Burraga

As I sit down to write this, I know that I am dying. This thing in my head is getting worse, but before it kills me I want to set the record straight about what has really happened in my life. It has been an exciting life one way and another but, because I have never hesitated to embroider the truth or even to tell a straight out lie when I was in trouble - which was often - or wanted to play a joke on someone, much of the truth has been lost. It is time now to come clean and to tell the real story - the story that has been hidden by gossip, rumours, misunderstandings and lies.

I must admit that quite a lot of these tales about me - many of them quite absurd - have been my fault. I have always found great amusement in seeing how far I can pull people's legs. Oh, just recalling some of those memories makes me smile to myself.

Without a doubt, this `pulling someone's leg' is quite a common type of humour amongst people in the bush. Having been on the receiving end of many such jokes I soon learnt just how easily fooled some people are. There are some wonderful story-tellers out there, too, but swallow their tales whole – I don't think so. Mart, dear Martin Breheney, would say you need a good pocketful of salt when sitting around some campfires. Maybe I am not as good as some people at telling tall stories and mostly untrue, but even now I just cannot resist tempting people to their very heel ends before the bubble bursts. To be honest, some never do wake up. I cannot help chuckling at some of the things I have convinced people are really the truth.

Now I have time to sit here enjoying the sun, looking out over the peaceful paddocks towards Emu Creek and thinking about my life. I love my hut even if it does look a bit rough to other people. It certainly has very few comforts but that does not worry me. Those rose bushes I planted years ago give off such a lovely perfume and they look so beautiful against the hut, while the old peach tree bears fruit which is so sweet and flavoursome that one can make a meal out of only one of those peaches. I would like to be buried here but I suppose I will not be allowed to.

The mountains that guard the valley with their high cliffs, deep ravines and narrow tricky trails give me such a sense of security. Emu Creek grumbles along through the grassy paddocks drawing horses and cattle to it for water, while birds swoop and call to each other, either pleasingly or raucously, and I can lie here at ease and just remember!

I can see my mistakes of course - things that I could (maybe should) have done differently. Some were wrong decisions, some were the result of telling wild stories, some were simply the result of my love of the free life where there was nobody to tell me what to do. I could be my own mistress here, going and doing whatever I pleased. However, what I intend to write here will be the real story of Elizabeth Jessie Hickman, her life as best I remember it - warts and all.

As I have already said I know my time is limited. It is now March, 1936, and I am not sure I shall be here for my forty sixth birthday in September. This thing in my head is giving me terrible headaches and those black periods when I cannot remember what I have done may make it difficult or even impossible to finish what is really a sort of confession. If I am to write the truth in these pages there can be no self pity. What I will write may shock the reader. Many people that I know accuse me of using bad and profane language all the time. That will never do here so I promise that I will try not to use that sort of language if I can possibly help it. Still, a person cannot grow up in a travelling circus and buckjumping show without learning some very shocking - that is shocking to some - language. It sort of becomes a habit which I have found very hard to overcome.

Kitty, dear friend that she was, took me in hand for a while, trying to teach me how to speak more like she did, but it is years now since I have talked to her so I may get carried away. Please forgive me if I do.

If I manage to finish writing this, I can only hope that some kind person will get it to my brother, Hector. I would also like my son to see it and perhaps understand why I gave him away. I hope so.

I was never very interested in him when he was young because, to put it simply, I do not like children. Occasionally I will take a liking to one but that is very rare. Do I regret that past lack of interest in my son? I really don't know now, because suddenly I find I would like to see him and his family. Perhaps I should have made more of an effort when he was a baby, but I feel that I have done the right thing for him by giving him away. I do not know. It will be for you to judge. At least he has had a good life with Kitty and Arundel, a life I could never have given him.

It is hard to believe that I am a grandmother now, but the really incredible thing is I would love to hold my baby grand-daughter in my arms! I cannot explain this longing but I do realise that Kitty or Arundel may not have told my son that I am his real mother so my sudden re-appearance in his life would cause too much of an upset now that he is married and has a child of his own. Some people might feel that this unexpected yearning of mine is a sort of punishment for my treatment of Hedley. If so, there is not much I can do about it now.

I don't see why I should apologise for anything that I have done because I simply did what I had to do. Sometimes this was only to survive. Although I had some very happy times, looking back and thinking about it, it was a hard, unforgiving society that I lived in; a society that seemed determined to make me fit into the mould they saw was womanly. I had other ideas.

Now for my story.

My parents were James Hunt and Susan Ann McIntyre, better known as Jim and Susannah. I knew Mum's parents were Duncan and Matilda (nee Warren) McIntyre and Mum had been born at Peelwood not far from Burraga. Mum told me Dad gave Robert Hunt and Mary Vidler as his parents and his place of birth as Wollongong when they got married, but she did not think Wollongong could be correct. She said that if Dad was really born in Wollongong then she thought it was strange that none of the family made any effort to make the trip to Rockley for their wedding. Once when I asked her about Dad's family, she told me she had never met anyone from Dad's family. However, he did get letters from England, one even had some photos in it. Mum said Dad never read the letters to her. He would have had to do this because she could not read or write herself. She said Dad would not talk about his early life, although when he was drunk he would ramble on about his days in the Royal Navy.

Sometime in the mid-1880s Dad drifted into Burraga which was then a small...