Ready to go topdressing

I've had another look at the collection of photographs of my father put together by my older sister after he had died. This is one of the ways I picture him from my younger years. Judging from the slightly amused look on his face, I suspect that this photo was taken by my sister. All that is written on the back of the photo is that he was getting ready for the task of topdressing.

He had made himself the saucer shaped basket out of old sugar sacks. The edge is stitched around a loop of Nø 8 fencing wire; perhaps two strands for additional strength. The loop around his neck looks to me like it was made from an old pair of braces (he always used twine to hold up his work trousers, and had one belt for his one pair of good trousers).

Behind him is the old homestead, which always seemed large in my memory, until I went back as an adult and saw how small it actually was. At the end of the verandah, I can be seen kneeling on the verandah rail, and grinning cheerfully. My brother is to my right, his arms resting on the rail, and his face mostly behind the arms.

I can't be certain when this photo was taken, but Dad was in his early 40s and it was likely before my brother fell and hurt his shoulder when we were chasing each other around the kitchen table. I felt guilty about that for years, because he spent months in hospital; the "injury" revealed a tumour in the bone which was successfully removed and replaced by bone grafted from his pelvis.

Dad was a hard working farmer, who had no aids at that time (such as a tractor; that came later). He would walk the length of a paddock casting fertiliser to one side and then the other. Then he would walk back the other way and so on until the entire field had been fertilised. Hard and ultimately thankless work, as the land was poor quality hill country.

When I was older, and we were no longer on the farm, he never spoke of his disappointment. I do not know if he felt that he had failed. I know (now) that he did not fail. He was helped onto the land with a Rehab Loan  after the War, but without funds to develop the land fully, it was never going to work out. After more than ten years of struggle, he sold and we moved.

He gave us a wonderful place to be children; until I was almost ready to leave primary school.