The Trafalgar Twins: Two Halves of the One Person

By Jeff Hopkins

Mick and Leda Daniels' identical twin boys, Alex and Phillip, grow up on Trafalgar Downs Station in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. Their older, musically gifted 'sunshine sister', Helen, brings joy to everyone with her talents. Leda Daniels looks after the twins' early childhood education, then teaches them in classroom situations when she makes an unplanned return to teaching at Leonora District High School. Mick makes sure the boys are well-coached in sporting pursuits and that they learn hard lessons about the responsibilities associated with working on a cattle station.
Sent to the historic and traditional Blackwood Boys' Boarding College in the metropolitan area for the last three years of secondary school, both Nick Floyd and Myles Bennett have significant impacts on their lives. The twins have to deal with a family crisis, and they take different pathways but always remain 'two halves of the one person'.
Their exceptional swimming talents see both twins selected to represent Australia at the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968. In 1970 they are required to register for National Service and face the dreaded 'ballot of death'.
Later, Phillip assumes the responsibility for helping to run Trafalgar Downs Station while Alex studies archaeology and anthropology at university. Jonathan Budd enters Helen's and the twins' lives. The unique connection between identical twins is severely tested by subsequent events.
This is all part of the story of the Trafalgar Downs' twins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Feb 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9781779417480

Jeff Hopkins

Jeff Hopkins (1950) is a retired schoolteacher. He lives in Walyalup, Western Australia. Walyalup which means 'lungs' is the Whadjuk name for Fremantle, and is part of the Noongar Nation. As the drama master at Hale School in Perth, he wrote ten original musical plays and produced and directed them at the school.In 1992, he researched and wrote a family history, 'Life's Race Well Run', and after retiring in 2006 he has written twenty novels, a memoir, and three 'faction' biographies.

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Copyright © 2024 by Jeff Hopkins

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-1-77941-747-3 (Paperback)

978-1-77941-748-0 (eBook)

Table of Contents

Chaper 1     Trafalgar Downs Cattle Station

Chaper 2     Alexander and Phillip Daniels

Chaper 3     A Career Revisited

Chaper 4     Blackwood Boys’ College

Chaper 5     The Windmill Run

Chaper 6     A Cacophonous Conflagration

Chaper 7     Mrs. Daniels’ Difficult Discussions

Chaper 8     The Head of Physical Education

Chaper 9     Slip Sliding Away

Chaper 10   Helen Thea Daniels

Chaper 11   Spirituality and Mysticism

Chaper 12   Deception and Discipline

Chaper 13   Nicholas Adrian Floyd

Chaper 14   The Astra Grand Hotel

Chaper 15   Wee Folk

Chaper 16   The Protracted Drought

Chaper 17   Cattle, Cocktails, and Come-ons

Chaper 18   Anthropological Archaeology and Artificial Insemination

Chaper 19   National Swimming Titles – Melbourne

Chaper 20   The Mexico City Olympic Games 1968

Chaper 21   Dramatic Developments

Chaper 22   1969

Chaper 23   The National Service Lottery

Chaper 24   Kurdaitcha Man

Chaper 25   Jonathan William Budd

Chaper 26   Future Directions

Chaper 27   Danger and Opportunities

Chaper 28   The Rise and Rise of Grant Burge

Chaper 29   Miners’ and Merchant Bankers’ Forum

Chaper 30   Halford Grammar School

Chaper 31   Desperation and Delusion

Chaper 32   Pan-Continental Celebrations

About the Author

Chapter 1

Trafalgar Downs Cattle Station

‘Aside from a pair of tight jeans, big boots, and an Akubra hat, have you ever wondered what it takes to work on a cattle station in outback Australia?’ —Anonymous

In Australia, a large land holding used for livestock production is known as a ‘station’. This originally referred to the main residence and outbuildings of a pastoral property but now generally refers to the total area of land. Most stations are stock specific, classed as either sheep stations, or cattle stations depending upon the type of stock raised, which is in turn, dependent upon the suitability of the country and the rainfall. Some stations do manage to run both sheep and cattle. The owner of a station is known as a grazier, or pastoralist and, in most cases, Australian stations are operated on a pastoral lease.

