At the library

I know the great value of the library, although I have not been to the local library since we moved home a year ago, but while studying for Families at War, a subject of the family history course offered by UTAS, I spent a lot of time at the family history part of the Wanneroo library. Where I was given access to photos that had not been sorted but placed in storage to be looked at at a later date .

I borrowed Many books about the 1st world war and sat and read articles that could not be removed from the library.

It was in the library that I read the sad stories about the great great great grandfather of 3 of our grandchildren.

I would like to meet

I have always said I would like to meet my great grand father to ask him who his parents were. But now  my thinking has changed and I would like to meet every one of my living relatives to interview them and record their stories before they become those whose stories are lots in time forever.

Some would have done great things and been many places others possibly think their story is not worth telling as no one would be interested in the little things they did. That is wrong because even the mundane is interesting when you look back.

This is part of what I wrote just a few weeks ago and I have thought a lot of this concept lately.

For life is a journey into endless time and we will be history some day!

So we have recorded, the stories we know, before they are lost on the way.

And we hope now you will do the same as you close at the end of this page,

Have you recorded your story? Or will your story be lost in the grave?

Yes I would like to meet all my living relatives and there are less this year than there were the year before as last year 3 first cousins died, they were siblings, and their stories were only partly written.

The family photo

We took a family photo at a reunion years ago

I’m so very glad we took it for life changes as you know

For in this family photo we’re all cousins smiling wide

Happy to be together in the Blegg family we take pride

But if we take another photo quite depleted it will be

For in 2021 5 cousins lost the fight

3 siblings from one family a girl and two boys

The boys had served in Vietnam and cancer was their plight

Two other cousins went the same it was a year so sad

We could not even meet up  for the funerals as we should

We stayed at home and watched the few who gathered at the church

Said our goodbyes by phone for email seemed quite cold.

Next time we get together if a next time is to be

We’ll remember those who have gone on Like Jan, Stan and Lindsay.

And we may take another photo maybe one with our kids

And remember oft with fondness the cousins that we miss.

Bleggy February 2022

In week 5 of 2020 I wrote about my father at Yarloop in WA this is a little more about it.

DAD AT YARLOOP

Before I was born, or mum had even met dad,

Noel lived at Yarloop, near where they chopped wood,

He owned a bicycle a rickety thing,

but it got him around, with no gears and no springs!

Sometimes when he rode it he ached with the cold

He had to start early for the mill he was bound,

He was told that the way to keep out the cold wind

Was to wrap up in newspaper put it next o your skin!

So although he rustled as he peddled along

He was much warmer and he’d get there on time,

In an old leather case with a handle worn thin

Was an old silver cornet with a dent in the bell,

For his cornet he told me had come from a shop

Where the owner had pawned it and never gone back,

It was slick and ‘‘twas silver and he made it shine,

And for 50 odd years that cornet played fine,

But it never played better than it did at Yarloop

That tiny small place in the West and down south,

The parents were happy the kids came along

To hear stories of Jesus and sing happy songs

When Noel played to the kids in the hessians bag hut

From the photo I’ve seen the kids lapped it up,

The old man he wondered where are they today ?

Those who for a short while stopped in their play

To hear a young fella play his cornet for them,

And then turn his push bike back home once again.

Heather Denholm aka Bleggy

Written before 2012 revised August 2020.

I am a member of the West Australian bush poets and sometime we are given a challenge to write a poem using words we are given

on one occasion I was given.

His footsteps slowed as he walked the road ! 

so this is what I wrote

When dad was quite young he had just begun 

to preach and to visit his flock

Yarloop was his first it was close to his heart

 ‘‘twas a place to him meant quite a lot

His church was all bags, a hut in the Bush 

where he preached to an overflow crowd

Then when he retired he’d visit the town

 tell of weddings or folk he had buried

I never told dad  that Yarloop was no more 

That the place that he loved was in ashes

In Ballarat on that day my dad passed away 

his will said in yarloop spread his ashes

So we sprinkle dads ashes in the soot of Yarloop 

And someone beside me is walking 

For his footsteps slowed as he walked the road 

It was dad and to God he was talking.

