My Story

I go back to my grandfather. He was born into a tribe on the Queensland–Northern Territory border and ran around naked with the rest of the black kids. The people who found him managed Westmoreland. They were Charles Tonner and his wife Millicent who had the lease on the property. The blacks came regularly to the station and that’s where my grandfather was discovered.

“I think I’ll take that little boy,” Charles Tonner said.

“We don’t know who he belongs to,” said one of the blacks. “His mother has abandoned him, so you can have him.”

Charles promised: “I’ll bring him up and teach him how to work.”

The Tonners already had a son called Moreland, named after the station. The light-skinned waif was named Burke Attenborough, which was his name until the day he died.

Burke grew up on the station and worked hard. He was a fencer and was also employed elsewhere. He had a four-wheeled buggy with four horses, four spare horses and riding horses as well. He went out to various stations to work but was based at Westmoreland until the Tonners sold out.

Burke married an Aboriginal woman from Townsville, a cook who had worked with various white people. They had six children, three girls and three boys. One of the girls was my mother Elsie, and she was born in the bush. All Burke’s family were born in the outback.

My father John Freckleton was from Ireland. I believe his work was to fix the fence running through South Australia. I don’t know how many Irish were on this job, or whether he was on some sort of bond as a result of political activity, but Dad ended up at Burketown. And the fence came as far as Lawn Hill (according to my son Noel) where the waterfall is (today’s Century mine). Anyway, as kids we called it the rabbit fence because this is what our bearded father told us. John Freckleton wanted us to attend school in Camooweal but Grandfather didn’t like the idea of a long and dangerous journey in a buggy.

My eldest sister Ellen (Elsie) was born at Gregory Downs station in 1918. I was born at Lawn Hill in 1923. Kippi was born at Egilabria in 1926, where my mother died as a result of haemorrhaging. When Mum died my father left to go back to work. Grandfather was an old man and had to make a decision about us, especially after his other daughters got hitched. Dad had said he would wait for us in Camooweal. But we never saw him again. We heard he purchased a shop there, selling saddles, bridles, boots, clothes and anything a ringer would need.

So we were left to look after our younger sister. Grandfather went to Punjaub station to collect milk expressed by an Aboriginal wet nurse. Otherwise Kippi would have died. When she was a few weeks old the manager of Punjaub gave Burke two nannies and a billy goat. We had to milk a goat every morning. Grandad made a hole through a cork for a teat so we could bottle-feed our sister. Kippi thrived and went on to become a big healthy woman.

Grandfather set up bush camps with a tent and temporary yards for the horses at night. Grandmother, who was there all the time, taught us about gathering food.

Occasionally we ran into tribal blacks. They were tall, healthy, well built people. The tribals generally kept out of the way, though they did occasionally come into the camp for flour, sugar and tea.

Like them, we ate bush tucker. We used to pick fruit in season. We shot kangaroo, wild turkeys and emu. We didn’t eat crocodiles but we loved swamp turtles and lilies. We had clothes to wear; just a dress. No pants. Who was going to sew them? And we would always make a good camp. When Grandad returned with the buggy and took the horses out of harness he would say: “Hobble the horses, Elsie.” This was always Mum’s job before she died.

We had a magpie for a pet which used to come and go. We could hear him whistling far out in the bush. When we heard him, we knew someone was coming. He would fly from tree to tree; and from a post in the camp would squawk: “Somebodycoming! Somebodycoming!” We thought it might be a policeman with a blacktracker. Grandmother told us to hide in the creek. And she would run around with a broom. If it was a policeman, he would always ask: “Have you got any kids?”

“No. Only a grown-up family.”

We hid under the lily pads until Grandma told us it was safe to come out.

When we were taken to Burketown the magpie was kept back in the camp in a cage. Grandfather later gave him to a white man. We never saw Grandfather or the magpie again …

I dream of the magpie singing my name: “Maudie, Maudie …”

Grandfather buried my grandmother at Turn-Off Lagoons, otherwise known as Corinda, a station which no longer exists, not far from Doomagee Mission on the Nicholson River. He constructed a little yard around the grave.

