Col     When did you first become associated with Preolenna?

Mrs Cox When I was three, my parents moved there to live. They
        were not the first settlers, but the first married couple
        to go there to live.

Col     And what were their names?

Mrs Cox Byard, B.Y.A.R.D.. There were three rooms in the house
        that they went to when they went to Preolenna, and it was
        built of corrugated iron.

Col     And where was the house located?

Mrs Cox Where the house is now, (the first house on the right on
        the Preolenna Road on the right south from the Zig Zag
        Road intersection) only they've remodelled it and took
        three rooms off and left two; altered the roof.  I don't
        know if they have put one or two rooms on because at that
        time it didn't have a toilet or a laundry inside or
        anything in the olden days. It has now I believe.

Col     Well how long ago was that?

Mrs Cox It was 1913 my parents moved there, when I was three.

Col     And you would have gone to Preolenna school?

Mrs Cox I was a scholar in the first group of the people who ever
        went to school there.

Col     And how many children went to school then?

Mrs Cox I wouldn't be able to tell you really.  I don't know if
        there are any left of my class.  My brothers, my two
        eldest brothers went to the War and didn't come back. One
        of those brothers went to school with me that morning.  I
        know of the different ones that have gone that went to
        school at that time but are not here anymore.

Col     And how many teachers were at the school?

Mrs Cox Only the one, until I left school, except the monitor;
        but there was no monitor in earlier days,just one
        teacher.

Col     What was the monitor?

Mrs Cox I was the monitor at one stage.  A teacher under the head
        teacher, I suppose, a deputy teacher.  That was years
        after I first went to school, when I was nine or probably
        ten.

Col     And how did you have lessons before the school opened.

Mrs Cox My brother and I went to my Grandmother's at Roland,
        that's the other side of Sheffield.  I think we must have
        gone to school there for perhaps.. or I would have done
        for nearly two years I think, before we went to school at
        Preolenna.

Col     Did you find the Preolenna school a happy place?

Mrs Cox Oh yes, I enjoyed it, I didn't have enough of it. I think
        I must have been nine or eleven and it must have been
        about  1919 when the school opened out there. One of the
        photos has got 1921 up on the window and that was the
        second Christmas break-up in it.  The first one was in it
        before the school was finished, where the school is now.
        The first school was just a one room place up the road:
        just a shed sort of thing made into a school room.

Col     Where did the teacher live?

Mrs Cox She boarded. I'm not sure where the first teacher
        boarded, but the second one boarded with the Morse family
        who were Rodney Morse's grand parents who lived out
        there.

Col     Did you find that you were learning different things
        perhaps to what children at school these days? What were
        the sorts of subjects you were learning?

Mrs Cox Mainly arithmetic, composition, history, geography,
        dictation and spelling: they were the main subjects.

Col     And did you use biros or pens?

Mrs Cox No, there wasn't a biro until my children went to school.
        No, we had ordinary pens with nibs and the ink in our
        desks in front of us.

Col     Was that the ink that was made up from the powder?

Mrs Cox Yes, some of us, some of the ones that were put to do
        that did that; they would call them prefects now I
        suppose. Just the bigger ones in class would have certain
        times to do that.

Col     When you were going to school did you have any jobs to do
        at home?

Mrs Cox Yes, plenty.  Three miles to walk, because we walked from
        home to the school and because of the road  we walked
        most of it across the paddocks, right up past Mr
        McNeill's boundary. We came across the top his property
        and out on the corner of the road. From that piece of
        road it was just mud so we just used to carry our boots
        or shoes, whatever, under our arms and a towel and wash
        our feet in a puddle hole just down near the school and
        put them on.  That's the only way we could do it because
        it was so muddy. There was no road metal or anything,
        just mud.

Col     What sort of farming did your parents do?

Mrs Cox Just normal cropping; potatoes, a few peas sometimes, but
        mainly they milked cows. They grew their own hay and they
        had their chaff cut and that sort of thing in those days.

Col     Did they have a chaff cutter on the property?

Mrs Cox No. There used to be one coming into the area going
        around the different farms with a gang of men on.

Col     And how about things like the potato lifting and potato
        harvest and pea harvest.

Mrs cox Well the pea thrasher used to go out there too. But, the
        potato harvest, no, the men harvested them themselves,
        they dug them with a fork.  No potato diggers or anything
        like that. No tractors, it was all done with horses: the
        work I mean either horses or bullocks.

Col     And who cared for the horses?

Mrs Cox My father.

Col     What sort of horses were they?

Mrs Cox Draught horses.

Col     Was that a common thing?

Mrs Cox Yes, all around it was.  Most people would own perhaps a
        pair of horses or perhaps more. My father had more than
        two and that was our transport and we had a pony and trap
        or jinker as well.

Col     And where did you go from there into Wynyard or
        Flowerdale?

