Don's Story 04.12.19

Not a Manager’s Bootlace me for myself. I became friends with Tish Leslie’s governesses. One was Nan Watkins who was about ten years older than me and introduced me to classical music. She opened up a whole new world to me by introducing me to Beethoven’s symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, Grieg, and Mendelssohn. I even began collecting 78s, then 33s. I became romantically involved with another governess but such relationships were frowned on by the boss, so when we were going to Jack Stove’s 21st birthday party in Roebourne, the girl in question went with the boss and his wife and I went with the overseer and the cook. I knew then that I was treading a fine line. Reluctantly, I brought that happy interlude to an end. I liked the open Karratha country—so different from Minderoo. It gave me a sense of freedom and timelessness. Riding across the peninsula in search of stragglers one day, we came across some beautiful and unique Aboriginal rock art on the Burrup Peninsula that made a lasting impression on me— almost lasting as the impression of my mate, Don Coppin. Don was an Aboriginal man who taught me many skills on our trips into the bush. We were often sent out with a little tinned tucker and a .22 rifle. We were expected to live off the land. Don taught me how to kill, dress, and cook a bungarra—a large goanna. He would mesmerise the bungarra by ‘singing’ it, throw a stone, and stun it before killing it. Don showed me how to prepare it for cooking, and several hours later we had a really good feed. We shot and ate kangaroo, and in the hills we would catch mountain trout. Along the coast, we caught crayfish hiding in shallow reefs by grabbing hold of their long whiskers and dragging them out. We would boil them up in the buckets on the stock route wells. The only fly in the ointment at Karratha was Bob Scott, the overseer who had taken a dislike to me and gave me a hard 29

Don Forrest - My Story time. Some months after I left the station he was sacked, and Bill Leslie said I should have spoken up about his behaviour while I was there. My response was that he had been my boss and I hadn’t thought it was right. I had enjoyed most of my work at Karratha and I’d learned a lot about well sinking, how to set a charge to blast rock, and how to construct concrete tanks and realign timber wells, but I wasn’t sorry when it came to an end. By December 1948, I was ready for a break and looked forward to the summer months with my friends down south that would prepare me for the last part of my father’s plan in South Australia. After summer in Cottesloe, I travelled by train to Port Augusta, South Australia, and arrived at Nonning Station on April Fool’s Day, 1949. Three years earlier, my father had sent me to the station so that I’d have an idea what was ahead of me, and that had been a good idea. His mate, Lachy Sanderson, then based in Adelaide, had arranged for me to travel with Rob Goss, his stud manager. He showed me the enormous eighty-yard- long water troughs that were used at the Crawfords’ Erudina Station. At Minderoo, our troughs were only six yards long. Another thing I learned from Goss was that heavy drinking and work don’t go together. Nonning was the base station for Dillowie Farm, Oakden Hills, and Moonaree stations, owned by brothers Ian, Archie, and Don McTaggart. Ian was my boss. Archie and his wife Minnie, known always as ‘Mrs M’, managed Oakden Hills about a hundred miles from Nonning. They had two sons and a daughter, Margaret, who, I discovered about nine months later, was the girl who’d caught my eye on the platform in Port Augusta. Needless to say, she didn’t remember seeing me. 30

Not a Manager’s Bootlace Although I had been sent to Nonning to train to be a station manager, I was just another jackaroo as far as Ian McTaggart was concerned. I did a lot of mustering on both Moonaree and Nonning and always seemed to come home with a sore backside. It was worse if I had to ride a pushbike at the back of the muster, which happened on more than one occasion because the ‘iron horse’ was quite a popular mode of transport for mustering in South Australia where the ground was pretty hard. I spent about six weeks at Dillowie but I didn’t get on with the overseer who thought I was a ‘jumped-up bloody know-it-all’. Shortly after my arrival he had given me a lesson in how to throw a calf, how to cut it, and how to brand it. Then he left me to it. He got annoyed by the fact that I did it quicker and with less fuss than he had and from that day forward I was a thorn in his side. If he’d asked me in the beginning if I’d done the job before, I would have been able to say yes and prevent the incident, because I had learned how to throw calves years before, and lost count of the number of castrations and brandings I’d done. The lesson I learnt that day was not to outdo the overseer! Two things stick in my mind about my South Australian experiences. First was the weather and how desperately cold it could get. I decided the heat in the northwest of Western Australia was much easier to handle. Second was the benefit of spotting from an aeroplane during a muster. Mustering aircraft were not used in Western Australia at that time, but from the first of many exhilarating flights beside Ian I could see it would only be a matter of time before all mustering would be assisted by an ‘eye in the sky’. It was so time effective. I determined that as soon as I was back in the West I would set about getting a pilot’s license. 31

Don Forrest - My Story By the time I returned to Western Australia I had toughened up. I was more confident and I felt I had become a responsible adult. Even my nervous stutter had all but disappeared. In January, I found myself as Minderoo’s overseer under Peter Corbin, who had been managing the station since 12 May 1948. Corbin was an experienced station manager. He had worked on Karratha Station for a number of years before the war. During the war, he was a Lieutenant in the voluntary reserve for the Royal Australian Navy, and in 1946 he was manager of Abydos and Woodstock stations engaged in scientific research related to environmental productivity. He had been manager at Minderoo for almost two years when I arrived. Peter was well known throughout the district and his name appears in a number of articles in the social columns of newspapers and in the list of mourners attending the funeral of Claude and Ella Irvine’s granddaughter, Nurse Geoffrey Ella Gordon, who died a sudden death in December 1940. Six years later Peter’s marriage to Joan Maitland Brown was reported in The West Australian but as far as I am aware his wife did not live in the northwest. By 1950 his wife had instigated divorce proceedings and by the end of the year Peter had given my father one year’s notice saying that he intended to buy his own property at the end of his contract. I consider myself fortunate to have had Peter as manager for my final year in training despite the fact that my old man and his cousin, Uncle Jack tended to berate him. I never understood their attitude at the time, but on reflection it’s likely that being sued for divorce by his wife stigmatised Peter in their eyes. Both my father and Uncle Jack were old fashioned in their beliefs. A story that I heard about Peter Corbin came from my father. He said Corbin had been beating one of the Aboriginal 32

Not a Manager’s Bootlace kids and the boy’s grandmother, Maggie, threatened to take all of the Aboriginal people away if he didn’t stop hitting the boy. Allegedly Peter Corbin told them all to clear out and they did. That story has always bothered me because it didn’t fit with the personality of the man I worked beside for almost a year. I think it more likely that Maggie took the children off the station because a new school had been built at Onslow and Aboriginal children were legally obliged to attend. In that case, when the women left with the children, the men would have followed and Peter Corbin would have had to look for station hands through an agency in Perth. The pay book for 1943-1951 confirms that Aboriginal employees regularly came and went. The 1949 diary records a number of Aboriginal people being sick and being taken to hospital. In early July, an entry states that ‘Scotty, Maggie, and the children are off the place.’ Between August 1950 and October 1951, the pay book confirms the fact that there were no Aboriginal people on the station when I was there as overseer. All the station hands were British or Australian—apart from Josef and Maria Gruczyk, who were Polish, and C. Schubert, who was Eastern European. But in true fashion, my father never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn. The people of Onslow held a farewell party for Peter Corbin and I was asked to make a speech. I began my speech by saying why I thought Peter Corbin was the measure of an exemplary station manager and a man of integrity. Peter Corbin had shown me by example how important it was to set and maintain standards, to be fair-minded, to communicate with staff clearly and precisely, to continue to improve stock work and handling, to keep meticulous records, and to show respect for everyone. He had no interest in being liked by his staff but he did, by his demeanour, command respect. He never asked 33

