Terowie

In what seemed a shot from the blue Joe bought a property in the mid north of South Australia. He purchased a small acreage about 200 km north of Adelaide just south of the small township of Terowie. The real estate advertisement described the land as the property’s main asset, and mentioned the existence of a stone and iron dwelling in what seemed an afterthought. The agent probably considered the dwelling added little value to the property. This was probably true given its state at the time. As soon as I heard the news I was keen to look the place. At the first opportunity, and feeling rather excited about seeing his country estate, as my mother later referred to it, a visit was planned. My father, Alf Paterson, and I jumped in the car and took off for a drive in the country to check it out.

It was about mid-day and warm when we arrived. There was hardly a cloud in the sky. We arrived to see Joe standing waist high in weeds. He had his shirt off, shovel in hand, and was busy clearing the weeds that had grown up around the house. He had a mammoth task ahead of him in tidying up and renovating the place. It was obvious from his expression and enthusiasms that he was pleased with his purchase and happy to be there.

The house was similar in structure to the cottage ruins often seen in fields in rural areas with crops growing around them. Often these old buildings are too dilapidated to be put to good use, and too solid a structure to have been easily pulled down that farmers generally ploughed and planted their crops around them. This house was in a much better condition than them, but the thick, plastered, stone walls were distinctively the same. The house was in a corner of the two to three acre site, and fenced from the main area of land leaving it on a little block of its own. There were various dilapidated sheds on this corner block, a rusting windmill and well, and a curious earth mound surrounded the house block which was intended to keep floodwater away from the house and sheds. This may not have been a good omen.

The adjoining field was well tended, and it turned out that renting this land provided a modest income, but the block where the house was situated was overgrown with weeds and looked like no one had maintained it for a decade or more. The main part of the dwelling comprised two rooms and a lean-to that eventually became Joe’s home away from home. The sheds were unusually small, and it was difficult to know what they had been used for; perhaps chooks or goats. They were falling apart, and inside one were the remains of some stainless steel equipment that, unlike everything else, had refused to age over the years. A milking machine, perhaps. Joe and been hard at work when we arrived. He was chopping through the weeds that surrounded the house. After a tour of the place, we spent the rest of the day helping him clean it up. My father laboured like a Trojan as only he could, my energy drained progressively throughout the afternoon, and Alf would have preferred not to get his hands dirty.

There were two main rooms in the building. The main had three doors: one to what became a bed room, the front door led to a small veranda covered porch, and the back door on the opposite wall led to the lean-to. A fire place was on the fourth wall where bees had taken up residence in the flue. The lean-to storage area that had been constructed outside the rear door considerably increased the usable size of the house. I’m not sure what kind of flooring the house had, but animals had used the building as a shelter and there was a build up of dung that gave new meaning to the term earth floor. It was scraped clean, and concrete slabs were placed on the ground like tiles. This made for a unique simplicity in cleaning. Anything that dropped to the floor got swept into the cracks, and after a while the floor becomes smooth.

It was obvious that no one had lived in the place for many years. To say everything was in a poor state of repair would be an optimistic comment. In fact, it may have been easier to rebuild than repair, but that would depend upon one’s standards. Joe put a consistent and conscientious effort into the place and made it habitable. However, there are degrees to which one might describe a place as habitable; there was no running water, toilet, plumbing, nor electricity.

One of the reasons Joe wanted a place in the country was to facilitate his interest in astronomy. The property was sufficiently removed from the pollution and interference of the bright city lights to ensure good viewing conditions for his telescope. He had previously constructed a couple of reflector telescopes and had built an observatory to house them at Rostrevor. He constructed almost all of the components himself; including grinding the telescope mirror. I think the only things he was forced to buy were the eyepiece and sighting telescope. I recall him standing for hours at a time at a pedestal he used as a bench to support the blocks of glass that were to become the telescope reflector. With grinding paste on the surface of the glass he would slide it back and forward rubbing away at specific areas, and then shift direction a few degrees, and begin grinding it again. I think he actually counted the number of times he ground in one spot before rotating slightly. This was to minimize distortion by not grinding one area more than any other. He did this for months on end, a few hours at a time, using progressively finer and finer grinding paste, testing the focus periodically, and eventually having the glass silvered, and of course the mirror was the heart of the telescope. He fitted an elaborate system of pullies and electric motors to control the movement of the telescope to counter the Earth’s movement while viewing, and the whole thing was finely balanced with counter weights. He was also a keen photographer and the precise control of the telescope’s movement was critical if high quality photographs were to result. When the property at Terowie had been sufficiently improved he moved the observatory and telescopes there.

