Walter Gard & Mary Ann Godfrey

Walter Gard as I remember Him
by Tom Wills

In the pockets were always his pocket knife, a piece of bullock hide and in later years a small bottle of brandy. The bottle was about 7cm long and 2.5cm thick. He had a medical problem which he called "palpitation" and the brandy was for medicinal purposes. The bullock hide had a slit in each end to allow a slip noose to be made. He would loose this around a bundle of sticks or other material that he wished to carry. The bullock hide was also used to threaten us boys. If we missed behaved he would suggest we should get a cut with the bullock hide, not that I can remember ever being hit with it.

The pocket knife was used for many things. Of an evening the family would sit around the fire place and Father would produce from his pocket an apple or two, out would come the pocket knife and he would peel the apples and throw the peel into the fireplace. He would use the knife to make a whistle from a willow stick about half an inch thick. He would cut a mouth piece in one end and then slide the bark off the remainder of the stick. The interior of the stick would be shortened and then reinserted into a bark shell, a good toy whistle. He would calve a bull roarer to be swung around the head to make a roaring sound. He would make a shanghai using the knife and many other toys to entertain.

When he arrived he built a small blacksmith shop and in this he made new equipment for the orchard and repaired the old equipment. He made a sledge, a two wheel cart and many other useful items. He owned a 16 gauge double barrel shot gun which was his pride and joy. He cared for it and cleaned and polished it often. In his younger days he had been a rifle shooter on the rifle ranges and had shot in competitions at swinging bottles and clay pigeons. He also had a cane fishing rod which could be assembled into various lengths and styles. With this went a 'level wind' chrome reel. Both of these were cared for with love and affection.

During the depression in the 1930's when Walter had no work in his blacksmith shop he made this plough as a demonstration of his skill as a blacksmith. He proudly told us that it was all fire welded, no oxy welding in those days. There are no hammer marks on the plough it was smoothed with light hammer strokes. I mounted it on the board to preserve it and it is treasured by my son, Craig.

I remember when he had an operatin on one eye for a cataract. On release from hospital we were walking down the street in Hobart and he was just so excited because he could read all the signs in front of the shops, he read each one out loud to me as we walked along. This operation also allowed him to start shooting again and he often had a shot at a rabbit or a bird.

When he lived with joice and Noel at Wattle Grove and later with Gladys at Margate he had a wooden dinghy, about 3.2 metres long. He would row this around while he had a spinner over the back of the boat fishing for salmon. At Margate he only seemed to catch small cod.

At Cygnet and at Margate he took great pride in his vegetable garden. Two things he always planted were climbing peas and sun flowers. The sun flowers were allowed to bloom and then the seed heads were used as feed for the poultry and some were saved as seed for the next year's crop.

Looking through old copies of the Hobart Mercury Newspaper I noticed the following in the copy dated Saturday 12 July 1884 page 1. A lad, named Walter Gard, 11 years of age, I was accidentally shot in the left hand by his father whilst out coursing near Brighton on the 2nd inst., and was seriously injured. This brought back memories as I had heard this story. Firstly coursing is hunting. Walter was carrying a stick and when a rabbit jumped up and ran Walter drew back his arm to throw the stick at the rabbit. This brought his arm in-front of his fathers gun as it fired. At an old age he still carried several shot pellets in his left hand.