Exploring different ways of writing, capturing moments in time.
Do I owe, you, my reader, and explanation of what I have written. Or do I allow you to make your own meaning. I choose the latter.
Forever Part of Us
She knelt onto the dry, grey earth and reached into the slender stalks of wheat. She caressed the dry, brittle stalk, reached its head, the full roughness of the grain protected by thin husks. Gently she reached her touch to the tips of the thin strands of its beard waving, sighing into the hot air that bruised her breath.
Her glance upwards, across the waves of gold, held her, mesmerized. Paused in time and space. That spaciousness that would soon lose its heads of life-giving grain, to become mere stalks, food for the sheep in the next-door paddock.
Upwards, her glance, into the haze of white above the waving golden heads. Sweeping left, right, the curve of the horizon a container of the promise of a good harvest. But that was not what she saw today. Today she saw the richer blue, as her eyes lifted above the horizon and she knew there, in that richness, her father’s spirit – at one with his handiwork, blended into the earth that held his footprint, that grew his last harvest.
Her soul ached as it reached upwards, ever upwards, like the stalks of grain, straining into the energy that the sun emblazoned into the caked, dry earth. The same earth that held him, forever, now, becoming part of the star dust, beneath its crust.
It was too hard, being in this place. She knew she must leave it all behind when it became hers. That place where his soul lived and breathed. Where life is sown into the soil, reaped, and sown again.
***
In an earlier post, I shared a photo of stalks of grain from the last crop. These are long gone now, due to a carefree pet’s playfulness.
I search for suitable music to inspire me to write today. I pull out all the stops, scroll through several playlists and stumble across Spotify’s Classical Summer compilation.
Promises of selections by composers include three well-knowns –
Beethoven, (not my favourite composer – too ‘heavy’)
Bach (‘lovely and light’) and
Chopin (likeable)
…. make for restful listening.
Although, depending on who I listen to, symphonic music is not always an easy listen. Like Beethoven. I find his music heavy and downright sleep-inducing. I hope I’ve chosen wisely.
Panorama of Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House
A pause in pulling out all the stops
I pick up a novel I finished recently. Winner of the Women’s Prize, The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller is a well-paced read I found difficult to put down. I flick it open, ready to write a review.
Inside the cover I find two tickets I used as book marks. One took me on a tour of the Sydney Opera House and the second, to Saint-Saen’s Organ Symphony the same night.
My review is deferred
I learn a great deal about the Sydney Opera House on my tour. I discover –
It was designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon. Something I knew, but had forgotten.
It took fourteen years to build. Also knew this, but also forgotten.
Building commenced in 1959, four years after I was born and was officially opened the year after I commenced university, in 1973. I recall Her majesty, Queen Elizabeth II visiting for the official opening.
Costs began at $7million and blew out to $102 million dollars! The purchase of lotto tickets helped subsidize the build. I didn’t I contributed. I live in WA, capital – Perth. It was a State Lottery.
Utzon, the original architect never saw the finished building. He got ticked off over the numerous changes to the original plans and quit in 1966.
And – the point of this piece of writing – it houses the largest mechanical tracker organ in the world. You can read about it being the largest in the world, how it is played and who has the privilege of playing it, here and here.
When I see the organ I liken it to the WA Goldfields Pipeline! Meaning, the pipes are HUGE!
And that organ is, according to my brilliant and information packed tour guide, only played around 4 times a year. I think he means for 4 different ticketed ‘shows’.
Sydney Opera House organ pipes
What? Only 4 times!
I cannot resist the opportunity to experience one of those occasions.
Over lunch, part of my ticketed tour, I search for online tickets. I can’t decide on a seat. I know it’s not supposed to matter where you sit in the concert hall. Every detail is acoustically optimized.
Recently refurbished within an inch of its life around 2020, it took two years to complete. The original acoustics were short changed (ie not enough money) and hence, of poor quality, apparently. Today it boasts –
massive speakers
carefully designed wooden panelling around the walls that are acoustically friendly
pink, vaulted tile-shaped shells that hang from the ceiling
Sydney Opera Hall acoustics – capturing the magnificent size is challenging.