Phillip Daniels (1874 – 1937) married Mary Anne Johnstone (1876 – 1929) in 1893. Phillip and Mary Anne had three children: a son and heir, Foster Raleigh Daniels, and two daughters: Mary Elizabeth, and Margaret Florence. Their first-born son, Foster Raleigh ‘Foss’ Daniels (1895 – 1982) left school when he turned fifteen years of age and worked on the West Australian Government Railways until he volunteered for the Australian Imperial Force and served in Gallipoli and the Western Front in World War I. When he returned from the war in 1919 he joined his father Phillip in the Goldfields-Esperance area of Western Australia. Phillip had struck it rich prospecting for gold and sold his claim to a mining entrepreneur for a substantial sum of money and bought a small hotel in Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Foss worked as a yardman at the hotel and occasionally did stints behind the bar when trade was brisk. His mother Mary Anne and his two sisters helped with the domestic side of the running of the hotel and waited on tables in the lounge.

In 1923 Phillip Daniels inspected the area that eventually became known as Trafalgar Downs station and persuaded his son, Foss, to come with him and help develop the sprawling five hundred-thousand-acre property. Trafalgar Downs Station became a sheep and cattle station located about twenty-five kilometres, sixteen miles, north west of Leonora and two hundred and thirty-kilometres, one hundred and forty-six miles, north, northwest of Kalgoorlie in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. The property was established on land that had remained largely undeveloped until Phillip and Foss Daniels took it on.

Phillip sold the Kalgoorlie hotel and took up a lease over the five hundred thousand acres. Mary Anne was sceptical at this strange change of direction but agreed to go with Phillip to the pastoral lease. His daughters chose to stay in Kalgoorlie. It was a ninety-nine-year lease which under historic common law was not literal, but merely an arbitrary time span beyond the life expectancy of any possible lessee. At age forty-nine when some men were thinking about slowing down Phillip embarked on a challenging improvement programme. Hiring a work force of First Nations stockmen and station hands and a few non-indigenous labourers from the surrounding towns and districts, Phillip and Foss began the Herculean task of fencing the property. All the work was done with horses and drays and was tough going in the early stages. The home paddocks were fenced first and then Phillip began the construction of the Trafalgar Downs homestead. Initially it was a simple structure of just three rooms built with a rammed earth method of construction and was distinctive in its red dirt appearance. It had a corrugated iron roof. Later additions saw the homestead become more functional and comfortable for Phillip, Mary Anne, and Foss.

A trusted ‘ganger’ from Kalgoorlie took over the supervision of the fencing and within a year some two hundred and forty thousand acres were fenced, and several bores with associated windmills had been sunk. Not content with his original lease Phillip Daniels investigated neighbouring properties and with some astute negotiating by 1925 Trafalgar Downs encompassed an area of approximately six hundred thousand acres. It was by no means the largest station in the Goldfields-Esperance area, but Phillip concluded it was big enough for his purposes.

The station had just come out of drought conditions and was being restocked with sheep. A consignment of three thousand three hundred merinos, worth £10,000 was delivered from South Australia, and Phillip took on several hundred head of Angus cattle to see if he could combine the two types of grazing. Foss was given responsibility for establishing a breeding programme for the small Angus herd and he drove a small cattle truck all the way to the Midland sale yards in Perth to purchase a prize Angus bull. Foss eventually bid on a bull that caught his eye and had it knocked down to him for £125. He loaded the bull onto the truck and drove all the way back to Trafalgar Downs. It had been a round trip of over eleven hundred miles. The journey took the best part of a working week with regular stops for food, fuel, and the careful husbandry of the prize jet black Angus bull.

