I recently gave a talk to the Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society on the second part of my Colourful Characters of Campbelltown presentation. I have chosen three characters for this post who you can read about below.
Characters. Campbelltown sure has had its fair share over
the years. Enough for me to give a two- part presentation on them and I
probably could have given at least one more. Every town has had them, but
Campbelltown seemed to attract them more than most. They all live fondly in our
hearts and memories and often bring a smile to our face when remembering them.
Some made significant contributions to the town and some lead quieter lives.
Some had only bits that I can mention so I haven’t included
them in the list. Like Arthur Luff of Allman Street that Eddie McBarron so
wonderfully described in his valuable and entertaining Dumaresq Street book.
Arthur, he described, walked with a limp and a stick, and characteristically
sat on the verandah smoking incessantly his bent-stemmed pipe. The puffs were
interspersed with mighty spits which carried from verandah to road. Another
local told me about James Brooker who would drive his milk cart down steep
Broughton Street to the Milk Depot near the railway line. He had no brakes so
would attempt to slow it down by using the gutter at the side of the road.
However, one day he was going too fast and rolled his cart over milk and all.
I have included 14 in my presentation today. Some I can talk
a lot about…others not very much.
For some of those it is probably a stretch to call them
characters- maybe they were more icons or in one case more of a curiosity- but
their stories were worth telling so I have left them in there under the subject
of characters. Frustratingly, I could not locate photographs of them all, so I
have tried to include something associated with them. If anyone has photos of
these characters or know who would have them, please let me know. Again, the
characters will be presented alphabetically.
I have contemplated producing a short publication of some
sort on todays and last year’s characters presentation. So, stay tuned for
that.
Alf Cooper
Alf Cooper was born in 1916. He spent his boyhood years at
Tamworth before coming to St Peters in 1926. The following year he came to work
for George Chinnocks, who owned a store in the main street of Campbelltown- now
one of the Georgian terraces. His mother said to him when he was 10 years old
“How’d you like to go to Campbelltown? There’ll be horses and there is a shop,
you’ll have lollies, you’ll have this, and you’ll have that”.
Alf sold newspapers for Chinnocks, rising very early in the
morning to collect the newspapers for his billy cart from Campbelltown station
at 3.30am. He then delivered them to the shop before delivering them on
horseback to homes. This happened as Alf put it in “rain, hail or snow”.
When he was about 12 in 1929, Alf participated in a
children’s party at the Town Hall. He stole the show dressed as Huckleberry
Finn and sang a solo on stage that brought the house down. However, it was his
attempt in the “boy who could laugh the heartiest” competition that he
excelled. His “response excelled the greatest noise ever heard in Campbelltown,
and so he won the prize” according to The Campbelltown News.
Alf Cooper used to do trackwork on the old racecourse at
Leumeah in the 1930s. He would train racehorses that belonged to George
Chinnocks. This course was known as Rudd’s Racecourse. Horses were Alf’s great
passion.
I love the words that Alf used to describe people. He once
said in an interview in his later years: “My old grandma- she was an old
battleaxe. Old grandma would be in the kitchen and if they didn’t do something
she would pick up anything and hit you. Another time he once said, “I was a bit
of a wildie”. I love it when he described swimming as a child “When we came out
of school we’d shout “Last to the Wattles is lousy. Across the public school
we’d start undressing and by the time we ran down Sewer Lane we’d be naked
(imagine kids doing that now). The Wattles was a bonzer spot, and I was a coot
for diving.” Another time he said “Henderson the baker had two boys. One was
named Glen. I used to knock around with Glen. We were good cobbers.”
Alf would ride bicycles, sometimes organising races. His
mates were amazed that he only ever rode in bare feet- sometimes winning races
this way.
Alf was a strong as an ox. He was employed to build the new
Good Intent Hotel and a balcony was being built and concrete was needed for the
upstairs balcony floor. Alf was used as the “horse”. He pulled the wheelbarrow
filled with concrete up the plank while another bloke pushed. He demonstrated
amazing strength.
