By Linda Fisher
Castle Comfort’ This is a photograph of an original painting of the first LC Holmes family home at Poowong. The painting was completed by teenager Will Holmes, the eldest son of LC and Emma Holmes, on a Sunday afternoon after return from Church. The original painting is still in existence (c.2007) and is painted on the cardboard back of a mirror.’
Another ‘faction piece…fiction written around basic facts’, about the Holmes family settling in Poowong.
‘What have we done?’ thought Emma, as she lay on her hard, dirt floor bed, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the Australian bush. The thud and crash of the wallabies through the bush, the grunting of the monkey bears (koalas) high in the trees, the brightly coloured birds twittering and singing, and the scratching of the possums looking for food. Worst of all was the rustling amongst the undergrowth, of snakes, slithering around.
We have been here for a week, and it has hardly stopped raining. Winter doesn’t even start for another couple of weeks.
The South Gippsland bush was rugged, trees were 300ft tall, with the pathway to their clearing only wide enough for the horse, loaded with their belongings. The family had walked single file for a day to get there from the nearest civilization. Barely any daylight reached the ground through the trees.
Emma and the seven children, aged from 11 years, down to 15mths, had finally joined Lawrence in Australia, from New Zealand. They had arrived a month earlier than expected, so their new house wasn’t completed.
‘Castle Comfort’, their home in Poowong, consisted of a stone wall with blankets hurriedly attached for walls and roof. Not much to protect them from the cold and rain. The scrub, ferns, nettles and logs came right up to the blankets, as Laurence had only been able to clear a small area.
As Emma lay dozing, she could smell the odour of damp woollen blankets, together with the ever present aroma of eucalyptus, combined with the smoke from the fire. A fire which was burning to keep her husband and older sons warm, where they slept outside.
Emma wondered what the future held for her family.
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