When Phillip Daniels saw the bull for the first time he was impressed. He believed the bull would be the foundation sire of a strong herd. In passing Phillip suggested to Foss that it was high time he became a sire himself and found a wife and started a family of his own. It was a none too subtle suggestion, but Foss had the matter in hand. In 1925 Foster Daniels proposed to Isobelle Monaghan and she accepted the challenge of being his wife on Trafalgar Downs station. They were married in Leonora’s Presbyterian Church according to the rites and ceremonies of Isobelle’s family’s faith. The tiny church with is limestone walls and green corrugated iron roof was packed with friends and well-wishers on the day.

In anticipation of his son’s nuptials Phillip let a contract to have the homestead extended by a professional builder, who kept the rammed earth design of the original but expanded the living spaces to accommodate the newlyweds and their potential family. In 1926 that potential family was realised in the form of Michael James ‘Mick’ Daniels. Three years later Mary Anne Daniels died of tuberculous after a long illness and was buried in Leonora Cemetery. In May 1937 Phillip Daniels complained of tiredness and occasional chest pains. He was hospitalised at Leonora Hospital and died nine days later. He was buried in Leonora Cemetery next to his beloved wife, Mary Anne. All those members of the community who attended his funeral agreed they had lost one of the true pioneers of the district. After Phillip died the lease of the station passed to his son, Foss.

The first thing that Foss tried to do was expand the work force on Trafalgar Downs. He realised that Phillip’s reluctance to hire extra hands had put too great a burden on the few who worked on the property, so he went recruiting. The type of cattle station and the time of year determined the station hand’s duties. Hands could spend their time mustering and tending animals or doing maintenance jobs on the station such as the repair of fences or any buildings on the property. Each day was different for a station hand as their tasks varied according to the seasons and the cattle station’s cycles. Their duties also differed because of unpredictable or extreme weather. An approaching storm may call for quick action to move animals to higher ground in case of the possibility of flash flooding. A prolonged drought might require distributing emergency water and feed rations to animals.

Some station hands just couldn’t adapt to the conditions and departed abruptly which meant Foss was left short-handed and in the lurch. The First Nations stockmen were the most reliable as they were accustomed to the difficult terrain and conditions. Foss appreciated them and tried to accommodate them in improved housing on the station to encourage them to make Trafalgar Downs their permanent home.

Some events were beyond Foss’s control and when World War II broke out in 1939 he found manpower harder and harder to secure. The area suffered a four-year drought during the war years that only ended in 1946 with Trafalgar Downs recording one inch of rain in a single day. When the drought broke, Foss’s son Michael James ‘Mick’ Daniels married Alleda Elizabeth McPhail in January 1947 at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Kalgoorlie. Alleda was always known as ‘Leda’ in the family. Mick was twenty-one and Leda was twenty-two years of age. Leda had been a relatively new schoolteacher at Leonora District High School. A year later almost to the day, their daughter Helen Thea was born. The Daniels hoped to expand their family, and they did in 1950 when Leda fell pregnant and was told, to her great surprise, that she was carrying twins. Two boys were born on the 7th of June 1950 at Leonora Hospital. They were identical twins.

On the 12th of September 1950, ‘Foss’ Daniels broke two basic rules of safe working on a large cattle station. Firstly he set out alone to replace the leathers on the check valve and plunger of a windmill, and secondly he failed to take adequate food and water because he thought the maintenance would take only a few hours. He told Isobelle he would be back by lunchtime. Foss drove the best part of an hour to windmill number four and quickly set about installing the new leathers. Foss knew the well was sixty feet deep. He planned to pull the check valve and plunger by hand without using heavy equipment. It was usually possible to pull by hand a well less than one hundred feet deep. Foss struggled with the task and realised he was not going to be able to complete the job on his own. Annoyed that he had made a wasted journey Foss decided he could salvage something from the morning and decided to scale the windmill and grease the gear box while he was there. He was thirteen feet above the ground when he missed his footing and fell. He broke an ankle and three ribs and dislocated his shoulder. In agony he lay at the foot of the windmill unable to move. Later it was agreed by everyone that Foss had been lucky not to have been killed.