Grandad Burke was responsible for his three grandchildren. But he had to keep working. So he left us in the charge of a couple called Eva and Sid Smardy or Smarden. He said he was going to go droving. That was the only thing he said. But he was getting old and he spent his final days felling sandalwood trees around Burketown. The timber was used for barbwire fencing and some of it is still standing today. He also sold sandalwood to the Chinese in Burketown. They used it for making medicine from the oil and to burn to make smoke to stop the mosquitoes. Sampans came from Darwin to ship the wood out. Grandad went to Turn-Off Lagoons where he died and was buried beside Elsie, his wife.

Burke had been to the police about his three grandchildren and informed them he had left them in the care of the Smardens. He said his two remaining daughters couldn’t look after us. My eldest aunty, Cora, lived with Kitchener Brown and had children to this man in Cloncurry. I never found out much about her children, though she had one before she left us at the camp round 1927. My other aunt, Dolly, lived with Tommy Chong in Burketown. They had eight children.

Grandad told the police the best thing was to send us to a mission station. The police and blacktracker went to the Smardens and reported that a boat was going to take us to Mornington Island.

We were in town for about two weeks before a boat came to Triganinni at the mouth of the Albert River. As we were put into a dinghy the policeman told the captain to be careful that we didn’t abscond and this information was passed on to the black crew. The Smardens had given us tucker to take with us and waved us goodbye. I carried a sugar bag with my belongings, including shoes which Grandad had given us.

We boarded the sailing vessel Morning Star and the captain put us down below. It was a cabin with portholes. I jumped up to have a look.

My elder sister yelled: “Maudie, watch out you don’t fall!”

“I just want to see where we are!” And I saw open sea. “Elsie! There are no trees around.” I was crying for Grandad.

We all cried during the voyage, which lasted two days.

When the boat tied up at Gunana jetty, missionaries were there to greet us with their own four children, all older than us. The captain and the four crewmen said goodbye and we went off with the missionaries to the mission house which was situated on a high point overlooking the sea. Rev. Robert Wilson told us to call him Master and his wife Frances, Mother. Their boys were Andrew and Hugh; girls Bessie and Joan. We were taken to the dining area under the large house and given some cold damper and nothing to put on it. It was just after lunch and the other kids had eaten everything else. They peeked around corners and posts looking at us. Finally some came up as we were eating and asked where we came from. We cried as we told them about Grandfather, aunties and uncles.

After that we were taken to the dormitory and were shown where to sleep: one blanket each; no beds or pillows. We would sleep together so we could put one blanket underneath and one to cover us up at night. This was the small girls’ dormitory. There must have been about fifty of us there. The senior girls had their own dormitory in a larger room in the same building. The boys’ dormitories were well away from the girls in a separate timber building on low piles. Eventually we made our own palliasses out of coconut husks and copra bags. Elsie moved into the senior girls’ dormitory but I was always with Kippi.

Wires from the mission house were attached to the dormitory doors and were pulled up at night so we couldn’t get out. We had a tin to pee in. If you had a belly ache and wanted to do number twos—too bad! We talked among ourselves until everyone got tired.

A big girl in charge of us said: “Time to say your prayers.” We would get up on our knees and all say a prayer—the Lord’s Prayer usually. We weren’t allowed to talk after that.

We didn’t sleep well the first night, crying a little. But we were soon to get used to being where we were.

We would wake up about 6 a.m. when the missionary or missionary’s sons pulled the shutters up from the windows. Then we went out to do a bit of work before breakfast, carrying water from a well—where we also washed under the pump. The water tank was used only for drinking. When this was filled it was breakfast time. We went to the dining area where we had porridge made from flour—sometimes very runny—which was sprinkled with sugar. We each had a tin plate with our names on it. That is why our names were changed, because an Elsie was already there and also a Maud: So we became Ellen and Molly. We were hungry all the time and there was nothing left over.

