Interview with Alfred James Rowlinson Smith - 3 September 1993
Interviewer: Graham Rowlinson Smith (Alfred James Rowlinson Smith's son) and Natalie Jane Hausler (nee Smith) (Alfred James Rowlinson Smith's granddaughter)
Interviewee: Alfred James Rowlinson Smith
Location: Lounge Room: 1 Garland Street, GLANDORE, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Recorded: 3rd September 1993. Alfred was 76 years old.
[Alfred was born in 1917 and died in 2012]
Graham: Where were you born?
Alf: At Glenelg. Pier Street, a private hospital, it was.
Graham: You used to live in Pier Street though?
Alf: No, Rose Street. We lived in three different houses in Rose Street. Then we shifted around to Brighton Road, and we went to Eastwood after that when I started high school
Graham: You were about 12?
Alf: Yes. Then I went to Adelaide High School.
Graham: How long were you in Rose Street before you shifted onto Brighton Road? Where you 5 or something?
Alf: I was going to school... about 10, I suppose I was.
Graham: So you were only on Brighton Road for a couple of years before you moved to Eastwood?
Alf: Two or three years.
Graham: Now I've talked to Aunty Doris and she was telling me she recalls some of the times when Grandpa (Leonard Rowlinson Smith) was on the tram run, and you used to go down and join him for a meal, down at Colley Reserve [Glenelg]?
Alf: Yes, we'd take his tea down there.
Graham: You just walked through?
Alf: Yes. In the very hot weather, he used to knock off at different times and we'd sleep on the beach at night time. If it was stinkin' hot weather, we'd all go down the beach and as soon as the day light came the flies started, we'd come home and Dad [Leonard Rowlinson Smith] had to go to work again.
Graham: Where did the train line run? Where the tram line is now or up Anzac Highway?
Alf: That's South Terrace line. And the North Terrace line is still there, you can still come right down although I think they've got a new bike track down there. Comes down through Camden, that's the old train line.
Graham: And where was the terminus for that?
Alf: At Colley Reserve.
Graham: And Grandpa's [Leonard Rowlinson Smith] job at Colley Reserve was what?
Alf: He was the Assistant station master. See, South Terrace finished first, so he went over the North Terrace and they closed that one up when the trams started in 1927.
Graham: Right, and that's always been on the line that still is?
Alf: Yes, that's still open. I think that there is a 1000 year lease or something on it. You can see a few factories on there but they're only tin sheds, they can be pulled down.
Graham: But the current tram line, how long has that been in use, it goes down through Jetty Road?
Alf: Well, that was there before Grandpa [Leonard Rowlinson Smith] started on it, because that used to be the private bay. The General Manager of that lived here at Black Forest, just half way up (to the city) on the right hand side... big place ... they've built around it now. The big home is still in the middle somewhere. Opposite the old folks home.
Graham: Those early days at Glenelg, I remember you used to tell us about the sand dunes?
Alf: Oh yes, they were all sand dunes along. We'd cook chips over there. A few death adders they found but we didn't tell Mum and Dad about that.
Graham: And you used to go back bird nesting with Frank Laverty through that area or through Morphettville.
Alf: No, past the old gum tree, right out onto the Sturt Creek was all sand hills out there. Used to bird nest out there and behind the Glenelg oval was all dairies out there and box thorn bushes. Get up to the Sturt Creek and the gum trees and also bird nesting out to the Old Diagonal Road, there was farms along the Old Diagonal Road. And big gum trees, we used to chase the magpies along there.
Graham: There were dairies?
Alf: Most were dairies, yes. Then we got up to Warradale where there were army campers, First World War blokes were in that camp. And they cut those gum trees down, the gum trees right around the boundary and they had a lot of hollows, we got a fair numbers of nests out of there but we gave up after Frank (it was his turn to get up and put his hand down the hollow), he screamed his head off, and jumped out with a possum hanging on his fingers! So we gave up bird nesting!
Graham: Was there a distinctive line of sand hills along the coast in those days? Like Moana, sought of thing?
Alf: Yes, they went back to Military Road. See, Military Road was where the First War blokes left Warradale and marched through Outer Harbor. That's what they call the Military Road. And there were aboriginals still there. I remember aboriginals when I was in about Grade Two, I think. All the kids said "They'll kill you, they'll eat you, they'll spear you". They were up near the boundary fence, just past the old gum tree and I remember going up there and seeing them. They frightened me. They used to live in the sandhills all the way along there.
Graham: This would have been in the 20's?
Alf: Yes, about 1922, 1923.
Graham: When you were about 5?
Alf: Yes. I started school when I was 5.
Graham: And you went to St. Leonard's primary?
Alf: Yes, and Doris [Alf's wife] went to Glenelg. The house was half way between us.
Graham: What about the Australian Terriers? Grandpa used to keep Australian Terriers.
Alf: Yes, that was the Glen Kennels.
Graham: Was that at Rose Street?
Alf: Yes, in Rose Street. When we moved out of that, we got rid of them. We used to breed a lot of them and show them, I think .. before I was born, probably, I don't know. But I remember they used to dock their tails and put Vaseline on the pups. I also kept homing pigeons there, I don't know how old I was, I was pretty young. And they had a little trap with a swing and a door on it and Doris had a little black cat. Not a real one, a doll thing and I think the seagulls used to worry them a lot, so I used to stand the black cat up on the trap so it would keep the seagulls away. I remember that. They used to sling off at me a lot about that, pinching Doris' black cat.
Graham: The area, that is now extending through to the airport, what would that be?
Alf: All red sand, sand hills. Here and there there were glass houses, but they were more over the back of Henley Beach somewhere.
Graham: So, if you took a tram or a train from Glenelg to the city, you would start out down near the sand hills?
