My First Birthday

Here am I cutting my first birthday cake.  

At the time we were living in the bush, part of a small goldmining community.  Dad was working a claim in a creek some 30 or 40 feet below our hut.  My mother's father had another claim further up the creek.

My first home was built by my father and grandfather.  They used milled timber for the frame and split logs for the cladding.    They felled beech trees and cut the trunks into two- long thick logs from the bottom of the trunks and shorter thin ones from higher up.  Then they used a two-man saw to rip the logs into half rounds.  Dad trimmed the edges so that they would butt together.

The long thick logs were put up around the lower part of the frame, allowing for a door, a window, and the fireplace.  The short logs formed the upper walls.  They overlapped the thick logs, making a shelf all around the room inside.  The roof was tarred paper over boards.  I don't know about the floor.  Perhaps it was dirt, but in that high rainfall place a dirt floor would have been a trial.  Mum never mentioned it.

Dad built a fireplace from clay and river stones, and made the chimney with corrugated iron.  Frequent earthquakes made a sturdier structure unsafe.  He added a door and a window that opened, and a lean-to woodshed.

To stop the draughts Dad cut tin cans into 1 inch strips and tacked them over the joins.  He and Mum spent evenings filling the gaps inside with scraps of newspaper.

One end of the hut can be seen here.

Mum cooked over the open fire.  There were vegetables from my grandfather's wonderful garden, and deer and rabbits were free for the taking.  It was a good life.  My parents loved it, but by the time of my first birthday the War had come much closer and it was time to leave.  The younger men joined the army, and my grandfather took over management of a farm.

Dad also built a dam against the side of the hill.  This was filled each day from the shared water race and used for sluicing his claim.  The water was released from the dam though a hollow log, it rushed down the hill at a terrific pace, and was guided to scour Dad's workings.  The dam and the log are still there.