Memories contributed by Marie McCulloch OAM (Gossage)
ICE CREAM
Living in a remote Hydro Construction village in the 1940', there were very few modern day luxuries."Real" ice cream was a special treat for when we visited Hobart. Then there was always improvisation. My special "treat" for ice cream was a saucer full of fresh snow covered with tinned condensed milk.

WAR GAMES
It was the early 1940's during the Second World War, of an evening we
(children)would go and stand on the cement covered top of a large sewerage
tank and march around in pretending to be "guarding" the town, or sitting on
the big log at the back of the house, once again pretending to be the enemy
and flying over the village and dropping bombs.

HIGH SCHOOL
I was just 11 years old when I went away to High School in Hobart and coming
home for some weekends.These times I would leave Butlers Gorge at 7pm on
the service bus of a Sunday night and arrive in Hobart at 10pm. Then I would
walk alone several blocks to catch a trolley bus out to New Town where the
hostel was. Then I would have to walk two across two streets in the dark
before eventually arriving at "Woodlands"

SCHOOL RULES
If we were in the street in our school uniform, there were some very strict
rules woe betide you if seen by a prefect breaking these rules.
*Never eat an ice cream in public if you are in school uniform."
*Girls in school uniform must never be seen in public without gloves on."

1951 A JUNIOR TEACHER
At the age of fifteen years, I was a Junior Assistant at the Butlers Gorge
Kindergarten.. about 1951. During the winter, I would trudge through the
snow to the roadside, lift a child from the Hydro utility and carry them over
to the kindergarten which was at the back of the main public hall. This was
done many times and the same occurred at the end of the day.

Special memories of crisis and disasters at

A suicide in the single men's camp- on hearing my parent's discussing this, I asked why? Mother explained that the man from another country had a name which in Australia was a rude word and he had been ridiculed.

A man drowned in the canal (the fast flowing waterway from Clark Dam to Tarraleah) Recollections are of family discussions: he was supposedly drunk and had walked into the canal. When the body was retrieved, all of his fingers had worn away as a result of trying to climb up the concrete walls.

Another canal fatality. Six H.E.C. employees were travelling back to Butlers Gorge from Hobart when the car skidded into the canal at Tarraleah, just south of the "check-gates". All were drowned. My dad was one of a group sent to haul the car and bodies out. Once again- my recollections are from listening to the 'grown-ups'- my mum and dad: to get the bodies out of the car, they had to be broken into smaller pieces. After this ordeal, Dad was physically sick and spent several days at home "off work".

Accident: Winter time, snow several inches thick, the Service Bus containing mail and passengers veered into the treacherous "Canal". The driver climbed out, grabbed onto one of the bridges, and ran all the way back to Butlers Gorge. It was miraculous that there was only one fatality. Other passengers managed to clamber out further downstream. I have a visual memory of my mum running down the street at Butlers Gorge to the village hospital armed with rubber hot water bottles.

More Childhood memories
For sixty years I have been involved in community activities, giving service, organising and fund raising. Earliest memories of doing this are in 1944, aged nine years and I was Secretary of the Butlers Gorge Junior Red Cross Circle. This was at a small Hydro Electric Commission village in the highlands of Tasmania. Come November, I would persuade the young female teacher, owner of a small Morris car, at 6am to transport several students down the road to head into the bush and proceed to pick the bright red waratah wildflowers. We would take them home, wrap in damp cloth, package, and have on the 8.30am bus to Hobart. This would then be delivered to the Royal Hobart Hospital. I still have a letter written to me from Lady Binney, the Governors wife.

 

By the age of ten, I had organised a Lone Girl Guide Troop, which could be aligned to "girl guides by correspondence". There was no adult Leader and regular newsletters were received by the junior co-ordinator, hence the title Lone Guides.

 

I look back with pride and gratitude that I had parents who set high standards within the family home. We attended Sunday School, went to church and became Sunday School teachers. We were of Protestant faith and for the first few years the visiting clergy was the Salvation Army Officer from New Norfolk. When he was transferred the pastoral care was given to the Presbyterian Church and the minister travelled regularly from Bothwell. It was from these beginnings that I went on to serve several years as the State Secretary for the Presbyterian Fellowship of Australia, and married into a Presbyterian family. An unusual circumstance of choice as it was the only one available in a remote Tasmanian central highlands village. Bad language was not tolerated and gambling and alcohol had no place in our home. My dad was an enthusiastic billiards player and every Tuesday night he would go off to the "canteen" and my mother would say "dads gone off to a Parent and Friends' Meeting at the school".

 

My parents were very supportive of my passion for reading

I would often go off to sleep holding a "Girls Crystal" in my hand. Mother would tell of how she would catch me in the dark, huddled under the bedclothes reading by torchlight. It was an important part of my life looking forward to this magazine arriving in the mail. It always seemed such a long time for the next installments. I did move on to a very short period of reading the True Romances. It is only now that I appreciate the sacrifices that were made in the family budgeting to give me the luxury of regularly receiving  reading material. At Primary School we had one reading book for the year and a school magazine every month.

 

Another interest, that my parents tolerated without criticism, was my obsession for collecting cuttings and photographs of movie stars. My favourites were Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. At this stage, my ambition was to be a cowgirl when I grew up. How naïve of me. My closest encounters with a horse was restricted to the movie screen. Each week I would go down to the local store and collect the expired promo film posters. I'd take them home and add them to the walls in the toilet. I have clear recollections of being seated in the toilet looking at posters for "The Ghost Who Walks, Murder in the Night and Phantom of the Opera".

 

I can't remember any restraints on the never ending event that I organised as a child: clubs, parties, picnics, walks, concerts, snow fights and writing letters to important people.

I have no doubt that there was close supervision and always the instructions to "be careful". But life was simple and we never contemplated any negative possibilities.

 

Our whole family would attend the local dances, the youngest being taken in the pram. I was ten years of age, when I played the piano for the Barn Dance when the orchestra had a break for their supper- the tunes that I played for this were Click Go The Shears and The  Quartermasters Store.

 

There were difficult times convincing my father that I could wear a pair of jodhpurs. As a fashion statement, whilst in-mode, some considered it outlandish. It took even greater persuasion with my parents when I rebelled and wore "pedal-pushers", those loose wide legged slacks that exposed the ankles and some of the lower leg. For some time I would make sure that I changed my attire before dad came home from work. Fifty years later, young people were still being misjudged by their choice of hairdo, body adornment and  clothing.

 

Second World War

I often reflect and wonder why these events in my life are so prominent among my memories. It all took place during the Second World War. Families had to co-operate and share with each other for survival and there was a community spirit of togetherness. Ration coupons were issued for food, clothing and petrol. Farmers would trade butter coupons with city people for petrol coupons. People saved the foil wrappings from sweets and chocolates. These were collected and re-cycled to help make aeroplanes. The women would attend Comfort Funds Meetings, knot balaclavas and mittens and make hammocks for the soldiers who were away at War. When Peace was declared in 1945, I was in Grade Six and nearly eleven years old. Vivid pictures come to me of the front pages of "The Mercury" with the names of the Tasmanian Prisoners of war who had died in Japan. There were thick black borders around these articles. As a means of celebrating, I organised with several schoolmates to borrow several hole-punches from the Hydro Office and we went into our playhouse and punched out lots of confetti! We had a holiday from school and walked around the village in a group making as much noise as we could, which included banging sticks on the lids of garbage tins.  

 

These are some of the memories from my childhood at Butlers Gorge in the Central Highlands of Tasmania in the early 1940's.

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