My grandfather Dick was born in Boulder Western Australia in June of 1905, the son of Wiliam MOYLE and Mary Rowe MOYLE nee MARTIN.  My grandmother, Elizabeth Ann Eleanor MARTIN (Marty) was born in Roberts St., Hindmarsh, SA on 22 March 1907, the daughter of Christopher Berriman MARTIN & Margaret nee SHEA (O'SHEA).  She moved with her family to Boulder, Western Australia before her thirteeth birthday.  Her parents, Christopher Berriman MARTIN (who emigrated to New Zealand and then to Australia with his parents from Cornwall in the late 1800's) & Margaret nee SHEA had family living in WA at that time.  Dick's family emigrated from Cornwall also but had spent time on the Victorian Goldfields before moving to WA.

Marty left school at the age of 13 and was employed as a domestic prior to her marriage in 1926.  At the time of her marriage she was living in Burt St., Boulder.  

Dick & Marty were both very special people in our family. When Marty died in 1990 she was 82 and had been ill for sometime. Nonetheless her death was a great blow to all of us and attending her funeral in Boulder  is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do.  By that time Dick had not been with us since 1964.

Some time after Nan's death my older brother and I decided to record our memories of Nan and Grand-dad and the times we had spent with them in Boulder during our childhood.  It occured to us how many of our childhood memories focused on the times we had spent with them, how precious those memories were to us both and what a shame it would be if our own children would never know about them.

We had some hilarious moments comparing anecdotes and adding bits and pieces that came back to us from reading each others notes. What follows is a record of how we remember our grand-parents and the time we spent with them that, hopefully, our children (and theirs) will one day appreciate and enjoy.  We also hope that it demonstrates the love we felt for them.

My Memories of 98 Hopkins St., Boulder

The home of my Grandfather and Grandmother, Harold (Dick) and Elizabeth (Marty) Moyle, is the source of some of my earliest, and happiest, memories. The house stood one block from the corner of Hopkins and Lane Streets, between two vacant blocks, which were criss-crossed with well worn walking paths through being used as shortcuts by nearby residents.

The roads were unsealed, red gravel.  A large peppercorn tree grew on the street verge. Another tree, a favourite for us for climbing and the site of many a cubby house, grew at the rear of the block, just inside the back gate and overhanging the chook pen.  A long unused chevy truck had found a permanent resting place beneath it.

The galvanised iron fence which enclosed the block was painted silver, many of our holidays were spent helping Grnad-Dad to cover it with fresh paint.  I often wonder now if it really needed a fresh coat or if painting it was a convenient way of keeping us occupied during our holiday - whatever - it was all part of being in Boulder.  The roof of the house was painted red and, as far as I can recall, the outside walls were painted a dark grey.

Originally owned and built by my great grand-father William MOYLE, the house itself was re-located to Hopkins Street by my Grandfather, Harold Rupert (Dick), from a site in Vivian St reet to the south.  It had a long passage-way from the front door to the back, off which, to the left, there were two bedrooms and, to the right, a third bedroom and living room.  I don't know why we called it a living room because I don't ever recall it being "lived in".  I don't even recall the light being turned on, unless Nanna needed to find something stored in the cabinet housed there, it was where she kept her china and "best things".  The fire in that room was certainly never lit during my visits.  The walls of the front section of the house were made of pressed tin and many of the panels had decorative patterns.

A pair of what I think might have been velvet curtains were hung and permanently tied back halfway down the passage, serving as an entry to the living room.  A life size statue of a dog (a spaniel I think) guarded the entrance.

Various family photographs hung on the walls in the passageway.  One of Nanna and Grandad and a very young son Len, Nanna quite obviously pregnant with Bob.  Another of "Granny Moyle", Grandad's mother, looking very austere.  My favourite was always the large oval portrait of Nanna, which hung at the end of the hallway above the doorway to the kitchen.  It now hangs on my own home and is my most precious possession.  The glass in the portrait is original, the frame (bought second hand by my Great Grandfather) and the photograph have been restored but the colours and likeness are true to the original.

During my visits to Boulder I usually slept in the second bedroom to the left of the passage along with my brother Trevor and sister Pam. It was a large room containing three iron beds with mesh bases.  On hot nights it wasn't unusual for a camp bed to be set up on the partly enclosed front verandah which extended the width of the front of the house, giving us some relief from the heat.

A step down from the passage way from the living room led to a kitchen/dining area and bathroom, which took up the width of the rear of the house and were added by Grandad.  The wood-fired oven in the kitchen was a favourite spot, on the cold Boulder winter mornings, for warming hands and for cooking toast which was often dipped into boiled bantam eggs fresh from the chook pen.

There were two tables.  One in the kitchen at which we always ate and another in the dining area which I can only ever recall being used for food preparation and other miscellaneous tasks.  Grandad, who was required by Nan to remove his much loved cap for meals and place it on the back of his chair, would often tease us by putting the cap on in the middle of a meal.  Nan would scold him and one of us would have to get up from our chair, remove the cap from his head and hang it on the back of his chair again, only to find he'd reinstated to his head it by the time we were seated.