Mrs Cox When we first lived out there, in the winter we could not
        come out that way.  We had our jinker up at the top of
        the Calder, and we used to come down through the paddock
        on the eastern side of Preolenna Road: we've always known
        it as the "gravel track". It was the width of a road,
        only that my father had done that, and we used to have a
        jinker up the top of the Calder. We used to come down
        across the river when the river was down and drive into
        Wynyard down the Calder road. Because it wasn't metalled,
        not out as far as Champions, before you got there down in
        the hollow: that was corduroyed with logs across. Of
        course, that was very muddy the part that was corduroyed
        but from Champions up it was not metalled at that stage.
        So this is how we used to get across. So we would walk
        and take our harness, the horse would be harnessed, and
        then we would go down. I can remember once we came back
        and the river was in flood, my Father and I., we walked a
        log and swam the horse right down on the bend of the
        river. It swam you know with it's harness on and all you
        could see was its face up, its head up and it swam across
        and waited for us on the other side. We were lucky just
        to get a log that had washed down the river that was high
        enough above the river to walk across or we wouldn't have
        got home that night.

Col     And how long did it take you to get from home into
        Wynyard?

Mrs Cox I'd say it all depends on how quickly we got along it may
        be upwards of two hours. But of course, after the road
        was done that way, I was in my teens I used to ride a
        horse to Wynyard and get whatever I needed and carry it
        home with me. I had a friend, a lady that used to ride
        with me mostly, and we'd ride a horse and get whatever we
        wanted and carry it home in front.

Col     How old were you when you left school?

Mrs Cox I wasn't fourteen I'd turned thirteen. My father got me
        exempt from school because I was the eldest of the
        family. I didn't have all that much schooling really, not
        enough.

Col     Did you find that living out there was isolated or did
        you enjoy it?

Mrs Cox I enjoyed it. We had a chap come out there after I was
        married and came to our farm. He came to stop and he said
        to us: he wondered what we'd do for entertainment out
        there but he said I wasn't here long and I found you made
        your own.

Col     How many acres would your father have been farming?

Mrs Cox I don't think I can think of that.

Col     How did he clear land?

Mrs Cox He did it with horses and bullocks, mainly bullocks.

Col     Did he have a bullock team, or did they come out
        especially?

Mrs Cox Most of the people out there, different ones not most,
        different ones out there had bullocks. Even after we were
        married  a chap out there had six, and we had them work
        on our property. But I couldn't tell you the acres my
        father had. He had all of that property where that old
        house is and then he rented what was called Crown Land in
        those days right down to the river below that was only in
        a bush state. He never did much with that: only right
        down by the river there is a flat part and he did have
        that cleared out and he used to have a few cattle go down
        there on and off while there was enough food there for
        them. He didn't cross the river.

Col     Did you find that as you were growing up you had an
        opportunity to meet people out there?

Mrs Cox Yes, I think there were occasions there seemed to be
        plenty that we met.

Col     And what were the sorts of special occasions that
        happened throughout the year?

mrs Cox The main thing would be the school break ups and the
        Sunday School anniversary and picnic, and things like
        that. We had our special ride on the train from when it
        opened to Stanley. The school all had a trip on that.

Col     That would have been a steam train?

Mrs Cox Yes, that was a steam train. That wasn't a tram line to
        Preolenna, that was a train line, and we had a free
        ticket on that. Just as you go out of the Zig Zag on the
        flat there that was Calder Siding. There was a building
        there right on the side and that's where they would take
        us.  It must have been the Government Railways issued us
        free a ticket each, me and my two brothers, we had
        tickets so we could get on the train from school and go
        back home. That would be two days a week.

Col     Where did the train line go near the school?

Mrs Cox Just right beside the school: the old railway station is
        gone from Preolenna now. It was right opposite where the
        school house is. That was the railway house, years ago
        before the Education Department bought it: and the
        railway line went between that and the station. It was a
        two roomed building and it was right over near the
        school.

Col     Was the station manned by anyone?

Mrs Cox No, the fettler lived in the railway house. I suppose he
        was responsible for the building and everything. There
        were, they've all gone now, there were stock yards for
        loading the cattle on  right in front of the Gospel
        Chapel, between that and the railway home.

Col     The train would have been used then for taking produce to
        market.

Mrs Cox Cream, wood, bails whatever ........

Col     No milk tankers or anything like that?

Mrs Cox No.

Col     How was the milk taken out, was it taken to the
        station?

Mrs Cox No, it was only cream, the milk was separated on the
        farm. We all had our own separators, hand ones. We
        separated the milk and the cream was put in cream cans
        and loaded on at the station.

Col     Who had the job of separating the cream?

Mrs Cox Whoever was there. I did a lot of it at our place. You'd
        milk your number of cows and then you'd start the
        separator and the others would be keeping on milking.

