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Kybeyan Experiences
By Peter Goed.

Born in Amsterdam, Holland, in the midst of the occupation in December 1943, as an only-child. I still have memories of V2 self propelled rocket bombs, one landed on the block of flats next door to where we lived and completely demolished it, our place only lost some plaster from the ceilings.

Memories of Holland are vague with age, but I do remember meeting the Queen of Holland whilst my mother (Ans) and I were shopping for furniture to bring with us to Australia. Unlike the Queen of England, the Dutch Queen just mingled with the ordinary people, who all revered her – no security guards or anything like that.

During the latter part of the war we stayed with my mother’s parents in the smallest province in Holland, Bennebroek, where they had a small rural property – I think it was a couple of hectares only, where my grandfather grew vegetables and played around with Tulips – his ambition was to create a black Tulip.

We had other relatives who moved to Canada in 1949, and my parents decided to immigrate also, choosing Australia because it offered new opportunities, something Holland could not offer to all its inhabitants after WWII.

We all had to have medical check-ups, answer 10,000 questions, fill in hundreds of forms, and wait for selection.

In August 1950 we were selected for migration to Sydney, Australia – having to pay full fare, as this was about a year before the Ten Quid Migrant Fares from Holland were introduced.

We sailed for Australia on 5 September 1950, traveling via the Suez Canal. Our first stop was Port Said, where the boat had to re-bunker (add coal, as she was still a coal fired ship). The stop at Aden was fascinating, whilst docking, many small canoes came alongside offering all sorts of goodies, and several Fakirs came aboard. One of these Fakirs that I distinctly remember was a very Egyptian looking rogue, who threw a rope, tied to an anchor, over the side of our ship and immediately proceeded to climb aboard. No sooner was he on board than he spread out a small mat, said some words that I could not understand – could have been either Egyptian or English, as I understood neither- and threw his rope up into the air on the forecastle of the ship (an area totally devoid of any overhead gear). Amazingly, his rope stood straight up in the air, and after a few moments, this Fakir climbed up his rope, probably the best part of 20 feet off the ground, and just sat there perfectly motionless for several minutes. You have no idea how many times I have tried this trick since then, and maybe Pattrick can remember me making him try it – I once fooled him by hanging it from the tree near the shearing sheds, but I don’t think he was really fooled. Still want to see someone show me how the ‘Indian Rope Trick’ is performed.

The boat we came over on was the Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, a luxury cruiser before the war, she had been converted into a troop carrier during the war, and was still in that configuration on our journey. The men were in one huge dormitory, and the women and younger children in another, nothing luxurious I can assure you.

The voyage took seemingly forever, but living on this huge ship (70,000 tons), was fantastic for a six-year old. There were just so many places to get lost in, and during a rather severe dust-storm in the Suez Canal, half the crew were out looking for me, but I was in the reading room, getting acquainted with some lovely people who were there to write letters home. There were always 1000 and one things to do on that boat, and as one of the few people on board who didn’t get seasick, had an absolute ball – got into every part of the ship and explored it; got friendly with the crew and even shared meals with them; hence my love of hot curries. Entering Sydney Heads on 8 October 1950, we proceeded to one of the docks near the Harbour Bridge and disembarked. After passing through Immigration and Customs, which to me, seemed to take a whole day, we were whisked away to Central Railway Station, given tickets, shoved onto the right platform, and finally boarded a train bound for Bathurst, and the Bathurst Migrant Camp – originally a military camp during WWII.

Bathurst camp was an eye opener, several families lived in each hut and there were seemingly hundreds of kids. The creek at the bottom of the camp was previously a place where they had extracted gold in the 1860s, it was like a magnet to a six year-old kid with an exploring mind. I well remember a local chap who came to the creek every morning with a heap of large sheets of blotting paper, using these to capture fine particles of alluvial gold floating down the stream – he managed to make a very comfortable living from spending about an hour each day collecting fine gold in this manner, and in the process gave me ‘gold-fever’..

After a few weeks looking for work, my father, Peter, a mechanic, was interviewed by Ron Mould, for a position as general hand/mechanic on Kybeyan Station. Leaving my mother and I at the camp, dad went to Kybeyan to suss out the situation, and soon sent for us to join him.

