Under The Mallee Bough

  The Scriveners Review. To the Mid-Murray Region.                                                                                                 Vol. 1..#3.            A sampler taste of the colour and texture of living past and present in The Murray Mallee.                                         Two stories and four poems by Helen Tuxford and Joe Carli. Joyce Delivers the Flowers. “Joyce Hartingdale .. Secretary” the writing on the triangular wedge of wood prominent at the front of her desk was written in bright, gold paint. It was there the first day she came to the job at the office situated at the front of the “Shoebridge Furniture Factory”. A job she had come all the way from Manchester, England for…well…it was not just the job, but she had applied for the secretarial job while home in England, fresh graduated from the secretarial college where she had seen the advertisement seeking young ladies to come to the Australian c

  The search for soul. Once a month or so, we make the trek down to the big smoke to go to the Central Market there in the city. We go there to buy those certain foods or condiments one cannot get in The Barossa supermarkets, and it is also a bright venture of a day out for us “quiet country folk”, though the traffic can be rather chaotic at times, and don’t get me started on the “types” one sees there! But as I was saying, down the Adelaide Central Market, between Marino’s butchers and where Samtass fish market used to be, there is a walk-through breezeway to Gouger Street. Years ago there was an arcade type stall there selling second-hand books, it was run by a bloke in his fifties, if I recall, I used to browse there when I was going past. At the end nearest the street, there was a tray holding hundreds and hundreds of these ”penny dreadfuls” I suppose you’d call them, not even with a cardboard cover, but just some lurid pic on glossy paper with around 50 pages or so stapled

  Songs of the Murray Mallee. End of an Era. #4 ..The Last Empire. In the hour before the umbra, In the hour before the gloaming, In the hour before the sun is setting.. When the crow begins its nesting, When the galahs settle in the mallee, When the shadows grow longer in the mallee. With the hardest work of the day done, With the bulk of the fortnight work done. This day marked the winding-up of the harvest, This day saw the last bringing in of the grain. End of a year’s work of harrowing, Ploughing, seeding, praying for rain Watching crops grow in spring, Watching till now, winding down, Watching a year’s work and worry. The crop is in, harvested, winnowed, bagged, The carrier with his sons loaded the last bag, To cart the bags to the railhead, Bags to be shipped to the port. A “paying year” for the cropping, Not a bumper year as two years ago, A good year for the end of