Ambrose Ambles

 Twelve Caesars..

Book Three..."Twelve Caesars".

Part tertius.

 

Richard, having almost no education worthy to read or write save to sign his name, having little knowledge of the world of literature or of scholarship, his life was one of inquisitive discovery of the practicalities of engineering, while Grace’s life ,ironically,  well-read and well-educated in her father’s office, was one of hiding and forgetting.

 

These two comparative strangers to each other, so recently married and now after a year of living in Sydney, set out to return to South Australia with a four month old baby girl, no money, no prospects but all the passion and determination of a conquering Caesar!..except on the trip back, a damn sight rougher than the trip over, Grace was extremely seasick and the baby, according to legend, not being able to be breast-fed, had to be sustained on brandy and water for the duration..

 

   There is not one letter extant, if one ever did exist, neither love letter or note, nothing of any subject at all from Richard Thomas…all memories of  their early years comes from Grace and only from Grace…make of that what you will, but as history is always written by the victors, the inscription on the gravestone of the couple (Grace preceded) demonstrates the influence Grace had on her children ;

 

“In loving memory of;

Grace Mary Thomas.

Devoted wife of Richard Thomas.

Beloved mother of  Rosaline, Mary, Hannah, John and Daniel.

Born 1898, Died 1980.

Native of County Cork , Ireland.

R.I.P. “

 

And of Richard , chiseled on the headstone below Grace’s, almost as an afterthought :

 

“In Memory of ;

Richard Thomas,

Loved husband of the above”.

 

To say that it was a surprise when Richard Thomas returned to his home town of Moonta unannounced and dropped into his family one evening at dinner time unannounced and introduced his wife and child that he had failed in both cases to inform his parents of , would be a Chapel Choir Stopper of unprecedented  shock and understatement. Then Richard’s next announcement that their only son  had converted from Wesleyan Methodist to Catholic to do so was a resounding thunderclap that raised the roof.

 

After his mother was revived by her bevy of daughters, the recriminations began! Exile was the only recourse and the young couple set out bent-backed and penniless to make their way in a cold cruel world just as the Great Depression opened it’s doors to a view of hell for the poor and unemployed…of which Richard was one of it’s best examples.

 

To look through the eyes of deep poverty, is to see cold charity as the slap of condemnation, to see pity as the scorn of patronizing and the government dole as a Judas payment for betrayal of social responsibility…but the one thing that is seen for what it truly is and is never hidden, is the pitiless hatred and cruelty of the “haves” for the “have-not”. It is the cold, scornful disdain from those born into security and property or just plain comfortably well-off toward those in the depression years who were made and kept homeless and itinerant..; ”the sussos”.

 

Richard and Grace Thomas made for the Riverland of South Australia..Their choice made from the knowledge that there was the best chance for Richard to ply his skill of “tinker” with the growing irrigation agriculture and the fact that water was free along with a plentiful supply of fresh rabbits. So armed with a .22 calibre rifle, canvas groundsheets and a dutch-oven cooking pot. the Thomas family settled down to a makeshift life of itinerancy, sustenance(‘susso’) dole, living in abandoned hovels and tents of Richard’s unique manufacture from wheat-bags and wood and another child on the way to at least ten years of frightening existence on the edge of calamity.

 

While the well established and addressed may mark moments of  family history with mirth and sentimental tears, the grossly impoverished mark their “progress” through time with memories of near escapes, disasters and hurried departures that..may in time be recalled in conversation as ‘funny moments’, or ‘phew! moments’ , they are mostly moments one shudders to recall at all or if ever mentioned, are accompanied with a deep groan of remorse or regret. These latter are the hallmarks of the Thomas family album…very few photos are extant that show the depression years with a smile or look of contented well-being.

 

With the arrival of the second child; Maggie, Richard was well established in the riverland district doing the rounds of country towns to both collect the susso-dole and ply his trade. There are stories in the family vault that paint over the horror of those years with a humourous gloss that is only the thinnest of skins deep. There is the story of swapping their home-made tent for a small open boat into which they loaded all their possessions  along with their two children and rowed up-river on The Murray from Renmark to Mildura looking for work and then back to take up seasonal work in Renmark..six weeks up two back, living off rabbits and god knows what else along the way..: This article originally appeared in the "Riverlander" March 1958.
The author, Rosaline Thomas (now deceased), did the trip with her parents in the depression years, when work and money were very scarce. It shows the determination of the hardy souls in those times.

