DESCENDANTS OF ALEXANDER (Old Mac) at the Reunion

SPEECH DELIVERED BY MAC McCLYMONT AT THE 2010 REUNION IN ROCKHAMPTON ON BEHALF OF THE DESCENDANTS OF ALEXANDER (old MAC) McCLYMONT.

Alexander was known as Mac and in later life as Old Mac so that is how I will refer to him.

He was born in 1880, married in 1911 and died in 1949 and that is about all the dates I will bore you with, as I feel we are all more interested in the person than the statistics.

We know very little about Old Mac before he came to Queensland. At the time of his marriage to Lilias McCredie he was already living at Warialda – west of Manuka – on his own property which he called Dalkeith. Lilias was a music teacher, a slight and quiet lady who I remember had pretty firm ideas about how her grand children should behave. She was frail, had a heart attack whilst in her 40s and lived until she was 87 years old despite there being no open heart surgery in those days.

Old Mac apparently had rheumatic fever when a child and was not expected to live long, as a result the family had a photo taken of him as a young boy. Auntie Jessie said that in those days it was not normal to photograph children.

In 1920 he drew a 20,000 acre block west of Longreach. By that time Auntie Jessie and Auntie Jean were aged about 7 and 6 respectively and Dad, Jim must have been on the way. Old Mac moved to Longreach and camped in a tent or hut on the bank of a dam at his new Dalkeith while a house was being constructed. Lilias, Jessie and Jean and 6 month old Jim came up after the house was finished. Old Mac was about 41 at this time and had to start to pull a new place into line. For the first couple of years Old Mac drove all his sheep to either Maneroo or Cramsie for shearing, then drove them home again, a trip of 80 to 110 km each way. There were stories that his brother James assisted him with the purchase of sheep. James must have been a generous man he left money to Dad in his will which Dad used to learn to fly and go towards the purchase of his plane.

The depression hit in the 1930’s and everyone did it hard. I was asked recently why Old Mac had survived and others had failed. Probably part of the reason was his honesty, the banks trusted him so continued to back him. The neighbours on Silsoe had to walk off in about 1934, the Bank of NSW asked Old Mac to look after Silsoe intimating that they did not so readily trust other neighbours. Eventually about 1936 he bought Silsoe from the bank.

At one stage the bank wanted to push another neighbour off their place and asked Old Mac if he would buy it. He refused saying “The man has six kids, I wouldn’t take his place off him”. He could obviously be frugal too, he once made Auntie Jessie take back a new pair of shoes she had bought saying “We cannot afford new shoes”. Auntie Jessie never forgot that.

In 1940 Syd Forrest on Bothwell had had enough and wanted out, Syd was a WW1 veteran and probably a bit shell shocked and was thought to be not quite right in the head. Old Mac agreed to buy Bothwell but only after he took Syd to the Doctor to be sure that he knew what he was doing. The Dr duly talked to Syd then said to Old Mac “He knows what he is doing, it’s you I should be examining!”

When he negotiated the finance the Bank of NSW manager said to Old Mac “If you ever get out of this you can come and spit on my floor”. Years later he visited the manager in his home in Toowoomba, as he walked in the manager called out “You have come to spit on my floor haven’t you”.

Old Mac apparently was a good horseman but had little tolerance for machines. Dad wanted to buy a war surplus tractor but he would not hear of it, we did not get a tractor on Dalkeith until 1953, four years after Old Mac died. Dad extracted some revenge though because Old Mac asked him to build a shed to house his dray. Dad built it around the dray with a small man door in the side but no opening to get the dray out, so there it stayed. The shed was used as a saddle shed but called the museum. For years I thought museums were places where you kept your saddles. I can remember years later the dray was removed at high speed behind a Landrover until a wheel shattered, then it was burnt.

Although he was recorded in a Warialda paper as being the owner of a Ford he was obviously not a fan of cars. He used to frustrate Dad when they drove to town as he was always saying “Slow down boy, slow down”, and whenever they stopped at a gate, and there were many, he would not get back in the car until he had rolled another smoke. Mum used to say that he always went around the back fence on horseback not by motor vehicle but always ended up leading his horse home because he felt sorry for it.

I’d like to finish by reading a few words written by a neighbour who actually knew and can remember Old Mac, this is probably more appropriate than hearsay and old tales.

(Transcription of John Sedgwick’s letter follows)

“Mac,

Here are a few thoughts – memories of Old Mac and Mrs Mac, but to keep them in perspective remember that they are from a pre-teenage boy about 60 years later.

Old Mac and Mrs Mac (the Macs) were close neighbours to us for about 10 years before I was born but I never heard my father or mother say a critical or unkind word about them, so they must have been OK at least.

Old Mac, from my point of view as a child was very approachable and was always ready to talk and answer questions with straight answers that were not always necessarily politically correct. He had a great sense of humour.

Mrs Mac was a sweet little old lady who we all liked very much however we always did exactly what she told us immediately, and did not rely too much on her sense of humour.

Old Mac wore a felt hat that maybe his father left him, that was well past the use-by date and was quite distinctly dilapidated.

I was told that Mac had a useful horse called “Swagman” that he used to be able to ride from Dalkeith to Longreach one day – have one day in Longreach – then ride back to Dalkeith the next day. He apparently had skills as a horseman but maybe most people did in those days.

I have only pleasant memories of the Macs half a century after their deaths.

Thanks for asking, Young Mac.

John Sedgwick”