Family Activities
These were many and varied over the years. Dad being the man of such great enthusiasm always thought of things to do to make life more entertaining...
Esperance Bay Yacht Club
Much of my memory of family activities centred around the Gibson community and the yacht club (E.B.Y.C.). Dad and Mum's love affair with sailing began in 1966 and continued until their deaths in 1987 and 1992 respectively. I think our neighbours Stewart and Bob Hockey were responsible for the introduction. They are reputed to have brought a couple of Star class yachts from Sydney on top of a load of something else and started the totally mad activity of sailing what were 'inland water' yachts on Esperance Bay with its vigorous sea breeze.
The families at the centre of the Club were the Browns, Hockeys, Wallaces and Savages; all blow-ins like many of the farming people around Esperance and mostly without extended family or much of it. We were each others extended family. The sailing season began in early November and continued until late April and was all consuming. No doubt there will be many yarns added to the Yacht Club stories as the five youngest miss-spent their growing up years there.
I laughed as I found some slides of Neds Corner in 1968. Bruce and Marge Baron must have moved there not long before Bruce having established himself in Esperance initially as an Elders man and highly competent sailor. Neds Corner was a large station somewhere near Munglinup that had a cast of 1000s working on it. I remember lots of jackeroos all dressed in white moleskins, elastic-sided boots and blue shirts cruising around in jeeps, mokes and land rovers. Anyway the slides were from a time I remember there was a big party at the Homestead which was about three miles from the Shearers Quarters where we were all staying. We arrived late afternoon on Saturday and found that each couple had been allocated a room with a witty name-tag attached. Kids slept in cars or wherever they could find a place. The parents all dressed in their finery and disappeared off to the homestead at which point the kids party started with everyone running wildly playing chasey and hidey for hours.The merriment went on until one by one kids dissolved off to sleep.
The next day we piled into the cars and headed off for a picnic down at the river. There was something of a scramble to get into the very groovy jeep and I laughed to see Peter Brown and Richard Kyle perched in the front seat with Pam Hockey on the mudguard and Ritchie Wilson in the back....
The picnic was a lot of fun despite the obvious sore heads!
It was pretty gorgeous and very exciting for us kids. Lots of rocks to climb on and jump over.
The cast of thousands! I recognise David's green jumper with the white band, sitting next to him is Vera Barker and Dad and I think Bob Hockey with Linda. In the front L-R looks like Helen Brown, Stewart Hockey, Judy Hockey and Bob Savage.
Judy Hockey
Does anyone know what the actual event was or when it was?
There are now a larger selection of photos I think taken around the same event, in the Gallery. Paul informed me that Dad struggled with that particular camera's focusing mechanism which could be the reason many of the party snaps were a bit out of focus, alternatively it could have had something to do with the ample quantities of red wine flowing that night!