Transcript of AE 1376 - Chapter 1: Starting Our Selection - On Our Selection

G'day you mob. How's it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English.

So today we're going to try something a little different. We are going to do a little new podcast series here, where I'm going to read out chapters of a book called On Our Selection by Steele Rudd.

So I'm going to read these aloud for you chapter by chapter for Aussie English learners. And um, yeah, hopefully you enjoy this book.

It is called On Our Selection. You can buy it. It's out there. It's a classic of Australian literature. It was first published in 1899. So what is that, 126 years ago, by writer Steele Rudd, whose real name was Arthur Hoey Davis.

The book is a collection of humorous and often moving sketches about a pioneering farming family trying to build a life in the bush. It became hugely popular in its time, and it shaped how many Australians imagined rural life, mateship, and the struggles of early settlers.

So why does this matter for Aussie English learners? The language is full of old fashioned expressions, colourful slang and unique Australian rhythms and that makes it both a bit of a challenge and a treasure for English learners. You'll not only hear everyday Aussie phrases, but you'll also get a window into how English was used more than a century ago in Australia.

Each episode, I'll read out one chapter in clear Australian English the way that I would obviously speak normally, giving you a chance to hear the flow, the accent and the expressions in context.

So whether you're brushing up on your accent, expanding your vocab, or you're just keen to enjoy a fair dinkum yarn, this series will be for you.

So what should you expect? Expect a gentle pacing, a bit of context here and there. Plenty of fun Aussie expressions along the way. I'll try and explain some unfamiliar words and highlight the dialect that makes this story uniquely Down Under in a bonus episode.

So I will be going through all the unique vocab, and perhaps contrasting how the language that is written in this book may differ from how we would write it today or speak today, because there is a little bit of a difference here and there.

So if you are interested in getting the bonus episodes, as well as obviously the full transcript for these episodes, sign up to be a Premium Podcast member. You can do so at AussieEnglish.com.au/podcast. So go over to the website, check it out, sign up, give it a burl.

And you will also obviously get access to, I think we're almost at 1400, 1400 episodes of the podcast, the transcripts, the bonus episodes, everything like that. So go check that out.

And yeah, as I said, there will be a bonus episode for each of these chapters, going through all the vocab, talking about how the English may differ from today, and hopefully allowing you to learn a lot more and get a lot more out of each of these episodes.

So if you're ready to rock, sit back, go grab a cuppa, get a cup of tea, get a cup of coffee, get a drink, something to eat and let's head out to the bush together, starting with Chapter One: Starting The Selection.

Pioneers of Australia. To you who gave our country birth. To the memory of you, whose names, whose giant enterprise, whose deeds of fortitude and daring, were never engraved on tablet or tombstone. To you who strove through the silences of the bushlands and made them ours.

To you who delved and toiled in loneliness through the years that have faded away. To you who have no place in the history of our country, so far as it is written yet. To you who have done most for this land.

To you for whom few, in the march of settlement, in the turmoil of busy city life, now appear to care. And to you particularly, good old dad, this book is most affectionately dedicated. Steele Rudd.

All right, Chapter One: Starting Our Selection. It's 20 years ago now since we settled on the Creek. 20 years! I remember well the day we came from Stanthorpe, on Jerome's dray. Eight of us, and all the things. Beds, tubs, a bucket, the two cedar chairs with the pine bottoms and backs that Dad put in them, some pint-pots and old Crib. It was a scorching hot day, too. Talk about thirst! At every creek we came to we drank till it stopped running.

Dad didn't travel up with us. He had gone some months before to put up the house and dig the waterhole. It was a slabbed house, with shingled roof, and space enough for two rooms. But the partition wasn't up. The floor was earth. But Dad had a mixture of sand and fresh cow-dung, with which he used to keep it level.

About once every month he would put it on, and every one had to keep outside that day till it was dry. There were no locks on the doors. Pegs were put in to keep them fast at night. And the slabs were not very close together, for we could easily see through them anybody coming on horseback. Joe and I used to play at counting the stars through the cracks in the roof.

The day after we arrived, Dad took Mother and us out to see the paddock and the flat on the other side of the gully that he was going to clear for cultivation. There was no fence round the paddock, but he pointed out on a tree the surveyor's marks, showing the boundary of our ground.

