Manuel family. Manuel family. Manuel family. Manuel family. Manuel family. Manuel family. Manuel family. Manuel family. Manuel family. Manuel family.
1929 – 1971
Memories by Colin Manuel
Firstly, Nyabing was originally called Nampup. The name Nyabing was agreed to about 1910? Some early settlers were the Charsley’s, Cronin’s, Fiebig’s, Whowell’s, Jury’s, Blundy’s, Batt’s, Shields’, Mills’, Hobley’s, Wiseby’s, Halterman’s, Atkinson’s, Larwood’s, Fewson’s, Reeves, Manuel’s and many more. Most of these settlers were before my arrival in 1929.
I was born on the 27th January 1929. Some of my earliest memories were the local shop which was owned by Richardson and Co of Katanning, and managed by a Mr Chapman. Mr Mitchell was the Secretary for the Kent Road Board, followed by a Mr Edwards I think.
I started school in 1935 and my sister Enid and elder brother John drove a horse and sulky to Nyabing. We used the school building which is still in use by the Girl Guides I believe.
Nyabing School Sports Day 1922
Rear: Tom Deacon, Albert Killy, Phillip Charsley, Wally Gaby, Ray Gaby, Richard Charsley, ? Coates, unknown, Miss Gladys Marie Davie (the future Mrs MC Manuel).
Front: Gladys Gaby, Phylys Quartermaine, Dereck Jury, Mary Wiseby and Darcy Langley.
Names courtesy of Gaby Family.
My Mother came to Nyabing in 1920-21 and she taught children in the little school building which is now on the main street (called the Settlers Hall). I believe that Mrs Fiebig was the teacher before my mother. Our teachers were Mr Hill, Mr Greep, Mr Withers and Mr Gibbons. I went to Nyabing School from 1935 to 1941, then went to Albany High School until 1944.
My family history is interesting because of the circumstances which brought my grandfather to Nyabing. My Grandfather was John Henry Manuel who arrived in Adelaide in 1859 and grew up there. He gained employment with Charles Birk’s Emporium and learnt to be a draper. After many years he left there and went to Port Pirie where he ran his own business as an import agent dealing mostly with a firm called Whiteway & Co.
As he was the inaugural conductor of the Port Pirie Brass Band, he was given the task of bringing the band to Albany for a competition. He was impressed with Albany and later returned with his wife and child. His wife was Matilda Ruth Moody whose family lived at Truro in South Australia.
Grandfather worked in Albany with Drew Robinson’s [ii] and later moved to Broomehill. The reason for that was the Great Southern Railway was being built from Albany up, and from Beverley down. As the First World War broke out the supply of rail would stop. Ships would unload in Albany and the goods had to be railed to Broomehill, which was the end of the line. This meant that a large distribution centre was established in Broomehill. My Grandfather took the job as Manager at Broomehill. [The Great Southern Railway was actually fully completed by 1889. Katanning was the main centre from that time – Ed.]
The original home on Gnowanallup
While there in Broomehill the only men’s barber was in Katanning. This meant that the Katanning barber, whose name was Frederick William George Collett, got all the news and gossip and he found out that a block of land east of Nampup was to be thrown open.
This block was previously held for the Governor. When Collet found out that the Governor did not want it, he pushed a bike out to peg it. This was Gnowanallup Gully which was richly endowed with Jam trees.[ii] This made the block valuable because the jam posts were white ant proof and there were thousands of posts along the gully.
John Henry Manuel
Matilda Ruth Manuel (nee Moody)
J.H. Manuel built on Gnowanallup (Noongar for Mallee Hen’s nest by the water) for himself and Grandmother. Alongside was the shed with the working man’s quarters attached.
Collett was a hairdresser and he could not do anything with the block so he sold it to my grandfather for £500 ($1,000). Grandfather could not develop the land himself so he got his nephew to come over from South Australia. His name was Will Jury.
The first 70 acres (28ha) was cleared by Billy Larwood. After a few years Will joined the Police Force so Grandfather got Roy Jury (Wills brother) to come over and help develop the land. Some other contractors helped clear the block over the years and they were: Hugh Fewson and Hannay (mostly dam sinking), Tom and Syd Pully, Paddy O’Reilly and Oscar (?) Brennan. Grandfather spent a lot of money developing the block but rabbits and parrots were a problem. Foxes caused much loss and the Great Depression of 1929-33 [ii] was very hard to contend with.