Don Forrest - My Story anything of his staff that he wouldn’t do himself. He enjoyed a few drinks in the evening after a hard day’s work and clearly had many friends through his connections in the district. I concluded my speech by saying that at that time I felt I was not a manager’s bootlace, but from Peter’s mentoring I hoped I would become at least half as good a station manager as he had been at Minderoo. He was certainly going to be a hard act to follow. While Peter was manager, he sent me out to my first mustering camp on horseback about ten miles away. I was to oversee the camp for the next few weeks. I dismounted and went to tell the men what I was going to be doing and this one-legged burly bloke called Bert with a big round face and bald head said, ‘You don’t have to worry, son. We’ll teach you a thing or two. You get on with us and we’ll get on with you.’ I nodded. I didn’t see the point in ruffling his feathers at that early stage. Then there was another bloke called Philip. He was a little scrawny fellow. Another was a half Maori fellow, who I sensed was a troublemaker. And then there was a young fellow called John Coten. John Coten had a little wispy moustache and a gentle nature. Four days into the muster the cook pulled out and John Coten said that he could cook a bit and he wouldn’t mind the job. So Coten became the cook, but he wasn’t very good. After about a week the blokes came to me and complained that Coten was poisoning them. So I took Coten aside and told him that I was promoting him to the position of musterer. I said, ‘You ride don’t you?’ He said that of course he could ride a horse. His old man had been in the English cavalry and had taught him to ride bareback because he’d had to ride bareback for three years before he was allowed a saddle by the cavalry. Coten said therefore he could only ride bareback. I jumped in and said 34

Not a Manager’s Bootlace that he couldn’t possibly ride all day without a saddle. It would kill him. But he was adamant. I decided to try and meet him half way by linking a couple of stirrup leathers together and slinging them over a saddle cloth so he’d have a bit of padding and could rest his feet in the stirrups. He agreed it was worth a try. Anyway, early next morning the horse-tailer came to my bunk and said that John had gone. I woke the camp and we all got up to look but there was no sign of him. In the end, I had to ring up from Jaminu outcamp and report that John Coten had disappeared, and Peter Corbin called the police at Onslow. Eventually two policemen and a black tracker came out. The tracker managed to follow Coten’s tracks for about a mile and a half until they disappeared when he’d crossed a stony flat. Three days later the police came across Coten walking into Onslow. They told him he’d caused them a lot of trouble because they’d been searching for him all over Minderoo. Coten said he was very sorry to hear that. The police advised him to go back and get his cheque from the station to which Coten replied, ‘Bugger the cheque. I don’t want any bloody money from that mob. You tell them they can stick their cheque. I’m going on up the track to Mardie and I’ll get a job there.’ The police gave him a lift into town where he got some tucker from the store and away he went on foot to walk to Mardie, 130 miles away. He got a job there as a gardener and stayed on for and two and a half years. He married the governess and later became manager of Towera for Michael Stroud. Every full moon he’d go a little bit off his rocker: he’d think he could see space ships. But to continue the story of that mustering camp, the Maori chap, Frank Searle, agreed to do the cooking so we suffered Frank’s cooking for another couple of weeks until we were close enough to the homestead to get a few decent meals and a change of horses before heading off again. We’d been out 35

Don Forrest - My Story in the bush for three weeks straight by that time and Frank badly needed a drink. He couldn’t get one out in the camp and he couldn’t get one at the homestead and he was getting desperate. Next morning Frank’s two dogs were playing together when one accidently ran into my leg and let out a yelp. Frank turned on me and accused me of kicking his dog. I said I didn’t kick your dog and tried to explain what had happened but he wasn’t listening. He ranted and raved and said he was pulling out. Of course, it was all just a pretext to get into Onslow and quench his thirst. Frank’s departure broke up the mustering camp and we had a day at the homestead, which suited everyone. We changed our horses, shod them and out we went the next day. By then we had another cook who assured us we wouldn’t be poisoned. The mustering plant included the men, the horses, any dogs we might have and the truck. The truck carried the camp, our tucker, and horse feed consisting of chaff and oats, if it was a dry time. It also carried our shoeing gear made up of a portable anvil, weighing about fifty or sixty pounds, a couple of sets of shoes for each horse weighing about a hundredweight, plenty of nails, pinchers, clinching gear, and a pritchel used to widen the hole in the shoe to take a nail. It also carried a fly to put up to protect us from the sun or the rain. The truck carried poles and a set of temporary sheep yards made up from a couple of rolls of netting, thirty or forty star pickets, a couple of sledge hammers, some wire and fencing pliers. There were six musterers and the all-important cook. Each musterer would have two spare horses. One would be kept at the homestead and the other two would be taken out to the camp, so that every few days one horse could rest. Peter was a good manager and liked things done exactly to plan. One day when I was in charge of the mustering party, he 36

Not a Manager’s Bootlace sent us straight out after a very short spell at the homestead, so I had to contend with a bit of grumbling and complaining from the men. Regardless of their attitude, I had to make sure that we mustered to the manager’s planned program. The program was written out on a double page sheet by the manager and handed to the overseer. It was a very efficient way of doing things and I adopted it when I became manager. The day the men went out grumbling, we’d been sent to muster all the country on the north end of the property including the area known as Ten Mile. While we were out there it began to rain and continued in a steady downpour. There was no letting up and we couldn’t move around at all. It was so wet and muddy that the horses were having difficulty plodding through the heavy mud so I called a halt and considered how to proceed. The boys reckoned it was a lost cause. I had to agree and as we hadn’t had a day off since we’d started four weeks earlier, I thought one day off wouldn’t hurt so we headed for home. The next morning, I was just saddling up when Corbin came out. He was furious and asked what I’d done. I said it had been too wet to get around so I had given the boys a day off. I thought he was going to explode. He yelled out that now we were a day behind the program and the shearers were arriving the next week and were going to be a day late. I argued that we’d make it up by mustering the paddock designated for that day in one day instead of the allotted two days because it was all open country. He was not impressed. He laid the law down about the importance of sticking to the program no matter what. He said that there’d only been an inch of rain and we could have easily got around the country. Rain was not allowed to interfere with the program. Minderoo, about eighty kilometres long and about twenty kilometres wide, is divided into thirty-three paddocks. When I 37

Don Forrest - My Story took over, we were carrying about 19,000 sheep because we had endured years of drought conditions. Our wool wasn’t as high yielding as it is over east because our country is lighter. The wool is sound and carries a bit more dirt. According to one old 19th century wag, the West is the land of sin, sand, sorrow and sore eyes. Between 1935 and 1942, sheep numbers on Minderoo dropped from 50,000 to 17,000 due to a severe drought. After the floods of 1942, we had a serious outbreak of blowflies. Until then, pastoralists had not had to deal with fly strike. My old man used to tell stories of how the windmill man would comment on something being the matter with the sheep because they were agitated and stamping their hind legs and turning around in a state of unrest. The old man didn’t worry about it for a while and then the same bloke began to report that a number of sheep were lying down and looked sick. When they did eventually take a look, they discovered that the sheep were fly-struck. They’d never seen it before and they didn’t know how to handle it. The old man got C.J. Deykin to bring the shearers in as early as possible, and when they began shearing they found more than half the sheep had been struck. The shearers demanded more money and compensation for lost time. It was a disastrous clip that year and we lost ten thousand sheep. The next year we tried some hand operated sprays to treat the condition. But by trial and error, we discovered the best way to control fly was to shear in May rather than August. In the late forties, we put in a circular dip and that made a big difference. About twenty-five years later we began the practice of mulesing and that, combined with dipping the sheep, solved that problem and the less prevalent problem of scab. 38

