A true story..or...Gold in my veins.

thanks AtomRat.I know the feeling of not knowing a lot about your forebears..for a long time there i did not know that i had two uncles who were survivors of Galipoli, only to be blown to pieces in Poziers and the Somme. Fortunately i had a family who valued the oral history of the family and passed it on to us. Using this "folklore' I was able to trace historic records to discover my convict history on one hand and my 'freesettler' history on the other what it has taught me is that we all have such a rich Heritage and its important to share it . I sincerely hope you are able to uncover more of your precious family history and the stories they have told. Goodluck with it .. don';t let it daunt you, if you knock on the right doors who knows what amazing things you might find Cheers Rossco.

Just a foot note before i relate my earliest recollection of my interest in the yella. I referred to the road that Pop Goodwin had travelled to go "golding" as he called it as being the Raglan road... sorry.. it was of course the RYDAL-TARANA RD AND .. the spot is now a part of Lake Lyell. :8

A Childhood Memory....pt.2...Gold in my Veins

In 1932 my Father, Allen, married my mother in Lithgow, and took up a fulltime position at the newly opened Hoskins Kembla works. I was the youngest of 6 children and i turned up in the winter of 1948. For us, Lithgow was for as long as i could remember as "home". Twice a year, we all boarded the Steamtrain at Wollongong and it was all stops to Central. I can see it now as if it was yesterday,descending the steps of the train onto the platform by now shrouded in steam and the smell of coalsmoke and being ushered aside to let a bloke in a railway uniform atop a motorised unit with a whole row of trolleys in tow, he and the Guard would load all our luggage onto one of the trolleys,whereupon they subsequently loaded it all on to the western line train headed up by an enormous wheeled "38 Class" engine. We in the meantime somehow found our way through the throng of travellers accompanied to the sound of a Paperboy singing " Git ya PAAPAR. Git ya Daily Tellaar GRAAAF." Then followed a wonderful Roast dinner at the Railway Cafe, the table furnished by a white linen table cloth and an array of silver plated cutlery and attended by a nice sort in a black kneelength dress with a laced encrusted Apron, and smelling like a peach tree. Oh it was wonderful service in those days!
Thence came the endless trip out of the city and eventually the long climb up and over the Blue Mountains with stops at places like Blackheath and Katoomba and at each stop the platform announcer crackled out KKRRKK."Katoomba twenty minutes" and everybody headeed for a cup of Railway coffee or slacked their thirst at the bar.. which all the major stations had in those days.
And eventually as the big 38er came to a grinding, jolting stop. accompanied by yet more clouds of smoky steam, seeing my Grandfather and Granny emerge from the same.. my pop with a small clay pipe permanently attached to the side of his mouth and my grandmother wearing a freshly laundered apron from which she magically pulled and handed out fresh baked biscuits, cooked that morning in the old wood stove.
From then on in it was one continuous conversation carried out by everyone at once and the whole thing interspersed with the sound of laughter. Enevitably at some time that evening the conversation turned towards the gold. My Pop and my father in the corner near the fire immersed in talk of leads and gutters, good spots and duffers, this pan and that pick, until my Pop would further infect my father with fever by pulling out a little bottle half full with yellow stuff and my father roaring and cheering and rubbing his hands together as he and my Pop made futher inroads to the other bottle that they shared with shouts of 'Heres to tomorrow" and "down the hatch matey...

reefer said:

ah...mate i remember...we shut down two of the outfronts...and VOLA! WE WERE ROCK'N...HEHE Thank you!Yes its really good to chill out and just let the evening unfold with a... huge.. fire, and a glass of...whatever takes your fancy mate... stay in touch and we can make it happen again hopefully in the not too distant future! in the mean time stay safe and I'll look forward to our next meet up.. whats your preferred venue. cheers.... Rossco..oh p.s... would love to see those pics, so dig 'em up if you can ...great to here from you after all this time...you made my day!

Click to expand...

