Garry Gillard > genealogy > David Michael Gillard
These are transcriptions of the short pieces of writing that my father Dave Gillard (born 23 May 1905) left behind after his death in 1982.
March 1919. Will & I were orphaned when Mother died. Ethel & Keith went to Kalgoorlie with their father. Aunt Elsie took us up to the farm at Trayning. Will got a job on a farm and I went to School until I was 14 in May, then I got a job on a farm. 10/- per week and keep. Picking roots, milking cows, feeding pigs, making butter and so on. My next job was with partners Don McLennan & Jack Main 10 miles out of Trayning at £1-0-0 per week and keep. I was carting stock water, one trip per day, 10 miles each way, generally 3 horses in the wagon load 300 gal. Sometimes in a spring dray 1 horse carrying 200 gal. I started in November 1921 and continued till rains came in May 1922. Then became cook when Mrs McLennan came to Perth. 5 men to cook for. Started playing piano.
1905 [born]
1920 [aged] 15 [worked for] George Roberts
21 16 McLennan & Main
22 17 ditto
May 23 18 Bought a violin for my birthday
24 19 Worked for Jack Roberts Ernie Piggin
25 20 Bencubbin for Bob Sachse Jack Edwards
26 21 Came to Perth. Met Will who came down from Yundamindra and we had a holiday together. Partners with Macauley went on leased property 8 miles south of Kellerberrin. Met Tinny Walker, Bob Manwaring, played most Sat nights on Violin, Banjo, did Vocals.
26 Summer of 26 contract carting of wheat at Bencubbin. Put in our own crop.
27 Winter of 27 harvested. Summer of 27 Will was drowned while Yachting on Swan River in 27.
28 Another crop on and off. Still playing
29 Mac left and I went on alone. Crop in and off. Sold up came to Perth.
In the wheat belt at least water carting is one of those necessary jobs that are vital to keeping the stock alive. At one farm I had the job of water carting 10 miles to water and ten miles back to the farm.
I was going in to get water with 3 horses in a wagon with a 2 h gallon tank and 1 hundred gallon tank. I wore an athletic singlet and pants of course. A big black cloud came over and we were in a thunderstorm. The rain came belting down in buckets and I decided to get into the big square 200 gal tank and pull the lid partially over me. I had an old newspaper to read and if you had no other reading you'd read the labels on the jam tins in those days.
The storm stopped, the sun came out but I sat and read. In a ten mile walking pace journey time was not important and a few minutes extra didn't mean a thing.
I was alerted by an uneasy movement of the wagon and a rattling of trace chains so I slid the tank lid aside and popped my head out of the tank. There in front of the wagon and horses was a motor car filled with people and they could not get past on this narrow road. Was my face red. I had to move the wagon into the bush while the car got by. I never found out who they were but I can still remember how silly I felt when my head popped out of the tank and found that I had company.
When farming on my own account, things were tough. I had to let my team of horses graze in the morning, give them a midday feed of hay and work them in the afternoon. One horse died and then a neighbouring farmer heard of my loss and wrote to me saying that he had a good working horse for sale cheap The only disadvantage was that he could jump any fence that tried to hold him. I had to have a horse so I bought him. While all the horses were feeding I walked up to him with a bridle in my hand. He raised his head to the top of the fence as if to judge how high it was, stepped back a yard and over the fence like a bird. I had 3 days of this and decided to trap him. I had him in the rear part of the stable but he reared to his full height and crashed the flimsy tea tree brush down with his front hooves and away.
I decided that I would make that part of the stable horseproof so I took about half a mile of barbed wire off a fence tied it onto the axle of the cart and pulled it down to the stable. I then made the stable with vertical wire and crossed it with horizontal wire so it eventually was like a cocky's cage. Then I trapped the horse by putting whisks of hay leading up to the stable. He went in and I closed the opening securely. This fixed him. He reared up and tried to crash the wire down but eventually realized that he was caught.
So was I. We were both in the same compartment and I realized that if I got injured I could lie there a week or more before anyone came by. I only went in once a week for stores, and nobody would miss me.
