MY CHILDHOOD CHORES

From the age of 6 years, I lived on a dairy farm on the outskirts of Brisbane. As the eldest child in the family, there were chores that fell to me every day. I was given the jobs by my father only once and the jobs then became permanently mine.

The school was about 10 kilometers away and I rode a horse to school. It was my job to get home as soon as I could to go out to the bottom paddock and bring in the cows for milking. At times, I would come home late to find that the cows were already at the milking sheds.

Then it was my daily job to light the dairy boiler and fill with water. When the milking was finished, the water had to be boiling hot to put through the machines. That was usually my job. If not, the task fell to my mother or father.

I was spared the task of fetching the cattle from the top paddock in the morning as my father allowed an 8 year old son to sleep in before getting up to light the boiler.

On the weekends, several jobs fell to me. I had to clean out the dairy bails of mud and manure and swill out the concrete with water. As well, I had to sweep the cow yard.

There were always other jobs that included helping my parents to spray the cattle with poison to kill the parasites.

As the years went on, my father became ill and all of the work fell to my mother and me. There was a very serious drought that killed cattle, many dying by being bogged in the creek as they waded out to drink the remaining water.

It was a 1959 El Nino that found a young son spending hours upon hours pumping water for the cattle from a spring in the creek.

I often had the job of shooting cattle at the tender age of 14 years with a rifle borrowed from a neighbour. The carcasses had to be pulled by draft horse to the back paddock. Each cow had a name. I remember dragging the carcasses of Hazel with the long horns, Elsie, Julie and others. My mother and I worked the horses together.

Then it all slowed down as the dairy industry declined and the factory preferred to bring milk in by tanker from the Darling Downs and Mary Valley. That was the time when I was on my way to high school in Brisbane. We never returned to dairying.

I have never forgotten the discipline of carrying on a job for as long as it takes. It stays with me in promoting Positive Living with HIV/AIDS. I will go on until I can go no further.

But my chores were part of my life. I was not paid a wage. As a son, these were my jobs. If I did not do these jobs, no one else would. I find it impossible to tell my daughters only once and then expect the job to be done forever.

It gave me the discipline to complete two university degrees part time over 14 years. Nothing is ever wasted. My daughters think these were the old days.