The city council’s main depot in Cairns
covered about eight acres of real estate with frontage on Martyn Street about a quarter of a mile from the main cemetery.
The depot was where all the council’s garbage trucks, sanitary vans, flatbed trucks, graders, dozers, steamrollers and all their other pieces of plant and equipment, otherwise known as assets, came home to roost every evening.
It was also home to the council’s main stores and maintenance sheds including a carpenter shop, a paint shop, and a large World War 2 converted Nissen hut. This was the council’s main service department and workshop housing a team of mechanics, boilermakers and
auto-electricians all working under the supervision of a Workshop Superintendent, my Dad.
I’ll come back to the Nissen hut later
in the story.
We
had been in Mossman for a year when we moved to the “big city” just in time for
Christmas 1955. The job included an unfurnished house right next to the council
depot, but we would first have to stay in a small flat for a couple of weeks
while the house was made ready for us.
Mossman
had been a brief but exciting time for me, although I’m not sure that I could
say the same for the rest of our family. A deciding factor in this change of
environment from my father’s outlook was in keeping the family together – which
I’m not sure would have happened if we’d stayed much longer in Mossman.
For
me however, it was a great time and place to be an 11 year. My younger brother
and I learned to swim in the local river, went handline fishing with my father
from the boat ramp at Rocky Point (boring) and crabbing with him at Salt Water
Creek (exciting). I learned to ride a bike, climb trees for green Bowen mangoes
and cascara beans which were sticky and tasty, but also a strong laxative as I
soon learned. I also learned that no one is ever safe from green ants particularly
in mango trees where they are beautifully camouflaged until the moment you put
your hand down on their nest and are instantly covered in small angry creatures
whose bite is sharp and painful.
Now, we were in Cairns – a city with a population of 22,000 which was some 20,000 folk more than where we had just left and about one tenth of where we had been two years prior at the outset of the Ten Pound Poms adventure.
In
addition to vehicle and property storage, the council depot was used as a
stockpile for sand and gravel mainly used as road base. Alongside this area
there was a large, corralled area which was the City Horse Pound. Wild brumbies
and untended horses were regularly found roaming the streets and it was the
role of the pound keeper to capture and impound them. If not claimed within a
certain amount of time and released on payment of a fine, the horses were put
up for auction and sold (hopefully). Next to the pound yard and within the
council property stood a three bedroom timber single story home raised on concrete
pillars, in the classic Queensland style. This was the pound keeper’s residence.
The “poundy” was a single man, with no family and was in the process of being
relocated to a smaller property nearby. I never learned where this was, and
whether the poundy was happy with this arrangement or not. The outcome was that
this house became our family home for the next ten years – 42 Charles Street.
There
was no other houses near to us – there was no 40 or 44 Charles Street. Access
was via a narrow dirt track which ran from Martyn Street and followed the line
of the depot fence. The track was flanked on the other side by what was
generously referred to as “pensioner’s cottages”, but which were, in reality small,
corrugated iron shanties housing a number of aging veterans from the First
World War. The shanties were a hidden part of a larger area set aside for
pensioners which fronted on to Grove Street on the other side of the reserve. There
had been much lobbying to replace these huts with the local Pensioners’ League
describing them as “conditions unworthy of a city the size of Cairns”. The huts
were gradually replaced over the next few years by small timber bungalows many
of which exist today and are heritage-listed but it was a very slow process and
ten years after we first arrived at the Charles Street address, the shanty huts
were still there, although the number of old Diggers was thinning out.
At Mossman, I had attended the local primary school,
run by two teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Messer. The classes were combined, and as a fifth
grade pupil, I shared a classroom with a handful of other kids including third
and fourth graders. It was a five minute walk, barefoot to school every day and
I have nothing but fond memories.
Our
new school, at Parramatta was about a kilometre from home and my brother and I biked
there every day, rain or shine. I was in Grade 6.
With
over one thousand pupils, Parramatta was the largest primary school outside of
Brisbane, with each year split into three or four classes. I was probably the smallest
pupil of my year, with most of the boys and quite a few of the girls towering
over me. We can’t do anything about our genetic heritage; my dad was no giant
either, so I did what many smaller kids do – I made friends with the biggest
guys in the class. Ron lived just around the corner from me, and we became good
mates. Ron’s dad, Percy worked as a technician at the PMG (Post Master
General’s department). The PMG was responsible for the phone service as well as
delivering the post (it would be another 20 years before this department was split
into Australia Post and Telecom).
