The Early Years
at Wesley Dale
Tasmania Australia
Circa 1922 to 1937
Told by Hilton Stott
Written by Helen Acott
This is the house we lived in at Wesley Dale showing the restored Mountain Villa in the background
STOTT Coat of Arms Dallas's Family Tree STOTT Photo Album
STOTTs Tasmanian Tiger Sergeant Thomas Stott - ANZAC Digger
My life began at Chudleigh Tasmania, not far from the estate of Wesley Dale, where I lived, along with my brother, Keith and five sisters, Marie, Eileen, Millie, Mavis, Stella and June, where I spent the first fifteen years of my life. What a paradise it was, 5 thousand acres to run around on, among cattle and sheep, and hundreds of small birds and animals, and fish which we used to catch mostly by hand, to keep as pets or eat. Some of these years were during the Great Depression.
Our father, Ron Stott, was Head Ploughman at Wesley Dale for many years until his knees gave out, so we then went to Smithton, milking cows. We hated leaving the place.
Wesley Dale was owned by the Reed family. The Henry Reed that I knew inherited the estate from his father, Henry Reed, who came from Yorkshire in England. The first Mr Reed was apprenticed to a merchant at the port of Hull in England. He became involved in shipping and emigrated to Van Dieman's Land in 1823, where he became a prominent businessman, merchant, shipowner, land holder and developer, establisher of many stately homes in England and Tasmania, provider of land for numerous churches, and a dedicated evangelist and preacher.
The second Mr Reed used to go back to England every year from his home in Launceston called Mount Pleasant. He donated the land where the laboratories stand now. For that purpose, Mr Reed used to come to Wesley Dale where he had a Villa with 36 rooms, a verandah around 90 degrees of the building, and there are 11 big ornate chimneys all surrounded by gables. It is a heavily gabled brick and wood mansion.
The Restored Villa as it is Today
The Villa is called Mountain Villa and was the Reed’s summer home. Our home was about 100 metres from the Villa which was the jewel in the crown for us kids to play around. It was empty most of the time.
The Villa was built and completed about 1874/75. There were underground water tanks at the Villa which were pumped up by a hand pump. There was also a pipe leading from a spring about a mile away up on Wiggins Hill.
My brother Keith and I at about 7 or 8 years old were invited into the Villa to play with a little boy our own age. It was in the dining room which was large enough to accommodate about 200 people. Anyhow, this little boy that we played with had a train set. Wind-up trains, of course, covered the floor, so no-one can imagine how much fun we had.
The Villa was surrounded by Conifers and Oak Trees. Some of the trees were that thick, that us kids could climb to the top, let go and fall right down to the bottom, amid a few scratches and bruises.
There was also a cellar under the verandah which was a bit scary. We would come out quicker than we went in.
The Church at Wesley Dale
There was a full sized tennis court at the Villa, there was also a church on Wesley Dale that we used to frequent. The floor boards had been taken up and put in the house that we lived in. Plaster was hanging down from the ceiling. Many times I opened the door and walked into the church and every time it was scary but I kept doing it.
There were many English type trees in the whole area where the houses are, and I am sure we climbed them all many times. There were mint bushes and water cress along the streams or creeks, that ran past our place.
The reason we were able to catch the birds and animals by hand was because we grew up with them, and studied their natural habitats. Even though I used to catch fish on a hook and line in the streams that ran through the property, sometimes, I, as a seven or eight year old and my little six year old sister, Mavis, would go catching fish with bare hands. I would get into the stream with water up to my knees and waist, and feel underneath of the bank where the fish would be sheltering during the day, fish always face up stream while hiding under the bank, so I would put my hand under the bank and feel for the fish’s tail waving from side to side. I would very gently run my hand up the fish’s body until I could feel the gills opening and closing.