Leaving the migrant hostel, we went to Bathurst Railway Station, catching the afternoon train to Sydney, there we disembarked, had to hunt out the platform to board the Cooma train, and finally got underway. We arrived at Cooma in the very early hours of the morning, where we had to wait for the 7.00am train to Nimmitabel, finally arriving there to be met by dad in the Kybeyan station truck.

We finally arrived at Kybeyan sometime in November 1950, to take up residence in the timber house nearest to the stables. We had no furniture of our own, as this was not to be sent from Holland until we had a place to stay. I think that the furniture in the house was borrowed from all over the place, but we got by until our own furniture arrived some months later in a huge wooden crate eight foot wide by eight foot high by ten feet deep. This included my treasured bike, which I was much too small to ride at this time, and more importantly, my Meccano set, which was quite large.

When we first arrived at Kybeyan, the only person anywhere near my own age was Pattrick Mould. He and I got on like a house-on-fire, getting into much mischief, mostly of my making, and generally having a good time. The only one of Pattrick’s sisters that I really remember was the arty one, and I cannot remember her name.

Coming from a country like Holland to the bush of Kybeyan was marvelous, I learnt to ride a horse (within about a week or two of arriving), shoot a rifle, trap rabbits, hunt dingoes and eagles (both carrying a bounty in those days), whistle-up foxes, and chase kangaroos. As well, much excitement was had in chasing black snakes across the cleared scrub, catching them as they went hell bent into a tussock, and flinging them like a stock-whip, cracking off their heads – we didn’t know that it was dangerous then.

There were flaming rabbits everywhere, and at night, with a torch, they seemed to be in such extreme proportions that there was not one spare inch of ground left void of them. We trapped them, we poisoned them with strychnine laced thistle roots, we dug up the burrows and literally pulled them out and wrung their necks with our bare hands, we resorted to blowing up their burrows with gelignite, but never quite managed to eradicate them.

Another large problem was the kangaroos, and every few weeks there would be another organised drive. A fence would be strengthened in a corner and built up to about eight feet high with netting wire. A large group of men and ‘roo’ dogs would assemble and drive the kangaroos into this inescapable corner. The men assembled on horseback, on tractors and on foot, with the driven kangaroos slaughtered in their hundreds, very necessary at the time as they were devastating the grasses, leaving nothing for the sheep.

School started for me in February 1951, catching the School Bus, driven by Ted Owers, to Nimmitabel Primary School, to be confronted by Mrs. Buckley (infants) and Mr. Edgar Dill, the headmaster. Language was a problem, yes I had one, but it wasn’t understandable by many others. And when Mrs. Buckley kept on asking me "beg your pardon", which in Dutch meant get back up on your horse, I was totally confused, especially as I did not at that time have a horse.

All those language problems disappeared with time, but in the intervening period there were many incidents where language was a barrier.

The school bus was a great place to play-up, with poor old Ted finding that Peter Goed, David Dunning and Henry Rose could be more than a handful. I won the prize as ‘worst bus-boy’ for two years running, to follow it up the next year with a propelling pencil for being the ‘most improved bus-boy’, and I still have the certificate, although the propelling pencil bit the dust 45 years ago.

When our furniture finally arrived from Holland, we moved into the stone house opposite the row of houses, and finally my mother was happy to have a real home, where she spent much time trying to establish a garden with Dutch Tulips. This house was interesting, as the bath had a hole about 4" diameter to let out the bath-water. This left plenty of room for a ‘sometimes’ friendly carpet snake to gain entrance to the bottom of the chip-heater. Now, we always knew he was there, but I once forgot to check when I lit the heater, and Whamo!! – the bloody thing came out at a great rate of knots and bit me on the arm, I still have the bite marks as evidence today, fifty years on.