The bathroom housed a small shaving stand with mirror and hooks (for caps and towels) and a freestanding bath.  The plumbing was adequate but not sophisticated, waste water from the bath ran out into an open drain on the floor and then into the red dirt at the side of the house.

Two steps down from the kitchen to the outside was a small "back porch" where another table lived at which Nan did much of her ironing.  A wood burning water heater stood to the left of the doorway along with a wood box which Uncle Mannie, Nan's brother, kept permanently full.

A pathway to the left of the porch, led to "the camp", a free-standing, one room building with its own small verandah where Uncle Mannie, Nan's (unmarried) brother, slept and lived.  There was always a certain mystique about the camp.  Bill, the major mitchell cockatoo and his cage, occupied the camp's verandah. Bill was always thought to be a male until at about age 30 "she" produced a solitiary egg - but noone had the heart to change her name.

The back and side of Uncle Mannie's camp were partly enclosed and served the purposes of garage, workshop and tool shed.  The work bench always seemed littered with odd looking pieces of metal and various tools, the most memorable of which for me, probably because my brother once tried to crush my finger in it, was a large vice.

To the right of the back porch there was a large square concrete area which the kitchen window overlooked.  Metal piping had been suspended above it giving a kind of pergola effect, but the main source of shade was a large Morton Bay Fig (another favourite climbing attraction).  A  concrete path from the"patio" led to the right again down to the wash house which, needless to say, housed two large concrete troughs, a wringer washing machine (I seem to recall an old hand wringer was mounted on one of the troughs) and many shelves which were used to store various forgotten items including old newspapers and magazines.  The wash house was large (about 6 metres by 10 metres) with a concrete floor and it was enclosed on three sides.

In later years, halfway to the wash house, a modern flushable toilet was built.  It was most appreciated by my younger sister Pam since, prior to its installation, the only toilet (serviced by the "night cart") stood at the very back of the block on the rear laneway.  My brother, Trevor, and I used to take great delight in terrorising Pam in the dark whenever she needed to use it.

The rest of the block formed what was affectionately called "the backyard".  There was the ever present wood pile, the chook pen, a clothes line (Nan always used dolly pegs) and the old out house, which remained even when it was superceded by its modern equivalent.  A hinged wrought iron gate, which was useful for swinging on and keeping out stray cows from the dairy about a mile away, hung at the rear right of the block.

Many of the memories I have of our visits to Boulder are fleeting ones.  I was only 7 years old when my grand-father Dick died in 1964, but I do remember him going off to work at the mines with his "crib" (packed meal), driving into the back gate in his old truck, and several trips to the bush with him to collect wood or check the rabbit traps.  The kittens, those baby rabbits too small to eat, were usually allowed to roam in the chook yard for our amusement for the duration of our stay.  Our UncleBob always assured us he would look after them when we left - I don't recall ever questioning what had become of them on our subsequent visits.

Our favourite outings in Boulder were to the pictures with Nan.  In the summer months the films were shown in the Boulder out-door theatre. Usually we walked into Boulder to the theatre.  Nan's favourite films were always the Westerns and the horror movies, even though she sometimes spent half the time during the horror movies with a blanket over her face.

There was a second-hand comic shop at the far end of Burt Street.  I loved to go there and buy as many "Archie" and "Superman" comics as I could with my pocket money and return a few days later to exchange them for another pile.   Armagh's was another enjoyable shopping outlet where Nan usually stocked us up with underwear and pyjamas for the coming year.

Nan's cats were a source of endless amusement for us.  At one stage there were fourteen living at No. 98.  They became very knowing and would hide their litters under the house until the kittens reached an age at which Uncle Bob didn't have the heart to dispose of them.  Nan had her favourites of course, and Fluffie, Trixie and Blackie were occasionally allowed into the kitchen.

Perhaps my most vivid memories are of our arrivals and departures.  The great excitement of arriving after a year away, usually after dark but in time for fish and chips and pickled onions for tea, eaten from the paper in the kitchen with the fire burning.  And the good-byes, after numerous hugs and promises, as we drove out the gate watching Nan through the back window of the car, waving her hankie.

My Brother's Memories

The backyard at Hopkins Street along with the vacant blocks on each side were our playground on our regular visits to Boulder.

In addition to the chevy truck in the back yard there was another permanently parked in the adjoining vacant block and we used to spend hours playing there sometimes wearing one of grandad's old hats.  Grandad had a chevy truck which was still operational and I can recall him taking Dad and I and Uncle Mannie out to the bush to collect wood.  Mannie, as was his wont, would take his axe and saw and wander off into the bush in search of the best pieces to cut.  Grandad was never one for doing things the hard way and I remember being told that his way to collect wood was to find an old tree stump and blow it up with explosives which had found their way into his truck via the mine.  It was then only a matter of picking up the bits of wood remaining after the explosion.  Grandad would then get annoyed at having to find Mannie who had wandered off and cut wood in several different locations.

