Harbinger

Arrival

Me, Pigface and Mt Wellington 1963

The house at New Norfolk was not for ever. It was the only one on the hospital campus put aside to receive married staff from interstate or from abroad. We were asked to find other accommodation within six weeks and advised how we might find it. It seemed that rented properties were plentiful, so it was better for us to move sooner rather than later. We were just married, had no dependants and no furniture to cart about yet. As it was, we could move everything that belonged to us in our Austin Mini! Our ship’s hold baggage was waiting in Hobart for delivery somewhere when we advised.

We soon found an advert for a ‘small house by the river’ at Austin's Ferry, 15 kilometres downstream towards Hobart. That would be fine for me travelling to work daily and it was nearer to Hobart for Val. She could hop onto the small trains to the city from the Derwent valley. She had already found work in Moonah, a northern suburb. We liked the eponymous romance in the name Austin’s Ferry.


 Austin's Ferry is named after James Austin (1776-1831), who had been transported to Port Phillip as a convict in 1803 along with his cousin, John Earl. They arrived in Van Diemens Land in 1804. After their sentences expired, both men were given small land grants on the western shore of the River Derwent between Hobart and New Norfolk. In 1818 they established a ferry service across the river and later a punt which proved very conveniently located for vehicular traffic travelling between Hobart and regions to the north. They became very wealthy. (Wikipedia)


We had difficulty finding the house at first because it was on a road, a small track really, not marked on any petrol station map. It served a small peninsula community on the tidal river’s edge, as well as hosting a sailing club. A sign said, ‘Harbinger Lane’, pointing along a compacted dirt path to our right. It was less than a hundred metres long but according to our directions, it had to be right. On the river side of the peninsula to our left were a few houses set in big gardens.

  Immediately to our right was a shallow valley containing tidal river flats and salt-bush scrub land. We could see across the valley to the winding main Hobart road. To the south, the valley opened out to the sea where Mount Wellington brooded blue over Hobart, commanding the skyline. Fringing the track were large wild beds of a pink-purple succulent flowering plant. We later learned that this spectacular plant had the unattractive and perversely Australian local name, ‘pigface’.


Man on Roof
Halfway along, we arrived at the wide garden to a large off-white colonial style weatherboard house. It had one storey and a tin roof. It looked as if it dated from the 1920s. As I stopped the car, I could see a man standing nonchalantly on a high roof gable. He was painting the corrugated iron in a by now familiar deep terracotta. Colours of man-made things here were far more extravagant than I had ever seen in Britain and this shade suited the brightness of the Tasmanian sunlight perfectly.


There was nobody else around so I called to the man. He glanced at us and waved, then started nimbly down a ladder. Once on the ground, he took off his wide-brimmed felt hat and wiped his brow. Briskly, he asked, “Come for the house? I’ll just get Mrs Hulton. Wait there”. Before I could reply, he turned away, walking quickly out of sight down a path alongside the lawn.

The house he had been decorating was of a style similar to ones I had seen in pictures of
early twentieth century Sydney. It had shapely, mature conifers planted at one side and graceful willows at the opposite end of its wide garden. Variously sized shrubs surrounded most of the lawn and tall orange flowers I had never seen before were scattered through unfussy beds. The unfenced garden was well-tended.

“Hello. I’m so sorry to keep you waiting”, came a voice. A tidy, grey-haired woman was bustling across the lawn toward us, followed by the man from the roof. “I’m Sylvia Hulton”, she said gesturing toward the man, “You’ve already met my husband, Jessop”. His smile deepened the lines on his face as I shook his hand. I saw then that he carried many more years than his sprightly demeanour showed. I remember thinking he was quite an old man to be clambering on a roof. I was not sure that I could have done that without something to hang on to.

“You can leave your little car there if you like”, Mrs Hulton said. Her vowels had a just perceptible harsh Australian edge. “We’ll go through and look at the cottage”. She led us round the house into another large garden at the rear. It had lawns that descended gently to some rocks and beyond to the waterside. The river itself was nearly blocked from view by a huge tree that was drooping coppery leaves from overhanging branches. Half hidden in the foliage under the tree on the high river bank, was a wooden Wendy house. A child’s swing hung from a low branch.


