Christmases Past, Mandalay, Soldiers Road, Loch And The Ho
Without Prejudice
Our first Ford 1971, Kyle, ironically was chosen by my daughter, Yvette, then aged One, for her first born son, Kyle Bryce Hancock, 17 years later.
Mandalay, my Brother with rifle, my husbands younger sister who called him a " black bastard"
The black bastard with our first born at Mandalay, 1970, note the badly erected tent.
Him and I 10 years down the track. Not so happy now.
Debbie and Yvette 1971, our two oldest girls,
My beloved Father In Law, Sydney Paul Hancock.
Mandalay, dairy farmer and my hero. 1969.
Out for dinner 1971
Aged 22 and 16
The first Ho. The Hardie Ferodo 1971 Winner, Driven by Moffatt. And Robin George Hancock ( my new adored husbands first ambition. To get one no matter what it took. And in the end his ambitions would take a lot.
Christmases at the farm, Mandalay, Soldiers Road, Loch, near Poowong, were legendary, even now my girls continue to talk of them and set their own standards high to match Grandma Hancock's.
The weather was almost always hot and after came the hay season which lasted about four weeks and our annual ho.iday. was almost always excruciatingly brutally hot.
But Christmas Day was always preceded for us before the hour trip, with the opening of the presents. One year it rained so hard we had to erect the girls slide in the lounge room.
Another Debbie and Yvette getting 2 way radios and calling each other from their rooms.
We were convinced the Commander 64 we bought them didn't work as neither Bob or I could get a score out of it as we practiced on our very first video game.
The girls came in and got 20,000 points and it remained to him and I a big puzzle, not in the least interested in the new technology. but I was clever enough to type a greeting from Santa to the girls.
Then we would dress all the girls in brand new dresses and shoes and socks and pack the car with presents and drive to Loch. So serene and old and we would stop off there and buy Bob's Mum, sherbet bombs in a big white paper bag.
We would turn up the hills towards Soldiers Road, the farm not visible from the road, just a cattle grid and a gate. I smashed into the gate post when Bob let me drive his Xp station Wagon, the one with the gingham curtains his Auntie Oll had made him.
But as years went by we drove up in bigger and better cars and with more and more children.
There were heaps of them or so it seemed, the Hancocks, my husbands family. Tiny and Gwen, my parents in law and Kerrie and Ivan as children and the marrieds, Joy and Kevin and Ian and Merrilyn and Bob and I.
Merrilyn and Bob being brother and sister and married to brother and sister, Ian and I.
Pauline was single and my age, and she met her future husband at our wedding in Sydney. Her wedding coming later and I had married at 17, Bob was 23. the first year we were single and by the 2nd, were engaged, married and had a child and buy the next Christmas another.
I ended up in hospital Christmas that year, in Korumburra, I vomited up an egg boxing day and then don't remember much except going to hospital and being in a few day. complications after Yvette's birth, necessitating a minor op.
Not a great time to get sick.
But the Christmas dinners were fabulous, us setting the billiard table with a top on, with all the polished cutlery and crackers. Pretty glasses for the muscat and lemonade drink, Tiny preferring a portagaffe.
We could only just squeeze in there with us all sitting down. the table filled the room, only being small and having a piano in the room as well.
The piano stool was called into use as a seat and Gwen remembered Xmas dinners past where the kids stuffed the stool with unwanted food.
She was an incredible cook my Mother In Law. She always said she wasn't and would pick fault with everything she had prepared and meanwhile we all devoured it like starving wolves, not slowing until our top buttons needed loosening.
She was always self deprecating, Gwen, sharp as a tack, an immensely hard working woman, as farmers wives are. She helped Tiny with the milking, dressed in overalls and wellies and came up from the dairy with fresh cream and milk almost every day.
She made everything from scratch, and cooked in the tiny kitchen, the combustion stove going no matter what the heat as it had to heat the water.
