The wind of the outback

Of all the climatic influences of the Outback it was the winds that bothered me the most.  Being in areas where the flat plains allowed howling westerlies in the summer,  and the cold southerlies in winter to cross the land and gain force just before it hit you with a slap on the back that you would imaging came from the  hand of some malignantly minded giant mad man; these were the  times that most bothered me.

All the living quarters had gauze wire mesh around them to keep out the flies and mozzies, and the westerlies resented this intrusion on its dust billowing, debris distributing, swirling, willy willy making journey across the Outback plains.

The morbid howling of the gauze as it tried to restrain the winds to no avail, would constantly hold one note so depressing one had to be very strong so as not to cut the bloody gauze wire out of the frames.

It would catch you unprepared, the wind, every evening, around sundown, it would subside, slowly, until it became a whisper, and a cool  breeze that changed you mind on its terror of the senses.  Then, just as your fists unclenched, your toes relaxed and you mind started to think about dream time,  the beast would rise up and scream through the wire in a last ditch stand to unsettle you completely.

Loosing you hat just as you tried to light a cigarette in the day time westerlies would  be a common matter, and the following 'rodeo' as your horse shied away from the flying Akubra, and your tobacco tin emptied into he wind,  would undoubtedly give the most miserable  of work mates a great laugh, but then again the westerlies had the ability to make many miserable.

The willy willys that would spiral upwards for a hundred feet or more, would attract the Kite Hawks that  sailed in the  updrafts catching the grasshoppers that had been taken aloft.  The dust lifted from these willy willys always seemed to end up either in your pot of tea, in your eyes and ears or as you found out later, all  over the clothes and belongings in your quarters when you got in at night.

These things were a test of  one's resolve, a test of faithfulness to the Outback, and as I was mostly told, 'If ya' survive a year you will survive forever, young fella'.

And so the westerlies blow, the Southern wind gusts, and winter falls on the land like a heavy hand.

From Henry Lawson

One of our great Australian wordsmiths, Henry Lawson, had a special way of describing things that, if you had ever been in the Outback, you would understand immediately.

I quote from a compilation of Lawson's stories titled "Joe Wilson's Mates" and a story called "At Dead Dingo".

'Along, drowsy, half-hour passed - the sort of half-hour that is as long as an hour in places where days are as long as years, and years hold about as much as days do in other places.'

That, folks, explains the boredom of a long, lonely track, among other things in other places (pardon the wit).

The Book

I even get excited about the book, THE BOOK.  This is a novel that I started writing in 1988. After a few chapters I realised the the first person narrative did not suit the story - too many verticle pronouns. So, I went to another method, third person narrative and this seemed to suit my needs. I could then say things about what the characters were thinking, and things that they intended to do, without it seeming that I could see into the future.

Here we are 25 years down the track, and THE BOOK is about to be released. I had almost given up on having it published, mainly because I did not want to edit the story too much, and this is against the rules for writers. One must follow Mark Twain's suggestion and follow the three rules for writers: edit, edit and edit.

The story was put away at times, and after months, and in some cases, years, I would bring it out and edit a bit more.

It was not until the very loveable person known to me as Fiona Gatt, the publisher for MetaPlume, took the story on and showed me more confidence than I had myself in publishing this Adventurious Love story.

Fiona will give it a write up in her memorable style, so please keep your eye out so that I may be inspired to give out more of life in Australia, taken from the 75 years that I have been here.

The classic Australian joker and story teller gets the quintessential treatment

Like any old classic, Peter Rake's short stories are now available like an old LP - an essential collection.

The Fair Dinkum Yarns from the Australian View includes five outback tales by Peter Rake, plus a coupla poems thrown in for good measure (pardon the pun!).

Get set for some laughs, maybe even a tear jerker.

This collection includes:

Arthur
The Awakening
Notty: Targaroo's Disgrace Bar-fly, bludger and sneak-thief turned unlikely hero
The Coachman
The Pup

Available on Amazon and Smashwords as an ebook and in print for all you old fashioned types as well.

The Code of the West

Was there a code of the West in the Outback? Does it still exist? What is the code of the West?

One main thing I could remember, and it is a pity that it is still not 'the code', but anyone that pulled a knife in a fight would not last long in any Outback town. It just wasn't done, and anyone that did was labelled as a "Wog."

Now, I know that word is offensive to some people, but to cover myself from litigation, please recall the book and movie, "The Wog Boy", or expressions like "Wog Football". These expressions are used by many ethnic people in this country to this day.

It is odd, I know, but I never suffered a cultural cringe when I was in the back country. We accepted the Greek Café owners, the Greek and Italian pub owners, and they in turn, accepted us Australians just as though we were actually humans.

In a Greek Café you were sure to get more than you could eat if you asked for a mixed grill, and as many cups of tea or coffee as you wanted.

So, Code #1 was fight fair.

Code #2 was respect the people around you, the ones that would help you out without hesitation, the ones that fought nature's onslaughts, standing side by side with all other men and women of the West.