At lunchtime we had rice cooked in the boiler with bits of corned meat thrown in. I was lucky to get a bit of meat. We sure needed it. Sometimes we would get rib bones from the cattle slaughtered on the island. We looked forward to these.

At suppertime—about 7 p.m. in the dark—we ate damper made from flour put onto a tray and cooked in an ant-bed oven. It was just like pizza. We often had fish cooked with our damper. The fish was supplied by local blacks in exchange for plug tobacco. Then we would file off to the dormitories guided by kerosene wick lamps which the missionaries would later remove for the night. In the dark we would sit around chatting or singing hymns or songs we had learned.

I had a friend, Flora, who was bigger than me. She helped look after me, gave advice, showed me the toilet and where to get buckets for a bath. The toilets were corrugated iron with four seats. Four kerosene tins of waste from each toilet block had to be buried in the sand each day—work done by the older girls and boys. Flora was from Mornington Island; mixed-race like the rest of us. I called her Sister.

Later Flora went over to Doomagee Mission where her parents were. (That was the last I saw of her until about 1980 when we visited the mission in three four-wheel-drives. My husband Will and I went first as we both knew people at the mission. Flora was looking well. She had got married there and had a family.)

After breakfast we were marched two-by-two to a large wooden church where we sang, listened to the missionary’s sermon and said prayers. We then stayed on at the church for school. We were crammed in; about a hundred of us. The little ones were outside at kindy. Slates were passed out to us and we sat and listened or worked on our slates.

Maud Presley, a mixed-race woman from Camooweal, was a very good teacher. She took us through reading, writing, spelling and geography. I was pretty bright but never could beat Dick Roughsey, a full Mornington Island black sent to school by his family. He must have been picked out especially by the missionaries. He always topped our class. I would get mad with him and call him all sorts of names (we couldn’t swear!). He’d just laugh: “Beat you this time, Molly.” Percy Trezise was later to make a friend of Dick and was granted Dick’s tribal name of Gubbaladalli.

We finished school about midday. After lunch we rested in the dormitory until it was time to work in the garden. It was about as big as a football field. The garden had trees around it and also a few trees for shade. We had three wells serving the garden. We would weed right through the year. In the dry season we would water from the wells at the end of the day using a kerosene tin on a pole for every two mates. Flora and I always carried water together to pour over the plants.

We grew sweet potatoes in straight rows dug with hoes. We planted a handful of stringers every foot or so. There was a pumpkin and watermelon patch; pawpaw all in a line along with tomato vines on sticks and string; also beans, cabbages and carrots—all the vegies we get today. We even grew pineapples. Also in the garden were mango trees and when they grew up big we didn’t water them. But we watered limes, lemons, oranges and custard apples. We had cassava, which we often stole, cooking the tubers in the kitchen area when the missionaries weren’t around. We had to steal to allay our constant hunger. We snigged white and red sweet potatoes out of the ground with our feet and hid them under our arms. There were no onions or English potatoes but we did grow shallots.

From her verandah Mother Wilson watched us with her binoculars to see that we were working.

When not eating damper for supper we had plenty of sweet potatoes in season. The working boys on the station harvested most of the crops. We had lots of coconuts, too. Every Sunday was coconut day. They would be husked and we would drink coconut juice. We ate the coconut meat at lunch.

We were told not talk to the boys in the garden. The bigger boys would go into the bush to get stones to smash with two-handed hammers into fines for concreting; otherwise they would do other work supervised by the missionary’s boss boy.

We always looked forward to knock-off time, signalled by the bell ringing from the verandah of the mission house. We watched the sun moving over the house and could anticipate the bell.

