HOPE COTTAGE MUSEUM
On a quiet road on Kangaroo Island, Kevin Florence runs a flock of sheep from the shearing shed to a paddock several kilometres away, while his loyal offsider takes a bit of a breather. His family has been farming on the island for several generations but others who helped open up this part of KI, were relative newcomers. Immediately after the war much of this country was still native scrub until the soldier settlers arrived, blokes who'd served their country and came to the island to pursue a dream. One which involved a lot of backbreaking work.
"A lot of people found it very, very hard to make a living".
The sheep paddocks near Parndana seem a long way in distance and time from the battlefields of World War II. But for Brian Wooley the story of the soldier settlers is the story of he and his mates. As he wanders past the machinery, now relics of history in the Hope Cottage Museum at Kingscote, the memories come flooding back to the days when the cranking of the old Fordson tractor was a daily occurrence, the start of another working day. Soon after the war the soldier settlers began arriving in small groups, as land became available. Brian arrived in 1956, part of a grand experiment which would change KI forever.
"The total number on the whole island was 174 blocks and that was discounting the National Parks around the island. Half the developed area of the Island was war service loan settlement and of course, all that happened post war".
The map on the Hope Cottage Museum wall tells the story. Each red block was a war service loan settlement. The diggers had to pay back their loans, from the cash generated from their wool clip and cereal crops. But before they could do that they had to clear their land. And the blokes would do that together, each helping the other to carve out a farming future.
"You take your food for two or three days and you would camp in implement sheds. They were put on the property. They were the first buildings on a property, the implement sheds. And they would be pretty basic, stretcher beds, floorboards, a stove and a refrigerator and a few tables and the blokes looked after themselves. Now it wasn't a great hardship for the men because a lot of them had just had five years of that sort of living anyway".
"In the war, some of them would have come back from overseas service".
"That's right".
"The members of the family that had the hardest road to hoe were the women and children".
The photos of the blokes at the saleyards capture the mateship that developed among blokes who'd served together, and helped each other, and for Brian Wooley, it was a defining period in his life and that of the island.
"I wouldn't have missed it for all the tea in China".
The story of the Solder Settlers is just one of the many told at the Hope Cottage Museum at Kingscote. It is open daily from 1.00pm to 4.00pm. If you have any enquires please email info@postcards.sa.com.au