When Isobelle alerted Mick that his father had not returned by lunchtime as he said he would, Mick set out to find what had gone wrong. He found Foss in the middle of the afternoon and struggled to initially lift him onto, and then make him comfortable on the tray of the station pickup truck. He drove straight to Leonora Hospital and Foss was admitted before sunset. Mick telephoned Isobelle from the hospital and said he would drive back to Trafalgar Downs and pick up his mother and bring her into the hospital to be with her husband. It was evening by the time Isobelle got to see Foss for the first time. She was distraught, and Foss was in pain but putting on a brave front. His convalescence was a slow process and was exacerbated by Foss’s grumpiness when he couldn’t make any contribution to the day to day running of the station.

That thirteen foot fall from a windmill changed everything. In discussions with his wife, Isobelle, it became clear that Foss was no longer capable of maintaining the station in the way he had done before. They jointly agreed that Foss should retire, and the couple should move to the metropolitan area. Fortuitously at the same time a mining entrepreneur from Perth, representing overseas clients offered Foss a phenomenal amount of money to secure the mining rights over all of Trafalgar Downs station and to build access roads to promising prospecting sites on the property. There was just one catch. Only half the price would be paid in cash and the balance would be settled in the form of a large house on the riverfront in Claremont.

A canny business man, Foss had the house surveyed and appraised and when all the figures proved to be accurate he signed the legal papers and Isobelle and he moved into a six bedroom, two bathroom house set among lovely gardens with Swan River views. When his son Mick quizzed him about why he might want such a substantial residence for just Isobelle and himself, Foss said.

‘The house needs to be big enough for all my grandchildren and great grandchildren to be accommodated in comfort.’

Mick really had no comeback to that assertion. Some of the cash settlement from the deal meant that Foss could indulge himself in a long held desire to own a quality car. He purchased a Daimler Majestic Major. The upshot of all of this was that the management of a six hundred thousand acre cattle station was now in the hands of Foss and Isobelle’s only son, ‘Mick’ Daniels. Mick was twenty-five years of age when he took over the management of Trafalgar Downs station after Foss’s fall and Foss and Isobelle’s move to the metropolitan area. His young wife Leda was twenty-six and they had a three year old daughter and newly born identical twin sons. The Daniels’ family had a lot of challenges ahead of them on Trafalgar Downs cattle station.

Chapter 2

Alexander and Phillip Daniels

‘You can spend too much time wondering which of identical twins is the more alike’ —Robert Breault.

Giving birth to a set of twins proved surprisingly comfortable for Leda. She had some difficulties when Helen was born, however the twins made their way into the world with little drama.

The resident midwife at Leonora Hospital, Hannah Adams, reassured her:

‘Even though you’ve had a baby before, giving birth to twins is a different experience. While no birth is typical, there are a few things that you should prepare for, Alleda, and I am here and ready to discuss those issues with you.’

‘Please call me, Leda, Mrs. Adams. Everyone else does.’

Answering Leda’s questions calmly and trying to remove all doubts in the mind of the young mother-to-be. Hannah Adams explained that:

‘The position of the babies in the uterus will largely determine how the twins are born either vaginally or by caesarean section. About forty percent of twins are both head down at term. We call the head down position the ‘vertex’. In another thirty percent the first baby is vertex, and second one is in a breech position, that’s the opposite to vertex were the baby is positioned feet down. Both of these positions are acceptable to consider a vaginal birth.’

‘And in what position are my two?’ asked Leda.

‘They are both in the vertex position for the moment. However, twins can change positions late in the game, even into labour. This is particularly true of the second baby after the birth of the first.’

‘Oh, I see. Will that cause problems?’ asked Leda.

‘Not necessarily. The good news is that even though you have two babies, you only have to go through labour once. Once the cervix is open, each baby will have its own pushing stage. This means you will have to push twice, but the majority of the time the second twin is born much more easily than the first. This is because the first twin has paved the way, so to speak.’