Alf: Yes, there was a settlement at Camden. There was a big... poultry farm. I remember going there with Dad, there was chickens.
Graham: Was swampy land through Morphettville there somewhere?
Alf: Yes, all swampy and Camden too was swampy. Dandy Morphis. We used to go bird nesting there but we got kicked out of there a few times. In fact we got caught once. We got out of it, some of the lads were up the big pine tree, or something and they had to stay there until dark because the gardens had dogs out there and they couldn't get down.
Graham: Where did the housing start to build up as you came closer to Adelaide? Was it around Black Forest?
Alf: Little bits here and there. Just townside of Marion Road was all swampy, a lot of vegetables grown there. But I can remember going to Adelaide High School on the tram and seeing that south side all under water for miles. A lot of houses there now, where Cross Road is.
Graham: And as you got closer to town, the housing thickened up?
Alf: Oh yes, there was a batch around South Road, Black Forest. These are old homes around here. Just a few along the line. And there was Hayhurst Dairies. There was big diaries along the line. Some of the names of the streets are now the old names of the dairymen.
Graham: Where was the terminus for the train that is now the train station near the Adelaide Casino? That still remains the terminus for the train?
Alf: That was the North Terrace line.
Graham: And where was the South Terrace line?
Alf: First of all, and I can just remember, it was the Children's Law Courts. And it used to come up to where the Police Barracks are on Angus Street. Then they took it back to South Terrace. We'd walk in from South Terrace then. For the St. Leonard's school picnic we used to have trains to Hawthorndene. And we used to have a special train that left from down at Glenelg and came up and got nearly into town, then branch off and come around the line against the hills line, and we'd get out at Blackwood and walk down to Hawthorndene. That's where we used to get all the blackbird's eggs. And also the Church of Christ Sunday School we used to have a special train for them too. All the families and everything. Because nobody had cars in those days. You could almost hire a train.
Graham: I can remember in those early days we used to take a train up to the Sunday School Picnic at Belair. We'd walk through to Goodwood station and go up into the National Park.
Alf: Well, Glenelg was a posh place in the early days, all the station people and heads lived down there. But that was right of town, we were out in the country.
Graham: Where did you go on holidays when you were living at Glenelg?
Alf: Well, Grandpa used to get his holiday pass from the Railways. We'd always go up and see his brother Horry [Horace Joseph Smith 1887-1976] at Gawler.
And then another time we'd catch the train to Port Noarlunga, you'd get out at Emu Winery (that used to be the Willunga train). Used to get off there and there used to be a big sharabang (stuff on the back of a flattop). They used to take all the mail and all the passengers through to Port Noarlunga. Used to have the day down there. Used to get periwinkles and get a bucket of sea water and Grandpa used to light a fire on the beach and boil the periwinkles and get a hairpin and pick them out, one at a time.
Natalie: What was Victor Harbour like?
Alf: Victor. Didn't get there much. Too far away.
Graham: Did you ever get down to Sellicks?
Alf: Not until I had my motorbike. We used to go to Mannum mainly. Aunty Ruby lived at Mannum. We always had a fortnight up there.
Graham: How did you get to Mannum?
Alf: Catch the train to Murray Bridge, catch the paddle steamer (Murrundi) to Mannum. In the finish they didn't run and we went on the big milk boats that used to zig zag across the Murray picking up all the cream cans. Used to smell like stale cream.
Graham: So you used to catch a tram from Glenelg, ultimately through to Murray Bridge?
Alf: Yes. Leave in the dark and get to Mannum in the dark. All day.
Graham: Those days at Mannum would have been interesting.
Alf: Oh yes. We had a lot of fun up there.
Graham: I remember vaguely as a little kid, you taking me out netting rabbits, down along the edge of Mannum. It had something to do with Auntie Ruby, out in the limestone country there.
Alf: Well where she lived up on the top of the hill, he was a welder of something, a shearer's uncle and they lived at the big water tank, the tank that supplied Mannum in those days. It's gone now but the house is still there, I saw it recently. But every now and then, you'd hear a "Beeeeep", you know up at the river and I used to dive up to the top of the tank and I could see each side of the river. The big paddlesteamers with big trailers behind them, loaded with wool. A couple of times, I remember at night time, they really lit up the river (they worked all day and all night).
Graham: Because that was the heady day of the river trade. Although it was starting to fade a little bit, at that point even. Because, as I understand the coming of the train to Morgan, killed the bottom end, and ultimately it was killed up the top end by the Echuca train to Melbourne.
Alf: Yes, I remember one Easter we were up there and Uncle Bill had a 16 foot boat with the landing rights opposite Schutze's house. That's were Jenkin's live now. But Dad and I went down there and everybody was packing up and going home, they couldn't get anymore fish and they were using witchetty-grubs. So Dad said we'd go out and get some witchetty-grubs, they told us where to go out the back of Mannum, over the other side of some shearers and you get a bit of wire and see a hole in the tree and pull them out, you see. But everytime you went to lean over a tree, a rabbit would shoot out from under your feet. Grandpa said this is no good, we'll go back and get the gun. So, the next day we go out with the gun and blimey we nearly broke my shoulder! All the flamin' rabbits we'd put on a stick over my shoulder and I had to lug the flamin' rabbits home.
And then Uncle Bill had a licence for cross-line too and I can't remember, Dad used to always sling off, I was pretty young evidently, but they did the cross-line and it looked pretty rough and on the way back a storm broke, there were big waves and Dad always used to sling off about me. They put me laying down in the bottom of the boat and they put their feet on me! One each side rowing back to get back to the shore on the proper side!