Grandfathers only son Mervyn came home from the War in 1919-20 and married my mother (Gladys Marie Davie) who was the school teacher at that time.
Mervyn Campbell Manuel
Gladys Marie Manuel (nee Davie)
NYABING AS I REMEMBER:
In the early thirties Nyabing was still handling bag wheat. Each bag had to weigh a minimum of 180lbs (81kg) and the bag stitchers would try and get as much wheat as they could into a bag to save the costs of bags. We went up a grade in 1938 with the advent of a bulk wheat bin. At this stage the train ran each Thursday and a lot of people would come to Nyabing on Thursday to get the mail and whatever else came on the train.
At Christmas, Lew Hambley, owner of the Federal Hotel in Katanning, would pick up grog and send it out to the people at Nyabing. They would order it, so they would be waiting for it to arrive. On one occasion Jack Quiss, who was the Rabbit Proof Fence man, was in Nyabing and had ordered a keg of wine. When the train arrived on a very hot December day, the local blokes rolled the keg into the little station goods shed, put it up on a shelf, threw a wet bag over it, put the tap in and they all sampled the contents. The train was due at 12 noon and by 4-5pm the keg was getting very low. Someone said to Harry Ashcroft “How are you going?”, Harry looked up through his thick glasses and said, “I’m alright now, but I know I’ll be crook in the morning”. So were a few others as well.
Nyabing had a Hall and a Blacksmiths, a shop (general store), a green grocer with a Boarding House run by the Gaby Family and later Ted Heath. The CWA built its Restroom about 1938 and the new government dam with the cement walls and a roof was built about the same time.
Viv Langley would kill a couple of sheep and sell the meat in front of the boarding house shop each Thursday (not too regular). Nyabing was quite vibrant but the 1939 war started and a lot of men enlisted and what with rationing and super quota’s, things were pretty grim for quite a few years.
After the war, Harry Gillis took over the boarding house and acquired a liquor license and that gave Nyabing “The Nyabing Inn”. This was quite good for the social side of life in town and many a story can be told about the Nyabing Inn. We had a few local customers who would spend a considerable amount of time sampling the brew. Some were Harry Ripper, Bill Batt, Keith Quartermaine, Gill McLaren and a few more….
Mention must be made of the Gaby family. Ernie Gaby had a Chevrolet truck and did carting while his wife and family ran the boarding house. They were hard working family and I think most of the boys enlisted in the Army in 1939. Ray was taken prisoner and I think Harold was killed. I’m not sure what they all did but they certainly lived up to their forebears of the 1914 war where one of the Gaby family, Alfred [2], was awarded the Victoria Cross. A splendid effort from a pioneering family.
People think they have a tough life now, but they have no idea of what it was like in the days of the Depression. My Family was allowed £10 ($20) per month to live on by the bank. My Mother made butter, bread, and she would put “Saddler” in the sulky and, with my Grandmother Ruth, they would drive six miles (10km) to Nyabing and sell all they could to the local shop keeper.
They would take any sheep skins, dead wool, Manna gum, eggs, bread and anything they could sell or swap. My mother would get my brother John to put a horse in the dray and we would find a Salmon Gum with a bee hive in it. We would work out which way the tree would fall and light a fire with all the scrub and bark that we could find. Then mum would drop the tree on top of the fire which would smoke like a house on fire.
When the bees had enough smoke and were all dizzy, she would cut a hole in the trunk so she could pull out the honeycomb. We would stand about 80 yards (73m) away. The hives would usually give about half of a two-gallon (7.5 ltr) bucket of honey. Mum would wrap it up in mosquito cloth and hang it over another bucket for about a week. If she got more honey than she wanted she would sell some. She made our trousers out of sugar bags and our shirts out of flour bags. These were the days of long hours, up early to milk the cows (up to 12), separate and feed.
