CUBBIE
STATION
I have heard it said that
the coming of cotton down on Cubbie Station has been the making of
Dirranbandi.
Hang on a minute, the
Cubbie Station I knew
and grew up with
Was a thriving pastoral
company out station. The Headquarters at Noondoo Station at
Dirranbandi was where the General Manager ruled over the far flung
stations under the A.P.Company. They leased land for 100 years. On
Noondoo , Cubbie and Bumblebend there would be employed Managers,
Overseers, Cooks , Housemaids, Cowboys (cowmilker/gardener) and
Bookkeeper. Besides in seperate living quarters were the Stockmen.
It was like home to those who lived there. They always said “I’ll go
down to Cubbie”
As well there were the Boundary riders huts,
where the family’s grew up and were assured of a job on one of the
APCoy stations.
The Stockmen were under
Cubbie Station Managership, and looked after the sheep and cattle.
There were also Jackaroos, men who stayed till they had the
qualifications to run their own
properties.
Pommy Class distinction
was there they ate with
the boss in the dining room. Their washing was done, and they had MR
added to their name when spoken to.
They didn’t receive much
pay, but they were benefiting from experience. The Station hands ate
in the kitchen with the Cowboy and the Aboriginals ate on the
woodheap. Dirranbandi
right from the Great Depression times was known as a workers
town People came and went but one
always knew the old Dirranites would still be there. You would still find the
family name there in the present day. But sadly one needs to visit
the cementry to be with old friends. Those were the days when one
didn’t have to work on Saturday morning. The Stockmen would ride
their own horses into town the 30 miles from Cubbie. They would
mingle with their mates in the streets or the pub. Then at night off
to the picture show. Their spurs jingleing as they went to their
seats, hats still on. A
Bushman always wears a hat and riding
boots.
Cubbie Station had cattle
and sheep, also Lignum bushes where the wild pigs made their nest. A
bit of sport pig shooting there. Like all the APCoy Propertys they
were usually supplied by company Horses broken in up in the Northern
Territory APCoy
Propertys. Company Drovers would bring the horses down from the
Territory with the cattle coming to Cubbie to fatten up before being
steam train trucked to Brisbane Abbatoirs from the railway trucking
yards (now gone?)
Sometimes the cattle
would be sold at the Dirranbandi Sale Yards
(its gone too??) near
“Dancys Paddock” the Cementry .
So Dirranbandi got gutted
when the cotton came, the train comes once a week now? We had about
4 banks, all gone. Go to StGeorge to get a feed not much tucker in
Dirran town yes indeed.
Back in those days in the
50s plus the Rattler was something that one remembers, you could
sleep to a mile or so out of Dirranbandi, then Paddy Stack would blow the train
whistle, this would give the passengers time to get ready to let
that great feeling come, when one stepped down from the train, back
home in old Dirranbandi town again.
Gone now are the Railway
yards, gone the Sale yards, gone are all the Drovers. Jack Hoath,
Don Johnson, Billy Lindsay, Bobby
Lindsay,
Cattle Pup Mc Ewan, Jack
Goodwin, Charlie Brummell, Cecil Bunyan and the other townies who
worked for them Including the Dancy boys ,
the Chapmans and Nobles too, to mention just a
few.
No family milking cows
left on the town common or childrens ponys. Just for sake of the
cotton, gone old “Cubbie Station” home to many . All these people
who were employed on the APCoy
propertys,
and the Drovers, Fencers,
Stockmen , a large number of people who worked in Dirranbandi all
lost their jobs.
Right from a child I
remember having to shovel in the river bed sand just to get water
for the house to be carted in a billy goat cart with 2 4 gallon
kerosene tins of water, just to
survive.
I fail to see where
Cubbie cotton made Dirranbandi?
Charlie Brummell my dad
carted water from the railway train water supply around town to
supply thirsty people from a tank on a spring cart hauled by an old
grey horse, all through the war years, while his 3 sons Walter Keith
and Charlie fought the Japanese in New
Guinea.
