A Byron Bay Historical Odyssey

By Margaret Sparks

Come with me for a romp in the Gondwana forest and Cape Byron to read the story of the Downes family who migrated from England to Australia in 1914. Grandfather Carl met fellow Englishman Anthony and found the A.W.Argyle - a company which opened butcher shops in Perth, Sydney and Byron Bay from 1916-1930. They purchased the Byron Bay Meatworks in 1930 supplied meat to the Australian and American Defence Forces during World War II and purchased pastoral properties in Queensland and The Northern Territory. During the Golden Years that followed, meat was sent to Papua New Guinea and America. In 1930 my family moved north to manage and work in the Byron Bay Meatworks also joining the local community. Many economical and social changes have brought alternative societies to the area and a compassionate and caring community exists today. My cousins and I tell of events and family relationships from memories and stories told to us in the hope that future Downes generation will continue the respect and love of Byron Bay and its people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret Sparks
• Release date: Nov 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463353585

Margaret Sparks

I was born in Byron Bay and together with family members I just had to write about this magnificent place in Australia. Combing family stories for 85 years I hope to honour it’s inspiring history. I tell of the Titans of the pastoral Industry and the bravery during World War II. I joined many environmental protests and continue to enjoy the beauty of organic foods and fair trade produce in this seaside town of spiritual people.

Book preview

cover-image, A BYRON BAY HISTORICAL ODYSSEY 2 (epub)

Copyright © 2016 Margaret Sparks

All rights reserved.

DEDICATION

I am a member of the Downes family and consider them to be a caring, kind and generous of spirit people. I thank my Grandparents, Mother and cousins for sharing their memories which have occasionally been embellished a little to include the interesting times from 1914 to 2014. This is history documented as recorded in conversation and embellished with my memories."

CONTENTS

1  PASSAGE FROM ENGLAND

2  ANTHONY & CARL EMPIRE BUILDERS

3  EXPANSION FROM SYDNEY

4  FIRST DOWNES DAUGHTER MARRIES

5  SECOND DOWNES DAUGHTER MARRIES

6  A DOWNES SON MARRIES

7  WORLD WAR II

8  THE CENTAUR

9  BYRON BAY LOSES A GIANT OF A MAN

10  GROWinG UP IN CLONTARF

11  GROWinG UP IN LISMORE

12  THIRD DOWNES GENERATION - BALLINA

13  THIRD DOWNES GENERATION  BUTCHER’S PICNIC

14  THIRD DOWNES GENERATION BECOMES  A CARTOONIST

15 THIRD DOWNES GENERATION  BECOMES A NURSE

16  THIRD GENERATION DOWNES A GREENIE

17  THIRD DOWNES GENERATION A SURFER

18  THIRD DOWNES GENERATION ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST

19  THIRD DOWNES GENERATION MARRIES

20  FOURTH DOWNES GENERATION BORN

21  THIRD DOWNES GENERATION AS PARENTS

22  THIRD & FOURTH DOWNES GENERATIONS  AT BYRON BAY

23  THIRD DOWNES GENERATION ENVIRONMENTALISTS

24  THIRD DOWNES GENERATION  AT BENTLEY BLOCKADE

25  THIRD DOWNES GENERATION ACTIVISTS

26  THE CONCLUSION

about the author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 9

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I received support from my cousins Peter, Roger and Carol. I also tell the stories from my Grandparents, Parents, Aunties and Uncles. Many hours researching at the local Library and visits to Byron Bay with my husband and daughter provided me with more stories.  I also received comments from friends who have come into my life.

1  PASSAGE FROM ENGLAND

The large black silhouette on the burnished deck was lifting up and down like all the surrounding buoys floating in the ocean. Slowly Carl turned his face from the land and fixed his eyes on the darkness ahead of him. Raising his shoulders he took a deep breath realizing he was the master of his family and that they were at long last on their way to the Land of their Dreams. Carl’s wife Mona was my grandmother and a young woman of gentle demure and slight stature. Standing beside her husband she was filled with sadness at leaving her parents whom she knew she might never see again! The three very excited children eight year old Steven, four year old Glenda and three year old Wendy played as the ship turned seawards while Carl, a man of determination and Mona Downes a loyal wife and loving mother, faced the wind, stiffened their bodies and braced themselves for the dangers that might lie ahead.

In 1914 travel by ocean liners was very popular and people were shocked when many lives were lost drowned during the sinking of the Titanic in icy waters off the coast of Newfoundland Canada. Carl and Mona hoped for a safer voyage through the Suez Canal towards Asia away from the Atlantic Ocean and away from the threat of war between England and Europe. They also envisaged a life of opportunity, education for their children and prosperity. Fortuitously for the family they avoided the outbreak of World War1 which began just after their departure .and plunged England into a long period of tax increases, food shortages and tragic loss of life from war injuries as many young men joined the fight for sake of King and Country.

As if to fortify their decision to migrate to Australia my Grandparents often reminisced about their life in London and hoping for a brighter future persuaded them to set forth on this voyage. Carl had learnt the butchering trade from his father and contemplated his life working in the family owned shop in inner London. The city was overcrowded and unclean living quarters facilitated the rapid spread of illnesses. Mona was the granddaughter of immigrants Israel and Rachel Peters who came to England from Israel, worked in the fashion industry and had a daughter Emma. In London, life was a meagre existence with barely enough food and the discomfort of cold clammy living quarters. Emma’s daughter Mona was a frail baby and suffered with the cold living conditions and attended the local school where her mother was a teacher. Eighteen year old Mona also trained as a teacher, however she suffered rheumatic fever and she dreamt of escaping to a warmer climate. Frequently she would go to the nearest butcher shop to buy sausages for the family and it was here that a friendship between the young butcher Carl and Mona was formed. One day she asked him about the sausages and he replied Ï make them and use only the finest of meats which I source from various areas in England naming them by the particular area from whence the meat came. The two young people often talked of living in a warmer climate in different lands particularly exciting Australia- the New World. With great enthusiasm Carl would say I could open my own butcher’s shop and Mona proclaimed that she would become strong and healthy in the warm sunny climate.