But I caught my 15 pound catfish there. That was the first fish I ever caught. I reckon Dad (Grandpa) had it on his line first, because he said "Here, I can't catch anything, you have a try". And I only held it for a couple of seconds and pulled this great big thing in. I thought it was a cat with I looked up and sighted it.
Graham: They caught lot of fish in those days? They were the days before carp and cod? You were talking about Uncle Bill Doubtfire, Ruby's husband? It sounds like he might have had a fishing licence or a reach of some sort?
Alf: Yes. No, I don't think he had a reach. He just had a licence with the cross-line. But I remember going over the side. I wasn't happy about that, you're turning over rocks along the edge picking up little frogs for bait. And you had to put them on the hook. I didn't put them on but they put them on the hook, so they'd keep swimming, you see. You evidently put the hook in their tail end or something and they paddled away.
I don't think we went fishing anywhere else. I know I got in trouble at Gawler, because I used to go out with my cousins and catch goldfish in the Gawler river. That was always the thing and anyway on the way up Mum said "Don't go out there today". Of course, they said "Come on" so out the back we go and shot down there and we were sprinting along the river and I trod on a piece of tin or something, ripped my foot open, blood everywhere. Back I went, of course, screaming me head off. I screamed all the more when Mum said it because she belted the life out of me for not doing what I was told!
But they used to catch budgies on the Gawler racecourse. They'd crawl along in the deep grass, use hats to put over the budgies. There used to be budgies thick down there.
Then we went up to Eastwood. Adelaide High School, they used to rid their bike to Adelaide High School from Eastwood. Well, I never got to Grote Street High School. We were down at Currie Street.
Graham: Yes, I was going to ask you about that, because where the Adelaide High School is now on West Terrace was not were you went?
Alf: No, I didn't go there.
Graham: That would be built in later years but the one building in Grote Street became Adelaide Girl's High, now its a remand centre or something.
Alf: No, that's the old one in Currie Street that's now the remand centre.
Graham: But that's where the Adelaide Boy's High School was, in Currie Street. Which side, north or south side of Currie Street?
Alf: Big two or three story place, on the right side. We didn't have it all, there was also the public school there too. They had the top floor. Adrian Crisp went to high school there, the tennis player. But we used to take our kit bag, walk across to the Glenelg tram and come home.
Graham: Talking about trams, I can vaguely remember as a kid, the trams that used to go up to Mitcham and the Kingswood trams and so on. Adelaide was well served by trams.
Alf: Yes, it was all trams. Glen Osmond trams had those little bib and bubs things that bounced up It wasn't bad going up but coming down they used to go like a baton and they used to bounce everywhere.
Graham: They'd go up the big road?
Alf: Yes, big drop centres always went as far as the Cross Roads on the Fullarton line.
Graham: Where was the terminus on that line?
Alf: Glen Osmond?
Graham: Yes.
Alf: Up the top by Cross Road. The old gum tree we used to call it but they pulled it down because it had white ants, because they wanted to widen the road.
Graham: That was just down from the toll gate? In front of the Catholic place?
Alf: Yes.
Graham: Yes, I remember that... it was just a stump.
Alf: We used to go for walks up there Sundays, all the boys and see if the girls needed a pick up because the girls went walking up there too. Made a lot of friends up there, only for one weekend, changed them over the next weekend!
Graham: Those days around the foothills, of course where I work now... when we were playing with old Joseph Smith's history, he delivered groceries out through that area from his shop in Leicester Street. Who lived in Robstart Street?
Alf: Alan Edwards.
Graham: Is that right. He had a shop in Leicester Street and he used to keep groceries. What sought of groceries were they? Like Hopley's grocery shop?
Alf: Hericon. Bottle of kerosene in it, anything you like, anything to eat.
Graham: And he used to deliver them out on his bike, didn't he?
Alf: Yes, well early in the piece, Grandpa (my Dad) had a horse and cart and he used to deliver up there. He used to go across all the paddocks to get to those plains.
Graham: He'd go to Urrbrae House and Melrose House and all those through that area?
Alf: Yes and Waites.
Graham: Yes, Waites had Urrbrae House. Melrose House according to what I can see is where the school is now. We've got a big picture in the front office. It was knocked down in the early 1900s. It was derelict and they knocked it down. Actually, where we've got a couple of temporary buildings there you can see the footings, underneath them. The temporary buildings are just on blocks but you can see the old concrete or stone there.
Alf: Thomas Elder live up there.
Graham: Well he lived over at Scotch's college.
Alf: That's right.
Graham: I've only just finished reading the history about that area. Elder, the Barr-Smiths, there were all Scotch.
Alf: Yes, they all came from the same little town.
Graham: And the Hughes's of course, they were hooked up to Moonta Copper mines. Made their fortune. That's supposedly where they made the big money.
Alf: What was the Urrbrae bloke's name?
Graham: Waite.
Alf: Waite. He was the money brains behind it and they didn't know that until not long ago. He used to be in the main office in town when they had the place in Currie Street. Elder Smiths. Used to run the money part of it.
Graham: Well he bequeathed the land that Urrbrae is on now to the State in about World War I. It was never taken up during the depression.
Alf: Well his girl's never married and his son got married and stayed back in England.
Graham: I've got a copy of his will.
Alf: Ella's grandfather was his chauffeur, you seen and when he died they looked after the place for quite a whole. By the photos it looked like they owned it.
Graham: Unley, the city of Unley, as I understand, was just like a little separate township in the very early days.
Alf: Yes, they were all separate.... Mitcham.
Graham: What was the name of the people that lived in Matilda Street and had a dairy and they used to run their cows out in the parklands?
Alf: No, that was around the corner in Main Street. They weren't in Matilda Street.
