THE JOURNO FROM THE BUSH D Tasman Pellas 1 Acknowledgements My brother Ivan was the instigator of these memoirs. After I suffered my stroke the day following my 80th birthday party, I thought aloud “What am I going to do with my life?” Ivan, who had come up to Sydney from Bendigo for the party, replied “Why not write about your life up to this point?” Or words to that effect, hence these memoirs. To provide a family background of just how I came to arrive on Planet Earth, and of continuing family relationships, I needed many reference points. Frank Pellas (Ivan’s son) solved to problem with his two centimetre thick family tree dating back to my great grandfather. Published in 1996, this valuable history covers six generations with 604 individual descendants scattered worldwide, including Finland, Sweden, Australia and USA. Worthy contributions have been made by my sister Betty (Elizabeth Joy Vanstan) and my sister in law Ethel (nee Quick). The whole family of my daughter Wendy and her husband Mike Allan have been involved in a myriad of ways, with special mention of my grand- daughter Bec who I regard and refer to as my “publisher” – a skilful master at that craft. Finally no memoirs of mine would be complete without the acknowledgement of my late wife Betty, without whom my life would have been forever incomplete. 2 The beginning…………………………………………………………………………………….. Leversha…………………………………………………………………………………………….. Education………………………………………………………………….................................. Intermission……………………………………………………………………………………….. Electricity and magnetism………………………………………………………………….. Early childhood………………………………………………………………………………….. Post office and other additions…………………………………………………………… Indian Hawker……………………………………………………………………………………. Cricket………………………………………………………………………………………………… Boy Scouts………………………………………………………………………………………….. Depression………………………………….……………………………………………………… Dad’s bad leg... and temper ………………………………………………………………… Wahroonga ……………………………………………………………………………………….. Picnics and holidays…………………………………………………………………………… Mt Alexander……………………………………………………………………………………… Starting work……………………………………………………………………………………… The big smoke……………………………………………………………………………………. The bush…………………………………………………………………………………………….. Army life…………………………………………………………………………………………….. Darwin bound…………………………………………………………………………………….. War and the family……………………………………………………………………………... Civilian life………………………………….……………………………………………………… Union Secretary………………………………….………………………………………………. No home…or job………………………………….……………………………………………… Life begins………………………………….………………………………………………………. Life in suspension………………………………….…………………………………………… Life revives at Nepean Times………………………………….…………………………... Cumberland Newspaper………………………………….…………………………………. Taking on Rupert………………………………….……………………………………………. The Chapmion………………………………….…………………………………………………. Public Relations………………………………….………………………………………………. Worm Farmer………………………………….…………………………………………………. Complete Retirement………………………………….……………………………………… A widowers life………………………………….……………………………………………….. Fred Neale………………………………….………………………………………………………. Roses………………………………….………………………………………………………………. Toby Two………………………………….………………………………………………………… Fishing………………………………………………………………………………………………... Final thoughts…………………………………………………………………………………….. Post Script…………………………………………………………………………………………. 3 chapter one- the beginning nnumerable people have asked me how I got my first name. I My name is Tasman Phillip Pellas. It is “Tasman” that they are enquiring about. The answer makes a good story and is an ideal way to start these memoirs. The story hinges on a war injury suffered by my father. His name was August Percival Philip Pellas. He was known as Perce. His close friends called him Pip, for short. I’ll call him Dad, for short. Dad was an original Anzac, landing on Gallipoli with the first wave on April 25, 1915. He was a signaller. On May 8, he was sent out to repair the broken telephone line from battalion headquarters (7th battalion) to the front line. While making the repair, he was wounded in the left leg. I always understood the wound was caused by shrapnel. However, his war records show: “B. W.Thigh”… bullet wound in the thigh. Although the powers-that-be did their best (worst?) to get him back into action, the war was over for Dad, but not before a lot of hospitalization, and at one stage being given up for dead. The injury was too bad to be treated at Gallipoli, so he was transferred to hospital ship. However, there were far worse injuries on board and his was not regarded as serious. Dad was left on the top deck, out in the open. That night, it poured with rain, resulting in him developing pneumonia. At the next port of call, a land-based hospital in Alexandria, I believe, but it may have been Malta, he was so ill he was put out on a balcony and left to die. A devoted nurse thought she could save his life. She did. The next problem the doctors faced: How to treat the hole through Dad’s leg? They came to the conclusion that they would have to amputate. Dad refused to accept that solution, saying if he survived the war he had an orchard to