Graham Peters YHS 1970 wrote:
The Gully (between two hills)
Childhood in 1960’s Yallourn was a privilege. We lived on the fringe of the town, hard under the reservoir in Hazelwood Crescent, but with open fields and bush on our doorstep. My earliest friend, Rodney LeLievre, lived in the next street; a beautiful and kind little girl, Kim Boyd, across the road; indulgent parents and older sisters at home. There was not a lot of money around, but abundant love in a safe and caring community.
It was an era without television (well not in our house; Rodney’s family had a TV on which we would watch Bugs Bunny and the Flintstones each afternoon, stretched on our tummies on the carpet before the grey flickering screen). Between TV shows, we would explore the neighbourhood or play in a backyard dirt pit.
I was four years younger than my sister, Bronwyn and almost eight younger than Michelle. Being a little boy with two big sisters had very definite advantages. By the time that I arrived, my sisters were sufficiently grown to indulge me without competing. They would even sometimes take me to a Saturday Matinee at the Yallourn Picture Theatre. Cartoons and ancient Batman adventures (I guess from the 1940’s) were the introduction to the weekly “Flick”; often a Western, or high seas adventure. Errol Flynn, cutlass in hand or between teeth, seemed to feature more often than children would expect.
Michelle had a fondness (and still does) for dodgy cinema, ideally rollicking adventures, which would feed her imagination. She had been deeply irritated on receiving a cowgirl outfit (with skirt) one Christmas when she had specifically demanded cowboy pants (“chaps”) with leather fringing. Apparently, one could not draw a cap-gun revolver satisfactorily from a skirt – only a double holster over leather chaps would satisfy.
Toy guns featured heavily in childhood games, ideally with caps which if not required for the game at hand could be let off satisfyingly by grinding a finger nail across the cap, burning the flesh nearby if not executed precisely. A packet of six rolls of caps could be bought from Oliver’s Sport Store for threepence, carefully saved in pennies. I recall outrage on realising inflation had lifted this to sixpence (five cents) by the time decimal currency arrived in 1966. Extra “bang” could be gained by doubling, or tripling the cap under the toy revolver’s hammer. I was especially pleased when Santa Claus, visiting the 99 Field Construction Squadron Christmas Party in 1963, provided a toy gun with real revolving magazine – everything that a five year old boy could want and much envied by my almost thirteen year old tomboy sister.
My older sisters would happily take me along with the neighbourhood gang (the word had a very different meaning then) on adventures, deep into the bush between the two hills (which seemed strangely smaller when I looked at it as an adult). Games of Cowboys and Indians, some long forgotten Space Ranger (was it Buck Rogers?) or exploring the mysterious swamp were frequent pursuits.
There were hidden tracks across the treacherous mire, backwashed from the water treatment plant’s sand filters. The kids from each hill had their own pathways across corduroyed mats of tea-tree, zigzagging invisibly beneath the thick brown mud. A foot misplaced risked sinking into the glutinous slime. Michelle, ever adventurous, would stretch her gumbooted foot deep into the quicksand, letting the mud engulf it, only to withdraw it with a satisfying “glop!”. Occasionally she would misjudge, the slime overtopping the boot and almost swallowing child (and boot). There would then be furtive washing, undertaken at the outside tap in the Wilson’s front yard at 26 Hazelwood, lest parents discover her misdemeanours. If queries were raised over wetted socks, we would feign ignorance.
It was only in the late sixties, long after Michelle’s adventures, when a survey team, investigating the swamp, preparatory to raising the height of the small dam above Westbrook Road, alerted Dad (then Chief Surveyor – Yallourn) to the remarkable depth of the mud (about fourteen feet of accumulated reservoir silt washings). The unfortunate survey assistant, charged with measuring the depth with a lengthy rod, did not know the intricate paths through the swamp
(we did ask Dad why he had not asked us kids to show him). As a result, the hapless chap fell in so many times that the only trousers that were unmuddied were his pyjama pants. We revelled in the thought of a grown man coming to work in his pyjamas; I’m not sure that he was as happy or really did have to wear his PJs to work..
For a moment, it appeared that we would be banned from further swamp adventures. The extraordinary insouciance of children, “Didn’t you know about that?” carried the day. We, the younger children of families whose older kids had survived the perils of the swamp without major injury, could argue that it had clearly been perfectly safe for our older brothers and sisters and hence must be fine for us. Parents seemed to give in to this irrefutable argument, but we were careful thereafter.
The increase in the height of the dam wall was the cause of further worry for our parents. The excavations involved heavy machinery, incredibly appealing for small boys who climbed under, over and around each machine left parked on the slope below Tanjil Place. Kevin Newey figured out how to operate the starter on a bulldozer, resulting in terrified kids bolting in a dozen directions. I guess that an adult noticed, eventually…
We had happily carved out a “torture track” on the steep slope below Tanjil Crescent, We excavated bumps, banked curves and hollows through which we would launch our billy-carts before baling out as the empty cart rocketed over the side of the dam excavation. The expenditure of energy, to recover the crashed cart, was more than offset by the adrenaline rush of avoided danger.
On most occasions, we would successfully exit the cart, but each of us had at least one terrifying ride, bouncing down the steep sided clay excavation before landing near the swamp. It was a frightening, but oddly satisfying, initiation. Someone had the bright idea to wear a crash helmet, salvaged from the local rubbish tip, although this provided scant protection for limbs or body. I wonder now, how we survived as shorts and school shoes cannot have protected us. Scraped elbows and knees were passed off as normal to barely suspecting parents.
During one adventure, I baled out successfully but placed my hand on a broken beer bottle, slitting a deep flap of skin from my palm.. The wound bled profusely and we retreated to Bill Hopper’s home, hoping that his mother would be able to patch me up. I was unimpressed, washing my hand under the Hopper’s outside tap, to find that Bill’s mum could not bear the sight of blood. Forty years, later, I still have an impressive scar on my right hand.
We had been happily pursuing this daredevil activity for some years, building ever more exciting bumps, excavating deeper holes and making ever more adventurous leaps down the clay embankment, when Rodney’s father, Norm LeLievre, happened upon us. A thoughtful discussion alerted my parents to our activities. Whilst they had the wisdom not to ban it, we knew our luck might be running out.