Graham: OK, but they ran the cows in the parklands. I remember seeing cattle there. A lot of people did that, in fact. That was like common land.
Alf: Oh yes. And they had a big dairy down that main street and I remember when I was working for the Co-op store and I was on the bread cart and George Tilly would come out and have cup of tea and breakfast there at about 5 o'clock in the morning, instead of me going in to help him, but he came out with a bent radiator one morning because he ran into the cows coming along! And they said "Did it hurt?" and he said "Yeah, it went Uggggh!" The cow did! But of course, we used to deliver bread on Saturday morning.
Graham: As I understand it many of the dairies there was either set up or used to supply Glenside. And indeed those cottages along Eastwood were really set up to service Glenside in those days.
Alf: Yes, most of the nurses and everyone lived along there.
Graham: Glenside of course used to have the big wall in front of it, didn't it?
Alf: Yes. To keep us out not to keep them in. That's what they used to tell us. We used to talk to them over the wall. And when we were teenagers we used to sit in the gutter and tell yarns. We went around there one night and there was a great big bay fig tree on the boundary there and we were all smart, and about 10 of us I reckon, sat up on the wall, telling yarns under this bay fig tree. Next thing we could hear somebody walking on the dead leaves... we all scattered everywhere, and waiting down under a light. Next thing a cat came over the wall. We were all game, all teenagers!
Graham: Dad was born in 1917. Dad is 76 and today's date is the 3rd September 1993.
Henry. Joseph. Do you remember him at all?
Alf: Oh yes, that's another thing, we used to do, come up on the train, I think it was Friday night. We never got a meal at Grandma and Grandpa Smith's'... at Leicester Street, at the shop. Don't know why. Anyway, we seemed to come up there and get our groceries and walk back right down Young Street to catch the train at Wayville. Of course, I was so big and Doris was small. I used to have to piggy back her half the time and Dad had a big kit bag on his shoulder going back again with the groceries. But we didn't have electric light. Gas lamps I think, in the shop. It was open Friday nights you see. And in the back room, the shop was built on the front of the house first and the front window was still there that shone into that shop. They didn't have a light in there because they never used it; because you had to go in and get used to the light and all the family would be in the sitting room. But you had to find your way because of the light down in the shop. They didn't have a light in that room so you had to see your way down there.
Graham: They used to have a bit of family gathering on Friday nights?
Alf: Yes, everybody came to get their groceries on Friday night. And the shop was open until 9 oçlock Friday night and 1 oçlock Saturdays.
Graham: And did just he and your Grandma serve in the shop or did they have other people work for them?
Alf: No, just the two of them.
Graham: And did one of them go off on deliveries and other one stay behind?
Alf: He had kind of a box on two wheels with a seat behind him and he used to deliver on that. But when he lost his first wife he had a stroke, then he had a stiff hand.
Graham: Of course, Grandma was his niece really. I think he married her about a fortnight after Grandma died. [Eliza died 3 February 1898 and married Jane on 11 June 1900]. Jane was Henry's daughter, Jane.
And that's who you knew as Grandma, because you didn't know Eliza?
Alf: She died when Dad was nine. He was sent up to Aldgate and went to Mylor School.
Graham: And it was a hard life up there for him?
Alf: Of yes, they had to come home and pick apples and do work, there was no mucking around, no homework. Work through daylight.
Graham: They weren't all sent up there?
Alf: No, Horry was sent up there after a couple of months but went back somewhere else. Dad stayed on for 12 months.
Graham: So your father Len, had a new mother when he was about nine. Then Joseph married Jane, and she became known to you as Grandma.
Alf: Yes, he called her Mum and she was younger than her Dad's older sister. She called her Mum. She was two or three years older than her.
Graham: Did Len get on with her alright?
Alf: Everyone got on with her.
Graham: As I understand it, she was alright.
Alf: Yes, I just found out recently that she didn't come from Sellicks straight away, she was working down her in town somewhere. I don't know the whole story about that. But anyway, she was a 'man' you might say. I mean if you wanted any nails on the roof, up the ladder she went. Well, she did that, 12 months before she died, I think, she was doing something on the roof. Used to make her own soap.
Graham: So she was a hard worker?
Alf: Oh yes. She's the one who ran the shop. Poor old Grandpa would say "If you haven't got the money, don't start".
Graham: Do you remember Henry at all?
Alf: Yes, he lived there the last few years of his life. I've got photos of him reading the paper out the back. He came down to live with them.
Graham: He spent most of his working life down south though?
Alf: Yes, he was the hostler of a Cobb and Co down at Sellicks. Just opposite the hotel there were big stables there. Last I saw there were almonds there.
Graham: He did that all his life?
Alf: Evidently. See evidently, Grandpa (Joseph) came out from England and went down there to farm. Of course, those days they had a horse and plough but he couldn't reach the handles because they were all 5 foot nothing. They were all small.
Graham: So he gave farming away fairly quickly, he only lasted a couple of years?
Alf: He was a baker in England. When he came out he knew someone anyway, so he didn't last long out there and he went back into town and lived down west of Adelaide for a little while. He got this job and then he shifted out to Leicester Street, Parkside.
Graham: I believe that once he settled into Leicester Street that was what he did?
Alf: No he was a traveller and he had the shop too. He was a traveller for Henry Berry I think. One of those big wholesale grocers. And he travelled, that's how he got all his customers, I think!
Graham: When you say traveller, did he go into the country and so on?
Alf: No, just around Adelaide. Probably just small grocery shops.
Graham: And you said he had a horse. Where did he keep the horse?
Alf: Down the backyard. And a cart. Jammed down the back corner. And he also had all his poultry, the Indian game, he used to import those. And fox terrier dogs, I think he used to import them. He imported a lot of stuff. He was tangled up with the Royal Show for years and years.
