Growing up in Berrima: Book 1

Copyright © 2021 TREVOR Wrightson.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-2472-4 (sc)

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Balboa Press rev. date: 02/28/2021

CONTENTS

Chapter 1     Growing Up in Berrima

Chapter 2     History of Berrima

Chapter 3     The Demise of Berrima

Chapter 4     Early Family History

Chapter 5     1939 Commencing School

World War II

Chapter 6     1940 Daily Routine

Chapter 7     1941 Japanese Bomb Pearl Harbor

Chapter 8     1942 Aussie Soldiers Taken Prisoners of War

Chapter 9     1943 The Butchers Run

Chapter 10   1944 Ferreting

Chapter 11   1945 The End of the War

Chapter 12   1946 Cricket

Chapter 13   1947 High School

Chapter 14   1948 Fishing in the Wingecarribee

Chapter 15   1949 The Worst Year of My Life

Chapter 16   1950 Turning My Life Around

Chapter 17   1951 Electrical Apprentice

Chapter 18   1952 Police Boys Club

Chapter 19   1953 Ferreting

Chapter 20   1954 The Queen Visits Australia

A New Car

Accident or Murder

Chapter 21   1955 Marulan Quarry

An Electrical Accident

Chapter 22   1956 Sir Cecil Hoskins

Meeting A Beautiful Girl

Chapter 23   1957 The Happiest Day of My Life

CHAPTER ONE

GROWING UP IN BERRIMA

THE 4TH OF JANUARY 2002 was a blistering hot day, and we were expecting the temperature to rise above thirty degrees Celsius. My six-year-old Grandson Chris and I were enjoying a swim in our fibreglass swimming pool. He knew it was going to be hot, so he came down for a quick dip in the pool before lunch.

Tiny particles of ash from surrounding Bush Fires were landing in the pool. Television and radio reported that over one hundred fires were burning throughout New South Wales; firebugs had lit the majority of them. By the time the fires burnt out a fortnight later, 170 houses had been destroyed, but miraculously no lives were lost. Twenty-seven men were charged with lighting the largest fires ever seen in New South Wales. Many thousands of acres of bushland were destroyed.

Strong westerly winds blew for eight days straight and the temperatures climbed into the high thirties degrees Celsius, driving the flames at high speed with enormous ferocity. Firefighters from Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and Northern Territory combined to assist the weary New South Wales Fire fighters.

The enormity of the fires made headlines around the world. Two years earlier, Australia had sent Firefighters to America to help fight their fires in California. The US reciprocated by sending two huge helicopters in our hour of need. They were named Elvis after Elvis Presley and The Incredible Hulk after a recent movie. Each had a tank which held twenty thousand litres of water, the same capacity as the swimming pool we were swimming in. The helicopters would bomb the fires, and then return to be refilled, each taking an incredible forty-five seconds to fill their tanks. At last, after three weeks the much-needed rains fell, to the delight of everyone, especially the weary firefighters who became heroes to every Australian citizen. On the 8th February 2002 they were rewarded with a ticker tape parade up the main Streets of Sydney.

We were enjoying our swim when Chris asked, Did they have fibreglass swimming pools when you were young Pa?

No, I replied, fibreglass hadn’t been made when I was young. There were no swimming pools around like there are today. A few large towns had public swimming pools with most country children jumping into their local creek or dam, and the kids who lived on the coast went to the beach. Life has certainly changed since I was a kid.

In the 1940s Australia’s population was only 7,000,000 people compared to 2002, when the population was nearly twenty million.

Well what year were you born Pa?

I was born in 1934, in the small town of Berrima. When I was six and half nearly seven, it was a very difficult time throughout the world. My Mum, Dad and older brothers often talked about the possibility of war and at my age, this seemed a very frightening thing for me to comprehend.

Pa, why don’t you write it all down, it would be very interesting.

In 1929 the stock market crashed in New York, causing The Great Depression, resulting in thirty percent of unemployment in all Western Countries for a period of ten years. The world was plunged into a Second War in 1939, lasting six years and ending The Depression (in my opinion, the Politicians all over the world didn’t seem to have any idea how to end it.).