Mate it looked a bit touch and go there for a while but after the power was delivered elsewhere it was certainly rocking!
The fire was bloody huge but just added to the evening I reckon.
Glad you remembered me and we most definitely should do it again!
Reckon you know where too .........IRONBARKS of course! :lol:
Had a look for some photos but no luck digging them up just yet. The search will continue.
Please keep your yarns going they are fascinating and remind me of stories my Father and Grandfather told me of travelling to the "Big Smoke" on the old steam trains from the family property just down the road from Mookerawa.
Great stuff Rossco and hope to have another catch up soon.

Cheers,
Billy.

Reefer,
Yet again, I could picture all of that as if it happened to me.
My late father and I would stand and smile at each other when we smelt that smell of burning gum and steam. :/
That was at Wauchaupe back about 10 years ago.
.
Please, Write a book mate and Thank You.

Tom Spicer lived in Sydney and worked as a clerk in a store of some kind.He grew up listening to his father relating of the days of yore and the rattle of the sabres at Eureka. He was an industrious young fellow about 20 years or so of age solidly built and it was said by many that he had a heart of gold. He earned a meagre wage despite his dedication to his work but was often seen handing out a thrippence hear and Zac there to some of those drifters and unfortunates that you see lounging about in the parks and by-ways of the city. One day as usual on his way to lunch he tossed the paper boy a coin and was handed the paper which he nonchalantly folded in half tucked it under his arm and headed to a little park where the Oblisk stands to this day I think its called Maquarie Square.(The reader might allow me the indulgence to say that I also have a very close link to the foundation of that park by way of the convict, Nicholas Delaney an Irish hero of the Rebellion of 1798 against British Rule who was subsequently sentenced to death, but who had his sentence reprieved in lue of 14years hard labour. They thought they were banishing him to suffrage in the far off Antipoedese, the reality as it later turned out was, they sent him to Paradise on Earth.... but thats a whole different story.)
Tom enjoyed his lunch and opened it out to reveal the headlines on the front page and those headlines virtually lept out of the page and slapped him in the eyes.. GOLD! HUGE GOLD FIELDS DISCOVERED! Several parties already on the ABERCROMBIE.. More news as our reporter travels to the scene. Reports thus far suggest gold for the taking. Tom knew right there and then that this was his destiny! His father had filled his imagination with tales of the riches that he had seen mined on the Turon, and the fabulous fortune that his Uncle also named Tom had made 10 years before but who also had disappeared and taken his fortune with him to who knows where and he sensed that the small but useful savings he himself had squirelled away, would be best spent to equip him with the tools and chattels to make it to the 'The Diggins'
Soon after he quit his job and bid his tearful mother and proud father farewell. Farewell to your dingie office. Farewell to your Ledger and your accounts. To the diggins to the life of a rover, and there to make his fortune and the life of a Gentleman, independent of means and the foul air of the Bigsmoke. Some six or eight jolting dusty fly ridden days and as many dirty flea ridden nights at various inns along the way he arrived at the diggings. It was'nt like he expected at all.. in fact he had no idea what to expect save for the fact that it might be somewhat of a 'spartan lifestyle'.. and a spartan lifestyle it surely was. A large part of the the slopes adjacent to the creek they called the Tuena was covered in white tents. Smoke rose from a hundred fires and as the evening descended on the scene, a hunred or more rifle shots sent the crows and cockies flapping in all directions, as the miners let loose of their old powder to reload a fresh shot to do the same thing tomorrow night.The welcoming aroma of beef and bacon filled the cool night air and later in the evening the clinking of glass on glass as a hundred or more drams were downed in one go and a fiddler serenaded the entire scene. As a new chum Tom stayed by the fire in front of his own tent and contemplated the days ahead. and the days ahead were nothing like what he imagined they would be. There was gold to found for sure but the work was back breaking and laborious his savind eventually used up, it was imperative that he rise early each morning to continue the endless cycle of diggind and shovelling sorting and puddling, pan after pan after endless pan and barely enough to meet his daily bread let alone his hoped for el dorado.
