Remembering the cane cutters

THE following poem was contributed by Tinana’s Jenny Burton, owner of the family operated “Iindah” Dairy Farm and Burton’s Milk Factory.

She thought that with all the publicity relating to the sugar industry at the moment, it was appropriate to think of the men who, before the introduction of mechanical harvesting had been the backbone of the business.

Jenny’s late husband Herb, started his working life as a canecutter at Childers.

When the cane finished each year, Herb and the same gang of men would go to Kingaroy for the peanut harvest.

They were young, fit friends and competed to see who was the fastest whether in the cane paddock or peanut crop.

As with so many of those hardworking men, Herb’s pay helped him purchase a farm where he and Jenny began dairying, and later bought land where they became cane farmers as well.

Jenny’s home is only 100 metres from the site of the “Iindah” Sugar Mill which is the origin of the property’s name.

Built in 1869 and one of the largest on the Mary River at that time, the mill produced around 70 tons of sugar and five thousand gallons of rum each year in the 1870s.

“Iindah” was later converted to a juice mill, where juice was crushed from the cane, run down pipes into tanks on barges and taken across the river to Yengarie Sugar Mill.

From the 1860s, and for the next hundred years in Queensland, the sugar industry depended on cane cutters.

THE ALMOST FORGOTTEN CANECUTTER by Marie Johnstone

We’ve all heard of the shearer and drover,

The stockman and outlaw too.

The squatter who once lived in clover

And the bullocky whose language was blue.

The Anzac, the swaggie and Banjo

Whose words make our hearts all aflutter.

Each is a part of our history and so Is the almost forgotten canecutter.

The boss signed him up with three men or more.

The ganger enlightened him as to the score.

“Bend your back, cut that cane down low,

Remember there’s no pay for the slow.

Shoulder load each truck, keep it straight.

Watch it! That’s not cane, it’s a ruddy snake!”

His hands were all blistered. He ached to the bone.

“This cutting’s no job for a weakling.” he’d moan.

The smell of burnt sugar hung in the air.

His clothes were all sticky and so was his hair.

If his knife hit a stone, oh Lord, how it jarred.

His hours were long and the work was damned hard.

But on pay day he felt like a son-of-a-gun

And walked into town for a week-end of fun.

Back to the barracks he’d often be broke

And swear off the beer – being drunk was no joke.

Where are the gangs now that machines cut the cane?

Do they remember the sweat and the pain?

Do they look back with a feeling of pride

At work well done with mates at their side?

They’re part of our history, a legend each one

Those canecutting men who toiled in the sun.