Isis Downs

Isis Downs is a place that I spent some of my working life. This photo is from one of many that is around today.

The grass weeds growing on the yards is an indication of the new direction that Isis Downs has taken.  Now primarily a cattle station, in my time it was sheep, and the pointed hard hooves of thousands of sheep at shearing time would leave no weed unturned, so to speak.

It was a large property, 250 000 acres I recall at that time.  Apart from the shed it had three cottages,  one for the farmer, a full time mechanic and one for the local handyman. These blokes were married and had their spouses with them. There was, to the left of the picture of the shed, a 'ringers quarters' with about twelve single rooms for the workers and between the quarters and the kitchen meal room was a meat house.

Beside the kitchen and cook's quarters there stood the Jackaroo's cottage; there were no such thing as a Jillaroo in those days.

Between those buildings, and the horse yards, one could see the Big Boss's place, up in the distance, and in no-mans land, as far as the working class were considered.

A general store in the middle of the area, manned twice a week by the bookkeeper, supplied at a cost, tobacco, cordial, soap, toothpaste and even tooth brushes.  Purchases on the night would be booked to your account and taken out of your wage of sixteen pound sixteen shillings a week if you were a ringer or station-hand.

The stud ram yards were near the mechanic's workshop, and a drop dunny that I helped dig the hole for was in the middle of the open area.

These drop toilets were usually about ten feet deep, which had been calculated by a 'dunny expert' to last a family of four for ten years.

The famous red-back on the toilet seat was a common sight in these little sheds.  However they were expected and dealt with on sight.

There is an adventure that the cook had in this particular double dunny, which I will relate later.

People of that era c1957 included the Manager Bruce Johnston,  Overseer Ian McLennan and Stud Overseer Phil Cameron.  The ringers were Alan and Bede Baker, Joe Saunders, a boundary rider's son, his name was Neil Piddock, I think, a young bloke that had never seen an airplane up close until we took him to the Longreach Rodeo. And of course, yours truly.

Up at the main house Joycie Singsong and Felicity Daylight were the housemaids, both South Sea Islanders.

Names I don't remember: The one armed cook and his wife.  The cowboy or cow milker and general hand, a pommy named Jim.  Two older general hands in the ringers' quarters.  The Jackaroo's housemaid and that is about it, I think.

Good memories of more time ago that I care to remember.