The concert pulls out all the stops
I am blown away – moved to tears – by the sheer beauty of the rendition of St Saen’s Symphony. The organist, Olivier Latry, is given latitude to play above – or more loudly – than other instruments. He pulls out all the stops in a brilliant performance.
The term ‘pull out all stops’ originated with the pipe organ. When a player pulls the organ’s stops out, more air flows through the pipes and the volume increases. Pulling out all the stops results in extremely loud, energetic music. In every day use, the the phrase also means to use all resources available to achieve an outcome.
Typical concert chats with co-fans sitting next to me reveal at least one attends this symphony any time he can – to date that’s 5, or 6 times! Clearly he’s pulling out all the stops to listen to a favourite!
Who was he?
Saint-Saen was a musical prodigy, rivalling his contemporary, Mozart, and liked Bach, according to some background reading here. Even though the critique is offered by a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mozart remains my favourite.
It both amazes and amuses me that Saint-Saen’s contemporaries like Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Verdi – are names I am familiar with. In my early childhood I learnt some of their pieces on my grandmother’s piano. (You can read about my childhood piano here.) But I didn’t play around on the organ long enough to move past church hymns.
Where to from here?
My serendipitous choice of Classical Summer music makes me smile. It reflects the very composers Saint-Saen’s talent is compared with and the contemporary he enjoyed. How could that be? I had no idea about this composer, famous for his organ symphony, until that Friday night concert in the Opera House. Nor of his history, until I read about him (of course!).
I add a previously unknown composer (to me) to my repertoire of incredibles and listen, once again to a rendition I find on You tube of the Symphony in C: Organ – the whole symphony, here and of the Finale alone, here.
Have you been to the Opera House? Or have you discovered a piece of music or composer in an unexpected moment that brings joy? Please let me know below or by clicking the link here and scrolling to the end of the post.
As a child, I lived on a farm a couple of miles out of a small country town in Western Australia. In the central wheat-belt it was ‘as hot as hades’ in summer and darn cold in winter. It was in this same environment that my mother’s own childhood taught her to grow ‘tough’ plants.
‘insertiums and lillybulls’
I recall a time believing that the silvery grey, five-thousand-gallon water tank that stood by our back door, was possibly on fire and that’s why firemen used water tanks. You see, it was the colour of the nasturtiums that tricked my thinking into believing some weird story that linked the two! Vivid oranges and yellows clung to and licked the sides of the tank, no doubt held in place by an invisible framework of ‘chicken wire’ that held the long stems.
My mother grew ‘insertiums and lillybulls’ in her own childhood garden – or perhaps her mother did, and that’s simply what her memory recalled. Even so, in a lengthy poem I wrote for my mother’s 70th birthday, to capture something of her life, these unique sub-names are recorded for familial posterity.
At the base of the water tank were lily bulbs, and another oddity that never actually grew at all.
Today I grow Nasturtiums at the foot of a huge Zamia Palm we inherited on the purchase of our foothills home. They emblazon the edge of the garden bed and scatter their seed pods onto the nearby lawn. As I wandered through my mixed garden it struck me how it too is a mix: somewhere between” let’s do all native plants” (West Australian, and in particular the hills) and country cottage. Oh, and one other range of hardy plants. Geraniums and succulents.
Other hardy plants
My mother also grew a large variety of geraniums and pelargoniums. (Check out here for the discussion of whether it’s a geranium or a pelargonium)
Our second childhood home garden
On the farm property named after my parents: “Kenberdale”, there were numerous plants my mother grew with great delight, pride and joy. Amongst them, in my mind’s eye, I see mauve and pink Zincas and other pretty flowers in the garden beds that lined the fence at the front of the homestead.