When the gills opened, I would jam my thumb into one side and my fingers in the other very quickly, then grab hold of the fish with my other hand. There would be a lot of splashing and wrestling going on, but when I got the upper hand, I would throw the fish up onto the bank where my little six-year-old sister was waiting with a lump of wood. She would donk it on the head to stop it from jumping around and perhaps getting back into the stream. When we had about ten or so fish, we would thread them on a long pole, with one end of the pole on my shoulder, the other end on my sister’s shoulder, and then we would head home.
There was a lot of quail on Wesley Dale and they would be in groups of about 10 or a dozen. Quail are a ground bird and don’t go in trees. When they were roused, they would not fly very far. A few hundred yards mostly. Us kids soon found out that if we could get quick enough to where they landed we could catch them because as soon as they landed, they would bury their heads in the grass and we could just pick them up like picking up a stone, but we had to be quick.
I used to have a Hoot Owl for a pet. I could catch them by climbing into thick trees and grab them from behind. They would not play up or peck me when I grabbed them. I used to keep it in a shed near our house and feed it with mice and rats, which I used to catch in traps. My brother, Keith and I could catch native hens. They would head for a river and dive under. Our dogs would jump in after them. The hens would have to come up every now and again for air, that’s when the dogs would see them. We could see what direction the birds were swimming while under water because they left a row of bubbles on the surface of the water, so when the hens came close to the river bank and came up for air, we could grab them.
My brother and I used to go catching rabbits when we were not at school. Sometimes we would go together and sometimes we would go in different directions. We both had a dog each and a ferret with nets to catch the rabbits when they came roaring out of the burrows. Sometimes there were more holes than we had nets for, so what we would do was squat down over the top of the hole where the rabbit could not see us. There would be a loud rumbling with the rabbit coming out at full speed. When we thought it was time to grab it, we would grab the rabbit in both hands.
Big buck rabbits are strong and agile but once we got our hands on them we would never let go. Even though we got deep scratches up our arms and hands. During the day rabbits liked to lay out in long grass. We called them Squats. They thought you could not see them, so if we walked close by and saw a rabbit laying there we would dive at it like cricketers diving at the ball these days, and we always caught our rabbit. The cricketers did not always get their ball.
My dog’s name was Poy. He was a half-breed spaniel, and sheep dog. He was fast enough to run a rabbit down. When he caught the rabbit he would always bring it back to me alive and unharmed.
Sometimes on Sundays the men from around the district would bring their grey hounds to Wesley Dale to go hunting. One Sunday I went with the men and took my dog, Poy. My father had a greyhound too, and so we were all ready. It did not take long to find a hare. The hare would go through the fence, and the grey hounds would go over it, my dog went through it. The hare ran across a big field, and the grey hounds soon caught up, but a hare can turn on a dime or sixpence, which is what this hare did. After doing this several times, my dog, which was a lot slower than the other dogs, and was used to chasing hares and rabbits, moved over to where he thought the hare would turn this time. Sure enough, the hare turned in that direction, right into the path of Poy, who made no mistake catching the hare. Poy brought his catch straight over to me, it was my hare, so I took it home.
Also on Wesley Dale there were orchards such as apple trees, cherries, gooseberries, plums and four beautiful chestnut trees. When the chestnut trees were ripe they would fall on the ground. That’s when we would gather them up and take them home and throw them in the hot oven. When they started going bang-bang, we knew they were cooked, so we would rake them out onto the floor and eat them.
Hawthorn trees were planted on Wesley Dale. They divided a lot of paddocks and there were some around our house. The Hawthorn trees were deciduous in winter months, but come spring, they would burst into flower beautiful weeping type when the flowers fell. Red berries grew and this brought hundreds of rosella parrots.
We used to have ducks and fowls and on Saturdays I would walk the long distance to Chudleigh to sell the eggs for my mother. We used to buy wheat bags to feed the ducks and hens, so when the wheat bag was empty, I would take that to the shop at Chudleigh and sell it for 4 pence or a bit more than a 2 cent piece.