We stole bananas, too. I’d get on someone’s shoulders to pull a few bananas off a bunch and we’d share them out. Then we would go to another bunch and steal a few more, hoping they wouldn’t be missed. We concealed them in our dresses and took them out when no one was looking. We wrapped them firmly in grass and hid them in the garden.

The staff and their families officially got fruit. We stole all ours: pawpaws, custard apples—sweet stuff we loved to eat. Pineapple we left alone because we thought the missionaries would smell it on us.

Mangoes were plentiful in season and we often took them to bed with us. No one stopped us doing this.

A senior girl, Kathleen Holland, looked after the mission’s poultry. She also fed them. I followed her picking up corn and wheat, putting them in my dress to eat later. On one occasion Mother Wilson saw me from the toilet and called out: “Thou shalt not steal!” I dropped everything and hid, but she never came after me. Eventually my friend Margaret and I were given the job helping Kathleen supervise the turkeys by taking them into the garden or other places where they could eat bugs and grass. Turkeys were in one part of the fowl house and chickens in the other. They had roosts to rest and places to lay eggs. We also had pigeons, which the missionaries ate. We collected chook and turkey eggs every afternoon after the birds were ushered back to the fowl house. We each carried a stick to guide them and to protect us from the gobblers.

One particular turkey hen always wanted to go back to the yard; I think to lay an egg. Mother was very strict about her birds. All the turkeys had to be taken out of their yards in the afternoon. When we got this hen back with the other turkeys, I said to Margaret: “I’m going to poke her under the root of this tree. Find a stick so she can’t run away.” Then we jumped on the stick. The turkey made a hell of a noise. We jumped some more to shut her up but the stick must have taken a piece off her side. The poor old turkey could hardly get along when the bell rang. Like us, the poultry knew the bell meant going home for a feed and the birds were easily shuffled back to their yards; except for this particular bird.

Kathy Holland went to Mother and told her about the turkey hen.

“What do you mean, she’s hurt?” Mother asked.

“One of her wings is down and she can hardly walk.”

“Call Margaret and Molly … Do you know something about the hen?”

“No … Mother,” I answered nervously. “She was all right when we took her out.”

“All the skin is taken behind the wing.” Mother was very suspicious.

Margaret got up behind me and whispered: “Tell her what’s wrong; tell her something!”

I was praying what to say: “It’s like this Mother … It’s because the turkey gobbler keeps jumping on her.”

Mother Wilson put aside the stick with which she was threatening us. And to Kathleen: “It must be the turkey gobbler.” Fortunately Kathleen agreed with her.

As soon as we got away we burst out laughing. We had seen enough of what the gobblers did, so the story came to me quickly. Kathleen never said anything to us about this incident.

At the mission on Mornington Island we were issued with dresses, including a white dress for going to church every Sunday. The big girls made the dresses using pedal machines. Mother Wilson taught them. I kept looking at myself in my first white dress. I got baptised in one during the first week I was there. There was a frantic effort by the girls to get the dresses made for the three of us in time. I felt so proud. We even had pants made for us.

I never wore the shoes Grandad had given me and then I grew out of them.

We changed our two work dresses of varied colours three times a week: Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. I picked up skills in crocheting

Other missionaries visited, including Samuel and Fred McKay, who came in for field breaks from the Inland Mission. Others came from further south. We were lined up to welcome all white visitors. We always sang songs. The boys put on native dancing carrying nullanulla, spears and boomerang. They were painted up and wore the special lavalava tied up. We weren’t allowed to dance but we did sway our hips to the songs—none of this getting our gear off! Mother Wilson always told us to smile.

Sometimes we had special concerts at the end of the school year. Some of us sang solo. On occasions I was given a hymn to sing.

Our hair was cut—shaved all round apart from a tuft in the front for girls. This was to control lice. We washed under the house using buckets we brought up from the well. The soap was made from dripping from the bullocks killed on the station: kerosene was added along with the caustic soda. The big girls made soap regularly; they boiled the mixture and then ran it into trays. We washed our clothes with this soap in tubs, also under the mission house. The girls had to wash the boys’ clothes. Only in winter did the boys wear shirts; and white shirts for church. Otherwise they only wore long lavalava. There were always more girls than boys.

