AN AUSTRALIAN CHARACTER When I first went out to Western Australia
The surrounds of the house were a
in 1968 to view the 12000-acre property
disgusting mess with corrugated iron sheds
that I was to manage in the wheat belt, we
and animal bones lying around. She
met the previous owner, Winnie Vincent.
employed aborigines which, typical of the
As we were looking round the property she
time, were treated like animals. The film
appeared in a battered old Ute. She was
“Rabbit proof fence” was made at about
less than 5 foot tall, with an enormous
the time we were there. The rabbit proof
bosom. She was dressed as she almost
fence formed the eastern boundary of the
always was in very short men’s football
property. There was a fire in one of the
shorts, high shoes and a ragged blouse;
sheds in which two aborigines were burnt
round her neck was usually a pair of old
to death. Her comment reputedly was
drawers which contained ice blocks. All
“glad it did not kill any pigs”!
topped with a battered straw hat.
Her husband Clarrie, she described as her
“Would you like some tea boys? I will
skivvy. They had bought a drum of silver
bring a billie”. She appeared shortly after
paint which he sprayed everywhere,
with the billie, but we could not see any
including their bedroom walls, spraying
cups; she dived her filthy hands and arms
around two tractor tyres which they kept
into the tea and pulled out the cups!
there. The vet, one of the two other
We should have realised that lunch was to
Englishmen in the area the other being the
be avoided but went along. The old
doctor, called round one afternoon and was
homestead had been built by Italian POWs
called into the house where he found them
in the First World War and was a solid
in bed with their boots on!!
stone house. As we got to the door we
The old rogue broke every rule and law.
were met by a sow and piglets that rushed
To sell wheat for cash she mixed 10%
out of the door through the remains of a fly
barley seed in with wheat so that the
wire door. Inside chooks (hens) perched on
produce would get rejected by the wheat
the TV. On the veranda a side of kangaroo
board. This meant when wheat quotas
hung black with flies. The milk jug had a
came in as soon as we arrived there was
layer of flies, which she swept off with her
very little production history on which the
hand before pouring the tea. I lost my
quotas were based. If a cow calved or a pig
appetite! “John doesn’t look too good”- I
farrowed on the road, she would put a
said that I was still suffering from air
fence round them, which the school bus
sickness!!
had to negotiate. When she was 11