Graham: I've got his steward's badge.
Alf: Have you? I think I've still got some.
Graham: He used to judge fox terriers.
And did he actually retire from the shop at any point or did that see him right through?
Alf: Well he died on the job really. Grandma kept it going for a little while longer.
Graham: And who looked after her in her old age?
Alf: Nobody, she looked after herself. See, Aunty Ruby used to live across the road. They were close by so they used to keep an eye on her a bit. Of course, Grandpa had been to see Sturt in the afternoon and was getting undressed to go to bed or something. Grandma just heard a thump and she couldn't see him. He was on the other side of the bed, half undressed. Too much excitement, this football!
Graham: He was a Sturt man was he?
Alf: Yes, he used to walk every night, go away and walk around. In fact when we went back on the Friday night quite often he's walk nearly down to the Wayville train with us and then turn around and come back and go along Unley Road. Every night he used to go onto the Billiards Salon on Unley Road and play billiards. Everybody knew him in there.
Graham: Those things were "out of bounds" in those days, weren't they? Billiards Salons. They were dens of iniquity.
Alf: Yes, I suppose. I think he wanted a loan early in the days when he went to Leicester Street and he was tangled up with the Church of England and they couldn't get a loan, for some reason or another. And they got it at the Baptist Help. And that's how he turned over to Baptist.
Graham: Now, Eastwood days. The house was already there when you shifted up and it was owned by Whitrows?
Alf: Yes, Alfred James Whitrow.
Graham: Alfred James Whitrow owned Matilda Street and he was still living there?
Alf: He'd retired of course. Grandma and Grandpa were there. Mum went up to look after them.
Graham: The name "Windsor" on the house. Do you know how it got there?
Alf: Not until I had my motorbike. We used to go to Mannum mainly. Aunty Ruby lived at Mannum. We always had a fortnight up there.
 |
| Alf on his bike in 1937 |
Graham: How did you get to Mannum?
Alf: Catch the train to Murray Bridge, catch the paddle steamer (Murrundi) to Mannum. In the finish they didn't run and we went on the big milk boats that used to zig zag across the Murray picking up all the cream cans. Used to smell like stale cream.
Graham: So you used to catch a tram from Glenelg, ultimately through to Murray Bridge?
Alf: Yes. Leave in the dark and get to Mannum in the dark. All day.
Graham: Those days at Mannum would have been interesting.
Alf: Oh yes. We had a lot of fun up there.
Graham: I remember vaguely as a little kid, you taking me out netting rabbits, down along the edge of Mannum. It had something to do with Auntie Ruby, out in the limestone country there.
Alf: Well where she lived up on the top of the hill, he was a welder of something, a shearer's uncle and they lived at the big water tank, the tank that supplied Mannum in those days. It's gone now but the house is still there, I saw it recently. But every now and then, you'd hear a "Beeeeep", you know up at the river and I used to dive up to the top of the tank and I could see each side of the river. The big paddlesteamers with big trailers behind them, loaded with wool. A couple of times, I remember at night time, they really lit up the river (they worked all day and all night).
 |
| 1924 - Alf, his mother Jess and sister Doris, Aunty Ruby, we think Ruby's sister and Ruby's husband Bill |
Graham: Because that was the heady day of the river trade. Although it was starting to fade a little bit, at that point even. Because, as I understand the coming of the train to Morgan, killed the bottom end, and ultimately it was killed up the top end by the Echuca train to Melbourne.
Alf: Yes, I remember one Easter we were up there and Uncle Bill had a 16 foot boat with the landing rights opposite Schutze's house. That's were Jenkin's live now. But Dad and I went down there and everybody was packing up and going home, they couldn't get anymore fish and they were using witchetty-grubs. So Dad said we'd go out and get some witchetty-grubs, they told us where to go out the back of Mannum, over the other side of some shearers and you get a bit of wire and see a hole in the tree and pull them out, you see. But everytime you went to lean over a tree, a rabbit would shoot out from under your feet. Grandpa said this is no good, we'll go back and get the gun. So, the next day we go out with the gun and blimey we nearly broke my shoulder! All the flamin' rabbits we'd put on a stick over my shoulder and I had to lug the flamin' rabbits home.
And then Uncle Bill had a licence for cross-line too and I can't remember, Dad used to always sling off, I was pretty young evidently, but they did the cross-line and it looked pretty rough and on the way back a storm broke, there were big waves and Dad always used to sling off about me. They put me laying down in the bottom of the boat and they put their feet on me! One each side rowing back to get back to the shore on the proper side!
But I caught my 15 pound catfish there. That was the first fish I ever caught. I reckon Dad (Grandpa) had it on his line first, because he said "Here, I can't catch anything, you have a try". And I only held it for a couple of seconds and pulled this great big thing in. I thought it was a cat with I looked up and sighted it.
Graham: They caught lot of fish in those days? They were the days before carp and cod? You were talking about Uncle Bill Doubtfire, Ruby's husband? It sounds like he might have had a fishing licence or a reach of some sort?
Alf: Yes. No, I don't think he had a reach. He just had a licence with the cross-line. But I remember going over the side. I wasn't happy about that, you're turning over rocks along the edge picking up little frogs for bait. And you had to put them on the hook. I didn't put them on but they put them on the hook, so they'd keep swimming, you see. You evidently put the hook in their tail end or something and they paddled away.
I don't think we went fishing anywhere else. I know I got in trouble at Gawler, because I used to go out with my cousins and catch goldfish in the Gawler river. That was always the thing and anyway on the way up Mum said "Don't go out there today". Of course, they said "Come on" so out the back we go and shot down there and we were sprinting along the river and I trod on a piece of tin or something, ripped my foot open, blood everywhere. Back I went, of course, screaming me head off. I screamed all the more when Mum said it because she belted the life out of me for not doing what I was told!
