Yarns about our early life in OZ

Hi Folks,I would like to introduce myself as being a fairly new member feeling he’s way around what looks like a very interesting forum I would like to share with the members some of a few life experiences that I have put in my diary about our families life as ten pound poms after emigrating to Western Australia in Feb 1968,from the UK I have titled them” Simmo’s ramblings”, i do actually let my good wife Patricia have a peek at them before i post them on the forum because her memory picks up any detail i may have missed or got wrong so between the two of us it is a fairly accurate description of the events that happened all those years ago which jogs my memory of little incident which occurred at our first real home... .this was just a little incident which springs to mind from the early years..We had recently moved into our second home since arriving in 1968 and because of my away work" up bush" we had managed to get a deposit for our very own home which was situated in a fairly new area of Perth,being a brand new home it was in an area which was still in the thro's of being developed,we were about 100 metres from a river tributary which was basicly in bushland, we were one of the first few houses in the street which meant that most of the land adjoining us was vacant bushland as well,(i had better mention that when we normally talk about the house it does in most cases mean a detached house which is the norm over here) we had no fences & no gardens at that stage. On this particular day we were all sat outside around the back of the house when we heard a squeal of a braking car from the road in the front of the property & our first reaction was to check that all the kids were present even though it was basicly an unused street because of the number of vacant blocks of land that were for sale...OK... all the kids present & correct..no worries..next thing we hear a couple of minutes later is the sound of a gun going off out the front of the house so I made my way down to the road to check it out as its not the usual thing that happens. On getting down there i saw a neighbour who lived a bit further up the street standing at the bottom of our property & i was surprised to see him holding some type of rifle or shotgun & about 3 or 4 metres away on our property was probably at that time the biggest King brown snake i had ever seen since arriving in Aussie, the bloke was a bit shook up as he told me that he spotted the snake heading up to our place while he was driving up the road he skidded on it which usually breaks the skin of the snake & slows them down or kills them but this one was having none of it so the fella then raced home grabbed a gun & came back & blasted it which not only didn't kill it it just made it even more aggressive,it was lunging at everything even to the point of biting itself & being over 2 metres long it made it quite difficult to get anywhere near it,I resorted to getting my axe which had a long handle on it & after a couple of hacks at it I managed to lop its head off,i will always remember the sight of the head still biting as it rolled over the ground, on picking it up to let the kids have a look at it i can still remember that the tail was still on the ground even though i was holding it above my head, I think Patricia at that stage was still behind closed doors in the house. The message we wanted to get over to the kids was ...”don't go down the river to play” which is what they used to do, making cubbies etc, the warning probably only kept them away for a couple of weeks & then they would be back down there as before..sorry to have got a bit sidetracked there but i am likely to forget a lot of the happenings if i don't put them down as i think about them..it must be an age thing..anyway every body its a just bit more to look at on the forum if nothing else..best wishes to you & yours..as well as all the forum members i do have a very unusual rambling coming up soon.Terry ..(.Simmo)

Re: Yarns about our early life in OZ

I think I'd have been on the first ship home ¡!!

Re: Yarns about our early life in OZ

Hey Simmo, can you do this cranky old Aussie fart a favour ?

Throw in a few sentence-breaks and spaces and paragraphs in these long posts.
I have no doubt the content is fascinating stuff
but I find it just too daunting when it is all in one huge block like that.

No offence.

Re: Yarns about our early life in OZ

Found some gen about these snakes here: http://www.reptilepark.com.au/animalprofile.asp?id=113

Re: Yarns about our early life in OZ

Hi Pumicestone, no offence taken, being not to fluent with this typing game I think my brain is way ahead of my fingers but after having a look at my last post I also had problems reading it.

As you see I think that I have mastered it.

Thanks for you help.

Simmo

Ps. what part are you from

Re: Yarns about our early life in OZ

Hi Purwell, interesting stuff, the other very dangerous reptile we have in West Aussie is the Tiger snake, you don't get to many chances if bitten by one of these fella's.
They favour damp swampy locations.
Our most common in our area is the Dugite which is also pretty lethal, to be found when clearing bushland for developments which in our particular area is full on. I remember in our last house Patricia went out the back door & nearly trod on one of these fella's, it slithered under our fence into the neighbours yard. It was a good job I was home at the time & got the spade to him.

Normally they will not trouble you but if they are a threat I guess you don't have an option.

There is a number you can ring whereby a Council approved snake catcher will come & remove it at a small fee. He will then take it to some vacant bushland and release it,I watched one a while back & within minutes he had it in he's bag.
Simmo

Re: Yarns about our early life in OZ

Snakes. Ugh!
I was in Australia (originally from New Zealand) for five years in the late 70s. My first encounter with a snake was in an outside loo at night time. I was sitting there and moving the torch around checking out the surroundings, when I saw this large bugger coiled up on my right side.
It turned out it was non-venomous - a carpet python if memory serves me correctly - but the size scared the heebie-geebies out of me! My lungs got a good work out!
Some of the spiders ain't too nice either.
We found a funnel-web spider on the inside of our tent once when we were camping in NSW. Shudder. Don't even want to think about that one!

I got to see lots of Oz, but unfortunately never made it to Western Australia.
What made you decide to go to that state?

Re: Yarns about our early life in OZ

A big hi to you Lovemyboys, thanks for you interesting comments, firstly the decision as to how we decided where to settle in W Australia was literally to stick a pin in the map out of all the states during our interview.
We arrived Feb 1968
We are so pleased that we did choose WA.
In 1963 a couple of years after we were married & living in Somerset after moving down there from Sussex, we applied for emigration to Aussie, we went through the whole process & actually got out tickets on the SS Fairsky sailing from Southampton to Fremantle W Aussie, but unfortunately what with losing our first born at a young age the timing was not right.
Having no telephone in those days we just didn't turn up at the docks.
Moving forward to 1967 & two boys later we decided to give the Aussie move another go.
On this interview they were not aware that we had not actually gone to Aussie but owing to the demand for immigrants at that time we got a second chance.

On this occasion we did not let our families know of our decision right up until we had been through the process & actually had a flying date ( they had just introduced flights ).
The strange twist came when we packed up our few meagre possesions & arranged to stay with our family's back in Sussex,
It was then that we broke the news to them of our new plans to emigrate.
What we did not realise was that my elder brother & family who lived in Sussex had also made the decision to emigrate to Aussie as well.
In short they also had chosen Perth WA.
They arrived 26th December 1967 ( boxing Day ) & we flew in five weeks later 11th Feb 1968.
We all stayed & in 1975 younger brother also emigrated with he's family. We were able to sponser them