The great outback of Australia

   TALES FROM THE SAND HILLS

A humorous collection of stories about life growing up in
the Australian outback as seen and lived by Mary Seaton
(Hoppo) of Tibooburra. With animals for playmates and
ww11 diggers for her circle of friends, Mary grows
up with a somewhat different take on the world. Raised on
the road in tents and caravans, she’d lived in every state by
age eight, Mary developed her own style and a dry sense of
humour. Educated by correspondence, taught by her mother it
was from her mother that she developed her ability to write.
When most girls her age were learning to cook sew lessons
and school, she was out with her father learning to track trap
shoot skin butcher and survival. By the time she was ten she
could track an animal for miles or shoot a rabbit on the run
for her dinner.
A humorous sometimes bitter sweet story about her unique
interactions and communications with animals and wild life
in the region. Her book is a tell all tale of growing learning
and survival in the harsh Australian bush.

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / PERSONAL MEMOIRS
AU $XX.XX
Tales FromThe Sand Hills by M a r y S e a t o n

This is a story about one of the most colourful characters I’ve ever met and God knows I’ve met em all. This old guy could have been anywhere between sixty and a hundred, you had no way of knowing. Even he didn’t recall how old he was.
He’d attended both world wars and I think Korea. He was a tall man must have been six feet at least. He had wide shoulders which were still surprisingly straight. These old diggers were all the same with the straight backs and all. I wouldn’t mind betting that’s how they know each other to be vets you know, the straight backs. When I was a kid my father was always instructing us in how we should hold ourselves for good posture. He had us walking like bloody soldiers by the time we were seven or eight years old.
Any way the first time I’d ever encountered this old man was one day when we called in to see some friends who lived on an outstation in the northern most Flinders Rangers. We hadn’t seen them for a couple of years so mum and dad decided to surprise them. However they were gone the old bloke who was living there now informed us. ‘Left here about six months back’ he says ‘anyway come in for a cupper, mate have yiz eaten?’
‘No’ dad says ‘Thanks mate a cupper’d go down real good hay. If you’re sure it’s no trouble.’
‘No trouble mate, no trouble at all’ he says as he shook dad’s hand.
We jumped down out of the back of the four wheel drive, always excited to meet new people especially old ancients like this guy. I could feel some wonderful stories coming on.
‘You’ll stay for tea mate wont ya? Ya welcome to stay the night to.’ He’d shaken hands with dad and held his hand out to mum as she came round the car to meet him.
I’m up the front there waiting for dad to introduce me, I mean this guy looked like Rip Van Winkle himself. He had lines criss crossing lines and a long white beard. And he’d asked us to stay the night, and have tea. I looked at dad anxiously but he didn’t answer. But what he did was, he introduced mum and told me to go and play. Play!
I gave him my best glare and I hoped that my bitter disappointment was clear. But no, he gives me a crooked sort of a grin and turned around and strode onto the house. My mouth was hanging opened when I heard a chuckle from my sister.
‘What’s so bloody funny?’ I asked spreading my hands in exasperation. ‘We’ve been told to go and play.’
She didn’t answer she was staring after them, ‘wonder how old he is’ she says as the back door bangs shut on us.
Well I was flabbergasted mate, I was. Just then the door opens up again and the old guy sticks his head out ‘come on kids’ he says ‘come and have a cupper n some biscuits.’
No need to ask me twice, so I puts on me best smile and marched, straight backed, just like I been taught, fair into the old guys kitchen.
Oh and what a kitchen it was, straight out of some sort of pirate movie. S***, I thought, the old guys a pirate had to be. He had a sword hangin on the wall and over on the cupboard he had a ship in a bottle. No joke, a ship in a bottle.
I looked at Jude but she was unimpressed so I looked at dad. He was laughing at something the old guy had said. I stood at the table now looking straight at my old man waiting for an intro but none was forth coming. Dad’s manners could be atrocious at times, that’s all I could think of.
I sat at the table and accepted my cup of tea and biscuits with good grace. I kept my eyes fixed on Rip now and waited for the stories to start, and I was not disappointed; we listened well into the night.
He’d been everywhere, fought everything even dad was impressed I could see that. I looked at my sister with disdain; she was asleep on mums shoulder. Sometimes the old man got a bit excited and made a funny hooting noise in his throat but that only added to the flavour. Or so I thought.
Dad stopped listening at around midnight and I wondered at how quiet he’d been for the last half hour or so. He looked troubled like he was waiting for something. Something bad. I shrugged it off, s*** these stories were funny and so exciting!
A bit after midnight the old guy goes quiet and stares at the door to the back of the house. Dad gets up quietly and in an equally quiet voice he says to the old guy that we had to hit the hay. ‘Go on kids, get out to the caravan.’
I looked up at him for some sort of explanation and got a shove.
All of a sudden the old guy lets out a yell that just about rooted me to the spot. Well it did! ‘The bastards are back’ he sings out and darted into the dark adjoining room which had a bit of torn cloth of no apparent colour hanging from the top of the door frame.
He returns with, of all things, an old pump action, double barrel straight out of the cowboy era. And this old gun was all loaded up, cocked and ready to make some noise.
Now, see we’re all standing rooted to the spot and dads trying to get mum to move but she don’t want to go passed the now maniac with the gun. And he was waving that bloody thing around as he went. Anyhow Rip throws the thing on the table and rips his shirt off and threw that to the floor.
‘Get your bloody clothes off’ he says and dad started. He looked down at the gun on the other side of the table The old guys screaming by this about dingoes and how they’d been stalking him for the last few months but he had always sent them running. Well that explains the holes in the doors I swung round to look, buckshot!