The shop was owned by a Mr Furmage from Deloraine, and was managed by Mr Jack Sheriff. On the way home one day I was getting over a wire fence beside the train lines. I lost my balance, fell over the top of the fence and landed on my shoulder on the other side. I knew I had a broken bone in my shoulder, so I hid the groceries under a log and walked home holding my bad arm with the other one. After crossing the two rivers and getting close to home, someone who saw me coming said “ There is something wrong with Hilton”, so my sister Mavis came to meet me and helped me get home. I had a broken collarbone. It was a few days before Christmas Day, so I spent Christmas in bed. But it was the best Christmas I’d had in the way of presents. They found the groceries ok too.
During the Great Depression years, men from Launceston were sent out to do work on the railway line and bridge. Over the line, not far from where we lived, us kids formed a friendship with them and they used to come to our place to get eggs and other food. We used to catch rabbits and give to them for food to take home to their families in Launceston.
While we were living at Wesley Dale, the 1929 great flood came. We were living up on a bank area and we could see a sheet of water from the railway line just below where the Wild Life animal park is now, down to Chudleigh and right back to the Great Western Tiers Mountain in the background. I can still see the Overseer riding his horse through the flood trying to move cattle around.
One of the highlights I had, while living at Wesley Dale was the times I met and talked to Mr Reed. I had been hunting rabbits and I had about 6 big buck rabbits hanging on a pole over my shoulder, when I came face to face with Mr Reed and the Overseer. Mr Reed said hello and I said hello back. He asked me where I got the rabbits. I told him, in Taylors paddock. He turned to the Overseer and said, “I thought you said there were no rabbits on Wesley Dale."
My eldest sister, Marie, worked for Mr Reed at his Mount Pleasant home in Launceston. She came home one day and brought some hooks and fishing line for me. When tea time the call went out to come and get it. Everyone came but Hilton, where is he. He probably has gone to set his fishing lines. It is now dark and an hour has passed. People were running up and down the creek. He must have fallen in they said. The neighbours were called and no-one had seen him, 2 hours have passed and someone said they would have a look in his bedroom. The others said no he wouldn't be there, he took his fishing gear. I will look anyhow they said. Hey, here he is and he's got his fishing gear beside him. I had come home from school that day with a bad headache. I felt too sick to go and set my fishing lines and went to bed with the idea of setting my lines when I felt better, but I fell asleep.
Us kids had no fear of snakes or spiders. One day we saw a snake crawl into a heap of grass. We got down on our hands and knees and tore the grass to pieces looking for the snake but could not find it anywhere. The snake was more scared of us than we were of it.
There were lots of bandicoots where we lived. They would make their nests out on the middle of the big open fields. They would scratch a hole in the shape of a bowl and fill it with dead grass level with the top of the ground. We could never find the nest ourselves, it was too well hidden, our dogs could not see it but they could find it by following the scent of the bandicoot. When they found it they would rise up on their hind legs and pounce down on it with their front paws. The bandicoot would run out, but the dogs would only play with it.
Several times a year it would snow where we lived, we used to run around in the snow with no boots on, so we got chillblains, but while the snow was there we made big snow men which lasted for days after the snow on the ground had melted. They could be seen for a long distance and people used to wonder what ever it was.
One day my dog was chasing a hare and it was an extra hot day. There was just one tree in the middle of the field. The hare ran under the tree and kept on going. My dog Poy ran under the tree and flopped down and stayed there. The only time my dog would not go hunting with me was if a female dog was on heat, often the neighbour's dog.
There was a lot of platypus, where we lived. They have poisonous spurs on their back legs to protect themselves with. One day I put my ferret in a hole, I thought was a rabbit burrow. Everything was quiet and after about 20 minutes the ferret came out looking pretty sick. It had been spurred both sides of the neck and died a few days later.