Not a Manager’s Bootlace My old man wanted me to run 50,000 sheep but I never did because it was too many. The closest I got to that was 45,000, but I knew full well that it was too many for the property to carry. By this time the Lands Department, who leased the land to us, had started to exert a little more authority and sent inspectors to stations to check the condition of the land and the condition of the stock. The inspectors would camp at the shearing shed in the shearers’ quarters for a couple of weeks while they carried out their work then they’d report their findings to the Lands Department. I was given a copy of their report that I sent to my father and his cousin who were managing the station from the office in Perth. All stations run on 99-year leases. They are leased from the state government at a set fee. Conditions attached to the rent include developing the property and looking after the land, with one water source in every paddock. As time moved on, restrictions on the number of stock for optimum land care were suggested but not always put in place. By the 1960s and 1970s, station land degradation reports prompted the Lands Department to request pastoralists to cut down on stock numbers by a third, and in some instances, by two thirds. Environmental protection was a new science and not well received by the industry. In effect, this period was the precursor for the shift to sustainable industry in relation to economic profitability but it took some years for new attitudes of related responsibilities to penetrate the pastoral industry. At Bidgemia in the Gascoyne, Lachy McTaggart was advised to cut his numbers by two thirds, which meant cutting 45,000 down to 15,000. He fell out with the Lands Department but in the end they reached a compromise. In good years, Minderoo could run between thirty and forty thousand sheep. We mustered twice a year, and we’d shear once a year. The wethers were mustered once a year 39

Don Forrest - My Story for shearing then we’d sell off the fats and tip the rest out for another twelve months. The ewes were mustered twice a year because we had to mark their lambs before they got too big. The second muster would also collect the woolly stragglers. The whole station was mustered once a year by a team of about six men on horseback. In the early days we were only able to muster 80% then collect the stragglers later. By the time aerial mustering had been adopted the percentage increased to 95%. The new method was three times faster and far more effective. When motorbikes and aerial mustering came in, the old mustering plant, reliant entirely on horses, became redundant almost overnight. Occasionally we’d use a horse float to take a couple of horses out if the terrain wasn’t suitable for bikes but mustering on horseback was slower and less efficient. Mustering has always been a physical job, and one way of keeping the stockmen happy was to ensure they had plenty of tucker at the end of the day. The camp cook was always the most important man in the camp. The cook at the homestead was every bit as important. Station work in the Pilbara is dusty and dirty, laborious, routine, and potentially boring so the highlight for every member of staff is the evening meal eaten in the relaxed atmosphere of the mess. We were lucky to have Joe Joseph, our cook, for more than twelve years. He may not have been the best cook in the world but he wasn’t the worst either. After he retired at the end of 1949, the staff was subject to a number of less than delightful culinary experiences for six months until Maria Gruczyk arrived. She and her husband Josef were Polish. They had migrated to Australia under new regulations that included Eastern Europeans who had to complete two years manual labour in the country before they could take up residency in settled areas. It took some weeks for 40

Not a Manager’s Bootlace her to adjust to cooking plain station fare but at least the results were edible. By the time I arrived she had it down to an art and played a big part in keeping the troops happy. Of course, the language barrier kept conversation to a minimum. They had no children but Maria had two cats that she loved with a passion. The cats turned out to be my undoing in her eyes. During the summer of 1953, Jeff Cowling and I often camped on the tennis court to enjoy the cool night air and on occasions we would entertain ourselves by shooting flying foxes—fruit bats that looked like rats with wings—that lived in the date palms at the side of the homestead. These flying foxes were a terrible nuisance, always dropping dates, urinating, and also creating a disturbance when they landed on the homestead roof. To shoot these pests, one of us would hold the torch and the other would use the shotgun. One of our targets turned out to be one of Maria’s cats. It fell with a crash onto the tin roof. Maria was inconsolable. She cried for days when we apologised for the mistake, and gave Jeff and me the cold shoulder for weeks. Then, unbelievably the same thing happened again! The cat must have been a hunting flying fox because when we shot what we thought was one of them, there was an almighty crash on the roof and we looked at each other. ‘That was a big one,’ said Jeff, but it wasn’t. Cat number two was no longer. Although we could see the funny side of it, we knew Maria would not, so we decided rather than go through that emotional scene again we would bury the body some distance away in the sand hill. We stumbled through the dark with the body till we found a suitable site, dug a hole as deep as we thought necessary and buried poor puss. We stole away like thieves. Next morning was Sunday and we woke to the most ear- piercing screeches I’ve ever heard. We had forgotten that the Gruczyks always went for a Sunday morning walk dressed 41

Don Forrest - My Story in their Sunday best, and we found out later that what Josef thought was a stick, had turned out to be the cat’s tail and he had pulled the cat up right in front of Maria. No amount of apologising would sooth Maria. ‘I must go now Mr Foreshore Don,’ she said. She and Josef left Minderoo very soon after. They bought and ran a boarding house in North Perth which seemed to go well until a tree fell on the back of the house and demolished the kitchen. That was enough bad luck for the Gruczyks. By the end of 1955, they had returned to Poland. 42

Managing Minderoo Before the war, all stations had a zero tolerance towards alcohol for staff. No employee other than the manager was allowed to drink, but of course there was always ways and means if a man was desperate enough. I had thought the rule a bit harsh until my experience with Frank Dwyer caused me to reconsider. Dwyer was a well contractor. He could sink a well and build a tank with considerable expertise. Peter Corbin had been anxious to get him while he was in the district and paid Dwyer £2 per day—double what the most experienced station hand was earning. In the nine months he was working for Minderoo, he put in a lot of stock grids to prevent stock going from one paddock to another, he put concrete cylinders down wells quickly and efficiently, and he knew everything there was to know about the station work. But Frank Dwyer had a problem. He was an incorrigible drinker. Every now and then he would run right off the rails. Johnson, a young fellow about my age, was off-siding for Frank and after a couple of days working on a mill about ten kilometres out, he came in and said he couldn’t handle working with Frank any longer because he had not stopped drinking since they’d left the homestead. I asked him if Dwyer was still out there, and he said Dwyer was out in more ways than one. He was lying paralytic by the mill. He thought Frank had been 43

Don Forrest - My Story on method because he’d drunk the case of beer and the bottle of whiskey that he’d taken out with him. I decided we’d better drive out and by the time we arrived Dwyer had sobered up a bit. He knew he was in trouble and tried to pull himself together but he was very red in the face and obviously still drunk and babbling his excuses. I told him to bring the vehicle back to the station but he indicated that he couldn’t drive so I told Johnson to pack up the camp and bring him in. I was livid. I told him that he had to dry out or clear out. Of course he didn’t dry out, so I wrote him a cheque and terminated his contract. I told him to get out and never come back. He was well used to hearing this because most of the stations he worked for ended up doing the same thing. Sometime later he still hadn’t gone so I went to find out what was keeping him and discovered his bunk empty. I asked around and was told that Dwyer was over at the Aboriginal camp so I marched off in that direction and discovered him over there hiding behind a door. The following day we found him rolling around on the floor near his bed, clutching his stomach. I accused him of thieving but I doubt he heard me. He kept saying that he was bloody crook. He had no idea what he’d been drinking so I looked at the empty bottles. He had been drinking ammonia. He was so far gone that he couldn’t tell ammonia from metho. I had a feeling he was not going to make it so I grabbed a vehicle and carted him in to hospital. He was in a bad way. After they stomach pumped him he was admitted to a ward where the staff worked miracles and he survived. He never came back to Minderoo and he died five years later. In my mind, Frank Dwyer was the embodiment of unadulterated alcohol abuse. Alcohol had ruined a talented man. With the memory of him rolling about in self-inflicted agony, I had no difficulty in controlling the amount of beer I 44