We would arrive and everyone would open their presents and we would scoop them up and hide them in the cars so they didn't get wrecked on the first day at least.
On the table in the kitchen would be bowls of nuts and lollies and crisps. we would all have a Christmas Cheer drink and then banish the men and the women would take over the kitchen and lounge room.
We would set the table and set up a table for the kids in the corner, usually an old card table pulled into service. We always had turkey, usually freshly killed a few days before, and chicken, ham and pork. All the vegetables coming from Gwen's kitchen garden.
The taste was to die for, as she liked everything well done and rich gravy made from the roast drippings and thickened. We would crack open the crackers and dive on our little objects tumbling out, we were like magpies.
we would all wear the hats and tell the truly awful jokes and help clear away the dishes, ready for the dessert, plum pudding, of course, home made of course.
Always silver coins hidden inside and we could have it with cream, icecream or hot custard and sometimes we were given all 3 and told to shutup if we dared to open our mouths in protest.
Quiet Uncle Ken would be there and Nana Wooley, Gwen's Mum. Ken with his envelopes standing shyly to one side of the room and handing them out to us couples for our families. Such a great self effacing man, who had never married or had children.
he had his chance once but I think she broke his heart, he coming back from the war and she was with another. And he went no more dancing before the light of love which was a shame as he was a lovely man.
Nana Wooley was a tiny woman with usually a little Yorkie Terrier with her, always with a bow in it's top knot. Some of Nana's dogs lived 20 years, she pampered them so.
We would all lie around after eating the immense dinner and chat and have cups of tea and then would come afternoon tea. Was there no end to this woman's luscious food.
Mince pies that melted in your mouth, Nana and Gwens vying for best at show. Nana pipped it as she made her own mincemeat with old fashioned suet and a dash of brandy I think.
Gwen's Christmas cake has never varied in all the years I have known her and it's a Marshmallow Icing covered castle covered in delicate hundreds and thousands or rainbow crystals, silver balls, nestled in the valley of the peaks of snow like icing.
There is a layer of Marzipan and I am reminded of the Battenburg Cakes my Mum was so fond of. Gwen and her good friends and swapped recipes.
And as the hot afternoon stretches before us we turn on the tiny telly and watch the Queens speech for the tradition. Everyone hangs around for "tea", which is traditionally cold meat.
Not just any cold meat of course, the ham making its appearance, huge and sliced in hearty slices. tiny does the carving with the Stay Sharp Wiltshire knife. Tiny males sure to sharpen it beforehand, not trusting the stay sharp scabbard as sharpening enough.
There is fresh beetroot in vinegar and a tiny bit of sugar, bread and butter pickles, the cucumbers from the garden and bottled with vinegar and brine and mustard seeds.
Gwen makes the mayonnaise that is made from condensed milk and people have been known to spread it on their toast with nothing else. (Well, one person, anyway )
She has made an immense trifle with chopped jelly and jam roll and a drop of brandy or two, adorned with custard and then cream fresh from the "milking" that morning.
we are all stuffed full like Dresden Geese but still look forward to it and still eat. And finally the visitors are leaving and we stay on as we have about 3 weeks ahead of us of the hay.
That's a story in itself, the hay, and I will leave it for another time. Christmases at Mandalay deserve a story, just for themselves.
the one where Ian returned from the Vietnam War and where sometimes faces would be missing, having to attend their families Christmas. But for the most part we were those people who enjoyed comfort and tradition and for once forgot our ordinary lives and celebrated Christmas as people should, together in laughter and present giving and good will towards others,
Love Janette
Alena and Lauren, R.I.P. Christmas 1979
Married 4th July 1970
I was 17, he was 23
The Wedding Party, Campbelltown, Sydney. Bobs sister, my sister, my brother, nephew in front and my younger sister as flower girl.
Two of my brothers 1970's
He at 22 and me at 16, his bosses place, Eildon, where I learned to water ski. We were so young then.
Debbie and Yvette 1971, our two oldest girls,
Mandalay, dairy farmer and my hero. 1969.