Work before Walk
It seems that I actually started my working life before I could walk. Even before I could remember, because I was told much later in life by my elder sisters that I used to go out to the wood heap by pushing or pulling myself along by my feet about 15 metres or so from the doorway into the house and select a log of wood that may father had cut up for fire wood. They said I would push the log of wood along with one foot and pull myself along with the other until I got the log inside by the fire place and do the same thing again and again. I knew nothing at all about it until I was told.
Pass Times
One of our great pass times was at shearing time when we would watch the sheep being shorn and the fleeces being baled to be sold. Us kids were asked to get up on top of the baling machine and jump up and down on the fleeces of wool to help pack it down so the men could get more wool in the bag. Sometimes when the men finished work for the day and went home, my brother Keith and I would smoke the cigarettes butts that the men had left on the window seal. One day it made me so sick with a bad headache and from then to this day (about 70 years later) I never smoked another cigarette.
Another thing we did was watching rams fight. They would square off facing each other, walk backwards about 15 metres, run full speed at each other, drop their heads and bang them together many times.
My brother Keith and I would go hare hunting sometimes. There were large areas of heath that had been brought out from England and planted there. One lot was a on a flat area, another about half a mile or a bit more than a kilometre away, we could always find a hare in one of those places, I had my dog Poy and Keith had his dog, Darky. I would to go one heath spot and Keith would go to the other, if my dog roused the hare first he would chase it so far and let it go because a hare could run much faster, the hare would head for the other heath which was up on a hill. When it got there, Keith's dog would chase it back. This went on until the hare could not run anymore. It would lay on the ground and we could walk up and pick it up. My brother and I used to sell our rabbit skins to the skin buyer and I could not believe how rich I was when I received my first 10/- note.
8 Years Old Axed Fish
One day I was walking up along one of the little rivers close to home with my father's axe over my shoulder, a big heavy axe it was, I can't remember what I was going to do with it. The river was in flood from heavy rain and there was a small ditch running into the river from the side that flood water built up, when I climbed over the fence beside the small ditch, I saw the water move, I knew it was a fish, it had seen me on top of the fence, so I stood over the small stream with the axe held high waiting for the fish. I saw it coming closer and closer and at when it seemed the right time I swung the axe, I could not believe it when I saw that I had cut the fishes head nearly off. I had used hoop iron to hit fish with as it cuts through the water like a knife before but it was the first time I had used an axe to catch a fish.
Lamb Season
Thousands of lambs were born each year. Us kids loved them and still do. Lambs had to have their tails cut off and the males had to have their tails and testicles removed. Cutting their tails off was quick and simple but cutting the testicles, that was something else. Us kids were allowed to watch the men do this bloody work. They would hold the testicles tight underneath, slit the skin holding the testicle in, put their mouth down and get hold of the testicle with their teeth, lift it up a bit, slice it off with the knife in their other hand and then spit the testicle on the ground. The man doing this had blood all over his mouth and face. There was a big heap of testicles and lamb tails on the ground but the testicles were soon cleaned up by the many black crows that lived there.
School Days
We started school when we turned 7 years old. I well remember my first day at school. My sister Millie took me that day. We had to walk about 4 miles. I had to sit in a desk between my sister and another girl. The desk was out on its own by the wall. A few hours later, I thought it was raining outside. I could hear the water coming from what seemed to be the down pipe off the roof. After a few minutes I could see what the water was because it was running out along the floor in front of the desk. The other girl I was sitting next to had been too scared to ask if she could go to the toilet.
We went to the Mole Creek School for about a year, then transferred to Chudleigh where it was a bit closer. My sister, Marie was one of my first school teachers. She was a monitor at Chudleigh school. We found learning to read and write very easy as our teachers would check on our work as we done it and correct any mistakes then and there.