It was from this farm base that my mother undertook the brave venture of beginning a plant nursery. Initially she sold plants she grew herself. Gradually, even though the farm was 16 miles from the nearest town, 17 from another town and about 30 from a major town, she drew customers district wide. Many years later, after discovering how much in demand plants were, my parents began a garden centre in Merredin, the largest town in the district. Her garden nursery won mention in the local newspaper. If there’d been awareness of entrepreneurial recognition, I’m sure she qualified. She ran the centre for over ten years, and won the loyalty of customers who travelled miles to her centre, for her potted plants and her gardening advice.
(My parents in the garden centre they opened in Merredin. Ack: Newspaper source unknown. Please advise me if you are aware of the source.)
How do succulents fit into my idea of a garden?
In short, they don’t! Or should I say, they didn’t. Not until I realized that my mother’s capacity and wisdom in growing a plants was based on sheer necessity. Necessity to save water while, at the same time, to cater to her passion to garden. She discovered, researched and probably used knowledge from her childhood to grow plants that needed minimal ‘tlc’: tender loving care. Many of them were succulents.
We lived ‘on the edge of the desert’ – or so it seemed to my brother’s partner when she first visited the family farm, sixteen miles east of the nearest town. Dry and dusty in summer, it may well have appeared desert-like. Not quite, geographically, but when the main water supply is that which is piped the 300kms or 180 plus miles, from a weir in the capital city via the Golden Pipeline and its subsidiary lines, it’s probably a justified exclamation. It may be well worth noting, that if it hadn’t been for CY OConnor’s vision to establish the Pipeline, many of the rural towns in WA may well have never been established.
Hence, you may see why my mother grew succulents.
Bright pots complemented the succulents along her garden wall in her final home.
A massive cactus grew beyond the yard that contained her well-watered cottage garden. Well-watered? Yes. From the supply of tank water stored in an overhead tank, and pumped religiously onto the garden and buffalo grass lawn (later ‘lipia’ as it was more ‘water friendly’. And I might add, prettier and less prickly to sit on, oh, except for the bees that liked the flowers!)
How did the farm capture water?
As well as the water stored in the tank, piped water from the main line fed into farm troughs for the livestock.
At some stage, my father had a massive dam, built barley 500 meters from the house. This supplemented farm needs. His pride and joy, the only dam he built on the property, was almost washed away by flooding rains in the following year. Fortunately, the banks withstood the deluge that channeled itself into the dam.
There was also a natural soak and a natural catchment area between two massive swathes of granite rock in another area on the farm. This, however, was intended for the sheep. Not my mother’s garden.
Back to My Mother’s garden
My mother’s first gardens were those of her childhood on Stoneleigh and Greenacres, her two childhood farms. From there she resided briefly in Bruce Rock with her parents, while she worked in the local town. When she married and moved to the ‘cottage’, as we fondly named it, on the farm two miles out of the town, she established a modest garden, mostly of ‘tough plants’.
I recall raised granite stone beds, dry earth and a succulent or two. This was my earliest home. It stood at the base of two massive granite outcrops, and, as I recall, was fed only by rain water from the tanks the nasturtiums grew over. (I don’t recall, but there may have been piped water from the town supply).
That’s one element of ‘a long story’ about my background to succulents.
The next chapter
When my mother passed away, we discovered hefty concrete planters of succulents littered through her garden beds in the home she lived in. I was amazed to discover hardy Jade and many others I’ve no names for! We had her permission to transfer the potted plants into our care. Today they are ‘looking good’ in their new space.
Dry spell
It’s been a long dry spell here, in Perth WA. Since October last year, Perth recorded just 21.8 millimetres of rain in the six months to March 2024, marking the city’s driest six-month spell in 150 years.
So these tough plants have needed to be watered with scheme water. This water comes from the same source as that which serves the wheat-belt. It strikes me how small this vast state is: the same weir supplying a city, and still feeding the rural towns along the pipe lines built in the early 1900’s, servicing towns that manage to grow gardens despite being on the edge of the extremely dry hinterland. It makes me wonder how the pioneers managed. More on that, in a future post.