Me at Mandalay Christmas 1971
The 1969 Hardie-Ferodo 500 saw the first of the Ford Falcon GT-HOs. This Phase One GT-HO Bathurst special Falcon was powered by a 351 cubic inch V8 sourced from Ford America. It's 'HO' specification included upgraded suspension components such as front and rear stabiliser bars. At Bathurst it was fitted with race tyres. Holden upgraded the GTS 327 Monaro to the GTS 350, which included better race-style handling and a more powerful Chevrolet V8 engine of 350 cubic inches. The new GTS 350 Monaro, in the hands of Colin Bond and Tony Roberts, was able to hold out Ford to claim the second victory for Holden.[5]In 1969 there was a multi-car accident on lap one. After the first 10 cars passed through The Esses, contact between two Falcons caused one to roll over. Several cars coming around the blind corner crashed into the stationary car. The track was almost blocked with wreckage but expert flag marshalling enabled the cars to pass through in single file until the debris was cleared. The race was a disaster for Ford as many Falcon tyres failed due to the speed and weight of the Falcons. Ford even a ran a post race advertising campaign using the slogan "we were a little deflated".
The 1969 race also saw the début of Peter Brock. Brock and Bond were drivers for the semi-official Holden Dealer Team (HDT), which had been formed earlier in the year to counter the official Ford Special Vehicles division that was churning out ever evolving GT-HO Falcons. The "Old Fox", Harry Firth, who had been in charge of the Ford racing effort until he was abruptly replaced by an American, Al Turner, took charge of the HDT.
1970 saw a change of strategy as Holden chose to race the smaller Torana GTR XU-1 rather than the Monaro. The XU-1 was a special "Bathurst" version of the six-cylinder LC Torana. As the embryonic HQ Holden required too much development to be competitive Holden created an alternative to the V8 muscle car. The XU-1 was more agile, cheaper and more economical. Triple carburettors on the "Red" motor provided an excellent power-to-weight ratio. The XU-1 was easier on brakes and tyres, thereby minimizing the number of required pit stops. However, Ford refined the GT-HO to Phase Two specification with an even more powerful and better breathing 351 V8. With tyres that were able to endure the power and torque, the GT-HO reinforced the adage that "there is no substitute for cubic inches". Allan Moffat's GTHO received the chequered flag followed by Bruce McPhee's identical car. The Torana could not compensate for the power advantage that the Falcons had on the Bathurst straights.[5]
Rule changes for 1970 enabled a single driver to complete the entire race distance. To reduce the chances of another first lap calamity the starting grid was changed from 2-3-2 to a staggered 2-2-2 formation. This meant that the back markers had to start the race from around the corner on Conrod Straight. The race continued to be run to unique regulations which were more restrictive than those which were applied to Series Production racing.[7]
1971 was another Ford victory with Moffat at the wheel. It was won by the ultimate GT-HO, the XY-model Falcon GT-HO Phase Three. This featured upgrades to engine power and aerodynamics, which made it one of the world's fastest four-door mass-produced production cars. Chrysler replaced its Pacers with its new two-door, the Charger. This was powered by a 265 cu in (4.34 l) in-line HEMI six-cylinder engine with triple Weber carburettors. However, by noon on race day, Moffat was far enough in front to pit without losing the lead. Moffat completed the 500 miles first followed by other GTHOs in second and third place and filling six of the top seven places. Class wins were achieved by Mazda 1300, Datsun 1600, Mazda RX-2, Torana XU1 and Falcon GTHO.[5]
1972 saw controversy, following a media-driven "Supercar Scare", which had accumulated enough political momentum to force Holden to postpone introduction of a V8 Torana for two years. Ford abandoned the XA model based Phase Four GT-HO Falcon. Chrysler also followed by not going ahead with a competition version of its V8-powered Charger. Adding to that, the 1972 Hardie-Ferodo 500 was the first Great Race to be run in wet weather. Allan Moffat was unable to withstand the immense pressure placed on him by Brock in his XU-1. The Torana proved more than a match in the atrocious conditions. After being challenged by Brock's furiously driven XU-1, Moffat was unable to exploit the V8's power advantage and spun early in the race. He also incurred two one-minute penalties for starting the engine while refuelling. Brock, meanwhile, was able to hold off the Phase Three GT-HO of John French and the E49 Charger of Doug Chivas to win the 1972 race, thus temporarily refuting the "no substitute for cubic inches" adage. Brock had pushed the car to its limits in a spectacular display of car control. It was a significant victory for a number of reasons: The first of Brock's nine Bathurst wins which later led to him being nicknamed the "King of the Mountain" and "Peter Perfect". Brock's win also signalled the first Bathurst victory for a six-cylinder engined car, an achievement that would not be repeated until 1991 when the Nissan Skyline GT-R "Godzilla" took the chequered flag. It was also the birth of the Torana legend as this uniquely Australian performance car went on to become one of Australia's most successful touring cars, due in part to numerical supremacy on the track and the withdrawal of Ford and Chrysler from motor racing later in the seventies.
