THE ROOK FAMILY
by
Meinard Karel ROOK
Compiled 2005
Arrival
We arrived in Australia in August 1950, after a 6 week voyage from Holland on the Sibijaek. Our first land fall was in Fremantle, then on to Melbourne, where we transferred to the Taroona for the voyage across Bass Strait to Beauty Point in Tasmania.
We were a small family, by Dutch standards at that time. Just the five of us. Mum – Janny, who was 35, Dad – Meinard, who was 38, my oldest sister Froll, who was 11, my other sister Annelies, who was 9, and me – also Meinard, and I was 5. Mum was pregnant at the time, with Hendrick Jan Tasman, who was made in Holland, but born in Australia 4 months after our arrival.
Others had also or were also migrating from the same town, Steenwijk in Overijsel. Jan Kettle and his family were already here, and Heerwijnen, Talen and te Strake arrived at about the same time.
We joined the post-World War 11 wave of migration from Europe to Australia. I’m not sure of the real reasons behind my family’s move. At the macro level, there were those who wanted to distance themselves from the horrors of war in Europe, and the subsequent Cold-War, and put as much distance as possible between them and Europe. Well, you can’t get further than Tasmania. Others wanted better opportunities, not only for themselves, but particularly for their children. Some wanted room to move. Some wanted adventure and try to win their fortune. Others were escaping the constriction of families and family tensions. Regardless of the underlying reason, what they all had in common was the search for a better life.
On arrival at Beauty Point, we set off by road to our destination, Edith Creek, some 400 kms away. That was a huge distance by Dutch standards, about the same as traversing Holland. As we passed through Launceston, Mum thought that was a reasonable town, then the further west we went, the worse the roads became, the towns became villages then hamlets, and the greater the isolation. To add to the foreboding, the skies grew more overcast, and the rain pelted down, the closer we got to our destination. Mum wanted to turn around and go back home to Holland, or at least back to civilisation in Launceston. Dad was committed, and so we pushed on.
The far northwest of Tasmania is renowned for its fertile soil and rich agriculture. However, this translates in to dense high rain forests where the land has not been cleared. Dad’s job was to clear the land with hand tools – axe and saw. Another Dutch migrant was also there, Lambert van Essen and his family. They’d never seen trees as big as this before, nor as hard as these huge Tasmanian hardwoods. And rain. It rained all day, every day while we were there. We lived in a small cottage with two bedrooms, no electricity, and an outside “dunny” – a small tall corrugated iron shed over a hole in the ground – for a toilet.
The first Sunday we walked to church in the rain. It was a visiting service, and our little family made up half the congregation. And we couldn’t understand a word of it.
The local shop was a small General Store, which stocked everything – groceries, fruit and vege, clothing, hardware and shoes. Our first purchase was a set of gumboots for everyone.
We lasted nine days in Edith Creek. Dad was not built for that sort of physically demanding work, Mum grieved for some civilisation, and the non-stop rain dampened everyone’s spirits.
Early Days
We headed back east, to Penguin, where a small Dutch community was forming. The Petrusma, Heerwijenen, Koetsier, Talen, Kuilenberg and Bethlehem families formed the nucleus. Dad got work at the Paper Mill in Burnie, and bought an AJS motorbike for commuting and the family transport. We lived in a refurbished garage under a house at the foot of a very steep hill, Mission Hill, and the motorbike was brought inside and parked in the living area each night. We spent the summer of 1950-51 in Penguin. The constant rain of Edith Creek gave way to the hottest summer we had ever experienced. We spent time at the beach, something we had never done in Holland, and got sunburnt, with huge blisters on our backs.
Our baby brother, Hendrick Jan Tasman, (aka John) was born at the Latrobe Hospital on the 18th November 1950. He was one of the first local additions to the little Dutch community, and was much fussed over as such.
The little Dutch community set up their own church in a hall opposite the football ground. On Sundays we would all don our “Sunday Best” and enjoy a relaxing religious/family day with our kith and kin. Families would visit each other, and we children would play together. From the hindsight of 50+ years, they were idyllic days. Sunday was always such a special day. There were always special treats, such as sandgebaakijes with whipped cream, coffee with whipped cream, and always lots of visitors. They were very gesalege daagen.