Managing Minderoo allowed my staff. It was one bottle per head per night for white staff only because the law forbade giving Aboriginal hands alcohol, but even that was too much as far as my father was concerned. He capitulated when he realised I was adamant. I disagreed with my father’s ideas on many things but my upbringing forbade me to challenge him openly. Propriety was the basis of my conciliation. And during those first few years after Peter Corbin left, I was glad of my father’s advice even if it was unsolicited. In May 1952, I had taken on a bloke by the name of Wren. He didn’t seem to have much experience with stock but as he was so keen for the overseer job and willing to learn, I decided it was worth giving him a go. As it turned out, I’d made a bad decision. The main problem with Wren was his attitude to the men. He just could not handle them on the muster. In the first four weeks two of the men walked off the job because they ‘couldn’t stand the bastard’. As a result of the complaints that Wren didn’t know what he was doing, I promoted Hayman to head stockman hoping this might pull the men together as a team. A few days later the whole team excluding the Aboriginal stockmen met me at 16 Mile and gave me an ultimatum: sack Wren or they were off. I was in a terrible pickle. The shearers were booked and I couldn’t abandon the muster. This called for desperate measures and an immediate resolution. My impulse was to take over myself but I managed to resist. In the end I promoted Hayman as overseer of the mustering camp and sent Wren in to the homestead. I was convinced that the men were decent types and not a bad bunch like last year’s. Thankfully I was right. Wren’s biggest problem was the way he barked orders. I chatted him about it but he just couldn’t mend his ways so I gave him a month’s notice. My 45

Don Forrest - My Story father’s response had been, ‘You should have thrown him off the property!’ I smiled. He hadn’t seen the size of the man. My next dilemma was a bit more delicate and I did need my father’s advice. It concerned our native staff. I reported to him that: ‘As I am anxious to retain the native staff, I suggest doubling their wages. Jimmy the spokesman came to me yesterday wanting to go to Uaroo today. I’d said O.K. then he said that he thought Jessie wanted to go too, which naturally meant the whole lot. I said I think better you all go in 12 days’ time. That is, after the coming Vice-Regal visit. Jimmy seemed content enough but the rest were unhappy. You see they have been waylaid twice before with promises to be able to go later on, and they will always want to be moving on when everywhere else natives are receiving higher wages. Yanrey, Uaroo, Wogoola, Towera, Winning, Lennards all pay higher wages than we are paying here. We pay Dennis £2/10/-, Jimmy £1/10/-, Jessie £1, Junadown 15/- and Rocklea 15/-. It’s pretty obvious that we are not likely to get any more or better types unless we are prepared to pay more. The Strouds at Towera, as you know, have plenty of natives—the picture shows being a big attraction. I hear Lennards are following suit and getting a machine also. The likelihood of keeping natives here are not very bright unless we offer the same. 46

Managing Minderoo What about going to Kodak and pricing equipment? I would be prepared to go you halves. This is only one suggestion but I think we will have to do something to keep the natives.’ Having moved on from Minderoo in July the previous year, Aboriginal people had begun to drift back again by March and we were pleased to see them. It would have been a significant loss had they decided to move on for good after Jimmy’s request. I felt sure we could encourage them to stay, particularly as few drifted back from Onslow where the children went to school. The women were looking after their children and the men had followed but they had nothing to do, no role to play, so some turned to drink and others drifted about looking for work. It was a time of changing long established ways for everyone. Jimmy had brought his group’s expectation to us and we needed to respond in a positive way. About this time, I was pleased to find Scotty and Maggie drifting back to the station. Scotty Black first came to Minderoo in 1946. He was about my age and had been brought to my father’s attention by Tilly, an aboriginal girl. Tilly had been a great companion for me at a time when there was no one else on the station about my age, apart from her brother, Mickey, who was a bit older and preferred his own company. Mickey and Tilly had come to us from Yanrey station about 1924 when Tilly was three and Mickey, five. Their mother, Nellie, a kindly half-caste woman, had died at Yanrey and the Native Protector asked my mother if she could give them a home because Mrs De Pledge was in hospital and the children were being cared for by two very old 47

Don Forrest - My Story Aboriginal relatives who could hardly look after themselves. My mother welcomed them. She was fond of Tilly and taught her how to read and write. Whenever I was on holiday from boarding school Tilly would be sent out with me to go shooting or riding. In fact, it had been Tilly who taught me how to skin kangaroos and perform a number of other important bush skills that, being a carefully brought-up station boy, I’d never learned. She was a good rider. We used to take a rifle on horseback as a matter of course, and she taught me how to carry it safely—never ride with it loaded and never point a gun just for fun! We were brought up with .22 rifles that could do a lot of damage so I learned to respect them. We shot at a lot of kangaroos and eventually I became a decent shot. When I was eleven, my mother recorded in her diary on 22 December 1939 that: Mervyn, Burton and Don went to Wyloo. Spoke to M tonight on the phone: Don had shot 3 roos on the way up. The wee lad! A very good shot. He’s been doing a lot of that (shooting) lately. Tilly and I used to bring the roo skins home and peg them out the way she’d taught me so they would dry, and we could get them ready to sell when we had about thirty. Then we’d bundle them up and ship them down to the Perth agent, Bateman’s. Sometime later I’d get a cheque for the skins. As far as Scotty Black was concerned, my father’s story was that in 1946 when he was on his campaign trail, Tilly was working in Lock Hospital in Port Hedland. She approached him and, in the course of their conversation, asked him to find work for a ‘good fella’ by the name of Scotty Black. She said Scotty was desperate for a job because the police were after him and 48

Managing Minderoo were going to put him in jail if he didn’t have a job, so my father had given him one. The old man was always pleased to point out what a good judge of character he was because Scotty turned out to be Minderoo’s longest serving, most reliable, and capable stockman. What my father had never mentioned, and chose to ignore, was that Scotty, who was born at Mulyie Station and had been working at Ettrick Station, had been one of a mob of Aboriginal strikers camped at Twelve Mile Creek just outside Port Hedland. In May 1946 I was oblivious to the industrial action taking place. The strike had been decided four years earlier—in 1942, when a white prospector/labourer named Don McLeod and four Elders from Pilbara communities began discussing ways to improve working conditions for Aboriginal men in the industry. These conditions included being paid cash for their labour and being supplied with reasonable accommodation and facilities. I was curious to see just what the situation had been at Minderoo in 1942 because, as far as I was aware, the strike hadn’t affected us.. It is a sad but true state of affairs that Aboriginal men working on stations tended to be uneducated, drank too much alcohol if it was accessible, weren’t always easily understood and had a cultural lifestyle considerably different from ours and were therefore considered to be inferior. But a good overseer did not treat Aboriginal station men any differently to the other men. As far as he was concerned his job was to get the best out of all of the men and he did that with respect and humour. I think there was an Aboriginal leader among the men but the Aboriginals would answer to the overseer—just like all the others—and the overseer would give out the instructions such as, ‘Now you fellows going to muster north Picul paddock today so get the horses in, saddle up and get a crib from the 49