We Dirranites always knew
how precious water was and still is, never an over supply. Any house
with a rainwater tank full was blessed indeed. For the rain don’t
come cos the trees are gone from Brisbane to Barcoo. If we continue
to use all the water from the Lagoons, Dams and rivers. I can only
say we will have to bath once a year.
So spare a thought when
you hear how Cotton Irrigation is the best, but let your brain
wonder where all the water will come from to fill the seven mile dam
on Cubbie. It never rains that often, and I’ve seen more droughts
than floods in my 85 years.
You have to realize the
Ballonne river that feeds Dirran and Cubbie comes down from St
George 50 miles upriver where there is a bridge dam for the St
George irrigation and the Beadmore dam to fill
too.
A fresh will be released
in flood time to come down the river to Dirranbandi or Cubbie
(Culgoa) depending on needs?
Then the Culgoa branches
off the Ballonne below St George who gets the most released water
diverted at the junction of 2 rivers
I like cotton
clothing,
But must it spoil my
happy memories of Dirranbandi and Cubbie station
Gone from Cubbie is the
great lagoon where the soldier white
gums
shaded the station hand
from the midday sun on dinner camp when he boiled his Quartpot and
watered his horse and cattle or sheep,
and probably had a half
hour sleep after his dinner meat sandwiches with tomato sauce. Gone
are the little creatures who got a drink at the old lagoon, the
lizards and snakes the porkipines. Gone are the trees where the
birds sheltered in the heat of the day.
One old farmer got a crop
every 3 years if he was lucky so he said about his wheat or oat
crop. The sheep mostly got to eat the
stubble.
Don’t go dry land farming
on the StGeorge - Bollon road near
Kullinjah!
OCCASIONAL 7 YEAR
DROUGHTS?
….Nell Johnson
of Dirranbandi10-sep-09
Recorded on
Cubbie rainfall of the 1800s from the Dirranbandi
Book
1864..!6 days of heavy rain in
feb 1864 made the roads impassable up till
December
1866….drought bad between Condamine, Surat
and Roma Cobb coach services
cancelled no grass
1867
Janurary rain a plenty just in time
1868 drought
1869 feb. break of drought green back to
dalby
1870 floods again……………start.6 year
drought???
1877
floods again
1886………….. famine at StGeorge then flood
1890 flood
1899 heavy snow Cunnamulla
1908 first flood Ballonne
running since 1901 (end 7
year drought)
1910 flood
1911 flood
1912 drought
Yearly rain
Dirranabndi
1889…………..23 inches…….
1890……………35 inches
1891……………27 inches
1892……………18 inch
1893……………25 inches
1894……………28inches
1895……………17 inch
1896…………….19 inch
1897……………..19 inch
1898……………..11 inch…drought drought 1898 to
1903?
1899………………15
inch…drought
1900………………10
inch…drought
1901………………14
inch…drought
1902……………….4 inch….bad
drought
1903……………….21 inches
1904……………….19 inch
1905………………..19 inch
1906…………………21 inches
1907…………………17 inch…drought
1908…………………18 inch…drought
1909………………….19 inch
1910…………………..21 inches
1911…………………..21 inches
1912……………………14 inch…drought
A hundred years ago the
Aboriginals who lived in the Mungindi, Dirranabndi , Hebel and
StGeorge area were good horsemen and trackers of man or beast. A
stockman back then had to read tracks to find a lost animal in the
thick scrub.
On Cubbie
station worked Cubbie Jack a very tall dark man who never wore
boots, he would wire spurs to his feet if riding a horse that needed
a prod to keep it going.
He used to say
“I’m Cubbie Jack king of the blacks and a bloody lot of white
fellows too!” And he was right. you didn’t mess with
Jack.