The little Dutch community was passionately committed to their religion, and 13 families banded together and brought out the first Dutch Reformed Minister, Dom Schep and his family from Holland to Penguin. On reflection, that required extraordinary commitment and dedication by all involved, and is a practical measure of the importance of the Church to the fledgling community. There was no inherited wealth or financial “kitty”. Each family made it on their own each day and each week, and they had to establish themselves in a new and foreign land. Yet they were all prepared to make that financial commitment of tithing their income in order to meet their spiritual needs.
We stayed in Penguin for nine months, then moved to a Housing Commission home at Montello, a suburb of Burnie, where the Paper Mill was located in the winter of 1951.
This was a new housing estate, and we were one of the first in the street. The house was new, and in comparison to our earlier dwellings, luxurious, with electricity, running water, three bedrooms, and our own yard. 30 Sterling Street. The red chocolate soil was a bit of a problem, as it stuck to the boots and was traipsed through the house. Dad got to work in the garden to put in a lawn to control the mud, as well as a veggie patch. Initially, the toilet was an outside “thunder-box”, but sewerage was later installed, so we even had an inside flushing toilet.
Within a year or so, Dad bought an old bus, which he converted with Mr Cunningham in to a Shop-on-Wheels, with groceries and vegetables. Dad worked shift work at the Paper Mill, and then drove the Shop-on-Wheels around the new developing housing estate between shifts.
We also used the bus to travel to Penguin to church twice each Sunday. After the morning service, the various kids would attach themselves to other families for the day, and would then be returned after the evening service. Sundays were very special days. We all dressed up in our Sunday-Best, and there was no work or sport or business. It was a strongly held religious day of rest and worship, and a time for the little Dutch community to reinforce its cultural bonds. Kids moved between Betlehem and Kuilenburg at Sulphur Creek; van Wijk, van de Wal, and de Vries at Riana, Petrusma, Heerwijnen, an de Woude, and Koetsier in Penguin; and Hoffman, van de Vliest and us in Burnie.
The Shop-on-Wheels prospered, and after a year or so Dad left the Paper Mill and worked on the shop full time.
Initially, when we first moved to Montello, I went to school in Burnie. We went there by bus, but often spent our return bus fare, and had to walk home up a very steep hill. In time the Montello State School was established, and I attended that, along with Peter and George van de Schoor. We often played together, and Dad would whistle when it was time to come home. The sound carried down one street, across a large park and down another street, and I would get on my bike and pedal for home. We all wore hand-made clothes. Mum made me a sailor-suit, and had knitted me a pair of bright green trousers with hand-embroidered braces, worn with a cream knitted shirt with frilly sleeves. While they had been made with great love, they were starkly different to the drab-grey school uniforms of the day, and so I stood out like a sore thumb, and attracted unwelcome attention.
Dad’s Passing
Towards the end of 1953 Dad became ill, and went to hospital in Launceston in early 1954. I was sent to Betlehem to stay. On a Saturday morning, Mr Betlehem called the family together, sat me on his knee, and told us all that Dad had died on 6th March 1954. He was just 41 years of age. Dad was probably the first of the fledgling Dutch community to die. He had developed leukaemia. He was buried in the Wivenhoe cemetery.
This was a desperate time for our family. Mum (39) was pregnant with Rick, and had four other children – Froll (14), Annelies (12), me (8), and Henry (3). She did not know the language, had no extended family support, and no independent financial means. As a Dutch national, she was not eligible for a widow’s pension. Mum wanted to return to Holland, but that was not possible. (I think we couldn’t afford it, but perhaps pride had something to do with it as well)
Mum laboured on with the Shop-on-Wheels. Max Prins drove the bus, and Froll left school to help. Later that year I was sent to te Strake, who lived on a farm in Edith Creek, for a few months. Te Strake had been our well-to-do back-neighbours in Holland. I didn’t understand it at the time, but that was when Rick was born. Richard Jack Theodore, born on 13 July 1954.
The time at te Strake was confusing for me. Their daughter Helen and I had to walk a few miles to and from school each day, and if we were late, we were in trouble. I’d never been in trouble at school before, and as the new kid, I came in for some bullying and unwanted attention. We were often late for school – it was mid-winter, the days were short and wet, and we had a long walk to get there, so I got the cane for the first of many times for being late. I was terribly hurt and confused, but didn’t cry, as that was not the done thing. That was left until I was alone in bed at night.
