Penny: This podcast was recorded on Aboriginal land, the land at the Wuwunjeri people of the Kulin nations. This episode also discusses events that occurred on the land of the Dja Dja Wurrung. People. We pay our respects to their elders past, and present.
Penny: My name is Penny Tangey, and I'm here with my friend, Christina Adams.
Christina: Hello.
Penny: Hello. And we're here to talk about Trove. The National Library of Australia has sort of like an online search engine that lets you search across a lot of libraries in Australia, university libraries, public libraries, the state libraries and other cultural institutions as well. But it also has this feature, which I absolutely love, which it has a lot of digitized newspapers. I just love searching through all of these old newspapers and finding things that happened in the past because in the olden days, newspapers were a little bit like social media. People used to put a lot more information in there about things that were going on. So sometimes it'd be like just articles about parties people are having. And so you can find a lot of information about your family and things like that. So I've spent a lot of time looking through Trove. Christina, have you looked much in Trove?
Christina: Well, look, penny, to be honest with you, when you mentioned the idea for this show, I just went along with it thinking maybe I should know what Trove was and having never previously looked at Trove, I then went and had a look at Trove. And even now as you're speaking, I didn't realize it had all of those things in it. So I've obviously had a very basic, yeah. I looked for myself, found a little bit of stuff, but
Penny: You, is it your surname's Adams? Yeah, because I'm, my surname is Tangey, which is quite unusual so I can find it. Um,
Christina: I'd have to go further back into, unfortunately we do have the Smiths as well. So I don't know that the Smiths will yield much joy, but we do have some more obscure names like McTaggart. So maybe we might have a McTaggart search,
Penny: See if you’ve got any murders in your past.
Christina: Hopefully.
Penny: That'd be exciting. I've also looked at my house address cause I live in quite an old house.
Christina: You were very clever when you search for things, I just looked for myself. Couldn't find much and left Trove.
Penny: Yeah. So I thought, um, for this podcast, what we could do is have a guest and I do a little bit of research on their family background or some aspect of their lives and then present them what I've found.
Christina: I love the idea.
Penny: Oh great. So let's get our first guest.
Christina: Let's do it.
Penny: Welcome to our first guest. It's my dad. Peter Tangey.
Peter: Thank you, penny.
Penny: It's very nice to have you here. Now my first question Dad is, have you used Trove much the national library of Australia search?
Peter: I have never heard of it.
Penny: Okay. So basically what the part of Trove that I've been using is the part where it's got all the digitized newspapers, um, going up until like the mid 1950s, I've done a little bit of research, not a very sophisticated search strategy. What I basically did is I put in your surname Tangey and the place where you live Newstead and I found some articles about, um, your relatives, my relatives
Peter: Court reports?
Penny: No, no, that's a different podcast. That’s Mum. That's why we're doing you today. It's nice stuff. And sorry, the thing, one of the most interesting things that I found this quite a lot, because our family, how long have Tangeys been living in Newstead for?
Peter: Oh, I don't know. 1870s. Yeah.
Penny: Yeah. Wow. Um, and certainly like going into this, so there's quite a few like little mentions of, you know, a lot about horses and, and stuff like that. The most, the most interesting things that I found, um, were these letters to, to this person called art Patsy in the children's corner and Patsy Tangey,
Christina: Patsy Tangey.
Penny: No. Um, Patsy is not related to us. Okay. But one of the people writing letters to art Patsy is, and that was, um, Margaret Tangey and Margaret hanky. Is your aunt, is that right?
Peter: Yes.
Penny: I always knew her as Aunty Babe. And why did we call her Aunty Babe? I don't know.
Peter: Uh, I think she had three older brothers and they just called her Babe.
Penny: She wrote these letters into Aunt Patsy was, um, she was an author and she was a poet and she used to write Catholic novels, which I didn't even know. It was like a theme.
Christina: Is that a genre?
Penny: Um, yeah, apparently I've got the names of some of the novels that she used to write Pat O’Grady's daughter and Pretty Nan Hartigan.
Christina: So do they have a Catholic undertone?
Penny: Yeah, I think of publishing is having become more niche, but obviously back then it was like, yeah. And she'd write like poems, a lot of poems about flowers and the bright boys coming back from the war.
Christina: And Jesus as well.
Peter: Probably.
Penny: Yeah. Yup. Yup, exactly. And so she also had this children's corner where kids,
Christina: She could subtly influence the minds of the young people all into Catholics.
Peter: What August publication,
Penny: The Advocate. It was a Melbourne paper. The advocate
Peter: Was a Catholic newspaper.
Penny: Ah okay. I'll just read the first letter. It is from, you said June 29th, 1924 Dear Aunt Patsy. This is the first time I've written to you and I hope you will accept me as one of your many nieces
Christina: Again, Catholic undertones.
Penny: I am nine years of age and I attend the Newstead state school as there is no Catholic school here.
Penny: We went to Newstead state school school too didn’t we Dad?
Christina: Was that because there was no Catholic school. Was it because of,
Peter: Oh, it was because it was the local school and it was a school where I went to and my father went to.
Christina: And if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for you.
Peter: In actual fact though, I still have some books awards that my, my father's mother won at Newstead Primary School.
Penny: So that's uh, the generation before that went was your grandmother. I am in fourth grade and I liked school very much. I have four brothers and no sisters. I was at mass today and went to confession and received Holy Communion. I am writing this letter at my aunt's place as I am staying there for the afternoon. My aunt gets the Advocate every week and I very much enjoy reading the children's corner. So who was the aunt?
Peter: I am not a hundred percent sure. It might've been a Collihole or might have been Marie Barbetti.
