The "A" frame below the Toowoomba range About 1965
(Note that the sub editor (Ruth) helped me fix my errors in the “Good time had by all”. If my spelling etc offends the online version is now better than the one emailed. Only gets emailed once though so I can’t fix that version in the email. (Anybody who has any photos or anecdotes to add then I can easily do that for posterity.)
Ruth has had a pass over this one if you are wondering.
This story is more what I intended to be doing with this substack thing. A few poorly remembered photos and a bit of a story.
Cabins in the woods. I'm sure the psychologist would have an interesting time with this. But clearly in the Durak clan there's a need. Possibly an ancient evolutionary need to build shelters in the bush. What in some parts of the world would be called cabins in the woods? But in Australia we don't really have woods as such, but I think the idea is the same as that of the people that build cabins in the woods of frozen Canada. That YouTube rabbit hole that once entered you can never escape…. probably all much the same. There is Dad’s “A” frame, Ruth and I have built a couple, brother Jim a couple at Nobby. His performance space “The Grainery” and a real hide away cabin in the woods. Matthew and Jenny with their “Studio” on Old Talgai. Uncle Reg had one at Dingo Springs outside Kununurra after he left Bullita the second time. He managed the station back when he was 17, bought it when in his 80s and then sold it to the government to become part of the Gregory National Park. Bullita’s corrugated iron “homestead” defiantly rustic enough to qualify. Any of these worthy of their own stories.
My earliest memories are of Dad’s “A” frame “below the range”, “over the back”. The farm “below the range” was always a fixture of growing up in Toowoombain my memory. When Dad decided to leave his job with Australian Estates based mostly in Julia Creek the story goes that he and Mother put a pin in the map which happened to be Toowoomba (safely on the eastern side of the country). The plan was to establish an architectural practice there and bring the extant three children up there. I came along and was born in Toowoomba in 1954. My young brother Matthew came along several years later.
Toowoomba was a small town (population about 15 to 20k) in those days and Dad decided to have a fall-back plan if he could not make a go of architecture in such as small town. He invested his portion of the divvy up of the Connor Doherty and Durack northern properties to buy a small farm “below the range”. Described in the, I guess, advert below.
I think it was sold in stages with the better country with the house sold before the rougher blocks “over the back”. Hence the justification for building accommodation on the block “over the back”.
I was probably about 10 or 11 at the time. I wasn’t sure whose idea it was. After quizzing the brothers, it looks like Dad was the enthusiast.
I thought it might have been Michael who was doing architecture at the time. He doesn’t claim much input to the plan. He remembers doing some of the work though.
Might have been brother John. He after all put in the most effort below the range with the horticulture project to grow acres of tomatoes in the Uni holidays and make a fortune. I have dim memories of this venture. Certain events standout. There was the Stilson (a heavy pipe wrench) dropped on cousin John Tully clearing out the well in the bed of the creek. Relations with the Tully family remained strained for many years after that. I have a clear picture of the big flat belt connecting the tractor (or was it a stationary Lister engine) to the irrigation pump falling off and scooting along the ground. But mostly I remember cleaning out a trough and picking up a big yabbie (crayfish). It bit me on the pad of my thumb with its claw locked on. It made a big hole when pulled off and bled profusely. Gave me a great respect for crayfish and crabs ever since. I don’t remember ever eating a tomato. I think there was a tomato crop but I don’t think any fortune was made. John was probably well advised to stick to the law which served him pretty well.
Anyway, it was a major construction and I have a few of Dad’s photographs (scanned slides) of it. This was the era where Dad would buy a roll of 24 or if feeling flush 36 and that would be enough photos for the year! The building involved concrete block footings which would have been pretty hard work to set in the rocky ridge. I think the size was probably about 6 by 8 metres. It had 10 footings set out two rows of five. On top of those there were beautiful hardwood bearers possibly 6 or 8 x 4 inches. These ran out beyond the footings.