Don Forrest - My Story kitchen and bring the sheep into such and such a mill, and when you get home you can knock off. Away they’d go and then he’d remind them to ‘make sure you wash them horses down when you get home!’ Many of the blackfellas were exceptionally good riders and, as far as I could tell, seemed to be quite happy doing their work for about £1 a week. The men got paid but the women didn’t. The women were fed and kept in clothes, given dresses. I remember one old girl never used to change her dress even though my mother would give her a clean one. She’d put the clean one over the top of the dirty one and then put another one over that until she had on about seven dresses. Four years before the strike, Don McLeod set about talking to the Elders about better conditions and pay in hard cash for Aboriginal hands working on stations. He successfully convinced the Elders that these changes could be achieved by striking—a labour tactic previously unheard of in Aboriginal communities. The strike had been set for 1 May, International Workers Day; also the first day of the shearing season. But in 1942, Australia was at war, so it was agreed that the strike be postponed until World War II was over. Shortly after peace had been declared, word of the impending strike was spread by an Aboriginal man named Dooley. Against his employment contract that required him to ask permission to leave the station where he worked, Dooley had pretended to visit relatives and gone from station to station, giving instructions about how to join the strike. And so, on 1 May 1946, hundreds of Aboriginal station workers walked off twenty stations, in breach of their agreements. As the serving member of the Pastoral and Graziers Association and Member elect for the Northwest, my father would have visited the strikers’ camps to talk with the strikers 50

Managing Minderoo and support the police in their efforts to convince the strikers to break up—or go to jail if they continued to be in breach of their employment contracts. So it looks as if Scotty was lucky to have met Tilly, and that my father respected Tilly’s judgement that ‘he good fella’. In 1949, Aboriginal pastoral workers won improved conditions and Award rates. Times were changing—and the strike changed both the industry and Aboriginal working conditions forever. Many Aboriginal pastoral workers never returned to the stations they had walked off: many of those displaced Aboriginal station workers and their families lost a lifestyle that, although imperfect, was less destructive than the new lifestyle of unemployed fringe dweller. There were some people who had not heard of the strike. They were all related to Captain, a full blood Aboriginal man who had been brought to Minderoo in 1943 by Bedford Delaporte after he left Rocklea Station. When Delaporte died in 1946, the Aboriginal families stayed on. They continued to live in their own camp over the sand hills behind the homestead where they blended their traditional Aboriginal lifestyle with their work on the station. They were still living there when Scotty came on the scene in September 1947. Peter Corbin had been given the job of supervising accommodation for Scotty away from the other Aboriginals. What Peter had built wasn’t an elaborate affair by any means, but it was weather proof and consisted of two rooms with a breezeway. I’m not sure if Scotty merited special treatment because he was a strike-breaker and my father had promised him better working conditions, or if it was a matter of him being from a different Aboriginal group, but whatever the reason, it served him well. When he came back to Minderoo in 1952, he lived happily in his quarters for many years with a few different partners. 51

Don Forrest - My Story Recently I came across a letter dated October 1947, from my father to Sam Salmon, who was managing Minderoo at that time. It shed some light on Scotty’s special treatment: When I spoke to Scotty some time ago about going to Minderoo and also about marrying Tilly, I told McBeath of Native Affairs that I would see that accommodation would be provided and that they would be kept apart from the other natives. I rang McBeath this morning about Tilly. He told me that he is waiting to hear from Scotty… I am very pleased that Scotty is turning out so well. If he marries Tilly, they will both be very useful on the station and it will pay to keep them as I understand Tilly is a very good cook. I’ve never established if Tilly did marry Scotty but if she did, and she did come to live with him at Minderoo, she didn’t stay long. The first partner that I knew Scotty had had was Annie, who’d had a relationship with Delaporte. While she was Scotty’s woman, she gave him two sons, namely Alan and Ian Black. May was Scotty’s next woman, and then Elizabeth Dowton, who was still his partner when he died in 1983. Scotty was a tall, good-looking fellow, clean-cut and good-natured. He was friendly and had a great sense of humour. He proved to be an exceptional station worker and, throughout my years as manager of Minderoo, was an integral part of the smooth running of the day-to-day operation. I was very glad to have him around when the 1953 cyclone hit. It started blowing from the east mid-morning and gradually built up and built up, and by nightfall it was raining heavily. The wind speed was between fifty and sixty miles an 52

Managing Minderoo hour and the lashing rain horizontal. By midnight it was well over a hundred miles an hour according to the Met station in Onslow. By this time the wind wasn’t roaring, it was screaming. It was the most terrifying noise I’d ever heard. Then there was a lull—an eerie silence that made my hair stand on end—and slowly we heard the wind stir and pick up speed again. It came in powerful gusts from the same direction but it didn’t get to screaming pitch all of the time because it would stop then away it’d go again; stop for a few minutes, then another roar. We were absolutely horrified by the strength of the winds and the torrential rain, and feared the destruction of everything in its path. Amazingly, the damage wasn’t as severe as we had anticipated. On the eve of the cyclone I asked the men to come up to the homestead where the powerplant was running full bore and I invited them into the sitting room. It was still quite windy and every now and then we’d hear the engine change tone because another power line would get crossed and we expected the lights to go out. Anyway, six of us were sitting there and I opened a bottle of whisky and passed it around. I noticed the bookkeeper helped himself to a large glass then passed it round. Next morning, I asked him if he was alright and he said he’d never been so scared in all his life. We could all see he was still shaking. When the wind had died down, we inspected the damage. Scotty and the Aboriginal hands were already out there waiting for me to tell them what to do. All the trees were wrecked and for the first time we could see right across to the windmill on the other side of the river. All that was left of the white gums were white sticks all the way along the banks of the river. They didn’t get ripped up as much as stripped; absolutely denuded. The cyclone had also lifted the roof off the shearers’ quarters’ 53

Don Forrest - My Story kitchen, and half the roof off the front veranda of the homestead. It annoyed me that if the roof had been absolutely spot-on in the first place it wouldn’t have been damaged. In a certain section of roof the special bolts used to hook the storm battens down hadn’t been used. The storm battens had been bolted through old timber, and the bolts that had been used pulled through and away went a good portion. Fortunately the shearing shed had withstood the onslaught. It had been an English prefab construction with a steel frame so it was very sound. We lost six or seven windmills, which were flattened on the ground. Twenty windmill heads were smashed, and miles and miles of fencing washed down. On the upside, we had plenty of rain! Later on, the river came down in a flood meaning that the hinterland had had big rains too. If it had been local rain, the hinterland would have missed out altogether and we wouldn’t have had the river flooding. I never asked Scotty where he and the other Aboriginal hands had been throughout the cyclone, and he never told me. I did notice that his quarters were still in one piece. His cottage had stood like a phoenix rising from the pile of branches and debris that surrounded it. He and the boys were not at all upset by the experience and set off on the laborious business of checking the damage to stock and mills out on the runs. Scotty was a willing and able worker. He was pleasant to be around because of his quiet, confident manner. Later, we named the dam wall that we built at Three Mile crossing in 1959 “Scotty’s Wall” after the man who had done the main share of the work. Three Mile is where fresh river water and tidal salt water meet on the Ashburton River. Since 1908, it had been considered as a possible solution to Old Onslow’s desperate water shortage, but that possibility and the later one of piping water from Ten 54

