Childhood Days in Church Street, Cessnock

"Remember to shut the gate as soon as I leave for work, son. I don’t want a repeat of last month!" were Dad’s parting words as be started the car.

Neither did I! Dad rarely raised his voice and it was only the previous month that he raised his hand as well. I was sure that my backside was still red where he impressed on me that the gate had to be firmly closed on one day each month. That was the day that a mob of cattle would be driven down our quiet street as the beasts were herded off to the saleyards. The last time that the cloud of dust that accompanied the bellowing beasts passed by our home in Cessnock, I’d forgotten and four or five cows had charged from the cloud and into our back yard and demolished Dad’s lovingly-tended vegetables. Always after the mob had passed, one of my jobs was to go out onto the gravel road armed with a small shovel and bucket to collect what the cattle had left behind so that it could be deposited more usefully around the vegetables.

That was one day a month that the street lost its tranquillity because at other times the only dust raised was on a dry summer’s day when the westerlies howled down the street before one of those furious summer storms that frightened but enthralled me.

Fridays had a special fascination for me as a horse-drawn dray rumbled over the ruts with the rabbito walking beside the fern-draped dray with his cry of "Rabbits – trapped last night. Really fresh! Rabbits!" Draped by their legs from the sides of the dray were the still fur-covered carcases of the rabbits that had been trapped the previous evening or early that morning while under the ferns and resting on a bed of ice were the skinned and gutted carcases which of course cost a lot more. I remember that he only came up the street on Fridays and I couldn’t understand why, till in some long forgotten conversation I learnt that some people wouldn’t eat meat on Fridays. But then I thought – aren’t rabbits meat? – but way back then, I didn’t know the difference between red and white meat. Then I found that some people wouldn’t buy the rabbits but went down the main street and bought fish on Fridays. It was all a puzzle to me.

Those were the days in Church Street when horse-drawn carts were a daily occurrence which started with the milko arriving early in the morning in his Roman-chariot-style cart. I used to watch him on those summer mornings when I woke early with the sun streaming in through the lattice work. The milko was always a slightly built chap who must have been extraordinarily fit as he ran from house to house carrying his little metal cans with the flip-top lids. They were always filled to the brim with milk as he ran up the path to our milk jug standing beside the top step of the verandah where he’d deftly pour the contents into the jug without spilling a drop and then he’d flip the bead-weighted doyley over the jug to make sure that the flies didn’t go for a swim. It stopped the flies alright, but I had a rather clever cat who learnt to push the doyley down to the surface of the milk and have a quick drink before someone came to collect the milk before the sun had time to heat it. I saw the cat do this a couple of times but I never, never told Mum or Dad. You see, Moggy was my cat who shared my bed on the front verandah where I loved to sleep whether the weather was hot and humid or frostily cold as it often was during our winters.

Later during the morning, the best horse-drawn cart of the day would come down the street. It was always painted red and had yellow fancy printing down both sides and a slatted door in the rear. Always pulled by a huge draught horse with its nose-bag filled with chaff, the baker’s cart

was the most aromatic of any vehicle I’ve ever experienced. The baker rarely climbed to his elevated seat like that of the old stage coaches, but instead, walked beside the cart and the horse seemed to know at which houses it had to stop. Every time the baker opened that slatted door, the smell of freshly-baked bread could be guaranteed to make any mouth water. Unlike breads of today, bread of those long ago years smelt like bread, tasted like bread, were soft like bread and within two days became just right for toasting on a long three pronged fork in front of the fuel stove. Once again, in memory, those smells of fresh bread and toast evoke such nostalgic thoughts of my childhood. Magic!

Each week, blocks of ice arrived by horse-drawn drays. Covered with hessian bags to minimise melting in the hot summer sun, the ice none-the-less melted and left a trail of drops down the dust of the road. The iceman always walked down beside the house to the back door with large blocks of ice carried by those large double-hinged scissor-type tongs. He’d lift the lid on the top of the ice-chest and deposit the new block on top of whatever ice remained from the previous delivery. He lifted the blocks so easily. Gee he must have been strong, because I had to struggle to lift the partially melted blocks to reach those few things that Mum stored right against the ice. Each day the drip-tray had to be taken outside and emptied, but during extremely hot weather, or when I sometimes forgot to close the ice-chest door properly, the drip tray would overflow and a pool of water would spread across the kitchen lino.

Very occasionally, one of the chaps who lived down the street would harness his horse to his fancy buggy and drive down the road on his way to visit his parents. No draught horse for his buggy. I remember, as this former racehorse trotted proudly by, it had a glistening brown hide with white fetlocks. I used to love watching it feed on chaff, then snort and toss its head if I made a sudden movement to interrupt its meal.

These days, the power of cars is measured in horse-power, but no one knows what horse-power is all about unless they’ve seen one of these magnificent beasts pulling a laden cart uphill or hauling a skip filled with coal up the slope of a tunnel towards the pit-top.