Bleggy 2021

Close to home!
when I read the subject I for some reason thought of my dad, Noel Stanley Blegg.

When Noel was 19 he felt called to be a minister, so left his parents and the rest of the family in Tasmania and went to Melbourne to study for what he believed would be his life’s work and calling. He travelled from Hobart to Launceston to board the boat to take him across Bass Strait , on board with him were  his 2 mates Milford and Robert also travelling for the same reason.
After his study was concluded and he was ordained, he thought he may be sent back to Tasmania, but to his surprise he was told he was going to Yarloop in Western Australia. He knew nothing about the place he had never heard of it, he found it wasn’t a suburb of Perth and he would have another train journey to Yarloop a timber cutting town in the south of WA .  Traveling on the same train was another minister also going to the same part of the country also going to Yarloop.
Noel had been given the address of the house he would be living in, when he arrived it was a shed in the back yard of an old house with 2 bunks, a sink, and a small wood burning stove to cook on. It was January and really hot, and by the time they arrived it was rather late, but Noel and Wally were hungry and knew they had to find something to eat, they found some wood and set the fire in the stove, and the only food they found was rice, which Noel really liked, so that would do for tonight, they put some water in a big pan and threw in some of the jar of rice, they both decide that not having eaten since breakfast they thought they might need some more rice to eat so put in the rest of the jar, the rice quickly swelled, to they took some out and added more water, they did this 3 times they had half cooked rice in everything, so when the first lot was cooked they had some to eat, and then had to finish cooking the rest, fortunately they both liked rice so ate it for the next 3 days, plain and with milk and sugar for breakfast! Noel always loved rice, after hearing this story we wondered how he could still eat it!
For the time Noel was at Yarloop he held the church services out at the logging camp in a bag hut but mostly he said outside the bag hut, for music he played a trumpet given to him by his father many years earlier, that trumpet was passed on to one of his grandchildren many years later.

A few years later Noel married and when he was in any of the eastern states when ever  dad and mum had holidays long enough they would drive to Western Australia and they always went to Yarloop.

After they retired and came across to spend some time with us we of course went to Yarloop.
On one of these holidays we found the shed that dad had lived in and worked from, it was his office as well and everything else. It was very small to be called a house, but as most of the loggers with their families lived under canvas perhaps what they had  was better.

I have just written this on the Cafe Facebook page so thought I would add a bit and save it here.

My mothers step father was a preacher at a Pentecostal church in Richmond a suburb of Melbourne in Australia, and he usually preached only on Sunday nights, but the church was near the town hall that had a large clock that chimed the hour, it was very loud indeed, Mr E would watch the clock as he preached, not because he liked to keep his sermons short! But because a few seconds before 8 pm he would say in his very loud voice, are you ready to die, when the death Angel tolls the bell for you will you be ready? And at that precise moment the town hall clock would strike the hour. Of course this would scare any one who didn’t realise what was happening. The only sermon I ever had to listen to from him was one where his text was the joy of the Lord is your strength. He lived in our house and most unfortunately there was no joy of the lord in him, he was the most grumpy, bad mannered man I every had the misfortune to know. Fortunately my parents were different to him mum and dad were mostly very patient with his bad manners and disrespect for mum , so showed me the other side, of the joy of the Lord as he was her strength.

one day I came home from school to find that in the lounge room the old organ was not there, it had been left to mum by her mother, as it had been purchased for her by my mums father. It turned out that Mr E…. had sold it he said he didn’t like it so sold it and he kept the money , that was one time when mums patience got very thin, it upset her so much, to think he could do that.
I was nearly 7 when he left our house, he died, and his 4 very grown up sons who looked very rich and they were as they owned a chain of real estate agents on the other side of Melbourne, turned up to collect all his things, but by all his things they meant all the furniture and everything in the house, mum stood her ground as she had never seen them before they never visited their father nor did he visit any of them but when he died they wanted what they said was theirs. I was told years later that mum gave them his clothes his dirty linen and mattress, then told them to leave. But they wanted the lace mums mother had made, there was quite a lot of it, and them wanting it meant it must have had some monetary value. They didn’t get any of it as mum decided to tell them who some of her friends were, so she name dropped some very prominent people, including one high police official. They left..