The only time we could meet boys other than at school was at the water tank when we went to get a drink. And if we happened to be out walking and saw boys we would take off in the opposite direction for fear of the missionaries: We never told them we saw them. We could hear the boys yelling: “Hey, there are girls there!” And they would take off into the bush, too.

We swam naked in the salt water on Sunday and Wednesday afternoons, supervised by the missionary ladies (Mother Wilson and two daughters). Occasionally we would be stung by jellyfish. The strings were pulled off and we were rubbed over with sand. Sunday was special. After church and lunch we would go walking and end up at the beach. Sometimes we walked along the cliffs. We became really good at walking.

We were back in church again about five and supper followed after that.

Saturday was sports day: always running and jumping; rounders too. I was good and could often hit hard enough to get a full rounder. I could run real fast. We also played netball; occasionally with the boys but Master Wilson always kept an eye on us.

On Mornington Island Master Wilson had a rubber flagellum made from the inside rim of a car tyre. He used this on boys and girls. Occasionally he lost his temper and really flogged out. Master Wilson would generally flog persons in a formal manner in front of the others by announcing their misdemeanours and asking them to say sorry. He would ask a miscreant to bend down and then he walloped him three or four times. All of us were flogged at least once. Then we would take off, rubbing our backsides. The boys, to show how brave they were in front of their sisters and relatives, wouldn’t cry out or rub themselves until out of sight of the Master.

Master Dockerty gave me a belting in front of the others. I would have been about twelve or thirteen. This particular week he asked Kathleen Holland: “Who cleaned my shoes?”

Kathleen answered: “Molly cleaned them this time, Master.”

“Call Molly!” He brought out his shoes and thrust them at my face: “Did you clean these, Molly?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Did you clean the heels?” I thought for a while and mumbled something.

“You didn’t. You’re telling lies!” And he hit me on the arm with a stick he always carried. He kept hitting me on the arm: “You’re telling a lie!”

The blows hurt so much I ran into the mission house and he came looking for me. Then I ran outside to find some rocks. I was crying my head off.

“Come back up here, Molly!”

“No. I’m not going up there.”

“Come on, Molly … Well, I’m coming down to get you.” He put one boot on the step leading down from the verandah.

“That’s as far as you come, Master! I’ll throw this stone. I’ll hit you right between the eyes and break your glasses.”

The missionary hesitated and then said: “You put those stones away.”

But I kept them in my hand until he walked inside with his stick.

Master Dockerty never said any more about the incident and he never hit me again. I had called his bluff. The missionary and his damn shoes! Today I still get a sore arm. The other girls cried for me. And I cried for a long time, because my arm was so sore.

In 1938 the Flying Doctor came over to Mornington Island. He arrived in a small plane, but at the time we didn’t have a ’drome so he landed at Denham Island. We received our instructions about the welcome planned for the pilot and doctor:

“Wait until till the plane comes over and then you’ll all lie out on the ground to make out the word WELCOME … Don’t get up! The plane is flying over!”

The pilot had flown from Cloncurry.

When the plane landed on the salt pan it taxied right up to where the missionaries were waiting. We were still lying down in the “welcome” position, but took off to hide in the mangroves when the aircraft came close to us. I could hear Mother Wilson calling us to come back. We peeped through the mangroves to see what was happening. After a while we came out and accompanied (in a dinghy) the pilot and doctor who took the launch to the mission station.

Mother Wilson: “Go and have a wash because the doctor is going to look at everyone.”

Some of us were suffering from bad colds—probably whooping cough. Some had measles. There was nothing wrong with me, but they found that once I had trachoma, so I got eye drops to keep it in check. The big girls would make us lie on the table and pour warm water from a jug into our eyes. We wiped them before receiving eye drops.

