Uncle Tom's tale..

Braidwood- Cooma Express 1930's>

Braidwood, where my Father Hector Griscom Williams

was born in Feb. 1909.

New Highway South. Since 2005. Earlier Princes Highway was along the cliff-face.

From top of Bald Hill, looking towards Wollongong.

Uncle Tom Pike's Tale.

http://www.roots-boots.net/travelau/grandpacific/index.html Grandma Lucy, Uncle Tom's sister, my grandmother.(Ric)> http://www.pleasetakemeto.com/australia/new-south-wales/south-coast-nsw/photos/location/moruya

For decorum's sake and so I will not be assassinated by my relatives, none of the following story is true: (It just seems to be.) When I was about nine, (I was born in 32) we went for a holiday down to Moruya to stay at Uncle Tom and Aunty Lizzie's place which was a small mixed dairy farm They were dad's aunt and uncle. Uncle Tom was grandma Lucy's brother. The family was just me, and Pat my brother four years younger, mum and dad. We went down in my dad's old green Essex truck. We boys were in the back with the luggage and mum and dad in the front seat. There were sides on the back but just boards to sit on and we had to hang on tight over the bumps and there were many on the 193 miles down there. It was windy in the back but we didn't mind because it was summer and the weather was dry and warm. I think we had our dog with us which was an Alsatian named Peter. He liked riding in the back and stuck his nose over the side, barking at any kind of dog in cars coming the other way. I remember we went down the steep Bald Hill at Stanwell Park where Lawrence Hargreaves experimented with box kites and one lifted him off the ground. There was a plaque there on the top of the ridge telling us about him and you could look out east right down the cliffs to the sea and see the breakers swirling against the rocks in the blue-green sea. Going down the pass was scary. Dad went into the lowest gear and kept his handbrake ready because it was so steep. Many vehicles, especially big trucks had careered out of control and some went over the cliffs. That was why at the bottom of each incline there was a run up the adjoining hill just as the road turned so that runaways could slow down as they went up again. Dad said that in about 19o2 when they first made this road (before that it had been a bullock track) the horsedrawn and bullock wagons had to have a big log attached to the axle so that the wagon dragged the log as a brake. Going down Bulli Pass you could see a beach near the bottom and this was Stanwell Park. Looking along the horizon and the coast you could see right down to Port Kembla and Wollongong about forty miles away. As an adult I have travelled the world a bit and seen some lovely views, but I think Stanwell Tops looking down is the best I have ever seen. In later years my brother Pat commissioned me to do a painting from the top and my effort was a dismal failure, though I remember I did have the South Coast Express train winding its way far below, going around bends on its way to Ulladulla about a hundred miles down south. I recall I wanted to stop at the beach and paddle around in the waves of the Pacific, but dad said “We’ve got to get to Kiama and we will have a picnic lunch at the beach there”. O.K., but I was hungry already.

The old car wound round the narrow coast road along the cliffs, sharp bends and past hundreds of little hamlets with small houses, which were where the mine workers lived. There were coal mines all along this area of coast. I never wanted to work down a coal mine when I grew up. I supposed I would be an electrician like dad, but I didn’t want to work with him because he was too bossy, and even Uncle Colin or Uncle Gator wouldn’t work for him anymore.

Trouble was he worked hard and expected others to do the same.

There were houses and buildings built right up to the edge of the high sheer cliffs dropping down to the wild ocean below. I remember some places like Coalcliff and maybe Coledale

. Somewhere along there I called out banging on the cab window that I wanted to do a pee. Pat, my brah wanted to go too.

There was no place to park but dad stopped on a straight stretch of road and called out “Just do it over the back, Siddie and don’t take long.!”

“No Hector” said my mum, “They might overbalance and a car might hit them. Remember Bobby” She sad when she thought of Bobby and I thought she might start crying again like she always did when Bobby was mentioned

“Alright, you boys go into that school yard and do it over at the back fence.”

It was school holidays now and the grounds were deserted.

We climbed down. I was a bit sore from sitting cramped up and Pat was starting to snivel. I gotta do it, Siddie. It’s hurting!”

“Well, wait well.” We went to the back fence and there wooden palings leaning out a bit and they seemed rickety. A couple of palings were missing.

I could see directly down a hundred feet at the surf on the flat ledge of rock below and there was a rock fisherman with a long rod, his line thrown way out over the breakers. He was tied round his waist to a ring set in the rock ledge.