The house generally cleaned up quite well. It always looked a bit run down, but compared with what it was when he took possession he did himself proud. One room was turned into a bedroom, and the larger into a lounge. The front porch was enclosed and used as a storage space, and the back lean-to was turned into a kitchen. Considering the house was an animal shelter when he first took the place he had fitted it out rather well. A battery powered portable refrigerator served to keep perishable foodstuffs fresh, and he had additional batteries that were charged in the car on the long drives to and from Adelaide, to light the place at night. When he began spending more time there than in Adelaide the batteries couldn’t be charged, and the lack of electricity became a problem he had the mains supply connected. The various sheds were very dilapidated and never renovated. Water was eventually forthcoming from the well, but the windmill was difficult to repair and the water was raised using an electric pump. A rainwater tank provided a source of clean water.

It was always good to call in from time to time to see the changes that had been made. It was hard to believe that in a very short time after purchase there was some grass growing in the back yard where there used to be weeds, and some vegetables were beginning to push through the soil. The house always retained a dusty, in need of repair look to it, but on the whole the property looked lived in.

There would have been many more inviting properties to buy than this one, and I’m not sure why Joe chose it. Though, it was probably cheap. The place was robbed more than once during his times away in Adelaide, despite his efforts to secure the house. Perhaps if he had been more selective in his choice of location the chances of robbery may have been reduced, but you never really know about these things. The risk of robbery is unlikely to have been a factor when searching for a property. It must have been disheartening given the time and effort he spent renovating the place. Though, the pilfering was generally minor, and may have simply been a travelling swagman, if they still exist, looking for a shelter before moving on, and then as the opportunity presented had a look through his stuff before leaving. It must have been annoying all the same, and to prevent further occurrences during his absence, he shuttered the windows, bolted the front door to the frame, and strengthened the back door. He gave a special treatment to the back door. He fitted an additional door to the frame of the existing door. It was fitted so as to swing in the opposite direction as the other. When locked, the two doors became one solid timber mass secured to the frame. He also hid the entrance by placing sheets of plywood and the like over the door. Presumably he considered if anyone managed to get into the kitchen, they might not bother searching for the door if they didn’t know where to look. Mind you, would be robbers might consider the more secure a place is made the more desirable the treasures on the inside are likely to be.

Joe had become interested in computing during this period and was keen to study all aspects of computers. Not only as a useful tool for word processing and the like, but also, from a technical point of view he was interested in what made them tick, and had a range of different types of computers. He had been studying computer programming by correspondence, and by all accounts enjoying his new interest. This ended abruptly on returning from Adelaide one day to discover he had been robbed. All the computers had been stolen, his loved hand made telescopes were also gone, and the place had been ransacked. Stunned, probably wouldn’t describe the experience of this theft, but this and others like it may have explained why when calling on him one evening my knock on the door was answered by a rifle barrel poking through the gap in the door. He had a lot of bad luck with the property, but taking up arms is not the best solution. Though, it does indicate the level of frustration and anger he must have felt. To some extent, the location of the property invited this trouble. It was about a kilometre out of town on a dirt road. There were no neighbouring houses nearby, and it was hidden behind some trees, which almost entirely protected it from view from the roadway. The robbers could have had loudspeakers blaring and held a dance party while they were at work, and no one from town would have seen or heard anything. The place was well suited for pilfering. It must have been disheartening to experience it time and time again. I believe he stopped going there so often. June had moved out of the Rostrevor house when she married. There was now room for him in his house.