One of the games we played in the backyard involved Uncle Bob, who used to bring home a kind of steel ball from the crushes at the mine.  These were about the size of a tennis ball and, while not completely round, they served the purpose for a game of "lawn bowls".  Uncle Bob would get us to dig four holes at the end of the yard near the outhouse.  The holes were about 6" wide and 6" deep. We would then stand at the rear of the newly built toilet and bowl the balls with the intention of getting as many as possible into the holes at the end of the yard.

The chook pen was another great source of amusement.  Each morning Nanna would let us collect the eggs.  Christine and I both enjoyed this task and, on the rare occasions that Christine got up early enough to compete for the job, we used to race to the door of the chook pen and sometimes in our haste would forget to close the gate behind us.  The chooks, of course, didn't need any encouragement to escape and while Chris and I were still collecting eggs, Mum, Dad and Grandad would be trying to round up the chooks who had scattered to all sections of the yard. Grandad also bred ducks, for eggs and eating.  The only one that never got the chop was the drake, even though he used to chase all comers and peck them on the legs at any opportunity.

Grandad owned a green Ford Anglia which he used in preference to the chevy.  Mum recalls that on her visits, Grandad would insist on a Sunday morning that she and Nanna went for a drive with him.  He would take them out to the seven mile hill along the road to Coolgardie.

Occasionally our trips to Boulder were by train, but mostly we went by car.  I remember several trips in Dad's white FC Holden Sedan, with Christine, Pam and I taking turns at getting car sick. I don't think that Dad enjoyed the drive to Kalgoorlie very often.

I recall one particular trip home in later years, when Dad had a station wagon and Ben (the dog) was sitting in the back amongst all the luggage.  There were some very unsavoury odours emanating from the back of the car and Mum and Dad kept blaming us, until Dad looked in the rear vision mirror and saw the look of despair on Ben's face.  Dad pulled over and let the dog out, much to Ben's and our relief.

Our arrivals in Boulder usually coincided with tea time, but on those occasions when we arrived late at night, Uncle Bob and Grandad would go to the local fish and chip shop and buy dinner for all of us.  These were great meals and we kids got to stay up late while the elders caught up on gossip and tasted the latest vintage from the Hannan's Brewery.

On one occasion the fish and chips weren't up to standard. Grandad decided to pack up the partly eaten food and return it to the shop for a refund.  Everyone told him he was wasting his time, but Grandad had the gift of the gab and he duly returned home with his money back.  He is still the only person I know to have achieved a refund from a fish and chip shop.

I used to delight in my trips with Grandad.  He would take me everywhere except the Worker's Club.  We used to do odd shopping for Nanna, although Grandad always came home with more than he'd been asked to get.  My favourite was to the local grain shop to buy the food for the ducks and chooks.  When we got the pollard and pellets home, my job was to mix the pollard with water to form a type of porridge for the chooks.

More ...

While Trevor and I were comparing notes many other memories about Hopkins Street and Boulder came back to us.  Grandad arriving home from the Club (on an uncannily large number of occasions) with a plucked chook under his arm having won the nightly raffle.  How the green grocer would ring his bell and stop at the front of the house with his truck laden with fresh fruit and vegetables.  Trevor insists that there was also a drive by bookmaker who called on Grandad regularly.  The Lowe family across the road who had hoardes of children with whom we often played.  The creek at the end of a dirt track towards the dairy where we amused ourselves endlessly jumping from the sides and trying to land so as to miss the large puddles of stagnant water that sat at the bottom.  Uncle Bob's record player that always played Jim Reeves and Slim Dusty as the accompaniment to our fish and chip meals, and Bob playing his old 78 records - when we first heard "It's in the Book".  Norton's Store in King Street, to which we were sent regularly on errands for a pint of milk or some bread  (a tank loaf) - with always a little extra for a vanilla icecream cone or some lollies.  Those trips to Kal' when the road was flooded or when emergency "comfort stops" meant scaling the famous pipeline for privacy.  One of Nan's cats giving birth to a litter on the front seat of Bob's car.  The sights and sounds of a dust storm rolling in from the bush and the sights and smells when Nan took a batch of scones or a rabbit roast or kangaroo tail stew out of the oven.

Nan died on January 15th 1990 soon after returning to Kalgoorlie following a visit to Perth.  She and her beloved Dick are buried together in Boulder Cemetery, Western Australia.

For Nan - 16 January 1990

"How can we forget when so many things will always remind us of you.  Houses with verandahs, tin rooves and iron fences painted silver.  Peppercorn trees, wrought iron gates, cats and dolly pegs. Outdoor picture theatres, aprons, scones, major mitchells and woodstoves.  Shandies, blue eyes, slippers with pom-poms on the top and elderly ladies whose false teeth slip out when they laugh - we loved to make you laugh.  Hugs, fish and chips, shuffling steps in the passage-way and tearful farewells.  This will be our last tearful farewell but the tears will all be mine. Sleep tight Nan, knowing that we have always loved you and that you will forever be in our hearts."