The station was full of animals, and there were many horses, including a pretty friendly draught-horse, whose name eludes me. It was that tame you could lead it to a rock, climb on its back and ride around the paddock easily. However, one-day, it got a bit cranky with me, and decided to get its own back by standing on my foot with one of its front hooves. Now, no matter how hard I tried, it would just not let me get my foot out from under. I yelled and screamed for ages, until finally, my mother heard me and came to the rescue. My foot was pretty blue for quite some time thereafter.

A new workshop was built and a bulldozer purchased, actually I think there were two more to follow in quick succession, to help with clearing the property. I remember my dad building some rather large pipe and mesh structures on these machines, and even so, there were a couple of accidents where people were injured by falling trees. These ‘dozers were also used to dig a rather large dam. Everybody thought that Ron had gone around the twist, but when the dam filled up at the next bit of rainfall, and held out during a severe drought, they soon changed their minds.

The tractors on the property were; a Farmall (perhaps two of these bloody dangerous machines with two front-wheels side by side); a Massey Harris; and an old single cylinder tractor (Russian?), that was started with a 12 gauge blank cartridge (and a ½ hour warm-up with a very large Army Issue blowtorch during winter). These were followed by a Ferguson, equipped with many options (a most useful beast on which I learned to drive in 1953, at age 10).

There were several old tractors (Fordsons) parked under the tree at the back of the stables. These made great toys for Pattrick and I to play on. As well there was a bit of a rubbish tip here that had all sorts of fascinating items too good for a couple of young lads to ignore – including some old fire extinguishers that made both of us really ill from the fumes of the acid and soda.

I learned to ride at Kybeyan, probably within the first few weeks of living there, and in late 1952 got a pony of my own, Silver, a brumby from up in the Snowy Mountains, broken in by Kees (Con), one of the Dutch general hands on Kybeyan. Silver was certainly lots of fun, especially when someone heavy tried to mount him, and then get thrown. Only Kees and myself could ride him, but he did try me out every time by finding a low tree branch to try and dislodge me – and there were times that he succeeded. He hated to gallop, always preferring a trot, and finally he was sold for fifty pounds to somebody interested in trotting horses – eventually he did rather well at country trot meetings.

There was always something to do at Kybeyan. September school holidays was shearing time, what a great event this was every year. All us young lads had an opportunity to earn some pocket money as ‘rouse-abouts’, dipping the sheep (there is a story in that), tailing the lambs, and in the off season, crutching the sheep and walking them through the footrot baths. Getting carried away with the sheep dipping, one rather large ram got the better of me. With the push stick caught in its horns, I was pulled into the dip – you guessed it, I couldn’t swim and took in a few good mouthfuls of arsenic dip, spending the next six weeks in Cooma Hospital as a very sick young boy.

Of course, at the end of the shearing was the inevitable party. A party that went on until the rum ran out, and as Ron was a participant in the 700+ pence per pound for some of his wool crop at that time, was very generous at these parties. The rum generally flowed until the very early hours of the morning – although he insisted that all the men rallied under his bedroom window at 6.00am SHARP to receive their orders for the day, on the following morning.

The creek (Kybean River) was a source of joy and Pattrick and I spent many hours there trying to catch the odd trout on a stick fitted with a piece of string, a bent pin from my mother’s sewing kit, and if lucky a blow-fly that was still half-alive. I must confess here, and I have never admitted to it before, that the 7lb 4oz beauty that I caught this way, was actually already stunned by a half stick of Gelly. The young guys on Kybeyan were prone to a spot of ‘quick fishing’ and had thrown a half-stick of Gelly in the creek earlier in the day to get their catch – but it was still a thrill to actually catch one this size.

Talking of the creek, this was the way to the Green’s property, next door to Kybeyan. Old Mr. Green (well he was old to us) had married this young nurse who was 20 years younger than him. At the time I was at Kybeyan there were, I think, about three Green children. I loved their place, totally laid back and out of control – AND, the had the most glorious Gooseberry bush that you have ever seen – you could spend hours eating from this bush and the fruits never seemed to diminish. When there were no gooseberries, Mrs. Green, always had fresh biscuits or cakes that she had just made – just a wonderful place to visit across the creek. That reminds me of the log-crossing – great when it was dry, but in the rain I had a tendency to slip on this and end up in the creek – not a good idea when you can’t swim!!.