Col     How many cows would have been milked?

Mrs Cox There was thirty something my father had.. But years
        later when I was married and we got our farm we started
        with five cows when we were married.

Col     What year was that?

Mrs Cox 1933, and we ended when we left the farm we had fifty
        two.

Col     Where did you live when you were married?

Mrs Cox You go up past the school and its the last house on the
        end of the road.

Col     Your parent's house, the corrugated iron, was that a
        standard sort of cladding?

Mrs Cox No, that was done because there was only one paddock
        cleared and the rest was standing bush all around
        everywhere. There was a bushfire came through there and
        if it hadn't been done with corrugated iron there
        wouldn't be any house left.

Col     Was that an unusual occurrence, a bushfire?

Mrs Cox No, I don't think it was where there was a lot of bush. I
        can remember that it was a scary time. I'm not sure of
        the year but it would be before there was a school or
        anything out there.  My father had left us to ride a
        horse to Wynyard that morning before the fire started,
        and it started away back behind us. I don't know how far
        but it was behind Preolenna.  It was well up from where
        we lived. But ours was the only house out there then.
        There were lots of people with huts. There was only my
        mother, my two brothers and myself there when this fire
        started coming straight down towards us. The old chap, Mr
        Stevens, who lived up where Hancocks are now (the house
        just across; old Mr Stevens lived there a long time, he
        owned that block), he came down and he said to my mother
        "you follow the road, and go away back", he said. We
        would have been walking back towards the fire, but he
        thought that if we had stayed on the road we would have
        been alright. But she didn't and soon a neighbour came
        from below Champions. There used to be a house on the
        hill there is a pine tree up to your right as you are
        going towards Wynyard. I think it is still there and
        there was a home there and we knew that family. They'd
        seen my dad go out early in the morning and they came and
        took us.  When we got down we just got down the hill
        where the railway siding was and the fire was right
        across the road and singed the hair on the horses as we
        went through. That was terrible really. I can remember
        the people sitting around for weeks; the men, the
        firefighters, with their eyes bandaged, because of the
        smoke. I never forgot that.

Col     It was a hot summer time was it?

Mrs Cox Yes, it would be summer time I would say, but I can't
        remember the year. There was another bad bushfire that
        went through in 1939. I remember that, because I was in
        hospital when I had our third child and that was 1939. We
        lost our home in that because it was a shingle roofed
        home, built by my husband's father. They split all the
        timber out of the bush to build it with. So we bought ten
        acres of land where Dot Morse is now and it came down to
        the corner of the road where Mrs Beswick lives. Its been
        divided up since. We still had our farm and we kept it
        until we could afford to build a house then, and worked
        the farm from where we were living. It's not the house
        where Mrs Morse lives because they had a new home built
        there, but the old one we lived in for a few years
        anyway.

Col     When did you leave Preolenna?

Mrs Cox 1965.

Col     You must have seen a lot of changes: did it feel
        different or did it seem to be a timeless sort of place?

Mrs Cox No, it progressed. It really did, Preolenna. For years we
        had no power or anything like that and we were there when
        the power was put on and that was a real boost to
        Preolenna people. There was no phone for long years and
        that was put on and Preolenna just went ahead, it seemed
        to, after those sorts of things went out there.

Col     What did you do for power before the Hydro?

Mrs Cox We cooked with a Peters oven and you had the heat of the
        wood fire. We had wood for fuel. Our lights were kerosene
        lights and we gradually got so that we had a better
        light. We got an Aladdin lamp with the mantles on it. All
        those sort of things they came and we saw all those
        changes and they were improvements all the time.

Col     How did you do things like your ironing?

Mrs Cox Heat the irons in front of the fire. I've got one out
        there now, I keep it for a souvenir.

Col     You didn't use the petrol pressure iron or anything like
        that?

Mrs Cox I never used one. I could have done but I didn't like
        that idea. I'd rather use my iron the ones that I hotted
        at the fire.  I didn't have a steam iron. My first
        electric iron was not a steam iron, it was just a common
        sort.  You heated your water in kerosene tins to start
        with for your baths, and it was just an ordinary
        galvanised bath that you carried inside. It went from
        that to a galvanised bath on legs, the long big one, and
        of course, now you have porcelain ones.

Col     Did you find that a lot of your day was taken up with
        preparing things like your hot water?

Mrs Cox Yes, but you had your times to relax. You'd do your jobs
        just the same and you had your time to sew or knit or to
        garden.

Col     Did you do any gardening?

Mrs Cox Yes, I've had a garden wherever I've lived.  I had a
        garden at my dad's before I got married. I was the
        gardener there. I had a letter from my granddaughter and
        she asked me how I coped with giving up gardens when I
        had to move, because apparently they had a big block and
        they didn't like parting with the garden and she asked me
        how did I cope with giving up.