Now these dreams comforted them as the boisterous sea constantly caused the ship to bob up and down like a cork at the mercy of the ocean. Mona was expecting her fourth child and frequently escaped the stuffy cabin when the seas were calm. She recalls I was often seasick when the white foam from the swirling waves broke over the bow our small ship and would roll it from side to side. No such things as stabiliser in 1914 we were at the mercy of the constant winds and changing ocean conditions! Mona explains When the seas were rough I kept the children in the cabin and Carl would watch over them as I staggered up onto the deck and in the silence of the night offer up a pray to the heavens that we would all be safe and reach our new homeland. I was so happy when I heard the Captain announced Land ahead we are nearing the continent of Australia! We had survived the long sea voyage and would soon be walking on the Land of Our Dreams!"

My Mother Glenda describes to me the day they disembarked at Fremantle. I was so excited when I saw a face I knew from photographs that it was my Uncle George Downes standing on the wharf frantically waving his arms to attract my parent’s attention. My legs were a bit wobbly as I gingerly walked down the gangplank clutching my Mother’s hand and once on solid ground, I happily skipped along the wooden wharf. I hide behind my mother’s skirt while the adults exchanged hugs and kisses. Uncle George smiled at his nephew Steven and nieces Glenda and Wendy then led us into a large shed behind the wharf and there my parents, brother and sister I stood in a line for an hour. I stayed close to my parents while a man dressed in a dark blue uniform and wearing a gold braided cap peered at me and my brother Steven and my sister Wendy then shook hands with my father and said Welcome to Australia. We were very excited as we passed through customs and finally set foot on the Land of our Dreams!

’After we located our luggage and loaded it onto Uncle George’s sulky we hopped onto the seats of the sulky and the gentle clip clop of the horses echoed as we rode through the city of Fremantle. Soon we were racing along a dirt track to Uncle George’s vegetable farm on the edge of Perth where we would stay for nearly four years. Remembering crowded living conditions in London we breathed the clean fresh country air and found the plentiful supply of nourishing food as oranges, lemons and spinach delicious! As a young 4 year old girl I loved the freedom to roam and explore the red dusty plains and the warm weather which was so different to that of England. Each day could bring wind, rain and then suddenly a burst of bright sunshine. The dry ochre dusty plains stretched to the horizon where black clouds would gather and a storm rolled in and delivered much needed rain to the parched earth.

We had settled into our new life when Mona had a baby boy named Brendon and life was good. Cousin George’s house was very comfortable and often on a Sunday night after we had all taken a bath in the tin tub my Dad would sit us on his knee or nearby on the floor and joyfully sing hymns which he had learnt as a choir boy in England. Sometimes when we went to town in the horse drawn carriage I caught a glimpse of the sparking blue sea lapping upon the orange sandy shore and would marvel at how I was growing to love this country of Australia."

Not long after arriving in Australia Carl returned to the docks with his family and walked around the familiar Port of Fremantle. They saw several Australian naval vessels loading rows of uniformed soldiers onto the large ships. World War I had just been announced and Australian troops were answering the request from Mother England to join the British troops in Europe. Unbeknown to Carl an Australian soldier Anthony Argyle was one of the men on the Fremantle docks about to board a warship that day and fate would bring him and my Grandfather together some 3 years later when Anthony returned from the War. Their lives would be entwined and they would join as business partners to establish The Australian Pastoral Industry.

2  ANTHONY & CARL EMPIRE BUILDERS

Carl took great delight in telling me how he met the man who would share his dream of building a chain of butcher shops One day I met a young Anthony Argyle with whom I had several discussions, we decided that he, with his entrepreneur skills and me, an experienced butcher would open a butcher shop in the centre of Perth and so we took a loan of twelve pounds to rent our shop. This partnership lasted some forty years. We decided that the signage of Home on the pig’s back and We only make sausages from quality meat were to be displayed on the awnings of all our butcher shops in Perth. Anthony was a big built man with a chubby face and a natural affiliation with the working man. He was the front man in our business partnership with clear and honest skills of communication making him a formidable force when tackling the issues of the meat industry and negotiating industrial laws with the Government. He also had time to enjoy the company of pretty girls and in 1912 he married Ellen Glades in Perth. Within a couple of years he was the proud father of two daughters a little older than my children. His initial loan of £12 for that first butcher shop in Perth would make him the owner of several abattoirs, cattle stations and a very wealthy man.

I remember my Grandfather Carl, as a robust figure who had a booming voice and panache for wearing a suit with braces and a large hat. My mother was showing me a photo of the Argyle shops when I spied a chart of the body of a cow pasted on the wall?

What is that drawing? I asked.

That is the body of a cow explaining the sections of the body and the relevant name of cuts of meat. Usually the customer would ask which particular cut was required for a certain recipe and in these situations the chart on the wall was a great help. The meat would be sliced and wrapped in shiny white paper. replied Glenda. Carl and Anthony