The young hands on the station made up a rope that was knotted and attached to the tree near the shearer’s quarters, this was great fun to climb, until I fell out of the tree, luckily no broken bones.

That reminds me of shearing-time, with Mrs. Schofield as the cook (her husband ran the shearing gang, and her daughter taught me when I was at Cooma primary school in year 3 for a while), there were always biscuits for mischievous young boys, and at morning tea there were the great yarns from the shearers, along with a whole new language for a migrant kid – SWEARING, strewth those guys could swear!!

Snow was not unusual at Kybeyan in those days, and the only downhill run was from the shearing shed down towards the houses – not much of a run, but with six or seven inches of snow on the ground, a lot of fun.

Then there was the flood – must have been 1952 – river over the roadway, no school, and no play as there was so much water around, but it did the property much good. Ron Mould was really a man of wisdom, introducing many new aspects to farming on the Monaro. Ploughing was done on the Kybeyan paddocks, as soon as the trees had been felled by the bulldozer, and burnt. Then super-phosphate was spread from behind tractors pulling spreaders, to encourage rich grass growth. During the drought of 1951, Ron had used the bulldozer to sink a large dam, which filled up in 1952, allowing the property the luxury of water all the year-round in a drought season.

Fencing and clearing was carried on at a hasty rate, with all hands helping out. There were several accidents at Kybeyan, luckily, the roll bar and wire cage that my father installed on the bulldozers prevented quite a few serious accidents from turning into tragedies.

Eventually the houses were fitted with running water from the dam, but we still had a chip-heater for the bath, and I always kept an eye out for the carpet snake that lived in the bottom of the heater. As they say, once bitten, twice shy.

There were several other kids there from 1951 on, some Dutch girls, Nancy and her two sisters, whose names elude me, whose father (Thys) eventually was in business with my father, moving on to own a service station in Yass. I do however remember the Keir girls, and Mrs Thew. Other than that, my brain has no recollection of names.

The little store, which at that time was next to the homestead building, was run by my mother. It mainly sold the necessities of life; toilet paper (although most of us used the old McPhersons or Anthony Horderns catalogue), biscuits, sugar, tea, coffee, flour, and of course lollies.

My mother got rather homesick in early late 1952 and went back to spend six months with her parents in Holland. At first this was great, until I found out that my father could not even boil an egg. When we ran out of meat, he asked Ron could he kill a sheep. Ron said yes, just grab one from that paddock and leave the hide hanging over the fence when you have finished. Not knowing anything about sheep, dad got the biggest one he could find in the paddock – a bloody great ram, with gigantic horns. It put up quite a struggle, and finally was overpowered, killed and slaughtered. Well I kid you not! The chops from this animal were the toughest I have ever eaten, and dad burnt them in the process of cooking. Next morning Ron confronted dad and asked him was the hide on the fence from the sheep he had killed. Peter answered yes, and Ron broke out in a fury. It was only one of his prize rams that dad had unwittingly killed – I have hated eating sheep ever since!

Our first car was an old open 1920s beast that someone built a station wagon type rear end on. We took this on a holiday to Victoria and had lots of tyre problems, ending up finding a brand new ‘old’ set in a garage at Bairnsdale, from then on all was smooth sailing. The caravan we towed was no bigger than a dog-box, and I slept in the rear of the car, much more comfortable.

Sometime around late 1953, Ron Mould and Stan Creamer talked my father into starting up a garage in Nimmitabel. With a loan from Ron, and a new building constructed on a part of Stan Creamers site at the corner of the Bombala and Bega Roads, Nimmitabel Motors, a Shell petrol station and garage was born.

We left Kybeyan and resided in a two-storey house, down past the post office on the left, heading towards Bombala. In 1955 we purchased a house in York Street, next door to George and Myrtle Baker.

In about 1957, dad rebuilt the burnt-out Atlantic garage on the opposite corner as an adjunct to the existing business, attracting a sub-agency for Standard cars and Ferguson tractors, an agency for the Bank of New South Wales, and a branch of the Cooma Library.

This is revision 1 – 8 July 2001