A Picnic When Cars Were Few ... a Trove Tuesday post.

If the internet had been around 50 or 60 years ago, I’m sure my mother would have been a blogger.  She loved to write, and for a few years when we children were small, she wrote a weekly column in a national church newspaper chronicling our family life.  I intend to share extracts of those in future posts. 

In 1961, mum had an article published in the Literary Supplement which came with The Age newspaper every Saturday.  She received a cheque in the amount of £6/6/- as payment, a sum which would have been a welcome addition to the household income.  Here is her story, a recollection of her own childhood days in the 1920s-30s.

A PICNIC WHEN CARS WERE FEW

by Dorothy Pilkington

It is generally accepted as the prerogative of double chins, walking sticks and snowy hair to reflect upon bygone days.  The excusable exception is surely when one’s eight-year-old pride and joy naively inquires, “Mummy, did you live in the olden days?”  “What olden days?” I exploded, as a plate I was wiping crashed to the floor in profound sympathy.  Yes, what indeed?

Much later, when the child had long since forgotten the query, it remained with me, an impression searing into my consciousness the realisation that there is now another generation which has the audacity to relegate a 38-year-old to “the olden days” in precisely the same manner in which we regarded our parents in days of yore!

Never will my family experience the thrill of a large family picnic, held twice yearly (Boxing Day and Easter Monday, rain or shine), in horse-drawn furniture vans rattling along the Point Nepean Road to the mecca of all picnic parties of the era, at the Mordialloc Creek.

There were aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and in-laws of all degrees; everyone highly attuned in eager anticipation of the day ahead.  The flappers pioneering the “new look” of the Charleston period, giggling in innocent delight at their daring.  The mothers dressed sombrely in blouse and long skirts, with parasols and big, floppy hats with fly nets attached; the older men with their droopy moustaches and beards, wearing hairy tweeds, heavily steeped in a combined aroma of pipe tobacco and beer.

For the female members of the family the day was the culmination of many weeks’ culinary preparations.  The delightful unpacking of lunch baskets, full of delectable mysteries, never failed to make our child eyes goggle, and set our salivary mechanism working overtime.

We children were critically appraised by the various aunts, while our rate of growth since the last occasion appeared to provide them with much comparative material to aid their wholesome exclamations: “My, hasn’t she grown. She’s getting so like you, dear!”

For the afternoon activities, races of all descriptions were organised by the younger men, with the elder sitting on the sidelines contentedly drawing on their pipes and dozing in the sunshine. Huge quantities of boiled lollies were consumed by the youngsters, vying with each other for the most colorful patterns.

Sunset was the curfew for our departure, tired, sticky, full beyond measure with a sense of happiness complete; snuggling upon the laps of grown-ups in sheer exhaustion; the lusty singing of nostalgic airs to the accompaniment of a piano accordion, wafting us to sleep with the gentle clip-clop, clip-clop of the faithful horses’ shod hooves.

Curses upon the motor car, even then finding favour; spewing oil and grease upon the road until the fateful night when one of the horses slipped …

As I speed along the Nepean Highway today in all the splendour of gleaming chrome and superbly sprung luxury, keeping apace with the modern tempo of living, I hark back in wonder to those leisured days.

Would that my children could experience but one facet of the life we once glimpsed – yet so briefly.

published in The Age, 22nd July 1961.

Mordialloc appears to have been a popular destination for a day at the seaside, being easily accessible by train, or by the Point Nepean Road (now Nepean Highway).  Not only family gatherings, but Sunday School picnics, annual trade and company outings were popular, regularly reported in the newspapers of the day.

"WHERE TO SPEND A HOLIDAY." The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957) 

23 December 1924: 7. Web. 28 Apr 2019 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2090237>. 

Mordialloc was also noted for its annual carnival held over the summer holiday period from 1924 through to 1939.  It featured parades, amusements, side-shows, sporting events and other activities and was a popular holiday attraction.  The history of the Mordialloc Carnival has been written about here in the Kingston Local History website.

"HOLIDAY RESORTS." The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957) 

10 January 1927: 15. Web. 28 Apr 2019 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3831327>. 

Mum’s mother, my grandmother, was one of five daughters of John Grant and Elizabeth nee Duffy.  John’s own grandfather, also John Grant, had settled in Brighton in the 1840’s, and ran a successful carrier business.  The extended Grant family were well established in the district, with four generations all raising families there.  The younger John, and his brother William, both had carrier businesses.  It was likely company vans which ferried the families to their bi-annual picnics.  I have tried to find a newspaper reference to the accident involving the horse slipping on the greasy road, but without a specific date range it has proved unsuccessful.

Postcard of Mordialloc Creek 1919 

http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/367432

Somebody’s Darling …

In keeping with what seems to have become a tradition for my Anzac Day posts, I thought for this year I would use this poem which I found in an album belonging to my grandmother’s sister, my great-aunt Belle Dewar.  

We stumbled across Aunty Belle’s album only a year or so ago, tucked into a bookcase at my brother’s home.  No-one recalls ever seeing it before, and no-one knows how it got there, but it must have been passed on at some time by an older family member.  The album is dated 1884, when Belle would have been about nineteen.  It contains poems and writings which obviously struck a chord with her, as well as sketches and autograph-style entries from family and friends.

This particular poem was entered in the album on 26/09/1885 by “Madge”, who I think was the wife of Belle’s eldest brother Jimmy.  Although it pre-dates the Anzac era, the sentiments expressed are just as relevant today, highlighting the tragedy that is war.  Somebody’s Darling was written during the American Civil War by Marie Ravenal de la Coste, a nurse in Savannah, Georgia whose own fiance had been killed while fighting with the Confederate army. It was first published in 1864.

SOMEBODY’S DARLING

Into a ward of the white washed walls,
Where the dead and dying lay,
Wounded by bayonets, shells and balls,
Somebody’s darling was borne one day.

Somebody’s darling so young and brave
Wearing yet on his pale sweet face,
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave,
The lingering light of his boyhood’s grace.

Matted and damp are the curls of gold
Kissing the snow of that fair young brow;
Pale are the lips of delicate mold –
Somebody’s darling is dying now.

Back from the beautiful blue-veined brow
Brushed all the wandering waves of gold;
Cross his hands on his bosom now;
Somebody’s darling is still and cold.

Kiss him once for somebody’s sake,
Murmur a prayer soft and low;
One bright curl from it’s fair mates take;
They were somebody’s pride you know.

Somebody’s hand has rested there;
Was it a mother’s soft and white?
And have the lips of a sister fair
Been baptized in the waves of light?

God knows best! He was somebody’s love,
Somebody’s heart enshrined him there.
Somebody wafted his name above,
Night and morn on the wings of prayer.

Somebody wept when he marched away,
Looking so handsome brave and grand;
Somebody’s kiss on his forehead lay;
Somebody clung to his parting hand.

Somebody’s watching and waiting for him,
Yearning to hold him again to her heart;
And there he lies with his blue eyes dim,
And the smiling child-like lips apart.

Tenderly bury the fair young dead,
Pausing to drop on his grave a tear;
Carve on the wooden slab at his head,
“Somebody’s darling slumbers here.”

Marie Ravenal de la Coste,

Savannah, Georgia 1864