Penny: Was there an Aunt, I'm remembering this story. Was there an aunt who one of the brothers went and lived with and like, no one really cared.
Christina: Like it wasn’t working out at home, you know, he just uprooted himself.
Peter: It was Aunt Rose. And that's where, uh, uncle George and Jean went to where cousin Mick lives now.
Penny: Oh, so it's uncle George just left.
Peter: He just went and lived up there and help milk the cows and do whatever.
Christina: How old was he?
Peter: Oh, he was probably four or five.
Christina: I make a lot of life choices at five.
Peter: You have to remember. In those days everybody had little houses. Then suddenly there’s four kids, one had to go and uh, Oh, you can go and live with auntie Rose up the Hill. Yeah.
Penny: Hmm. That's a good system. I like it. Okay. In this week's advocate, I saw your photo and I thought that it was very nice. Now I've got the photo to show you. I've got a photo. That's Aunt Patsy.
Peter: That’s Aunt Patsy.
Penny: She looks like Aunt Patsy.
Christina: She really does. I wouldn't have described it as a nice photo. You remember this child wants to become one of her nieces. She's got to lay it on thick.
Penny: Now, Aunt, have you ever visited Newstead? Yes. I think it is a very nice place in it. There are three drapers, three butchers, three grocers, two blacksmiths, one paper office, one bank, one post office, one tailor, two greengrocers, one barber and tobacconist. One newsagent one sadler, three hotels, one paint factory and one butter factory, which employs about 20 men. Now that is massive. That is a lot of stuff.
Christina: That is a lot of stuff going on because in Houston and no Catholic primary school, what is going on, man?
Penny: Yes. I mean, I knew there used to be more stuff in new sneakers. Now it's got like a cafe.
Christina: How many Drapers are there now? We don't. There's not a single draper. Oh, there used to be so much choice.
Peter: A lot of people don't have curtains now.
Penny: No.
Peter: No drapers. The thing is this is how society has changed. Of course, people couldn't get in their cars and drive to the supermarket in Castlemaine. So everything had to be fairly close by, within all, throw it in distance,
Penny: But three drapers. And where was the third pub? Because I know of the two pubs, the crown and the railway. Where's the third pub.
Peter: Well, as you enter a Newstead from castlemaine. Yep. That was, uh, that was one there. And it was a British something or other and just opposite that diagonally opposite the police station was the Ship Wreck Inn. Three pubs.
Christina: Was one of them, a dodgy one.
Peter: Uh, Oh, I’d say they were all dodgy in my experience of pubs
Christina: All a bit dodgy.
Penny: When you were growing up. How many pubs?
Peter: Two?
Penny: Same as Crown and Railway or
Peter: Crown and Railway. And uh, always Newstead was never quite big enough for two pubs.
Penny: To be fair it used to be big enough for three.
Peter: Yeah, that was when the Drapers were there.
Christina: You can't make curtains sober.
Peter: Yeah. Not quite big enough for two pubs. It always be one pub going good. And one pub not so good.
Penny: So, and now it's just one?
Peter: We’re down to one, but there is an allegation that the other one might reopen again in some sort of form or something
Christina: One of those gastro pubs.
Peter: That may resemble an alcohol outlet.
Penny: It's the same with the cafes. Sometimes we have two, but it doesn't usually hold.
Peter: Well, Newstead’s become, it's a cafe precinct. Um, it's a tourism destination where people have two cafes to choose from both very highly regarded. Um, the, uh, what we call the milk bar or the Newstead convenience store, which can serve your, all your fried up rubbish, all that sort of thing. And then you've also got the pub meals as well.
Penny: Spoilt for choice in many ways.
Peter: So people are driving to Newstead to go and have a cup of coffee or something to eat.
Penny: And then you drive back the next day, go somewhere completely different.
Christina: Completely different.
Peter: In preference to, uh, overpriced and overpopulated Daylesford
Christina: Spa country is always a big destination.
Penny: That’s. It's just fizzy border in a bath. That's what it is. And it's not that good. Okay. We're moving on from Newstead. Now she's talking about her own house. ‘We have three cows, two calves and four horses, but I can't ride the horses. We also have about 30 fowls and three ducks. I feed the fowls and gather the eggs.’ Christina, how many fowls and ducks do you have?
Christina: Well, I've never actually called my chooks fowls, but I will for the purpose of this afternoon, look, I don't know an actual head count of either. There's a lot. There's a lot of fowls and a lot of ducks on our property.
Penny: So you can, you can probably really relate.
Christina: I can really relate to where she's coming from.
Penny: And she says also I have two cats. Their names are Jack and Joyce. Interestingly, Jack is also the name of her younger brother. I don't know. I'm unsure, which came first.
Christina: One of my really good friends. Um, she had a dog called Zoe growing up and her second born child is also called Zoe. And I did ask not long after the birth, if she named the child after the dog. And she said, you're actually the only person who was brave enough to ask me that question. And the answer is yes, yes I did.
Penny: She was a good dog, but we know she won’t last.
Christina: So I'm hoping my child will be as a obedient as Zoe, the dog.
Peter: And as quickly house trained.
Christina: Exactly. She walks well on a leash too.
Penny: In fact, it does seem a little bit unfair to the child. It's almost like they're definitely going to be a disappointment.
Christina: At some point.
Penny: Yeah.
Christina: At some point she will definitely let them down.
Peter: So they had ducks did they?
Penny: Apparently. How many ducks was it?
Christina: Four.