Code #3 was definitely the hand shake. To shake on a deal was like writing it in blood, and consequently if one reneged on a handshake, there would be plenty of blood to write another agreement. Mainly from the reneger!

To have a reputation for someone that cannot be trusted was probably worse than someone that was a bit of a mug, a fool, as they often could not help themselves.

Code #4, I remember well, was respect women. They were so few women in the Outback towns that it was more awe than respect. I remember only too well young Nerida in Longreach saying "Are you going to stop babbling and kiss me, or not?" I kissed her, but I am sure the red glow of my face gave her sunburn, so much was my awe of the fairer sex.

Don't ever steal from your mates ... this one could be any number but I will give it Code #5. You see, trust features in The Code in a big way, and if you lose your mate's trust, you lose your mate, and many more mates along the way.

Code #6: never leave a man in trouble, be he broken down on a dusty road, hurt in some fall or accident. I say fall, as many of us fell from horses, as well as falling for a girl or falling from the graces of a girl ... lots of falling about went on in the good old days. Life was a bit slower, and we had time to stand by a mate, or anyone else, for that matter.

Code #7, do not be a coward. If for some reason, during a drink or two in a pub, a bloke says "You ... out where the bull feeds," there is a good chance you have been invited to a bit of a donnybrook, out on a patch of grass, grown for that specific purpose in a good few of the Outback pubs.

Being a smallish bloke, I won a few of my fights by at least fifty yards. However, there were the times that I was forced to stand toe to toe, nose to nose, eye to eye, finger to chest and likewise, reciting the well known battle chant ...

"Yeah! Sez 'oo?"

"Me, I sez,"

"Yeah?" Jab with the finger.

"Yeah!" Jab back.

And this would go on until someone in the gathered assembly would say, "Come on blokes, these pair of pansies ain't gunna have a stoush ... let's go have a beer," and off they would go, leaving the combatants standing there glaring until one or the other would say "Your shout."

Later in the evenings the real 'blues' would be on, and some serious, well bet upon, fights would take place. I never saw a coward in my time. Many of these blokes would be the best blokes to have around you as you would ever find. In fun someone might say "YOU! Out where the bull feeds," quickly adding "And if I'm not there when you get there, start without me." But you had to be good mates to get away with that.

Code #8, although you might be called a pansy in circumstances like the one I relayed above, if you showed any sign of being what a pansy intimates you would have no mates, inter or otherwise. I do remember one chap in Aramac, that made advances to a young bloke in the middle of the night, and I tell you, I have never seen such a bloodied, almost corpse, in my life. I never came across him again in Queensland, and although his gear was still at the pub, he never came back for it to the best of my knowledge. Such was the Code of the West.

Editor's Note: These are thoughts and recollections on life in Outback Queensland in the 1950s and 1960s.

Isis Downs

Isis Downs is a place that I spent some of my working life. This photo is from one of many that is around today.

The grass weeds growing on the yards is an indication of the new direction that Isis Downs has taken.  Now primarily a cattle station, in my time it was sheep, and the pointed hard hooves of thousands of sheep at shearing time would leave no weed unturned, so to speak.

It was a large property, 250 000 acres I recall at that time.  Apart from the shed it had three cottages,  one for the farmer, a full time mechanic and one for the local handyman. These blokes were married and had their spouses with them. There was, to the left of the picture of the shed, a 'ringers quarters' with about twelve single rooms for the workers and between the quarters and the kitchen meal room was a meat house.

Beside the kitchen and cook's quarters there stood the Jackaroo's cottage; there were no such thing as a Jillaroo in those days.

Between those buildings, and the horse yards, one could see the Big Boss's place, up in the distance, and in no-mans land, as far as the working class were considered.

A general store in the middle of the area, manned twice a week by the bookkeeper, supplied at a cost, tobacco, cordial, soap, toothpaste and even tooth brushes.  Purchases on the night would be booked to your account and taken out of your wage of sixteen pound sixteen shillings a week if you were a ringer or station-hand.

The stud ram yards were near the mechanic's workshop, and a drop dunny that I helped dig the hole for was in the middle of the open area.

These drop toilets were usually about ten feet deep, which had been calculated by a 'dunny expert' to last a family of four for ten years.

The famous red-back on the toilet seat was a common sight in these little sheds.  However they were expected and dealt with on sight.

There is an adventure that the cook had in this particular double dunny, which I will relate later.

People of that era c1957 included the Manager Bruce Johnston,  Overseer Ian McLennan and Stud Overseer Phil Cameron.  The ringers were Alan and Bede Baker, Joe Saunders, a boundary rider's son, his name was Neil Piddock, I think, a young bloke that had never seen an airplane up close until we took him to the Longreach Rodeo. And of course, yours truly.

Up at the main house Joycie Singsong and Felicity Daylight were the housemaids, both South Sea Islanders.

