Swimming In The Railway Tank

Towards the end of the year the heat in the tropics becomes intolerable. Thank goodness for swimming holes in the area. Unfortunately they may be to far away when needed and the battery dame may be empty. One solution at night was to go and swim in the railway tank. Steam trains consume a lot of water and at railway stations there was a large tank high up on stilts which held many thousands of litres of water. After the lights were out a few boys would brave the trip across the rail yard and up the ladder for skinny dipping in the tank on a hot humid night, it was refreshing. It was strange to be swimming up high in the air when we were more used to swimming in muddy water holes. Looking down on lights in nearby  streets..

Tall tale

Collecting Wood.

The boys hostel hot water was provided by a wood burning furnace. This provided a great deal of athletic activity. With wood chopping and weight lifting. All good wholesome teenage activities. The boys had competitions as to better to best and many a bet was won and lost. Paid for in tobacco products. Most boys became proficient with using a two man cross cut saw as well as using and maintaining the axe. I enjoyed these activities.

Gathering the wood was quite an adventure. Sam Langford the superintendent at the time. Owned a Volkswagen Kombi van. This is the veichal used to convey the wood. We would load 10 boys into the kombi and head of across the bump (Holcroft Drive). We would stop on the range and collect all the dead wood from the road building debris and load up the van to over ¾ full. Were the ten boys travelled I cant say but space was at a premium. As many as possible in the front seat, Sam was not a small man. Small boys on top of the wood pile jammed between the wood and the roof. The rest in the small space at the back above the engine. Then the trip back to Herberton Sam would put the old van in first gear and away we slowly would go. Up and down all those hills on a very corrugated road fording streams as we went. It was a sceptical. Amazes me how much we moved with that van as it constantly worked well beyond its design spec. I laugh at the antics of 4 wheel drive vision on TV, especially when it comes from up North. Some of the places they show some of us have seen the likes of good old VWs

Moslies Mandarins

One of the boarders went home on weekends to his parents farm was at Malanda. They had a good citrus orchard there and when the mandarins were in season we eagerly anticipated his return to school. He would bring a large Kelloggs carton full to the brim of mandarins. There were only 12 of us in that dormitory and we would set about demolishing that large quantity of fruit. The fruit was lovely and sweet but the inevitable result of overindulgence of ripe fruit was something ells. The resulting animal noises and the foul odours would last well into the night and that dormitory was definably out of bounds to all except the hardiest of creatures.

Tall Tale

I have only seen that variety mandarins twice since then and I miss them.

 Sermon on Fidelity

Church every Sunday Night All the girls would dress in white and sit on the left hand side of the church boys to the right dressed in long trousers and sporting a tie. Sometimes furtive glances would be passed across the room.

The service was protestant with Hymns prayers and along sermon on the bible and relationship with lifts passage.

On particular Sunday evening the visiting pastor really let fly with the hell and damnation rhetoric. Infidelity was this Sundays lesson. Infidelity was a corner stone of the devils work. The Christian brethren should not visit such dens of iniquity as a MOTEL. And to be seen in the vicinity of such an evil place in the company of a person to whom you were not married to would bring total damnation on the couple and all their decedents and a hereafter in hell.

Sermons last along time and to devout such energy to such a sermon still has my admiration. Except the congregation was only average age of 15.Seems strange such a tirade in front of all those virgin white dresses and innocent faces. The reasons for the sermon I can only guess and assume it was aimed at the very few adults present.

Tall Tale

BOAT BATTLES           

Below the hostel is a water storage known as the battery dam. The water is used to process the Tin ore and is full of arsenic. This was an excellent out of bounds recreation area for the boys who used the dam to its maximum potential.

TO BUILD A CORRIGATED IRON SHEET CANOE.

FIND A SHEET OF CORRIGATED PIECE OF ROOFING IRON, Remove it from the roof and dont get caught. Find some bitchumum in a council work site some where. There was usually a couple of near empty drums and spilled tar some where at these sites. If not the tar can be melted from gathered pieces of any unloved and uncared for rural highway.  Melt the tar and roll it into little balls and plug the nail holes in the iron sheet. Very carefully and using very precise measurements. Cut a piece of 1 by 2 inch hard wood to just over ½ the width of the iron sheet. Find a wooden packing case or some weather boards and make a square backing piece about 1/3 of the width of the sheet. Frame the piece with more 1by 2 inch hard wood.

At one end of the sheet, place the first hard wood piece one side of the sheet and nail (you kept the nails when you stole the iron of the roof.) At the other end nail the backing piece.

Fold the iron over the single 1 by 2 and bash and hammer into place. More nails the better and it does help to bend the nails over. Same with the back end. Now fill all the gaps and holes with the hot tar

There all done the bloody Queen Mary.