It was published in a magazine that promoted Murray River and associated articles of interest in those days, with an objective (as was the common theme of the Menzies fifties) of presenting a “homely image” of the family and times…along with so many cover-ups of the damaged returned soldiers from the 2^nd World War. So there is a certain amount of edited out realities not presented in the original anecdote that I will explain at the end …How do I know of such things?..because the author was my mother.

Row-Boat from Renmark to Mildura.

By Rosaline Thomas.

Have you ever thought of travelling by river? Not in a comfortable steamer, but in an open boat. My father and mother, my sister and I, tried it some years ago when we did the trip from Renmark to Mildura and back.

Our two-roomed canvas cottage that stood on blocks was exchanged for a rowing boat and a white tent. We rolled the latter, stowing it with only what was necessary, including a fortnight's groceries, into the boat and left early one morning.

It was my job to mind my little sister, while mother and father, seated side by side, rowed the boat. Unfortunately Maggie developed a love for watching things zig-zag down through the water out of sight. I am unable to remember how many odds and ends we lost this way until she tired of it. We then began to count the scarred trees out of which the aborigines had cut their canoes. On the lonely stretches of the river there often were many.

Posts for the tent were cut whenever we decided it was too chilly to sleep under the stars, or if we stayed a few days to fish or set rabbit traps. In fact, we travelled 'Wagga's way', as we came to call it; because he was the only other person we met using a rowing boat for that purpose.

Wagga was the first, but one of the many characters we happened to meet. A big man, straight, in spite of sixty years, He had a huge, rounded beard as black as midnight. So was his big cat "Satan", who sat on the prow of his master's rowing boat and was the most 'human' cat I have ever met. Wagga always pushed, facing the front to row his boat, as he "liked to see the way”, He was a super-cook and used the native way to cook fish or wild game, straight from line or gun, wrapped in clay and placed amongst glowing coals: When cooked the feathers stripped off with the clay.

We first met him one evening when he rowed across the river to warn us that the side where we intended to camp was haunted. The story was that a woman passenger on one of the paddle steamers had wandered off while the crew were cutting logs for the boiler fires. She was never found. Her spirit, we were told, used to come back to that part of the river looking for the boat.

Mother is Irish, so we did not stay to find out the truth, but quickly crossed to the other side. It was here next day that a huge ram frightened us. Father and Wagga went off shooting and We other three sat on a fallen gum tree to drink in the surroundings. Suddenly mother's sixth sense caused her to look round and there, not more than three yards behind, stood the ram. His curled horns looked really dreadful. We hastily and quietly withdrew to the boat and continued enjoying peace and wild beauty from there.

Between towns we met several families who had settled on the banks of the river. One that astonished us was the goat farm people. They were a big family and owned goats of every kind, size, sex and colour. They ate goats, milked them and used home-tanned skins for rugs and mats. We were welcomed like old friends. A huge meal was prepared for all and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I have often wondered how they never grew tired of goats, goats, goats.

Sometimes we never met anyone for days; there was just the never-ending scrub and the gurgling of the Murray River. Then, round a bend, a home stead would come suddenly into view. The people of the homesteads were mostly kind, giving us meat and often flour. In return father would solder their leaking kettles and things.

There was only one accident.Maggie, running down to the water's edge to watch a paddle steamer, cut her foot badly. We came to a homestead next day and the people there re-bandaged it. Not a scar was left.

We reached Mildura four days before Christmas, pitched our tent opposite the town and decided to stay a few days.
The next couple of mornings father spent in the township, trying to get soldering or other work. We others washed and cleaned everything, giving the camp oven a good scrub with the clean, white sand found at the water's edge. Christmas was spent quietly, it was cool under the giant gums. Then it was decided we would go back to Renmark. In Renmark the fruit picking season was about to start and father had been promised some work. So we started back. It took six weeks to come up, and a fortnight to get back.

…sounds like the romantic holiday…but you picture it in the wild bush of those days, with two children under five sleeping under the stars with the mozzies and flies and snakes and no reliable food and the risk of drowning the lot of them in the days before the locks were completed.

