A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES OF A PROFESSIONAL FISHERMAN

A very close friend of mine, Col Forster on whose cruising yacht I crewed for 10 years died suddenly from cancer two years ago. He wrote some very good short stories about life as a professional fisherman in the Northern Regions of Australia. Col wrote these stories through the eyes of a fictitious character he named “Cowboy Pete”. Pete was however, I suspect himself and the stories related to the various experiences he had whilst working as professional fisherman when a young man.

I never got to read the stories until after his death because he always said that they were a work in progress and not to be read until he was satisfied that they were complete. I suspect however that given Col was a very modest man, the main reason he was hesitant to have anyone read them was that until he was certain that they were as good as he could write he’d rather keep them private. His widow, Di lent them to me to read not long after his death and now having had time to read them, I believe they are a very good collection of short stories that many would enjoy reading. They simply require a little editing.

A FAMILY HISTORY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA  (1839 – 1945)

I have been very privileged to have descended from an early pioneering family heritage on my mother’s side of the family. 

One of the first of my ancestors to arrive in what was then the “King George Sound Settlement” (modern day Albany) was Richard Atherton Ffarington an young ensign in the 51st Regiment of Foot in 1843. Ffarington’s great uncle was the famous diarist and landscape painter, Joseph Ffarington. It seems that without any formal training as an artist Richard had inherited skills as an amateur artist and recorded in his sketches and watercolours some of the earliest recorded images of traditional Aboriginal life at King George Sound. At that time the colonisation of the west was in its infancy. Richard went on the sketch, paint and serve his regiment at various posts throughout the colony. 

Prior to Richard Ffarington’s arrival, another branch of our family arrived in August 1842. They were the Mead brothers, Thomas, Henry and William. They came from an agricultural background in North Yorkshire, England. Thomas Mead managed “Springhill” comprising 6,240 acres near Northam from 1846 through to 1884. In addition, Thomas had taken out a 6,000 acre pastoral lease near Meckering in 1850. Henry Mead it was believed first came to the Colony in 1839 and returned with his brothers in 1842. Henry settled in the area known today as Byford. Henry originally worked as a carpenter but later in 1846 purchased 320 acres at Cardup and called his farm “Whitby Falls Farm”. The youngest brother, William had been a cabinet maker in England and eventually settled on land owned by his brother Henry and built a thatched cottage there. Unlike his brothers, William bought and leased very little land owning just 80 acres freehold and leased a 3,000 acres pastoral lease on the Serpentine. 

Descending from these earlier settlers, other members of the family went on to make their mark in Western Australian history in varying ways that included my great grandfather running a horse driven railway carriage service between Roebourne and Cossack in Western Australia’s North West in the late nineteenth century and later going off to the Great War with his son who had enlisted as soon as he reached the minimum age to do so, another was postmaster at Kalgoorlie, another worked as an engineer with CY O’Connor on the Mundaring Weir. My grandfather was a bugler in the Western Australian 10th Light Horse regiment and later managed one of Perth’s most iconic cinemas, “The Ambassador.” Sadly demolished in the 1970’s to make way for a fairly unimpressive office tower called St Martin’s. Other members of the family also served in the World War I and World War II and each have interesting stories associated with their enlistment and service. 

My father, Klaas, served with the Dutch Navy and allied forces based in Fremantle during the Second World War and served on the Dutch destroyer Tjerk Hiddes famously known as the “Timor Ferry” that was instrumental in the evacuation of Allied servicemen and Dutch and Timorese citizens from under the nose of the occupying Japanese forces, for which he was awarded the “Timor Cross”. 

The result I hope will be a brief and personal history of Western Australia over a 100-year period with my ancestors being the thread that runs through the State’s history from 1839 until the end of World War II in 1945. However, until I’ve undertaken more research, I’m uncertain whether it would be one book comprising a chapter on each ancestor and the part they played in the development and history of the State or whether some may be worthy of a book in their own right.