Just then a high wave came looming in and broke over him, hit the cliff-side and ebbed away in a a diminishing stream of foam and another breaker was starting to surge.

The fisherman just kept fishing, even though he was wet all over and seemed to take no real notice of the waves.

Then I saw him reel his rod in rapidly and a big fish, maybe a schnapper almost a foot long hung there twisting on the line.

My little brah peed sideways,or maybe it was the wind, because my bare leg felt a warm splash ”Heh watch it Patty. Don’t do it on me.!”

We went back to the car. "I don’t want to go to school here,” said Pat solemnly “Cause I might fall down and get drownded.”

We reached Thirroul and dad found a garage and bought petrol, and blew his tyres up a bit.. One tyre was leaking and later when we reached the farm dad took off the wheel, took out the inner tube and patched it with a piece of black rubber and I remember him burning the patch to make it stick.

For now, a bit of air every fifty miles was enough to keep us from wobbling off the road into the sea.

It was a tar (bitumen) road and on a hot day it got soft and stuck to the tires and stuck to your shoes too, if you didn’t skip quickly over it. We kids didn’t usually wear shoes though and the tar was real hot as we crossed it quickly.

There were a lot of potholes and even rocks sometimes that had rolled down the steep incline on the western side of the road. We stopped for a breather at a little lolly and soft drink shop which probably sold other stuff, but I didn’t notice except I remember we got meat pies and fish and chips next door at another shop and dad also bought Full Strength Capstan tobacco and he rolled one, while mum bought Shelleys lemonade in two big bottles and Streets ice cream cones for us boys and for herself, because she loved Streets. It was the best and at that time you could not get it in Sydney. It was called “Cream of the Coast.” Now, how did I remember that after 68 years. Human memory is amazing, but what was I supposed to do this afternoon? Phone someone? Who the hell and what about? I was told yesterday to do it. I remember that much.. Yes, I think it was about the hot water system. Good. I am not senile yet. At Thirroul a brother of Tom (Alan) Colfax who was kind of an uncle to us, on account he was auntie Ida's boyfriend and worked at at Sydney University as an Ichtiologist (check spelling)worked as a schoolteacher at the high school but now it was closed and we didn’t know his address. So we kept on our way through the small city of Wollongong and past the smoke-stacks and heavy industry of Port Kembla and I went to sleep. Then we were in Kiama, where the town is right on the sea and there was a line of Norfolk Island pines like there was at south Cronulla beach back home and over at Manly beach too

.Past there the road went inland a bit and I just remember Lake Illawarra was somewhere there and there were lots of water birds, seagulls of course but tern and little wild ducks and there was even a blue heron standing on one leg.

Pat and I did a poop in among the reeds and wiped ourselves with pieces of old telephone pages mum had brought along for that purpose. We never bought toilet paper in those years. Most people didn’t too. Only the lah de dah people on the North shore of Sydney ,who a had cabinet radios and indoor toilets, while we just had the dunny pan in the little house down the back and I had a crystal set uncle Ralph had made me.

I had never seen a refrigerator until Sir Edward Hallstrom (also head of Taronga Park Zoo) brought out a cheap utility brand of Silent Knight refrigerators, and a lot more people could afford one. By the way, the Silent Knight was not that silent. It made a racket in the kitchen sometimes but all the mothers were so happy to have one and enter into the modern world and have a place to keep the baby’s bottle safe. About that time mothers started to stop breast-feeding and took to bottle-feeding. Luckily I no longer needed mother’s milk and I grew up with a healthy immune system, helped no doubt by wallowing around in the dirt I encountered, as I played in the unpaved paddocks and lanes and the nearby bush. The fridge was a step up from the old ice chest where the iceman would run in with a block of ice wrapped up in a Hessian bag over his shoulder and deposit it with a clump on the kitchen table and get his shilling. Sometimes there were small pieces of ice detached fallen on the floor and us (we) kids would pounce on it and suck it until it had dissolved away in our mouths.

When the ice truck was passing and if it was a hot day a few kids would run over to the rough-looking but kindly iceman and ask “Kin we ‘ave some ice, mister. It’s real dinkum hot terdye .” And he would get his ice-pick and breaks off bits and throw them to us. “Now git out, kids! And don’t stand in front of me truck, cause I can’t see yez there when I’m going.!”

