comfortable life working on their various crafts. Arnold himself was very aware of all the dangers that were about with all those gold diggers around so he kept the ladies at a safe distance.
Arnold always paid for everything the girls needed but not always with good grace. He often quoted that he did not have a money tree and the money barrel was not a bottomless pit. All the household needs were ordered my Arnold and delivered to the front door.
As the years passed the girls found they had no real need to leave the house and it was much safer to stay at home where they would not have to deal with anyone after their money. Arnold did not go out unless it was to deal with a business matter. He thought it was a waste of precious money to spend it on the house as what they needed was already there. Also to have repairs done would need strange men to enter the house and that would not be good for the sisters.
The girls always worried about if there would be enough money to keep them, not knowing by this time Arnold had several millions at his disposal. Arnold’s only worry was how to prevent money grabbers from getting hold of his money.
As he aged and became more eccentric he worried about the banks and were they really looking after his money. Were they doing a good enough job keeping his money safe while it multiplied?
Finally the inevitable happened and the three sisters passed away. Arnold was not particularly upset about their passing as he had his money to keep him company. In the end of course even Arnold had to go.
The state took over the property and Arnold’s precious money as no will had been made. As they went through the old house to assess its worth they came to room thirteen. It no longer looked as sinister as Arnold had portrayed it. As the assessors went into the room they found many boxes filled with Arnold’s precious money, and most surprising of all they found his parents will that he had kept hidden from his sisters all these years. The will read that all money and property was to be divided equally among the four siblings. Arnold had given his sisters a life of misery all for his own gain. In the end his own life sounded very miserable as well.
GREAT OZZY OUTBACK.
The great ozzy outback is a source of romantic ideas and visions to many overseas visitors and indeed to a lot of coastal dwellers of Eastern Australia. Many romantic films have portrayed the outback with great drama and excitement. Films such as Jedda, Australia and The Rabbit Proof fence to name a few.
It has drawn a number of fine artists and photographers to its stark beauty and it has produced a number of indigenous artists who have great feeling for the land of their ancestors. The ones born to the arid starkness see it as a living thing and feel very much at home there. If they were transported to the city they would be as lost as most of the coastal dwellers would be alone out in the country.
In the early days of white settlement, many people from the British Isles and Ireland were drawn to the outback. Not initially by the charm and beauty but by the vast area of land that was not always arid. In the wet season great areas of land would be covered with flood water, resulting in thousands of miles of lush vegetation once the water had receded. That’s what drew the early pioneers to this land and as a bonus the land was very cheap.
The dry arid land was also transformed into a wonderland of native blooms to gladden the hearts of people who lived there and visitors alike. Creatures who had protected themselves from the harsh conditions under rocks and in burrows would be out and about catching up on food they had missed out on during the long dry spell.
Writers have captured the essence of the outback in books, such as Mary Durack in her book, Kings in Grass Castle’s. She wrote about the history of her grandfather who migrated from Ireland in 1853 and was drawn to the vastness and opportunities of the outback. He certainly made the best of what he discovered as he settled in and became a very wealthy man. In 1888 he wrote, “Kings in grass castles you call us, then we are kings in grass castles that may be blown away on a puff of wind.” He had no illusions of the nature of the outback and how quickly it could turn on you. A luxurious pasture one day and a dry and desolate burnt land the next. He went on to produce four sons and formed a mighty family dynasty.
Another author who portrayed the outback was Jeannie Gunn. A city girl who married a station manager and set out to settle what they called the Never Never. A very brave and resourceful woman who was able to adapt to the harsh conditions, making devoted friends amongst the white and indigenous stockmen. Not many city born people could do this.
The outback is a strikingly beautiful place when you really look at it but can be very unforgiving if you take it too cheaply and make an error of judgement. It would not think twice in killing you if you became lost in these oven hot plains or waterless deserts.
Many people over the years who have found themselves living out there but not suitable to do so have become very depressed with the isolation and harsh conditions. Leading to mental illness and at times suicide. It does not have to be right out in the outback for this to happen, some of western Queensland and western New South Wales will have the same effect.
Notwithstanding all the pitfalls of the great ozzy outback, as a visitor the magnificent landscapes will take your breath away if the heat does not get you first.
WHATS NEXT.
I have often asked myself this question when everything seems to be heading down hill. It all becomes too much and you think it can’t get any worse, but in the back of your mind you are thinking, what next. Of course it doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. When everything is going so right and you don’t want to miss out on anything, you look at what’s next with expectations and hope to be ready for the next great event to come.
Having had a year of wondering, what next a few years ago, I came to the stage of not wondering what the future held. The year started off beautifully with a healthy happy baby boy who was our third child. He was such a good baby and I loved taking care of him, even taking a couple of weeks holidays off to look after him.
Then when he was a month old Alice rose early one morning to make his bottle. When she picked him up he was quite dead. I will never forget her cry of anguish as she held him to her. Then we had the eighty mile drive to the nearest hospital, with Alice clutching him to her hoping all the way that he could be saved. This was not to be as he had died of s. i. d. s. This death was not generally known about at this time, and one neighbour asked if he had smothered in his cot.
Some months later I collapsed while mustering a mob of sheep in 110% of heat. Off to hospital I went where the doctor diagnosed mental and physical exhaustion. I was under heavy sedation for a week to force me to rest.
Alice owned and operated a school bus run which was a great money spinner, and on odd occasions I would run the bus for her. I felt this was ok as I did a lot of unpaid work on the station. My boss didn’t think along these lines however and put an ultimatum to me. Give up the bus or get the sack. There was no contest as the bus brought in more rewards than my twelve hour a day job did, so we started packing. We had everything packed and ready to leave at the end of the week when some work was done on the fuel stove. The worker must have damaged the asbestos flu in the ceiling. Alice had shut the stove down when she left to take the children to school and I was working at the woolshed. A neighbour passing through alerted me to a fire at the house but by the time I arrived there the house was well alight in the roof. Not a thing could be saved and we spent the night sleeping in the shearer’s quarters with mice running over us during the night.
What’s next you ask? Well we eventually moved to another property in the area. My working ability was well known in the district so it wasn’t hard for me to get another job. Some months into my new job a mighty flood came and destroyed what we had gained. The water level over the land lasted for many months, so you couldn’t work on the land and the bus couldn’t run.
I moved my family into a rented cottage in the village when the water went down enough to do so. There wasn’t any work to be had and the bus was off the road
for months. In the village there were twenty able bodied men without work so it was a bonus when the railway asked for paid volunteers to help replace the rail line. To my surprise, two property owners and I were the only volunteers. The work was twelve hours a day, seven days a week and most of the work was in water. To me the pay was huge, better than I was getting on the station as a overseer come manager. The crew, apart from us three were aboriginal. When the floods eventually went down, the two landowners left to attend to their farms, but I had had enough of station work and decided to stay on. Eventually I transferred to a position at Tamworth where we decided we wanted to live. I stayed on the job as a fettler for four years. During that time I did a two year correspondence course in plate laying with the railway. I finished it in six months. This put me on the level of an inspector which didn’t go down well with my fellow fettlers as they were mainly illiterate.
After four years as a fettler I landed a job in Tamworth as a farm manager at an AI cattle centre. My whats next had taken a brighter turn.
OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE.
This is a tough story to tell as I personally have never had a true out of body experience and to write about it would be either fantasy or