I was 5 and
with my Drover dad riding across Cubbie Station when we came to an
area of lots of Gum trees where the old tribal Aboriginies had used
their left hand to chop possums and birds out of trees. Don said
they were all left handed this tribe, and some of the Goodooga
people came from the Cubbie tribe. According to Aubrey McGovern who
was born on Brenda Station south of Cubbie there had been a tribe of
Bronze skinned Aboriginals who were hairless in the Brenda area
before 1900
Cubbie and a
dozen other stations were originally leased for 100 years by the
Scottish A.P.Coy. Now Cubbie is one large dam, where Cubbie Jack
used to roam, for the cotton growing when they have the water. Then
there was Nelson who fought my Great Grandfather Joe White in his
tribal way over Joe watering his Yarraman Horse at Nelson’s water
hole.
They both used
spears and boomerangs pelted at one another. Joe and Nelson both
managed to deflect each incoming spear with a Woomera, then a bird
killer Boomerang took Joe’s hat off so he conceded defeat and
left.J
They later
became great friends .
Nelson had a
mate Gilbert , these old tribal Aboriginies would take my dad Don
Johnson as a little boy with them. They would hang a dead possum over the water and
return in a week when the occasional maggot was falling to cast a
fish spear where the fish would be waiting, old Yellow Belly on the coals
mate.
Don learned how
to track porcupine as the rear claws disturb the soil differently
you know which way he is going.
Of course the
Emu would lay eggs when the Gidgee tree was in flower the old men
said, so you looked for the nest. The Koamu tribe inhabited an area
of 15,600 square kilometres
south of StGeorge and the Ballonne river down to Dirranbandi
and Angledool in NSW,
also Hebel, Brenda
station and west to Bollon and Neebine
ck.
In Dirranabandi
amongst the drovers was Booligar Jack, Albert the Manager, 6 foot
tall a great tracker, Brolga Bob was a fast lamb marker
.
There were burial grounds in
the Twidale dairy paddock at Dirranbandi.in the late 50s The old
hollow trees would fall down and people would cut em up for the wood
stove. Don saw a large number of bones in one tree hollow after it
had fallen, they had been bound together with vines or Kangaroo tail
sinews. He dug a deep hole to put them in the ground there. These
bones were very old . The Chinese also had a burial site near there
and bits of coloured glass were on their sites
there.
Dougal Cameron
who lived near Bollon
(camlet?) used to bring in cattle from the gulf and the
Northern territory a hundred years ago. He sometimes found lost
children around 1 to 2
years old on waterholes when watering his cattle. He would carry
them in a saddle bag on a horse, these orphans of the desert and
feed em on damper, corn meat , sugar and
tea.
One child
became Rodger Beadmore of StGeorge and worked for Eddie Beadmore for
many years, he grew up with the children on the property. Another
girl Maud Billy worked for the Winters all her life on Woolerina
near Dirranbandi.
My Mother Nell
Johnson had been manpowered to work as cook at the Dirranbandi
hospital during the war in 1940 and saw this lovely old lady laying
in a hospital bed.
Nell remembers
this old lady, one morning Nell went into the ward to see who needed
breakfast, there laying up in the white sheets was Maud Billy . Nell
knew her before and had seen her working on the property. Nell asked
are you ok . With a huge smile Maud said” I’m in heaven Missy “ Nell
thought she might be delirious and really thought she was in
heaven? Maud said I
have a lovely bed , the nurses washed her face , they even combed
her hair . Maud was not used to this treatment , she had a life of
rising at 4am work all day and to bed at 10pm, she had a full day of
washing and cooking for the family and the men on the station, also
the children to see too . So amazingly no wonder at the end of her
days here was heaven in the clean sheets of a hospital
bed.
Another well
known Aboriginal man was Shilling Jackson of Goodooga where Harry West ‘s family
lived , I heard him on the radio he and another man Quartpot? Were
doing rain dances to bring rain in the 1960s and the rain came too.
He had a son called Sixpence who was a rodeo rider at the
time
From my mums recollection
of the times…Don Johnson
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