And so it went on and on and he grew hardened in his body and wiser in the mind. They got to know him very well the miners on the Tuena. Despite his miniscule findings and his hardships he was often seen among some of the more unfortunate on the fields handing out a loaf here and a drink there and as well as that good fellowship he was blessed with an enchanting baritone voice and was hugely popular around those campfires at night and learned to 'clink his glass ' with the best of them. And so three years passed and the life he led eventually caught up with him. He was tired, disallusioned and almost beaten in to the very soil that promised so much, but failed him so badly. But what to do. Go to some other place, perhaps a trudge over to the Turon to mull through the diggings there...maybe not.. maybe it would be better to go back to clerking in some dingie office somewhere in Sydney.. swallow his pride and go home and so it came to pass that with a few shilling donated to him by those who at some time been the reciever of the same form him when they were down he waved his last goodbye to the Tuena and began the long walk back to Sydney.
He ascended out of the Abercrombie valley in the late afternoon and camped by the road with a view to hitching a ride with some traveller who might come by, but there was no one and there was no one for days on end, no inn no farmhouse no one then it dawned on him. During the night at some point he must have taken a wrong turn and now the road turned into a track and there was no end to it . He trudged on and on and eventually there was nothing for it, he was lost and the track closed in on him and there was nothing but the mournful 'hushh' of the wind in the trees.
By now he was out of grub save a half loaf old mouldy hardcaked bread. The tea was almost expired and needed to fill his 2pint water bottle and it was cold...so very cold he knew he should stop and light a fire but he thought he might move on .. or return to god knows where.The darkness fell out of the sky like an axe on a chickens head.Acold wind sprang up from the south..or was it the west..he could not tell. He was so cold and so tired he could'nt feel it anyway. He fell to the ground hopeless, beaten once more, may as well just die here and now he thought his mind wandered ,,now to his home by the fire with his mother and his dear old dad.. then to the camp and the miners all happy and laughing..only they were were laughing at him each in turn mocking laughing. And then an old man seated at a fire calling him "TOM!.. TOM!.. come into camp the old man said.. 'Come.. and Yes! there was a fire and an old bloke there cooking mutton and a steaming billy as well Yes he could see it here ..just there.... and then overwhelming blackness .. sweet restful blackness.
He became aware of the sunlight which by now was fairly up. He covered his eyes with a hand and thought he could here a noise.. like the sound of tentflap blowing in the wind his head swooned and body ached with the cold. Slowly labouriously, he drew himself to his knees and looked about him... he did not believe what he saw.. there was a tent..albeit a very old one encrusted with mould and the flap slapping against the front pole.. and a fireplace not used in years and a lean- to,half fallen down with a shelf at the back with cans of bully beef and long skinny pickle jars all unopened and preserved peachs in similar looking jars..but how?... he thought he must be delirious, sick in his head but no.... it was real, and it was there. He rose unsteadily at first,staggering, half falling and pulled aside the flap of the tent expecting to see his saviour.. but there was no one .. he called out repeatedly 'hullo.. hullo there... but it was obvious no one had been here for a very long time.
The tent inside was sparely furnished. A good quality bed roll took up near the half of it and upon it lay a woollen blanket, now faded and in partial tatters.
On the other side was a Ricketty old chair in urgent need of repair and behind that a bush crafted table about 2 feet sqaure.. under it an old leather case one known as a 'PORTMANDOU' or some such word and half hanging out of it a very well made wooden box.
Curiosity and confusion prompted him to uncover the box and place it on the table. It was made from Mahogony and was inlayed around the edges in Moher of Pearl in the centre also in Mother of Pearl were the initials T.S. in the gap in the top was a note written in a very stylised hand, it read.."If you find this it is yours.. use it justly and wisely as i know you will.. good luck sir you deserve it...signed Tom Spicer. November 1855. in the box was 10,000 pounds in twenty pound notes.... cheers rossco