House and Garden

“There must be kids about”, I thought but I could still not see the property we had come to investigate. Then, when Mrs Hulton bustled toward the door of the tiny house, saying, “I’ll take you inside”, I thought, “Christ almighty! It’s this place!”. Mr Hulton had gone back to painting the roof.

Opening the door, she beckoned us to enter. With grim resignation, I followed Val and Sylvia through. At that moment, I must have had the tense politeness of a man trapped into something for which he would not volunteer in a million years. I just could not believe I  was applying to live in a play house in someone’s back garden!

We were taken for a necessarily short tour around the tiny house by our enthusiastic hostess. She was loving it. To be fair, it was the size of a large mobile home and was equipped for living in genteel style. It had a small narrow kitchen with table and bench seats that looked through square panes, far out to a breath-taking view of the wide river estuary. Beyond, there was a wash basin/shaving area featuring a porcelain jug and bowl set. Through a door on the garden side was a cosy looking bed-sitting room. “And here’s the garden again”, said Mrs Hulton, flinging open the bedroom French windows onto a small veranda leading to the lawns we had crossed before.
 
The inside was furnished with light, flower-pattern curtains and upholstery. It had mains electricity, a tiny gas oven and hob with two cooking rings but there was neither running water nor bathroom! Mrs Hulton explained that we would use the shower and bathing facilities in the main house, twenty metres across the lawn. We would have exclusive use of their outside toilet. She pointed to a cold water tap standing immediately outside the door of the house, saying, “You can soon boil that in your electric jug. It’s quite safe to drink”.

Garden - Austin's Ferry Yacht club upriver

Whilst the place was very different from our generous hospital house, it was charming and its virtue increased the more I looked at it. The river was close to the little house, only two metres down a rocky bank. My rictus smile was dissolving. “I’ll show you around the gardens”, Mrs Hulton said, “While you think about it”.

                                                                 Primrose Cottage

The garden was lovely. It was spacious and informal, casual even. The lush lawns were punctuated by wrought iron benches, decorative shrubs and mature trees. Several varieties of red and pink geraniums and fuchsia bushes splashed colour liberally. The warm air was filled with sharp fragrance from thick clumps of tall lavender in the borders. More of the profuse native ‘pigface’ cascaded in shocking pink banks from the rocks above the river. I wandered down rough steps to a flat rocky platform right at the water’s edge. While descending, I spotted a small flotilla of sailing boats racing toward the far shore, nearly a kilometre away. They had presumably left from the sailing club jetty that was just visible a couple of hundred metres upstream.

From Primrose cottage, Pigface in foreground - River Derwent

On the distant shore opposite, low cream-brown slopes of dry paddock grassland tilted gradually away uphill. They stretched up to steep evergreen forests, from which poked high, naked rocks on a forbidding eastern skyline. Scattered farm buildings on the riverside plain were separated by occasional tall eucalypts. It looked as if the buildings were served by an unsealed road running close to the water. As I watched, a lone car driving in the direction of Hobart was throwing up a yellow plume of dust in its wake.

It was an idyllic setting and by now my misgivings had completely evaporated! I said as much to Val and since she agreed, I told Mrs Hulton that we would take it. She was delighted and gleefully clapping her hands, replied that she was so pleased that she would have English people staying there. When we talked with Mr Hulton a little later, we would discover why. “Let’s go into the house and have a chat about it”, she said, still smiling broadly.

From Jetty of Yacht club 1963

We followed her and sat down in her kitchen where she gave us fresh lemonade, small crustless sandwiches and little iced cakes served on fragile, translucent white china. The table was set with cream lace napkins. While nibbling, I tried to make conversation with Mrs Hulton. At first, I found it a strain because I felt the delicacy of the presentation was more affectation than courteous hospitality. I was not used to that. I was also gauchely unfamiliar with small talk and just hoped that I was doing everything right!