 

And there is the story of the birth of the third child..in a punt..on the river..while Richard and the midwife argued the toss over who should get the five pound baby endowment payment…best told in “proverb /Parable..:

 

Proverb : Knots well tied are easiest undone.

 

Parable : Richard Thomas gingerly poled the punt off the bank of the Murray River with the butt-end of the oar. The Mid-wife comforted and settled Mrs.Grace Thomas as best as possible in the cramped craft. Considering the advanced state of her labour, this was no easy task for either woman.

Grace groaned with another prolonged contraction.

 

"There, dear..It's near now, we'll soon be over the river and at the hospital". The mid-wife soothed.

 

Now, in those days, the government, in its' kindness, gave a family an endowment of five pounds for every child born. In the years of the great depression, five quid went a long way..with the Thomas family, it went the whole hog!..Fivers weren't something you came across every day, so it had already been earmarked for some desperately needed items for that family that lived in a wheatbag-tent on the" wrong side of the river".

 

Richard Thomas was standing in the punt as he rowed across the river, so he hadn't noticed the mid-wife subtly cajole his wife into signing a document that granted the said five pounds to her ; the mid-wife, for "services rendered"...never mind that she was already in the pay of the government hospital !  Grace Thomas was in no state of mind to contend what she had groggily signed her name to.

 

The mistake the mid-wife made was to hold the freshly signed document away and up to the sun for the ink to dry and in doing so inadvertently displayed the treachery to the curious gaze of Richard Thomas, whose face was only inches away from the paper as he rowed the punt across the river.

 

"Five quid!" He cried as he snatched the paper.

 

The mid-wife froze with her arm still outstretched, mouth slightly agape and a sharp gasp sprung to her lips.

 

"Mr. Thomas!..Now give that back this instant. That is a legal document and it is mine!" She demanded.

 

Richard looked at the document, then at the mid-wife. An angry smile came to his lips.

 

"Then swim for it!" and he screwed the paper up and flicked it into the river.

 

"Ahh! You can't do that!" the midwife cried and with both hands gripping the gunwale, watched the ball of paper drift away and sink.

 

"Consider it done!" Richard smiled gleefully.

 

"Then..then I'll not attend your wife!"

 

"Ohhh!.." groaned Gracie.

"

Then we'll stay right here on the river!" shouted Richard as he flung the oars into the punt.

 

"Ohhhh...." wailed Gracie again..and at this point nature intervened and a baby girl was born in the punt on the middle of the Murray River.

 

Five quid went a long way in the great depression. Sounds hilarious, he and she squabbling, the midwife refusing to attend to Grace, about to go into labour, and he throwing the oars down in the punt refusing to get them off the river until she does and then the child not waiting for anyone and being born in the bottom of the punt crowded with the three of them and the bilge-water floating down the Murray River…you can just picture the hilarity !

 

And the time the whole family was over the river at a big annual fair and my mother told the chuckling story of how she bought and wore a dress exactly the same as an aboriginal girl there and they laughed and roamed around the fair arm in arm innocently telling everyone they met that they were twins , to the laughs and pointing guffaws of many..

 

Proverb : "What the eye doesn't see,

              The heart doesn't grieve."

 

Parable : " I laugh now when I think of it". The old lady chuckled, "But I was young then, about fourteen..or sixteen..but I was a 'young' sixteen....you know?..and I had gone to the millinery store in the town and bought a dress for the fair. The dress was pink floral with a blouse all in one and it had two pieces of material, like braces, with big buttons on the waistline and those two braces went over the shoulders down the back."

 

"Ahh..I was young then....anyway at the fair there was the excitement of a merry-go-round and bucking horses and shearing contests and....and tug-of-war..an...an..horse races..you know, that sort of thing and everybody from the district and from beyond the bend of the river..and they're dressed up to the nines,  oh dear,ha!...the big day of the year for us then, ha!"

 

"Well, there was this aboriginal girl there the same age as me it turned out, and she had on EXACTLY the same dress that I had..exactly!...and we ran up to each other and laughed and became great friends that day...she worked, like me, at another station on the Murray....cooking, cleaning, looking after the children that sort of thing.....anyway, we were great friends that day an' we walked all around that fair together arm in arm, laughing and having great fun and we'd tell everyone we met that we were twins!..ha! ha!...TWINS!....you'd laugh now, but we didn't even think of her being black and me white then..some people smiled and others threw their heads back and laughed and we just thought they were as happy as we were, ha!"