oh dear i have stuffed up people i am so sorry and more than a little confused i hope it somehow turns out right cheers rossco the bloody stupid old fool 8.(

This is the old man himself, my Pop!..and my dear old "Nanna Grace". I hope by posting this pic of Herbert and Grace,readers of my stories can..'put a face ".. so to speak. to a character who featues a great deal in my stories, and thats because he had so many stories ,that I am offering but a fraction of this loving,card-carrying advocate of social inclusion. A "true believer" in the best working class, labour traditions..and. he played the Tuba! as part of the Town Band...in the Park every Sunday after noon...hehe.. Oh the old ones.so many in the family at one time... and now those of us who still rememer them.. and how we were all inspired by the things they did and the things, they said.. They lived and loved and made a contribution to our nation..for when its all said and done..all of us have a story..a 'history'..if you like...and they're all important, because they all add up to the sum of the majority of ordinary citizens..thats, "the nation"...... each story a page in our Nations' History. Im glad my Pop was a miner and had lived such an adventurous life..at least in his early years and he never forgot them. Not a word,Not A Word, would be different to the way he called it the last time...hehe....the above post reflects a story Pop might tell.... the fire and the lightning is forking across the sky thunder boom'in away up the Valley! hhee. And Pop would launch into action and drama..he was captivating . I hope you will take time out to read "Tom Spicer."

There was this bloke who left everything behind at home.. to go in seach of gold. On arrival he sought the commissioners tent, payed for his licence and got struck in levelling out a patch of ground for his tent to stand. It was late in the afternoon when he started and after dark when completed, thanks to the lamps loaned by good natured neighbours and the light of the fire.
He was at the diggings for a number of years and did reasonably well at it... at first. like so many others though, his streak of luck slowly dwindelled to the point where plain economics dictates that if you have no income in one spot, then you have to move on..or.. starve to death.
So after much..'Farewelling'. for lack of a suitable word.. the time came for him to uplift his tent and pack off to ..somewhere else.
The commissioner had been riding past while he was at this and had asked him to rake over the spot where he had made his camp and generally tidy up the site...so he did. During this process his makeshift rake lifted out a large piece of quartz. Upon closer inspection it proved to be almost 75% gold, as did all the numerous other rocks that had lay there.. all that time, he was camped on a fortune. He had that much from his tally-up of the gold under his camp ,that he built a store and made a fortune supplying the now growing. practice of reef-mining going on after the initial alluvial rush. Just goes to say', gold is where ya find it! cheers Rossco

Brilliant, Absolutely brilliant mate.
Please keep them coming.

So strange how some things turn out .... Was just meant to be, and at that time too

yep... theres a certain 'irony' about it, thats for sure Sandta. Thank you Tathraj...i'm just warming up Ive got drafts of stories laying about all over the place.. Thing is my mind is preoccupied :| I can't write about the old days without wishing like hell.. that i was on the diggings right now...hehe... but its true to say that when i go there(the diggings) its like, as the sun goes down and the firelight takes over I feel the spirit of the old timers ..gathering around picking a spot by the fire to join in on the song and the chorus.
I sometimes think i see some of them... in between the gaps of people in the present age..all gathering around in good fellowship and clinking my glass. And so I belt out another song and we all..myself included... listen in good cheer and feel animated and convivial and allow the melodies and conversation AND ONE OR TWO DRAMS O' THE GOOD STUFF) to take away the barriers that exist between us and (JUST LIVE IN THE MOMENT.)cheers Rossco

Wow Reefer
You should write out all your yarns and have the published in a book.
i know i would love to buy and read it.
My fathers mother is a decendent of Murtage Ahern an Irish rebel transported for life to the colonies. And who later became a pioneer and respected member of Liverpool society in the early days.
He and his wife are buried in the Liverpool pioneer cemetary.
http://www.liverpool.nsw.gov.au/cou...ool-pioneer-the-life-and-times-of-murty-ahern

nucopia. thank you for your appraisal! i have in fact a novel entitled 'LANGLANDS a JOURNEY' which i wrote some years ago. The problem is hooking up with a publisher, as they have so much material to choose from...and sift through, that i have found it a very frustrating business it was the same thing with my adventure book for kids... The Island of the Monkmees.. So now i just carry a few copies with me when i'm on the fields, and flog them off myself. The forum ...gives me an outlet to vent my writing frustrations and i hope ...like I am when I'm writing,... that my readers are carried along in the moment. That way everybody takes something from the excersise.
Gee an Irish Rebel IN YOUR BLOOD AS WELL.. MAYBE THEY WERE CAUGHT UP IN THE SAME SHOW 8) It would be really cool if they actually knew each other ...Ahern and Delaney...good title for a book there ...what dya reckon. so.. lets compare records and see.
Nicholas Delaney arrived on the ATLAS II.in 1802... sentenced to14years for his part in the shooting of two british Yeoman...Hepanstall and some other,.at the irish rebellion in County Witlow,1798.) After being assigned to Lt. Patterson, he was later to work on the Gov. rd to Lady Macqauries Chair as a ganger.(Mentioned in various pages of the governers diary) He later went on to superintend a gang working on the road to Penrith.from there the family moved to Hartley...hence my connection to Lithgow.
Lets just see if that tallies with anything you have and see if theres a pattern happening... i can if needed give many more details in relation to this but the arrival time and date would give you somewhere to run a search for him onboard that ship.Good luck my friend.cheers...Rossco