It must have been fine land the way dad talked about it. There was very valuable timber on it too, so he said. And he showed us a place among some rocks on a ridge where he was sure gold would be found. But we weren't to say anything about it.

Joe and I went back that evening and turned over every stone on the ridge. But we didn't find any gold. No mistake. It was a real wilderness. Nothing but trees, goannas, dead timber and bears. And the nearest house, Dwyers, was three miles away.

I often wonder how the women stood at the first few years. And I can remember how Mother, when she was alone, used to sit on a log, where the lane is now, and cry for hours. Lonely! It was lonely.

Dad soon talked about clearing a couple of acres and putting in corn. All of us did, in fact, till the work commenced. It was a delightful topic before we started. But in two weeks, the clusters of fires that illuminated the whooping bush in the night, and the crash upon crash of the big trees as they fell, had lost all their poetry.

We toiled and toiled, clearing those four acres where the haystacks are now standing, till every tree and sapling that had grown there was down. We thought then the worst was over. But how little we knew of clearing land. Dad was never tired of calculating and telling us how much the crop would fetch if the ground could only be got ready in time to put it in. So we laboured the harder.

With our combined male and female forces and the aid of a sapling lever, we rolled the thundering big logs together in the face of Hell's own fires, and when there were no logs to roll, it was tramp, tramp the day through, gathering armfuls of sticks while the clothes clung to our backs with a muddy perspiration.

Sometimes Dan and Dave would sit in the shade beside the billy of water and gaze at the small patch that had taken so long to do. Then they would turn hopelessly to what was before them and ask Dad, who would never take a spell, what was the use of thinking of ever getting such a place cleared?

And when Dave wanted to know why Dad didn't take up a place on the plain, where there were no trees to grub and plenty of water, Dad would cough as if something was sticking in his throat, and then curse terribly about the squatters and political jobbery. He would soon cool down, though, and get hopeful again.

"Look at the Dwyers," he'd say, "from ten acres of wheat, they got £70 last year. Besides feed for the fowls, they've got corn in now. And there's only the two." It wasn't only burning off! Whenever there came a short drought, the water hole was sure to run dry. Then it was take turns to carry water from the springs, about two miles.

We had no draught horse, and if we had, there was neither water-cask, trolley, nor dray. So we humped it. And talk about a drag! By the time you returned, if you hadn't drained the bucket inspired of the big drink you'd take before leaving the springs, more than half would certainly be spilt through the vessel, bumping against your leg every time you stumbled in the long grass.

Somehow, none of us liked carrying water. We would sooner keep the fires going all day without dinner than do a trip to the springs.

One hot, thirsty day, it was Joe's turn with the bucket, and he managed to get back without spilling very much. We were all pleased because there was enough left after the tea had been made to give each a drink. Dinner was nearly over.

Dan had finished, and was taking it easy on the sofa when Joe said, "I say, Dad, what's a nater-dog like?" Dad told him, "Yellow, sharp ears and bushy tail."

"Those must have been some then that are seen. I don't know about the bushy tail. All the hair had comed off."

"Where'd you see him, Joe?" we asked.

"Down near the spring, floating about, dead."

Then everyone seemed to think hard and look at the tea. I didn't want any more. Dan jumped off the sofa and went outside, and Dad looked after Mother.

At least the four acres, excepting the biggest of the ironbark trees and about 50 stumps, were pretty well cleared. And then came a problem that couldn't be worked out on a draught board.

I have already said that we hadn't any draught horses. Indeed, the only thing on the selection like a horse, was an old tuppy mare that Dad used to straddle. The date of her foaling went further back than Dad's, I believe, and she was shaped something like an alderman.

We found her one day in about 18 inches of mud, with both eyes picked out by crows and her hide bearing evidence that a feathery tribe had made a roost of her carcase. Plainly, there was no chance of breaking up the ground with her help.

We had no plough either. How then was the corn to be put in? That was the question.

Dan and Dave sat outside in the corner of the chimney, both scratching the ground with a chip and not saying anything. Dad and Mother sat inside talking it over. Sometimes Dad would get up and walk around the room, shaking his head. Then he would kick old Crib for lying under the table. At last, Mother struck something which brightened him up and he called Dave.

"Catch topsy and--" He paused, because he remembered the old mare was dead. "Run over and ask Mr. Dwyer to lend me three hoes."

Dave went. Dwyer lent the hoes, and the problem was solved. That was how we started.