 

"Oh, a jolly good time we had that day.....I can't even remember her name now....ha!....Ah well....twins..twins indeed…can you imagine!" .. all the while their tent, along with many other ‘sussos’ in a depression camp along the bank of the river were being burnt down with a suspiciously started fire that satisfied the secret desires of the old families and townies of the area…they lost everything but what they had on their person that day and it marked my mother with a fear of fire the rest of her life.

 

And there is the story of Richard and Grace going to the nearby town to do the weekly shop with the next youngest addition to the family , leaving the girls home and the stranger who called around from out of the bush and asked where their parents were and they silly, telling him and he slunk away and was planning something while he watched and they were fortunate young Robert Kruger was there with them , for when the stranger rushed for the cottage, they were able to get inside and bolt the door..but Tess, remembering she left her little dog outside rushed out to rescue him and only got back as the man lunged for her.. known in the family as; 

 

Incident on the Bulldog Run.

 

If you turn off the main ‘Halfway House Road” there about seven mile out of the town, there onto a dirt, bush track ; “The Bulldog Run” and go a few mile down that track, you’ll see away there off the side in the mallee scrub; Rhidoni’s old place…a small cottage built in that old pioneer style of four rooms with a lean-to on the back and the old “bucket ‘n’ chuck-it” dunny out the back yard.

The Thomas family had made this cottage their home…for the near future..a future fraught with the uncertainty of shifting fortune and work…Not that Dick Thomas was such a determined seeker of full-time permanent employment ..nor was his wife Grace that keen to become a part of any township community….herself having escaped from a trapped, middle-class life back in civil-war torn Ireland, but still retaining enough of that class’s snobbery to scorn small-town society.

No..the bush suited them just fine and so they sought out these cheap-rental, isolated cottages where scrutiny and regulation was never a problem.

So in consequence, Dick and Grace Thomas and their children stayed in many old pioneer huts out in the deep mallee back in the pre-war years..Because of their isolated positions, far from the nearest town, these huts and settler’s cottages could be rented much cheaper…and with them never being flush of funds at the best of times…

Such run-down old pioneers huts, part stone construct , part pug ‘n’ pine were the usual homes on such tracks as “The Sleeper Track”.. named after the cutting of railway sleepers..”The Seven Cross-roads” or as it is locally known ; “The Seven Sisters Junction”…or in the case I am about to tell of ..: “The Bulldog Run”..locally shortened to just “The Bulldog”..not named solely on account of that particular breed of dog, but because of the wilds of country there..as in ; “ That’s wild country out there..real bulldog country…”

It was at Rhidoni’s  old place..out in the sticks there just a bit off from The Bulldog…The Thomas's lived there a while with three of their children..there were five kids, but the eldest girl had gone to work on one of the river stations as a servant girl and the oldest boy had got work at the local post office in the town of Sedan and was away for most weekends..that left the two early teenage girls and the youngest boy who was around four or five years old.

The parents went to town one day, taking the youngest boy with them to get supplies, leaving the two girls home with the company of a local youth named Murray also in his late teens , who was courting after the elder girl : Maggie..he was safe..But there were some dodgy characters who made their way to the Murray Mallee to escape the law in the city and there was no better place to “disappear” than in the wilds of the mallee in those days..Such a desperate character came upon the cottage there with the three teenagers alone.

The rough looking man watched the youths play a while, reassuring himself there was no adult about..He then calmly approached them in the front yard.

“Hello, children” he said, his gaze roaming cautiously about ” Is mum or dad around?” He asked in an innocuous tone as if he knew the parents…foolishly,  Tess, the younger of the three replied that “No..they had gone to the town to get supplies and won’t be back for a while”…

The man nodded, tipped his hat and melted into the bush..

But the teenagers became suspicious of his motives when they spotted him lurking about just out a ways in the scrub..They decided it was better if they went inside when they saw him sneaking up closer to the house..

It was fortunate they did, for no sooner than they had gone inside than they heard him cautiously try the door handle..the three children silently stared in fear as the handle of the door moved up and down as he tried to get in…Now this is when things got a tad worse!..Tess had a little dog..a poodle she was most fond of and it had been forgotten when they retreated into the house..Tess became distressed when she noticed the dog’s absence and with a shriek, quickly ducked out the back door to retrieve the poodle, much to the panicked cries of Maggie and her boyfriend Murray..