There were three ways we could walk to school, a short cut down across the paddocks, down a railway line, or around the gravel road, going across the paddocks meant climbing over fences, all post and rail and crossing over two small rivers. The rivers had logs across them, we would run across them but we used to like walking up the rail line. The rail motor that travelled between Mole Creek, Chudleigh to Deloraine every day ran off the rails one day and crashed. It was thought that a stone too close to the rail caused the accident so the men who's job it was to maintain the railway line asked us kids to keep an eye open for any stones sticking up close to the rail and they would give us a ride on their little motor gangers trolley. Well, when we saw the men coming on their little trolley, on our way home from school, we would make sure they saw us picking up lots of stones and throwing them out of the way.
I had to milk a cow before I went to school, she gave enough milk to fill about two round plastic buckets full, the type we get today. Although the distance to school was about 3 miles I always was first there and in the winter time I had to light the fire in the open fireplace. Mr Adams, our teacher, had the sticks ready and he showed me how to crisscross the sticks so that the flames would come up through them. He would give me some pages out of an exercise book to light the fire which was blazing nicely when the rest of the kids came.
While going to Mole Creek school , my brother Keith and I would sometimes forget to put our boots on even on cold frosty mornings. One morning the head master called me over and sat me on his knee, felt my feet and said aren’t your feet cold. I said no, then he played the piggy game on my toes, this little piggy went to market and so on.
White Rabbit
While coming home from school one day I spotted a white rabbit going into a burrow, taking note where it was, I came back on the Saturday with my hoe to dig it out. I caught the white rabbit and took it home for a pet.
Cricket
My father was a very good cricketer. He played with one of the Mole Creek teams. We used to meet him as he was coming home, he made lots of 100's and took lots of wickets with his off spin breaks. One day when I met him, he said he got the hat trick, I said, where is the hat. When Test Cricket was being played in England, our father would take us to Chudleigh to listen to it over the only radio in the district. It was owned by Jack Sheriff who ran the general store. It was a 4 kilometre walk in pitch black dark. There was no electricity in the whole area. It was all kerosene lamps and candles. We had great pleasure in hearing Bradman make 334, a world record at that time. We also heard him make 304 and Stan McCabe make that great 232.
Provisions
During the Great Depression, we lived well on Wesley Dale. My father was head ploughman and used to get some money for that but all families used to get provisions free of charge which make up for work not paid for, in the way of flour, sugar, tea and meat. The men would kill a beast or some sheep and divide it up amongst the 4 or 5 families who lived and worked on Wesley Dale. When they slaughtered the animals, us little kids were allowed to watch and although it was gruesome, to us it was just another day.
Show I went to my first show at the age of about 8 at Chudleigh. My mother gave me a three pence piece to spend which was about 5 cents today. I had a look around to see what I could spend my money on and spotted a side show with a row of dolls. Tree shots for one doll and get a box of chocolates. I never had enough money, so I was given one shot, so, I had my one shot and knocked a doll over and got my box of chocolates.
Harvest
This was a thrilling time of the year for us kids, helping load the four wheel wagons being driven by horses with sheaves of hay, then riding on top to take it to the hay shed to be stacked away ready to cut into chaff which the horses were fed on. The steam driven engine and chaff cutter was brought on to Wesley Dale by its owner, the engine was set up some distance away with a long cross-over belt between the engine and chaff cutter, cutting the hay into chaff was a fascinating sight. With the noise and the dust and the men working hard, as the hay was brought down from the stack rats and mice were running every where. One day a rat ran up my shirt sleeve, I screamed and yelled until a man came and grabbed the rat through my shirt sleeve and crushed it.
At the age of about 12, I was helping with the harvest for a farmer where the Wild Life Park now is on the road to Mole Creek. I was burning little heaps of hay in paddock where the hay was cut, then at mid-day we went into lunch. Halfway through our lunch we heard a noise outside. We went out and found the barn on fire. There was a little calf in the barn and we could hear its terrible cry but could do nothing to help it as there was no water to put out the fire. I felt so terrible about it. I was very sad for a long time and can still hear the calf's cry today in my seventies.
