Inspector of nuisances

Did you know that growing up in the Menzies’ home would never have been dull and quiet. Their diet would have comprised a lot of meat and probably included chops, sausages or steak at every meal including breakfast where “Uncle Toby’s Oats” were very popular. The evening meal in those days invariably consisted of beef or mutton, roasted or boiled and potatoes and greens followed by dessert such as bread and butter pudding and cheese. Sometimes they would have had a sago or rice pudding.

I can well remember the fabulous rice puddings that my Grandma Brew used to serve up when as a small boy (about 1944) I used to go to my grandparents for lunch on Sundays. It was only bettered by the apple dumpling puddings she made in winter. Then there was Yorkshire pudding with the roast that seemed to be a meal in itself.

All this was done without the help of refrigeration and they had to use what was known as a “Coolgardie Safe” to keep food as cool as possible. It consisted of a box covered in hessian or a gauze which kept the flies away but permitted the food to be kept in a breezeway. If the hessian sides were kept damp with a tray of water top and bottom then a mild cooling effect could be achieved. From 1867 ice had been made in Sydney after the successful invention of refrigeration using the liquefaction of ammonia and by 1890 when Maggie was 7 years old the price of ice had come down to 6 pence per 10 pound (4.5 kg) block.

Tea drinking had become immensely popular and in 1903 a strange new drink, “Coca Cola”, went on sale for the first time in the country. Cold beer of course was the real man’s drink and wine did not become popular for at least another 60 years.

In their cooking, the Menzies were very resourceful having few of the processed and packaged foods we have today. Great reliance was put on Mrs. Beaton’s cook book but I suspect most recipes were handed down from mother to daughters in the family. One of these was for baked beans which did not come in a can but had to be cooked from the raw ingredients as follows;

BAKED BEANS

1 packet of haricot beans

1/2 pound of bacon

1 teaspoonful of mixed mustard

2 tablespoons of golden syrup

1/2 a bottle of tomato sauce

Soak beans overnight in boiling water, add all other ingredients and cook until tender.

Can then be baked in the oven.

The women of the Menzies household were resourceful too when it came to cosmetics. “Pears” soap was in general use but there was little of the huge range of make-up available to women today and they had to use what was available. It is said that they used mutton fat to rub into their hands to make them smooth and geranium petals were rubbed onto their cheeks to give them colour. In addition they had various powders and soaps available locally. There were patent medicines of various kinds for everything from headache to the plague but birth control was ignored and most brides continued to have children every couple of years so that families of ten or more children were not uncommon.

One of the most popular institutions of the day were the “Friendly Societies”. Life was quite precarious in those days, there was no social security system and illness or other incapacity of the breadwinner was likely to plunge the family into destitution. By 1880 the practice of contributing a small weekly sum to such a society had reached its zenith and it has been estimated that at least 90% of Newcastle families used this safety net. One of the benefits was that many societies had their own doctors to help their members and its highly likely that the Menzies family was part of this system. Some of these societies still survive today.

Between 1860 and 1900 it was the fashion for ladies to observe the morning call which normally took place in the afternoon! In the better suburbs women adopted a day of the month on which they were “at home”. On that afternoon they would have many callers who might stay only 15 or 20 minutes or so after which the caller would rush on to another home to hear the next bit of gossip. My mother Iris always changed her dress and tidied herself up after lunch and did ladies things as long as I can remember. Certainly Sunday afternoon was a time when you might expect friends to drop in for an unexpected visit. Perhaps this was a remnant of the Victorian practice of being ready to receive callers for a morning call.

By the time Maggie was born the Victorian bustle and train had disappeared from fashion and young women were making a lot of their own clothes. For those who wanted to climb the social ladder, ballroom dancing was very important, after all it was a vital point of social contact. The most popular dances of the day were the quadrille, waltz, galop, balmoral and the minuet and there were always balls and dances to attend but it’s unlikely that Maggie was encouraged to participate because of the strictures of her church. Musical training was not neglected and without the benefit of radio and television most entertainment included singing and the playing of musical instruments. The Menzies girls were taught music and Maggie had become the organist in the local Congregational Church by the age of twenty one.