That was the only trouble I had. But there were a lot of sick kids, mainly during the dry season. We lost a couple of girls through measles. The boys had similar troubles and stayed in the dormitory to recover. We never had a sick bay.

We ended up having to construct an airstrip—picking up stones and clearing them away into a gully. Even today, Jason, my grandson and a pilot, says it’s a very good ’drome. Stones from the strip were also carried by the boys to make a jetty.

My elder sister Ellen got married to Samuel Richards on the island round 1935. She had a long frock to wear. I was a flower girl and another girl was the bridesmaid. Samuel Richards came from Normanton along with his brother. He received schooling, some of it from his wife-to-be, and later became the head stockman at the station. He looked after horses and cattle. The missionaries gave him a home of his own well away from the school. The couple went on to have three children—two girls and a boy—all born there. Women who knew about midwifery, having had children, delivered the babies. I don’t remember any child being lost.

Ellen and Samuel left the island to work elsewhere before returning a few years later.

After they returned from Abingdon Downs, Samuel with three other young fellows decided to visit Bentinck Island to check up on what was happening. A policeman saw them and told them to keep away. The Bentinck Islanders never liked white people. A certain Mr McKenzie originally lived on Bentinck Island with a native wife. It was rumoured he had been very rough with them, hence their attitude to outside authority. Samuel was light-skinned like me. He tried to tell them he was landing to get some water. But the islanders didn’t understand the language.

Previously the protector who inspected all the mission stations wanted to visit Bentinck Island and sent two councillors over from Mornington Island to inform them that a big man was going to visit them and would bring flour and other things. We heard the natives grabbed the stuff, laughing and singing as they broke open the flour bags to adorn themselves, spilling it everywhere … The missionaries warned Samuel to be careful.

Samuel and his friends could see armed natives standing there. If the protector got there, Samuel thought he could visit too. He and two others were killed. There were no bodies: the Bentinck Islanders cut them up and fed them to the sharks. One managed to escape because he was accompanying Samuel and his two friends in a launch. He returned to Mornington Island and reported the massacre.

The missionaries sent a telegram to Burketown and three policemen came to pick up the murderers. The police fired their guns and after two of the natives were captured the rest took to the scrub. The two men came back after a few years in jail and lived a civilised life on Mornington Island.

Subsequently, during a long drought, Bentinck Island was set alight by the natives to attract the attention of those at Mornington Island. The mission vessel went over and the islanders told Mr and Mrs Cain that they were short of water and no longer wanted to live on the island. They were picked up by a larger vessel and settled in a camp near the mission. The Bentinck Islanders were said to be pretty brainy and many were sent south to schools attended by white children. Occasionally people still visit Bentinck Island or go fishing there.

A ’drome was constructed on the island. Jason (my daughter Marie’s son), who worked out of Burketown said it was a one-way strip. An aircraft had to be well in the air at the end of the runway otherwise it was likely it would come down in the sea. There was at least one fatal crash (in heavy rain) on this strip.

While working in the garden we heard aeroplanes and ran and hid in the bush. We saw perhaps half a dozen aircraft circle round the islands and head off towards Darwin. It happened several times. And I remember a couple of planes swooping over the station. We were frightened—we didn’t know whether they were ours or Japanese. Certainly these were aircraft we had never seen before. None of them landed, even though there was a large strip at Burketown.

No one talked about leaving. I don’t remember seeing any military on our island or nearby. We continued on with our schooling and normal chores.

The missionaries, in their regular radio schedules with the Flying Doctor and agents in Burketown, Cloncurry and Mount Isa, were able to talk about finding positions for students from Mornington Island.