But they used to catch budgies on the Gawler racecourse. They'd crawl along in the deep grass, use hats to put over the budgies. There used to be budgies thick down there.
Then we went up to Eastwood. Adelaide High School, they used to rid their bike to Adelaide High School from Eastwood. Well, I never got to Grote Street High School. We were down at Currie Street.
Graham: Yes, I was going to ask you about that, because where the Adelaide High School is now on West Terrace was not were you went?
Alf: No, I didn't go there.
Graham: That would be built in later years but the one building in Grote Street became Adelaide Girl's High, now its a remand centre or something.
Alf: No, that's the old one in Currie Street that's now the remand centre.
Graham: But that's where the Adelaide Boy's High School was, in Currie Street. Which side, north or south side of Currie Street?
Alf: Big two or three story place, on the right side. We didn't have it all, there was also the public school there too. They had the top floor. Adrian Crisp went to high school there, the tennis player. But we used to take our kit bag, walk across to the Glenelg tram and come home.
Graham: Talking about trams, I can vaguely remember as a kid, the trams that used to go up to Mitcham and the Kingswood trams and so on. Adelaide was well served by trams.
Alf: Yes, it was all trams. Glen Osmond trams had those little bib and bubs things that bounced up It wasn't bad going up but coming down they used to go like a baton and they used to bounce everywhere.
Graham: They'd go up the big road?
Alf: Yes, big drop centres always went as far as the Cross Roads on the Fullarton line.
Graham: Where was the terminus on that line?
Alf: Glen Osmond?
Graham: Yes.
Alf: Up the top by Cross Road. The old gum tree we used to call it but they pulled it down because it had white ants, because they wanted to widen the road.
Graham: That was just down from the toll gate? In front of the Catholic place?
Alf: Yes.
Graham: Yes, I remember that... it was just a stump.
Alf: We used to go for walks up there Sundays, all the boys and see if the girls needed a pick up because the girls went walking up there too. Made a lot of friends up there, only for one weekend, changed them over the next weekend!
Graham: Those days around the foothills, of course where I work now... when we were playing with old Joseph Smith's history, he delivered groceries out through that area from his shop in Leicester Street. Who lived in Robstart Street?
Alf: Alan Edwards.
Graham: Is that right. He had a shop in Leicester Street and he used to keep groceries. What sought of groceries were they? Like Hopley's grocery shop?
Alf: Hericon. Bottle of kerosene in it, anything you like, anything to eat.
Graham: And he used to deliver them out on his bike, didn't he?
Alf: Yes, well early in the piece, Grandpa (my Dad) had a horse and cart and he used to deliver up there. He used to go across all the paddocks to get to those plains.
Graham: He'd go to Urrbrae House and Melrose House and all those through that area?
Alf: Yes and Waites.
Graham: Yes, Waites had Urrbrae House. Melrose House according to what I can see is where the school is now. We've got a big picture in the front office. It was knocked down in the early 1900s. It was derelict and they knocked it down. Actually, where we've got a couple of temporary buildings there you can see the footings, underneath them. The temporary buildings are just on blocks but you can see the old concrete or stone there.
Alf: Thomas Elder live up there.
Graham: Well he lived over at Scotch's college.
Alf: That's right.
Graham: I've only just finished reading the history about that area. Elder, the Barr-Smiths, there were all Scotch.
Alf: Yes, they all came from the same little town.
Graham: And the Hughes's of course, they were hooked up to Moonta Copper mines. Made their fortune. That's supposedly where they made the big money.
Alf: What was the Urrbrae bloke's name?
Graham: Waite.
Alf: Waite. He was the money brains behind it and they didn't know that until not long ago. He used to be in the main office in town when they had the place in Currie Street. Elder Smiths. Used to run the money part of it.
Graham: Well he bequeathed the land that Urrbrae is on now to the State in about World War I. It was never taken up during the depression.
Alf: Well his girl's never married and his son got married and stayed back in England.
Graham: I've got a copy of his will.
Alf: Ella's grandfather was his chauffeur, you seen and when he died they looked after the place for quite a whole. By the photos it looked like they owned it.
Graham: Unley, the city of Unley, as I understand, was just like a little separate township in the very early days.
Alf: Yes, they were all separate.... Mitcham.
Graham: What was the name of the people that lived in Matilda Street and had a dairy and they used to run their cows out in the parklands?
Alf: No, that was around the corner in Main Street. They weren't in Matilda Street.
Graham: OK, but they ran the cows in the parklands. I remember seeing cattle there. A lot of people did that, in fact. That was like common land.
Alf: Oh yes. And they had a big dairy down that main street and I remember when I was working for the Co-op store and I was on the bread cart and George Tilly would come out and have cup of tea and breakfast there at about 5 o'clock in the morning, instead of me going in to help him, but he came out with a bent radiator one morning because he ran into the cows coming along! And they said "Did it hurt?" and he said "Yeah, it went Uggggh!" The cow did! But of course, we used to deliver bread on Saturday morning.
Graham: As I understand it many of the dairies there was either set up or used to supply Glenside. And indeed those cottages along Eastwood were really set up to service Glenside in those days.
Alf: Yes, most of the nurses and everyone lived along there.
Graham: Glenside of course used to have the big wall in front of it, didn't it?
Alf: Yes. To keep us out not to keep them in. That's what they used to tell us. We used to talk to them over the wall. And when we were teenagers we used to sit in the gutter and tell yarns. We went around there one night and there was a great big bay fig tree on the boundary there and we were all smart, and about 10 of us I reckon, sat up on the wall, telling yarns under this bay fig tree. Next thing we could hear somebody walking on the dead leaves... we all scattered everywhere, and waiting down under a light. Next thing a cat came over the wall. We were all game, all teenagers!