“NO!..Tess..come back!” But it was too late..they heard her call for the dog and they could hear the man leave the front door and scurry toward the voice of  Tess..They heard him cry ;

“YOU…stay there!...”

Murray opened the front door and called for Tess..

“IN HERE Tess, the front door!” and she suddenly appeared, little dog in arms and scurried through the front door with the rough man not half a dozen strides behind her!...Murray slammed the door in his face and quickly secured it..the man put his shoulder to the door and crashed it several times, but fortunately it was built of strong, stout rough-cut timber so it stood firm against his thrusts…He then went to get the axe there at the wood heap and proceeded to hack at the door…The children were terrified..

Here, the youth ; Murray, did the smartest thing he would do in what turned out to be an otherwise mundane life..He went as close to the front door as to be heard by the man outside and in a “just too loud” whisper, said :

“Maggie…go get your dad’s rifle and I’ll shoot the bugger through the door!”…

All went silent, the axe went still and the man seemed to think for a moment and then abandoned his intended deed and slunk away quickly into the bush…Of course, there was no rifle, it was just a clever bluff..and it worked..The police who later came and searched for the man found him and reported to the parents that he was a wanted rapist from the city..

Lucky children indeed..

 

 

The poverty, the fear, the uncertainty …week in , week out mark the personalities of the adults carrying the responsibility and they in turn nurture the children with that same doubt and fear…it shaped the family and cast the mould for the shape of the families to come.

 

Richard and Grace raised their children in the worst time of chaos, carrying their own ghosts and demons. They were not able to stabilize their family structures to bring order and prosperity to their ‘House”. Neither were able to leave much of an impression on their existence on this planet, even in advanced age, when a secure pension should have granted them a modicum of financial certainty, their long-term poverty was so ingrained that they could not plan much farther than the next pension cheque. Grace, to give her credit was the more astute of them both, securing a tenuous hold on what was to be her only solid piece of owned real-estate…her grave.

 

Grace, for all her education and skills at writing with the most beautiful script one could see, carried the shame of her penury to that grave, coming from a once wealthy middle-class life to finish in abject poverty, leaving her worldly possessions to her daughters . The kitchen furniture and utensils to the eldest, the bedroom furniture to the youngest and the rest ( of a list of such dismal value to be too embarrassing to mention here!) to the middle child…of the two boys, one died in a motor accident as a young man and the other she disowned through a reason only Grace would ever know…I have a letter to my mother demonstrating her disappointments in that regard..:

 

C/O P.O. Sedan July 22"d 1953

 

“My dear Rosaline,

Delighted to get your nice letter and welcome parcel and for the little special for myself. I love my smart little pants and coloured cottons, I was almost out of them, I must have forgotten to write the second letter somehow so I will give you all the news now.

Dad only spent a week at Moonta with the promise of going back in three weeks time but he hasn't gone since because the motor bike is not useable just now some part gone or worn though and to replace will cost about £10 and then the weather has been awful. Whenever I hear a storm warning, I wonder if all you folks are safe. I wish I could get down to see you and have a long talk but it's too cold yet for travelling.

Well I am pleased that you are all more or less over the colds and flu it's the same with us and the Krugers, colds and toothache etc. I keep very well thank God. Dad's leg is troubling him a lot, especially at night when he goes to bed, he can't sleep for the pain in it, then again some nights he is alright, the wet cold weather gets him. But he will do nothing for it. So there you are! One of these days it will get him properly I have no doubt. I am glad you got the teeth fixed and hope the lower set now is comfortable all the years I have been wearing mine and they are as good as when I first got them.

We laughed at Peter's drawing of the elephant, I was so pleased to read John's little letter my word he is coming on all right, I never imaged he was old enough to make his first communion. Margaret showed me a photo you sent her taken outside the church, it was very nice, John looks so like Richard doesn't he.

Congratulations on your writing success, nothing like trying! Good Luck.

Now about our doings up here. Tess's watch never came to light unfortunately. Mary, Dad's sister found us somehow so we had the whole tribe here last Sunday. She and Phil have six children. The oldest boy is doing his army training, then a girl 16, a girl going on 15, a boy 11, and two younger girls one 9, one 6. She has a nice family and of course was overwhelmed to see us after all these years, she is a female porter on the Marino line, we saw her heaps of times but failed to recognise her or she us. Phil of course I remembered easily.

