Day out at Bondi

Monday, 3^rd January

So far it is turning out to be a happy New Year, except for Annie’s sulking.  Dad organised some wagons and horses to take the barrack families to Bondi Beach for our Picnic Day.  We’ve done this every New Year’s Day that I can remember.  We didn’t go on New Year’s Day this year, because it was a Saturday, so the Picnic Day was held over to today.  Usually it looks like the regiment is “moving out”, as mamma says, and a long line of wagons trundled east, down Old South Head Road, but this year with only a few Royal Artillery families, the advance guard for the 18^th and the Garrison staff in residence, we all fitted on three wagons.

We had such fun building sandcastles and paddling on the water’s edge.  Some of the boys stripped down to their britches and cooled off in the waves.  Mamma took little Alfie’s clothes off and dad took him to the water’s edge and let him crawl around in the ripples.  The other families with crawling babies also let them go naked in the water and it wasn’t long before the fathers organised a baby race down the beach – oh, it was so funny watching the dads coaxing their babies on, as though they were young fillies and colts.  

 

Bondi Beach circa 1900, public domain - author unknown. Sydney Powerhouse Museum collection

I admit to feelings of jealousy that the boys and babies were allowed to go into the water and cool off, as we girls weren’t.  Mamma said that “respectable young ladies do not undress in front of other people, let alone go paddling in their underclothes!”  Despite Annie’s and my protestations that we weren’t young ladies, and Harriet’s constant attempts to remove her frock, mamma was firm and we had to remain in our dresses, pinafores  and hats.  Mamma is as keen to improve our family’s social standing, as dad is to have us educated, and so she is always mindful of propriety and respectful behaviour.  But the day was so warm that Annie and I pretended to faint from the heat and at last mamma allowed us to remove our shoes and stockings so we could go paddling.  Once in the water, it didn’t take long before we started splashing each other and soon our clothes were drenched with sea water and sand..  We three girls had such a great laugh that I reckon it was well worth the hiding we got from mamma when she saw the state of our frocks.

She sent us girls to the wash house, as soon as we got home, to clean the sand and seawater out of our clothes.  That was hard work what with the fire going to boil the water, and rubbing the clothes up and down many times on the scrubbing board; Annie got the job of lifting them all out of the copper with the copper stick, on account of she was the only one tall enough to reach.  Annie grumbled that she was doing most of the work and it wasn’t fair – but both Harriet and I were too small, so we couldn’t have helped even if we tried.  Once Annie had the clothes out of the boiler and put through the wringer, she stalked off and left us with the job of spreading of the clothes over the bushes to dry.  I really don’t know what’s gotten into her these days, she hardly ever wants to do things with Harriet and me any more and she’s always seems to be moody and takes it out on me and calls me “Shorty” and “Nuisance”.  I don’t understand!  What have I done to upset her like this?

1870s studio portrait of a laundry maid showing wringer. Flickr from Manchester Art Gallery

 Washing clothes recipe : http://michelleslittlepieceofheaven.blogspot.ca/2013/05/warshing-clothes-recipe.html