Helen – Part 1

“I grew up in the North Canterbury back country. My father managed a high country station called Esk Head up the South Branch of the Hurunui River. We lived in a sod house with a thatched roof. Outside had corrugated iron because there weren’t people to re-thatch any longer. We had a diesel generator for power. Esk Head now has mainline power.

I was number four of eight children. I had one older sister, so the only women I had close contact with was basically my mother, my sister, and occasionally the wives of the managers around the other stations.

All my primary schooling was correspondence. I spent most of my summer holidays down by the south branch of the Hurunui, depending upon what floods had happened as to where we swam, there was a good pool down by the shearing shed. There was another one further up the river a bit. Never used sunscreen.

Whoever was the oldest child at home when the men went out on a muster had to milk the cow, and you could bet your bottom dollar I didn’t get the nice cow. I got the cow who put her foot in the bucket, and hit my face with her tail!

I still have the recipe that mum used to make the boiled sultana fruit cake that went with the mountain pack for the muster, and you could guarantee that once the men went out, the bloody diesel generator would crap out so you’d be on candles and lamps.

I haven’t lived at home with my parents since I was 12. I came to boarding school for my secondary. Because I found boarding school so difficult, I actually just put my head down and worked. In hindsight, I actually did quite well at school. I wasn’t necessarily that academic, but because I was lonely and a bit lost and I just worked.

As boarders we had chores to do every day and weekends. And I do remember one Saturday morning cleaning the hall, and when I’m doing something sort of mindless like that, I whistle, which was Dad’s thing. ‘Helen Macdonald!’ says one of the nuns. ‘ladies do not whistle!’. ‘Well, that’s all right sister, because I’m not a lady’. Wrong answer. I think it got me a week’s worth of detention for that little episode.”

Continued in part 2…


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