About 18 months later mum and dad sold the house and we moved out of central Melbourne, when the new owners arrived to get the key, there was a big black umbrella still standing inside the front door, mum was reminded that it was there and to take it, her reply was, “No you can have it it belonged to my step father and where he has gone it is too hot to rain! “ And so we left the house that had so many good but some really bad memories.

Week 6 taken from 52 ancestors in 52 weeks 2019 

LOVE
I am using this as week 6 as it is the most appropriate subject as Wayne and I were married in week 6 of the year 1972 which was 50 years ago.

Be warned this is a long story but I felt that this would be a good place to record it on paper for the first time.

Wayne proposed to me in August 1971 while we were baby sitting my sisters children. We were in a high rise block of flats in Flemington in Victoria on about the 7th floor. Of course I said yes!

He then asked for my parents permission which was a nice gesture, both families thought we were a good match.

We became officially engaged in September on my birthday, when we celebrated with friends.

In preparation for our February wedding we had to keep in mind that my younger sister was to marry just 7 weeks before us.

We decided that we would be married in the little church that we attended in Mitcham Victoria, my sister had chosen that as well.

I started to get things together for my wedding dress, fabric, pattern etc and chose fabric for my brides maids, my sister who would by then be matron of honour, and a lovely young girl Rose one of the girls from the junior choir that I led.

I decided on a patterned fabric for them and liked it so much I bought enough to make myself a dress later.

Then my future mother in law found out who was to be bridesmaids and sent me a message that she was shocked I hadn’t picked one of his sisters and she was so upset that their family would not be represented in the wedding party.

Mind you Wayne’s younger brother was best man, so they were well represented. I gave in and chose his youngest sister. As a junior bridesmaid, that meant Wayne didn’t have to find an extra man as a partner, and we were trying to keep it small. I chose the younger sister as I would not have had sufficient fabric to make a dress for the older girl.

I soon realised that young sister did not want to be included at all and seemed to hate the idea. But by then it was too late. That was the end of the dress I intended to make myself later.

I think the next thing was early October. Someone set fire to the church and it burnt down to the ground. So another venue had to be found for both weddings, surprisingly it was not hard to do, and our wedding breakfast also had to change from casual as we originally intended to formal sit down as we had to get a new place for that as well.

We arranged the invitations with a printer, he had done my sisters and seemed good. To our shock when the invitations arrived friends were not being invited to my wedding where I would marry Wayne but to me being married to a person with a totally different name!  The printer very quickly got them sent back to him and he said he could not do correct ones as he now didn’t have the time! So we purchased newsagents ones and wrote the information in them, what a let down that was, I didn’t even keep one as a souvenir I was so upset.

Mum made the worlds best fruit cake and that’s what I wanted our cake to be, 3 tiers of mums fruit cake. We would keep the top tier for either our 1st anniversary or the birth of our 1st child .

Mum knew a lady who did cake decorating so with plenty of time took them to a country town so her friend could ice and decorate them.

The time came in the few days before the wedding to pick up the cakes, so coming back home but still on a country road a kangaroo jumped out in front of the car, dad braked hard and the top tier of the cake came from the back seat to the front and smashed! Mum and dad were fine the car and kangaroo were fine but the cake was not fine. They turned around when back to the decorator and she pushed it all back together and added more icing.   So the cake and my parents then travelled safely home. The cake looked great the lady did a great job.

On Thursday the 3rd of Feb I went to the hair dresser just to check the times she wanted us to arrive and get any last minute things ticked off. But the shop was shut! I asked at the shop next door what happened and was told oh she closed the shop as she is on her honeymoon in Tasmania and will be reopening on the 7th of February, but I had a booking for 4 for our wedding! The lady told me there was another hairdresser who may be able to fit us in, so I dashed to that shop explained what happened and yes they could fit us in but very early with another wedding that was just 2 people.