A true story..don't eat them Apples Son
So its 1954 and i wake in my Grandmothers bed. It was'nt one of those iconic "featherbeds" but the Doona was and for a 6 year old child it was absolute heaven to sleep in and wake up in..my Grandmother "Grace" sure used to spoil me.
On this particular morning ,after breakfast of eggs and ham. my cousin and I were to accompany my father and grandfather on a trip to go"Golding" as my Pop used to say. Oh the joy of it as think back with the frost still covering the ground all over and the walk over to the paddock where my Pop had his old horse "Cricket. He was a lovely old horse, immensely built and part Draft as i recall. My cousins and I would go down and feed him bits of apple and other fruits that my Pop would prepare and afterwards we would play in and around him . Thinking back a lesser temperate animal would have been terrorised by our antics but not old Cricket, he tolerated us wonderfully and we would run under his belly ,pull his tail and mane climb all over him and i think he enjoyed it as much as we did.
Pop would bring the harness with him and Dad and he would hitch him to the old dray that he kept under a tarp in the same paddock. We would then run him through the gate and stop at old No7 Davy St. where Nanna Grace would load us up with a picnic hamper and water..and an old battered Billy. Dad and Pop would stoke up their pipes .. Pop would give old Cricket a slap with the reins and old Cricket would start of at a steady gate out onto Main St and up through Bowenfels along the Western Highwy past Marangaroo and then on to the Cox's River where it passed under the old wooden bridge and we would pull into a rough track that used to lead down on to the river proper.And all the way my Father and Pop would emit clouds of tobacco smoke mixed with the sound of us kids laughing at Old Cricket as he occasionally let out an enormous fart along with you know what else.'GIT UP YA HAY-BELLIED OLD BASTARD" my pop would yell and then he'd break out in a Verse of his favourite song... What'll I do when you ...are far away..oh tell me.. what'll i do".
So eventually Dad would lift us down of the dray.. i suppose in todays terms the dray would be like a ute with a buckboard in front, about eight feet long in the tray and the seat was about 4or5 feet high.
We would be given our boundary to roam and told to keep an eye out for snakes and then the fun would begin. Half the time we would wander along picking up pretty coloured rocks and carrying them back to Pop for an i.d. He was a patient old man i'll give him that for he always had time for us no matter what.
As part of our 'boundary' on this occasion we were told not to go into the orchard that used to lie not far off.. but of course..boys will be boys and it did'nt take us long to take the first oppurtunity we got to scoot off down through the bush and into those lovely green apples. Glynn, my cousin and I picked a bunch of these tasty treats and despite being told specifically not to do so, we set about hoeing into a half dozen or so each.
So the day wore on and we partook of the sandwiches and what not, that Nanna had prepared for us and every thing was pretty good ,for awhile.
First Glynn and then myself were beset with a pain in the stomach that i still find hard to explain but ..oh my God we were in a terrible state. Eventually after assuring Pop and my old man that we had been nowhere near them apples, we were loaded onto the dray and began the long haul back into town.
I remember old Pop bringing Cricket to a halt and he talking to a fellow who had met us at his gate and my Pop bringing out a nugget. Money was produced and now both my Pop and my Dad were singing that old song.. then started the most violent and prolonged episode of diarrhea that you could ever imagine. Both of us doubled up in pain and sliding around in the back of the dray, waste material ushering forth from both ends. Oh the embarrassment and the smell.
Eventually at an old garage somewhere in Marangaroo, the truth came out about the apples.. as if they could'nt tell.. and we were literally hosed down as was the dray.Lesson learned. cheers ROSSCO