With several of these canoes we would go skinny dipping in the Battery Dam. Throwing mud bombs at one another and sinking one anothers canoes. I have been told that the girls in a nearby convent owned binoculars and also could enjoy the spectacle of young men in the buff from a safe distance.

Salvaging ones canoe was not to easy, as it had no floatation qualities. That is how we would hide the canoes by sinking them and remembering where to find them.

Tall Tale.

Stealing Bananas

Usual lunch looking forward to cream buns

No bananas to day

I developed the habit of a midnight snack. Not like home were you could just raid the refigerator.First check that all are sleeping. Sneak out through the window and across the roof and down into the little ally way at the back . Around to the back of the kitchen and pantry. Silly really, that the pantry had loverd glass. Just fold back the glass frame and remove the glass. Easy peasy then just slip through the narrow gap. Aladdins cave. Bread butter and McMillans black can of golden syrup. Some times other delicacies of cake or pudding.cheez was good.

Nothing like thick bread and lashings of syrup.

One night there was a full box of bananas. Recently we had been served bananas for lunches. Good to have fresh fruit. I ate a couple took some to share with friends and out I sneaked. Mission accomplished.

We would leave school at lunch time and in formation and march down the hill across the creek and up to to the hostel for lunch. There would be bead and cheese, bread and syrup. An apple or a banana. And sometimes a cream bun. On this particular day we arrived down in the dinning hall the boys to the back and the girls to the front All at tables of four. Up on the podium dined the staff. All the girls side had bananas but there were no bananas for the boys. It was announced that due to apparent pilferage, there was not enough fruit to go around. The boys would go without, It did not make sense. I did not steal that many bananas. Discreet inquiries amongst other most likelys, indicated a very active night in the pantry and indeed a very large number of bananas had gone to the in house black market. I thought I was the only one game and small enough to squeeze through the window. Though it turns out one enterprising gang had made a key that opened the pantry door.

Tall Tale

SECRET SMOKING ROOMS

Teenagers tend to experiment and ape adult ehaviour.Smoking of tabcco cigerets was of course banned.But that did not stopa thriving black market in the product.Some was actually raw uncured tobacco direct from the Mareeba plantations.Some people were already dedicated smokers.

Amongs the hostel population there faturnaties and small ganges.(not as in to days sense.). They all had their secret meeting and hangout spaces. one enterprising fraternity had mannaged to build a full club up inthe roof of the study.Compeat with flooring, lokers. and matresses and stools. Access was gained through a manholewth the aid of a study desk supplied by a casual lookout.Once upstais cautionwas utmost as a foot wrong and youcould fall through the cealing.

One fine sunday. it happend. The largest boy in the school who was that dainty onhis feet was up there.and the superintendents wife was below suspicious of the roofy noises Crash come down the ceiling with the large lad. followed by three lighter mortals. Right at the feet of the supers wife. a very slite and demure lady.She stood in shock amongst the debries at her feet then fled in horrorr back up the stairs to the kitchen Calling loudly for assistance.

I thought it all very funny.

Tall Tale 

THE COLD
Herberton may only be 140kls from Cairns 1000ks north of the tropic of Capricorn. But it is still the coldest place I have lived in. That is including the snow in the hills east of Melbourne Vic. At 2500 + feet up and amongst the hills of the Great Dividing Range. The great Australian winter high with its clear night skies saps the last vestige of warmth up into space. From May on the cold sets in at night. Each night colder than the last. Each night freezing and the frost burning of the moisture until till there is no moisture left and the eyes burn and your lips crack. When the moisture is burnt off and there is no more frost the cold seems to be more intense. 1963 seemed to be the worst year I remember. The water pipes froze in the mornings and ablutions could be only done in the evenings. We would be put to bed in the evening with only flannel pyjamas and 2 blankets to protect us from temperatures of -18 f, -10 c.  The windows were either open or broken so it was really sharing with the elements. Many boys would share beds and sleep with a mattress on top and one on the bottom. Seemed to work. You would wake up in the morning, every muscle in your body aching with cramp from shivering with the cold all night. Going to school in the cold only wearing shorts a shirt and a light blue and gold trimmed cardigan was not fun either .It seemed that the school did not heat up during the day either. We judged the quality of our teachers by those that had the attitude to take lessons outside in the warm and welcome sunshine. By 3 30pm in the afternoon the sun was low over the hills and the cool started to return.  Study at night was really something. All rugged up in blankets and thick parkers for those who had them, but most boys only had what might be described as tropical kit. Before going to bed, (all covered in soot and charcoal). Some warmth was gathered by cooking ill gotten toast and burnt black potatoes on the open hearth of the hostels wood burning water heater. Then off to suffer a night of misery.

Tall Tale