When I was 4-5 years old my father and the man he had helping him, had to load the wagon with 60 bags of wheat and drive it in to Nyabing, where each bag was loaded onto scales and the lumpers would walk up planks and place the bags in stacks. These stacks were quite large, about 20 feet (6m) high and bout 100-150 yards (90-140 m) long by about 40 feet (12m) wide. To unload the wagon took quite a while, especially if another wagon was in front of you. This particular time I was allowed to ride on the wagon and while they were unloading, I was walking around and found a sixpence (five cents). So I went across to the shop and the shop man gave me 12 halfpenny sticks. I took them over to the stack, sat down in the shade and ate the lot.
The children of Mervyn & Gladys Manuel
Rear: John & Colin – Front: Jennifer, Beryl & Enid.
When it was time to go home, my father called me to get on the wagon. Unfortunately for me some were liquorice sticks and my mouth was black from one side to the other. My father wanted to know where I had got the money from and when I told him I had spent the whole sixpence. Well I got into trouble for going to the shop and spending the money, and then I got a hiding for being a guts and not saving some for my brothers and sisters. Needless to say I was quite sick all the way home and it felt like 50 miles (80km), not six (10). It was the same for all the children in those days, there was no luxury as we know it now. The doctor was 50 miles (80km) away and you had to be at deaths door before anyone would look at you.
When I think back to the school children who were in my time at Nyabing some names sprint to mind for the years 1935-1960:
Ross Moore, Barbara Goodchild, Stan Jury, Stella Goodchild, Murray Addis, Beth Goodchild, Stephen Shields, Sheila Goodchild, Bernard Goodchild, Mavis Batt, Harold Gaby, Rhonda Jury, Albert Guelfi, Doris Francis, Jack Tuffley, Maxine Guelfi, Max Langley, Rhonda Guelfi, George Sargent, Greta Atkinson, Peter Goodchild, Lois Manuel, Theo Gibbons, Marguerite Goodchild, Cliff Langley, Esma Quartermaine, Clem Gerhardy, Keith Hobley, Eric Ripper, Greg Manuel
There is a lot more but I cannot recall their names but they must be recorded somewhere. Nyabing is and always has been a very close community and has shown a lot of civic pride over the years in its well-being.
I married Christina Joan Moir on the 3rd March 1951, and we had five children: Greg, Lois, Linley, Neville and Arlene.
Greg
Greg and Faye have three children, Jeremy, Karen and Brett. Jeremy married Tanya Haskett and they have Stephanie and Jayden. Karen married Shane Ratcliffe and they have Mikayla and Bryce. Brett has finished his study and is now a qualified electrician. He spends some of his time working in the north of the state. He is not yet married. Gregory has been working in Victoria for most of the time since and Faye has remained in Eaton, WA and we see her fairly regularly.
Lois
My eldest daughter Lois married Stephen Hansen and they have three children, Russell, Quentin and Kristy. Russell married his partner Marnie Finlayson and they have Will and Mia. Quentin has worked in the Navy and completed his course in avionics, and currently runs a franchise business in Stirling. Kristy also works in a franchise business alongside her father. Both Quentin and Kristy are unmarried. Lois has her time cut out running a Lotto shop in Fremantle and a newsagent in Armadale. Steve has his successful business ticking along and is involved in the WA Franchising Association.
Linley
My second daughter Linley married Ron Scaddan in Busselton and they have three boys, Dean, Paul and Shaun. Dean has one son, Leo by his first partner Donna Curmi and a daughter, Brylee by his wife Kay Grant-Phillips. Paul married Sharon Hamilton and they have three children, Beau, Rivah and Asher. Shaun married Jasmine Smith and they have two children, Christian and Mikalah.
Neville
My second son Neville married Anne McNamara at her hometown of Warrnambool in Victoria and they have two sons, Adam and Jarrod. They both have girlfriends but no offspring…yet.
Arlene
Then we come to my daughter Arlene. She married Malcolm Stokes and went to live at the Stokes farm in Three Springs. Arlene and Malcolm have two children, Renee and Jason. Renee married Robert Rushton and they have Taya and Isla. Jason married Carly Byra and they also have a daughter Kya, and a son Drew.
After divorcing Joan, I met and later married Kaye Reynolds on the 11th June 1994. We have settled in Albany and enjoy our trips around the state visiting friends and family. When I return to Nyabing now, I find a neat and tidy little town. It is a credit to all the people who over the years have put in hard work and perseverance to achieve this result.
Return to HOME Page
Return to Nyabing PEOPLE Page
Visit the LOST NYABING Facebook Group