THOUSANDS HAVE GONE
Since the 1960’s thousands of villages have virtually disappeared across Australia. Vibrant for generations, now just wistful memories. Common to just about all were the school, general store, post office, churches, footy, cricket, tennis clubs and in the northern states, rugby teams. Each had a local hall which served as a community centre and meeting place for the likes of Red Cross, CWA and so on.
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MY VILLAGE
It is always nostalgic to revisit scenes of childhood. This writer’s early years were spent in Hexham, a compact village on the Hopkins River in the west country.
Though times were tough, it seemed an idyllic place.
A couple of dozen houses, a marvellous general store (the kind that sold virtually everything), post office, school, bluestone pub, village hall, a couple of churches and my grandfather’s blacksmith shop. A real haven that-on the cold mornings, before school, to warm our hands at the blazing forge.
There was a cricket and football team, a tennis club, and even polo at the old racecourse.
Hexham’s polo team was for quite a time renowned.
Its horses and practitioners were drawn from the great stations nearby – Boonerah, Merrang, Hexham Park, Woolongoon, Boorkoi and Chatsworth’. Station owners’ names loomed large in the history of Western District society -Manifold, Weatherly, Urquhart, Robert Hood, Armstrong and Palmer.
These were the great estates -surviving still -with their splendid homesteads and sprawling vistas of grazing land.
These estates provided employment and sustenance for many a family.
Our dad was a shearer and sometime boxer-and something of a legendary bush story teller.
Yorkshire TV once interviewed him in one of the area shearing sheds seeking tales of the hardy people who plied his trade.
Memories flood back of mostly happy schooldays, visiting concert troupes and the occasional circus, the annual race meeting, intermittent dinners in the pub’s long dining hall kitchen and, of course, Saturdays at the cricket in summer and footy in winter.
It was, of course, still an era when little things were enjoyed, people made their own fun and Christmas was indeed a once-a-year treat.
The marvellous village store was a community hub. I’ve never seen another like it and sadly its kind had disappeared from Australian life in the wake, of ‘progress’.
Store owners Norm and Sylvia Harding, son Bruce and daughter Valda were highly respected folk.
A granddaughter Vicky {Whitty) teaches at Assumption College, Kilmore today -a real link to times past.
Cricket was a big attraction for me -it always has been -and there were some fine ‘bush players’ in the area, none finer than Ian and Bill Annstrong, sons of a district family.
Both had served in World War II as young men and returned to their beloved Hexham Park station.
Excellent players they were with good techniques. For season after season in the sun they turned the scorched fields into places of grandeur.
Our mum and dad, not long married, suffered loss with hosts of others in the terrible bushfires of 1939.
Then came the war and times for many were generally hard.
But, overall, good times far outweighed the bad and there was a tangible spirit that prevailed among country folk.
All of the feature’s mentioned are gone. A few scattered houses still straddle the once vibrant Hopkins River-today a reduced entity as it makes its way sluggishly to the sea.
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A LEGENDS DAUGHTER
Grace Hayden has been described one of the best commentators in world cricket. She has been covering the game in India and U.S.A. Her dad is one of Australia’s finest ever opening bats. Matthew is in Australian crickets “Hall of Fame” and in London recently was inducted into World Cricket’s Hall of Fame. A boarder at Marist Brothers Ashgrove College in Brisbane he played against Assumption in a national Marist carnival.
THE CENTENARY CLASH
Assumption College and St Pat’s Ballarat had been football powerhouses for a century-both were founded in 1893. A century on they met in a centenary clash at the M.C.G. The Herald-Sun had a four-page lift-out to mark the occasion. It outlined the history of both schools, stories of the line of coaches and the many players who had progresses to the VFL/AFL. Assumption won a thrilling clash and captain Brad Hall is pictured being interviews for TV after the game. I was reminded of the notable occasion when Brad, a Yea “boy” called by the other day.
