My father's fungi

Tarra Valley Archway by Jason Green

When I was a young boy, our family stayed in Tarra Valley in Gippsland.

Tarra (rhymes with 'Yarra' - it is not pronounced like Scarlet O'Hara's home) Valley is a remnant of the magnificent forests which once covered the Strzlecki Ranges. It was a wonderful experience for four brothers - roaming freely through this rain-soaked wonderland of old growth forest, with tree ferns taller than a two storey house, massive trees, fallen logs fermenting back into the oozing soil, lyre birds and leeches in abundance, and many places to become lost.

We stayed with Karamoana Healey (to us, always 'Mrs Healey' - she was part Maori, and her first name has that origin) in her house in the forest. It was on land now part of the national park, but then adjacent to it. Mrs Healey was ranger (called 'caretaker' at that time) of Tarra Valley National Park (as it was then called - now Tarra-Bulga National Park). She had no electricity, and the walls were lined with newspapers. I slept in a room made by closing in one end of the verandah - a room which boasted the exotic extravagance of a harmonium. Her extended family often visited, and we enjoyed meeting them. Mrs Healey was a woman with immense energy, and she loved Tarra Valley and knew what all its lyrebirds, animals and insects were up to.

In 1990, 30 years since we had stayed there, Sally and I went back with my parents. We looked for the old house. It had been in a large clearing, and we knew where it should be, but couldn't seem to locate it. Finally we noticed a shelf half way up the side of a road cutting - perhaps that was the remains of her drive after the road was widened? We climbed up, and walked through the bush. My father walked ahead, and called out. He had found hydrangeas, and knew we were in Mrs Healey's garden. Soon, to our great excitement, there was the house itself.  Rain was getting in and the veranda had already collapsed. It wasn't going to stay upright for much longer. I looked at a rusty hurricane lamp on a post outside, and tore a small strip of the 1930s newspaper from the wall to keep as a memento. It was the classified section, and houses were selling in Canning Street Carlton (where Sally and I then lived) for 150 pounds.

How had we come to this enchanted place to holiday in the first place?

My father, Neville Walters, worked for the CSIRO's Division of Forest Products in South Melbourne. His office looked out on the underside of the King Street Bridge - and if he were there today he'd find, instead of his quiet laboratory, the echoing cacophony of Crown Casino.

Dad was a mycologist - he studied fungi. He spent decades building what is now Australia's major collection of fungi, named after him, and which is housed today in the National Herbarium of Victoria adjacent to Melbourne's Botanic Gardens.

This short clip from Gardening Australia (you have to go down the page and choose the item 'The Fungi Collector' to view it) describes the collection he built up.

Dad had collectors all round Australia sending him fungi.

Several of them came to visit us, including Jim Willis, H J Cann and the one who gave him more specimens than anyone else - Mrs Healey. After a long correspondence with my father, and after visits from him for field trips from time to time, she invited us all to come and stay.

My father was English, but the turmoil of the war tossed him up on the shores of Australia, where he met my mother. He loved the Australian bush, and knew a good deal about it - more than most who have grown up here. He studied botany at Melbourne University post war, and soon specialised in his beloved fungi.

Whilst a childhood highlight for us was going for family outings to magical bush places, we struggled to take in the Latin names for the various plants - and especially fungi - which Dad would carefully recite for us.

Meanwhile his collection of fungi was building, and today stands as an important baseline for the fungi of Australia as we confront the challenge of climate change. It is a significant legacy, but perhaps more is the legacy of family and friends with an intense appreciation of the forests and bush he loved.

Jim

Jim was a man who looked old to my young eyes, but was in fact in his late 40s. He had seven children and worked as a labourer when he could get work at all. He lived in modest circumstances in Bruthen - about 25 kilometres from Bairnsdale. Balding, overweight, and bulbous-eyed, he loved playing the bass drum for the local brass band. He once said to me, on condition that I didn’t tell anyone at the Bruthen pub, that if he could have his life over again he would be – a ballet dancer.