Please leave a comment below or by clicking on this link and scrolling to the end of the page.
When I was about ten years old I played in a huge cubby-house in the back yard of our home. My brother, who was a couple of years younger than me, and I, used to set up the interior as rooms mimicking a real home. We created spaces for a kitchen, a lounge room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. In true playful fashion, as only a pretend home allows, we changed the floor plan at will, and I sometimes frustrated my brother with requests to shift the kitchen from one end of the huge space to the other and replace it with the lounge room, and so on. We partitioned the rooms with fabric as curtained walls, possibly on stretchy wires, the sort used, once upon a time, for lightweight curtains.
The cubby is in the background. My mother and her sister are behind my brother who is in the foreground with a friend behind him. My younger brother has his back turned and that’s me, photo bombing!
I had three dolls: Sophia, Pollyanna and Mary Anne. With my brother, we played at being mothers and fathers. I’d rock my babies to sleep in wooden cots and make-shift beds. Of course, the babies (dolls) all came back into the main house afterwards, to be safe from the cold, damp winter nights, or from the excessive summer heat. I recall the heat generated by the roof. From memory, I think the roof was actually old lino flung over wooden supports! It made the cubby into an oven and reduced the time we could play in it during the long, hot summers in the central West Australian wheatbelt.
What was our cubby made from?
The great things about our cubby-house was the size. It was big enough for a car to have fitted in – because it had been a car crate. Long gone are the days since cars were delivered in crates such as this one. I don’t ever recall seeing a car in one, but I am told, on good authority, that our divine space, made from planks of wood, with a window and door cut into the side, and with a pitched roof added, was indeed the means of transporting a new vehicle to either the owner or the business from which a new owner could purchase it.
Image courtesy of site mentioned above.
When I Googled ‘car crates’, I only found one image that remotely resembled the skeleton we played in. It concurs with the practice of transporting cars by Ford, according to an article aptly named Crate Expectations by Nigel Mathews, who claims ‘the combination of wooden shipping crates and automobiles date back to at least 1908’, and that ‘The practice of shipping cars in wooden crates continued until the mid-1960s.’ It may, therefore, have carried the Model T Ford my grandparents owned, and if not, clearly someone else in the district had purchased a car, otherwise it would not have arrived on our farm, sixteen miles from the nearest town, to be converted into a cubby-house that gave many years of pleasure.
My Rockery Garden
Outside the cubby, in an effort to resemble a true home, I had my own garden rockery. Occasionally I’d plant some flowers or rely on hardy succulents surviving lack of water. These leftovers from my mother’s garden occasionally burst into a vivid display like in her garden beds. Sadly though, I never acquired the green thumb my mother had and a few tough cacti and a plant with the inglorious common name of ‘pig face’ were the only survivors in the hardened soil. Much later I learned of other hardy plants, like daisies, lavender and a purple papery flower, as in the images below!
Inside the cubby, I had a child-sized kitchenette. Smaller than actually appropriate for the size of the cubby house kitchen, it nevertheless was more than adequate for our make-believe purposes. On this kitchenette I placed my tiny cups and saucers, plates and cutlery, all of which intermingled with overlarge offerings from the main house. My tiny kitchenette was thick with coats of chipped, pastel green (or was it red?) paint. It had tiny cup hooks, a shelf and cupboards below. I suspect it was the same one my mother used in her childhood.
The tiny dormice on the cups, saucers and plates seem stuck in time and certainly in my mother’s memory banks. They provided hours of childhood play for her many years before I used them. She ‘oohed’ and ‘ahd’ when I discovered the tin in the spare bedroom where I sleep when I visit her.
A single setting of the tiniest cup and saucer brought my own ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’, as I recalled a set of gold painted china that was my very own.
