The Coming of the Box

I can’t remember how old I was when we had the electricity connected, but I can certainly remember life before it. We had electricity before Nana and Pa Marsh, but they had the phone before us. The first phone we had in our house was an extension of their line. Palmers Channel 37. Eventually we had our own line, Palmers Channel 44. Not that David or I were allowed to use it. In those days the phone was a luxury, only used when necessary. There was none of this in the door and straight to the phone stuff after school.

Our main source of light at night came from a kerosene pressure lantern, commonly known as a Tilley Lamp. As evening fell Dad would fill the lamp, check the wick, and pump up the pressure of the kerosene and light the lamp. From time to time the pressure would need a boost to keep the light burning. We also had a few kerosene lanterns that were nowhere near as effective.

I remember a kerosene refrigerator. It had a small freezer compartment - probably very small - that seemed to spend a lot of time frozen over. There was also a meat safe that hung under the persimmon tree at the side of the house. The tree itself was a bit of a draw card for flying foxes, but that was in the days before they were a protected species.

The electricity didn't bring instant change. Mum stilled used the wood stove for many years. As David and I grew one of our regular chores was to cut the wood and carry it to the wood box. This, especially the task of cutting, didn't seem a chore. It carried with it the feeling of growing up, something to feel good about.

Once, when I was quite young, I was playing on the wood pile in bare feet - bare feet being normal in those days. Among the wood supply was an old fence post that had a piece of barbed wire attached. I can't remember the screams, but I can still see that wire stuck in one of my toes and remember the trip to the doctor to have it removed. Another time I broke my arm in a fall on the wood pile.

It goes without saying there was no hot running water. When it came to bath time Mum boiled a kettle of water on the stove and poured this into the bath tub. Cold water was then added to cool the bath to a suitable temperature. It was barely enough to cover the bottom of the tub. It was similar with the dishes. We had an aluminium dish that was used only for the dishes and perhaps food preparation. It was placed on the bench, the kettle boiled, poured into the dish and cooled. Once washed the cutlery, dishes and other stuff was placed on an enamel tray next to the dish. Of necessity this was team work, with all capable hands on deck. I remember once placing a spoon in my mouth, pulling it out and showing it to Mum and Dad. ‘Look’ I said proudly, feeling good about my inventiveness. ‘This doesn't need washing, I've cleaned it.’

Our bath was similar to the one in this picture, only whiter. We did have a potty

under the bed  for night use, and other utensils were common at that time. Those

 in this shot probably go back to the late 19th century

Change came slowly. Sunday evenings Mum would fill the copper and light the fire so it would be ready to do the laundry next morning - the copper was also used to boil the Christmas pudding. Mum always put a blue block in the copper that was supposed to help whiten the sheets and other whites. All sheets and pillowcases were white in those days. After the washing had been boiled clean it was transferred to the large concrete laundry tub - which was divided into two sections. Here the excess water drained off before the laundry was transferred from one tub to the other, passing through the hand operated wringer on the way. The second tub was filled with water remove the excess soap and then the washing was transferred again through the wringer to the first tub. This process was repeated until it was judged that the soap suds had been removed. It was only then that the washing was hung out to dry.

In those days things like sheets, pillowcases, white shirts and petticoats were starched and ironed before the laundering was considered finished. Now I can’t be sure of the process, but I am certain that Mum put a starch mixture in a large dish to starch the necessary items and this must have been before they were hung out to dry.

Mum had an ironing set - two or three irons with a shared handle. The irons were placed on the stovetop to heat. Once heated, the handle would be attached to one and the ironing would start. As the iron cooled it would be placed back on the stove and another would take its place.

Our first washing machine was a Hoover twin tub - one tub for washing and the other for spin drying. It was quite small by today's standards. Funnily,  when I was first married we rented a furnished house in Richmond. It had an outside laundry with a similar concrete tub to the one we had on the farm. The supplied washing machine was a larger single tub fitted with a hand wringer. This was late 1974.

We played 78 rpm records on a gramophone, trying as hard as possible not to drop the needle onto the record thus scratching it.

Before the advent of television our main contact with the outside world was the wireless. I remember both sets of grandparents had rather large, battery powered wireless sets after they had the electricity connected. I remember one day Pa Marsh won an electric radio in a competition and this was probably the first electric one he owned. He may well have still had it when he died. I can’t remember if our first wireless was powered by electricity or battery.

This was the day of radio serials and comedies. I don’t think we missed out on anything. I read or heard someone some years back say the radio was a better medium than television as the listener was forced to imagine the scene being played out. Being forced to imagine resulted in greater creativity.

Mum hardly missed an episode of Blue Hills, Australia’s longest running radio play. We  listed to The Muddle-headed Wombat, Dad and Dave, the Goons, the Lone Ranger, and many I have no doubt forgotten. The ABC (and we only had the one ABC and one Commercial station) had a children’s program Jason and the Argonauts. All kids could join up as Argonauts, but I can’t remember if I did or not.

Television came to Australia in 1956, with the Olympic Games of that year being used as a test transmission by all three Melbourne stations. Brisbane began transmission in 1959, but it was not till 1964 that RTN 8 began broadcasting from Lismore. It was probably a little later that the ABC also began broadcasting from Lismore.

I still remember the first time I saw TV. Granny Carter’s brother Jim Orr and his wife Mary lived on Middle Road, Palmers Island. Their daughter Connie and husband Kelvin (Pa Marsh’s youngest brother) lived next door. One of them bought a box and we were invited to a screening. My first recollection is of a TV aireal on top of a long pole about 200 feet high (okay, I was still a kid). The picture was transmitted from Brisbane. It was black and white, and very poor. It appeared everything was taking place in a snowstorm and there was some sort of screen placed in front of the set that was meant to improve the picture. I doubt if it did, but there we sat enthralled.

We must have bought a set not long after television came to Lismore. I was to leave home a little over 2 ½ years later. Transmission probably began at 5 pm and finished around  11. It began with a prologue and ended with epilogue - from memory a message from one of the local clergy - and most likely a rendition of ‘God Save the Queen’. For the rest of the time the station played a test pattern.

I well remember Uncle Dick. Dick hosted the children's’ program, read the news and presented the weather. It was the latter that I best remember him for. He used something like a peg board to help with the weather presentation with one section sliding over the other when needed for the next bit of information. On this particular night it fell apart as he tried to move it. Another evening he became tongue tied, telling us the next day we could expect ‘shattered scours.’ But why would we have believed him anyway? After all, it was only in black and white.