In the Blue Mountains there is a place called Rammangaloo. And a house that was called Rammangaloo House. It was a rambling old sandstone house built during the 1800s. I was told that the sandstone blocks were handcarved by convicts and they had left their marks in the stone… some affirmation that they existed and could control something in their environment. I don’t know if it was true, but I was told it when I was very young, before it became fashionable to have the ‘stain’ of convict blood in your family. This was my grandparents’ home.
I also heard mention of my family coming from the 2nd Fleet, but I have less faith in the accuracy of this. My sister and I used to speculate that we were the result of an Irish horse thief, due to our passion for horses, but I think that was just romantic fancy.
Rammangaloo House was actually from the family of my grandmother’s second husband. Her first had died when she was 34, leaving her with four children; the eldest, my mother, was 10 and the youngest was 18 months. My grandmother married the best friend of her first husband. I don’t think it was romantic. My grandmother always seemed disappointed with life, and felt men could never make you happy, and would only take advantage of you.
Regardless of how the house and property came to be part of my family, it was the most stable place I knew as a young child. My parents had moved something like 10 times before I started school. My father had left us for 18 months when my sister was born, and during that time my mother moved us to Marrangaroo. I can’t imagine that was an easy time for her, as she didn’t have a close relationship with her mother, and her stepfather had been part of the reason why she had left (or been forced out of) home at 15.
But for me, Rammangaloo was a huge playground. I have so many memories linked to that place… most good, but some not so.
The house was renovated at some point during my childhood, but I remember the big black wood stove, and the big rooms with high ceilings and fireplaces, and lots of little nooks for a small girl to hide away and read to her baby sister. The gardens were enormous, with a creek that ran through, a bridge, hedges and old carved steps, vegetable gardens, weeping willows, and the old drive way that swept around in a loop at the end, built for a time when horse and carts would visit. And there were the old buildings, no longer used; the old outhouse full of daddy-long-legs and threatening red backs, and the old laundry where I discovered my tendency to attract older boys, whether I wanted to or not.
The old stable block, musty and full of old books, paintings, furniture… musty, dusty and full of promise. I would sneak off with the huge key and let myself in quietly, to see what I could find. Hours were spent reading through the boxes that contained my uncle’s old comic books; Mickey Mouse, Pluto, The Phantom. And Boys Own adventures for the little girl who had already learnt she needed to entertain herself.
The Browns (no, not their real name) lived next door, although next door was a kilometre away, seperated by a large potato field. There were many Browns, a family full of children, but my sister and I mainly played with the two youngest. Riding our bikes, we would see how high we could ride up the embankment that lead to the old highway… until we could get our bikes no higher, and we’d be forced to stop and slid back down again. My memories of them are of cowboys and indians, snotty noses, their father small and mean, his dogs cowering to avoid his fast and hard kicks, their mother fat and tired, always flushed red and sweating over a washing copper. And the pink hairless body of the fully formed chick that Mr Brown showed us after he’d broken open the egg shell.
Lassie was my pop’s dog. She was only allowed off her chain when we were safely inside. She had once bitten a child. I always felt she was hard done by, chained up, but the Browns would rile her up when they visited, and her snarling fangs were well worthy of our respect.
There are so many other things that I could tell you about… like the wombat hole by the big creek past the back paddock. There was a big old sand pit (easily as deep as a man) which opened out onto the banks of the stream, and in the sides of its banks were huge wombat holes. We would jump into the pit, sliding down the sand embankment. We’d make damper and tea, swing the hot liquid in the billy, arm straight, overhead. The creek had clear water, and ice cold, even in summer. The stones were smooth underfoot, and the stream burbled off into the mountain. Cows would wander over to watch us, pausing mid-chew, before returning to their cud. Kangaroos and wallabies would hear the old ute and rush down to see if there was any grain being handed out.
I loved that place. It was sold when my grandparents retired and moved to the coast. And then sold again.
Now I can look at it as I drive past on my way home from my friend’s property. You can still see the old house in the valley. But now it is surrounded by administration blocks, and the back paddock, where I first had my tentative riding lessons, and where my pony let me feel the kicks of her first foal as I put my face to her flank and my hands on her belly, are now part of the maximum security prison that was built there about 10 years ago. I prefer to remember it as it was.
