HERE'S TO THE BRAVE OLD PIONEERS

On Easter Saturday I decided to re-acquaint myself with the Avon valley pioneer towns of Toodyay and York.The latter was the first inland town in WA, established in 1830 and Toodyay in its original incarnation was known as Newcastle but had to have a name change because its mail kept going to Newcastle NSW by mistake.

This tree in Toodyay was over 370 years old

Toodyay was for a time the home of Moondyne Joe a famous larrikin horse thief who won his freedom fom imprisonment by escaping from what was believed to be an escape proof lock up.He appeared to be WA's answer to Ned Kelley. He is immortalised for Children in Randolph Stow's delight spoof called Midnite

A Toodyay hotel

On the way between the towns I took a small, flood prone side road and chanced upon evidence of the early settlers in the graveyard of a small Anglican church, alone in the bush, near the river.

Despite it's isolation, the church had many modern and international connections-there were memorials to the memory of a second world war commando who perished fighting the Japaneses on the island of Timor and a high ranking officer in the Girl Guide movement of Australia.

Even more fascinating and poignant were the inscriptions on the gravestones in the nearby cemetery.

LIEUT.FREDERICK SLADE R.N.BORN-ASTON-UP-THORPE ENGLAND 1787 AND HIS WIFE JANE FROM SCOTLAND

He was born two years before the French Revolution and as his naval career would have had to begin with his enlisting on a man-of-war as a young midshipman, he was likely to have seen action with the Royal Navy,under the command of Admiral Horatio Nelson, against Napoleon's maritime defences.He died in 1849 when Europe,once more,was in turmoil with violent revolutionary uprisings in several countries-but not in Britain, thanks to the service of men like Slade and developing parliamentary democracy.(Better watch it-I have been told this blog is a bit softer in tone than my previous one with all its martial and gory accounts of European history and here in a lonely and quiet Avon valley church yard I have left my mind's gate open and allowed the dogs of war to sneak in.)Such a comparatively quiet and peaceful spot to have ended his days. Both he and his wife died at the same age of 62.

His duty done

On another headstone, as well as recording the death of a loved husband,tribute was paid also to their dear son who had died in France in 1917-"His duty Done" Scratch a corner of Australia and up pops an ANZAC.

AUSTRALIAN MEMORIAL TO AN ANZAC ACT OF COURAGE (COBBERS) AT FROMELLES

I noticed in the Australian the other day that there was an expectation of finding a previously undetected mass grave of Australian troops at Fromelles in France, the first action involving Anzac troops newly arrived from Gallipoli,which could identify many whose only previous memorial was a stone saying-a "soldier known to God" All these cemetery headstones commemorated Wilkerson family members.


This otherwise plain headstone stated that Jane Elizabeth Wilkerson "Departed this life in Christian confidence." A nice way to go.


Abandoned pioneer homestead.

York is charming and like Fremantle demonstrated how towns that evolved developed a lived in atmosphere that Perth has singularly failed to achieve.Now the planners aim to make it like Dohar or other of those Middle Eastern "carpet-bagger" cities.

A YORK WATERING HOLE.

POLICE TROOPERS HOUSE, YORK.

MOTOR MUSEUM,YORK.



THE MINSTER IN ANOTHER YORK
A picture taken in the other, somewhat older York, taken on my Motor home tour of England Scotland and Wales in December, 2007