I see myself in my cubby, at our child-sized wooden table and chairs, some with dolls seated on, serving tea and cake. The cake or biscuits were real, the tea, rather watery. Fingers were held out in grand fashion and with man a giggle! Afterwards, the cups, plates and saucers were washed in a large green enamel bowl which I still own,dried and hung on their hooks or placed back on their shelves.
It was, in fact, a perfect playground, teaching my brother and myself how to keep house, redecorate, enjoy tea parties. and so on, having fun while doing so!
Grandchildren and their Cubby-houses
I wonder how many children today enjoy a special cubby-house space, and items to with it.
I create temporary cubbies with my younger grandchildren – rugs over chairs, hideaways in huge cardboard boxes and so on.
On a property in the hills we inherited a cubby-house that stood the test of time, until the roof leaked and floor boards gave way. Hours of fun were had by the grandchildren in this space with old pots and pans, kitchen cabinets and mini items.
My older grandchildren liked the freedom of repainting the cubby-house to make it their own.
What has this to do with a vintage tin?
I found the tea set wrapped in soft cloth in an old tine. I will pass these onto my granddaughter in due course. Right now, they belong with other pieces of memorabilia until memory is played out. When the time is right to relinquish them, maybe for play, I’ll bring them out again.
All the items are packed away for safe keeping. I plan though, to bring them out when the children visit over the Christmas break and hold a tea party.
Please feel free to share about your memories at the end of the post. If the comment box is not visible, click here:
It’s time! Recently I began my journey of sharing family stories: I shared what I’d captured in writing and photos about my mother’s life with members of the family. Her request to withhold sharing her stories until she after she passed on has been honoured.
Questions around making family stories available to the wider circle, and ultimately to the wider community, is knowing what to write, where to draw the line in what is shared and when to publish.
Stored treasures to write about
Tough decisions
Shortly after my mother passed away, I wrote a short piece testifying to an energetic approach that helped both my mother and myself manage those last challenging months. It was a tough call, having responded to a request to write it and being entrusted to let it go forward to publication, to unexpectedly heed a clear and loud message from my ancestors to not publish.
You see, at first, I thought it was fear. Fear of putting self out there. Fear of what others might do with my story. Fear of not being understood. And not knowing how to handle all that, I pulled back. Yes, I’d been burnt before. This response predominated, yet it was much deeper. Sharing one’s life story and those of others is a journey of trust.
Honouring Values
In fact, it wasn’t fear at all. After deep reflection on why I prevaricated, it was honouring my mother’s wish for privacy, something that unfolded with increasing awareness in the days following her passing and my decision to hold back. In part it is called grieving. It is also called honouring family values. An incredibly private family, it is a wonder I am even writing this! Let alone thinking I’ll publish it!
But the time has now come. As poorly written as the memories of my mother are, (I could offer several excuses for that), they are nevertheless, precious memories. I know that she read and re-read what I wrote: they reminded her of who she was, of the life she had lived, of her input into life. They are now shared within the family, where they matter the most.
My mother walks along a historical path in her home town.
What happens from here?
It is now time for me to move forward by looking back. How on earth does one do both at the same time?!
Naturally reflective, I like to learn from the past. As I enter an era heralded by a number I am loathe to disclose but glad to have achieved, I know I have more years behind me than ahead of me! It is time to write the stories, share them with family and prospectively publish them. That is my goal.
I’m now ‘keen as mustard’ to write my stories
Where will I find my stories?
My 50 crates of family history stored in a shed in our back yard need to be distilled into family stories that I can pass on to my children and grandchildren. Over the years I created both wonder and disappointment in family expectations to participate in family gatherings, collect history and so on. I’d wax and wane with enthusiasm.
Capturing other people’s lives on paper or in making sense of photos of people long gone was far less important than current matters. I was caught up in raising my own family: I just wanted to live my own life. Even so, my mother relentlessly fed me family history from a young age. Now, I am, in fact, deeply grateful. Oddly, now that she is gone, I am more able to focus on writing about the photos, memorabilia and stories that I can share from memory and uncover from research. I guess it comes down to having more time to do so.