Penny: No three. It's a bit of a running theme to do a poultry count in all her letters. So we’ll find out more. So she also has a little dog called Toby and she has four dogs. ‘Their names are Lizzie, Rosie Jane. And may I also have a Playhouse where I keep my play things. On Saturday morning I helped my mother to do the work. And in the afternoon I play, I have a little brother named Jack he's five years of age. He has not started school yet.’ And that is the end of the letter. ‘Madge Tangey.’ And Aunt Patsy writes a little reply at the end. And she says, ‘Tis you who are the lucky one Madge marchee with all the nice things.’
Christina: All the nice things.
Penny: ‘Live and otherwise to play with. Time enough for Jack yet.’
Christina: What a pathetic response.
Penny:Well, she doesn't, she never writes much.
Christina: I don't think anyone needs to be her niece.
Penny: I know.
Peter: I wonder if they read the letter.
Christina: Nah. That's a generic response.
Peter: She’d probably have about 20 in a box.
Christina: Oh yeah.
Penny: There were a few published each time. Yeah. So that is the, that's the first letter. Before we go on to the next letter, I thought I might just clarify with you. So when Margaret says she's got three older brothers that is Dick, George and William.
Peter: That is correct. But George was the oldest, George, William and Dick. And then Uncle Jack was the baby of the family.
Penny: And William was your dad. My Pa.
Peter: Yes. Bill.
Penny: Where they're living, where they're living in this house that is on the block of land where you now live.
Peter: That is correct. Yeah. In actual fact, the chook sheds on top of it, where the house is.
Christina: That's a nice homage.
Penny: To the many many fowl in their life.
Peter: There’s still an old well there and things like that. And you dig up the garden, my grandfather used to be a blacksmith and you'd dig up bits of old iron that he'd made.
Penny: Yeah. I remember when we were kids, we used to play archaeologist and we'd go and dig in the, in the backyard and find bits of old rusty metal and get tetnus.
Christina: Not find any bones or anything.
Penny: No, we never found any bodies down the world, which was slightly disappointing.
Peter: Well, there is now.
Penny: But that’s the cats
Peter: No, that's when the chooks die, I just throw them down the well.
Penny: So it's a beautiful homage.
Christina: It’s a fitting memorial.
Penny: Lovely. Anyway, back to a hundred years ago. We've got another letter from Margaret to dear Aunt Patsy.
Christina: Oh poor Margaret really didn't have many other options.
Penny: It feels that way. And anyway, like, it's, it's funny, like Aunt Patsy, like encouraging all these strange children to write to her and tell them their deepest secrets. I mean, these days we call it grooming, but
Christina: Yes, I think there was some grooming going on.
Penny: It was a different time. ‘Down on the Farm.’ Newstead 28th of the ninth, 1924. ‘Dear Aunt Patsy. I now take the opportunity of writing to you. And I will explain to you how I spent my show week holidays.’
Christina: How old this kid?
Penny: Nine
Christina: Wow.
Penny: I know.
Christina: Very formal nine-year-old.
Penny: She's, I reckon she's got great writing skills. Did she go on to have much education Dad?
Peter: Uh, not to my knowledge. Her mother was very, very good at school. I'm sure her mother did a lot of home education with her, but yeah.
Christina: You think your mum wrote the letter?
Penny: No
Christina: Just seeing what your standard nine year old writes compared to that.
Penny: Wow. Very good. Although all the letters are in this same tone. Okay. So I don't know if parents in those days, you can't really imagine them helicoptering around.
Christina: No, there's no time. They have to milk a cow.
Peter: Exactly right. Write a letter to Aunt Patsy. Yeah. No television. You can’t chuck them in front of the tele.
Penny: No. Oh. Imagine how that would go down in my house. If I said to my kids.
Christina: Write a letter to Aunt Patsy
Penny: We’re writing a letter to Aunt Patsy today. Oh God. ‘In the morning, I helped my mother. And in the afternoon, I sometimes played with my little cousins and friends and sometimes played in my Playhouse. One day I went over to my little friend's place and we had a party. During the week very heavy rain fell. And everywhere you go, there is mud. We have a number of little chickens and ducks that delight to wade in it and search for worms.’ It's very, very evocative.
Christina: Yes it is,
Penny: Um, ‘My little brother is on the floor playing with the dogs.’ Sounds like Jack.
Peter: Yes. Certainly. Yes. Certainly sounds like Jack.
Penny: ‘Three ducks and they lay three eggs nearly every day.’ Same number of ducks. That's great. We've got conservation of ducks. ‘And my mother is potting them.’ What is potting eggs? Does anyone know?
Christina: Is it like picking them or something? Or maybe it's that weird thing that they used to do where they, I think they put it in fat or something so that you could keep the eggs periods of time when you wouldn't have any.
Peter: That's certainly what they used to do, because I used to have the egg appeal for the hospital. People would donate eggs that would go to the hospital so the hospital could use.
Penny: Oh my god.
Peter: But then they used to put them in this, uh, solution, uh, that sealed up the eggs so they couldn't breathe. So they didn't go rotten.
Christina: Maybe I could give that a go at home.
Penny: Yeah. Eggs in fat. Yeah. Very nice. If you've just had your appendix out. ‘My cat, Joyce has three little kittens and we are keeping two and giving one to our neighbor.’
Christina: Well, it's a bit of a metaphor for Jack. Really?
Penny: That was George. I think, um, ‘I think we are going to call ours Sambo and Pete. They have got their eyes open. Our bank manager and family have been shifted from the district. And everyone was very sorry because they were very nice people.’
Christina: It sounds like they were forcibly removed.
Penny: It does, doesn't it? They did take all that money. Yes. ‘It has been a very nice day to day, but it is beginning to get cold now. I suppose it was wet weather for the show as it always is..’
Christina: Oh, worldly Margaret.
Penny: In her nine years, how many wet shows has she seen.
Christina: This will be my ninth. I'm only in memory of three.