During my time in Bairnsdale I always had a legal file open for Jim. I obtained a divorce for him from his estranged wife of years before, so that he might marry the de facto by whom he had his seven children. He showed me a car he had managed to obtain and make roadworthy for $500. He came to me a few weeks later because a tree had fallen on the car during a storm, wrecking it. There was no one he could sue for recovery, and the car was uninsured.

But I also started a worker’s compensation claim for him.

Jim had been overworked and had terrible degenerative conditions as a result. The insurers wanted him examined by Collins Street specialists. I said that I didn’t know how he could get to Collins Street – it was a big outing for him to get from Bruthen to Bairnsdale. They arranged rail vouchers for him.

Jim had not been to Melbourne since 1950 – thirty years before. It was a huge event for him to get there. He arranged to stay with his sister in Heidelberg.

He came to see me on a Thursday before he caught the train out of town. He showed me his rail papers and checked through the appointments he had to get to the next day. He was due back after the weekend.

From my office in Bairnsdale the following Monday I could hear the Melbourne train arrive in the middle of the day. I knew it would not be long before I would receive a visit. Sure enough, the receptionist rang me to tell me that there was a clent here to see me.

He bustled up the stairs and into my office, bursting to tell of his experiences. How he got lost in Collins Street, and “Brian, the size of those buildings!” He told me that he and his sister, catching up on the Thursday night, had not seen their father for thirty years. Their mother had died when they were teenagers, and their father had remarried. They hadn’t got on with the stepmother. After numerous fights, their father had thrown them out of the house. They hadn’t seen him again.

He told me how he had caught the train to Flinders Street Station (this was before the City Loop existed). It was the Friday morning, the day of his appointments, and he got off the train at 9 o’clock at the height of peak hour. He was overwhelmed by the crowds.

He tripped over an old guy’s walking stick, and turned to apologise. There was something familiar about the face. An old man, suddenly crying on the platform, saying, “It’s not Jim is it? It’s not Jim?” And then he realized that it was his father, who had spent the last thirty years trying to find his son.

Jim’s father came to live with him later, and I met him. They argued again, and fell out, but didn’t lose each other this time.

The Bet

Omeo Court House

When I worked in Gippsland, I regularly appeared in the Omeo Court. There was always something interesting happening in the Omeo Court. I had one client called Merv, who worked driving a grader for what was then called the Country Roads Board, and had ten children. 

Merv liked a drink. There were two hotels in Omeo – the Golden Age, better known as the “bottom pub”, and Faithfull’s, better known as the “top pub”. Merv had been banned from the bottom pub, and so, on this particular evening in the late 1970s, was drinking in the top pub, along with another bloke - also banned from the bottom pub – Charlie.

They were well in their cups, and Charlie turned to Merv late in the night and said “You’re an alcoholic.”

“I am not – I could give up the drink any time I liked.”
“I bet you $1,000 you could not stop drinking and smoking for six months.”

“You’re on.”

$1,000 was a lot of money in those days, especially to a person like Merv. In the end, they both bet each other that they could not stay off the grog and the smokes for six months. Merv couldn’t afford to offer $1000, so he put up $200.  They went to the Omeo branch of the CBA bank, and opened a joint account for the purpose.

The six months went by. Both of them were shouted drinks by everyone in town. Offered smokes. No, they just drank lemon squashes. They both kept to the terms of their bet.

At the end of the time, Merv put out his hand for his money. “No,” said Charlie, “I don’t believe you could have kept to the bet. But I did, and I want my $200.”

Merv was furious. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d spent six months living for this moment.

They argued and argued, but Charlie wouldn’t budge. Eventually they went to the bank manager and asked him to adjudicate. He said he wasn’t going to adjudicate, and they could both take out the money that they put in. So, instead of his $1,000, Merv received just $200, and reckoned he was $800 out of pocket.

Months went by. It was Grand Final day in 1979, Carlton v Collingwood. Charlie and Merv, along with a hundred other drinkers, were at the top hotel. The bet was over now, and they were both well and truly drinking again.

