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Re: Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Wed Dec 16, 2015 10:16 pm

'His Life Worth Living' - Page 19:

Each day one of us knocked off early to cook the meal, including a brownie, a bread mixture with sugar and raisins in a camp oven on an open fire. I had never cooked a brownie before but I did not tell my workmates. I duly got the goods together and mixed them together which looked a mess. I dug a hole and buried the remains. No prayers, just amen. I was more successful the second time and when the meal was taken my workmates said this was the best brownie they had in a long time.
We did this work for a couple of weeks but before we started on another block I told them I was leaving. Thallon the next stop. I pitched my small tent and while sorting things out a police constable walked in and asked what I was doing. He must have seen a stranger going through, being a small town. I told him I was setting up camp and then look for a job. He told me if I spoke with a man named Westaway he would have a job for me.
I was one of his gang and we travelled about thirty miles to a property named Chelmer owned by fellow named Bill. The job straight ringbarking, no trouble. The grocery part of the food delivered at our expense, water and meat the boss bought once a week. The meat a huge side of beef. At dinner each night we sliced off what we wanted, cook over the fire on the lid of a camp oven and inside of the oven potatoes and onions. Next day bread and beef for breakfast and midday same for dinner each night. We never went hungry. Each weekend three workmates went to their homes in Thallon leaving me to look after the camp.
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Re: Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Thu Dec 17, 2015 9:51 pm

'His Life Worth Living' - Page 20:
I remember one time when I had a weekend in Thallon, Stan Westaway took me to the hospital at Mungindi on the New South Wales border when I poisoned my hand. I'd been fishing in the Balonne River with a piece of meat as bait and caught the hook in the base of my thumb. I was about a mile from Thallon and called on a nearby station for help. No one at home except a dark girl about eighteen years old. She couldn't stop giggling. I told her to go and get a sharp knife or razor blade. She eventually returned with a razor blade. Whilst she held my hand firm, with the fishing hook, a big cod hook, I sliced through the base of the thumb to remove the hook. She stopped giggling. I thanked her and returned to Thallon.
Next morning the thumb throbbed. I bathed the wound and went to Stan's home to find out what time we would be starting in the morning. He asked me what was wrong with my hand. I had a streak of red up past my elbow. 'To hospital’ and drove me to the hospital where the wound was opened up and sterilized. I had needles and back at work in five days. That’s the sort of blokes you meet in the bush.
The work went on for several weeks. One Sunday the boss Bill came down and we sat on a log and talked about all sorts of things. He wanted to talk and so did I. Just before he left he asked me if I would work for him.
'I've never worked with sheep.'
'You can ride a horse, of course. You can start when this job cuts out in a few days time.’
After our meal that night one of the gang remarked about a job going on this place. I kept quiet. Just before we bedded down I said the boss had been down, a new side of beef hanging in under the fly, and he offered me a job, which I'd taken.
Stan Westaway who was in charge of the gang said, ‘Good on you George and good luck.'
IMPORTANT NOTICE: I'LL BE ABSENT UNTIL 27TH DECEMBER 2015. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MEMBERS AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT.
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Re: Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Sun Dec 27, 2015 3:10 am

Thank you dub. Here is the page for today: 'His Life Worth Living' - Page 21:

The first job I had with Bill to use a pick and shovel and a wheelbarrow. A gully about one hundred metres from the house, went down a narrow valley to two converging banks. My job to dig and fill in the neck of the gully to form a dam wall. This took a few days, not hard work. The property had ridges of red soil with mulga growing. Bill then with the aid of a small tractor and blade made contour channels into the gully thus increasing the catchment. The dam although small was successful. I quickly realised I was to be a handyman around the place. I did not do a great deal of sheep work but about two days each week I had to cut mulga branches to feed the sheep. Grass almost non-existent. The weather dry, the sheep scratching the earth and eating burr from the plants.
Near the house a bare hard pan, which never grew anything. Bill had a small vegetable garden and adequate water. I pointed out if this hard pan was ploughed he'd have a good garden, grow all his own vegetables and citrus trees. He said he had no tractor, the one he had was borrowed and no farm horse.
‘You have a car and a truck, all you want is a fifteen inch plough and fifty feet of gauge 8 wire; have one marking each end.’ I told him. He baulked about the car so after we spoke about a solution, decided to use the truck. Bill fastened the plough at one end and the truck the other with the number 8 wire hitched to both. The first furrow not too good; his truck would have to go much slower. We got into a rhythm and got the patch ploughed after a fashion.
One day he told me his sister was going to England for six months or more and would I go and look after her house and property, which I did. She owned the next station. These stations about 25,000 acres each, small in comparison with the other big holdings. My role to feed the dog and cat and look after pot plants etc. She had an overseer who lived about one and a half miles further on the property who worked the sheep. He asked me once if I would help him muster.
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Re: Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Sun Dec 27, 2015 10:27 pm

'His Life Worth Living' - Page 22:

At daylight on the day I set out to muster the sheep in a paddock about five thousand acres, an intense dust storm blew. I managed to get the sheep onto a fence with the aid of a sheep dog, which only understood aboriginal language. I arrived at the meeting place arranged by the overseer about two-thirty in the afternoon. He told me too late to do anything with the sheep that day and to let them go. I never did like sheep.
A cat belonged to the house, which always found its way in after I cleaned and next morning left a mess. I put up with this for about a month. The owner had a revolver in the cupboard. I loaded one bullet and got the cat in the washhouse. The cat stood on the washbasin and meowed at me. From about ten yards I up and shot the thing leaping high in the air and fell down dead.
The six months eventually went and the owner returned and thanked me very much for looking after the place. I didn't mention the cat. I was the owner of a fox skin, which I trapped in the sand hill adjacent to the property.
Before I left with many goodbyes, the owner Harry Kempt, Turumby Station a large property, two hundred thousand acres, asked if I would work for him. His property on the Moonie, with a large house, workshop, men’s quarters, shearing shed, the works. I lived in the workman’s hut away from the house and had my meals in a separate room from the family. Funny how western people are so socially conscious?
Over the years, I'd been studying a radio course. I found the course interesting especially long nights on my own. We experienced extremely cold weather and I mentioned to the coloured girl how cold the weather was at night. The girl, the housemaid for Mrs and Mr Kempt.
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Re: Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Mon Dec 28, 2015 10:55 pm

'His Life Worth Living' - Page 23:

The following night about nine thirty I still had my kerosene lattern going reading and writing notes on wireless, when a knock on the door startled me. I said, ‘come in,’ Lucy the housemaid stood with a spare blanket. I thanked her very much but she seemed to be disinclined to leave, so I told her, ‘thank you very much; I sure will be very warm tonight. Goodnight.’ I wondered if she came over on her own accord or Harry sent her over to try me out.
My job on Turumby Station mainly to ride the bore drains, clean away rollie poly grass which pilled up on heaps causing the water to overflow and flood the surrounding country. Travel the boundary fence and mend any breakage in the fence from falling trees and cut mulga for the sheep. The property stocked with sheep and cattle. I killed a sheep a week, skinned and butchered and placed the carcass in the meat house. Mainly for the dog and us but the dog ate most of the sheep. I had to muster the horses each morning before breakfast, collect my lunch, bread and mutton and quart pot to boil water for tea and get back to the station by sundown.

Chapter 3
England fought the war in Europe against Germany for almost a year and appeared to be getting the worst of the struggle. I decided to give up my job, so I told the boss, Harry Kempt I wanted to go into St George and enlist. He himself a Reserve Officer in the Light Horse, so I found myself, in the army, even in name only.
The train from Thallon to Brisbane took a long time and my journey to Kia Ora one of happy memories. I'd written to my old boss and warmly received. I received orders to report to Redbank camp to undertake a thorough examination by a doctor and given the okay. My civic clothes disgarded and issued with a military uniform, which only fitted, not exactly tailor made to fit but as everyone else looked as silly as me, no one complained. Given a bag to be filled with stores and two blankets and solid army boots that looked as if they would last forever.
TO DOWNLOAD THIS BOOK: CLICK HERE: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/591980.
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Re: Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Tue Dec 29, 2015 10:15 pm

'His Life Worth Living' - Page 24:

In the first few weeks I was one of the awkward squad, with drill, talks and manoeuvres. I became a Lance Corporal for a while but my independence showed through too much for some and superseded by someone a little younger, who did what he was told whether right or wrong. For the first few weeks we did nothing but drill, right turn, left turn, about turn, usually by what was called the Cadet, young men, still in their late teens who joined Cadets when they were at school. The day came when a very young man took our mob, twenty odd in number for squad drill. Left turn, right turn, about turn. We'd had enough. We drilled in a large paddock and when we had gone as far as we should've we decided no more right or left turns, just forward.
We got far enough away from him, as possible and made our way to Redbank Railway Station and those who wanted to go to Brisbane went. The remainder returned to the camp to give our account. We told the officer in charge we were too far away to understand his orders. We did not get any more young men in charge of much older men on squad drill again.
As a troop we worked pretty solidly for the first few weeks and given twenty-four hours leave. The third week in camp I was introduced to the ‘The Redbank Bark’. Everyone at some time succumbed to this complaint and for about five or six days we were a sorry lot. The ‘Bark’ a severe cold and very sore throat.
The usual camp duties allotted on a roster basis, life became routine. I wondered if I was a soldier in the Australian Army or had to do camp duties forever, but eventually our troop paraded up into lines.
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Re: Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Wed Dec 30, 2015 10:07 pm

'His Life Worth Living' - Page 25:

A Major and his followers walked along the rows of new soldiers picking one here rejecting a great number. He came to me and looked me in the eye. I eyed him back. ‘Take off your hat soldier.’ He commanded. I thought, I’m out. He still stared at me and then to my great relief said, ‘Yes.’ I was a gunner in the 2/10 Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery and henceforth would be called Gunner Burtenshaw. Yet, as a gunner I never served on the guns but a signaller in the Battery Headquarters. This, of course, meant I learned morse code, flag signals and become acquainted with radio. Morse was a problem. Flags were never used but we did use wireless a lot for messages from Headquarters and Observation Ports to person commands to the gun troops. Four troops of eighteen-inch guns, which later changed to twenty-five inch guns.
Eva Cunningham worked at a dressmaker shop at Stones Corner in Brisbane. On the back steps of that shop I proposed marriage to her. She accepted. On 4th September 1940 we married in Kia Ora Church to became the second couple married in the church. Soon after our marriage I was called away to war.
People in the country love weddings, this one no exception. The church full to over flowing. We signed the book. We became only the second wedding in that church. My former boss, the dairy farmer and his family put the reception on the veranda of his house and what a spread. After which we proceeded to Gympie to travel by train to Brisbane. I forgot to pay the Minister so the Best Man paid.
In staying to settle things he arrived at the railway station just in time when the train left the station. The Station Master phoned the next station to hold the train until Best Man duly boarded.
We spent our first night in a Brisbane hotel and then our short honeymoon at Surfers Paradise. Cavil Hotel on the corner and two boarding houses in the street looking back to Southport. Only about ten lights shorn along the street.
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