Penny: ‘We have a new horse and my big brother rides it.’
Christina: Wow.
Penny: ‘And he sometimes gives me a ride on it.’ Well, that's progress.
Christina: Things are looking up.
Penny: Because last letter, she wasn't allowed to ride the horses at all. ‘In Newstead there is a piggery and my father and another man, are partners in it. They have about 300 pigs. And every Tuesday they send away about 20 pigs to Ballarat.’
Christina: I wonder why they’re being sold?
Penny: They’re going off to lots of happy little farms.
Christina: Is this where you ended up working at the bacon factory? Is this the prelude to that.
Penny: It can't be that, but we weren't part owners in the original bacon factory.
Peter: No we were not.
Penny: We should be millionaires!
Peter: We'd be billionaires.
Penny: No. So this is just a different little
Peter: So they sent them to Ballarat. That would be a big trip.
Penny: Apparently, unless Margaret's lying.
Peter: She’d know, she’d know.
Penny: So George, your grandfather, he was a blacksmith and he obviously
Christina: Dabbled pigs.
Penny: Had a bit of spare time. Did you know about that?
Peter: No, I didn’t.
Christina: Maybe it's code for something.
Peter: But then in those days, a lot of people, they had a few cows and I used to separate the milk, send the cream to the butter factory and feed the skim to the pigs. And just about every farmer did that.
Christina: Because apparently now it's illegal to feed pigs anything with any animal product in it.
Penny: Is that true?
Christina: Hmm. So if you've got a pet pig, apparently it's not legal to give them anything that has an animal basis.
Penny: Right. Even if it's a pet and it's not going to be eaten.
Christina: I can't remember where I read it.
Penny: Well, it was a different time. That'll be the name of the podcast. It was a different time.
Christina: It was a different time.
Penny: ‘Yesterday they were cutting chaff’, chaff, chaff. (different pronounciations)
Christina: Chaff.
Penny: Chaff. ‘They were cutting chaff up at my aunty’s. And I watched the horses going round and the chaff coming through the cutter water day.’ Wow. What a day.
Christina: I wish I'd been there.
Penny: Round and round. ‘We had the inspector at our school a few weeks ago and he was very pleased with the school. My little brother has a little three wheeled bike and Dad is going to get me a pony.’
Christina: Excellent. That's better than a three wheel bike.
Penny: Exactly. ‘The new horse. We are going to call Totti Del Monte. And she is a race horse.’ Now that was a thing that got mentioned a few times in the letters that she talks about them having race horses. And I know Pa used to have greyhounds, but race horses is like a big step up.
Christina: It’s a big step up.
Peter: You got to remember in those days people measured their wealth in their horses. You didn't get a Rolls Royce. You got a real good horse.
Christina: Yep. I understand that theory.
Penny: Christina still does that.
Christina: I still do that.
Penny: Nothing’s changed.
Penny: She’s really slumming it coming here.
Christina: I am. There's no horses.
Peter: Lots of, um, different, uh, race meetings. Uh, and they weren't just for thoroughbreds.
Christina: They could all have a crack.
Peter: They could all have a crack. And they were handicapped by their size. So if you had a little pony.
Penny: A little Shetland pony.
Peter: Yeah, it got a hundred yards start. If you had racehorse he went a hundred yards back. The stories are that they did have, and our family were pretty poor, but they had a horse called Mavaurne that won, a lot of races. And uh, I think my uncle Dick used to ride my Mavaurne in the races.
Penny: So he was a jockey? Weren’t they all huge.
Peter: Oh no, no, no,
Christina: Obviously no weight limits
Penny: But weren’t they. I well, maybe I've just seen photos of the four brothers standing together and they looked quite strapping.
Peter: Well, remember, I'm talking about Uncle Dick mode of being 12 or 13. And uh, but these race meetings I'd have book makers and they’d back their own horse.
Christina: I just love the idea of a Shetland pony in a race with a thoroughbred. Who’s gonna win!?
Peter: In those days too, they'd often enter a horse and two or three races on the one day and sometimes, according to my dad, the horses run better the second time than I did the first time.
Christina: They've calmed down by then.
Penny: That's interesting.
Peter: Well, you know, sometimes a bit more training by then.
Penny: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's true. They're warmed up as well.
Peter: Yeah.
Penny: ‘The Cape weed is coming out and the paddocks look like yellow, something of something.’ Can't read it. Sorry. Sometimes Trove the scan. Doesn't um, look nicely, but I'm sure it's just beautiful description. ‘Well, dear Aunt Patsy, as this is all the news for now.’
Christina: Bit familiar.
Penny: Yeah I know.
Christina: For a nine-year-old.
Penny: Yeah. I know she's only on her second letter, but that's what Aunt Patsy wants. She wants them in.
Christina: She wants a niece.
Penny: ‘I will conclude wishing the children's corner every success I remain, you're loving Madge Tangey age nine years.’ And then Aunt Patsy says ‘Quite a lengthy chat Madge’ Which I feel is a bit of a sledge.
Christina: That’s rude and she could have edited it down if she thought it was too long.
Penny: Exactly
Christina: The power sits with her.
Penny: ‘Heaps of news in it.’
Peter: Either she wants to know, or she doesn’t know. Don’t complain.
Penny: Get it together Patsy.
Christina: That's right. ‘Heaps of news in it, a lucky girlene you will be when you have your own pony.’
Christina: Truer words have never been spoken.’
Penny: And that’s all Aunt
Peter: Did, did Madge leave her name and address?
Penny: No, she just, she's just Madge Tangey from Newstead.
Peter: They lived in Brandt street. Newstead where I live. Now,
Penny: I know. If you want to go visit Peter that's where you'll find him.
