Untold History of WA: The isolation, freedom and community of growing up in Smailes

There is something about the photo. The kids are gathered together out in the bush. They hold sticks, string and what looks like an old tin or food container or two. They are clearly at play. Their hair and clothes have a certain feel and look. The kind of look that locates it in the Australia of another age. It feels like the era of black and white movies. Of making your own entertainment. Of simple fun. It looks like a bygone age. And that’s because it is. The photo shows a young Graham Armstrong, his sister Carol and some mates catching gilgies in a creek that flowed past their homes in the WA bush. For those who are not of a certain age, it is worth pointing out that a gilgie is a term for a freshwater crayfish. Graham was just six years old when his family had headed out for a new life in the middle of the jarrah forest in the Darling Range. It was January 1947, and his father Sonnie, who had served in the Navy during World War II, had landed a job at Smailes Mill. And so in the middle of summer, Sonnie, his wife Nancy, Graham and Carol headed into the bush. In his autobiography, From Horse and Cart to Electric Cars, Across the Years 1934 to 2024, Graham writes that the family reached their destination on a truck. “After the furniture was unpacked we had tea and went to bed, wondering how we would cope with the heat, dust and flies, and the smoke from the sawdust heap burning 24 hours a day just 50 metres from our house.” The book offers a snapshot of a, perhaps uniquely, West Australian way of life that has now disappeared. Indeed many of the mill towns have themselves disappeared — including Smailes. As was typical of the day, the family’s home was made of weather board with four rooms, a bathroom and verandahs front and back. “The toilet was ten yards away, at the rear of the block,” Graham writes. “The laundry was half that distance, and that is where the copper was, in which we would heat our bath water and carry it up to the bathroom.” There was no electricity, so light was provided by kerosene lamps. “Water came through rusty pipes from tanks just above the mill,” Graham writes. Cooking was done on a Metters wood-fired stove and a “kettle full of water was always sitting on the hob.” “Ironing was done by heating flat irons on the stove. With two doors and no widows a hot task was made even hotter. “A large trellis at the back of the house was covered in grape and passion fruit vines which kept the back yard cool.” Fruit, meat and vegetables were delivered to the mill families by truck from Kelmscott three times a week. The truck driver took orders and also brought the mail. “Summer or winter, the meat sat in the truck and then in the mill office until it was collected and taken home,” Graham writes. “How someone didn’t get seriously ill from all the time the meat was in the heat is amazing.” Before the family could afford a kerosene fridge, Graham’s dad built a “Coolgardie safe” — a mesh storage cabinet covered with dampened hessian in a bid to to keep the food contents cool. “The legs were placed in jam tins filled with water to keep the ants out,” he writes. Milk was bought from an orchardist from Karragullen who visited the mill by horse and cart. Sonnie would blow the mill whistle at 6am to signal it was time to get up for work. School meant the children riding or walking more than a kilometre to a forestry settlement. One teacher taught all the grades, making up about 20 or more children in one primary school classroom. When Graham turned 10, he was given the job of cutting wood for the kitchen fire, every afternoon, seven days a week. Along with his dog Smut, he spent hours exploring the bush, going rabbiting and swimming in creeks. “There was always something to do after school for us kids,” he writes. “Catching gilgies or minnows in the creek, going for a swim always helped us to cope with the isolation.” Social activities also helped and the community made its own fun by building a tennis court. “Men and boys swinging picks, shovels and axes cleared the site of vegetation,” he writes. “The ground was levelled and compacted with a heavy roller, ready for the next layer to be rolled out the following weekend. “Men and boys piled into the mill tip truck and headed out into the bush in search of white ants nests.” These were loaded onto the truck and after several loads the nests, crushed and watered, hardened into a cement-like mixture which was spread across the site and rolled flat. After drying, a layer of tar was added and topped with sawdust. A busy bee was organised to build shaded areas with seats and tables, and mark the court. Before long players from surrounding towns would descend on the court on weekends. The can-do attitude also saw the community band together to build a hall to hold dances. Sonnie made himself a drum kit out of jam tins, a cake tin became the main drum, aluminium plates became cymbals and a wooden box added extra oomph. The band also included “Mrs Littley from Karragullen” who played the banjo. “Mum’s cousin Madge and her husband, who played the clarinet, were also there,” Graham writes. Also popular was the bachelor’s supper raffle, with the main prize being a cooked fowl, a crayfish, a couple of bottles of wine and a variety of small goods. After Graham won the prize he imagined tucking into the crayfish, but his father ruined his plan by inviting a group home for supper — with crayfish on the menu. So he went to bed with a reminder from his father that “children should be seen but not heard.” Of course life at the mill was not all fun and games. The job was demanding and dangerous. There were accidents, including a time when a worker slipped between belts driving twin saws, and bolts holding the belts together gouged out lumps of flesh. The single men had very sparce lodgings and often found escape from boredom by drinking. When Graham approached high school age the family was told he had a chance at winning a scholarship, and the ensuing late nights studying paid off. But his time at Albany high school didn’t pan out and at the age of 14 he began his working life at the mill as a clerk, with duties including keeping a tally of the timber being loaded onto trucks. After a time he became bored with the mill work and successfully applied to become a junior postal officer. Over the years that followed he also worked on a farm, as an insurance agent, for Taubman’s paints, which took him to the north west, and as a data logger on a barge laying the gas pipeline. He described his varied life in ballads which he included in his book. The Heritage Council of WA says Smailes Mill had originally been located adjacent to the Pickering Brook railway station but was relocated to the site in Carinyah, a Forest Department station about 8km east of Karragullen in 1933. The site had historic value “for its association with the timber industry and the small communities which established and developed the Pickering Brook district.” “The place has social value as it was the place of residence for a small but thriving community during the 1940s,” the council says. But those days are long gone. Graham said the mill closed in 1957. “The site is predominantly regenerated scrub with no evidence of any former structures,” the council says. Looking back, Graham, now 85, told Agenda that life at Smailes brought some challenges because of the isolation, but it was also a time of great freedom for the children. “We never had any problems, he said. “You could leave your doors open.”

Untold History of WA: The isolation, freedom and community of growing up in Smailes

The No. 1 source of news for every West Australian