ahead. One could clutch the rope and make a splendid froth with one’s nether limbs while pretending to learn the new over-arm stroke.

The Wires

The middle third of the enclosure was marked by the second rope beyond which, except at low tide, one could not expect to stand. The confident liked to duck-dive under the second rope and come up deep-side. Then one swam for “the wires” at the outer end of the enclosure not sheltered by the bathing-boxes. From the wooden platforms there, one could look over the edge to watch the ribbons of seaweed endlessly shifting. One could see the male bathers at the end of the Men’s which was even further out but the separation was too great to distinguish faces. Occasionally, the hobbledehoys in the Men’s would dive over their outer boundary and swim across to tease the girls at “the wires” or just stare at their forms. That caused a how-d’-y’-do! We often wondered how they sneaked back into the men’s without being nabbed by the Attendant. Maybe, he just sniggered at such preccadilloes.

Diving Boards

In the deep end were two diving-boards, one on each side, and sets of “second” steps so divers could climb out to have another go by joining the queue. Once you could swim properly, it was de rigeur to jump in, feet first from the tuppeny board. The four-penny board was longer and springier, of course.

Sounds of Innocent Enjoyment

The sound of the baths was a din to remember. Water spashing ceaselessly, in and out, under the buns: the loud whoosh of someone coming in, feet first, shrieks of alarm: squeals of joy: treble shouts across the water: slaps of running feet: quacks of laughter: endless female chatter! It was the music of enjoyment, early 1900s style.