An Albany Childhood Part 3

‘Albany will never change much – it is a pretty town, but vague. It seems to exist only in a somewhere-on-the-horizon sort of way; I like it all the better for that.’ Henry Lawson 1890

Lawson wrote for the Albany Observer newspaper in 1890 and he was right. Albany is a pretty little town. Snuggled between two mountains on the south coast of WA it looks out onto a spectacular natural harbour, and beyond that to the islands in King George Sound. My parents said the Scots would have called the two mountains hillocks. But hills and mountains are in very short supply in Western Australia, so we were proud of Mount Clarence and Mount Melville. The twins with their bushy girths and baldheads of shiny grey granite were part of our playground. Mount Melville was the closest to where we lived. We rode our Malvern Stars up the tracks until they became too steep, and then dumping the bikes we scrambled up the smooth rock in our bare feet. Up there we could see forever over the harbour and the south coast, and we were free.

On my second-hand Malvern Star bike

Just below us on the harbour-side of the mountain in Vancouver Street, lived Minnie, Maxine’s Grandmother. When we were hungry we ran down the mountain into Minnie’s back yard and through the back door that was always open. Minnie was home. She was always home, and always in exactly the same place. She was plump and welcoming, always smiling. She shocked me and thrilled me with the way she swore.

“You lot, bloody back again?” she would cackle with mock horror. “Well bloody well wipe y’re flamin’ feet. I’m buggered if I want a floor to wash.”

But I never saw her wash the floor. I never saw her get out of her chair. It was permanently jammed between the Metters stove and the end of the kitchen table. I may remember her waddling down the little path to the dunny in the back yard, almost hidden in the tangle Morning Glory but it’s more likely to be my imagination.

Everything about this old house with its old people fascinated me. Minnie sat with her ample breasts and doughy thighs covered with a floury apron. She beat eggs, sliced apples, kneaded dough and spooned biscuit mix onto trays. She could turn from the table where she’d been rolling out pastry, moving only her upper body to reach into the oven with her floury oven mitt and bring out a steaming pie or a batch of Anzacs that filled the air with their biscuity smell. If she needed anything that was not within her reach Dickey was there to fetch it for her. Dickey was the lodger, just part of the household. He was unfailingly jolly and was rarely seen without a cat draped around his neck. In my childish mind, he was closely related to Dick Whittington. We were quizzed about what was happening at home and school. Her response would always be: “Well, I’ll be buggered.”

We felt free to tell her anything. Far from feeling censured, we were rewarded with a chuckle. The best thing about Minnie’s house was her enormous dress-up box. She was quite a gal in her time if the discarded clothes were anything to go by. There were sequined ball gowns, elbow-length gloves and fabulous hats. We dived into that box and into our imaginations until Minnie grew tired and shouted out. “Its time yous bloody kids buggered off home.”

Dress ups

Growing up in Albany you couldn’t help but be imbued with its history. There were ancient Aboriginal fish traps mysteriously still clinging to the shallows of Oyster Harbour. Albany was the site of the first white settlement in Western Australia in 1826 and many of the town’s buildings are old. The history that most saturated my childhood was that of the two World Wars. Albany was the collection point for soldiers from around Australia and New Zealand before they were shipped off to Gallipoli. For many heading out of the beautiful Princess Royal Harbour was their last glimpse of Australia. People like Minnie and Dickey talked about those times and the men that didn’t return. There is a shady, green park overlooking the harbour and the Deep Water Jetty with several old cannons pointing across the harbour and as we played there it was not hard to feel the ghosts of the young men who had never come home. Above the park, high on Mount Clarence is the old forts that were first built by the British government in 1893. There are old tunnels leading to the huge guns that were installed in bunkers hidden in the side of the hill overlooking King George Sound. They guarded the entrance to the harbour, but Albany was never threatened. “Too bloody far away for anyone to worry about,” Minnie would say.

The house in Vancouver Street where Minnie used to live.