Christina: You’ll find him there.
Peter: In Margaret's time.
Penny: If he's not there, he’ll be in the pub.
Peter: It wasn't called Brandt street because I reminded everybody used to have a cow but always feed would be a bit scarce and people would just let their cows on the road and it was called Cow Dung Lane.
Penny: So she hasn't mentioned that.
Christina: She's left that important detail out.
Penny: Um, yeah. She’s really kind kind of more portraying herself as more of a race horse owning playhouse playing kind of girl.
Christina: Owner of a piggery kind of person.
Penny: Not your cow poo lane girl. That's I, I think I had heard that before, but I completely forgotten about it. When did it get renamed Brandt street?
Peter: Oh, I think it was probably always Brandt Street.
Penny: But that’s not
Peter: But every that's not what everybody called it.
Penny: Hmm. Now this next letter is a bit of a significant one. It's titled ‘Gives her Prize to the Tiny Tots’. And it's the third of the 11th, 1924. ‘Dear Aunt Patsy. Having noticed in the Advocate that I received the prize for the best letter competition of my age, I decided to write and thank you for it. Although I have received it, I intend to send it all back towards a cot at St. Anthony's home.’ So she won a prize for best letter, possibly that letter that we just read, which was very, you know, the worms wriggling and the cape weed, it was beautiful. And then she gave, she donated her prize to the, to the home, which seems like quite generous thing to do. And like, from what I knew about, um about Aunty Babe, as I called her. That seems like very like the type of thing she would do.
Christina: Do you know, she sounds an awful lot like you Penny, because he she's his little girl writing away kind of like you did in your diary and quite obsessed with horses. Doesn't seem to have a lot to do with them, but quite obsessed with them. I think there's a lot of parallels here.
Penny: I haven't even thought of that.
Christina: It skipped a generation.
Penny: But I'd never won a prize.
Christina: Would, you would have been the type to write to Aunt Patsy.
Penny: I would have. No, that's very true. But yeah, so she was a very generous person, wasn’t she Dad?
Peter: She was very generous. It was a part of the time, the era. There was no social welfare in those days. And, uh, and poor people were, it was the other people's responsibility to look after them and share whatever they have.
Penny: Okay. So I'm going to keep reading the letter. ‘I have some very sad news this time. My dear father died in the Castlemaine hospital on Wednesday last. He will be missed by all the people, as they all liked him. We have received some very nice letters and cards.’ So that was, yeah. Writing this just, just after George died. Do you know who, how he died?
Peter: Uh, he had heart problems, but he also had, he worked as a blacksmith in the mines and he also had some psilosis.
Penny: Right. That's very sad. And then she just immediately says, ‘I have been home from school with a tooth ache. I've been put up to the fifth grade this week. Well, dear Aunt Patsy is, this is all the news this time. This time I will conclude, I remain your loving niece, Madge. Thank you.’
Christina: I’m sensing maybe Patsy has edited in this instance. She didn't like her long ramble last time.
Penny: Or maybe Margaret’s gone it was a bit a sledge last time when you said my letter was too long.
Peter: Or Aunty Babe was feeling a bit down..
Penny: I think I might be right. Because things would have changed a lot. Were the older brothers able to earn money then?
Peter: Well, my father was 14 and he was sent up to the Mallee, to drive teams of Clydesdales in the Mallee. And he was, should have still been at school. He was very good scholar. But no welfare, in those days. They had to find a way to make money. Dad used to say, uh, you know, it was pretty rough on the places he had to work. He's only a kid. And they’d live on meat and bread and jam. They used to get jam in a gallon tin. A gallon’s quite a large tin. A bit like a petrol tin. You know, and Oh, apricot jam, this is good. You get halfway through the tin of apricot and then go, Oh God, I'll be glad when this is finished. Oh plum jam! This is great!
Penny: I’ll never get sick of this!
Christina: Oh yeah. They just needed a couple at the same time. So they could alternate.
Penny: Exactly. Yeah. That would have been very hard. And George, he was a little bit older. Was he working?
Peter: Well he, that was, he was up at the farm.
Penny: Oh yeah, he was already at the farm milking. But they were still living in the house where you live, in Brandt Street?
Peter: And then, uh, then they eventually moved up to the farm.
Penny: Um, so Aunt Patsy replied. ‘I am very sorry to hear of your sad loss Madge. I hope your toothache has long ago disappeared. Tiny tots wave their thanks for your kind remembrance of them.’
Christina: Wordy is always Aunt Patsy.
Penny: And then the next letter comes from the 22nd of the third. I'm going to say 2025. No, it was 1925.
Christina: It's from the future.
Penny: And so this is like the next year and it's a shorter letter again. And it's titled ‘Another Islander brightens up her Oar’. ‘Dear Aunt Patsy as I have not written for a long time, I thought I would once more brighten up my oar. We are having very rough weather up here. There has been thunder and lightning. My big brothers have a racehorse named Mavaurne.
Peter: Mavaurne!
Peter: And they took her to Carisbrooke and she won easily and they were very pleased.’
Christina: Good job. Excellent. Excellent.
Penny: ‘Um, we have four cows and about 25 fowls and five ducks.’
Christina: Ah, population explosion.
Penny: That's an extra two ducks. Yeah.
Christina: She's really good at giving the tally.
Peter: They can’t be eating all the eggs.
Penny: No. Plenty for the hospital.
Christina: How many kittens?
Penny: Were not up to kitten count yet. We'll see if that comes later.
Christina: I'm hoping so.
Penny: ‘I haven't missed a day from school since Christmas. We were given a holiday on Thursday and the children, for the children to go and see the governor general.’
