Competition

Highly Commended

Rust & Rivets
by Graeme Johnson
West Ryde, NSW

(Dedicated to the working men of Cockatoo Island & inspired by the recollections of Jim Walker-Engineering Patternmaker Cockatoo Island 1948-58 & my own visit to the site in 2005 for The Great Escape Music Festival )

I saw the old man stumble as he tripped upon the ground.
He made a decent thud of it. A mournful sort of sound.
A sight well dressed with hat and tie and trousers checked with tweed
But like all men caught in a fall he fell with decent speed
I think 'twould be a man of age, some four score years or more.
ran to offer help at once so shocked with what I saw.

"God bless you son," he blurted out as sweat formed on his brow.
"It's not the sort of help that one expects to get much now."
I'd seen him trundle up the path all broken up and rough.
With walking stick and gammy leg, by Christ he did it tough.
But there was passion in his eyes and purpose in his heart.
He had a quest to now fulfill that long ago did start.

I'd noticed him among the crowd as I had wandered 'round.
The Carnival was in full swing and it was pumping sound.
An island in the harbour that was christened 'Cockatoo'. *                               1
Just eight miles west of Sydney Heads now occupied my view.
They called the show 'The Great Escape'. An Easter music test.*                      2
One man amongst the thousands that stood out may I suggest.

Amongst the party revellers there were a few like him.
He straightened up and shook my hand and said his name was Jim.
The island had been closed to public use for ninety years.
The dirt he'd scraped upon his cheek now ran with watered tears.
"It used to be my island son in Nineteen Forty Eight.
Indentured here I learnt my trade for 5 years bloomin' straight."

His wizened wrist now wore a band all fluoro and bright green.
He tugged at it and said it was the strangest thing he'd seen
wore one too, though my intent to his was clearly plain.
He sighed, "I've waited fifty years to walk this earth again,
I'm feeling rather shaky. Can you help an old boy sit?"
All men they say are made of dust, but Jim was made of grit.

I'd like to tell my story son to some young pup like you
How 'bout we hit the makeshift bar and share a beer or two?"
And truth be told I'd been dumbstruck since I had hit the shore.
A setting surely past its prime that held me in its awe.
A sandstone knoll of Hawkesbury stone within Port Jackson's Bay.
A home to heavy industry in ruins on display.

I knew in part its history since Eighteen Thirty Nine.
Three hundred convict prisoners from Norfolk to confine,
were sent to 'Biloela's' shores as it was known by name,*                               3
to carve the sunken silos that in life would be their fame.*                               4
And dug by hand the storehouse sank two fathoms 'neath the stone,
to store the grain to feed the fledgling colony so grown.

And quarried blocks hewn from the cliffs still arc around the Quay.
And Sydney's Alcatraz became a girl's reformatory.
Where 'Prison Hulks' for wayward youths sat moored beside its rim.*              5
And petty crims and prostitutes lived out their lives so grim.
The docks so built that saw the birth of shipbuilding on site,
saw ghosts of penal servitude consigned to dead of night.

I must admit I'd drifted some along the line of time
In lilting tones Jim's voice returned to illustrate my rhyme.
"A decade long I plied my trade upon the factory floor.
An Engineering Patternmaker was the job I bore.
And not one time in ten long years was I allowed up here.
Those bloody flamin' bureaucrats they had no right to sneer.

"And segregate the workers by their collars white or blue.
vowed one day I'd see the world from this grand avenue.
And stand beneath the Moreton Bays and Black Leaved Peppertrees,
and feel my craggy face caressed by swirling harbour breeze.
And gaze down at the ferry wharves of Balmain, Dulwich Hill.
To marvel at the jumble of the suburbs as they spill.

"In years gone by I took the 'Kamarooka' to the isle,
and landed at the 'Coaling Wharf' with Gladstone bag and smile.
To stroll down to the guardhouse where I'd catch the Watchman's eye.
Where tradesmen in their thousands grabbed their 'chit' and waved a Hi!'*    6
From timber boxes row on row your numbered token drew,
and mine, One thousand, One-O-Five, was one that well I knew.