maintain. Finally, a Doctor Tasman said he could operate on the leg and eventually save it. Dad’s response to that was “If you do that, I’ll name my first son ‘Tasman’ after you.” And that is how I got my first name. 4 … I have just finished reading a book written by the famous actor/film star Alec Guinness at the age of 81 years. Suffering from loss of memory at times, as most of us do at that age, he titled it “My Name Escapes Me”. If I suffer a similar fate – and at the age of 84 as I start committing this rough part-draft of memoirs to the computer, I am fast developing that problem – I’ll only need to refer to Page One of this document to at least get part of my name right. To get the rest of my name, I will have to dive back in time almost a couple of centuries. … My grand-father, Johan Hermanson Pellas, was born in Jungsund, Finland, on March 15, 1863. He and his younger brother, August Hermanson (born February 24, 1871), became sailors. They jumped ship in Melbourne and headed north along what was to become the Calder Highway (My brother, Ivan, believes August – Gus – arrived in Australia much later. However, I’m sticking with my version; it makes a better story). I don’t know what year it was, but as we will see later, Johan (John as he became known) must have been no older than 25. My great-grandfather, Philip Traven, found the brothers under the Calder Highway Bridge over Barker’s Creek at Harcourt, where they had spent the night. Great-grand-father Philip must have needed help on his property, Hillside, and he promptly employed them. Perhaps, even at that early stage, his apple-and-pear orchard was bearing fruit and he needed pickers. Grandpa John soon picked up the language fairly well (even so, 50 years on he could not get his tongue around “Tasman”- he always called me “Tashmon”). Uncle Gus was another matter. He never learned to sound the letter “J”. The story has been handed down from generation to generation of the time he was working for Harold Douglas, a neighbour of Philip Trevean’s. The horse pulling the spray pump wouldn’t move forward to the next tree when commanded. No matter what Harold did, the horse wouldn’t respond. Angry, frustrated, Harold landed a kick to the horse’s belly. Still no response. Harold really lost his temper, took a run at the horse and kicked it with both feet. As Uncle Gus told the story: “By yingo, he did yump.” I still do not know if he meant the horse or Harold did the "yumping”!!! Philip Trevean must have been well satisfied with John as a man and a worthy character, as he gave away his daughter, Eliza Jane, in marriage, to him. Their first child, my Uncle Herman, was born on November 23, 1888, when John was 25 years old. Then followed four more sons and four daughters. Between them, John and Gus founded a Pellas dynasty, for Gus had four sons and a daughter. As an example of that dynasty…When I was entering my teens, we fielded a full Pellas cricket team of eleven males. I was the youngest player in that team. Incidentally, my father was the first to inherit his grand-father’s name of “Philip”. Since then, it has been in every generation, even unto the fourth, with one “l” or two. The latest inheritor is my grandson, Ricky Philip Allan. I mention the double “l” because Dad, when he was registering my birth, was not sure of the spelling. So I became the first and, as far as I know, the only “Phillip” in the dynasty. Sadly, the family name “Pellas” is in the decline in Australia, because most of the recent progeny have been of the female gender. … 5 Apart from his work in apple-and-pear orchards, Grandpa Pellas was in great demand in Harcourt’s other main industry: granite-quarrying. Trevean’s orchard was at the very foot of Mount Alexander, a name made famous in the gold rush days. Mount Alexander goldfields were the first such area in Victoria. About two miles north of the orchard, the first quarry, Bright’s (or was it Blight’s?), opened up to relieve the mountain of its heavy base material, granite. To handle that material, cranes were needed. Cranes need heavy steel wire cables. That is where Grandpa’s sailor skills became important. He was needed to splice the hooks to the end of the ropes, and all similar splicing jobs. I have always understood that a splicing accident was responsible for the loss of the forefinger of his right hand. The quarry was in the foothills of the mountain, which ran approximately north and south. So Grandpa only had to walk two miles along the base of the mountain to work. I know that these memoirs are supposed to be about the life of one Tasman Phillip Pellas, and here I am concentrating on one Johan Hermanson Pellas. However, Grandpa was an important person in my life, as I hope I am important in the life of my grandsons. Of the two that I feel closest to, one of them, Ricky Philip Allan, is the fifth generation bearer of the name “Philip”. So, let me, briefly, continue touching on the memoirs of that tough character, Grandpa John. I say “tough character” because well into his seventies he helped Dad prune the orchard.