Ingrid M. Smith : My First Queensland Christmas

My First Queensland Christmas

'The north wind is tossing the leaves,
The red dust is over the town,
The sparrows are under the eaves,
And the grass in the paddocks is brown,
As we lift up our voices and sing
To the Christ Child, the Heavenly King.'

The words of one of my favourite Christmas carols sang out loud and strong from the airport loudspeakers. I remembered learning them in the Sunday School choir, as an eight year old. I had always loved the Australian Christmas carols which seemed to suit our climate and lifestyle so well.
It was Christmas Eve and the early afternoon sun was blazing down as we emerged from the airport in search of a car for hire. We had just travelled nearly 2,500 kilometres up the east coast of Australia, starting out at daybreak. Three air flights later, here we were in north Queensland. For my husband-to-be, it was the usual annual Christmas return to his north-west Queensland home. It was my first visit to Queensland and I was travelling to meet my future husband's family for the very first time. Our wedding day was only three weeks away.

© Ingrid M. Smith

Some years ago I was invited to contribute to a Christmas Annual in the United Kingdom. The resultant published true story exceeded 7,000 words. The above is the opening excerpt from My First Queensland Christmas. It appeared in The Eighth Chalet Annual (FOCS) Christmas 2003 published by Friends of the Chalet School United Kingdom. The four photographs below are some of the pictures used to illustrate my article.

My First Queensland Christmas

Ponies and sugarcane at Rocking Vee

Ponies and mangoes at Rocking Vee

The Oakdale Cowboys

Bull riding practice at Rocking Vee

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North of Lithgow, New South Wales, on the edge of the Great Divide lies Cheshunt, a vast property where the rare and glorious waratahs grow. Home to the Richards family since 1905, Max is restoring Cheshunt to its former glory. It is now the 1990s, and the family are keen and active competitors, showing their precious Morgan horses, when Stella, Max’s daughter, is suddenly stricken with an illness that does not respond to treatment. The long hours in the saddle, the days working with the stock and training for the hunter classes become a thing of the past for Stella and her mother, Kirsty. The journey begins to find a cure. But months turn into years... Then the family is told Stella will never walk again. While life at Cheshunt must go on, the Richards family face their troubles with the true courage and dignity of the pioneers from which they descended.

Little Australian Pony Girl is the true story about an Australian childhood, where animals and hard work come first and people take second place.

Emily is the third generation of a family whose lives have been bound up in animals, especially horses, in different parts of Australia. With one grandfather a professional horse breaker and race horse trainer, her father a professional jockey at sixteen years old and a mother whose teenage years were spent on horseback, it is not surprising that Emily can never recall a time when she could not ride.

This fascinating tale is told by young Emily and moves through the amazing range of happenings that make up both her life and the life of her family. Horses and ponies may play the major role in Emily’s life but it is by no means a one-sided childhood. Emily is a musical child who plays the flute, taking weekly lessons. Like her mother and grandmother, she sews, knits, and enjoys craft work.

Emily's young life touches on a wide range of people and places. We see her at home on the family farm, learning that animals mean hard work and always come before people; she takes us to the North Queensland property of Rocking Vee which is owned by her grandparents; we hear all about her first meeting with Dodo the donkey; she tells us how the wild brumby horses of North Queensland became part of her father's own childhood; we learn of the family involvement in Riding for the Disabled; we can see Emily's delight in a father who was once a professional jockey shining through two chapters; there is the pleasure of a newly born foal and the joys of training him for his first show; the list goes on and on and it is hard to believe how much has been packed into Emily's short life.

To many people, this is the sort of life that only happens in story books. I have lost count of the number of times people have approached me whilst I was holding a horse or pony and asked if their children could come closer: these children had never even seen a real live horse or pony.

From sheep to saddles; rodeos to racing; brumbies to bridles; ponies to places: this is an Australian childhood at its best. Unfortunately, the type of childhood portrayed in Little Australian Pony Girl, is becoming an increasing rarity in our rapidly changing country of today.