Col     Well how did you cope?

Mrs Cox Well when I left Preolenna it was because of my husband's
        health and I knew that I would just have to do it. I just
        made up my mind to do it. Then when we got to Wynyard we
        had a really nice garden there. When we left there I
        thought: I'll do it better somewhere else.

Col     When you were at your father's house at Preolenna did you
        grow both flowers and vegetables?

Mrs Cox Yes we did. My mother when she was well, but she died
        young. I'd say at fifty three. When she was well she
        gardened before I did, but when I got up into my teens I
        did it. She had a lot of small fruits like gooseberries,
        currents,  raspberries and that sort of thing. They had
        quite a big orchard, but there is practically none of it
        left. The flower garden is practically all gone.

Col     Was there any sign of much in the way of a timber
        industry in the Preolenna area?

Mrs Cox Yes, there was a big sawmill at the back of Mr Freeman's.
        My husband said there was known to be ten bullock teams
        there taking the logs to the mill. Yes, that would be a
        big part in the early part because I think most of what
        my husband's father did was split timber for post and
        rails and things like that to send out to sell, post and
        palings.

Col     What sort of fencing was on the property?

Mrs Cox When we arrived there when I was three my father had a
        chap building a paling fence around the house, that was
        the only thing around. All the rest of the fences were
        logs that were cleared off the property. There weren't
        any rabbits out there and the fences were made of logs or
        stones or whatever, but mainly logs and after a few years
        they became just a harbour for rabbits. People were glad
        to burn them off, cut them into wood or whatever.  There
        was a lot of wood cut and taken out on the train.

Col     Was the coal mine still operating then?

Mrs Cox It didn't start until after I had left school I'd say, or
        around about. They reckoned that the train was put in to
        take out the coal but it wasn't it was not ever.  It was
        found unsuitable, I don't know why they did not find that
        out before then.

Col     The train must have been a tremendous asset.

Mrs Cox It was, yes it went right through dad's property. I could
        walk up it now wherever it went.

Col     Did you find that you had any problems with things like
        health, being so far from Wynyard. Were there any
        services, a nurse?

Mrs Cox No, there used to be bush nurses around but I never have
        known one to be out at Preolenna. I suppose they just had
        to get there as best they could if they were really ill.
        Wynyard was the closest medical centre the closest
        doctor.

Col     Do you remember being ill and having to rush there?

Mrs Cox No, I've been really blessed with good health. I've had a
        few trips in since I've been  married but, some of the
        women had their babies out there. My mother had her
        fourth boy at home at Preolenna. It was a qualified lady,
        a midwife,  went out. She used to live up the Calder
        Road, Mrs Hillman, she went out and looked after her. But
        then my mother would do that sort of thing and she wasn't
        qualified in any way. She attended several ladies out
        there. I don't know what they would do if they needed a
        doctor. I suppose they would just have to hurry up and
        get one.  But I know that she did that, and I never heard
        of a nurse being out there, not stationed I mean.

Col     When did the road really become passable, say from
        Preolenna through Moorleah and Flowerdale? Is that a
        recent thing?

Mrs Cox My husbands father had the first mail from  Preolenna to
        Moorleah and in the summer time he had a jinker and horse
        that he drove and in the winter time he rode a horse
        because it too rough to take a cart.  I've got a photo of
        the first mail bus (a Chevrolet). They had the first mail
        bus, my husbands parents and they didn't run a car with
        the mail until they could come this way. Until that part
        was put through coming from the bottom of the Zig Zag up.

Col     What happened before then with the mail? Did you collect
        it in Wynyard?

Mrs Cox No, like I say, my husband's father had it to Moorleah.
        It used to go out from Wynyard to Moorleah. It was sorted
        there. The Preolenna mail was sorted at Preolenna Post
        Office at Mr Hunt's.

Col     Was there ever a shop at Preolenna?

Mrs Cox Yes, more than one shop at Perolenna.  Preolenna Trading
        Company had a shop there at one stage but the last shop I
        think, would have been owned by Mr Stuart. It was in a
        room on the side of his house. I think that would be the
        last one, but at different times there were several small
        shops that people had started up.

Col     Did they provide general goods?

Mrs Cox Yes, drapery one had but mostly groceries.  Preolenna
        Trading Company, I think they had a mixed shop. It was a
        big tin building on the school side of the Gospel Hall on
        the same side there.

Col     When did the bush fire brigade form?

Mrs Cox That was after we left Preolenna.

Col     Were there any other groups about, progress association
        or Parents and Friends?

Mrs Cox There was a Parents and Friends at the school and a
        public hall committee, but I don't know about progress.
        There was some form of committee formed after we left
        Preolenna.  My husband was chairman of Parents and
        Friends at one stage. He was also on the public hall
        committee. But that was the old public hall not the new
        community centre.