Social History in Southern NSW

This section of the website contains a few of the stories written while I was a journalist on an Eastern Riverina Observer, based in Henty but also covering the towns of Lockhart, Culcairn, Walla Walla, Urana, Boree Creek, Yerong Creek, and other hamlets in between. Mostly, I've picked pieces that record interesting women's lives.

Correspondent clocks up 50 years of writing news

by Natalie Bennett

Any local newspaper like the Observer depends much on the many contributors who write about the events in our own community.

One of our most regular and loyal correspondents, Myrtle Jenkyn, is approaching her 50th year of contributing to her local paper. She has spent 40 years chronicling the joys and sorrows of the communities of Yuluma and Boree Creek.

Mrs Jenkyn grew up at Boort, a town midway between Melbourne and Mildura, on the edge of the Mallee.

The eldest of seven children, Mrs Jenkyn left school at age 13 and a half to help her mother when the youngest child was born. "It was harvest time when the baby was expected and mum just couldn't get any good help, as she had for the previous babies.

"I also used to help dad, doing a fair amount of riding and stock work. Occasionally I would do some work for pocket money."

Mrs Jenkyn said despite leaving school early she was still recommended for the merit certificate, for pupils who completed Grade 8. So I guess I didn't do too badly.

"We were lucky at Boort. Because the town had raised so much money for the war effort during the First World War, we were given a higher elementary school before we really had the numbers.

"We had a local Methodist Minister who had a degree in English. He taught us English, so we studied work far above the standard of what was expected.

"I can remember one day when he got really angry with one boy, who couldn't understand what a red road horse was," Mrs Jenkyn said with a chuckle. "He eventually yelled: 'It's what your father uses to drive the dust cart.'"

Mrs Jenkyn met her husband, Bert, after visiting an aunty in an area about 25 miles from her home. "We were both playing tennis. I used to play for Buckbranyule, which was a tiny town with a hotel, a church and a hall.

"In those days there were hotels every three or four miles. You can't expect a man, after he has been on the header all day, to drive 20 or 30 miles to get a beer."

Mrs Jenkyn said there was a great social life in the country in those days. "We had an active social club, and had regular dances. If a girl was going to get married we would give her a social tea."

During World War II Mrs Jenkyn lived at Seymour. "I wanted to stay on the farm, but Bert insisted I move and I didn't want to worry him, particularly when he went to New Guinea.

"It was an educational time, an exciting time and a terrible time. There were 17,000 men camped under canvas. Not many women have an opportunity to meet so many people as I did during that time."

Mrs Jenkyn said she first became involved in writing for her local paper in Charlton, a large town near Boort."I was in the Red Cross and the RSL Auxiliary. I was president of the Red Cross just because no one else would do it.

"As old Jack's father would say: 'She's been in every dog fight around the place,' but I only joined the fight when no one else would. I prefer to just be a worker behind the scenes."

Mrs Jenkyn moved to Yuluma with her husband and family in June 1950. "Will I ever forget it. It was winter and we got bogged getting away from down there and we got bogged getting here."

Mrs Jenkyn said they had decided to move to Yuluma because the property in Victoria was too small, as her sons all wanted to go on the land.

Soon after coming to Yuluma, Mrs Jenkyn became involved in the local Lockhart paper. "We were having a real battle to get a school out here. There were blazing headlines in the paper.

"It had quite a history, but eventually we got a school moved here.

"All the locals put a lot into it. We had to pay a sub-teacher and various families boarded the teacher for free. "But the school has been sitting idle for 10 years now. It was practically built by the local people out there, so the Department left it there."

Mrs Jenkyn said she is "still involved in everything", from the hospital auxiliary to the RSL auxiliary, around Yuluma and Lockhart.

"But I haven't been to town much lately. I like to stay around in the fire station. I can't do much myself, but I can tell other people where the sheep are."

One of Mrs Jenkyn's main interests has been the National Party. "When I can I go to the National Party state conference. I am hoping to go to Cobar this year.

"I have always been interested in politics. Dad was always a member, although he did not have time to be a worker.

"But I guess I took up his interest. I have always been a serious reader, although I have never read a book since I left school But I read lots of newspapers and journals."

Mrs Jenkyn said she was concerned about the lack of discipline in children today. You have got to apply discipline from the time the little beggars can squawk.

"Also today I think they are keeping them at school too long. The one's that are not so bright are getting frustrated."

"All these drugs and things, I just can't understand it. I never smoked a cigarette, never drank intoxicating liquor.

"When I was 13 I saw a drunk girl, with her head covered with a heap of blood, being pushed along by a big policeman.

"I learnt the next day the girl was only 18 and had come up from Melbourne to work in a boarding house. She hadn't been there long and she was supposed to have infected 50 men with venereal disease. The police put her on the train and sent her back to Melbourne.

"Thirteen is an impressionable age and I was determined then never to be pushed around like that."

Mrs Jenkyn said in Boort she did not know any women who drank. "In a radius of about 50 miles there would only have been two women who drank. There were also only two divorced people. Things were so different then."

From the Eastern Riverina Observer, February 7, 1990