Western Mail 15 June 1939, page 11
When Nights Were Nights and Days Were Days.
OVER THE PLATES – Dear Non-com
To me, it has always seemed that the saddest of all things sad, is the tragedy of old age, and more particularly is this so when riches more needed in our shadowing eve have vanished, as often happens in the sinister jesting of old ‘Mother Fate’.
And sure, those old names mentioned Jack Grant (85), Watty Davis (84), Ben Davy (83), Dave Williams (76) and Jack Plummer (74), brave hardy pioneers, as keen as sword blades, still standing up to it, though like withered trees, beaten upon by the storms of the years, are to me as old-time land-marks of the back tracks down which I have drifted through the wheeling years, shadowy fingers, as it were, beckoning me back to times alive with youth and life when days were often big thirst days and most nights were dream nights of golden wealth. And should any old-timers read this by chance, I send you a comrade’s greeting across time. Cheerio, brave hearts!
Old Man – On the Tramp
Ay sure, I can plainly hear as well, the far-off pound, pound, pound of the dolly pots, as memories lead me on and I vsee the golden trail when the prospect was good. Then what future hopes whispered, but what different endings there were for so many old prospectors who put W.A. on the gold map of the world?
About six years ago I was riding my aged blood horse, bred from one of the late Tom Dunn’s horses, going along the Macleay River road. I pulled up at a small road job and in conversation with the contractor, (doing this small job for the Shire), I casually mentioned the W.A. Goldfields. “Look at that now!” said he. “My wife comes from there. Come over to the tent. She would like to see you if you know Perth and Kalgoorlie”.
Oh, the pity of it all caused me heart to ache. She had been the wife of one of Kalgoorlie’s leading mining men and a full-fledged member of Perth’s high society, and had accompanied her first husband three times to England. Heavy speculation, however, had brought ruin. The husband died, like Tom Dunn and hundreds of others ever since gold’s been known, and she was left down and out.
And there, my readers, at that little bush tent by the river road, with a far-away look in her eyes, maybe in silent regret visualising past golden days when we lifted the cup of pleasure with a careless hand, thinking naught of life’s crosses around the bend. She told me that when pitiless misfortune befell, few, if any, real friends to her remained.
Having a Yarn – Lionel Lindsay
Well, such is life. However, she managed to return to New South Wales and in due course married again, a good man, holder of a small selection on the next river south of ours. But to keep the home fire burning he had taken this Shire Road contract, and she, like all our brave pioneering women who helped to blaze our trails and tracks, had accompanied him from their little timberland home down the south in true camaraderie devoid of all outward sadness for departed glories.
How strangely things do come about at times. As an example, it’s just 41 years since my Mum and I last met the late Tom Dunn on a W.A. Goldfields track. Now, believe it or not, by a queer twist of fate, after this lapse of two score years and one. I find myself hekping Tom’s widow concerning a matter of vital importance to her. Tom was the finder of one of the richest surface quartz shows in the West,
Appearing in the Western Mail about the end of 1937 was an article reading something like this:
“The West Australian Historical Society has this year decided to commemorate old pioneers who have blazed the trail with a monument at Wyndham to such men as Donald Swan, Nat (Bluey) Buchanan. The article also gave the names of about a score of pioneer prospectors to be rewarded and the amounts due to them or their widows, stating £100 for the widow of Tom Dunn, prospector of the Wealth of Nations GM, W.A., in 1893.
I now learn that Mrs. Dunn has received nothing. Let me quote her letter to her sister (my neighbour) in answer to my inquiries:
18 April 1939, 15 Goodlet Street, Strawberry Hill, Sydney.
Re West Australian report – I did write to them and got a reply saying that no more funds were available, so I wrote back and told them I would be satisfied if they would do Tom’s grave up for me. They replied that they would. That was before last Christmas. I have heard no more about it. If nothing is done about it, I will get Mr Jim O’Brien to see into everything for me.”
And so I will! Wouldn’t any of you under the circumstances?
And sure, I fancied myself back again in old Kookynie when reading the humorous and true racy yarn of my old Dad at Maggie Moore’s play ‘The Wicklow Wedding’. Will we ever forget it, we old men and women still above the grass who were there that night in youth and pleasure, the shrieks of laughter, the tramping feet and the babble of voices? The old man, in town from his show out near Dingo Creek, when like an old man Kangaroo with a bull-ant on his tail, sprang from the floor of the hall right on to the stage shouting at the top of his voice –
“Oil save yer me gurii, Oil save ye! Leave the swine ta me.” as he whacked the would-be abductor and the villain of the piece! off the stage,
Yes, them was the times, when nights were nights and days were days in Old Kookynie.
By Jim O’Brien, Kempsey. NSW
Moya Sharp
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A lovely piece …..enjoyed very much reading it. 🙏👍✌️