I could see the horse was terrified, and any approach I made he turned his rump to me. I didn't know if he would kick but decided that if I stood back I would get the full benefit of his hind hooves but if I went in smartly and crowded him he could only push me. I moved in smartly and placed my hand firmly on his rump. He quivered then stood still while I moved my right hand along his body right up to his neck. My left hand moved along his side then under his neck until my both arms encircled his neck.
Never have I seen such a change come over a horse. He was like a little puppy dog that didn't know whether it was going to kicked or loved and he realised that he'd found a friend. He nuzzled me and showed my by every means in his power how happy he was, and I really fell in love with him. I stayed with an hour while he fed, talking to him and grooming him. When I had to let him go I put a pair of hobbles on his front feet. Every time he came in I tied him up in the same place and removed the hobbles of course. Finally I didn't have to hobble him any more. But that horse and I really loved each other.
Finally, I had to get out, things were bad, and I sold up by auction.
My friend and next door neighbour were discussing things before the sale and I told him how good my lovely horse was, but neglected to tell him about his jumping abilities. I had forgotten them completely because he would come galloping in any time at my call. At the sale, my neighbour bought him, much to my surprise because he had not indicated any sign that he might. I went to work for another farmer for the sowing and crop season and during that time my neighbour rang me and said, "The so-and-so horse you sold me, how do you catch him. He jumps every so-and-so fence about the place and we have not been able to put a hand on him." I asked where is he now and was told he was back on my old property. I said I would come out on Sunday and bring him back to you.
On Sunday I went back to the old place and there he was grazing on the top paddock. I called him, he looked up then came galloping down taking a fence in the stride and back in to his old place in the stable where I was waiting. The hay stack which I had sold was still there so I gave him a sheaf and sat down while he fed. I then put a rope around his neck and he trotted along beside my bicycle to my neighbour's. I told my neighbour to treat him with kindness and put hobbles on him before releasing him and that is the end of the story. So long.
Water carting on this occasion was a trip 10 miles to the dam, fill up, and then 10 miles home.
I was given a spring dray, 1 horse in the shafts, and a heavy 200 gal square tank. The trip to the dam was uneventful and I was 5 miles from home when the wagon behind me turned into his gateway. I called out Goodnight Jack to the driver when my horse, "Old Jimmy" we called him stopped. The tank had a chain around the back of it but nothing in front and I was standing in front of the tank. The pulling chain traces were attached to the horse's collar and I was surprised when Jimmy stopped but in a playful mood I gathered the last foot of the reins and saying "You silly old sod", I smacked him across the rump. Jimmy got a shock and forward with a jerk. The hames on his collar were wired together instead of a chain & hook and the wire snapped. Jimmy had jumped far enough for the shafts to hit the ground and I sat on my backside. As the shafts hit the ground they snapped off level with the front of the dray which tipped forward. The tank slid forward on top of me and took the full weight of it with 200 gals in it. I think I must have been flattened to about 4 inches. I kept screaming Jack Jack Jack and he came running over to help. Luckily the lid came off but still Jack although a very strong man said, "I've got to wait till the water runs out or most of it", because the tank was so heavy even when empty. Eventually he was able to shift the tank off me and he picked me up, grabbing me under the armpits but I couldn't stand. I had lost the use of my legs and flopped down again. The pain across my hips was very intense so they brought a flat cart, stood me up against it, lowered the shafts and carted me up to their house. They put me on a couch with my feet sticking up over the end. Thinking to ease my pain they took my boots off and to my horror and embarrassment there were all my toes sticking out of my socks. My boss was sent for and he came over with a sulky but I was in so much pain that I couldn't sit up in the seat so they poked me full length on the floor. I could not move for about a fortnight and the pain was intense. Then I got about on two brooms for crutches for a while, then I resumed water carting because the trip each way, one had only to sit. My hips must have been crushed together because that's where the pain was. I know my chest was flat on the ground and my head was sideways to the ground. The say that sort of tank, full, weighed about a ton and I believe that.