Managing Minderoo Mile pool never got off the ground. Old Onslow never solved its water shortage. In 1934, my father had built a brush wall at Three Mile with the intention of banking up the sand and gravel that washed downstream, and so creating a fresh water pool. But it didn’t work. He tried again in 1937 but that brush wall also washed away. Then, in 1958, I was successful in persuading the company directors to build a stonewall similar to the retaining wall that had recently been erected along the seafront at Onslow. Having overcome the problems of shire planning, sourcing equipment and blasting, cutting and carting the stone, the next big problem at Three Mile was the tide. We soon discovered we would have to build a temporary earthen wall fifty yards downstream to contain the highest king tides. As overseer, Scotty’s job had been to shape every rock to a uniform sort of size and lay them in position so that all we had to do was use the line level. He never complained. It took three months to construct the wall. The six-man work party camped down there for the entire period. I went to and fro between the camp and the homestead twenty miles away bringing stores and equipment. It was a mammoth task made memorable by the mild mannered ‘seeds and weeds’ officer from the Agricultural Department who played the most beautiful music on his gramophone. He recorded bird songs and made them into records. Blokes like him helped entertain us bushies after the days of tedious, hard yakka. The river ran just as the wall was completed. We soon discovered it leaked quite badly because we hadn’t sealed it. Two years later we were fortunate to find a competent tradesman in Bill Bell who put a concrete face on the upstream side of the wall and rendered the wall leak-proof, except for the effects of exceptional ten-year spring tides that enable the sea to pollute the water. 55

Don Forrest - My Story Forty years after the wall was built, artist Sam Fullbrook claimed that it should have been called ‘Fullbrook’s Wall’ because of his input. Certainly, Fullbrook had been the quarry man working on the wall and his advice had been valuable but no more so than the resourcefulness and labour of other members of the work party. We weren’t sure if he was serious or not, but we had a good laugh all the same. Scotty was fiercely proud of his Aboriginal culture. His stories and the knowledge of the bush he shared with my children played a major part in their affinity with Aboriginal people. Scotty taught my kids about the Aboriginal connection to the land and gave them an understanding previous generations never had. He taught them respect for the bush and how to take care of themselves by recognising good and bad bush tucker. He showed them which insects were dangerous, such as the woolly caterpillars that should never be touched because even the slightest contact with skin caused severe itching. He taught them how to identify kangaroo, emu, dingo, fox, and goanna tracks, and to note the long snake’s trail that showed the direction of travel. He was a patient teacher and a determined dingo trapper. My sons hold Scotty in high esteem, and they’re proud of their names in Scotty’s language—Mungaridi and Nindigu. Scotty was a clever entertainer. He would perform his one-man corroborees wherever he had an audience. On a particular fishing trip he enacted his crocodile dance—lying on his belly in the sand, squirming like a crocodile then jumping up and snapping his hands like jaws then walking on his hands, repeating the movements of sliding on his belly dragging his feet as if they were the tail of the crocodile then suddenly jumping up and snapping at the kids. He was very fit and the kids screamed and laughed at his performance. Another time, 56

Managing Minderoo he asked me to take a photograph of him in his traditional dress. He posed, standing on one leg as Aboriginal people do, spear in hand, body and face painted, looking very dignified. He was a proud man. Scotty’s Aboriginality dignified his work. He was well respected, by black and white stockmen alike, for his knowledge and non-discriminatory attitude. He was the head stockman because he was the best person for the job. He was also a dedicated family man, as we know from Peter Corbin’s letter to Harold Cullingworth at Mulyie Station in April 1947, wherein Corbin said, Dear Harold, … I have a half-caste boy, Scotty Black by name who has been here for about eighteen months. He was bred at Mulyie Station and has requested me to get information concerning his mother, a native woman named Roaney who was at Mulyie when he left the district about September 1947. I would be grateful for any information you could give me as the boy Scotty is worrying over the fact that he has heard nothing of her for some considerable time… Kindest regards, Peter Corbin. Shortly after the letter was sent, Scotty reported sick and was in and out of hospital as he waited to hear about his mother. 57

Don Forrest - My Story In July, he and Maggie and the kids left Minderoo. It is probable Scotty went in search of his mother. We’ll never know for sure, but later, knowing how important Scotty’s family at Minderoo were to him, I believe he would have kept searching until he succeeded in finding his mother. Scotty was not one to give up. Horses were essential for sheep and cattle mustering in the Pilbara up until the mid-1970s. When I first became manager of Minderoo in 1952, there were at least fifty horses on the place. There would have been twenty in the working plant and about twenty brood mares and foals. The rest were pensioners. After horses got to the ripe old age of fifteen or sixteen we’d tip them out into the pensioners’ paddock, which was usually one of the better paddocks where they’d be happy on good feed and water. Usually the pensioners’ paddock was a place called South Picul, a good-sized paddock of about 20,000 acres with a dam in each corner. Occasionally, we’d bring in the pensioner mob and select one to help out. Otherwise the retirees would be left out there to live until their dying day. The working mob would be between fifteen and twenty. They’d be in a close paddock. Usually we’d need between twelve and eighteen because ideally there’d be six musterers and each musterer would have three horses. Each stockman would be allocated his horses before the muster started and they’d be his horses for the next few months. Returning from mustering the working mob would be turned out on the best feed available in a smaller paddock than the pensioners had but quicker access when needed. Of course, the romance of riding horses tends to diminish when you do it for a living. I remember my first painful accident when I was out riding a quiet old horse called Minx. I was about fifteen years old and a bit unsure of where exactly I was on the property so I was looking for a boundary fence as a guide. I’d 58

Managing Minderoo seen a mob of sheep from the sand hill where I’d pulled up to scan the country for the boundary fence and, using the sheep as a marker, I set off at a canter to go around them but suddenly I found myself and the horse taking a dive over a fence that I had not seen covered in Spinifex. We flipped over the wire and I hit the ground with a thud. Minx landed square on top of me upside down. I was pretty stunned but very lucky not to have broken my neck. Minx rolled off my legs and I was able to get up but I was covered in Spinifex prickles and dust. I was also lucky that the old overseer Delaporte was not far away. He’d been keeping his eye on me because he knew I didn’t know the country particularly well. He rode up, saw that I was alright and standing up although looking pretty shaken and said with a chuckle, ‘What are you doing mustering another man’s property?’ I didn’t think it was funny and was indignant that I’d got no sympathy. When he stopped chuckling he lowered the fence and I led my horse across. After tumbles like that, you learn your lesson. From the very early years, by which I mean from my grandfather David Forrest’s time, there has been a Minderoo Stock Book. When I took over as manager, it was two hard- covered volumes. The Stock Book would have the name of every horse; it’s breeding, where it came from, what work it was doing, who was riding it, and any injuries that it might have sustained. It was a comprehensive record of all stock. Since the 1920s, Minderoo had benefitted from a number of good stallions that Uncle Jack Forrest, a racing man like his father Alexander, had invested in to improve the quality of the stock they were breeding for the Indian army on their horse station upriver from Minderoo. Hardy Junction was a pretty 59