I have made inroads and I am now writing, once again. I’ll share the process. I’ll share snippets, photos, possibly some of the stories, along the way. Wish me well on my journey.
CS Lewis Quote “… we write in order to understand”
Low cost meals and simple dishes were a fact of life during my childhood. In the 60’s My mother managed our household of five on a minimal budget that didn’t always keep pace with inflation. Even so, we never went without. There was always food in the cupboard, and the pantry, and later, when we could afford one, the chest deep freezer.
Because we lived in isolation, on a farm, frequent trips to the shops weren’t possible. My mother bought in bulk. It was common sense to do so. She supplemented shop bought foods with home grown vegetables; home-made preserved fruit from back-yard fruit trees; home-made jams and chutneys, and even home made ginger beer. She became adept at creating meals out of little.
Simple meals
The main meal usually consisted of simple dishes. Nothing gourmet. I don’t think I learned that word until after I’d left home.
In winter, we often had soup with bread, not a skerrick (tiniest piece) of butter in sight, followed by a simple main meal and dessert or bread and jam. Each serving was ‘enough’. That is, it was a serving, not an overladen plate. On Sundays, soup with pancakes was our meal. No in-between mains. There was sufficient nourishment in the soup.
Iced coffee at lunch time came in a 2 litre yellow jug with a white lid, not a Masters Dairy plasticized cardboard carton. My nother made it from Tooralac Powdered Skim Milk, (later it was other brands), chicory essence and raw sugar. Two thirsty men, later three, coming in from farm, downed the jug full, glass by glass, without batting an eye. I couldn’t acquire a taste for it. Milk and I never got along.
Tooralac Milk came packaged in strong plastic, so durable that I still have an original from many years ago.
Offal for meal anyone?
For main meals, my mother was adept at creating dishes from cheap cuts of meat. Liver or lambs fry was served with lashings of onion and gravy and a helping of mashed potato, carrots and peas or beans. I found lambs fry barely edible, but, I was told it was incredibly rich in iron and therefore good for me. It didn’t meant I ate it with any degree of pleasure, though!
Another meal was tripe. Colour was added to this very bland, pallid dish with boiled carrots and garden fresh peas or French beans. Once I learned where white meat other than chicken came from, I couldn’t touch it, even when it was disguised in white sauce made from milk, flour and onion. Utterly ghastly!
A favourite only ever found on a plate in front of our mother was brains on toast. To this day, I can see the squirmy looking ‘meat’ being devoured with a smile.
Home grown
Later, when my father had a spare lamb or sheep for household food, we ate chops, roasts, and whatever other cuts of meat he managed to cut. It was always difficult for me when I saw bloodied bags hanging from meat hooks on the side verandah. Later, the meat was wrapped in plastic, labelled with a texta, stored in the freezer and consumed over 2-3 months.
Steak and kidney pie might sound like a luxury. It was generally served as a stew of sorts, with toast or mashed potato. The steak was a cheap cut of gravy beef. This dish was so unusual, the kidney sort of added an exotic flavour. But I knew what it was, and avoided the chunks, or swallowed them whole.
‘Cow chops‘
In our very early childhood, a tale is told that my brother asked for ‘cow chops’. Of course, he was too young to know the source of each cut of meat.
Mum also bravely served home home-grown chicken. Visions of a headless chooks tied to the clothes line, quite why I’m not sure; the copper of boiling water beside the engine shed (we had 32 volt power) and the smell of scorched feathers as mother dunked and plunked and plucked the bird, always had me turn my back and retreat to the other side of the house. I don’t know what else she had to do. But we did eat the meat.
This is the sort of copper my mother used. A fire was lit underneath and water boiled in the copper insert. We had an old one near our engine shed and another one in the laundry for washing clothes
My least favourite dish, apart from tripe and brains, was trotters in jellied aspic. Good heavens! I couldn’t eat it then, and I’d run a mile now!
