Australian Royalty

The following notes are abstracted from a small booklet entitled: Recollections of Mrs Ivy Page as Told to Mrs Daphne Morrison, 1992. It was passed on to Clayton Hancock by Cassie RIORDAN of Lockington, Vic. (Not sure who Daphne is, but she is obviously not a relative or close friend as she always refers to Ivy as Mrs PAGE.) "Ted HANCOCK worked at the Billabong Pumps, where daughter Ivy was born on 12 Jul 1903, before going to Lamberts Island to cut wood for the riverboats. The island was on the Victorian side of the Murray River, opposite Mallee Cliffs in New South Wales and the family lived there from 1904 to 1909. Ted was also a licienced fsherman, selling fish in the winter months. Where each man fished in those days was called his fishing reach and no one else could fish there. The fish were packed in sawdust and sent to the Melbourne markets by train. If the river was high you could not get across to Nichols Point unless you rowed a boat across. As Nichols Point was 20 miles from Lamberts Island, most of the family shopping was done off the river boats when they pulled in to collect wood for their boilers. Ted built his own house while on the island, making the uprights from the timber he cut while there. He covered it with flour bags and white-washed it. The inside was lined with hessian and then newspaper. Ivy remembered going across to Nichols Point with her mother for the birth of her brother Herbert in 1907. Her father built a small dwelling near by and stayed with them until the baby was born (5 Jul 1907). Mrs WELLS was the midwife and she also stayed with them and helped in the house. All the midwives were wonderful women and travelled up and down the Murray and Darling Rivers delivering babies. They prided themselves on their cleanliness. They lived with each family for 2 weeks, helping with the housework and looking after any older children. For this service they were paid 5 pounds. When they left to return to Lamberts Island the river was in flood. They had to go up to where the boats pulled in to collect wood from the wood pile, and there was the 'P.S. Invincible' waiting for them, skippered by Captain CANTWELL. Ivy was only 4 years old at the time, but clearly remembered being so excited when she got on board. The people gave her lollies and all sorts of things including an orange which fell onto the deck and ran into the river. She cried because she had never seen an orange before and did not know what it was for. However it floated, so it was able to be retrieved and she got it back, but could not remember what became of it. In 1909, when the family left Lamberts Island to live in Curlwaa they had two drays fully loaded. The family cat in a wire cage was on top of one, and their good milker was tied to the back of the other with a few goats following on behind. A third dray was to follow later. Pump Hill at Merbein was so steep and sandy that, to get up it safely, they had to take the horse out of the second dray and put it with the horse in the first dray. Then they took both horses back down the hill to bring up the second dray. A few years later the family T Model Ford couldn't get up that hill without being pushed by the children. The family settled on a fruit block at Curlwaa, for which the price was fifty pounds. The children grew up there and went by school dray to the Wentworth School. In 1992, Ivy still had the first prize she had won as a 12 year old f or a Stitch Sampler against competition from all classes. When the Curlwaa School was built some of the the younger children went to school there. "

Killed in a motor accident at Kilmore, Victoria, Australia, aged 72. Inquest held 27/4/1951, Reference No. 547. - cause - 'Motorcar collision'. Ted died in the motor vehicle accident. He was driving the car, and his sister-in-law, Sarah Lil HANCOCK (Ms WILSON), who was a passenger, was also killed.