Tom Spicer lived in Sydney and worked as a clerk in a store of some kind.He grew up listening to his father relating of the days of yore and the rattle of the sabres at Eureka. He was an industrious young fellow about 20 years or so of age solidly built and it was said by many that he had a heart of gold. He earned a meagre wage despite his dedication to his work but was often seen handing out a thrippence hear and Zac there to some of those drifters and unfortunates that you see lounging about in the parks and by-ways of the city. One day as usual on his way to lunch he tossed the paper boy a coin and was handed the paper which he nonchalantly folded in half tucked it under his arm and headed to a little park where the Oblisk stands to this day I think its called Maquarie Square.(The reader might allow me the indulgence to say that I also have a very close link to the foundation of that park by way of the convict, Nicholas Delaney an Irish hero of the Rebellion of 1798 against British Rule who was subsequently sentenced to death, but who had his sentence reprieved in lue of 14years hard labour. They thought they were banishing him to suffrage in the far off Antipoedese, the reality as it later turned out was, they sent him to Paradise on Earth.... but thats a whole different story.)
Tom enjoyed his lunch and opened it out to reveal the headlines on the front page and those headlines virtually lept out of the page and slapped him in the eyes.. GOLD! HUGE GOLD FIELDS DISCOVERED! Several parties already on the ABERCROMBIE.. More news as our reporter travels to the scene. Reports thus far suggest gold for the taking. Tom knew right there and then that this was his destiny! His father had filled his imagination with tales of the riches that he had seen mined on the Turon, and the fabulous fortune that his Uncle also named Tom had made 10 years before but who also had disappeared and taken his fortune with him to who knows where and he sensed that the small but useful savings he himself had squirelled away, would be best spent to equip him with the tools and chattels to make it to the 'The Diggins'
Soon after he quit his job and bid his tearful mother and proud father farewell. Farewell to your dingie office. Farewell to your Ledger and your accounts. To the diggins to the life of a rover, and there to make his fortune and the life of a Gentleman, independent of means and the foul air of the Bigsmoke. Some six or eight jolting dusty fly ridden days and as many dirty flea ridden nights at various inns along the way he arrived at the diggings. It was'nt like he expected at all.. in fact he had no idea what to expect save for the fact that it might be somewhat of a 'spartan lifestyle'.. and a spartan lifestyle it surely was. A large part of the the slopes adjacent to the creek they called the Tuena was covered in white tents. Smoke rose from a hundred fires and as the evening descended on the scene, a hunred or more rifle shots sent the crows and cockies flapping in all directions, as the miners let loose of their old powder to reload a fresh shot to do the same thing tomorrow night.The welcoming aroma of beef and bacon filled the cool night air and later in the evening the clinking of glass on glass as a hundred or more drams were downed in one go and a fiddler serenaded the entire scene. As a new chum Tom stayed by the fire in front of his own tent and contemplated the days ahead. and the days ahead were nothing like what he imagined they would be. There was gold to found for sure but the work was back breaking and laborious his savind eventually used up, it was imperative that he rise early each morning to continue the endless cycle of diggind and shovelling sorting and puddling, pan after pan after endless pan and barely enough to meet his daily bread let alone his hoped for el dorado.
And so it went on and on and he grew hardened in his body and wiser in the mind. They got to know him very well the miners on the Tuena. Despite his miniscule findings and his hardships he was often seen among some of the more unfortunate on the fields handing out a loaf here and a drink there and as well as that good fellowship he was blessed with an enchanting baritone voice and was hugely popular around those campfires at night and learned to 'clink his glass ' with the best of them. And so three years passed and the life he led eventually caught up with him. He was tired, disallusioned and almost beaten in to the very soil that promised so much, but failed him so badly. But what to do. Go to some other place, perhaps a trudge over to the Turon to mull through the diggings there...maybe not.. maybe it would be better to go back to clerking in some dingie office somewhere in Sydney.. swallow his pride and go home and so it came to pass that with a few shilling donated to him by those who at some time been the reciever of the same form him when they were down he waved his last goodbye to the Tuena and began the long walk back to Sydney.
He ascended out of the Abercrombie valley in the late afternoon and camped by the road with a view to hitching a ride with some traveller who might come by, but there was no one and there was no one for days on end, no inn no farmhouse no one then it dawned on him. During the night at some point he must have taken a wrong turn and now the road turned into a track and there was no end to it . He trudged on and on and eventually there was nothing for it, he was lost and the track closed in on him and there was nothing but the mournful 'hushh' of the wind in the trees.
By now he was out of grub save a half loaf old mouldy hardcaked bread. The tea was almost expired and needed to fill his 2pint water bottle and it was cold...so very cold he knew he should stop and light a fire but he thought he might move on .. or return to god knows where.The darkness fell out of the sky like an axe on a chickens head.Acold wind sprang up from the south..or was it the west..he could not tell. He was so cold and so tired he could'nt feel it anyway. He fell to the ground hopeless, beaten once more, may as well just die here and now he thought his mind wandered ,,now to his home by the fire with his mother and his dear old dad.. then to the camp and the miners all happy and laughing..only they were were laughing at him each in turn mocking laughing. And then an old man seated at a fire calling him "TOM!.. TOM!.. come into camp the old man said.. 'Come.. and Yes! there was a fire and an old bloke there cooking mutton and a steaming billy as well Yes he could see it here ..just there.... and then overwhelming blackness .. sweet restful blackness.
He became aware of the sunlight which by now was fairly up. He covered his eyes with a hand and thought he could here a noise.. like the sound of tentflap blowing in the wind his head swooned and body ached with the cold. Slowly labouriously, he drew himself to his knees and looked about him... he did not believe what he saw.. there was a tent..albeit a very old one encrusted with mould and the flap slapping against the front pole.. and a fireplace not used in years and a lean- to,half fallen down with a shelf at the back with cans of bully beef and long skinny pickle jars all unopened and preserved peachs in similar looking jars..but how?... he thought he must be delirious, sick in his head but no.... it was real, and it was there. He rose unsteadily at first,staggering, half falling and pulled aside the flap of the tent expecting to see his saviour.. but there was no one .. he called out repeatedly 'hullo.. hullo there... but it was obvious no one had been here for a very long time.
The tent inside was sparely furnished. A good quality bed roll took up near the half of it and upon it lay a woollen blanket, now faded and in partial tatters.
On the other side was a Ricketty old chair in urgent need of repair and behind that a bush crafted table about 2 feet sqaure.. under it an old leather case one known as a 'PORTMANDOU' or some such word and half hanging out of it a very well made wooden box.
Curiosity and confusion prompted him to uncover the box and place it on the table. It was made from Mahogony and was inlayed around the edges in Moher of Pearl in the centre also in Mother of Pearl were the initials T.S. in the gap in the top was a note written in a very stylised hand, it read.."If you find this it is yours.. use it justly and wisely as i know you will.. good luck sir you deserve it...signed Tom Spicer. November 1855. in the box was 10,000 pounds in twenty pound notes.
Cheers, Rossco