On that same day I took the clothes for myself and the bridesmaids to my parents home as that was where I would be leaving from.  Hung everything up and was assured after making certain nothing had been missed that everything would be fine for the Saturday.

Friday the 4th Wayne was at work delivering and installing a television, the house had stairs at the front and back so he had no choice but to carry a very large set up the front steps, he counted them before picking up the TV from the vehicle, all went well the set was installed, but part of his job was to bring their old TV back to the store room, in the early 70s televisions were either terribly small or very big and bulky pieces of furniture, this sets was the latter, he had no one to help him so he got a good grip and knowing he had counted the steps earlier he started down the stairs counting, what he didn’t realise was that he didn’t count the top step going up, so going down there was an extra step than what he thought, so while he thought he was on level ground there was one more step down! He put his foot forward but nothing was there so he started to fall but managed to not fall also held on tight to the TV he had in his hands, but his ankle did not do well at all, it swelled up and was very badly sprained. He was advised not to walk on it at all just keep your foot elevated for the weekend!

So on the Saturday he stood very very still in the church, as his shoe was very tight on his swollen foot and was not laced up.

So he hobbled beside me holding my hand very tightly, which I took as a sign of his happiness! But it was because he was unable to walk without assistance! We still hold hand when we walk together.

On the Saturday we arrived in plenty of time but as it came time to set my hair the power went out! Due to the heat the State Electricity Commision were doing rolling brown outs, and turning off the power to suburbs for an hour at a time, to conserve power, and prevent an overload blowout. So I had to leave the hairdresser without my hair properly set the way it was meant to be, my sister had to do a rescue of it but it was not how it was intended, my hair was down instead of being on top of my head! That meant I had to restyle my veil and head dress to fit a totally different style.

We quietly drove across to my parents house to dress while trying to work out what we could do about my hair.

I still had my clothing check list from Thursday so checked everything and thought good nothing was left behind, and I had checked at home the night before. The girls dressed and looked really nice. Mum had somehow organised some lunch for everyone, one thing I had forgotten! But when it came time for me to dress my lace jacket was missing, it was no where to be found and it has not been seen since and it took so long for me to make it, as the edges had to be hand sewn. And there was a lot of edge, mum looked in her fabric to see if there was something that could be used to quickly make a new jacket, but we could not find anything, and back then all the shops shut at midday on Saturday.

So I was stuck with a wedding dress with short sleeves instead of a lace top the same style as my going away dress.

We were all ready mum and dad drove in dads car to the church as he was not walking me down the aisle, my older sister husband was, as dad was conducting the wedding service. He was a minister of a small church.

My Uncle arrived with his car decked out in white ribbon on the front to take us and we got going ok, but it was in the car that I found out that my brother in law was not wearing his dark suit but a brown one he had borrowed from my brother, and it was not a great fit. But he had put his suit into be dry cleaned and due to power shut offs the shop had shut locking everything inside. So he had to borrow my brothers, he was happy to just go with a shirt and tie as it was a very hot day. Although suits were traditionally worn at weddings back then.

We had to go across the side of the city and we were about 3rd in line to cross the paper mill railway line when the boom gates closed and the paper train slowly rolled across the road, about 20 trucks had passed and there were about 30 more to come, but we thought that’s ok we have time just won’t have to go round the block before stopping at the church, as we were now not going to arrive early.  Thinking we were fine was an error of judgement, as then the power went out and the train stopped running, as the SEC

Had turned the power of and it would be out for an hour unless someone acted fast. So we sat and waited the car had No aircon as not many did then. The only aircon were the windows and they were down and my extra bridesmaid was windging I’m hot I want to get out of the car, she was quickly told to sit still like everyone else and put up with it, I think if she had got out she may not have wanted to get back in, she was being a pain.