1972 was also the last year that drivers were permitted to drive without co-drivers.
The 1972 race was a round of the 1972 Australian Manufacturers' Championship, which was open to Group E Series Production Touring Cars.[4]
Christmases at the farm, Mandalay, Soldiers Road, Loch, near Poowong, were legendary, even now my girls continue to talk of them and set their own standards high to match Grandma Hancock's.
The weather was almost always hot and after came the hay season which lasted about four weeks and our annual ho.iday. was almost always excruciatingly brutally hot.
But Christmas Day was always preceded for us before the hour trip, with the opening of the presents. One year it rained so hard we had to erect the girls slide in the lounge room.
Another Debbie and Yvette getting 2 way radios and calling each other from their rooms.
We were convinced the Commander 64 we bought them didn't work as neither Bob or I could get a score out of it as we practiced on our very first video game.
The girls came in and got 20,000 points and it remained to him and I a big puzzle, not in the least interested in the new technology. but I was clever enough to type a greeting from Santa to the girls.
Then we would dress all the girls in brand new dresses and shoes and socks and pack the car with presents and drive to Loch. So serene and old and we would stop off there and buy Bob's Mum, sherbet bombs in a big white paper bag.
We would turn up the hills towards Soldiers Road, the farm not visible from the road, just a cattle grid and a gate. I smashed into the gate post when Bob let me drive his Xp station Wagon, the one with the gingham curtains his Auntie Oll had made him.
But as years went by we drove up in bigger and better cars and with more and more children.
There were heaps of them or so it seemed, the Hancocks, my husbands family. Tiny and Gwen, my parents in law and Kerrie and Ivan as children and the marrieds, Joy and Kevin and Ian and Merrilyn and Bob and I.
Merrilyn and Bob being brother and sister and married to brother and sister, Ian and I.
Pauline was single and my age, and she met her future husband at our wedding in Sydney. Her wedding coming later and I had married at 17, Bob was 23. the first year we were single and by the 2nd, were engaged, married and had a child and buy the next Christmas another.
I ended up in hospital Christmas that year, in Korumburra, I vomited up an egg boxing day and then don't remember much except going to hospital and being in a few day. complications after Yvette's birth, necessitating a minor op.
Not a great time to get sick.
But the Christmas dinners were fabulous, us setting the billiard table with a top on, with all the polished cutlery and crackers. Pretty glasses for the muscat and lemonade drink, Tiny preferring a portagaffe.
We could only just squeeze in there with us all sitting down. the table filled the room, only being small and having a piano in the room as well.
The piano stool was called into use as a seat and Gwen remembered Xmas dinners past where the kids stuffed the stool with unwanted food.
She was an incredible cook my Mother In Law. She always said she wasn't and would pick fault with everything she had prepared and meanwhile we all devoured it like starving wolves, not slowing until our top buttons needed loosening.