It all started as a trickle of one and two's, the odd group of three or four souls, till by the end of 1851 the Central Western District from Hartley west to Bathurst and south to the Abercrombie had never seen the likes of it and this was just the beginning, The gold had changed everything and the roads that brought the growing throng of humanity in search of it, were woefully inadequate for the task. Still they came, by the hundreds at first and then as the word of richer and richer finds hit the newspapers in the cities near and far, they came by the thousands,then, by the tens of thousands. John Delaney my great great grandfather was one of the first to drive cattle over the Blue Mountains where he had been the first to set up a butchery.
The practice was handed down from one generation the next, well into the 20th century but in 1851 it was in uncharted territory, serving the needs of the locals and they were far and few between. It did'nt take long however for old John to work out that he had better get his act together and expand his operations because the surge of humanity heading to places further west were hungry for his meat..and anything else he could provide for them. The potential was obvious, the problem was sourcing the goods and that meant driving cattle from near and far, expanding the slaughter house and whole host of other related tasks.
However it was'nt all about meat. There was Delaney's Hardware, Delaney's Roadside Cafe..(free bun with every pot 'o tea) and Delaney's Haberdashery and General Store.
Those days must have been an unbelievable time to have lived and experienced and I sometimes wish I'd been born way back then to see it all unfolding, to join the thousands heading for 'The Diggins' to work the incredibly rich workings and all that went with it, including a spell spent on the "SPREE"! The Family links to the old days make me a proud Australian and I am delighted to be able share these stories with you and yours so as that the old ones are not forgotten. Cheers ter yers! Rossco