Weddings were always a great occasion for celebration although Maggie’s was a home affair. This seems to have been the custom of the Congregational Church to which the family belonged and her sister ‘Netta’s wedding also took place in her mother’s home. The Victorian bride was given away recalling to some extent the old practice of the father selecting his daughter’s husband. The scattering of rice over the couple recalled an ancient fertility rite and the old practice of celebrating the union with special foods was recalled in the provision of the wedding cake. The guests were each given a piece to take home as a sign of fertility. The exchanging of wedding rings was a sign that the bride and groom were now tied to one another. Divorce on the other hand was relatively unknown and great stigma was attached to it.

The homes of Maggie’s childhood were gradually connected to gas as hot water heaters became available from 1890 though those who bathed every day were considered eccentric. Newcastle had been lit by gas since 1856 but in 1891 its streets were set ablaze with electric arc lights. At 8 years of age Maggie must have really thought that a modern age had dawned! The first “Edison Bell” telephones had appeared in Sydney and Brisbane in 1880 and they quickly spread to government departments and to business. However Maggie may not have had one in her own home until she and Bert settled into the pilot’s cottage in Nobbys Road in 1916. In addition the first typewriters appeared in 1901 when Maggie was 18 and of course the first motor cars or “horseless carriages” were also appearing about that time. They were soon followed just a few years later by that marvelous invention, the aeroplane.

However, in matters of hygiene the households of Maggie’s childhood still had a long way to go. In the 1880’s kitchen slops were still being emptied into the streets and chamber pots and commodes into back yard cesspools which sometimes did not get emptied and overflowed. Epidemics were not uncommon. Gradually a municipal pick-up pan system was introduced. Users were encouraged to sprinkle a small amount of earth into the pan after each use. Water flushing closets were first invented by Joseph Bramah in 1778 and were fitted into government house in Sydney in the 1820’s but even there the waste drained into a cesspool.

Thomas Crapper designed a waterseal in the closet bowl and the final development was the fitting of pipe drains and their connection to a network. However for this system to work there had to be a reliable piped water supply and since Newcastle did not get water from the new Glenbawn Dam until the 1930’s and reliance on pans continued for many years. Meanwhile, household tanks were in general use for the collection of rain water for drinking and washing purposes. A sign of the changing times, however, was that Maggie’s father George was employed in 1892 as the Stockton Council’s Inspector of Nuisances meaning that he could be regarded as an early version of todays Health Inspectors. His job was apparently to try to curb the practice of allowing household refuse and effluent to run out onto the streets of the town.

In the Menzies household Monday was washing day as it was in most. Sometimes soiled clothes were soaked overnight and sometimes kerosene was used to get rid of grease and oil but they were always boiled for an hour in the morning. Straight after breakfast the fire had to be set under the big copper in its brick surround in the laundry at the back of the house. The steaming clothes were lifted out with a stout “laundry stick” and thoroughly rinsed in yet more hot water in a concrete laundry tub followed by a cold rinse where the “bluo” was added to make the “whites” whiter. Those to be starched, and there were many, were dunked in another tub where they were soaked in dissolved starch. They then had to be rung out by hand although big hand powered “mangles” mounted on the edge between the twin tubs were usually used to do most of this work which was back breaking to say the least. Finally the wet clothes, towels and bed linen were carried out to the clothes lines in a wicker basket. These usually consisted of four parallel wires strung between two yardarms which were pivoted in the middle on their posts so that the wires could be pulled down for easy reach before they were pushed up and held in place by “clothes props” after the clothes had been pegged in place. The next day, Tuesday, was usually “ironing” day. This was a huge chore, the clothes were first damped down and then ironed using a heavy hand iron which had been heated on the cooking stove where the fire rarely went out.

Then there was shopping to do. Many shopkeepers called at the house including the greengrocer, the baker, the milkman and many others who hawked everything from fresh rabbits to clothes props all on foot or driving horse drawn carts, which provided horse manure for the garden where an astute householder could grow many vegetables and flowers. Life at home would never have been idle for Maggie but she would no doubt have always found time for needlework and sewing after the mending and the household cleaning had been done. There were no vacuum cleaners of course and all the floors had to be swept by hand using brooms and the mats and rugs taken outside and shaken.

How the world has changed in a little over 100 years!