I grew up in sugar country. A crushing mill below
1948
Cowley beach
At one stage, I am not exactly sure when but it was before I was of school age, probably aged 5, that the family moved and lived in a cane-cutter's barracks at Cowley Beach.
Barracks were provided by farmers to house the itinerant caneİcutters who came North for the crushing season. I gather that in the "off" season they were usually let out free to locals whom the farmer knew. It helped keep them maintained.
So there my mother had a wood (burning) stove and no electricity. I remember the carbide lamps and hurricane lamps we used for lighting at night.
The walls were of corrugated iron and I seem to recollect drinking brackish water there so maybe we relied on a well for water.
I am pretty sure we had a kerosene fridge there that didn't work very well and I remember my mother using a Coolgardie safe and water bag.
Since then I have always liked the design of cane barracks -- a big kitchen/dining room at one end and a straight line of bedrooms running off it and accessed from a verandah.
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E.&O.E.
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