The Jillaroo Part 1 / 4. Birth and Rebirth

I am lying in bed, my face bathed in sunlight from a nearby window, and my two grand-daughters are telling me about their day at school while my grand-son is looking out of the window at his friends playing soccer.

I tell him he does not have to stay and to go to join them and the thanks me as he rushes out of the door. Oh, the desire to get dirty and sweaty that pervades a young lads’ life. The girls are hardly slowed by this interruption as they regale me with the intricacies of school life and their observations on a whole class full of girls. It is a world I hardly know as I was home schooled right up to the time I went to college. Actually, my earlier schooling was done by correspondence and the School of the Air. That’s how it was when I was young, a very long time ago.

After the girls had gone off to do their own thing, I lay there with the warmth on my face and thought about my life and how it had played out. I was born in the Broken Hill Base Hospital in the far west New South Wales, Australia. It was only just, though, as my mother had to endure a five-hour car ride on dirt roads to get there but it seems I was in no hurry to enter the world. My name was given as Frances Evelyn Howard; my mother being Francesca Howard. Like her, I grew up being called Frankie by everyone.

My mother was a Broken Hill girl whose parents had a fish and chip shop. She met my father in 1941 while he was in the town to pick up supplies and they had a whirlwind courtship culminating in getting married late in 1941, just before he went off to join the Australian Army and get killed in the Battle for Malaya in January 1942. My father, Jimmy Howard, was the only son of Jack and Mary Howard, who owned Kangaranga Station, way north of Broken Hill and up near the Queensland border. It wasn’t the largest station around, but at around four thousand square miles, it wasn’t little by any means. The main business was cattle, bred for meat only, and which grazed wild in the scrub.

My grandparents doted on their grand-daughter and I had a charmed upbringing, being taught to cook and sew at an early age and being home schooled from about four years old. The war was kind to my grand-parents in that our neighbours on both sides had lost their menfolk and Pops had bought up the land with the proviso that the widows and children had homes for life. This grew Kangaranga to just under eight thousand square miles, or around five million acres. I suppose one could consider it a lonely life, being up in corner country, but we had a normal complement of around twenty workers sleeping in bunkhouses and up to fifty plus their horses when it was time for the muster and transporting of cattle to market.

As I said, I was home schooled, along with the few children of the families living at the station, by correspondence. It was with great excitement in 1951 when the School of the Air began with its station in Alice Springs. It was odd being able to hear the teachers as well as looking at the books. I was a good student and did well in my exams, my mother ensuring that I filled everything in without help. I was also picking up skills in running the station, riding before I was eight and able to help feed the crew before I was ten. As I said earlier, they all called me Frankie and I was considered a tomboy jillaroo as I was usually in a shirt and jeans with proper boots to keep the spiders and snakes from getting to the ankles. The only times I needed a dress was when we had parties for birthdays or Christmas. I think my mother only had four dresses, a black sad days one, a brighter good days one, a party one and a ‘go to town to shop’ one. My own wardrobe was much the same, although I did tend to wear a skirt sometimes. My mother was always complimentary when I was in a skirt or a dress and she always told me that I was the daughter she had craved for.

My world turned upside-down when I was twelve. There was a family that lived in one of the outstation houses and they had a son called Albert. Now Albert was a couple of years older than me and was learning to be a jackaroo like his father. He had started to be very attentive to me when he was at the main house for schooling. One time he had found me near the bore and told me he loved me, whatever that meant, and had kissed me. Now, I had seen animals rutting, helped clean new-born puppies and lambs, but had absolutely no idea about what boys and girls did as my mother had always brushed over the subject when I asked. Nevertheless, I was somewhat surprised at how I felt when his lips met mine for the first time and it wasn’t long before we would make time to be alone for a kissing session. He found my budding breasts fascinating and I thought his attentions were very nice.

At mustering time we were able to help with herding the cattle towards the yards for sorting and branding. It turned out that Albert and I needed to be on the top of One Tree Hill, a ridiculous name for a bump in the land that was no more than thirty feet higher than the surrounding country, but it was higher and gave a good view. We tethered our horses in the shade of the one tree and took our binoculars to see if we could see any stray cattle. It wasn’t long before he was all over me, kissing and touching and fondling my breasts. Suddenly he stood back and unzipped his jeans to let his willy spring free, hard and long with a glisten of dew on the tip.

I said “That’s interesting, mine doesn’t do that, but I’m a girl.” His look changed from lust to a frown as he pushed me down to the ground and his hand felt inside my jeans to find my own girls willy. “You little pervert” he cried and banged my head on the ground. That’s when everything went black.

When I woke up I was in a lot of pain. My head hurt, my body hurt and my groin hurt even more. When I managed to look at myself I could see that my jeans were soaked in blood. I called out for Albert but there was no answer. I looked around and I was alone on the hillock, not even my horse was there. I did see my saddle lying on the ground so Albert must have taken my horse with him. I crawled to the saddle and the saddle bags to pull out the big old two-way radio and switched it on. Immediately I heard my mother calling for us to answer so I pressed the send button and said “Mummy, I hurt so much, come and get me at One Tree Hill” before I passed out again.

I vaguely remember my mother crying as she cradled me while one of the men gave me an injection but the next time I woke fully I was in a hospital bed with my mother dozing in a chair next to me. She looked completely worn out and I said “Mummy, don’t be so sad, I am awake now.” She woke with a start and came to me to kiss my brow and hold my hand. I could tell she wanted to hug me but I felt like the proverbial Mummy as I seemed to be swathed in bandages. She started to cry and wailed “I’m so sorry, my darling, I have been such an idiot for years and it is my stupidity that has you here in hospital. How can I ever put things right again”.

Just then a doctor came into the room with a clipboard in his hand. When he saw that I was awake he got my mother to sit down again while he checked out my vision and speech as well as asking me how many fingers he was holding up. When he was satisfied that I had most of my capabilities he stood back and said “I am afraid that I have some bad news for you; when you came to us you were so badly injured in your groin we had to make you into a girl.” I said “OK, when are you going to tell me the bad news. I am a girl, have always been a girl and fully expect to end my life as a girl.” My mother stood up and took him by the arm and forced him out of the room, turning to me as she left, saying “I’ll be back to explain everything, my darling, just you rest for a bit.”

When she came back she looked a lot better. She had obviously been to the toilet and cleaned her face. With her was a nurse. They stood either side of the bed and each held one of my hands. “Frances, I need to tell you something that I did that is not what a normal mother would do” she started. “This nurse is Anne, my best friend at school here in Broken Hill. When I was brought in to give birth it was very late at night and Anne was on duty. When you were born you were a boy but I so wanted a girl I pleaded with Anne to help me out. She and I were the only ones to clean and change you while we were here and she signed the paperwork that said that you were a girl. I thought that I could bring you up as my daughter in the remote station and no-one would know the difference. I so wanted a girl and have loved you as one ever since. I am so sorry that you had to find out like this.”

Marianne G 2020