How often have I done something knowing it was wrong? Lots of times when I was young! I recall feeling annoyed & angry with my best friend after an argument or some silly falling out over something trivial. I remember getting my own back on my older cousins when they would exclude me. I was a typical child with a temper & said things I later regretted but it was too late to take it back. Isn't it amazing how those little things mean absolutely nothing now & were so easily forgotten the very next day; especially after everything had blown over? I tried to fit in & learned to say "Sorry" but being really sorry means that you don't do it again! Later when my younger male cousins were born I loved having them around. Then when I became a teen I wanted to do more adult things so I remember staying in my room & ignoring them if I could when the family came over. Wasn't this exactly what my older male cousins were doing to me when I was little? How differently we react when it is happening to us! I seemed to forget all about my hurt feelings as that little child & did the same thing to my little cousins! Such short memories we have when it suits us!
Now as an adult looking back on my childhood; it is so easy to see my mistakes. In hindsight things are changed. I am sorry that I was not nicer to my young cousins. They would have felt so hurt that I loved being with them until I got too old to play with babies. Getting to be a teen was not as much fun as I expected. Being treated as an adult had its own drawbacks too. I had to do more around the house; more duties; more chores; more homework; more responsibilities!
Mum & dad had to work hard to keep their fruit block going. There was a lot of physical work that had to be done all year round. The hardest time was in summer when the apricots & peaches came into season. Then it was constant hard work every day. Cutting apricots was endless! Every day mum would get up early to make sandwiches for all the fruit pickers & all the fruit cutters up in the cutting shed. Morning tea was at 10 every morning & we supplied the tea & sandwiches every day! I enjoyed the cheese & Vegemite sandwiches washed down with hot black tea!
Standing there all day from 8 till 5 pm was back breaking work & then after work there was still dinner to cook for my poor mum. Mum & I used to cut around 100 trays full of fruit each day. That was on a good day with lovely big fruit. There were the usual petty arguments between the workers if someone snuck a bucket from the line that contained large fruit when everyone else had small stuff. We had to see who could cut the most trays each day: a sort of race between the workers!
As a child; when mum & dad worked for others before we got our own fruit block; I still had to do my share of work to help make ends meet. As a 6 year old in Gilbert & Laura Harrington's cutting shed in Kingston-on-Murray, I had to cut my quota as well as mum & my brother Alec before being allowed to play with the Harrington's youngest daughters. I had to cut one whole tray of apricots. To a 6 year old that was hard work! It used to take me so long to complete; until I learned how to do it properly. No massacred fruit was allowed! It had to be cut neatly & set just as neatly upon the tray. Mr Harrington taught me how to cut apricots a quicker way so that the apricot stone flew out to the side as the fruit was pulled apart & placed onto the tray!
Of course as I got older & better at it the number of trays grew as I did. I really loved it when they had the fruit grading machine working: for sending apricots to the market! After finishing my tray Nancy & I could help to sort the fruit for the market & get out of doing more cutting! We got to play games & go & play at their house which was situated further up the property. I loved going to their house to play because they had such a lovely big house & a beautiful garden with lots of wanderer butterflies everywhere. Flowers & butterflies were not a part of our place as we only had 3 acres of sultana grape vines. Roslyn, Jenny & Nancy also had lots of toys & dolls & a beautiful verandah they could play on. I still recall the sound of the sprinklers, watering the orange trees close to the house as we played outside. Those were my favourite times as I was growing up!
When it got really hot, Mr Harrington would set up an air-conditioning system. He moved a pallet of empty trays into the doorway & by putting a running hose on top of the stack: the hot air would be cooled as it blew through the dripping water into the shed. Brilliant! It got so hot in that galvanised iron shed on those hot summer days that it still became unbearable! We got to have a little swim in the river at lunch time & I remember going to the little kiosk that Mr Hopkins ran near the ferry to provide cool drinks & ice creams for all those hot people waiting fro the ferry to cross the River Murray.
I'd go to mum & ask in Hungarian if I could have a "Slippery Sam" (like a Zooper Dooper today). Laura Harrington told me years later how cute it was listening to me prattle away in Hungarian only to hear me say "Slippery Sam" at the end! I loved my big brother & of course I always had to get one for him too! They were so nice to have in between all that herd work. what a memory!
After working at Kingston-on-Murray we would go home & go down to the river at Moorook.
There was a little concrete area from which we could jump in & swim as we got older. At first I would just try to swim around in the shallow area as mum couldn't swim & neither could I! I could hold my breath & swim under water but that was it. I couldn't float no matter what I tried. I would last a few seconds before I'd sink like a rock. So that's what I did!
That was my swimming. I'd hold my breath & swim like a fish. It was so lovely to relax after a hard day's work at the River Murray at Moorook. Mum would just sit in the shallow water & keep an eye on me as I swam around like a fish. What a life! Dad would dive in & sometimes swim across the river to the island. As we got older we would swim across with him. Mum must have been panicking just watching us. She was terrified of the water because when she was young & back in Hungary, her brother had tossed her in the water & it had frightened her. She never got over her fear of water!
Frightened as she was, she was ready to jump in & save us if it became necessary. We were at Moorook one hot summer afternoon with lots of other people. One boy was mucking around & splashing a lot. Bradley Tschirpig was being silly & going in a bit too deep. Mum thought that he was drowning & leapt to his rescue. There was no one else close enough so she jumped in & saved him even though she was terrified herself! He, of course was just mucking round & wasn't really in trouble at all but mum didn't know that! I'm so proud of mum getting over her own fears to help someone else! Boy was she upset afterwards though! Once the adrenalin surge was over she went into panic mode & let Bradley know exactly how she felt about it!
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