Graham: Dad was born in 1917. Dad is 76 and today's date is the 3rd September 1993.
Henry. Joseph. Do you remember him at all?
Alf: Oh yes, that's another thing, we used to do, come up on the train, I think it was Friday night. We never got a meal at Grandma and Grandpa Smith's'... at Leicester Street, at the shop. Don't know why. Anyway, we seemed to come up there and get our groceries and walk back right down Young Street to catch the train at Wayville. Of course, I was so big and Doris was small. I used to have to piggy back her half the time and Dad had a big kit bag on his shoulder going back again with the groceries. But we didn't have electric light. Gas lamps I think, in the shop. It was open Friday nights you see. And in the back room, the shop was built on the front of the house first and the front window was still there that shone into that shop. They didn't have a light in there because they never used it; because you had to go in and get used to the light and all the family would be in the sitting room. But you had to find your way because of the light down in the shop. They didn't have a light in that room so you had to see your way down there.
Graham: They used to have a bit of family gathering on Friday nights?
Alf: Yes, everybody came to get their groceries on Friday night. And the shop was open until 9 oçlock Friday night and 1 oçlock Saturdays.
Graham: And did just he and your Grandma serve in the shop or did they have other people work for them?
Alf: No, just the two of them.
Graham: And did one of them go off on deliveries and other one stay behind?
Alf: He had kind of a box on two wheels with a seat behind him and he used to deliver on that. But when he lost his first wife he had a stroke, then he had a stiff hand.
Graham: Of course, Grandma was his niece really. I think he married her about a fortnight after Grandma died. [Eliza died 3 February 1898 and married Jane on 11 June 1900]. Jane was Henry's daughter, Jane.
And that's who you knew as Grandma, because you didn't know Eliza?
Alf: She died when Dad was nine. He was sent up to Aldgate and went to Mylor School.
Graham: And it was a hard life up there for him?
Alf: Of yes, they had to come home and pick apples and do work, there was no mucking around, no homework. Work through daylight.
Graham: They weren't all sent up there?
Alf: No, Horry was sent up there after a couple of months but went back somewhere else. Dad stayed on for 12 months.
Graham: So your father Len, had a new mother when he was about nine. Then Joseph married Jane, and she became known to you as Grandma.
Alf: Yes, he called her Mum and she was younger than her Dad's older sister. She called her Mum. She was two or three years older than her.
Graham: Did Len get on with her alright?
Alf: Everyone got on with her.
Graham: As I understand it, she was alright.
Alf: Yes, I just found out recently that she didn't come from Sellicks straight away, she was working down her in town somewhere. I don't know the whole story about that. But anyway, she was a 'man' you might say. I mean if you wanted any nails on the roof, up the ladder she went. Well, she did that, 12 months before she died, I think, she was doing something on the roof. Used to make her own soap.
Graham: So she was a hard worker?
Alf: Oh yes. She's the one who ran the shop. Poor old Grandpa would say "If you haven't got the money, don't start".
Graham: Do you remember Henry at all?
Alf: Yes, he lived there the last few years of his life. I've got photos of him reading the paper out the back. He came down to live with them.
 |
| Henry Smith, Alf's great uncle |
Graham: He spent most of his working life down south though?
Alf: Yes, he was the hostler of a Cobb and Co down at Sellicks. Just opposite the hotel there were big stables there. Last I saw there were almonds there.
Graham: He did that all his life?
Alf: Evidently. See evidently, Grandpa (Joseph) came out from England and went down there to farm. Of course, those days they had a horse and plough but he couldn't reach the handles because they were all 5 foot nothing. They were all small.
Graham: So he gave farming away fairly quickly, he only lasted a couple of years?
Alf: He was a baker in England. When he came out he knew someone anyway, so he didn't last long out there and he went back into town and lived down west of Adelaide for a little while. He got this job and then he shifted out to Leicester Street, Parkside.
Graham: I believe that once he settled into Leicester Street that was what he did?
Alf: No he was a traveller and he had the shop too. He was a traveller for Henry Berry I think. One of those big wholesale grocers. And he travelled, that's how he got all his customers, I think!
Graham: When you say traveller, did he go into the country and so on?
Alf: No, just around Adelaide. Probably just small grocery shops.
Graham: And you said he had a horse. Where did he keep the horse?
Alf: Down the backyard. And a cart. Jammed down the back corner. And he also had all his poultry, the Indian game, he used to import those. And fox terrier dogs, I think he used to import them. He imported a lot of stuff. He was tangled up with the Royal Show for years and years.
Graham: I've got his steward's badge.
Alf: Have you? I think I've still got some.
Graham: He used to judge fox terriers.
And did he actually retire from the shop at any point or did that see him right through?
Alf: Well he died on the job really. Grandma kept it going for a little while longer.
Graham: And who looked after her in her old age?
Alf: Nobody, she looked after herself. See, Aunty Ruby used to live across the road. They were close by so they used to keep an eye on her a bit. Of course, Grandpa had been to see Sturt in the afternoon and was getting undressed to go to bed or something. Grandma just heard a thump and she couldn't see him. He was on the other side of the bed, half undressed. Too much excitement, this football!
Graham: He was a Sturt man was he?
Alf: Yes, he used to walk every night, go away and walk around. In fact when we went back on the Friday night quite often he's walk nearly down to the Wayville train with us and then turn around and come back and go along Unley Road. Every night he used to go onto the Billiards Salon on Unley Road and play billiards. Everybody knew him in there.