Don Forrest - My Story hungry sort of a place but being at the junction of the Hardy and Ashburton Rivers, when the rivers flooded, it grew magnificent feed. This was where Alexander brought a famous racehorse called Wandering Willy that he’d bought in 1894 for £200, to stand at stud. Hardy Junction has been abandoned since 1924 and all the horses and stallions have since been kept at Minderoo. Uncle Jack retained an interest in racing until the early 1950s when he was lucky enough to get two good colts—Liveringa and Aqua Star, sired by the eastern states stallion, Hellespont. At the end of their racing careers, Liveringa was sent up to Liveringa Station and Judy, my wife, and I got the lovely stallion Aqua Star. Unfortunately, we didn’t have him as long as we’d hoped: one day when we got back from the races at Boolaloo, he was standing stationary in the yard, which was quite unlike him. We put a head-collar on him and he came along, but he didn’t particularly want to. We were very upset as time went on as he became more immobile. Finally, we got him into his stall and rang the vet in Geraldton. He said it sounded like tetanus. While we waited for the medication to arrive by mail plane, we put him in a sling out in the yard with a shade over him but by the time the medication had arrived his head was down. We injected him anyway, but it was too late and he died. Judy and I were devastated. We’d had such high hopes for him. Brood mares were recorded in another section of the Stock Book detailing age, colour and makings, when they were served, when they foaled, then the gender, colour, and markings of the foals. Ted Juniper, our overseer at the time, had bought one brood mare on our behalf. He chose her because she had a colt at foot that had been sired by Pentagon, another well- known race horse. We called the colt Tattarang and both he and his mother proved to be good investments although during his 60

Managing Minderoo early training he caused Judy a lot of pain. Even after she had bruised her ribs and strained her back, she insisted on being lifted onto the saddle to continue with his training. As our bookkeeper Bob Patmore recorded: There were moments of apprehension when the stallion showed temper but Judy, a superb horsewoman, seemed to quieten him and gain his confidence rather than to master him: soon Tatters was quickly learning some manners… then we’d return by way of the shady river-side jumping dead timber… then taking the goat track up the steep bank we reached the Homestead… when the horses had been hosed down and yarded I would plod like a reluctant schoolboy to the office and the store. Another brood mare sired by Victorian stallion, Martella Towers—a Melbourne Cup runner—came to us with a very attractive foal at foot. He was the first of a few of our horses that we classified as Australian Stock Horses. We also bought the stallion Lord Boswell, who had been a steeplechaser and threw some beautiful foals, but he was a mongrel to handle. It was his behaviour that prompted Judy to embark on a programme of handling foals as soon as they were born. She had a good eye for a horse and would pick out the mares that she liked best and handle their foals from the very start for a number of weeks. Then she would turn them out and bring them in later for the next phase of training. From the very beginning Minderoo had had its own brand. It used to be “Z” with a bar underneath until a representative 61

Don Forrest - My Story of the Government Branding Department came around about 1960 and declared that all state brands had to have two letters and a numeral. We successfully applied for “Z 1 Z”, which was our original design with an added “Z” and had the added bonus that we would never again accidentally brand upside down. Horse brands were always on the near side shoulder, and on cattle the brand was on the rump. Although Judy and I sold horses, it was never a serious enterprise as we’d bred them for our own purposes. So by the early 1970s when motorbikes were being used for mustering we found ourselves with a glut of unbroken, unbranded and unhandled youngsters. We’d always try and brand them when they were yearlings or a bit younger because branding was always a big deal, taking up a lot of time and needing manpower. We’d always have to throw a horse to brand it, and there’d be quite a pickle if the staff weren’t used to the system. Usually there’d be stockmen who’d know how to handle ropes and put a leg rope on a wild horse. Its first initiation would be the lasso, then leg rope, and then it’d be thrown to the ground and stretched out. If they were colts, we would castrate them at the same time, tar the wound, and let them go. The thought of branding the glut of wild horses led us to advertise them in The West Australian and to our surprise Peter Van Allen of Wyandra Riding School agreed to come up with his truck and have a look. We told him the majority were not even halter broken but that didn’t seem to faze him. He duly arrived some days later and spent some time choosing the most suitable for showing, which was his main interest. He then spent more time halter-breaking them and within days had loaded his selection and was on his way back to Perth. It was a very good outcome, with positive feedback over the next couple of years. Needless to say, it was important to Judy that our children learned to ride well. From a very early age, all three 62

Managing Minderoo children could sit a horse, fall off, get back on again, fall off and get back on again. Judy was a firm but fair-minded teacher. Through horses, she taught our children about taking personal responsibility, finding ways to overcome problems, having compassion, and being resilient. When on the station, they rode every day and they loved taking part in the popular gymkhanas at Winning Pool and at Onslow after the race meeting day. Onslow was fifty kilometres from home whereas when we went to Winning Pool, 120 kilometres away, it was a bit of a hike. They all loved to help with mustering, but as far as Jane and Andrew were concerned, I always had the feeling that they were even happier to be escaping their School of the Air lessons. At that time Bob Patmore was our bookkeeper. When writing his memoirs, he included a story about the children on muster: … The Three Musketeers … sometimes escaping school… would leave early in the morning and spend most of the day in the bush arriving back… sometimes at dusk with a mob of one or two thousand woollies that were to be shorn the next day… if I was in the sheep yards when I saw a cloud of dust presage the approach of several thousand sheep, I would hurry and open the gates for their easy passage. Judy would be on one flank, Jane on the other and Andrew who was six, but on these occasions always mounted on a full size horse, would bring up the tail. To the casual observer he seemed lethargic but had learned by experience that to try and hurry sheep is a hopeless task. Jane was 63

Don Forrest - My Story more flamboyant – mounted on a grey pony that she herself had broken—a pony that she had been the very first to bridle and ride—a pony that bucked her off more than once… she was certainly very grown up in the way of horses. Unbeknown to Jane, I watched her one day taking the mickey out of a Welsh pony that had been too fresh for Andrew. She jumped aboard without saddle or bridle and galloped him round the yard; then she turned him this way and that, using her knees and a guiding hand on his neck. The pony stopped in his tracks, shied, but these standard tricks had not upset Jane. Now the pony was docile and to show her contempt, or perhaps just for kicks, Jane turned back to front and gave his hindquarters a resounding smack. This was too much for the pony’s respect. Into a canter he went and gave a hearty big jump. Jane ate the dust. She picked herself up and went to work. She hit the pony as hard as she could, though her little hands could do no hurt: but he must have found her ferocious snarl terrifying. Then she twisted his ear and snarled… still not content Jane gripped the pony’s nostrils… then she walked away and left him. In minutes Jane was back all sweetness, caressing him, her arm around the pony’s neck crooning into his ear, nuzzling him. Then she was up again, 64

Managing Minderoo cantering happily around the yard. Again she scrambled round and faced the pony’s rump. This time there was no protest. Somebody called and Jane fled away but not before she tossed a handful of hay to the pony. It had been pretty to watch. I rode until I was about fifty. The last horse I rode was a mare that threw everyone, including me. She was a devil. A number of our horses were from the same bloodline and they were all a bit the same. Jane suggested I shouldn’t ride that particular mare because of her reputation for bucking, but I just smiled. We set off and the ride was quite calm at first but by the time I got a mile down the road she’d bucked me off. I was very embarrassed. I piled on again and away we went with a bit more enthusiasm and determination so the last part of the trip out was uneventful—but on the way back, she caught me unawares and bucked me off again. I was very cross and got back on her with as little fuss as I could muster and we continued without incident until we got to the gate where she had bucked me off the first time. And she bucked me off a third time! I was furious. I decided there and then that she would be going and, as soon as I could, I sold her and all of those from that particular line. I couldn’t get rid of them quick enough. You can’t have proven bad horses on a station because they are unreliable and potentially dangerous. That last one ended my riding. I felt I’d been lucky to have survived. As the years moved on, we relied less and less on horses for mustering. By the 1970s, we had advanced to aerial musters with motorbike riders instead of horse riders but even so we always kept a few horses for pleasure. On reflection, it seems to me that the romance of riding in the bush has an everlasting 65

