You may think I’m exaggerating the extent of how poor and hungry we were at times while living on the yumba, but believe me it’s not an exaggeration. The original rubbish dump was down past the stables where Granny Denever and her family lived at the far end of Alford Street.
Occasionally Granny and Grandfather would throw a few of us kids in the back of his old bontha motor car and go scrounging in the dump.
We’d be looking for any goodies that we could find, and that would include food stuffs, like fruit and vegetables that wasn’t too rotten and safe enough to eat and anything else worth taking home.
I remember an old Black fella from Moree way was living on the camp for a while and one night, just after dark, Ray, Happy and I came across him cooking a feed on his campfire.
‘Ya can come join me if you’re hungry,’ he said, and of course we were, so we went over and sat down by the fire with him.
We couldn’t see any food being cooked – there was only a billy of black tea sizzling. I was thinking to myself, where’s the tucker mate, I’m starving when suddenly he pulled this kangaroo tail out from under the coals. It wasn’t the best feed I’ve ever had but the damper filled us up.
One Sunday afternoon, a mob of us kids from the camp were cruising around with Sarah Bell looking for some wild game to shoot when we spotted a black swan out in the middle of the sewer overflow.
Sarah slammed on the brakes and pulled out her old 22 rifle and with one accurate shot, and the swan started jumping and trying to fly away. That’s when Richard, Sarah’s son, and me raced out and grabbed it before it could take off. Had a good feed that night…
My father and Richard’s mother, Sarah, were first cousins. Richard Bell is the renown artist.
Garry Sonny Martin 