It was a one-room, two-teacher school at Allen Creek, with about 20 or 30 pupils from the surrounding district, ranging from kindergarten to year 6, the end of primary school.
The conditions were rather variable at Edith Creek. There was no electricity, so heat and cooking was by fire wood, washing was by hand, and lighting was with a kerosene lantern. When the parents saw how we struggled to see in the dark to do our homework, they went and bought a tilley lamp. But they did have the telephone on, an antique piece even then, with a voice-piece on the wall, and ear-piece on a cord. The 50 to 80 cows were milked with a petrol-driven milking machine, and the cream was separated by a hand-driven separator.
I stayed with the te Strake’s for some two or three months before being re-united with my family, and seeing my baby brother for the very first time. I returned to Montello primary school, and found that I now had a new-found knack for getting in to trouble, and was regularly caned for misbehaviour. Prior to this, I had never been in trouble at school before.
Mum laboured on with us five kids in tow, and Sunday’s were still always a day of rest – dressing up, going to church, and mixing with our fellow countrymen. Mum was swindled out of a lot of money, and things were very, very tough. Froll got a job in a Solicitor’s office, and Annelies worked at the Titan. I continued at Montello State School, and then graduated to Parklands High School.
On Sunday mornings we would travel to Penguin by car to go to church. On the way, we all helped Rick learn his Sunday school song. We would repeat ti over and over and over and over, and Rick would be gawking out the window and not paying attention. On one memorable occasion the words were:- “By all His creatures let His name be honoured and adored,” which Rick recited as:- “By all His creatures let him go be honoured and a daughter.” We still laugh and joke about that to this day.
Sulphur Creek
We moved to Sulphur Creek in 1958, where Mum owned the local Post Office, general store, and continued with the shop-on-wheels. This brought us closer to the little Dutch community, as Kuilenberg and Ijskes still lived there, and it was only 2 miles to church in Penguin. However, by then many of the original Dutch settlers had already shifted to Kingston, and had in part been replaced by a second wave of new migrants, such as van de Vliest, van de Woude, the Kapinga brothers – Jack and Piet, the Hugen family, and George van Staveren. By that time various Ministers had come and gone from the little Penguin congregation, including Rietveld, van de Staal, and Derkely.
I changed schools, from Parklands High to Ulverstone High, during my first year of High School. There were quite a few other Dutch kids at school, possibly up to 5% or 10%, drawn from a 10 to 20 mile radius around Ulverstone. I remember the Sulphur Creek days as the most idyllic days of my childhood, including the turbulent days of adolescence. Adrian Kuilenberg, who lived just down the road, and I went to school together, and, when the occasion permitted (when his sister Rina missed a day at school, which was very rarely), we wagged school together, and spent the day swimming and fishing and cooking peas dropped by the pea-trucks, in the scrub at the Point. It wasn’t that we didn’t like school, it was just the exuberance of youth, testing the boundaries and experiencing “life on the edge.”
Froll married Geoff Willcox on 18 November 1958 in the Penguin Reformed Church, followed with a reception in the Sulphur Creek Community Hall, and they lived with us in the old bus and shed. They soon started their own family, with Rick and Terry, born in 1959 and 1960 respectively. Geoff joined the family business and drove the shop-on-wheels on its Burnie run. In Sulphur Creek, we lived on a large block of about 2 acres. The creek flowed through the boundary of the property, and it had some 150 fruit trees – apples, pears, plums, nectarines and apricots, and a single fig tree, but no one we knew liked figs.
(Lead in here to The Willcox Family)
There was no real generation gap in the family, with 5 years as the maximum age difference from one to the next. With two Richards in the family, our Rick became Big Rick, while Froll and Geoff’s Rick became Little Rick.
Big Rick just loved riding his push bike. Round and round and round and round he rode for every waking minute, and the kids all played together within the extended family.