The boss said, "There were ten pair of good hames there and you had to pick a pair that was wired together." That didn't make me feel any better but that's life. You can't win 'em all.
I was an orphan when I was 13 and my mother's sister Aunt Elsie took me up to her husband's farm at Trayning in the wheat belt. I went to School until my 14th birthday. School was a 1 room building embracing everything from infants to 5th standard and we had a lovely and talented teacher in Henrietta McLeod. During the 1st summer holidays the power who control these things decided to raise the wheat stack another 5 bags high. Uncle Tom's farm was right against the siding and he got the job of supplying a horse and driver to whip the bags of wheat up to the top of the stack. I think the stack was 15 bags high, too high for the lumpers to climb any further from waggons so they installed the whip. It was a long pole like a telegraph pole with a pulley at the top and the bottom. The farmer hitched a chain around the bag of wheat and I had to lead the horse forward until the bag reached the top of the stack then the lumper reached forward with his bag hook and pulled the bag in. It was hot and dusty and monotonous and when the horse got tired sometimes he stopped a foot short. Then the lumper up top had his hook in the bag and the bag, dropping back, would nearly pull the lumper off the stack. Then we got a string of abuse because the lumper would try to pull the bag up the last foot instead of the horse doing it. I didn't know when the damn horse was going to stop short but it was I that got the abuse. This went on until wheat carting was over. I remember one farmer coming to my defence saying to the lumper, "Why abuse the kid, how would you like to be tramping up and down all day in that dust." We had a track worn about 2 inches deep in the hard red clay ground and it was filled fine dust. It was the most monotonous job I ever had but was work and paid for my keep. Sometimes the McCallams across the road required my help when they were chaff cutting and I got 10 shillings for the day's work. Riches indeed, because when I went to my first job as a farmer's boy I got 10 shillings [a week] and keep.
When the rains came my last stint of watercarting was over and the lady of the house had gone to Perth, I was installed in the house as cook. There were the two partners, 'Scots', and three workers, 'English'. I chopped the wood, gathered the eggs, milked the cows, separated the milk, made butter and cooked. Cleaning out the lounge one day I looked in the piano stool and was a Henry's Tutor, the same that I had when I was a kid and an old Globe song book. Looking through the tutor I remembered the lines and spaces and became quite excited when I could play 1 or 2 of the simpler songs with the right hand. I was about 17 at that time and from then on all my spare moments were spent at the piano.
... If I might digress, the termination of my piano lessons came at the age of 8. One hour practice after school with the clock on top of the piano and my brother out kicking the football and enjoying life. It's amazing how many times once can do five finger exercises without the hands of the clock moving at all. It was agonizing. Then came the day when Vic's Pictures started a new serial, 'The Clutching Hand'. The first instalment on Saturday afternoon was free. "No Mother, I did not have a music lesson that afternoon" so I was able to go to the pictures. We were almost out of the house when the music teacher's kid sister came round to see why I had not turned up for music lesson. I will draw a veil over the rest of the afternoon and that put paid to my becoming a pianist. Now back to the farm.
On this farm the boss had a nice load of little porkers to go to market.
So he made a beautiful ramp reaching from the sty to the motor truck reasoning that all my mate Ken and I had to do was to make those little porkers walk up the ramp like little gentlemen.
They all stood in one corner blinking rapidly at us and mentally thinking "We are not going anywhere, especially not up that ramp".
We decided that we would have to catch them one at a time to put them in the truck. And they all decided to take shelter under the roof of the sty which was only about four feet high. We had to dive in and grab a leg and pull the porker out, wrap our arms around him hugging him to our breast because they were covered with a certain amount of slime.
Well as train time got nearer we were getting a bit desperate so we just dived in on our navel and grabbed. So we got a bit slimy also. However we delivered the pigs OK and then went onto the siding platform to see the x come in as everyone did in those days. We were greeted with a certain amount of coolness with the fellows we knew and they moved away as soon as politely possible. We did not think much about this and hung around until the train pulled out and then we went home. Well, we soon found out why were shunned at the station. Phoo the stench! We were ordered out of he kitchen, not into the bathroom but out into the washhouse where we stayed until fit for human companionship again.