In 1942 Mr Braunhaus, a lay helper, told us about a telegram from Abingdon Downs requesting a couple more girls for domestic work. Kippi and I took a launch to Burketown to pick up a light plane for the station. A small bag each contained our worldly possessions including a Bible. We stayed at the police station overnight. A couple of women associated with the blacktrackers looked after us. The next day we were driven in the police car to the ’drome. The plane had a small cabin with a couple of seats and the pilot sat behind us in an open cockpit.

The pilot was friendly enough. We flew to Normanton to refuel before taking off for Croydon to pick up mail. We then headed north-west to Abingdon. The plane deposited us there and took off for Cairns.

We arrived to find working there at least five mission boys, along with my elder sister Ellen, her two children and her husband Samuel. We were relieved to see people we knew. We were assigned to the single girls’ quarters with our own bedroom and two beds—our first beds to sleep in! The pit toilet was about fifty metres away. We had a laundry with washing tubs and a fireplace to boil water. The shower room was alongside. These facilities were attached to our quarters. The men were housed in a building a long way from us. Married couples had their own rooms in another building. Our room looked out onto a verandah towards a large lagoon and horse yards.

I reckon the station was 1600 square miles. Access was via Georgetown, a day’s journey there and back by truck and (later) four-wheel-drive. After the war the local council regularly maintained the road.

Abingdon Downs was owned by Percy Edwards and his wife Hawthorne. Later the managers (Mr and Mrs Corr) went shares in Abingdon with the Edwardses.

My job was that of house maid: hours 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. I cleaned the big house and carried food from the outside kitchen to the dining room and waited at table. My movements were often regulated by a bell rung at the table in the big house. When it rang I would go and pick up the food for the manager and his wife. We had a Chinese cook most of the time. Sometimes a white man would replace him. Assisted by at least one Aborigine, the cook prepared meals for all the workers, the manager and his wife.

Even though the working hours were long we were not always on the go. We had time for meals and time to sit around and talk. If the manager wanted us for something out of the usual routine he would send a servant to fetch us. We received instructions in the office in the big house. Usually there were a couple of girls looking after the big house at any time and this work was also shared among the stockmen’s wives.

Food for all staff and their families was cooked in the separate outdoor kitchen. White stockmen ate near the kitchen and the blacks in a shady area where tables and chairs were set up. We always ate our food in the kitchen at a table reserved for us staff, near the washing area. There was always plenty to eat. An old Chinaman looked after the garden and there were huge mango trees and coconut palms. The kids would freely take plums from the plum trees when in season.

The Edwardses had a continual round of guests, including friends up for holidays. The main dining room catered for up to twelve places. I would stand to the left of Mr Edwards waiting for him to carve the meat and place food from salvers on plates which would be delivered to guests further down the table. Later I stood at the right of Mrs Edwards, who served up the puddings. Then there was the clearing of the table and delivery of all cutlery, plates and leftovers out to the kitchen. I wore the best mail-order clothes—usually a short floral dress with a white apron.

Abingdon Downs was a huge station with a general manager, head stockman and three or four white ringers or jackaroos. There were perhaps six domestic staff such as myself and twenty or so musterers of mixed or full Aboriginal heritage, along with their families. All were fed from the same kitchen. There were also a saddler, blacksmith, carpenter and mechanic.

The whites would collect their wages at the end of each month. The blacks’ wages were sent to the police station at Georgetown and supposedly held in trust. Pocket money was distributed for the purchase of soap and other stuff.

As far as relationships with men were concerned I was a single woman; up to 1944 that is. I had a good time. There was one man, the cranky German carpenter, who called us “greasy shins”! But by and large the white men were respectful and in some cases very lonely. As the older men went off to the war the younger replacement jackaroos were living for the first time away from home. At meal times we would make suggestions about going fishing, and when the manager and his wife were away we would take some tea and sugar and head for the lagoon. If we accepted an invitation to go for a walk the kids would tear about keeping an eye on things.

With girlfriends we caught catfish, cod and brim. One day a catfish was brought in which was over a metre long.