Annelies worked at the Titan, a pigment-making factory. She met up with a young man who migrated to Australia from Holland on his own – Henk van Beelen. Henk’s brother, Jack had migrated earlier, and had married Dom Scheep’s daughter, Cora. Henk was a builder, and a very determined young man wanting to make his way in the world. Henk and Annelies built a house in Ulverstone, with some unique architectural features such as non-right angle corners to the lounge room. There were lengthy delays to the building project, due to a legal quagmire which emerged when the vendor died before the transfer of land was completed. Eventually this all sorted itself out, and Henk and Annelies got married in the Penguin Reformed Church on 30 March 1963, followed with a reception in the Sulphur Creek Community Hall, and were able to move in to their new house. They had the Veenema girls as brides-maids, and the date was a significant family date , but I don’t know what the significance was.
(Lead in here to The van Beelen Family)
Annelies kept working at the Titan after she was married, and helping out in the shop at Sulphur Creek on Saturday afternoons.
Henry and Rick went to school in Penguin, and Rick was selected to swim in the State swimming titles in Hobart while he was in Primary School. The poor little chap, it was his first time away from home, and he was very home-sick.
Geoff did the rounds in Burnie with the Shop-on-Wheels, and when he got home in the evening, we would spend a couple of hours restocking it ready for the next day. Around Christmas time it would get very busy, and Geoff wouldn’t get home until 9 or 10 PM. This made it rather late by the time we had re-stocked.
I completed High School and was offered an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic at the Australian Pulp and Paper Mills (APPM), the largest employer on the North West Coast. I knew absolutely nothing about motor mechanics when I started. I worked in the Tractor Shop, with about a dozen others, overhauling Caterpillar ‘dozers, graders, winches, dump trucks and fork-lift trucks. It was big, dirty, heavy work, but really very interesting. I travelled to and from work on the steam train until that stopped running, and earned six pounds four shillings and six pence per week ($12.45). I attended night classes at the Burnie Technical College, and was awarded the Repco Award as the State’s top apprentice motor mechanic in my final year. I then went on to Devonport Technical College to complete a Diesel Mechanics course. In my final year of apprenticeship, I was moved around the different sections of the mill to broaden my experience. This was partially in recognition for having won the Repco Award, and included time in the Fitting and Machine Shop, the Welding Shop, the Boiler House, and the Saw Mill, each for three or four months. This really was a terrific experience, and stood me in good stead for what was to come later. It was a pity I didn’t realise it at the time.
Mum bought my first car for me – a 1948 Morris Ten for 75 pounds – in 1963 when I was 18. Freedom!! I could come and go independently, and was out and about all the time. Instead of “nursing” it along, I “pushed” it constantly, and hence it was often out of action for repairs. I was able to do the repairs my self, but it always took time and money to get the right parts. In 1965 I bought myself a 1963 Mini Minor. I saw it as a great boost to my image, and “hotted” it up with polished head and racing camshaft. It too suffered from frequent periods out of action due to being pushed too hard.
Jeanette Jones was my first proper girl-friend, which started in 1965 during the rugby season. She was a farmer’s daughter from Cuprona. We did lots of things together with John Kalbfell and Pauline Reece, and Bruce Edwards and Di Walker, especially weekend trips to Cradle Mountain, Coles Bay, and the West Coast.
Kingston
Mum sold up the shop and Post Office at Sulphur Creek to “Barney Rubble”, and moved to Kingston to be near her other Dutch friends in January 1967. She moved to 116 Blackman’s Bay Road. Henry and Rick then went to the Taroona High School. A few weeks after the move, there was a huge bush fire in Tasmania, which burnt out about one-third of the State, destroyed hundreds of houses, and killed 67 people. It was one of the worst Tasmanian bush fires on record, and the Kingborough area was severely affected. The radio news said that the Kingston/Blackman’s Bay residents had been evacuated to the safety of the beach. I left work as soon as I could, and drove down to Mum and the Boys to see if I could help out. Getting through was quite an adventure. They had all the roads blocked off, so I drove along behind a Fire Truck, and got through. Mum and the Boys were safe, but very anxious. Her mother and siblings had been killed in a peat fire in Holland, and I suspect this added to her trauma.
When Henry finished school, he also got an apprenticeship as a Diesel Fitter, with QBE in Hobart, and Rick got an apprenticeship as a Baker with Hartog in Kingston.
By the time Mum moved to Kingston, Froll and Geoff and their children had moved to Burnie, and so I moved in with them while I finished off my apprenticeship. I’d been called up for National Service in the very first intake in 1965, and had been deferred until I finished my apprenticeship, and was due to go in later in 1967.