Christina: What a great holiday.
Penny: Imagine that just looking at an old man walking.
Christina: Yeah. Walking past waving a flag.
Peter: Show some respect.
Penny: Okay. ‘My little brother burnt his head about a month ago, but it is all right now.’ Oh, that sounds fairly typical, Jack. Doesn't it. Should we talk about Jack?
Peter: It depends what you wanna hear.
Penny: So Jack, before he went to the war
Peter: Yes.
Penny: Was he all right then?
Peter: From what I understand. Obviously I wasn't around at the time, but he, he, he was. He was in a part of the, uh, army, I suppose you'd almost call it the commando stuff now days, but in the jungle Borneo, he, he, his task was to sneak up, pop up on all the Japanese. One of each party tricks in the army was with the big head honchos were supposed to have guards and all of that. And Jack’d sneak up on them, jump up and say, I'm here. You’re lucky I'm not one of them other buggers. You know, proving that the security was fairly awful.
Penny: Oh God.
Peter: Uh, but Jack come back from the war an alcoholic and quite a wild man, many many stories about Uncle Jack and he'd get into trouble and dad would have to go and get him and take him home. But in those days too, people knew that Jack had a background and a story. And that wasn't the way he really was. And were fairly forgiving of some of some of his misbehaviors, um,
Penny: There was one famous story in the family.
Peter: Well, if you're going to go there, we'll go there. If you want me to,
Penny: If you want to. Have I told you this before Christina?
Christina: I don't think so. I'm hoping we're going there.
Peter: I was traveling with my wife in the Western district and I heard on the radio that a policeman had been shot near the Newstead racecourse. And I just had a premonition and I knew and I rung up home and they said, yeah, it was Uncle Jack. And what had happened was that, uh, uh, a prisoner had escaped from the Castlemaine prison, which is about 10 miles away. And the police had an idea that the person was out in the Newstead district. And Uncle Jack lived in this little old wattle and daub hut in the middle of a paddock. Now four o'clock in the morning. They drove around that round, that Uncle Jack shack, with, shining a spotlight. And Uncle Jack really thought that the Japanese had come back to get him. Uh, he had a 22 rifle in those days. the windows were only slits. They're not like the windows we have in houses today. And he poked his rifle through the slit and fired a shot. Yeah, quite sadly what happened was, uh, hit the policeman in the stomach. The policeman very quickly retreated to the car. They'd come in in the paddock through the gate. They didn't worry about going through the gate, going out. They went straight through the fence. Castlemaine police contact Newstead police and said, do you know who lives there? And, and the Newstead policeman said, what in the hell were you annoying poor old Jack’s for. Why didn’t you come and see me. But anyway, Dad had to get Uncle Jack. Of course he was charged. So should have been. And of course, the good news in the story, the policeman recovered.
Penny: Yeah, he was, um, my, um, the teacher at my school, his husband.
Christina: Oh, good.
Penny: Yeah.
Christina: Was that uncomfortable?
Penny: No, I, it gave me a great sense of superiority. Um, yeah, but they got divorced anyway.
Christina: Awkward.
Peter: But anyway, Uncle Jack went to court and there were, I think some pretty fair judgements made by the magistrate. He understood the circumstances, the police weren't out to get him get him, so the prosecutor wasn't disputing, uh, anything about Jack and Uncle Jack got off with 12 year, 12 months, good behavior bond. Never own a gun again. And he had to live
Penny: That was probably a good thing.
Peter: Oh, definitely. And he had to live in a caravan, uh, at Uncle George's. So there was some supervision of him. Yeah. But Jack being, Jack, you know, he'd get a cup of beers in him and he say, I'm the only bloke in Newstead who shot a policeman and got away with it.
Christina: It's good to have a claim to fame.
Penny: And I've, I've spoken to people in Newstead who have just gone. Ah, they never should have gone up to Jack's house at that time of night with a spotlight. What were they doing. You know, it's a little bit victim blameybut
Christina: It's probably good for Jack that he lived in a small community.
Peter: There's a parallel story with it. Uh, Christina and penny, uh, at the same time as the shooting occurred, uh, by called Lenny Martin, he about six foot, six 25 stone, played in the ruck for South Melbourne for a few games. He was at lived in Newstead. And he used to go up to Mildura fruit picking. And Lenny was away at the time when he come back and many used to hold court at the Newstead pub. And when he was a big drinker, uh, he's measured to have, counted to have had, for six weeks in a row, over 100 7 ounce glass of beer a day.
Penny: Wow. That's a lot.
Peter: He never drank on Sunday.
Christina: No, he was religious. Aunt Patsy's nephew.
Peter: Lenny’s telling me at the pub. That prisoner bloke, he’s been in my house.
Penny: The which bloke?
Peter: The prisoner. They were looking at Uncle Jacks he’s actually at Lenny Martin's place. And Lenny said in his dry voice, Oh, the poor bastard he must've been hungry. Oh, I didn't mind at all. So, you know, he ate all my canned food and stuff like that. I could he slept the bed, sleep somewhere. I didn't mind that. But he said, I got very upset when I found out he’d shit in me best cooking pot.
Christina: Ew.
Peter: Of course, in those days toilets are outside.
Christina: No. Oh, that's lovely.
Penny: We have to draw a line somewhere with your guests. And I will say that to both of you today.
Christina: Sorry. I was eyeing off a pot before.
Penny: But have some cans of food, I don’t mind. Have a nap, just don’t shit in my pots.
Christina: Basic rules.
Peter: When I cook there's always that me pot.
Penny: Oh, that's untrue. Dad's a very good cook.
Christina: It’s a hot pot.