She was full of herself and her doings her "trust home", her refrigerator their this and that. She came armed with piles of tucker, groceries etc., and pressed 27/- on me (that I dare not refuse!) and 10/- on Dad, but she is a woman one has to be very wary of. She was not well in the door when she took charge of my kitchen produced all her stuff and bossed about getting dinner, she wouldn't let me use my meat for my own family, she brought a cooked leg of mutton with her etc, etc. All loud talk all the time. "have you this Mary, have you that" taking it for granted I had nothing of course, (the poor relation) Her job, all the things she brought, her car she brought too. (the car was only an old thing any way) Of course they were all over us and I was glad to see them and all but as I said one has to step carefully with Dick's people and a little of them go a long way. I took them up to visit Maggie and Murray, just to give her an eyeful of their nice place. Murray has been doing up his lounge room lately; brought a nice bright carpet for the floor and new curtains and a lovely polished table, so it did look nice, (took the wind out of Mary's sails I hope) They have a stainless steel sink too. Murray I mean.

I am afraid, Rosaline, she will talk afterwards about us we are not smart like the townies and I have  gone old, of course Dick is a little God and so clever, still I impressed several times on her and Phil that with all his cleverness he can't keep us, that my two sons have to pay the house rent and buy all the food etc., and Oh Rosaline, was I thankful Oh, so thankful, that I had my lounge room fixed up and my nice dressing table and your lovely bed spread on my bed and nice blue curtains at my windows, of course she noticed I had no wardrobe, (but I will soon) and my kitchen is all green and cream. Danny brought me a lovely big cream and green kitchen cabinet, it brightens up the kitchen, and was I glad we had it.

They stayed here all day till Afternoon and are coming again in a fortnight's time, Gee, I expect there will be no more peace for us with that mob. When finally they took their departure I felt kind of bemumbled in my brain from her incessant loud talk all the time and the teenagers rushing about. They make me feel as if a heavy weight has been pressed on me they are all so full of energy and of themselves. The teenage girls like John of course, Dan wasn't too joyous, a bit cautious with them. Mary and Dick talked about their sister's and Dad and Mum all the time. Now that Dad has come in for the family property, he is a great chap in all their eyes, yet all the years along they never had a good word for any of us. I am quite sure from bits here and there that Dick when he got to Moonta made a big yarn to his mother and sisters about that time with me leaving him and all my supposedly bad goings on etc. but I bet he did not say a word about the real reason, his dirt, his laziness etc. So Rosaline, you "stand up" for me if she says anything to you because they are all going down to see you. I put you on your guard be very careful what you say to her. They are a peculiar kind of folks the Thomas’s. Thank goodness they live in Adelaide and we up here. The poor old woman sits all day in her wheel chair, hanging on to her purse of money (she knows her family) Allisha looks after her I believe. Mary fought with all of them, the things she said about Lucy her sister were awful. So there you are.

One of these days when the weather clears I must come down to see you and tell you about things. Be on the watch for Mary's family descending on you, she wants to meet you. But a little goes a long long way I fancy she knows Enrico, she asked me his name and I showed her his photo. She's stout and blond haired but not bad looking, like Dad not a bad figure either. Thanks awfully for the dresses I love them Dan was glad of the jamas Dad liked the pants will be glad of the jacket. How does the garden grow. I never reared any chickens last season maybe next. Goodbye for now and much love and thanks to you all. Look after yourself Love again.

Ever Yours Loving Mother G.T.

Xxxxxxxx “

 

 

Richard, with barely an education and no record of letters or documentation, left no will or anything of value,  and lived his remaining days after Grace’s death in a state of unbelieving dismay, so far and so many years from the original convent gate..in a small caravan in the bush to eventually die in a aged-care institution in an advanced state of sometimes violent demetia..But he did leave one thing..

 

 

He left a toy. A tinker’s toy. A windmill ..or wind-pump as some would call it...designed, scaled and made by himself, soldered together, cut and shaped out of old tin cans and wire. It pumps water when placed into the wind, through two troughs into a sleeve-valve of his own design. You will find these singular toys throughout Australia and even a few  overseas..in Europe, England and America…he must have made hundreds of them.