She was always self deprecating, Gwen, sharp as a tack, an immensely hard working woman, as farmers wives are. She helped Tiny with the milking, dressed in overalls and wellies and came up from the dairy with fresh cream and milk almost every day.
She made everything from scratch, and cooked in the tiny kitchen, the combustion stove going no matter what the heat as it had to heat the water.
We would arrive and everyone would open their presents and we would scoop them up and hide them in the cars so they didn't get wrecked on the first day at least.
On the table in the kitchen would be bowls of nuts and lollies and crisps. we would all have a Christmas Cheer drink and then banish the men and the women would take over the kitchen and lounge room.
We would set the table and set up a table for the kids in the corner, usually an old card table pulled into service. We always had turkey, usually freshly killed a few days before, and chicken, ham and pork. All the vegetables coming from Gwen's kitchen garden.
The taste was to die for, as she liked everything well done and rich gravy made from the roast drippings and thickened. We would crack open the crackers and dive on our little objects tumbling out, we were like magpies.
we would all wear the hats and tell the truly awful jokes and help clear away the dishes, ready for the dessert, plum pudding, of course, home made of course.
Always silver coins hidden inside and we could have it with cream, icecream or hot custard and sometimes we were given all 3 and told to shutup if we dared to open our mouths in protest.
Quiet Uncle Ken would be there and Nana Wooley, Gwen's Mum. Ken with his envelopes standing shyly to one side of the room and handing them out to us couples for our families. Such a great self effacing man, who had never married or had children.
he had his chance once but I think she broke his heart, he coming back from the war and she was with another. And he went no more dancing before the light of love which was a shame as he was a lovely man.
Nana Wooley was a tiny woman with usually a little Yorkie Terrier with her, always with a bow in it's top knot. Some of Nana's dogs lived 20 years, she pampered them so.
We would all lie around after eating the immense dinner and chat and have cups of tea and then would come afternoon tea. Was there no end to this woman's luscious food.
Mince pies that melted in your mouth, Nana and Gwens vying for best at show. Nana pipped it as she made her own mincemeat with old fashioned suet and a dash of brandy I think.
Gwen's Christmas cake has never varied in all the years I have known her and it's a Marshmallow Icing covered castle covered in delicate hundreds and thousands or rainbow crystals, silver balls, nestled in the valley of the peaks of snow like icing.
There is a layer of Marzipan and I am reminded of the Battenburg Cakes my Mum was so fond of. Gwen and her good friends and swapped recipes.
And as the hot afternoon stretches before us we turn on the tiny telly and watch the Queens speech for the tradition. Everyone hangs around for "tea", which is traditionally cold meat.
Not just any cold meat of course, the ham making its appearance, huge and sliced in hearty slices. tiny does the carving with the Stay Sharp Wiltshire knife. Tiny males sure to sharpen it beforehand, not trusting the stay sharp scabbard as sharpening enough.
There is fresh beetroot in vinegar and a tiny bit of sugar, bread and butter pickles, the cucumbers from the garden and bottled with vinegar and brine and mustard seeds.
Gwen makes the mayonnaise that is made from condensed milk and people have been known to spread it on their toast with nothing else. (Well, one person, anyway )
She has made an immense trifle with chopped jelly and jam roll and a drop of brandy or two, adorned with custard and then cream fresh from the "milking" that morning.
we are all stuffed full like Dresden Geese but still look forward to it and still eat. And finally the visitors are leaving and we stay on as we have about 3 weeks ahead of us of the hay.
That's a story in itself, the hay, and I will leave it for another time. Christmases at Mandalay deserve a story, just for themselves.
the one where Ian returned from the Vietnam War and where sometimes faces would be missing, having to attend their families Christmas. But for the most part we were those people who enjoyed comfort and tradition and for once forgot our ordinary lives and celebrated Christmas as people should, together in laughter and present giving and good will towards others,
Love Janette