National Service
I was called up for National Service in the very first ballot in 1965, but was deferred while I completed my apprenticeship. It was a wonderful exciting challenge to me, and I looked forward to going. I was eventually called up in the 10th intake, and reported to Anglesea Barracks on 4th October 1967 to begin my two years of service.
I spent 13 weeks at 2 RTB at Puckapunyal in Victoria for recruit training, then a further 13 weeks at the Armoured Corps Training Centre, also at Puckapunyal, for radio training and driver training in Armoured Personnel Carriers. I was then posted to A Squadron 3rd Cavalry Regiment at Holsworthy in NSW. From there I went to Vietnam for my final year of National Service.
It was a rude shock and a very tough time. I made some life-long mates, and grew up very quickly. Along with many other Nashos, I got a “Dear John” from Jeanette during Corps training, and was devastated.
My time in the Army was punctuated with many humorous incidents, and with some great mates. Piggy, Polky, Cal, Youngy, Howey and I formed our little group. Both Cal and Howey hit mines, and were evacuated back to Australia. Youngy hit a mine, and he and Blue Dewar were killed. Piggy, Polky and I got through more or less unscathed.
When we first arrived in Holsworthy, the Squadron Sergeant-Major took us outside under the shade of a big gum tree to conduct a training course on the 50 calibre machine gun. The SSM droned on as he pulled the gun apart and reassembled it. Piggy sat at the back of the group, lay down, and promptly fell asleep. When the SSM finished assembling the gun, he turned around and saw Piggy there sound asleep. “Are you paying attention, Trooper Chinnick,” he thundered. “Of course,” replied Piggy as he quickly sat up. “All right then, what’s the cyclic rate of fire of a 50 calibre machine gun?” he asked. “Don’t you know?” asked Piggy. “Of course I bloody well know,” said the SSM. “Then what the hell are you asking me for,” replied Piggy. The SSM was so taken aback, and we all laughed so much, that Piggy once again got out of trouble.
When we were discharged, we all went over to Perth to visit Cal, who was still in hospital. Howey drove down from Rockhampton, picked up Piggy in Canberra, and me in Melbourne. We then drove to Polky’s place in Curramulka in South Australia. Polky was in the middle of shearing, so we stayed a week or so, and then drove across the Nullarbor to Perth to visit our mate Cal. We spent a week or so in Perth, and then went our respective ways.
All in all, it was a life-changing surreal experience. I kept a diary while in National Service, which I’ve transcribed on to the computer, hence this truncated entry.
It must have been a difficult time for Mum, especially when Henry was called up in 1970, a year after I was discharged.
Henry was also assigned to Armoured Corps, and drove for one of my regular soldier mates – Terry Stidwell. During his tour of service, there was a change in Government, with Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister. He withdrew all Australian troops from Vietnam, so Henry had a trip to New Zealand instead for a joint ANZ exercise.
When I was discharged, I returned to APPM, where I had served my apprenticeship. But that didn’t last long at all – just a couple of weeks. I was far too restless. I got a construction job at the Acid Plant in Burnie with Hawker Siddley Brush. The task was to install a steam turbine, gearbox and alternator, and there was a gang of about a dozen workers. As usual on construction sites, most workers social mis-fits and heavy alcohol users.
Within a few weeks I had established my credibility, and was assigned responsibility for the line-up of the three components. The measurements were in 10 thousandths of an inch, and required an accuracy of one thousandths (about one-third of a hairs breadth).
To assist me with this task, I was assigned two medical students who were working during the University vacation. They talked me in to having a shot at University, as ex-National Servicemen were entitled to a year of full-time education as part of their rehabilitation program. I thought I would return to school and do my Matriculation, and then go on and do Engineering at University. I was sent to do some vocational aptitude tests, and was informed that while my abilities lay in the mechanical area, my interests were in Humanities, and was advised to do something in the Social Sciences. So I went to the Tasmanian University to do Philosophy and Psychology.
University
Wow! University was a real eye-opener. After the disciplined military life, where your energies are devoted to ducking and weaving to avoid things, University life had no boundaries, and was based on self-discipline. This took a bit of adjusting to.
