Grampian- Gariwerd Memories from Bill Cunningham.
I was born in Stawell, Western Victoria in October 1938.
Our farm St Leonards
My mother and father owned a 2,000 acre farm near Dadswell’s Bridge, about 20km from Stawell on the main highway between Melbourne and Adelaide. They bought it in 1936, and named their dream “St Leonards”. The farm was partly cleared, but some paddocks still had a lot of big trees: redgum, yellow box, stringy bark, and wattles. There were beautiful views to the Grampian ranges, about 12km at nearest, which was Brigg’s Bluff, at the foot of which was a delightful little waterfall, called Beehive Falls. Two early industries in the area had been timber cutting, using the huge old red gums for bridge supports and rail sleepers, and tobacco growing, evidenced by a couple of curing sheds I can recall in one of our paddocks, near Mt William Creek.
No gas no electricity
When I was little, we had no gas or electricity. Can you imagine that? For cooking, my mother had a wood stove. My father collected timber from around fallen branches, or by chopping down a dead tree and cutting it into blocks about one foot in length, using a motorised circular saw. Wood was dumped into the wood heap, 100 metres from the house. When Mum wanted more wood, Dad would go to the wood heap with wheel barrow and axe, and split the sawn blocks into small pieces which Mum could fit into her stove. This wood was also used for the open fires in the dining/living room, or the sitting room on special occasions when we had visitors, and Mum served afternoon tea, cake and scones! In the open fires they also burnt bigger, knotty chunks that could not be split with the axe or event the sledge hammer and wedges. (and watch out for sparks on the carpet from red gum logs!) Occasionally the carbon would build up in the brick chimney and catch fire. Great excitement when that happened! Dad would put wet bags in front of the open fireplace so no burning soot would fall out on the carpet. You could run outside and watch the flames belch out the chimney, with a crack and a roar. Scary!
Ledcourt Primary School
In 1945 a new school room was found and moved to a site only 2 kilometres from home, across a paddock and along a tree studded country lane. “Ledcourt” was established on a bush block, with a fence around it, a shelter shed, and boy’s and girl’s toilets in two far corners of the grounds. I recall it had about 13 pupils initially, and of course my Aunt Win became the teacher. It had a fireplace and a little entrance vestibule with a wash basin. Aunt Win smacked me for making a mess of the basin after cleaning my hands; I was convinced I was not the last to use it and not guilty and made sure I was home first to tell Mum of this shocking injustice! Imagine the silent dinner table that evening! Such was the disadvantage poor Aunt Win had, boarding in our house. “Who will board the teacher?” was always a problem. One family at the school were market gardeners on Mt William Creek, and the two children rode to school together on a mare, and in summer occasionally brought along a yummy water melon! Most families were bee keepers (apiarists) who also ran a few sheep. Dad used a neighbour’s woolshed and sheep dip, as he did not have his own. The community shared in building the school grounds, and a communal tennis course right by the school.
One last school story: when I became one of the “senior boys” by 1949, I shared the task of emptying the toilet pans every second week. I think we each received either one or two shillings; in any event we thought it “a King’s ransom”! The pans had to be taken over the wire school ground fence and into the bush, where we had dug a hole in the sandy soil in readiness. One day the girl’s full toilet pan fell off the top wire of the fence as one of us climbed through the fence and the other one balanced the pan. I was thoroughly splattered, and was sent home immediately for a bath and change of clothes.
The Grampians – the view to the Grampians always enthralled me, with its changing colours with time and type of day. Grandpa Wettenhall lent me his telescope, which I would peer through for ages, studying the crags and trees silhouetted against the skyline. Briggs Bluff and Beehive Falls always had a fascination.
The trees – the variety of trees, and the grandure of the gnarled old red gums always took my attention. So much of St Leonards was still open woodland, with little billabongs here and there in Winter/Spring, full of croaking frogs, and surrounded by yellow-flowered billy-buttons.
The birds – they were just amazing. Aunt Win cultivated an interest in nature, birds in particular, and joined me up to Gould’s League of Bird Lovers. I started keeping a record of the types of birds seen on St Leonards, and by the time we departed in 1950, I was up to 50 types, ranging from emus to bee eaters.
Article provided by FOGG member Andrew Cunningham
Editors note
The school house at Ledcourt is still there, but now a private residence.
Former Ledcourt State School No. 4623, Howards Ledcourt State School Road, LEDCOURT
The former Ledcourt State School, Howards Ledcourt State School Road, Ledcourt, has historical significance for its associations with the development of a school at Ledcourt in 1946. The building has further associations with Warranook West, as it was built in c.1888 as the school there before being relocated to Ledcourt. The school building is of architectural interest, with some original and design qualities including the simple gable roof form, modest scale, single storey height, horizontal timber weatherboard wall cladding and the paired multi-paned timber framed windows at one end.