It was station policy that no grog was to be brought onto the property or drunk there unless it was with the station owners. Occasionally the senior stockmen and other good workers were invited onto the verandah to partake in a glass of beer.

I married Willie Chong in 1945. He was about my age and had been at school with me at the mission. I heard he was stolen from Normanton as a very young, small and scrawny kid. He had to be looked after and nurtured in the big girls’ dormitory before he could join the other boys. I got to know him properly at Abingdon, where he was a stockman with amazing skills. We married at Georgetown, where there was a church but no minister. So it had to be at the court house near the police station. I had given birth to Wilma in 1944 on the station, ably assisted by an Aboriginal midwife. Noel followed in 1950, Robert in 1952 and Marie in 1955.

I had the last three children in Cairns. When Bob Norman was pilot on the mail run he went out of his way to point out where we were. By that time the airstrip had been upgraded to take DC3s.

In the meantime, because Will’s work was so valued, the manager applied for Will and me to be exempted from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act. We became white in 1947.

We then knew we could vote and did so for the first time in 1949 at Georgetown. The banks were threatened with nationalisation. I worked long hours getting up at four in the morning and finishing work at eight at night. I wasn’t going to have my hard-earned savings taken by the government!

I taught Wilma right through with correspondence school and also helped Noel, Rob and Marie. Noel was perhaps the most difficult to deal with as he always wanted to go off mustering with his father. Will would quietly roll up a dinner for him, ready for our son to fly out the door. There was no mucking about. Noel was gone before I could counsel otherwise.

It wasn’t long before older boys of the staff were learning to drive four-wheel-drives, tractors and motor bikes, as well as ride horses. When Willie had to go water bailing in the Land Rover sometimes the manager said: “Take the kids.” So we’d go and camp with him.

I remember my husband putting me on a horse and double dinking Wilma on his horse. He kept on calling: “Keep up!”

“I can’t get Mickey going any faster!”

Then we went down into a creek and the horse shot up the other side. “I can’t stop him!”

Willie galloped up behind me and grabbed the reins. He offered me his horse, which was a good ambler. I never rode again after that.

Even though I guided the children through correspondence school, things got a little too much for me. I still had work to do. Noel went off to boarding school in 1956 and the other two followed. We saved enough money to send them away. The manager of the Bank of New South Wales in Georgetown told me our children had more money in their accounts than the white kids. We had really worked for this; what with saving our wages and making extra money from Will’s skill with a pig rifle and dogs, and in tracking and baiting dingo. We sold dingo scalps and wild pig snouts as bounties to the council.

When the owners were away I ended up looking after the big house; attending to the radio schedule, sending weather reports and telegrams. The head stockman looked after matters outside.

Will and I left in 1983 to work at another station. Abingdon Downs changed hands soon after.

Will and I moved to Ravenshoe to live in Noel’s house in 1990. In 2004, while visiting George and Dawn Bloomfield on their property on the Upper Barron, Will said he wasn’t feeling too well. Our hosts beckoned me to prepare my husband a lunch from the enormous spread before us. Will leaned over and rested his arm on me. Suddenly he fell on the floor. He tried to say: “Time’s up.”

Dawn called the ambulance but by the time it arrived it was too late. Dawn’s brother, Brian Ball (who died in July 2009 in a horrific truck accident which also killed his grandson) drove us over to the Atherton Hospital where I said goodbye … Irene Doyle, Kippi’s daughter. wrote a long celebratory poem about Will a year after his burial in Ravenshoe cemetery.

When Ellen died in 2001, I met her daughter at the funeral in Mount Isa. Ellen was brought from Mornington Island to be buried alongside her granddaughter. My niece mentioned a buggy they had. It was my grandfather’s four-wheeled buggy, as it had his brand. Then I remembered the magpie singing: “Maudie, Maudie …” and Grandad calling: “Hobble the horses, Elsie.”

In March this memoir was published by MaskiMedia of North Queensland as a

monograph titled Magpie Dreaming.