Years later, when my father began keeping pigs on the farm, we had pork. Huge, fatty pork chops. We were obliged to eat all the meat and the rather large, fatty portion still on the edge of the chop . We weren’t terribly well-informed about the health issue of cholesterol back then.
Meatless dishes
Occasionally we ate meatless dishes. Mum was adept at pasties and made a very tasty pasty slice. She made fillings from home grown vegetables. We were allowed to cover our serving with a squirt of tomato sauce. Of course, being a vegetable dish, we needed no side servings. I recall though, mashed potato may have been added to fill growing children and our hard working father.
Admiration
I recall my mother’s dedication to providing the best she could for her family. To this day, I admire her ability to be creative with dishes. Brought up on a pioneering farm in the central wheat belt, she would have learnt her skills in preparing such meats and other inexpensive dishes from her mother and sister.
A ‘mincer’ or grinder, similar to the one used to mince our meat.
A modern approach
When prepared meats became available on trays covered in plastic from supermarkets, it was no doubt much easier. Chops no longer had to be home-cut. Mince no longer had to be put through the hand turned grinder. Today we get chicken breasts, legs or wings by the tray. Or a whole chicken if we wish. We are spoilt for choice.
These days I am mostly a vegetarian, for various reasons. I don’t get why people fuss over having meat in their diet. I find plenty of nourishment without. But that’s a topic for another day.
There’s not a lot in common between eggs and pianos. Except for the one that used to grace my lounge room. If the hens on my Nanna’s farm in the early 1900’s hadn’t been so productive there’d have been no eggs to sell, no money saved and logically, yes, you’ve got it. No piano.
Our Beale piano had pride of place in our front room.
My grandmother, Nora Farrall played the piano and sung beautifully. She was joined by her husband, Harold, in recitals with family and friends. It was pioneering days in the wheatbelt and coming together for a Sunday afternoon, or an evening was a popular form of entertainment.
The piano (right-hand image, far right corner) in its first home, Greenacres, my grandparent’s home in the central wheat-belt, Western Australia.
Where did our piano come from?
The piano was most likely purchased in the1920’s or early 1930’s. It is a Beale standard piano, not full height, suited to sitting rooms. Beale Pianos was founded by Octavius Charles Beale in Annandale, NSW in 1893 and established a reputation in making quality pianos in Australia. I believe the company still stands today. It rose to become the largest piano manufacturer in the British Empire, producing around 95,000 pianos from 1893 to 1975.
Beale undertook making all parts of the piano. The piano in our family has a clear identity stamp on the wooden cabinet, a manufacturing number clearly visible on the frame as well as the distinctive Beale Tuning System stamp.
Typically, Beale pianos were overstrung, which I understand to be an asset, along with high quality playing mechanisms. The hammers and the felts are in great condition. Nothing has ever needed replacing. Its original keys are fully intact and the piano maintains good pitch despite its infrequent tunings.
A quick peak inside also reveals its solid iron frames. Over the years this made it a mover’s nightmare in weight, but no doubt has helped it survive its original journey from place of manufacture in Sydney, to Perth and subsequently to my grandparent’s home on their family farm, known as Greenacres, six miles out of Ardath.
The original Beale Piano Tuning System was designed specifically for the Australian climate
Of particular note is the unique the Beale Tuning system that Beale patented which was designed to withstand the dry, hot conditions in Australia. At one point, I imagine piano tuners were not easily come by in the wheatbelt and it dropped a semitone across the whole keyboard. Careful re-tuning over the years has it back to where it should be, a testimony to the quality of the piano.
Despite Beale initiating the use of wood to suit Australian conditions, extreme heat and dry summers in the wheat belt took its toll on the French polished wood, adding an aged, crackled character to its finish. According to Leaver and Son, pianos of this vintage are worth anywhere from $500-$5000 depending on condition. In my opinion, our piano is worth much more than its dollar value, being the holder of treasured family memories.
A peak inside the piano.
