A toy truck, a pile of dirt and some stones, and I could amuse myself for hours. These are some of my first thoughts when I think of life back in the early fifties. I was born early in the previous decade during the second world war. After the war was over, I recall occasionally seeing a tramp with a bag on his back, walking along the road through Gabbin. I also remember watching approaching dust storms which blew from Koorda direction, leaving their mark at Gabbin and continuing on towards Bencubbin. I often marveled at the beauty of the sunsets.

The 1950’s covered a period in my life from the age of nine to nineteen years. Throughout most of this decade, I lived in the central wheatbelt area of Western Australia with Mum and Dad, two brothers Ron and Bill and two sisters Gloria and Yvonne.

During the early 1950’s our family lived near Gabbin, a small siding on the Perth Mukinbudin railway line 160 miles (257 kilometres) north-east of Perth. In the siding there were six houses, two shops, a hall, school and railway station. The siding was surrounded by bush, then there were paddocks of wheat and grazing sheep, extending into the distance. I would sometimes look across the farm land, and on a summer day there was often a shimmering heat haze on the horizon; a future would lay somewhere out there.

We lived in a mud brick house on a twentyfive acre block. Lighting consisted of hurricane and tilley lamps, and we bathed in a portable tub. Cold foods were stored in a Coolgardie safe until a kerosene fridge was purchased from the total proceeds of a wheat crop we grew on the block. A kerosene fridge had a container of kerosene at the bottom and a wick which had to be lit. The homemade ice cream Mum made, was a treat. Dad had a 1928 Dodge. On Sunday evenings we listened to hymns of praise on the wireless.

Yvonne, my younger sister and I, walked a half mile each day to the one teacher school of fifteen students. One year we went to Point Peron to a school camp, and it was exciting for many of us who had never seen the ocean.

During this period I developed a love for music, covering a broad range. I often listened to the wireless, and a favourite programme was ‘piano playing for the dinner hour’. The late Mrs Hilda Williams, a local farmer’s wife started me off with piano lessons. I learnt from her for several months and enjoyed the experience.

Dad broke his leg when he was working for the Bencubbin Road Board, and was laid up for many months in Merredin District Hospital. Early in 1953 unfortunately we lost our house in a flood, and in May that year we moved to Merredin, a larger town 70 miles (117 kilometres) south of Gabbin, on the Perth Kalgoorlie line.

I attended Merredin Junior High School from May 1953 to 1956, and passed my Junior Certificate. It felt strange attending a much larger school. My class had sixtyfour students. Marbles were very popular and were often played on the playground. I liked learning, and also enjoyed the athletics and annual school sports. Once I was chosen to go to Meckering to be in the interschool sports. I was a member of the school cadets and we went to a cadet camp at Northam Army Camp during one school holiday. In 1954 our school went to Northam by train to see the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh during a visit to Australia and everyone had an enjoyable time.

After being in Merredin for several months I managed to get booked in to piano lessons with the late Miss Hazel Bray. I had been looking forward to this and had an enjoyable musical learning experience with Miss Bray. My parents opened up a laundry business called ‘Standard Laundry’. The business went very well, and after two years they sold it to the late Bert and Elise Iverson.

In January 1958 my parents purchased a new Kemble piano. The old piano which was passed down from my late Grandmother had been flood damaged, but with some persistence and obtaining some sympathy, we traded it in at Musgroves in Perth, for the new piano.

In February 1958 I joined the Postmaster General’s Department as a Trainee Postal Clerk. The course involved fourteen months; nine months being trained by the local Postmaster Mr Ernie Walker, and two separate periods of three months and two months in Melbourne. The thought of interstate travel was a pleasant surprise; it made me all the more determined to study hard and do well.

At the Merredin Post Office I learnt counter duties, money order, telegraph and mail work. I also learnt morse code. This was used for sending and receiving telegrams. I had never used a telephone. It was exciting to receive my first pay which was the sum of eight pounds each fortnight. This is equivalent to sixteen dollars.

In March 1958 I flew to Melbourne by TAA Viscount with Brian Ticehurst a Trainee Postal Clerk from Katanning, and we were in Melbourne for three months. We both stayed at a large private boarding house in Kew, and subsequently Brian boarded with friends in Thornbury. We both settled into the training school well with ten other trainees from Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.

The highlight of my trip to Melbourne was attending concert recitals by pianists Claudio Arrau, Julius Katchen, other concert pianists and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Melbourne Town Hall. While attending a recital by Claudio Arrau I had to pinch myself; here I was at the age of fifteen, spellbound; and not many years earlier a boy playing in the dirt at Gabbin. Now I was on the other side of the country, far beyond those sunsets and farm lands, at a concert recital by one of the world’s great pianists of the century.

Click here if you would like to hear a piece that I played in the 1954 Musical Festival at Merredin. The piece is called “As Night Falls” by Alfred Hill and was a set piece for the “Under 14 Years Piano Solo”. This recording was played by me fiftyfive years later on the 31st December 2008.

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