Percy drove a big elegant two-tone blue and cream V8 Ford Customline. I thought it was
the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen particularly in comparison to our ugly black
Standard Vanguard. I don’t think there was ever a day when Percy wasn’t out in
the front of their house with a garden hose, or a wax cloth removing every
speck of North Queensland grime from his pride and joy.
Ron had an elder brother and sister, and when we weren’t sitting in front of a
radio listening to kid’s shows on 4CA or the ABC, we were rummaging through
their collection of records which as well as great songs from Fats, Buddy and Don
and Phil included Ahmad Jamal, Miles Davis and John Coltrane – an introduction
to something from which I would never recover. I’m not saying that music wasn’t
big in the Williamson household – if I ever wanted to hear Winnie Atwell, or anything
from the Big Band era, it was right there in my lounge room, coming at us
through Dad’s HMV gramophone.
We started going to the local Sunday School at the top of the lane at the Draper Street Methodist Church. Mr Bourner was the Sunday School teacher and for a year or two there was nothing I liked better than standing with the congregation on a Sunday morning and belting out Onward Christian Soldiers and Stand Up For Jesus. I loved singing, but alas when it came to handing out talent from this section of the gene pool, I was absent. At Parramatta School, the music teacher was Mr Burgemeister. I volunteered for choir, but during rehearsals he took me to one side and said, “I’m happy for you to be in the choir, but please don’t sing, just move your lips.” To this day, I think he could have tried a little harder.
I enjoyed
Parramatta School. I was a good student who enjoyed learning. Our teacher in
both Grade 6 and Grade 7 was Mrs Pearson. She was a tough old bird, who scared
the life out of me when she first walked into the classroom, but I soon
realised how much this lady epitomised the vocation of teaching. She certainly
set me straight on the process of learning and as much as anything, I owe my enduring
interest in English grammar and literature to those two years at Parramatta.
The
wet season in Cairns runs from December to March or April. Repeating an old saying,
my dad would often say, “when you can see the mountains, you know it’s going
to rain; when you can’t see them, you’ll know it is raining”.
Cairns
folk know a lot about precipitation, particularly in the peak rainfall period
of January and February. We had been subjected to our share of it the previous
year when we travelled by train, boat and truck from Brisbane through the northern
Queensland floods to our new home in Mossman.
1956
was clearly not going to be any different and we became used to riding our
bikes to and from school in heavy rain. It was at least warm rain, cycle capes
were in wide use and, since we were in bare feet, there was no need to feel
concerned about wet shoes and socks.
The
big one was coming and in early March of that year we were to receive a visit
from the first major storm in Australia to have its own name, Cyclone Agnes.
According
to the State Library of Queensland archives, there have been at least 53
cyclones which have had an impact on the city since Cairns was founded in
1876. The city comes under the influence of tropical cyclones on average,
at least once every two years. Indeed, one of the first in 1878, almost
destroyed the settlement before it had a chance to establish.
Agnes was
the first Australian cyclone to be tracked on radar, so for a few days we had been
listening to warnings that she was on her way. At first we were told she was
heading for Townsville, which to those not familiar with Australian geography is
the nearest large city, about 350 km to the south. Indeed that is exactly what
she did, but rather than continue her way inland and weaken to a low pressure
system, she chose to follow the coastline north causing destruction as she
slowly made her way toward us.
It
was already quite windy when I left for school that morning. My brother was in
the infants class and my mother had decided to keep him home for the day. With
the wind in my face, it eventually became too hard, and I dismounted and walked
the rest of the way pushing into the wind. As the morning proceeded it was
clear that we were in for a blow. The school was closed, and we were sent home at
lunchtime. Ron and I rode home together and this time with the wind at our
back, no effort was required, but as the wind began to gust more strongly, thoughts
of tree branches and other debris made it a nerve-wracking trip for a couple of
11-year-olds.