Names I don't remember: The one armed cook and his wife.  The cowboy or cow milker and general hand, a pommy named Jim.  Two older general hands in the ringers' quarters.  The Jackaroo's housemaid and that is about it, I think.

Good memories of more time ago that I care to remember.

As my publisher said, I must laugh a lot.  That is very true when I create a character,and have that character interact with other characters and start the thread of a story, probably based, very loosely, on something that actually happened.

Using a fair amount of dialog like I do, the characters come more alive than just talking about them in the third person narrative.

Notty was one such character that came alive as I wrote the story.  At first it was my intention to make him immensely disliked by the reader, but as the story progressed,  Notty became somewhat of a hero.

My greatest  joy in writing is to see the characters develop personalities, and at times push the story their way, and not in the manner I first intended.

If some reader should see a resemblance to an actual event in one of my yarns, they could well think, 'That's not that way it ended'.  So, bad luck, in my yarn it ended the way it ended.

The Hand Around Dog: A story in the making is about a designer dog of the Outback.

Long before the designer dogs of today, the labra-doodles, the bull terrier crosses with a Shitzu called a... use your imagination, came FRED a dog designed to do one thing efficiently, and  that was to kill.

Not one particular person owned Fred, and as needs arose, he would be passed around to different blokes to carry out a bit of pig hunting, or kangaroo culling, and to even  pull down a rogue bull or two.

Naturally, great consideration must go into the breeding of a versatile dog such as Fred and following is his Pedigree:

From The Hand Around Dog

"I have a bit of paper that explains Fred's breed lines ... Do ya' wanna' hear em?" Timmy O'Reily asked.

I averted my eyes from Fred, hoping that I wouldn't look him in his yellow and very mean eyes. Fred was not going to get any chance of making the excuse that I challenged him.

Every so often, Fred would test the high-tensile chain to see if it was still holding, and when he gave his best pull you could hear the 'ping' as the toughened steel reached a peak near its capability of tension withstanding.

"Ere' it is ... to start with he was the pup of an American Bull Baiting dog, or Pit Bull over a Rhodesian Ridgeback bitch and a pup from this mating was crossed with an Irish Wolf Hound ... "

There is no doubting the Irish Wolf Hound bit, as the Irish Wolf Hound's most recognisable attributes were on full show every Fred turned his back to us. Not unlike a postman carrying Mallee mail bags.

"Ya' Listenin'? snapped Timmy. "Then, accordin' to this paper, that Irish Wolf Hound cross pup, a bitch, was bred with a Great Dane, then a bitch from that litter was crossed with a big red Greyhound who looked like being a world beater until he had his leg broken by a rival owner. Now, the final touch, of  which Fred is a direct descendant, was a pup from that litter was crossed with brown hyena, just to give him jaw muscle".

"Sounds like the original breeders were serious about the result," was my knowledgeable comment, then another thought came to me, slowly "Do you reckon they got what they wanted in Fred?"

"How would I know, Pete? All I know is I got what I wanted, sumpin' to cull a few big roos out of the front paddock.

"All right Fred, " Timmy told the dog, "Settle back an' I'll bring ya' a couple of roos fer' supper."

I love the laconic expressions that seem to ,only, come from those true blue Australians of the Outback and in a more varied localized variety from folk of the cities.

A typical example is asking someone if they "Have lived here all their life" and they answer "Not yet".

I once said to a Gunnedah farmer, after a good fall of rain, "You would be happy now with all that recent rain".  His reply brought me down to earth.  "It only rained rain, it didn't rain grass".

Probably the best I have heard is a bloke in a pub, trying to get a free beer who accosted a new customer with a overly pleasant greeting, and said, "Are you staying for a beer, Mate".

The bloke said "Yeah, I might have time for a couple".

"Good" says the bar fly "Make mine a schooner".

With that the bloke looked at his watch and hurriedly came up with:  "I just forgot, I've gotta been down town in a couple of minutes,I'll catch up with you later", and off he went.

The usual disappointed look befell the hapless cadger as he sadly said, "I've know that bloke for forty years, and he ain't changed.  He is that tight that if he cut you a slice of bread there would only be one side in it".

We have got things moving now.  Most of the slow start is in line with my  learning curve, which is almost flat-lining.

I would like to discuss how others approach their story writing and I will talk about how I go about writing my stories.

So ,pull up a log, make yourself at my place and let's have a chat.

Old Pete

From Pete's head to Amazon

Just recently Pete and I were having fun imagining what one of his characters might have gotten up to after the end of his story. I could clearly picture her in my head. Pete responded:

"So there you are, you know one of my characters as if she is a real person in a real situation. How do you think I cope with a mob of 'em in me 'ead?"

I told him he probably laughs a lot.

Peter Rake has been telling stories to himself since mid-last century. After the heydays in outback Queensland were over, he started crafting them on paper. Now his stories, and one novel, will be published on Amazon Kindle by ePublisher, MetaPlume.