The legs of the “A” were pairs of 4x2 hardwood bolted through on each side of the bearers and pinned with a bolt and nail plates at the apex. My guess was that they were 8 to 10 m long. (Timber must have been relatively cheaper in those days as the structure had a lot of beautiful hardwood timber in it which nowadays would be hard to get and very expensive. I imagine that Dad was as tight with his budget as I have been for my various projects.) Erecting these things must have been a challenge as they would have been very heavy and a long way off the ground. I don’t remember anything much of the actual construction. At my age at the time, I suspect I was just kept out of the way.
Halfway up there were another set of bearers the cross bar of the “A”, for a mezzanine floor. The thing was pretty big. The floors were 6 x 1 ironbark spanning the bearers at about 30-inch centres.
As I remember, there was good clearance to the mezzanine floor and you could easily stand up in it although it was getting pretty narrow as you went up.
Oddly Dad made a serious mistake in the construction because he decided to sheet the thing with masonite which was a good material, but completely hopeless if it gets wet. I think he thought that as it was very steep not much water would stay on it. Wrong as it turned out. It looked great when it first went up but over the relatively few years that we used the ‘A’ frame it sagged badly.
One of the one of the funniest stories I remember is the nail pulling incident. I must have been hanging around as I remember the events I think clearly.
You have the picture. Five sets of the legs of the ‘A’ were in place and the bearers for the mezzanine (the bar of the ‘A’) actually ran through the legs to form the basis of a small veranda on each side. A number of 6x1 boards were placed on these bearers outside the ‘A’ to form a working platform for fixing the sheeting. Being temporary they were not nailed down but looked stable enough. HS&E (Health Safety and Environment) not being a thing at the time I imagine no real risk analysis was carried out. It would have felt reasonably secure standing up straight. Problem was though that the legs of the ‘A’ are at a fair angle to the vertical. Still not a big problem nailing up a sheet. Nailing anything into seasoned hardwood though is not that easy. The inevitable happened and Dad bent a nail halfway in and it needed to be pulled out. Again, not an easy task in ironbark as it required considerable effort. This is where the folly showed up. Leaning forward high up pulling down on the hammer the boards shot out backwards leaving Dad hanging one leg either side of the mezzanine bearer held up only by the hammer. I don’t recall how he got down but there were some pretty anxious moments I bet.
Oh that I could draw it would make a wonderful cartoon! Clearly, I can’t draw.
Anyway, the A-frame was put to good use. I remember we used to often go down there and have barbecues and occasionally sleep overnight. What I do remember is that it could get unbelievably cold on occasion. No arctic rated sleeping bags in the day and just a few blankets if you were lucky. I do remember Jim and I camping there quite often.
Then there was one famous party that John and Michael organised with a bunch of their Uni mates from Brisbane. Being only 10 ish I was sent home before the party really got underway, but it was evidently a good one.
That was where Mary (Ruth’s eldest sister and Michael’s first wife) first came into the story. She was discovered at home in Geddes Street having missed her lift back to Brisbane.
We didn't get to enjoy the ‘A’ frame for terribly long. A few years after it was built Mother and Dad decided (were able) to sell the “over the back” blocks in favour of some much nicer country at Nobby so we only had a couple of years to enjoy it.
I remember that one or other of the brothers (would have been Jim) and I some years after it had been sold went to have a look to see if it was still there. We found that it had been completely dismantled and all the timber taken away, presumably to some other project because it had a lot of beautiful hardwood timber. So the A-frame below the range is no longer there. The footings are probably still there, but otherwise I'd say there's no trace. Anyway, probably suburbia by now.
There would be clues to the erection methods in this photo. One side has only one “leg” bolted through. Looks like Michael is doubling them up and joining with a nailing plate. Looks like the “points” are cut on the angle to mate up. Would all have been hard work. No power tools so all sawing with a hand saw. No battery drills either so nails would have been driven straight in or into a hole made with a gimlet bit in a hand brace. Bigger holes drilled by hand with a brace and bit. No screws used in those days.