Alf used to host casino nights in his barn on his farm.
Alf and his wife Eileen came to Leumeah in 1943. They
remembered Leumeah when there were only dirt roads that turned to mud every
time it rained.
I was lucky enough to meet Alf at Pembroke Lodge about 2
weeks before he died in 2010. Unfortunately, he was too sick to tell me much
about his life but just meeting him was a wonderful experience.
Alf died in August 2010. He is missed by so many, especially
the horses.
“Red Mick”
Rixon
Frederick William Algernon was better known as Mick or Red
Mick Rixon. He was born in 1897 at Campbelltown. He is pictured here with his
wife Mary Selby at their wedding in 1920.
“Red Mick” was well known for his tracking abilities. He
once tracked and located some lost girls in the Wedderburn area in 1926. They
became lost while picking wildflowers.
He was quite a character. On one visit to the barber for a
haircut Mick decided he didn’t want to wait. He untied the bag he was carrying
and let out a snake. He quickly got rid of the queue!
At Wedderburn, Red Mick had quite a few acres, lots of dogs
and native birds, including a lyre bird, and a very old bush timber style hut. Mick
bred bloodhounds and harriers very successfully, he gained many prizes for his
dogs at Bankstown and other shows, and he was very well known for the tracker
dogs that he bred for the police. One of these champion dogs was named Heedless
and the other Blutcher.
Mick won first prize
in the Royal Easter Show around 1930 for top rooster. This prompted his brother
John to ask Mick for a loan of the rooster for breeding purposes. After being
asked by John, Mick’s reply was that it was too late as he had just eaten him!
Mick’s brother remembers one of his daughters being the
subject of an article in the Truth newspaper in about 1958 entitled ‘This Miss
Never Misses’. ‘Dutchie’ Rixon was charged with attempted murder in shooting
some male. Apparently, Mick was interviewed and stated that it couldn’t have
been attempted murder because if his daughter had meant the shot to kill then
she would certainly have done so. Mick died at Liverpool in 1964 and is buried
at St Peter’s Cemetery, Campbelltown.
Ernie Selems
Cecil Ernest Selems, known as Ernie, was born in 1904, the
son of Joseph Henry and Ellen Butchers. He married Lorna Smith in 1918.
He enlisted in February 1916, serving as a WW1 soldier in
France with the 45th Battalion. He was promoted to Lance Corporal in March 1917
and briefly was acting Corporal just prior to being seriously wounded in action
in June 1917. He suffered a fractured skull and thigh injury and was
hospitalised in England for several months. He returned to Australia at the end
of 1917 and was discharged in Australia in February 1918
Ernie
Selems had a hard life as a small dairy farmer on the Mount Annan ridge. The
Selems family leased a dairy from Ted Sedgewick’s aunty on the edge of town on
the Menangle Road. The farm was part of the remaining Church of England Glebe
granted in 1823 and still owned by the church in the 1850s.
Ernie
had to take his milk cans down a steep track then through the Claremont
property to the Menangle Road (at the Glen Alpine roundabout). Twice a day he
would take the milk into town at the Milk Depot and he would be at Lack’s Hotel
at 10 in the morning. There are also references to it being parked most days
opposite the Good Intent Hotel awaiting Ernie to drive it back home. After
staggering out of the pub drunk, he would get back in the cart and the horse
would lead him home. You would see the horse sauntering along. He is believed to have been
the last local farmer to use a horse and cart to bring his milk to the
Campbelltown Milk depot (to mid 1960s). It was a distinctive old white horse
and cart. The milk depot building was burnt down in 1969.
In fact, Ernie never did the actual milking- this was done
by his sister. All Ernie did was transport the milk in cans to the depot.
I couldn’t find a great lot else about Ernie, apart from
that in 1954 he was charged and found guilty of failing to destroy rabbits on
his property. I know he was also involved with the Campbelltown Show.
After Ernie died his house was cleaned out and a huge number
of cheques were found- all not cashed! They went back many years.
Ernie died on 4 December 1987.
Written by Andrew Allen
