Sport

Football, cricket, tennis and golf.

Dad was a star footballer before WWII, for both Mundulla and Bordertown. He was always keen to teach us kids, although he had bad ankles and every now and then sprained one again (late in life he had them fused). We played at Carew, but I was never much good, couldn’t learn to kick properly (drop kick, torpedo punt, stab kick – no drop punts back then).

I used to play tennis a bit down at Hunts on the corner of the road up to the school, where the Wampoony courts were (tennis for the Church of Christ folks). I think I wasn’t too bad at it, because they wanted me to play in the juniors – but I had to make a decision and I chose cricket. Up to that time (about age 10 probably) I thought I could play both Davis Cup and Test cricket for Australia. The Davis Cup was a big deal then, with the deciding round often at Kooyong or White City (Sydney), Australia v USA. Hoad, Rosewall, Trabert, Seixas etc. Sometime around the mid 1950s these guys started to turn pro, so couldn’t play for Australia or the US any more. Then came Emerson and Laver. Mum was a good tennis player, and tennis parties were important in the social scene. I think the Allans (last house before the Victorian border – now a B&B) had a court, certainly the Harveys did (not sure where their place was).

Dad built us a cricket pitch at Carew, in the paddock right outside the front fence of the house. It was a concrete pitch, with double height wire netting and treated pine posts. It was a fantastic thing for us to have, like real nets so you could bat and bowl normally without breaking windows or having to chase the ball all over the place (I did once put a slog-sweep through the living room window when we played on the concrete path outside the kitchen/laundry/bathroom area). We had all the gear (no helmets though, they didn’t exist for cricket then) and must have spent days and days playing there. I remember once Peter and I were racing out past the laundry towards the front gate when we found ourselves running over a large brown snake coiled up on the path below the kitchen window. No damage done but a bit of a fright. Mum hated snakes, although Dad didn’t mind having them around the hay shed and chaff shed to keep the mice down. That one was living under the laundry I think, it somehow found a way into a gap in the concrete floor. Anyway Dad had a 12 gauge shotgun, waited on the front lawn for the snake to appear one day, and shot it.

Mum and Dad played golf, Mum more so. She was good at that too, going all over the place playing in bowls etc (like they still do!). When I was small the course in Bordertown had 9 holes with sand scrapes, but somewhere back then they built a new 18 hole course with watered greens. Big time, the Hinge uncles were well involved in that I think. We the kids used to whack balls around the paddock near the house, and there was a scottie dog called George that came with Carew, who used to find the balls for us in the grass.

Grandpa played bowls, Grandma played croquet, both regularly.