They had made the long and arduous journey up from the Illawarra. Big Jack Delaney and his brother Padraig, had teamed up with their cousin Billy Delaney. Firstly because they had all been inseparable since they were ragtag youngsters ,and secondly for their shared desire to do something for themselves and their families in regards to their dire financial affairs.
Of course, every man woman and dog had tried to persuade them from their hairbrained plan to"go to the diggins'.not the least was old man Daniel Delaney.He had argued and shouted at them for a month before their departure but he knew in his heart that they would go. Its the way of the young ones. Their outlook on life is full of optimism and the foolhardy.While he had ranted even up to the day they left, unbeknown to them he had quietly passed the hat around the bar a few times and near emptied his cunning kit so as on the morning they left ,he pressed 12 pounds 9/6pence into Jacks palm,with the words.. "God bless yers all Jack, look after Paddy and young Billy, his my sisters only boy and I prey you bring him home safe to her."
So now, as the rain pelted down outside their tent and the leaks threatened to douse out their candle, Big Jack had those words echoing around in his head and he shuddered at the thought of them as he pulled his oilskin coat up around his neck and moved to a slightly drier corner of the tent.....(TO BE CONTINUED)

(resuming...(Big Jack and the Delaney Boys)...From his place in the tent, Jack sat smoking his pipe in deep reflection. By the light of a single candle he contemplated the faces of his brother Padraig and his cousin Billy.
Though the fire of their youth burned brightly in their eyes and their conversation still witty and robust, they could not hide the ever growing gauntness of their cheekbones and their sallow complexion.
Perhaps he thought, it might be the light of the candle..but no it was all to obvious in the light of each day. They were all losing weight on account of their diet and the rigours of their daily toil.
On arrival at this section of the diggings at Gulgong, they had discovered that most of the good paying gravels had either been worked out or were in the process of being so.
They had been forced to take up a site much further up the gully from the original rush where the pay lead was much deeper then they had expected. Most of the high yielding shafts from what they had gathered were bottoming out on bedrock about 8 to 10 feet with insanely rich pickings but here they were already 12 feet down and there was no sign of a bottom save for a hard-packed concreteious layer of red silt, broken slate and rounded pebbles of quartz.
The 12 pounds 9 shillings and 6 pence that they had departed with was now less then 3 pounds. they were low on perishables and would soon have to spend a further 30 shillings on their staple of bread, potatoes and bacon.
To add to Jacks plight the incessant rain continued to bucket down and no one could get within 20 yards of their claims let alone descend to their diggings.
They were held up in that tent for eight straight days and on the morning of the ninth day, Big Jack awoke just as the first light of day creeped its way through the now ragged canvass of the tent. He lay there trying to figure out what was different from the previous eight and like the sun, it dawned on him, there was tranquil silence save the the burbling of a few Magpies. They had all grown accustomed to the roar and crash of the creek in major flood and now the worst of it was over.
big Jack dressed hurriedly, pulled on his boots and stuck his head out of the flap of the tent entrance. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and he couldn't contain his joy! He roared with a gusto! and woke up half of Gulgong at the same time. What he saw then caused him to venture out and down to the shaft..only it wasn't a shaft anymore, instead it was more like the drawings he had seen of the craters on the moon! Their diggins had expanded from four feet sqaure to something like fifteen! and the red hard-packed stuff they had so much trouble extracting, was now all scoured out, revealing the true bottom of the ancient water course. It was said that they left the area some three weeks later, on the coach bound for Sydney with over fifteen pounds weight of gold aboard with them. Old Daniel rarely let a day go by for the rest of his days, without telling the story of 'My Jack and the Delaney Boys'.. Cheers ter yers...Rossco.

GREAT STORY :Y:

thanks Sandta(belatedly) glad you enjoyed the yarn.