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Wool Shed Kitchen - Copyright 2021 Maxwell Jefferies
Max's Blog
from the
shed floor
from the
shed floor
4th April 2023
My Life Story - episode 5 - Teen years and boyfriends, part 1
My Life Story - episode 5 - Teen years and boyfriends, part 1
History, heritage, biography.
Images expand on click.
Images expand on click.
________________
Stay tuned for Episode 6 - Teen years and boyfriends - part 2.
The girls join the Marching team, and Elvie gets a serious boyfriend.
Have an awesome day! Cheers, Max.
Stay tuned for Episode 6 - Teen years and boyfriends - part 2.
The girls join the Marching team, and Elvie gets a serious boyfriend.
Have an awesome day! Cheers, Max.
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Previous Index Next
Previous Index Next
Wool Shed Kitchen - Copyright 2021 Maxwell Jefferies
Max's Blog
from the shed floor
from the shed floor
The Jefferies family was quite large, with my father's seven siblings, and my mother's eleven, plus thier children. Lots of weddings and get-togethers. For my part, being the youngest of my mob, I only remember a few of these early times. Uncle Owen, whose house was on the way to school and supplied us with honey, and his first wife, Aunty Marge.
Uncle Bill was a policeman in the Wanneroo area and brought in Western Australia's first speed radar unit. Uncle Len and his oldest three sons were also in the firewood business, so we saw them quite a bit, and Uncle Trevor had a nice 8 ton International tipper truck which we contracted with him to carry out the firewood from the bush for awhile.
Uncle Bill was a policeman in the Wanneroo area and brought in Western Australia's first speed radar unit. Uncle Len and his oldest three sons were also in the firewood business, so we saw them quite a bit, and Uncle Trevor had a nice 8 ton International tipper truck which we contracted with him to carry out the firewood from the bush for awhile.
Beth and Elvie, with cousins Maureen, and her brother Keith.
Irene, my mother, with her mother Sarah.
Elvie, Beth and Max (me).
Max (me).
Elvie on our front lawn. The sandy hill in the background is where the Tonkin Hwy passes to go over the Swan River. I spent many hours playing on this hill.
Irene, Beth, Graeme and the cat.
Beth and Irene.
Irene and me.
On hot summer nights, we used to drag out our mattresses onto the front lawn to sleep, with the stars over our heads. Our house was on Guildford Road, the main road from Midland to Perth, but in those days there was very little traffic at night.
Elvie and me.
The gantry (a crane with an un-adjustable arm with cable pickup) was a home-made job as you can see, ran by a flat head Ford V8. It had a leaky head, so every morning we would undo the sump plug under the motor to let the water out, then tighten it back up when the oil start coming out. The oil was always milky-white contanimated by the water, and we added old used engine oil each day for a top up. The gantry was not run alot, just to drag out the logs close to the truck, then hold the log off the ground for cutting with the chainsaws. We would bash our way through the blackboys (grass trees) and small trees to get to the logs at times.
After our family got out of the saw milling business, we went full-time into cutting firewood. At this time we were based in the back blocks of the Mundaring Wier Dam, and mostly accessed through Sawyers Valley, but sometimes through Kalamunda or Mundaring. We had a woodyard on the corner of Guildford Road and Pearson Street, Bayswater, on the border of Ashfield, Western Australia. The site is now occupied by Steel City.
The REO was a leftover war era truck that did the job for a few years. It would carry 8 ton of split firewood from the back country of Mundaring Weir Dam, out onto Great Eastern Highway at Sawyers Valley, down Greenmount Hill, to our woodyard.
My dad told me one story of how he 'cooked' the brakes coming down the last section of Greenmount Hill, leaving him with no brakes at all. Fortunately, there was no train passing the railway crossing at the bottom of the hill, and he was almost into Midland before he stopped.
Fire has destroyed so much in our lives, and it took out the REO truck and a home-made saw bench ute on the back, on the gravel road a few kilometres before Sawyers Valley. Probably had scrub caught around the exhaust that eventually caught fire. Graeme is viewing the damage the next day.
In the back yard of the sawmill house - Elvie, me, Brian who lived next door, the cocky, the cat and a dog. I can't remember that we had a dog, or that nextdoor did either.
Graeme and the cocky, me and the cocky. Yes, they did feed us, but we were very active kids and burnt up the energy.
Elvie.
Beth.
In the photo of Irene, my mother, on our front lawn, you can see the Service Station in the background. My father built this Neptune Fuel Garage on the corner of Katanning Street and Guildford Road, then sold it to the Grigo family who lived next door.
One of Beth's boyfriends had a real cool motorbike, pictured here at the garage next door, checking his tyre pressures.
We were a very active family, going on regular holidays, prawning in the Swan River, marroning in the dams around Waroona, fishing at Mandurah and crabbing in the Peel Inlet. We also attended football matches and wider-family gatherings.
We would clean down the truck, pile our mattresses on the back and head off to Lancelin for a week, the kids riding on the back of the truck all the way. The only track in was a sand & gravel road from Moora inland, and we just camped anywhere. Gordon got drunk one night and his mates rolled him down the sandhill into the ocean while he was inside a truck tyre. Go figure!
The family roughing it at Lancelin on a holiday. Dad would buy fish and crays off the boats and we would have a feast. They would give away cray legs for free. Nice.
Elvie and her friend Joan, who lived just over the hill from our place, and came on holiday with us.
Elvie at Lancelin.
Me (Max).
Gordon felling a dead tree and cutting it up into 10 inch slabs. Graeme (my brother) worked with dad for a time. I played hooky from school and went along sometimes.
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