While I was home at Xmas made up with girl friend and even got engaged, I must have used all of my charm.
So after coming home I had a variety of jobs, like helping my father putting his crop in, back in those days before all the grain was stored in silos, all grain were in bags and there were no such things as weigh bridges, so the cockies (farmers ) would have each bag weighed as foing on an elevator to the lumpers ( stack builders ) , and they would carry these bags weighing 180 pounds to where ever they were needed.
These stacks were about 3 stories high and were always at a railway siding, well I never had a job building these stacks as this was extremely hard work and in the hottest part of year, but one year I worked on pulling them down and loading them into railroad trucks, worked with 5 aborigines and they would jibbering away all day in their own lingo, this was extremely dangerous work as pull one wrong bag out and as the abos would yell boola, boola , which was look out, any way this put a few bob in my pocket and kept me off the streets, lol.
Managed to get a pen( Shearing job ) that began first monday in August 24,000 sheep for 6 shearers, eight weeks work, bewdey, so I got married the saturday before and set out on a shearing honeymoon, here I was doing at night what young marrieds do and in the day working bloody hard . lol
we arrived in Yorketown on the sunday and found our lodgings that were with a little old lady ,also there was another shearer staying there, the other 4 shearers were local, this shed is what is called a depot shedthe cockies would bring their sheep there from miles around up to twenty miles, the biggest flock was 2,400 and smallest 100 sheep. While here there was a movie that was going to be made in sth aust and they wanted some shearers to be in it and they had day in Adelaide to interview all the shearers ,and of course me and a mate had to try out, I did not make it ,but my mate finished up as a stand in for a stand in, he got trip to England out of it. this film waqs called , The Sundowners, and it had Robert Mitchum and Debra Kerr as main actors, a few years later I shore in the shed that was used in this film and I actually shore on the stand that Robert Mitchum used, this station, ranch, was called Caraweirloo.
After finishing this shed I dont recall what I did , but the next year I went sharefarming ie put crop in and take it off for a share of profits and of course I had to supply tractor and other implements, but struck a bad year and only went into the red further and further , just as well I could earn money otherways, dont remember too much of next few years ,but know our family grew, by the next part of story had 4 children ,2 boys and 2 girls.