Leda went into labour at around 7:00 p.m. and the birth of the first twin was recorded at 11:50 p.m. on Tuesday the 6th of June. At seven minutes past midnight the second twin took his first breaths on Wednesday the 7th of June in 1950.

Mick was not present at the birth of his sons as the practice of fathers being in the birthing suite at that time was frowned upon. It was less than an hour before he was ushered in by a beaming Hannah Adams who announced he had twin boys and in her mind they looked like two identical ‘peas in a pod’. When Mick saw them for the first time even his inexperienced eye tended to cause him to agree. Hannah Adams explained the phenomenon.

‘To form identical twins, the medical term is monozygotic twins, one fertilised egg or ovum splits and develops into two babies with exactly the same genetic information. After that it gets more interesting.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Mick.

‘Nature has done her part now the nurturing of your boys by your wife and yourself, will determine how the personalities of your twins will develop.’

‘Won’t that be the same as they are identical?’

Hannah Adams laughed.

‘The genetics will account for about half of the similar behaviours of identical twins. However studies of identical twins who for whatever reason were separated at birth do show that twins grow up differently depending on the way they are nurtured. You have some interesting and exciting times ahead of you, Mr. Daniels.’

Mick shared the midwife’s thoughts with Leda. Then they were swept up in the euphoria of the birth of their sons. The possible future development of their boys was quickly pushed to the back of their minds.

‘What about names, Leda?’

‘I would like to call the first born boy Alexander after my father.’

‘Alexander the Great, a man who ruled all of the known world by the time he was thirty,’ announced Mick pleased with himself that he could remember some of his schoolboy history lessons.

‘That augurs well, Mick.’

They shared a laugh.

‘And the second boy?’ asked Mick.

‘Well I got to choose Alexander so you should choose the other name for the second boy.’

‘What do you think about Phillip? It was my grandfather’s name.’

‘Lovely. I agree.’

‘You do realise my love that they will probably come to be known as Alex and Phil.’

‘Good strong names for two boys who will be brought up on a cattle station.’

‘Then we are agreed.’

‘We are.’

The fascination of watching two little people growing up at the same rate in the similar ways was a constant source of joy for Mick and Leda.

As a former schoolteacher Leda Daniels took particular care with the early education of her twins, while not neglecting her daughter, Helen. She read to them constantly and played developmental games with them. Somewhat isolated on a cattle station Leda took every opportunity she could to socialise the boys with groups of parents in Leonora who had children of a similar age.

When Foss and Isobelle came to visit their grandchildren on Trafalgar Downs Station, ‘Nanna’ Isobelle told everyone she found it difficult to tell the boys apart. At her age, Isobelle was having trouble with her eyesight and was a little hard of hearing. So when she gave them presents they were always exactly the same. ‘Pop’ Foss was more circumspect. He watched the boys play and thought he could discern some significant differences in their emerging personalities. However, as was Foss’s way he kept his thoughts to himself and simply supported Isobelle’s contention that the twins were alike and indistinguishable.

Leda went the other way. She deliberately dressed the boys in different colours and styles of clothing and when birthday and Christmas gifts arrived they were always different for each child. Of course sometimes the twins swapped presents, preferring what the other had been given. As they passed from toddlers to pre-schoolers, Mick was much the same as his father Foss. He noted variations and contrasts in the way Alex and Phillip approached tasks and how they dealt with little triumphs and disasters. Mick looked after the twins’ physical development. He taught them skills in various sports like running, catching, cricket, tennis and football, and practical abilities that were necessary on a working cattle station. They could ride horses not long after they could walk and were introduced to motorbikes and machinery when Mick and Leda agreed that they were at a ‘readiness’ stage of development for such activities.