Moving around
Over the years the piano survived several moves: From its home in Ardath it may have accompanied my grandparent’s to their retirement home in Bruce Rock, though it was most likely given to my mother at that point in time. That meant it ended up in the lounge room on my parent’s farm, Kenberdale, located just within the boundary of the Narembeen shire. From there, when I married and settled into my first home in Perth’s hills in Kelmscott, the piano moved in with us. My two daughters learned to play it in our Adair St home, and continued ad hoc lessons when we moved several times in the city. For a brief stint between 2008 and 2010 it resided with one of my daughters while I lived in London.
It is most fortunate, that over the many moves between homes over a period of more than fifty years, it was only one during move that it the removalists almost dropped it! Thankfully, no damage apart from a scrape or two happened – all part of the piano’s character now.
While it had its place in my home in the Perth hills, I occasionally gave private tuition to family beginners and played the pieces I’d learnt many years ago. It briefly shared my younger daughter’s home while I travelled overseas, and now it has moved to the inner suburban home of my older daughter so her three children can learn if they choose to. It is my hope that in the future it will remain in the family one way or another.
Learning to play
In the sitting room at Greenacres where my grandmother played and gave recitals she also taught her daughter, Dorothy, my aunt to play. Dorothy, taught her sister, my mother. My mother has no recollection of being taught outside of the home, but she recalls a music teacher in her school days who taught from the Ardath Hall. So my mother might have also learnt from her. When the piano came into my parent’s household I rarely heard my mother play.
One of my mother’s favourites. She’d ask me to play this one while I practiced. The sheet music is so fragile now that the brown paper glued around the edge is falling away and the internal pages easily tear! I still play it though
Learning to play the piano was a skill I acquired rather than a natural talent. To me, learning to read music was like learning maths. All equations and timing and counting. It is also like reading words on a page. Once learnt it stays. Well, it has done so for me anyway.
I was sent to the local convent where my piano playing skills were accompanied by raps across the knuckles with a short stick! Lessons in moral conduct were also thrust upon me at me to redeem my soul and to provide sharp reminders to avoid errors in playing. Little booklets, I can visualize one of them now, about how to be a good Catholic girl were thrust upon me. I kept them hidden in my thin, brown music case away from my parents. I knew they would disapprove, being staunch Protestants.
In the process of learning to play the metrical beat of my metronome tick-tocked beats as though I had donned the costume of Tick-Tock in Return to Oz. The unforgiving regularity of keeping time is a tough one for me so I play for my own pleasure and if I miss a beat because I’m out of practice, it is of little consequence!
When I began studies in senior high school I entertained the cooks in the dining hall of my Merredin boarding house but once in the city, studying at university and teachers college, it became all too hard to keep up playing. Many years later, though, both daughters learned to play the piano and I taught the rudiments of music to my granddaughter. Curiously I find that with so many different methodologies today, it is barely necessary to have a teacher when the internet can serve the same purpose!
Magic does happen! I passed all my Pianoforte and theory exams with good grades. I practiced an hour or so every day – scales and set pieces and the occasional non-compulsory piece. It was more than a subject to learn. It made my heart sing. It still does.
My grandmother’s piano stool overflows with numerous old editions of sheet music.
An ear for music
The only thing I ever truly wished for while tinkling the keys was an ear that naturally heard sounds and matched pitch! It forever eludes me, though I know what sounds right and how to create music from a composition. It’s always a delight to hear those who are blessed with running their fingers up and down a keyboard creating music as though it were the gods themselves showing off!
Playing an instrument is a delight in the way it brings me right into the moment. It’s a great way to focus and centre self. I have old sheets of music stacked high, usually on top of the piano and overflowing from my great grandmother’s piano stool that came from Oldham in England when she immigrated with her family in 1910. Not naturally musical, I’m ever delighted to have had the opportunity to learn an instrument and know my grandmother’s piano will remain in the family for the next generation and beyond. It is part of our family heritage.
My granddaughter loved playing. After a few personal lessons she taught herself using online lessons.