Well, I forgot I was telling the story about going to Uncle Tom's place,we found the farm at Moruya. It had mostly cows but one or two horses, because they had a sulky and also they did a bit of plowing because there were several paddocks where something was growing. What I don't remember. There was a barn a piggery a slip-railed fence for the horses and a milking shed. They had a milking machine even though they could not have had more than a dozen milch cows. I don't remember any bull. I would have noticed one, I think.

I don't remember if there were any kids to play with, or maybe I felt too shy. Anyway I stayed near mum and dad and when dad went back to Sutherland, because he had to work, saying he would be back next Saturday morning to pick us up. He took our dog back home, because he had started to chase the chooks.

I felt a bit strange because I had never been away from dad before and now there was this Lionel fellow always seeming to be laughing and talking with mum. I did not like him. I said to him straight, on the day after dad went home. "You stay away from my mum, or I'll tell my dad." This Lionel fellow answered me smiling but his eyes tightened up like a snake before it pounces on a rat "What's there to tell? I am just keeping your mum company so she doesn't get lonely." "Yeah." I said and I was only about nine but I was real angry."That's what I mean.!" "Oh, ho, you are a tough little bugger, aren't you, sonny?" said this fellow." "My name's not sonny and I'm not as tough as my dad, yet." This should have been warning enough for that Lionel fellow. My mother called me inside. She was going to wash the dishes. "Now listen Siddie, Lionel is a nice man and I don't want you saying bad things to him. Or I will be the one to give you the strap, not your dad.

"The strap is behind the kitchen door at home mum, not here." "Don't you be cheeky to me, or I'll get a switch and you'll see." I shut up. Mum never smacked me unless it was serious and I supposed she was serious now. Lionel came in, beamed at mum and took up the dishtowel. I'll help you, luv." "How's it going sport?"He looked at me quizzically. "That's not my name neither." I went outside near the cowshed. The last of the cows were being milked. The sun was going down. I just sat down on the grass near the slip-rails almost sitting in a cow pad. I was unhappy. I wanted to go home to Sutherland. I didn't like the farm. Some ants started to climb up my bare leg. I got up on the old buggy that Uncle Tom used to go into Moruya township. Funny there was a cushion on the seat and it was shaped like a donut with a hole in the middle. I had never seen one like that before, except, wait now! There was one in the dining room on the chair that Uncle Tom used. What was that for? I heard voices and my mum and this fellow Lionel were walking past. I crouched low in the buggy. I didn't know why I felt I had to hide. Mum said quietly "Maybe we shouldn't. Siddie might see us, and he could tell Hec you know....." "We are just going for a walk, that's all. Nothing wrong with that. Anyway he is not around. Must have gone inside to listen to the radio." "Yes", said mum," It's time for "First light Frazer". He never misses an episode. I perked up a bit. I saw them arm in arm going through the gate and heading for a clump of trees on the far side of a paddock. I raced inside. My little brother, Pat was being bathed in a big dish by Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Tom was sitting in his chair smoking a pipe and reading the Illawarra Mercury. "Kin I listen to "First Light Frazer" auntie Lizzie?" (She was really my great aunt though.) What station is it on Siddie? And you have to have a bath too. You can use the same water." "But he probably peed in it. He always does." No, I didn't. You're a liar!" said Pat, indignant. "Oh, all right, I'll heat up some more water in the kettle. She went over to the wood stove, put in a couple of pieces of axe-hewn wood and filled the kettle. "It's on 2GB, 7 o'clock and it is five past now." (I could tell the time from the big grandfather clock with its swinging pendulum, though the Roman numerals were a bit hard.) My voice had an urgency. I did not want to miss an episode. I had missed the Children's Session with Mac, Joe and Elizabeth on 2FC but that was not so important. "Well." said auntie Lizzy. We don't have that station way down here." Uncle Tom put his head up and took the pipe out of his mouth. "It's on the local station, Liz. I don't mind listening to it myself." "What Tom! You only listen to the news and the Country Hour, to my knowledge."Auntie Liz was surprised. "You don't now everything about me, woman." They put on the old radio with its valves and its crackling and the sound coming out of a big horn up on top. It worked though. I sat enthralled at the exploits of First Light Frazer. My brah was out of the bath and with a towel around him sat near the kitchen fire, listening, though I knew he liked littly stories better about the Gumnut Babies and Hoadlies Violet Crumble-bar story of the "Search for the golden Boomerang" on 2CH. After the show, Aunt Lizzie said "Now is your bath time Siddie." "I will do it myself. I'm not a little kid, like Patty." "I'm not neither," said Patty, just four. "Next time I'm going to bath myself, see!" I went outside to the dunny, because I didn't want to pee in the bathwater, and it was hard not to when that warm water was swirling around you. The dunny stinked too much and I did it round the side. I looked out across the dimming light and saw my mum and that fellow coming out of the same clump of trees I saw them go into an hour before. I waited until they crossed the paddock. Good. They weren't arm in arm any more. Mum saw me and looked a bit worried. "Hello Siddie, what are you doing?" "I'm just going to have a bath. You know mummy they only got a big tin dish, not a real bath like we got."" "Well you go in and have your bath." As I went in I heard her say in a low voice "You see! I told you!" "Don't worry Marge I am going to give the kids five bob each tomorrow when I leave." "You're leaving?" "Yeah, I got to get back to my job, too." "You bastard!" said my mum and she broke away hurriedly. Next morning after breakfast Lionel gave us kids five bob each. " What's this for?"asked my brah."You're not my uncle or anything." "Say thank you, boys." Said mum. I didn't ask why he gave it to us, 'cause I remembered the grass-seeds on the back of mum's dress when she came across the paddock. In a few days, after I had learned to ride a pony and gone out looking after the goats and caught a green tree-snake, and learned how to catch whiting from pippees we dug up on the beach at Bateman's Bay, and been in a rowboat on the Shoalhaven River and all the other beaut things you can do in the country. (It wasn't so bad down there after all,)....in a few days when dad was taking us home in the old green truck (I got a new tyre, Marge.) he asked driving along one-handed and the other arm around mum....(I missed you Hector. Don't leave us alone like that again, promise?)....dad asked us all, "Well, did yz all have a good holiday?" I decided I would never tell about the walk and the grass seeds (except now, 68 years later,) because I knew it probably wasn't true(maybe). My teacher Miss Rolley said I had a "wonderful vivid imagination" on my report card." A few miles along the road I asked my mum "Mummy?" She looked startled "Yes, Siddie" she answered slowly. " Why are there cushions with holes in them, where uncle Tom sits?" Mum and dad both started laughing and then dad said. "Uncle Tom was born with three or four vertebrae more than he should have. There was no doctor around to cut them off, because he was delivered by a midwife." "What's a vert i bra?" asked my little brother. "It's a tail", said mum. Your father's uncle has a tail! "Shut-up Marge!" exclaimed my dad crossly. "It could have happened to anybody." So this was the Tale of Uncle Tom's Tail. Ric Williams