We had agreed the details of rent, bathroom and car parking when Mr Hulton, hands and arms paint-spattered from his work on the roof, entered talking to himself. He opened a huge refrigerator. “Now! What can I have for lunch?” he muttered. As he prepared himself a ham and lettuce sandwich, I noticed that he cut his loaf into great slabs. It reassured me that he was not troubled by the more contrived etiquette of his wife’s tea party on the other side of the large kitchen.

More Pigface, river and Eastern Shore

The Hultons
Sylvia was in her mid to late sixties. She had a pretty, rather anxious face and small, fidgety hands. A petite, delicate lady, she must have been really lovely in her younger days. I pictured her in a filmy cornflower blue frock, daisy-chain round her forehead tripping across the lawn. She was full of recollection of early years at the house, although she seemed vague, even slightly unconnected with the present world.

In all, I was finding this meeting enjoyable. Mrs Hulton was an engaging and attentive woman. Animated, face shining she showed us around her big house. There was a deal of dark wooden panelling in every room and most of the pictures on her walls were photographs from a previous time. Small curios, art deco statuettes and bright, anonymous objects were arranged tidily on occasional tables and mantels. A television set in one corner of her chintzy living room shrieked discord with the rest.

She led us to the rear of the house. “And here is our ballroom!” she announced. She said it as if every house had one! Grandly, she flourished her left arm at the door to her piéce de résistance. A trumpet fanfare would have been appropriate.

The room was a surprise because it was in a domestic premises, albeit a large one of a certain vintage. It was spacious, half panelled, with a high, chandeliered ceiling and a polished timber floor. At one end stood a shiny upright piano and an original wind-up gramophone. At the other end was a broad chimney-piece with a great fireplace designed, like many fires in Tasmania, to burn long timber logs. The room was not huge but it was definitely one where significant numbers of people, say at a wedding party, might cut a decent rug in comfortable space.

As we returned to the kitchen, a pretty Siamese cat emerged, loudly demanding attention while leaning hard against my ankles. “That’s Ninny”, said Mrs Hulton, “Ignore her and she’ll go away. She’s quite stupid.” She explained that ‘Ninny’ was an abbreviation of ‘Truganini’, the name of an aboriginal matriarch. (Truganini was one of the last of the Tasmanian tribes. They had been extinguished by a woeful combination of imported disease and hostile British settlers during Tasmania’s tragic 19th Century).

Sylvia had shortened the cat’s name to ‘Ninny’, she said, “Because she’s so silly. Ninny suits her!” I imagined it would also have been preferable to cry, “Ninny”, instead of “Truganini”, when calling the animal from the garden. Otherwise to an observer, it might have sounded more like an invocation to the aboriginal spirits of the dreamtime than an invitation for a spot of tinned cat-food.

We had sat down in the kitchen again to continue our chat when a pink-scrubbed Mr Hulton rejoined us after tidying up from his work on the roof. He smelled powerfully of carbolic soap. I think Sylvia must have been filling time with us until then, because she now took a back seat while he led the conversation more purposefully. Between them they told us something of themselves and of the history of the property. He spoke in precise Lancastrian English, while Sylvia gazed adoringly at him, interjecting dreamily on only a few occasions.

My first impression of Mr Hulton had been right. He was eighty years old, a neat upright man with what hair he now had, white against his tanned scalp. Jessop Grey Hulton been a seaman on a square-rigger grain clipper that plied between Britain and The Commonwealth. Its name was ‘Harbinger’. He had retired from the sea when quite young, eventually buying the small river peninsula. He had come to Tasmania via South Africa, quite soon after the Act of Federation and had married Sylvia. He had built the house and named the access track, ‘Harbinger Lane’ after the clipper. I thought how satisfying it must be to be able to make a claim like that.

During our guided tour, Sylvia had told us that they used to open their property to visitors. It had been known then as ‘The Lavender Gardens’. The position next to the ferry and the only road allowing movement to and from Hobart and western and northern Tasmania, would have assured a concentration of folks converging on the gardens. After the First War, society people had come there for weekend soirées, tea dances and similar events.