A few people from other cars were out walking around and came to say hello, and wish me luck for the future, then about 20 minutes later there was a noise the paper mill had got their generator power working and the train slowly finished crossing the road. We continued to the church arriving just as our pianist ran out of music to play, as we were late, but my uncle dashed it to tell everyone what happened on the way. But now our make up had almost run off, my hair looked straighter than it had before, generally the day was not going well!

Dad who was notorious for what is now called large bear hands, back then it was very large pauses, dad took one when he was going through the vows with Wayne and Wayne said I Do a sentence early. Which livened up the proceedings for those who noticed, as he then said I do in the correct place. Most other things with the wedding service went quite well and we even managed to record it on my reel to reel tape recorder. I was able to find that reel just a few weeks ago, so I am making a copy of it. With the help of a friend.

We noticed at the end of the wedding service that’s Waynes Aunty and Uncle were not there, we then got a message that his uncle had been rushed to hospital with leukaemia and was very close to death and could we visit him before we left on our honeymoon.

It just was not possible but we did go and see him on our return.

And I also saw my great Uncle before he passed away. We visited him on the same day we visited Waynes uncle. I had never met my Uncle Adam before then.

Waynes grandma turn out to be the original photo bomber she was in the background of every photo, our photographer was able to remove her from the ones she should not have been in.

My junior choir turned up to see the wedding resplendent in their uniforms and made a guard of honour for us to pass through on our way out of the church.

The road to Queensland was flooded and we could not get to where we were going and as we had no place to spend an extra night in NSW we decided the only thing to do was turn round and go home then see what else we could do, as not only were the roads flooded but they had been washed away.

So rather than being stuck in Sydney, we started home. Traffic was very heavy and moving slowly, as we rolled along with everyone else, then beside us appeared a blue light, it wash a mini police car , he booked us for speeding, we know he chose us as he said he saw that we had what was called a Ford Henry, a rather large round topped Ford, and were from Victoria. He even asked why we were in Sydney, Wayne told him we were on our honeymoon, so he said well this will make sure you don’t forget it, and gave Wayne Speeding fine, while cars, braked hard to slow down as they passed us.

The rain fell on the Saturday night and a storm raged on the Sunday. We learned from newspaper headlines that Myers Melbourne basement had been inundated with water and all stock was destroyed, so Melbourne had the same storm, after an extremely hot week of over 100 Fahrenheit.

The really sad thing that happened that was to do with our wedding was when we went to my parents place to collect my very big ginger cat , he decided right then that he would bolt out the door jump the back fence and take off, all efforts to find him failed, I never saw him again, but I hope someone took him in and cared about him.

On our first anniversary we decided to break open the sealed tin that had the top tier of the cake in it, well actually it turned out not to be there at all as all that was in the tin was a most terrible smell and gooey almost liquid mess.  It happened because the cake had been put back together and some icing was mixed with the cake and there were manny air pockets created by the reconstitution.

So we threw the tin and contents out and said well things are going just to form.

We wondered if this state of things would continue, when some friends heard how totally stood on its end our wedding had been they predicted our marriage would not last.

I think 50 years has proved them wrong.

This was written partly because dad loved Yarloop in southern Western Australia, and he died the same day that the town of Yarloop burned to the ground. Dads ashes were actually scattered in Tasmania.

This was also written for a competition and the words I had to use were “His footsteps slowed as he walked the road.”

Dad visiting yarloop

His footsteps slowed as he walked the road

When dad was quite young he had just begun

to preach and to visit his flock

Yarloop was his first it was close to his heart

‘‘twas a place to him meant quite a lot

His church was all bags, a hut in the Bush

where he preached to an overflow crowd

Then when he retired he’d visit the town

tell of weddings or folk he had buried

I never told dad  that Yarloop was no more

That the place that he loved was in ashes

In Ballarat on that day my dad passed away

his will said in yarloop spread his ashes

So we sprinkle dads ashes in the soot of Yarloop

And someone beside me is walking

For his footsteps slowed as he walked the road

It was dad and to God he was talking.

Bleggy 2018