In first year I took Philosophy, Psychology, Ancient Civilisations, and Political Science. I worked reasonably hard, but didn’t really expect to go on. University was only for bright kids. I sat the exams, and passed everything. I was flabbergasted. This meant that I was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship, and went on to second year. I was interested in the two philosophy units, as well as the two psychology units, and didn’t want to miss out on any of them, so I did the lot, which meant I did one-third extra. That year I got two credits, one distinction, and one high distinction, and went on to third year, doing philosophy and psychology, and the pre-honours courses for both subjects, with distinctions in all units. That meant I’d graduated.
I was offered a place in the honours courses, in either philosophy or psychology, and chose psychology, doing the research stream, and was awarded an upper second honours degree.
I then took a year off, and worked on the mining sites in WA for 6 months, and saved up enough to have a 6 month holiday in Europe.
I was employed on a research grant by the Australian Institute of Criminology to do an evaluation of the Tasmanian Work Order Scheme, and used the same research for my Master’s Degree. I was based in the Probation and Parole division of the Attorney-General’s Department, and was also a resident tutor at Jane Franklin Hall, a University College. I also did a couple of Law subjects – Criminology, and Jurisprudence, while doing my Master’s.
Wow! What a life. Migrant kid, school drop-out, apprenticeship in which I’d topped the state, national service including a year of active service in Vietnam, now a university graduate and post graduate, and all before I was 30 years of age. Who ever would have thought it.
Victoria
I married Deirdre Croft in Perth on 22nd May 1976, and we drove across the Nullarbor to start our married life in Melbourne. Deirdre was a journalist with the ABC in Perth and was transferred to Melbourne, and I had been offered a research officer position in the Victorian Welfare Department. We thought we would try life in the “Big Smoke” for a couple of years before going back to one or other of our home states.
We lived in a flat in Packington Street, Kew, and after a year or so, Deirdre’s sister Frith and her husband Brian also came to Melbourne. Life was good. Deirdre left the ABC and also came to the Welfare Department as a publications and publicity officer, and then went to become the media officer for the Victorian Attorney-General, Haddon Storey. I was promoted and became an Assistant Director – Strategic Services, when the Office of Corrections was hived off from the Welfare Department.
That was an exhilarating couple of years for me. I was responsible for the Building Development Unit, and the Policy and Planning Unit, with about 40 staff. All but one Victorian prisons had been built in the 19th Century, and I was given a capital works budget of $27m for the first year of a $150m total prison upgrade. I tried to design some humanity in the system, by having maximum perimeter security and breaking down internal barriers between the crims and the screws, within a four-stage progressive system. Each progressive stage had to be “earned” by good behaviour, and each stage had greater levels of self determination.
One of my staff was Jim Armstrong, a prison governor who had been held hostage in H Division Pentridge during a prison riot. His nerves were shot, and he was my security specialist. He was much older than me, and he took me under his wing and taught me just about all the useful practical things I know about prison operations. I admired and respected him, and he reciprocated by passing on his wisdom. He had a profound effect on me in the two years we worked together.
I inherited the construction of the new Melbourne Remand Centre, a 3-year $30m project, which was running on time and on budget. Norm Gallagher, the boss of the Builders Labourers Federation was jailed, and the MRC was targeted for industrial disruption. Within four months the project was 50% over budget and 50% behind schedule, due to disrupted concrete pours. It was a very difficult time.
Prison Governors could spend a maximum of $5k for urgent security or safety work without HO approval. Castlemaine prison was one of the first scheduled to close, and I was keeping a tight rein on any unnecessary expenditure there. On a visit there with Jim, I discovered that the Prison Governor was replacing a 2 km stretch of water pipe, a short length at a time at a cost of $4,950, and calling it replacement of fire fighting equipment, to avoid HO scrutiny. You’ve got to watch them.
Ararat Prison had no hot water, yet the boiler was running constantly. I was advised to replace the boiler at $150k. The new boiler made no difference. It was then discovered that the crims had fixed the leaking taps by reaming out the seats. To fix this problem, the taps, which were grouted in to the walls, would have to be replaced. As a short-cut solution, the taps were blocked off, and a stop-tap fitted in the nozzle. This meant that the hot water pipe was directly connected to the cold wate