SEA CLIFF BRIDGE from BALD HILL, STANWELL PARK

STANWELL PARK in the early part of the 20th Century.

STANWELL PARK 1960

STANWELL PARK looking north to BALD HILL, world famous hang gliding place. Site of Australia's famous aeronautical experimentalist, Lawrence Hargrave.

STANWELL PARK RAILWAY VIADUCT. At 215ft high, this is the highest railway viaduct in Australia. It was built in the late 19th century and is made out of sandstone.

KELLYS FALLS, a beautiful spot in Stanwell Tops.

THE MINERAL POOL has Hargrave Creek run through it and over making Hargrave Falls. The creek continues to the northern lagoon at Stanwell Park. The Mineral Pool is now in the private hands of a developer and there is no longer access by the public.

The NORTHERN ILLAWARRA and ROYAL NATIONAL PARK COASTLINE. The RNP is the 2nd oldest declared park after YELLOWSTONE PARK in the USA. This view would not have changed much since Captain James Cook sailed up the Eastern Coast of Australia in 1770.

Here is a distance view to the north of the SYDNEY SKYLINE. Taken from Mt Mitchell, Illawarra Esarpment at Stanwell Park. The Royal National Park is in between.

The ILLAWARRA ESCARPMENT is basically made of Hawksbury Sandstone, so in some cases the weather has interesting effects causing natural rock sculptures. This is the THUMB AND FINGERS ROCK on Mt Mitchell, above Stanwell Park.

Here is another weather affected ROCK SCULPTURE on the ILLAWARRA ESCARPMENT. This sits above the coastal village of Coalcliff.