Early years in Australia: 1931 - 1932

March 17, 1931; Burrinjuck

Yesterday was really my letter writing day, now the letter will have to lie until tomorrow since there in no mail collection today. Just as I was about to start writing yesterday, a young man came to visit us, and he stayed so long, that by the time he left it was too late to write.

He is a lawyer in Sydney and is here on vacation. One day he bought a fish from us and then he sat around talking for a good while. And yesterday he came again and just asked if he could stay a while. However he never told us his name. Funny fellow. He was quite nice and rather entertaining and he gave me the address of a gentleman in Sydney. Who is an interpreter at the courts, and who might be able to give me some advice regarding job hunting. Straight after Easter I will go to Sydney and try my luck.

Sverre spoke to the foreman yesterday- He is going on a months’ vacation starting next Thursday, so until he returns they won’t be hiring any new people. So who knows if there will be any work here at all? It‘s probably better if I look around for something- our fishing business is going badly. All of a sudden it's no good. Nobody seems to be catching much. But Sverre delivered the boat yesterday to its new owner, so we made a bit of money on that. The new Peer Gynt is much prettier.
We haven't experienced too much lately. We don't do any socialising and there isn't really anywhere one can "go". Sverre has been building the new boat and that has taken all his time. Once, as he was rowing to collect the mail, I heard Mrs Wilson shout "Snake, Snake!" I grabbed my rifle and ran over. It was only a baby snake, about 1 meter long but its bite is nevertheless lethal. I shot it right in the head, and afterwards I chopped at the head with the butt of my rifle. That was my first snake murder. When you see a snake you have to stand still, otherwise it disappears. That is why Mrs Wilson screamed so. Once before she came running, but when Sverre got there the snake had gone.

You might be wondering why we haven't made any friends in Burrinjuck. Well, I'm going to tell you a long and boring story. In this city (population about 100) there are two enemy camps. The first consists of Powerhouse people. The head engineer is Mickleham, and the engineers Andersson, McAdam, Hosgood and Ansell work in shifts. Each engineer has an assistant, whereof Ola Nordmand is one. Ola knows about as much about electricity as an ox does about art. He just happens to hold this position and says the powerhouse runs quite well on its own, and all they do is sit and read magazines. The "engineers" are also only electro technicians with small skills and mediocre education. But of course here in Burrinjuck they are fine gentlemen.

The other camp consists of the town authorities. Absurd, wouldn't you say? You'd be amazed how many there are of them. First of all there's Mr Masey, whose job it is to control the water level. He has an assistant, Mr Taylor. Mr Taylor builds, for example, protecting fences out of thin branches, to surround all the small willows along the bank, so that Mrs Fraser’s two cows won't eat them up. In cutting the branches into pieces of equal length’ he takes pains to get as many short stumps as possible, so he doesn't have to chop as much wood for his wife. "It takes a lot of work, finding work for me to do", he says and smiles happily. Mr Taylor has two men whose job it is to make sure Burrinjuck looks tidy. What these two do is beyond my understanding. Then there’s the postmaster, Mr Pye, and the policeman, and finally Mr Townsend, who is the foreman at the building of the new power house.

Mr Mickleham and his party regard Mr Masey and Co. as very useless individuals. The other party maintaining that the little power house has not need for so many people. We prefer not to get involved. We rather like Taylor and Masey. We see them once in a while, but we don’t socialise with them. There seems to be little love lost between individuals belonging to the some party. Ola gets invited home to Mickleham and the other engineers and is therefore hated and envied by the "lower" members. Andersson is 100% Australian, and therefore hates Ansell, McAdams and I don't know who else, because they are English. And so on. I quite like the Anderssons. Mrs A.is Mrs Fraser’s daughter. The latter is a widow and has two other very nice daughters, aged 24 and 27, and also a son, about 30, who is in charge of a bank branch here. Mrs Fraser keeps very much to herself, although she is friendly to all. I like her very much indeed. I've had tea with her a couple of times and really enjoyed her company.

Besides all these people (+Pastor), who belong to "society", there are a lot of labourers and tradesmen. But they are like the people in Taemas, and I become icy when I talk to them. Once the Williams from Taemas were here on an outing and came to see us. I didn't invite them into the house and I was very cold to them. Do you think they noticed? Oh no, two weeks later they came to visit us again. Sverre says I don't have to be so rude to people even if I don't like them. But that's the way I am. I can't be bothered, and if I weren't like that from the start we would soon have a nice "traffic". Since these people are bored they like to go to other people so they have something to gossip about. An English motto says, “bad company is better than none" but that is not my opinion. I'd rather read.

Burrinjuck, March 24, 1931

I am doing the ironing and writing at the same time. Since I only have one iron I have to keep putting it back on the fire. I am wearing my beloved new embroidered apron. I couldn't make up my mind to use it at first, since it is so pretty, but then I didn't want to put it away where I couldn't see it either, so now I'm using it.
The prospects for getting work still don’t seem too good. One moment people are saying, right after Easter they'll be starting up, the next moment they say there is no money and the whole project is going to be abandoned. The latest word is, that supposedly it was reported in the newspaper that the money has been XXX . Well, it isn't long till Easter. In this country it is impossible to get a calendar with a separate page for each month. Also, the holidays are not marked in, so nobody knows when Easter is, until you bump your nose on it. Anyway, the holidays here are nothing like what they are in Europe. They are simply days on which you don't have to work. Oh, how lovely Easter was in Russia!

If Sverre manages to get work and I don't go to Sydney, we want to buy a gramophone. The records cost about 6 shillings, and up to 12 sh. You can get cheaper ones, but only kitschy old ones with American music.

Since Sverre finished the boat, he has been reading to me, but it's pretty slow going. We now have a new pastime; catching trout. The sluices are now closed, and only a small amount of water runs through the dam. We walk down 400 steps past the power: station, to reach the wonderful river valley below. It is most beautiful there, with high mountains on either side, great numbers of ducks in the reeds, and the trout jump as high as a meter out of the icy, swift flowing water. I have never seen anything like this before and I just love it. We haven’t caught any fish yet. The day before yesterday was a good fishing day, it was cloudy, but we didn't have our fishing gear with us. Yesterday we had our gear, but it was a bright sunny day and the fish wouldn't bite. Tomorrow we will go very early before it gets light. We only do this for sport, since it is forbidden to sell trout. Yesterday Mr Taylor went with us. The man weighs over 100 kilos, and is enormously big and fat, but I have never seen such a tremendous person move so lightly- In spite of his long rubber boots, which ended above the knees, he took the 400 steps with the greatest of ease: and .along the banks of the river which are full of rocks, both large and small, he hopped around hours, light-footed as a gazelle. He is a very friendly, and always good humoured gentleman. It was fun being with him. From our place we rowed over to the dam (about 45 mins.), then we had to climb the hill and go down the other side. On the way home we had our spinner out, and I caught a fine 5 lb. cod.

Sverre just came home from town and killed a poisonous snake (4'2") right in front of the house. Now we are going to eat, and afterwards we will get to work on insulating our house, since summer is now past, and it is only really warm while the sun is shining.

NEXT: April 1931