In the 1930s, a horse and sulky were used to travel. Cars and trucks were just becoming popular, as horse drawn vehicles were beginning to be phased out.

Electricity was only available to cities and large towns. Kerosene lamps and candles were used in the country.

Once a week, large blocks of ice were delivered to those people who stored their perishable food in an ice chest. Many homes had a cooler made from hessian bags, which was tacked to a wooden framed cabinet. The hessian was kept damp with water, which kept the cooler cold.

Radios were known as a wireless which was operated by a battery. The battery was about half the size of a car battery and had a carrying handle. It was taken to the local garage to be recharged when they were flat. Radio transmission began in 1923, but the reception was very poor, with a lot of static. Not many people had a wireless, so they relied on the daily newspaper for their news.

CHAPTER TWO

HISTORY OF BERRIMA

BERRIMA IS A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE town, 130km south of Sydney. It is nestled in a pretty little valley on the banks of the Wingecarribee River in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales and has been described as one of the best examples of early architecture and convict-built housing in Australia. When it was first surveyed it was intended to be the largest inland city in the State.

The first site selected for a township in the Southern Highlands was at Sutton Forest, a few kilometers south of Berrima, but it was soon dropped after realizing that there was no water in the area. In 1821, Governor Macquarie selected a second site at Bong Bong, further up the river from Berrima; it was surveyed for the first township in the district. A small village began to grow, it was soon realized after a small flood, that it was very swampy and unsuitable for a township. Six kilometers down the river, the banks were very steep, with many deep holes which would not dry out in drought conditions. It was here in 1829 Major Mitchell selected the site of Berrima, only forty-one years after the first settlement in Australia. The area was surveyed into allotments, with plans to provide the proposed large town with a jail, courthouse, churches, shops and Hotels. Prior to these plans, proud Aborigines had lived there for thousands of years.

Convicts were housed in barracks where the St Francis Xavier Catholic Church now stands, on the southern side of the river. Work began, and the first project was to build a sandstone arched bridge across the river. It was four meters wide and was completed in 1836. It stood for sixty years before a flood washed it away in 1896. In 1897, a second single-lane wooden bridge was built, it was higher than the original bridge and was hoped to be out of the reach of flood waters. In the 1900s, with the introduction of motor vehicles, many accidents occurred on the bridge. A third and final concrete double lane bridge was built in 1962, which still stands today.

After the completion of the first bridge, ‘The Great South Road’ heralded the heyday of Berrima; and the road became a continual line of bullock teams pulling drays laden with goods for the local stores in Berrima, Goulburn and surrounding towns. On their return trip they carried wool, hides, grains and other produce to Sydney. By nightfall, The Great Road at either entrance to the town was packed with resting bullock teams. The bullock drivers would pull up to the side of the road, unharness their bullocks for a well-earned rest and stroll down to the town, to one of the four Inns and enjoy a quiet ale and chat with the local townspeople.

By the 1860s, Cobb and Co. with other coach Companies commenced carrying passengers regularly between Sydney and Melbourne, dropping off and picking up passengers on the way. Coaches would leave Sydney and travel to Picton, which was approximately 65km away and have lunch and change their horses, then travel onto Berrima where they stayed overnight in one of the many Inns. Next morning they travelled a further 65km to Goulburn, where they would change over their horses again and continue on their journey. As horses could only travel for 65km a day, towns were built near reliable water supplies every forty miles along the road. This allowed for the horses to be changed and the passengers to eat, tend to their toiletries or stay overnight.

Passenger traveling in a coach, travelled 128km per day, it took 6–7 days to travel from Sydney to Melbourne. Bullock teams laden with heavy loads were much slower, and took about 5 days to travel between Sydney and Berrima.

Gold, mail and passengers travelled by coach, unfortunately they were subject to frequent holdups by Bush Rangers. These gangs would rob the coaches of their gold and mail and the passengers of their money and jewellery.

In 1824 Hume and Hovell were the first men to trek across country over the Murray River to Melbourne. As The Great Southern Road ran from Sydney to Albury, a bridge was built across the Murray River and the road was built from Albury to Melbourne. The completed road between Sydney and Melbourne