The whole family was in the house when I arrived that afternoon. The council depot had closed, and the workforce had been sent home. My parents had been busy. All our mattresses had been moved into the living room. Mum and Dad’s double was on the floor for the kids to sleep on. The remainder, together with extra blankets, pillows and cushions were placed against our louvred windows. The kitchen table was on its side and placed between us and the windows alongside the piano, couch and lounge chairs. A couple of kerosene hurricane lamps were at the ready in case we lost power, and Mum had made sandwiches and coconut pyramids in preparation for a lengthy shutdown. Although we were still five years away from owning a transistor radio, Dad was the proud possessor of a Phillips “Tinnie” portable valve radio which had a battery about the size of a small house brick. For listening to our local radio stations 4CA and the ABC’s 4QY it was perfect.
Our
house was what was known as a high set, built on two metre high concrete
pillars which provided a concrete hard stand underneath the house with laundry
tubs, storage space, and a place to park the car. For my parents and my sister,
with thoughts of being blown to Oz like Dorothy, or losing our roof, it was a fearful
experience. For my brother Phil and for me, it was an adventure – or at least, it began
that way.
The
wind continued to increase in strength and the constant rattling of the louvre
windows made us certain that before long we would be showered in glass and the
wind would roar into the house. There had been a lot of early discussion about
whether to open the windows and let that happen or leave the windows open on
just the side away from the wind, but in the end, my mother insisted that they
be closed.
At
some point in the evening we lost power.
The
wind howled all night – even if we had wanted to look outside, there was
nothing to see. There was complete darkness everywhere.
The
cyclone passed to the south of Cairns, crossing the land about 100 km south of
us. This meant we didn’t see the eye of the cyclone, which would have given us
a period of calm between changing wind direction. Instead, we experienced a
slow change as the wind direction went from a howling south-westerly gale to an
equally fearsome north-westerly which started the louvres on the other side of
the house to rattling.
Shortly
after the wind had changed direction, there was a huge crash against the side
of the house. We had no idea what it was but were afraid to venture anywhere
near a window to look. Dad thought it might have been a tree branch, or maybe a
whole tree. The banging kept up for several hours while whatever it was
persistently beat against the wall.
No
one slept – or maybe we did.
Wednesday
morning as daylight started to filter through the curtains and blankets, saw a
reduced wind. Still blowing hard, and with sudden and terrifying gusts, but the
fear of the house flying off into the wild yonder had eased somewhat.
Against
Mum’s wishes, Dad went off to inspect the property.
We
soon found out what had caused the huge bang during the night. A high wooden
platform, which was the base for a large, corrugated iron water tank used for
truck wash down had collapsed during the storm. With the change in wind
direction, the tank had rolled off the platform across the depot yard, taken
out a small wire fence separating our house from the depot, and slammed into
the side of our house and most unfortunately at the same time, into the family
car. Not content with doing that once, it rolled back and forth all night, and
had finally come to rest, as the wind died down against one of the concrete
pillars and the car.
There
was more to come. The sight that greeted Dad when he started looking around the
depot was one of devastation. Remember the Nissen hut I mentioned earlier? The
one which had been built during the Second World War, and which was the pride
and joy of the Cairns City Council as it workshop and store. The one which,
like all Nissen huts, had been manufactured from prefabricated corrugated iron,
designed for quick assembly, strength and durability, particularly in strong
winds. Yes, that one. It was no more.
At
some time during the evening, it had simply collapsed, and all that was left
was scattered corrugated iron, timber and twisted steel beams – and underneath
that, what was left of the machinery that you would expect to find in a motor
garage and storage workshop. It was devastating.
There
was a lot of clean-up work to be done. There had been little rain with the
cyclone, but there was no doubt that plenty would be following.
The
next day the school remained closed, but it didn’t stop Ron and I and a few
more school friends from riding around looking at the mess.
As
well as many trees uprooted – particularly palm trees, there were houses with
roofs missing or dislodged, fences down, and sheets of corrugated iron, from
roofs and sidings everywhere. Down on the Esplanade, there was even more chaos.
The harbour dredge had been blown from its mooring and dragged the wooden wharf
up the inlet with it. Boats which had been moored in the inlet had been blown
ashore, one as far as the middle of the road.
The estimated damage in Cairns alone was £2.5 million which in
2025 is the equivalent of around $100 million.
Agnes
certainly left her mark and reminded us all, if we needed any reminder, that
this land surely is one who shares “her beauty and her terror”.