Penny: ‘We have three little kittens and can you please provide me names for them. I will close now as I have no more news. I remain your loving, niece Madge Tangey.’ And then Patsy replies ‘Aha! Those kittens, they will insist on losing their mittens. I mean their names.’
Christina: Oh God, Patsy.
Penny: No let’s call them Ray, Mimi and Dodo, as they are sure to be able to sing the scales.
Christina: Oh, she's appalling.
Penny: I read a little bit of a poetry. It wasn’t very good.
Christina: Why doesn’t that surprise me.
Peter: What does that mean, Ray, Dodo and Mimi.
Penny: Do Re Mi, I think anyway.
Peter: She didn’t even know the order!
Penny: No, no. It's very disappointing.
Christina: It was before Sound of Music.
Peter: I suppose Aunty didn't know the order of the cats come out anyway.
Penny: Okay. ‘Chokes galore.’ Newstead six of the ninth. I can't not say 2025, six of the ninth, 1925 ‘Dear Aunt Patsy, As I have not written for some time, I will once again, more brighten up my oar. Not long ago, I received a letter from a little Papuan girl named Anna. My little brother Jack will be starting school after the holidays. I have two little kittens and their names are Darby and Joan.’
Christina: So what's with the Papuan girl and, and we just jumped straight away from her.
Penny: Everyone had a Papuan
Christina: Everyone had a Papuan girl?
Penny: Everyone had a Papuan penpal in the Catholic, they all like were riding to the missions and stuff, I think.
Christina: I think right now she could have elaborated on that.
Penny: I think it's nice for her to have someone her own age to write to.
Christina: Better than creepy Patsy.
Peter: Living with three brothers,four brothers.
Penny: Yeah exactly. It's good to have a girl. But also I love, last letter she had three kittens. Now she's got two kittens and they do not have the names Aunty Patsy provided.
Christina: There was obviously no desexing program in place.
Penny: I don't know if they're completely different kittens or
Christina: If think they're in bred.
Peter: My dad used to have a cat. Called Mrs. Moore
Christina: Mrs. Moore.
Peter: Because Mrs. Moore kept having more.
Christina: Yeah Nice.
Penny: That's us. Oh, here we go. Fowl watch. We have about 40 fowls and five ducks.
Christina: Wow. Duck population has remained stable.
Penny: ‘One of our ducks and two of our chickens are sitting. There was a bizarre at Newstead on the 29th of August and I was in for a big doll, but I didn't get it.’ Oh, I feel that's a bit.
Christina: I think again, she's written to Aunt Patsy as a cry for help.
Peter: I’d say so.
Christina: No kids helpline back then. Aunt Patsy or cry into your pillow.
Peter: I don’t think there’s be much money around.
Penny: It’s the only way to get the big doll. Um, ‘As I have no more news, I will close our remain your loving niece, Margaret Tangey age, 10 years.’ And I'm Patsy replies, ‘Pleased to hear again from you, Margaret. Give by kind regards to the chooks, Darby and Joan.’ And there was one more letter, but I can't read it, which is a bit disappointing because it was called something about visiting the city. But I can't, but it's all, it's all blurry. And the scans I can't find out, cause I would've really liked to know what Madge would make of the city .
Christina: Well Madge really cranked a lot of letters in, in the short period of time in one year.
Penny: Yeah in one year. And I think because she was such a good writer, she was getting selected. I reckon there’s kids are sending letters in, they're not getting published.
Christina: No, they weren't doing the fowl count.
Penny: That’s exactly right. We should do a fowl chart. A little graph.
Christina: I would think so. Just chart the fowl.
Penny: And the kittens.
Christina: Kitten and Fowl could be a name of a pub.
Penny: And then there was just one other thing that I found, which was the Newstead Queen Carnival from the 30th of June, 1927. ‘A baby, a baby queen carnival in aid of the Castlemaine parish’
Christina: Is this like Toddlers and Tiaras? This is great.
Penny: ‘Concluded in Newstead on Wednesday evening and Mr Frost crowned the winning queen.As a result, the parish will benefit to the extent of 220 pounds.’ So then there's boring stuff about donors. Um, and then ‘Miss Madge Tangey was Queen of Newstead.’
Christina: Excellent. So is this a pageant?
Penny: Must be some kind of pageant.
Peter: I haven't heard of this story before.
Penny: Yeah. And she was presented each of the Queens with a wristlet to watch.
Christina: I wonder if she had to get her nails done for that.
Penny: She would have had a hair in like ringlets
Christina: got her nails done.
Penny: But the thing that I also found a little bit disappointing is the Queen of Newstead got 68 pounds. I'm not sure if that's personally or for the charity or I don't know how that works.
Peter: Well, they're obviously raising money for the Catholic church.
Christina: Yeah. But you know, it's like kids’ game shows in the eighties where the kid gets a crap prize, like Encyclopedia Britannica, but the school gets like 10 grand or something.
Penny: Yeah.
Christina: So the school had a good reason to put decent kids up.
Penny: But this made me a little bit cross Dad because Madge Tangey got 68 pounds and then the Queen of Yandoit Rosie O'Connor got 132 pounds. That doesn't seem right.
Peter: Rich buggers up there.
Christina: Yandoits a bigger down.
Penny: There’s nothing in Yandoit.
Peter: They were still getting gold at Yandoit at the time. And larger landholdings. And don't forget, that's where the Swiss Italians, that was the biggest sly grog shop in Victoria was in Yandoit. So that’s all money made out of sly grog..
Penny: So this is making a lot of sense to you?
Peter: It adds up.
Christina: I've never even heard of Yandoit.
Peter: Right now. Well, it's a lovely place to visit. It was settled by Swiss Italians and um, yeah, they brought their traditions with them.
