That area became the central west of Queensland. The year early 1956, the kids knowledge of the outback, very sketchy at that time.
The kid has four pound, ten shillings for the train fare to Brisbane from Sydney, and arrives in the, still big country town known as 'Brissy', or the Capitol City of Queensland, Brisbane
He finds himself pretty hungry. He was given some sandwiches, by a kind lady, on the train but that was it since the night before he left home.
Not knowing which way to go next he wandered around Brisbane until the wee small hours of the morning. Passing a suburban house he notices a bottle of milk on a veranda. Wiping the cream from his lips he starts to feel a bit better in the belly department, and this becomes even better as he passes a bakers cart with the horse slowly walking along as the baker ran from house to house delivering fresh bread.
The baker surprises the lad as the boy tears the fresh buns in half, "Hey! Kid, I don't mind ya' takin' a bun, but ya' could at least ask."
The kid decides to walk along near the cart and to ask the baker where he might get some work. The baker eventually determines that the kid wants to go west, so he points him in the direction of a truck stop, which is only about six mile down the road.
"Thanks for that, " the kid says, "and thanks for the buns." He catches the extra bun that the baker tosses to him and heads off on his little walk.
"Hey kid." A truck driver calls at the truck stop, "Do ya' wanna' earn five bob?"
"Yeah! For sure, what do you want me to do?"
"Climb up on the load and untangle that rope, will ya'?"
"yeah! Okay."
The kid deftly climbs to the top of the high load, which is covered by a tarpaulin from one end of the load to the other. The rope comes loose easily, and the truckie pulls it down and ties it off like all the other tie downs.
The kids comes down off the load, after having a bit of a rubberneck at the surroundings from up high, and stands around waiting for his pay.
"Do ya' live around here, mate?" the truckie asks, forking over to the two florins and the shilling.
"Na! I come up from Sydney and I'm looking to go out west and find work."
"What sort of work?"
"Dunno' anything that pays money."
"What about working in the shearing sheds?"
"Dunno' I haven't done none of that work before."
"They'll teach ya' pretty quick, but it's hard yakka, I can tell ya' that much."
"Sounds all right, how do I get there?"
"I'm heading out to Charlieville in an hour, ya' can come along if ya' wanna'."
So it transpires that the kid gets a lift to the heart of the shearing country, there are any amount of jobs around ; however there is also one big snag. There is a shearers strike going on, men are being bashed up for accepting the 'new rate' for shearing sheep. This rate is a rebate on an extra payment when wool was bringing 240 pence a pound, or a pound a pound, that the unions had extracted from the graziers. Now that the price of wool had dropped, the graziers wanted to remove the bonus, the shearers went on strike.
"The Stock and Station Agent said to the kid, "You can go out to Thylungra, the shed has started but they are short of a couple of roustabouts.
Not knowing what the heck the Agent meant, the Kid said,"Yeah! Okay, suits me."
"One thing," The agent said, "Don't go telling anyone where you are going to work, Thylungra is a new rate shed, and you could get ourself bashed up for going out there"
The kid didn't know what was what with the strike, but he didn't like the sight of blood, especially his own, so he kept his mouth shut until he could get on the Mail Truck. The journey took all night and all the next day up until 4.00pm in the afternoon as the Mailman had about fourteen deliveries on this run, with some unloading of large quantities of drench, proto-lick, star pickets for fences and other heavy stuff. The kid pitched in and helped unload, and he was fed along with the Mailman by the station cooks along the way.
The kid was earning four pound ten shillings a week as a junior salesman in a men's wear store, in the heart of the city of Sydney, from which he paid board at home at two pound ten shillings a week, his fares to and from work, which included Saturday mornings, was one pound a week, so as you can imagine the kid lived the high life on what was left, after buying his own clothes,"Now that you are a working man" as mother said.
"Ever done this work before?" the Boss of the Board asked.
"Nope, never." he soon learned the art of picking up and tossing a fleece, and the Boss of the Board expressed his admiration at the lads quick learning.
There were only about 50 sheep to go for this particular contract to cut out, and the shearers got stuck into the last of them. The 'rousies' got into the clean up, and they all headed for the outstation, Bulgroo, to start another contract there. The shearers didn't get any benefit from starting the new contract, it was a gift to the shed hands, one that we all learned to appreciate.
It seemed a bit odd to the kid as they only shore five sheep before the final bell for the day, but when he found out later why they had done this, he was a happy as a pig in a over flowing bore drain mud wallow.
Remember that four pound ten a week? well here the kid earned nineteen pound nineteen shillings a week, plus his board and tucker. The double shed on his first day got him two days pay, a total of 4 hours for ten quid in 1956. waddyarecdkon?
Nothing much has changed: This pic shows the wool rolling table where the 'board boy' , or Picker Uppers throw the fleece in a manner that has the fleece. dirt side down. and fully spread so that the 'Skirters' can pull the burr and dirty wool from around the edge of the fleece. The 'Skirtings' are tossed into the basket and the 'Piece Pickers' then do a bit more of a pick to get the maximum amount of clean wool possible.
The bins are filled with the wool after it is classed and the 'Presser' loads the fleeces into bales and presses them down to a wool pack size. In the early days a bale of bellies could weigh up to four hundred weight, they are a lot lighter these days.
The is the life that the kid spent of three sheds, which were about a month long each, before he looked for some horse work, he could ride a bit, but was sensible enough to never say he could ride, 'cause you would get tested out real quick.
PS: The kid was me, but you knew that, hey?
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