When I was a young fella down on Misery Farm, we never had rubbish bins or recycle bins. We didn't need them. We recycled everything! All the food scraps went to the chickens and ducks. Nothing came in plastic. All glass bottles got made into jars and reused. Our flour came in cloth bags that we used to make waggas for our beds, or horse blankets, or even blinds. Most of our other groceries were wrapped in paper. We'd cut that up to make toilet paper, trapping papers, or fire starters. Empty tins were made into buckets or billys. Even small jam tins would do for the little kids to cart water in. All our clothes got handed down to the next kid. When they tore or got holes in them, they were mended and patched up. Sometimes a shirt would have so many patches on it you couldn't even tell what colour it used to be. Nothing got wasted. If the handle broke off a teacup you used it any way. At one time on Misery the only two teacups that had handles were Mum and Dad's. The others were all poley cups. That's a cup with the handle broken off. All our plates had chips, and cracks and lumps out of them. Us kids weren't real careful when we did the washing up. Mum only had a little bit of good china that she got out if we had visitors. Her good stuff wasn't real flash but at least the cups had handles and the plates weren't cracked. Now, everything is disposable, and the world's filling up with garbage, but when I was a kid we didn't even need a rubbish bin...and they call it progress.
When I was young, we never went to the doctor or the chemist to get any medicines or tablets. If any of us kids had a sore throat, or a cough, or a cold, Dad would give us a spoonful of sugar with a few drops of kerosene on it. That's all we ever got to treat a cold. Dad used kero to cure a lot of things. He put it on cuts and scrapes, too. One time he had a cut on his finger and it got infected. So he wrapped it up in a lump of kerosene-soaked rag. He sat up in bed to have a smoke and lit his pipe, but he caught this kerosene rag alight, too. He come flying out of the bedroom yelling, “I’m alight! I’m alight!” and bloody flames were shooting off his finger. I’m buggered if I know how he put it out now, 'cause we were laughing so much. He never had any pants on, just his shirt. We had heaps of tomato bushes growing on Misery. Mum used to make the best tomato relish. We'd have it on toast for breakfast, dinner, or tea. Some days that was the only thing we had to eat. Mum had a great, big, cast iron pan she used to cook it in, either on the old Crown stove top or over the fireplace in the dining room. She made all her own jars out of empty bottles. Her brother, Fred, made her a wire ring for cutting the tops off bottles. She’d heat the wire up in the fire, get it nice and hot, then put it over the top of the bottle and push it down as far as she wanted it. She'd hold it there for a minute, then dip the neck of the bottle in cold water and it would snap clean off. Then she'd use a bit of sandstone to smooth the edges. The jars never had any lids but Mum would pour melted fat over the top of the relish to seal it. Then she’d stick a bit of brown paper over the top with a paste made from flour and water. Relish would keep for ages like that but it never lasted too long in our house—not with all us kids. Me daughter, Jacqui, makes relish for me now, from Mum's recipe. I still have it on toast for breakfast or dinner. Here's Mum's recipe. Bebe's Tomato Relish 12lb ripe tomatoes 8 medium sized onions 4 cups vinegar 3lb brown sugar 4 tablespoons curry powder 1 tablespoon plain flour 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 tablespoon mustard powder Scald and skin tomatoes and cut up Peel and finely slice onions Place tomatoes and onions in a bowl, cover with salt and leave overnight Drain off liquid Boil in half the vinegar for half an hour Add cayenne and sugar, boil until onion is soft (approx 3/4 hr) Blend flour, curry powder and mustard with remaining vinegar Add and cook for half an hour Cool a little and pour into clean jars |
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