Don Forrest - My Story appeal. My children and their children still love mustering at Minderoo on horseback. Mustering was the first part of the all-important annual shearing program and managing the shearing program was a bit like choreographing a performance. There was a lot of preparation that had to come together on the day the shearers arrived. And every muster was different. If it had been a good season, and if there was no rain, and if there were no problems with the staff, then we stood a chance of rattling through a good shearing in five weeks. Gun shearers like Ron Law consistently shore more than two hundred and fifty sheep per day. Even the shearer who was ‘dragging the chain’ could shear about a hundred and fifty a day and make good money. Shearers were paid for the number of sheep they shore. Shed hands were paid weekly, as were wool pressers. Sheep were mustered into yards at least three hours before shearing, to make sure they had emptied out, by the time they were shorn. This meant that, for an eight-stand team we handled 3,000-plus sheep a day, drafting approximately 1,200 into the shearing shed, then dipping the shorn sheep before taking them away. Naturally, the numbers varied significantly depending on how the season had been. My worst annual tally was 16,000 but that was after a severe drought. I managed a good average of 35,000. The weather affected the process. If it had rained, and the shearers had voted that the sheep were too wet, then shearing came to a halt. On rare occasions, the station manager or the shearing overseer could, at their discretion, declare the sheep wet. Once shearing had halted, it then needed the same process of each shearer shearing the same two sheep he had declared wet, to declare them dry in a secret vote that allowed shearing 66

Managing Minderoo to recommence. This seemingly protracted procedure was due to the fact that many shearers believed, not unrealistically perhaps, that wet sheep were a health hazard, so the decision to return to work was never taken lightly. The other problem with wet wool was the danger of spontaneous combustion, so the shearing overseer was careful to make sure the wool was dry enough to be pressed. This process meant that the program was delayed, and the shearers had to find other jobs to occupy themselves. Some would rest, because shearing is hard work. Others would read the papers, or simply enjoy the break. It was my right to put the shed hands to work around the shearing shed, but I don’t think I ever did that. In the end, wet sheep delays were just another part of the shearing process. Drought conditions, such as we had in 1959 and 1960, were bad in another way because they made the wool very dusty, particularly along the back, right down to the skin. This slowed down the whole shearing process as shearers had to change combs and cutters more frequently and the shearing ‘expert’ was kept busy sharpening the extra tools and servicing the hand-pieces. He was an important member of the team, responsible not only for the tools and hand-pieces, but for the generator, gear, and engine, and often the driver of the shearers’ truck. Dusty wool meant harder work for the shearers, lower tallies for the contractor and for me, the owner, having to present red-tinged wool on the auction floor. Minderoo had a long association with Cecil Deykin as shearing contractor. The company’s last shearing contract at Minderoo in 1985 made it the longest, continuous shearing contract in Australian pastoral history. In 1958, his son, Syd, took over most of the business and ran an efficient operation that met the needs of long-term clients. He also expanded the business to the largest shearing contractor business in Western Australia. Depending on 67

Don Forrest - My Story seasonal conditions, Syd ran between three and four teams for most of the year and contracted all the shearing in the Ashburton, much of the Gascoyne, and a proportion of the Murchison. In 1951, wool had been sold at £1 for 1lb. Soon shearers’ wages increased with a ‘prosperity loading’. But five years later, when wool prices had become less secure and returns reduced, now that the shoe was on the other foot, the Pastoral and Growers Association sought a Federal court decision to rescind the ‘prosperity loading’ and reduce rates accordingly. This decision did not go down well with the Eastern States shearers and resulted in long-standing union strike action. In our State, Western Australian pastoralists agreed to retain the old rates, and to adhere to unionist calls for better conditions. These didn’t happen overnight, of course. It took money to install a kerosene fridge in the mess, to put fly-wire on windows, build better ablution blocks and upgrade sleeping and laundry facilities. They were reluctant to make the changes to facilities that were only used five or six weeks each year. Although I didn’t support unionism, I made the changes at Minderoo before the 1957 season as a mark of good faith. Much as it went against my attitude to compulsory unionisation, the reality was that shearing was a closed shop. I felt this put shearers in a powerful position. The closest call to a strike happened in 1958 when we were shearing stragglers. The wool classer rightly sacked a foul-tempered penner-up who had broken the backs of four sheep by slamming the gate down on them. When the wool classer sacked the bloke, the whole team downed tools. The incident disrupted our program and increased our work load as we tended 3,500 mustered sheep while the wool classer talked to his team about the consequences of breaking their signed agreements. They restarted shearing without further ado. 68

















Managing Minderoo Synnot & Dunbar were one of the oldest shearing contractors in Western Australia. Founded about 1915, they had teams operating mainly in the Kimberley, but also in the Pilbara, where Frank Marks and the Pastoralist and Graziers Association were also working. Synnot and Dunbar and Syd’s teams worked their own areas. They had a verbal agreement not to tender for one another’s sheds, but they covered each other on occasion. I was on my way back from Munda Field Day, just outside Port Hedland, when I came across one of Synnot and Dunbar’s teams bogged in a dry river bed. They’d been there all night and hadn’t got a clue how to get out. They had tried to lift the heavy vehicle but almost killed themselves in the attempt and were just sitting around scratching their heads when I came along. I suggested they cut a long limb from one of the trees to use as a lever and a shorter one to use as a pivot, jack up the axle and pack the gap with sand and bush. Within half an hour they were on their way and I was left scratching my head in disbelief. They must have been a team of townies. During that decade and the next, the industry fell foul of droughts and cyclones. No sooner had we recovered from the 1957 drought and the 1958 blow, than we were in the throes of another blow in 1961—and two in 1963. It was hard to create a financial return for all our efforts during those years. By 1969 things were desperate and continued that way for a number of years. Wool prices were erratic. Costs had to be cut. My old neighbour Joe Elliot, then at Mt Stewart Station, and I discussed the situation at length. We both knew we had to reduce our costs. In the end we decided the most effective way was to approach Syd, who had a contract with both Mt Stewart and Minderoo, and negotiate a lower price for shearing. Joe wanted me to speak with Syd because we were long term 69

Don Forrest - My Story friends. I promised Joe I’d do my best to negotiate a better price but offered no guarantee. After much objection, Syd agreed to drop the price. We both knew this was not in his best interests and I felt sorry to have been the bearer of such bad tidings but, at the time, I was between a rock and a hard place. The meeting with Syd was more difficult than I’d expected and left me feeling very uneasy for many years. About the time wool prices were erratic, Syd decided to take life in another direction. It was the time when Western Australia’s mining boom was just beginning, and building looked likely to boom too, so to make a more secure future for himself and his family, in 1968, Syd decided to go to university. He graduated in Architecture in 1972. He continued in his dual life of running shearing teams, providing the same services for his long-term clients, and working as an architect in the booming building industry until 1985, when he gave shearing away after his partners, Ron Law and Arthur Hayes, retired. In the summer of 1981, Mick and Arthur Funnel earned a place in the annals of Minderoo when they left a pump running and set the shed on fire. They’d been working alongside the shearing shed and had forgotten to turn the pump off before they went to lunch. I saw smoke from the homestead and arrived at the site in time to see the whole roof collapse, and the rest of the building engulfed in flames. There was nothing the men and I could do. It was a depressing sight and a costly accident. Once the site was safe, I rang Syd who was a qualified architect by then, and a member of the Wool Board’s Shed Design and Wool Harvesting Committee, and asked him to help find a replacement. The first thing I did was ask Syd for a quote for insurance purposes. To replace the shed was going to cost in 70