The bar at the top hotel is arranged as a large “U”. Near one end of the bar, Charlie had two $50 dollar notes, and was calling out “Come on, who’ll bet with me – I’m backing Collingwood.” And he slapped his fifty dollar notes down on the table.

Merv was standing just to his left. Charlie was looking at the rest of the bar to his right. Merv sidled up to Charlie. In full view of the 100 drinkers in the bar, and with a wink to them all,

Merv picked up the two $50 notes and pocketed them. Then he tapped Charlie on the shoulder and said “That’s 700 you owe me, Charlie.”

Charlie was furious. He went to the police station, staffed by a single Sergeant of police, and laid a complaint of theft.

The policeman went down to the Omeo Highway where Merv was working on his grader and hauled him back to the police station for a record of interview.

Confronted with the allegation of theft, and with 100 witnesses to the fact that he had taken the money, Merv made no mention of the bet – he denied taking the money.

He was duly charged, and he came to me to represent him.

The court room was packed with every drinker from miles around. The first witness was Charlie. I had one old crone, smelling of sherry at that early hour, telling me I should ask him about this and that previous outrage.

I cross examined him. At first, he denied there had been any bet at all with Merv. We had the bank manager in court on subpoena – and when I pointed out that he would be giving evidence, Charlie reluctantly admitted that there had been a bet, but reverted to claiming Merv had not fulfilled his part of the bargain. Eventually he admitted that Merv had used the words “That’s 700 you owe me, Charlie”.

My client gave evidence, and admitted that he had lied to the police, but explained why he had taken the money.

I argued that it was not a bet at all (which is unenforceable at law) but a prize, as it depended on the conduct of the parties. But in any event the defence was a claim of right, and even a mistake of law would not vitiate a claim of right.

We won.

A few months later Merv came to see me in my office in Bairnsdale. He thanked me for my help in the case, and wondered if I could now take action against Charlie to get the remainder of the money back.

The Last River

Rainforest at the Mitchell - photos by Robert Merkel at Larvatus Prodeo

I've just spent Easter at the Mitchell River - camping with three other families as we do each year. It is a very special time at a very special place.

In the whole of southern mainland Australia, there is only one major river not dammed anywhere along its length - Gippsland's Mitchell River. Eight rivers contribute to the Mitchell's flow, and it runs through a magnificent gorge before flowing out onto the rich river flats near Bairnsdale. The gorge and surrounding areas are now protected in the Mitchell River National Park.

The Mitchell has patches of rainforest, giant kanooka trees, and plenty of rapids for canoeists. It has many spectacular features, including the cliffline of the Amphitheatre and the numerous magic tributaries - all different - that flow into the gorge. The rich wildlife of the Mitchell includes kangaroos, emus and goannas. Koalas were once common but now are gone. There are some introduced animals - notably goats and deer. The birdlife is varied: last Monday we saw lyre birds, and also six cormorants drying their wings at the mystically beautiful pool where we swim.

In the 1870s gold prospectors dotted each bend along the river, and the packhorse supply trail now forms a wonderful walking track between Angusvale in the north and the Den of Nargun in the south.

In 1890 there was an attempt to dam the Mitchell near Glenaladale, but the structure was badly damaged in a flood before it could be completed, and the works were abandoned. The large unfinished stone walls still sit there with a gaping hole between them, and a powerful rapid formed by the shaped blocks which fell into the water.

In 1980 the Hamer government decided to dam the river at Angusvale, and built an expensively engineered road to cope with the heavy traffic. On its election in 1982, the Cain government opted to "defer indefinitely" the construction of the dam.

Today there are rumblings from Andrew Bolt and even some coalition politicians that damming the Mitchell would be a good idea - although why this is so when we can't find enough water to fill the dams we already have, who can say.

The Mitchell River is a precious legacy, and we should let it run free.

The Mitchell River near the Den of Nargun