Then much to Leda’s surprise Mick started pegging out an area at the back of the homestead, next to the windmill, and would not tell his wife what he was planning. Leda was appropriately intrigued. Mick drove pegs into the ground to define an area, about twenty-five yards long by ten yards wide. Early one morning a low loader arrived at the homestead and the driver unloaded a Cat 320 GC Excavator mounted on continuous track, also called tank tread or caterpillar track. Only then did Mick reveal that the machine was there to excavate the hole for a swimming pool. Leda was astounded.

‘A swimming pool, Mick? Should that really be one of our priorities?’

‘Absolutely. In our climate it will be a brilliant recreation in summer, particularly for the children.’

‘And the real reason?’

Mick thought for a moment as to whether he was going to reveal his true motivation to Leda. Then he committed.

‘When I was in high school our sports’ teacher ‘Phys. Ed. Andy’ called all us boys who were not good swimmers a particular name.’

‘What was that Mick?’

‘He called us ‘dam swimmers’. I found it insulting and have never forgotten it. My daughter and my twin sons are never going to be known as ‘dam swimmers’. I will build them a swimming pool and teach them how to swim properly.’

‘You can turn your hand to most things, Mick, but do you have the skills to teach swimming and lifesaving in a pool?’ asked Leda sceptically.

Mick smiled.

‘No, I don’t but you do. You have often told me how, as a young teacher, you took vacation swimming classes and taught life-saving skills as well.’

‘That was a long time ago, Mick.’

‘I suspect it will be like riding a bike, Leda. You can still do that can’t you?’

The dozer driver took two days to complete the excavation task. He stayed overnight at the homestead and shared meals with the family. The twins were allowed to climb into the cab of the excavator and imagine they were driving it. The red back dirt from the hole was dumped among a copse of eucalyptus trees that Foss and Isobelle had planted many years before and had now grown to be quite substantial in girth and height. When Leda queried this Mick said:

‘It is all part of the grand plan, my love. All will be revealed when it is revealed.’

The swimming pool hole remained a scar on the landscape for some weeks before a team of contractors arrived from Kalgoorlie to install the essential plumbing and build the form work for the concrete lining. A week later a convoy of cement trucks came up the station drive, and the concrete was poured into the form work. All this was thrilling for the children who took a great interest in the proceedings. While the concrete was curing Mick built a pool pump house using the traditional rammed earth method that had been the procedure by which most of the homestead had been built. It was a substantial red earth construction with a corrugated iron roof and a solid hardwood door. Finally the swimming pool contractors returned to install the filtration system and two tilers worked for a full week lining the concrete shell with six inch square pale blue tiles.

Mick was given operating instructions and then left to his own devices to fill the pool with bore water piped from the homestead windmill. It took a long time. Mick ran the pool filtration system for a number of days until he was satisfied the salt chlorinated, sparkling blue water had all the right readings for safe swimming. Helen, Alex, and Phillip could barely contain their excitement and when Mick gave the ‘all clear’, Leda supervised the children’s first experience at the shallow end of the new pool. Word had spread around the district as the various stages of the construction phase were completed and now many locals made their way to Trafalgar Downs Stations to view the final result. Mick and Leda’s pool was much admired.

Leda’s commitment to teaching her children to swim was like everything else she did. She was precise and patient and six-year-old Helen and the three year old twins took to the water that first summer and loved every aspect of their aquatic education. The lessons continued throughout the following years and by the time the twins went to primary school they were developing as excellent athletic swimmers. Leda did not neglect the life-saving skills she knew were essential for safe pool practices and the children learnt rescue and resuscitation techniques. Mick could not have been more proud of what his wife and family were achieving. He considered he had done a good thing by building the pool. None of the Daniels’ children would ever be referred to as ‘dam swimmers’.

Helen’s swimming activities were slow and stylish and as her music commitments became more and more demanding she spent less time in the pool. By contrast Alex and Phillip were rarely out of the water. They were highly competitive and organised races up and down the pool’s twenty-five yard length Leda taught them the art of the tumble turn. Mick watched as his sons stretched every nerve and sinew to defeat the other in these contests. Rarely was there more than a touch on