The Great Flood Of 1952

Chapter One. – The flood.

         It was four thirty on a hot December morning when she emerged tiny, pink and quiet. She just blinked at the delivery room light and began to suck her fist. She was number four, very small and a bit early.

Her mother was thirty years old… a product of the Great War and the Great Depression. She married a soldier during the Second World War, who after five long, wicked years, had returned to take on life as a struggling dairy farmer.

She wasn’t a sickly baby, not really, but she did fail to thrive and barely gained any weight in the first three months. To see a doctor her mother would have to travel into town on the cream lorry. It was an arduous journey that would take her around all the farms in the district while the truck driver loaded their cans of cream onto the back of the lumbering vehicle to take them to market.

After many hours they would arrive at the co-op. She would then have to walk several miles into the town and sit and wait along with dozens of others to see the only doctor.

Finally, that evening she would catch the mail truck home, reversing the morning’s proceedings. Instead of picking up cans of cream, the driver would deliver parcels, mail and grocery orders. To take a tiny infant on such a long journey was a last resort, so it was decided to ‘wait and see how she goes’.

The answer to that came in March along with the monsoon. The ‘big wet’ had set in and the river and creeks quickly swelled and flooded, cutting off roads and washing away bridges.

It was nine o’clock at night. The tiny infant was listless and hot. The mother reluctantly handed the precious bundle to her husband and watched as he stuffed her inside his oilskin coat. She stood wringing her hands as he mounted the old stock horse and bent into the wind-driven rain and rode off into the night.

She could only imagine him holding the reins in one hand and supporting the little bundle inside his coat with the other, as the horse waded chest deep through the raging water. She prayed that he would reach the high ground before it rose too much for the loyal old creature.

There was no way for her to know if he made it to the neighbours’ house and borrowed their utility. There was no way for her to know if he was able to winch himself over the raging river in the ‘flying fox’, after leaving the vehicle on high ground. There was no way for her to know if he then could make the ten-mile walk to the next farm and ask for help. She just had to keep the faith that she would see both of them again.

While she sat and prayed by the fire listening to the rain and wind howling around the eaves and the incessant bang-bang–banging of the loose iron on the roof, he did reach the neighbours farm. While she comforted her other restless children, the two farmers drove to the rail siding.  In the darkness the weary father handed his tiny bundle to a stranger and begged him to take care of her.

As she lay down next to her other children and fell into a restless sleep, he stood in the relentless rain and watched the rail workers pump hard on the trolley as they took his little girl off into the darkness.

As he turned to his neighbour he dared not wonder if they would get through. Instead he listened to him tell how the river had risen higher than ever before and how earlier that day he had helped evacuate families who lived further down the valley. He relived the feelings of relief he had felt when his neighbour had taken him in out of the storm and told him about the trolley and the railway workers at the siding. He remembered how hope had renewed when he realised that they were still waiting there and could help.

The two farmers spent the rest of the night in the cabin of the utility. About four o’clock the wind dropped and an hour later a grey dawn revealed the extent of the disaster. Below them, where there should have been a green valley with a small river meandering its peaceful way, sprawled a vast brown sea. They could hear the roar of the water as it gouged its way across the vulnerable landscape. As he stood in awe he was thankful that his house was perched high on the side of the foothills.

It was two days before he rode back into the house yard, the old stockhorse covered from head to tail with mud. It was three weeks before they heard that they could get through.

The mother took the cream lorry ride into town the first opportunity. Her husband and other children waited, trying to occupy themselves until the mail truck rumbled down the muddy road. They all watched as she climbed slowly out of the cabin, her arms empty… then they all leapt with joy as the driver handed her a pink bundle and several brown envelopes!!!



By Valmai Holm