Combat
I was walking home from Sunday School one day, up a railway line and it must have been springtime because the trees and shrubs were in flower. I pulled some petals off a broom tree and had come to a bridge. On a bank below the bridge stood a man and a lady and I knew both of them very well. I knew they were courting each other, so I thought I would marry them with my handful of flower petals so I threw the flowers down over them and the man who had a big long willow stick in his hand swung the stick and hit me around the butt.
So I bent down and picked up a stone from the railway line and held my hand up ready to throw it at him. He threatened me what he would do if I threw the stone but I threw the stone as hard as I could straight at him. He put his arm up to defend himself and the stone hit him on the elbow.
I took off flat out and jumped over a post and rail fence and ran across a paddock towards my home which was about a kilometre away. I was about 8 years old then and us kids could run like rabbits.
I looked back and the man had just got over the post and rail fence and then stopped. He had no hope of catching me but yelled out threatening advice. It was alright if we were hit by members of our own family which happened a lot when we got our hair cut, and a smack up the face did not hurt as much as the hair clippers did when they were pulled out before the hair was cut off.
When I would be walking across a wet floor, I would get a wet floor cloth slashed around my bare legs while my big sister Eileen was scrubbing the floor but for an outsider to assault us, well that was not on, we would fight back.
Medicines
We were given medicines as kids in the 1920's and 30's for cold and flue. It consisted of a spoon full of sugar with eucalyptus drops in it, Milk of Magnesia which we loved and for other complaints it was senor tea which was o.k. and castor oil which we hated.
First Aeroplane
We saw our first aeroplane while we were living at Wesley Dale in the 1930's. I remember exactly where I was that day, just below the big Villa. I heard an engine in the sky, looked up and there it was, a small plane flying from Chudleigh towards Mole Creek.
Caves
There are many caves in the Mole Creek area where we used to live apart from the well known Marracoopa and King Solomon caves. One cave now closed is Baldocks Cave. The guides to Baldocks Cave were Bert Martin and son Ernie, my wife, Thelma's father and brother. Thelma's mother, Mary Martin, used to serve hot scones, raspberry jam and whipped cream, tea and coffee for the tourists. Please have a look at Beth's webpage on Tasmanian Cave-Dwelling Spiders.
Ghost Games
While living at Wesley Dale, one of our games was outside at night time in the pitch black dark playing hide and seek. It is amazing at how well one can see in the dark after being in it for awhile. We were never scared of the dark, that is until this white ghost appeared from nowhere, with big black eyes. The ghost chased us around in the dark, while we were screaming then it exposed itself. Our mother was always up to something.
An Encounter with a Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine) Tasmanian Tiger More on Tasmanian Tigers
Our mother who lived in the Mole Creek area when she was young, had an encounter with a Tasmanian Tiger. It was in the Liena area and she was walking down a bush track. She felt she was being watched so she looked around and saw a tiger following her some distance back. She told us kids that if she walked the tiger would walk, and if she ran the tiger would run, and if she stopped the tiger would stop. But it never attempted to attack her. It was just curious. There were plenty around then. The Tasmanian Tiger is still here. We can’t see it, but it can see us. Some people have seen the tiger when they have been going about their daily duties. One is more likely to see a tiger when they are not looking for one. Tasmanian Tigers seem to know who is after them and who is not. They do not show themselves to people who are after them.
There is one thing above all else that can prove if a Tasmanian Tiger still exists or not and that is the local dog. A dog with its powerful smell can tell if a tiger is in the vicinity or has been there. When they smell a tiger, dogs act in a very strange way. They sense danger and will not go anywhere near an area if they think there is a tiger there. Dogs have been seen to act like that this very day .
A lot of people who have seen the Tasmanian Tiger say nothing about it for fear of being ridiculed because they always are. It has been likened to seeing an UFO. Although attitudes seemed to have changed over recent years. It seems people are only in it for the monetary value, being the first to find the tiger.
STOTT Coat of Arms STOTT Family Tree STOTT Photo Album
Sergeant Thomas Stott - ANZAC Digger