Amy Coffin

Portrait of Amy Coffin by Jetsonorama: I was born in Redcliffe, well, that’s what they used to call it then. My grandad started the station there and he died, poor old fella. I was born in the cart shed, out on the station, these days BHP has got a canteen there. I left when I was three years old. I’m eighty eight now. We went to Western Shaw, prospecting around with a horse and cart, rolling around like gypsies. I was moving around all the time, until the first job I had when I was on the station with my aunty, they would give me shoes, or a hat. The only place I got a pay was for ten shillings, then I got a raise, it was for around two pounds. I used to get up about three o’clock in the morning, cooking for about forty people, especially at mustering time. I used to go get the bread, mix it up, go and do the washing, cook breakfast. Dad used to shoot all night, my brother and I used to get up, skin all the ‘roos and hang them. I don’t know how much we would get; I never used to handle money. We used to get sheep meat on the station, we had to kill the sheep to get the dripping. At Bonney Downs we would make a roast or a stew, lamb fry. They used to kill a bullock, I would dress that on my own, hang it up there to sit, go out mustering, cut it all up. That’s all they had. They used to have a lot of sugar, go in with a knife, chop it up. When we used to run out of sugar, Aunty Maggie used to jump through the window! Oh, we did a lot of funny things. Sometimes the manager’s wife was around, used to have fun trying to dodge her. White flour bags, hessian, we used to boil them and I’d sew them with my hands, sew clothes, my dress. I used to knit too. But there were no knitting needles during the war. I used to make my own knitting needles from fencing wire.