Christina: Is it just a couple of them?
Peter: The names are still floating around the Gerversonis, the Rigettis, the Ritzors. A whole heap of Italian type names, well they are, that are now fourth generation Australian.
Christina: That's a good blend. Swiss Italian. Cheese and wine.
Peter: Well, like I had a lot of grapes up there. Yeah. They also used to make their own, each family had their own sausage recipe now called bullboars. And they’re still made in the Newstead butcher shop. And uh, yeah, but they used to kill a pig, like kill a veilor. It was marinated in each family’s secret mixture, mainly red wine, garlic, cinnamon, whatever. That was a bullboar. And you could do two things. You can, you can put them on a barbecue, you can do that. Some people boil and eat them that way. Or you can hang them up in your garage. They go green, you wipe the green off and salami.
Christina Wow. That’s obviously the best choice.
Penny: And um, which of these would be choosing, Christina, as a vegetarian?
Christina: Yeah. Look, it's a tough, it's a tough call. Penny. Probably the green is appealing the most.
Peter: And of course, you know, in those days they, they were the days. There were always mice, but I’ve seen people. I’ve seen people reach up to get a bull, a dried bullboar. Wipe the fur off it. A mouse has been having a go at it. Just chop a little bit off.
Penny: Yeah, just chop a little bit off. It hasn’t eaten the whole thing.
Peter: Then get stuck into it.
Christina: Yep. Um, I'm someone who turns a blind eye to mold on bread. So I understand where they're coming from. I really do. Yep.
Peter: And hence penicillin.
Christina: And hence I have not caught COVID.
Penny: Did Aunty Babe like a bullboar?
Peter: They loved bullboars.
Christina: Babe bullboar.
Penny: Babe bullboar.
Peter: My mother hated the smell of the bullboars.
Christina: She abhorred the bullboar.
Peter: We weren't allowed to have them. And if mum ever went away, then that's when dad would buy us bullboars. But you go up to Aunty Babe’s and they always had them hanging up in the garage and you always got Bullboars up there.
Penny: Later on in her life. Did she? She got married a bit later, didn’t she? Didn't she did she look after one of her brothers for a while?
Peter: She looked after two of her, her mother died in 1952, approximately. Her father died in, uh, about 1924. Um, but she went to the farm and shifted from where she was, uh, up to the farm and looked her mother, Uncle George and Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack come back from the war with war neurosis. And he was quite a mess and was a big handful. But Aunty she looked after them very well. What happened was that, uh, there was a long-time romance with a man called Peter Pedrina.
Christina: Peter Pedrina.
Penny: He sounds good.
Christina: He sounds like a cheap wine.
Peter: He lived in Echuca. A big man, a very quiet spoken man. And anyway, out of the blue Peter proposed and Aunty said, yes. This is in the early sixties. And then, uh, everybody said, what's going to happen, George and Jack. They were resourceful. Uncle Jack couldn't do anything about it. But Uncle George did, he went romancing himself.
Penny: That’s right. Married his cousin.
Christina Nothing wrong with that Penny, back in the day. First cousin?
Penny: Yeah.
Peter: Second cousin.
Penny: Really?
Christina: Just that little bit better.
Penny: No one can ever find out. It's impossible to know.
Peter: And so, uh, and he June came to live with Uncle George and Jack and she looked after them. And Uncle George looked after Jean. They had a little child.
Christina: He certainly did look after her.
Penny: I am glad Margaret made that decision. I mean, when Peter Pedrina asks you to marry him. You’ve gotta say yes.
Peter: I think he'd asked her about 10 years before she felt she had responsibilities at home.
Christina: But continued the liaison none the less.
Peter: And the mother had said, you have to stay here and look after me. And that was how it was in those days.
Penny: Well, what I remember about, um, Aunty Babe, cause we, she lived in Wangaratta when we lived in Wangaratta for a few years.
Christina: In Wang.
Penny: Wangars. And we used to take her to church every Sunday, we'd go and then we'd go back to her house and we'd get lollies. If we'd been good.
Peter: What used to happen? If I recall, we'd stop at the shop next to the church. In those days, you used to get a bag and mixed lollies. Yeah. I back to Aunty Babe’s place. The kids were little we'd go in and have a cup of coffee, a cup of tea. Aunty would grab the bag first and get out all the bananas in it and then give the kids the bag.
Penny: Yeah. And I, and I remember we met, we met Peter Padrina like a couple of times, but then by the time we moved to Wangaratta, I think he died.
Peter: Nah. I was there when he died.
Penny: I don't remember that.
Peter: Probably, I’d say, how old were you when we went to Wangaratta?
Penny: Oh, I guess I was four. Yeah. So I was there for a few years.
Peter: I’d say you were about five when he died.
Penny: Oh okay. So he probably died near the start. So I remember, Oh, and she had this little dog. Oh, I remember. It was called Pepe and I thought Pepe was the ugliest dog I’d ever seen. I just thought it was hideous. Right. And then years later we had this little dog, this little black and brown dog. And then I was looking through old photos one day and I was like, Oh yes, there's Bella. What's Bella doing in that photo? And then I'm like, Oh no, that's Pepe. Somehow when it was my own dog.
Christina: Yeah. It was a gorgeous, creature.
Penny: Yeah. But she was very nice to us. Like the kids. I think she used to let us pick the flowers in the garden.
Christina: I do think there's a lot of similarities there.
Penny: Thank you very much, Dad, for coming and talking to us about these articles from Trove today.
Christina: Thank you, Peter.
Peter: Thank you, Christina. And thank you, penny.
Penny: I think we've all learned a lot about fowl counts.
Christina: And shooting police.
Peter: And Aunt Patsy.