Roaring Twenties

In what I supposed was a wish to replicate a popular Australian impression of the mother country, they had built the Wendy House, naming it ‘Primrose Cottage’. Guests had driven there from afar for Sylvia to sell them genteel teas of cream cakes and cucumber sandwiches. Souvenirs of cards and little hand-sewn silk bags of lavender were on sale. From there, the Hultons had hosted their guests at parties on the lawn and in the house. The ballroom, often with live music, had been popular for concerts and dancing. It sounded very classy! In spite of it being frank mimicry of upper class 1920s England, it was very appropriate. Tasmania had a far more suitable climate for it than Britain. It made the Lavender Gardens a commercial success.

The ambience of the property had evidently not changed much since then. I fancied the scene containing elegant ladies wearing cloche hats, flapper dresses and long strings of pearls, clinging to the arms of gents wearing straw boaters, striped blazers and carrying long cigarette holders. It was as though characters from ’The Great Gatsby’ might come chattering around the corner at any moment.

I wondered at first if the Hultons’ lives were not now rather empty. On later reflection, I decided not because I became certain that the house and gardens had been preserved like this as a style preference. There was nothing I knew about them in 1963 that did not evoke that bygone era, so in that sense, they were consistent and complete. The archetypal art deco genre clearly drew Sylvia in particular to the illusion. For her at least, the gardens and rooms still echoed the sounds of the old days. The couple were not obtrusively wealthy or in any way pretentious but they lived a life-style from a time that, with my working class origins, I had experienced only vicariously in cinema and literature. It was therefore, something of a dislocation, although not an unpleasant one, to be engaged in it first-hand.

 Sylvia, among other ‘busy’ things, still sewed her silk bags of home-grown lavender to sell to Hobart shops. Whether she did that just for interest, or to eke out a now-straitened income, I do not know but the pervasive lavender there took me straight back to childhood days at my grandmother’s smallholding in England. Gran had been a regimental wife in India during the British Raj and had surrounded herself with trinkets, knick-knacks and lavender, just as Sylvia had. The recollection made me curiously comfortable in Sylvia’s company. Overall, the couple lived perfectly happily in the style of colonials, so none of it could have been affectation. They believed it and lived it still! As that summer in Austin’s Ferry wore on, I think I began to believe it as well.


Extinction


On a return visit forty-one years later, I was shocked to find that the old house, along with ’Primrose Cottage’, the lawns and fragrant lavender gardens were gone. Only Austin's Ferry yacht club was still there. Neither was there any shocking pink pig-face in sight! In place of everything was an unremarkable cluster of brick veneer houses. For me, it had become a piece of real estate as depressingly anonymous as any other along the edges of the Derwent River Estuary.


There was however, a desultory plastic-covered celebratory plaque in Harbinger Lane. It had been put there by Glenorchy City Council, in whose district Austin's Ferry is. It commemorated some history of the ferry, the peninsula and the Hulton family. The plaque was placed roughly where I had stood for the 1963 photograph shown above. Seeing the plaque lightened my gloom somewhat but I regretted that it carried neither reference to Jessop Hulton’s life nor the origin of the name of the lane in which it was placed. While I am unhappy that this romantic, human element of public history has been omitted or even lost, I still do not know if I am really grieving for the physical extinction of my own small fragment of that history.


Whatever the truth of these musings, Mr Hulton did have a distinguished line of forebears with strong links to Empire, commerce and transport and therefore things nautical. The family, although not aristocratic, seemed to throw up people who for centuries had distinguished themselves in the military, the professions and society in general. The nature and means of Jessop Hulton’s arrival in Tasmania and his subsequent role might thus have been quite important in the post-federation growth of Tasmania and to that extent, the Australian nation.


Both of the Hultons were long since dead, Sylvia much later than Jessop, because she had been not much more than a child bride to him. I felt that I had cheated myself in that I had not taken advantage of the opportunity to know them better in my youth.


It was John Donne who wrote, ‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind’. Maybe this is the honest reason for valuing heritage. As I walked along Harbinger Lane again in 2004, I felt the ghostly sensations of my short time there and of the people I had known. Perhaps that is what Donne really meant.


Derek Pickard











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