
Originally Posted by
Pickles2
Hey Bob, We have some common ground.
My Grandfather was a Church Of England Vicar in a Parish in South Wales (U.K.) during the great depression. He was the Vicar there for over 30 years.
It was a coal mining area, and an area of extensive poverty, and TERRIBLE working conditions. During the great Depression, during which period, the Communists were trying to gain influence in the area, GrandPa was in charge of the Soup Kitchens which you've probably read about,....VERY tough times. Some people think the Clergy were well off, well paid...????...Let me tell you,..in those days, absolutely wrong,....they did it very tough too, ....they're a lot better paid these days.
Pickles.
Yes, when we were growing up we heard many stories, along the lines of " you young fellas have nothing to complain about, when I was your age.....".
The men had to leave their families and go on the wallaby- walk for days with a swag, billy for tea, syrup, flour & water, looking for work. The scourge of the outback, the rabbit, kept many a family alive. Bread and dripping was a luxury. Dad had to leave home at 15, and worked on a property out near Birdsville. They drove cattle over the border to a railhead somewhere. He said he loved every minute of it. Didn't get paid, worked mostly for food & board. He said it made him appreciate the good times, when they came. Toughened him up, he said. Just as well, came in handy fighting the Japanese, up north.
Mum can't remember the property he was on, pity. I'd like to see if it's still there. No matter how tough things became in the years after the War, when we kids came along, I never saw Mum or Dad despair. As a matter of fact, that whole generation of Australians were tough. Nothing seemed to phase them , and if they saw a fellow human in trouble, they helped. They wouldn't stand rubbish, woe betide some one who hurt a woman. Or a child.
I remember one of Dads' sayings was " always treat people as you would want to be treated". When I look around at the Australia of today, I reckon a little bit of that philosophy would come in handy. Another thing he used to say, about people being downtrodden was " You can only kick a dog so many times, before he will turn on you and bite". Wise words, especially in our times. Any way, enough rambling.
I’m pretty sure the dinosaurs died out when they stopped gathering food and started having meetings to discuss gathering food
A bookshop is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking
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