Dave kept a photocopy of a letter he wrote to our distant cousin Jeffrey Gillard, the author of the "Gillard" book called Thick on the Ground (and an employee of the H.J. Heinz Company). The letter is dated 10 April 1980, so written just before Dave's 75th birthday.
This is a letter of thanks. I am very much indebted to you for your production of the book Thick on the Ground. My father, William Edgar Gillard, son of Robert Dyer, came to West Australia somewhere about 1900. He married Ethel Hill in Perth and went outback to the Goldfields where he died about 1906 leaving his widow, his eldest son William Robert 2 yrs 2 months, and myself David Michael 1 yr 1 month. My mother married again and died in 1919 when I was 13 yrs old so I never heard anything about my father. My brother died aged 22 in 1927 in a yachting accident and as far as I knew I was the only Gillard in the world. In 1960 the Public Trustees in Melbourne advertised in the West Australian for the whereabouts of my brother and myself. I replied and received a disbursement of money from the will of Robert Dyer. There were seven beneficiaries so I then knew I had relatives in Victoria. However I am no writer and did not correspond with anyone over there and no-one did to me so it was not until I received Thick on the Ground from my son Garry in Geelong that I really knew anything about where we really came from. It was a revelation to me to know that the Gillards and Dyers came from France so long ago and settled in Martock village in Somerset. My wife and I had a short trip to Melbourne late last year. I was very disappointed not to be able to see Sir Oliver because of this illness as he was the closest relative I had. However, son Roger, a charming and very busy man entertained us very well. On my mother's death her sister took me to their farm and my last school was a one room affair all grades from infants to fifth standard. I was a farmer's boy at 14yrs 10 bob a week and keep. I had to have music like Syd and bought a violin outfit. In my late teens I played from Saturday night bush dances. It couldn't have been very good because I was mostly self taught. Later on I played viola in Perth and eventually got into the ABC augmented Symphony Orchestra. An accident to my left hand put paid to that so I switched to double bass for dances, balls, weddings and such for about 30 years. Music was about 50% of my take home pay, the rest being piano tuning, reconditioning, buying and selling. I like to think that my name will stay in Melbourne because I am a life member of the Australian Musicians Union. I shall always be indebted to you for the work you undertook to produce this book. To me, it seems a monumental task, all that searching and writing, corresponding, and it must have taken years of your time. There is always a welcome on the mat if you should ever come this way. We are only 2 miles from the Perth Oval, the home of East Perth and Barry Cable. I don't know your football interests or what your musical interest are but we are very good friends with Mr Heintz. Once again, thank you for undertaking such a gigantic task and bringing satisfaction and happiness to such as me.
David Gillard
D. M. Gillard
98 8th Ave
Maylands 6151
Apr 10th 1980
Jeff Gillard replied in a letter dated 30 April 1980.
Dave and Mollie evidently went to Victoria again after that because Dave wrote to Jeff again on 17 February 1982 - and kept a photocopy.
The highlight of our Melbourne part of trip was the day that we spent with you and Syd [Jeff's father].
We both thought that Syd was a wonderful bloke and it was a bit of good thinking on your part to bring him along to the party. We sincerely hope we will see you over here sometime but as you say, 'time permitting'. We realize how crowded these short business trips can be.
Herewith are the papers of Robert Dyer's business estate and are self explanatory.
I could never understand why it was dealt with in 1960 when he died 1905.
Incidentally, no-one ever wrote to me from Melbourne and I am a lousy letter writer so that was that.
Many thanks and regards
from Dave and Mollie
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I'm an old taxi driver [CHORUS - after each verse] Flat out up Malcolm St Down Kings Park Road Rounding the corner We proceeded once more Flying like 'well' up |
Down the hill further Driving round Leighton I put on the skids We picked the old bus up We arrived at Fremantle Dinky di, dinky di |
Garry Gillard | New: 21 November, 2022 | Now: 2 December, 2022