"And blueprints from the draughtsman would arrive to start the day.
Those seven pounds I earned with sweat to claim my weekly pay.
A chargehand then ran the shop with iron fist and pride.
With detail and precision measured by the rule and slide.
I'd carve the Sugar Pine and Redwood slow with chiseled hand,
and marvel at the skill that God had put at my command,

"And then into the Foundry's bowels the finished pattern went.
Where 'moulding boxes' 'rammed the sand' till it set like cement.
And Gantry cranes high in the loft swung ladles molten hot,
to pour the 'SG' iron at the chosen casting spot.*                                             7
Where smoke and steam and expelled gas did sizzle from the seams,
and singed the smoky air with fire as 'spillings' ran like streams."*                   8

By now we'd walked his story down onto the apron's bed,*                             9
where monumental factories and shipbuilding were wed.
And stood beneath the piers of Kembla steel's hallowed halls,
and swore reverberations bore the voice of echoed calls.
And though the faded signs forewarned there was 'No Thoroughfare'
Some ghostly forms in overalls had beckoned me I swear.

Here pillars rose like monoliths a hundred feet or more.
Supporting cross-braced stanchions and the burden that they bore.
In rows and rows like dominoes of spinal columns stacked.
Where rust and rivets oxidized had split apart and cracked.
A vast engulfing area of sixty thousand feet,
clad in asbestos memories of flaking fibro sheet.

And old machines of bygone age now stand in idle stance,
and wait there for the thrall of electricity's advance.
The Bending Press and Rotor Lathe and Plate Rolls double drilled
In silence now await return of owners highly skilled.
Through Turbine Halls and Boiler Rooms the lockers open wide,
invite new groups of 'Vickers' men in whom they can confide.*                       10

And now upon the southern shore beside the Fitzroy Dock,
the 'caisson rollers' trap the harbour's waters like a loch.*                             11
And moored upon a pontoon pad, the 'Titan' floating crane.
Two hundred feet of rigid wire and pulley blocks remain.
'Twas here the Allied shipping came for repairs in the war,
as I Japs' closed on the mainland with the fall of Singapore.

"So there you have it," Jim replied. "I think you've heard my tale.
My memory's not what it was. It's sad it has to fail.
So leave me now young friend, I'd like to sit awhile and think,
and revel in the memories as I have one last drink.
know I'm just a relic now, as I have grown quite old.
But Cockatoo is 'in my blood', and now my story's told."

Glossary

1. Cockatoo Island- A sandstone knoll (island) of 17.9 hectares located 8 miles west of Sydney Heads at the junction of the Parramatta & Lane Cove Rivers. Cockatoo Island is 'unincorporated' meaning it does not fall under the jurisdiction of any local Government area.
2. Great Escape- Over the Easter long-weekend in 2005; Cockatoo Island was opened to the public for the first time in 166 years for the Great Escape Music Festival. It is estimated that over 10,000 people attended this unique event.
3. Biloela- Aboriginal word for a cockatoo.
4. Sunken silos- As well as the construction of the prison & barracks (convict built) that occurred on the island between 1839-1850 the convicts carved (by hand) a series of sunken silos some 20 feet deep that became the repository for the colony's grain supplies. Enough wheat could be stored to supply the entire Sydney colony for 2 years. These are the only group of rock cut silos in the country
5. Prison Hulks/Girls Reformatory- In 1870 the island ceased to be used as a goal and was used for a variety of different purposes including an "Industrial School for Girls". This was a thinly veiled attempt to disguise the fact that it was nothing other than a girl's reformatory. During this time the Prison Hulks 'Vernon' & the 'Sobroan' were anchored off the island as a home for orphaned/wayward boys & juvenile delinquents. An interesting mix.
6. Chit-For workers to be permitted to enter the islands precincts to attend their places of work they were allocated a brass chit or token approx 1 inch in diameter on which was stamped their ID number.
7. SG Iron- A special grade of cast iron.
8. Spillings- Any metal, ferrous or non-ferrous that spilt onto the factory floor from the casting moulds.
9. Apron- Cockatoo Island originally only had a land mass of 12.9 hectares. To accommodate the heavy industry that sprang up on the island huge sections of the sloping sandstone knoll were quarried and removed to form the flat apron beds on the north, east & southern sides of the island.
10. Vickers Men- In 1945 at the conclusion of the Second World War the Cockatoo Island Docks & Engineering Co became part of the worldwide Vickers group.
11. Caisson rollers- A boat like structure used as a gate for a dock. These were installed on the Sutherland & Fitzroy docks so as the harbour water could be pumped out and the ships worked on in 'dry-dock' conditions.