Graham: Those things were "out of bounds" in those days, weren't they? Billiards Salons. They were dens of iniquity.
Alf: Yes, I suppose. I think he wanted a loan early in the days when he went to Leicester Street and he was tangled up with the Church of England and they couldn't get a loan, for some reason or another. And they got it at the Baptist Help. And that's how he turned over to Baptist.
Graham: Now, Eastwood days. The house was already there when you shifted up and it was owned by Whitrows?
Alf: Yes, Alfred James Whitrow.
Graham: Alfred James Whitrow owned Matilda Street and he was still living there?
Alf: He'd retired of course. Grandma and Grandpa were there. Mum went up to look after them.
Graham: The name "Windsor" on the house. Do you know how it got there?
Alf: Well, we came from Windsor or something. But the shed at the back was Windsor Cottage; and that was the broom factory started first of all.
Graham: And he used to live out there in the last days.
Alf: All day long, he used to be able to cook something and he did a lot of herb stuff in the finish because he lost the bottom lip through smoking a pipe all the time. He used to have a lot of bitter allowed and all sorts of things.
Graham: Aunty Doris reminds us that he used to boil up fish heads.
Alf: There was a big fish shop down Glen Osmond Road and he used to get the big snapper heads, they'd only throw them away, so he used to get a lot of meat off them. There was too, off the top of their heads.
Graham: And that was the Broom factory. That was after they shifted out from the city.
Alf: No, they sold out and went to the city. They got too big and went into the city. And he sold out after that.
Graham: And that ultimately because SABCO of course.
Alf: Yes. Well, that side garden we had was full of millet. That's where he used to grow millet for the rangie brunes. Named after Uncle Rangy his youngest son.
Graham: And they're still on the market till this day.
Alf: Evidently. I had a push bike out there and then I got a motor bike. I went in for Australian terriers out there and when I came home he used to be waiting at the side gate for me, and jump up on the tank and get a ride around the back. As my people said "I'd even ride the motorbike up to the toilet at the back, I'd never walk, it was only about 20 steps!". We went around to the Methodist Church then, we started the Order of Knights and got up to all those sorts of things.
Graham: Doreen has written a note here, how do you think you are like your Grandfathers? What your likenesses are.
Alf: Well, Grandpa was a steward but he didn't go into flowers at the show. And I've been a steward for 12 years now at the Royal Show. And Alfred James Whitrow I suppose I'm pig headed like him, I don't know.
Graham: He had a bit of a reputation, didn't he?
Alf: Oh yes. The last thing I can remember him telling me, cause I went away in the army, was "You've had a good life, I haven't an enemy in the world, they're all dead." But he seemed to get kicked out of every church, he seemed to go to every Methodist Churchs' around the place. He had his own church and his own radio in the finish cause he couldn't get on with anybody.
Graham: Now, do you remember his wife?
Alf: Grandma, of yes. She was "Gran" for all at Eastwood. Everybody knew Gran. It was the biggest funeral ever been out there when she died. She died when she was 80. See, she'd been to Wirths' Circus and finished up with pneumonia.
Graham: What was the circus connection? I understand you used to take the Wirth's in as boarders.
Alf: They used to come out for a decent meal. Hersey which is Mum's brother or Grandpa's son married one of the sister's that married Wirth's.
Graham: So there was blood line.
Alf: Yes. See Wirth's, he married one girl and she wouldn't go with the circus but his youngest sister said "If you're not going, I'll go with you". I don't know how many kids they had but the one he married didn't have any kids. All the Wirth's came afterwards. They were all from the one he didn't marry so just before he died, they thought they'd better get married. And there's a big morsuleum out on the North Road cemetery that belongs to the Wirth's, evidently.
Graham: Now Wirth's was a big circus in those days?
Alf: It was the biggest, yes.
Graham: And it was Australian?
Alf: Yes
Graham: How did they travel between States? On the train or something?
Alf: Had their own train.
Graham: And they used to always visit you at Eastwood? Did you get to go to the circus?
Alf: They used to come out and see Gran and get her to make them a cake and give them a decent meal, because they lived in pubs all the time.
Graham: She used to enjoy it? It wasn't a chore.
Alf: Oh yes. And then we used to get the specialist.
Graham: Doreen wants to know about the car. I can tell you about the car. I was around. It was 1957 and I was 12 years of age. The Chev. I can tell that prior to that there was a Holden and prior to that there was a truck.
Alf: And prior to that was a Singer. I got a Singer when I came out of the army. For 98 pounds.
Graham: You paid a lot more than I did for my first car.
Alf: I had to get rid of that to get the truck.
Graham: Oh, what a Singer motor car?
Alf: It was a big Singer. You were around anyway. Because that's when we went down the South East.
Graham: Is that the old Singer? I can vaguely remember.
Alf: Yes, and the road was underwater, so I rode down along the fence up the top of the hill at the back of
Graham: Oh right, what I remember was mosquito bites.
Alf: Yes, I know, you were one big blob! You could just see your eyes. Yes, I lost the battery down there, it was on the running board... we had running boards each side. We lost the battery so I got a saw and hacked off a couple of cells and it went alright.
Doreen: When did you first see Graham?
Alf: You were born in February weren't you. When I came home for Christmas after that. I nearly took off back to Alice Springs!
Graham: You threw me off the bed and I broke my arm.
Alf: Yep, first day. That's what I thought of him! Mum was washing out the back and she said "Change his nap, will you", so I put him up on the double bed up the front and he would never keep still. So, I'm trying to change him and I turned around to get the nap and BANG he was jumping up and down so he went over and landed on his arm on the floor you see. Up to the hospital, green stick fracture. So that was the greeting!
Comments
Post a Comment