Charles was the eldest son in his family of three.

At the age of 10 he would help his father with his team of horses and dray to enable them to get food supplies and do various jobs of transporting goods for people in the district of Boulia and Middleton.

Charles and his father did a great deal of pioneering.

From 1918 to 1920 at the age of 17, Charles with many others from the North West went to serve his country in the A.I.F. during the First World War.

Unlike many who joined up at the same time he returned safely.

In 1922, while shearing at a local station outside of Winton he met a local girl, Alice Moore, whom he married in 1925.

January 1926, Charles and his wife moved to the Boulia district where he did jobs shearing for the local stations.

But like many others of the time his ambition was to better himself so he spent every minute of spare time studying.

The young newlyweds like so many others at that time faced many disadvantages and disasters.

Not the least of which were the bush fires after years of drought following the years of heavy rains.

One of the most tragic of which was the fire that was started by lightning near Elrose Station, in October 1917.

Early on this day workers had put out a fire on Ninman Station.

At this time the men were travelling with 7,000 young sheep to Warenda Station and camped at a well-known mill.

That night, a strong westerly wind arrived from a storm north of Boulia, followed by several lightning strikes.

An enormous line of fire started and travelled speedily between Boulia and Winton.

Within an hour the fire had reached Warenda Station, where 20 points of rain put it out.

The workers at the mill, the Warenda horsemen and five men in a buggy with 2 horses tried to beat the flames to clean grounds.

The horse men made it, but the men in the buggy were caught in flames.

The boss left two men with the sheep and then searched for the buggy.

They found the buggy with two men badly burnt, one other rider who had just arrived went to get help.

Jack Williams, one of the two men who left with the party broke his leg while jumping from the buggy and was also badly burnt.

Roy Dickson, the second man was also suffering from severe burns.

After the coach picked them up Williams and Dickson, died on the way to Boulia.

Floods were also a major problem for the people, as they became more isolated because of lack of food and supplies.

Also loss of stock because of them getting caught in mud and therefore drowning.

During these floods many houses were demolished and cost a fortune to rebuild.

And because of loss of stock, money was very limited.

In 1917, two drovers drove 600 rams from McKinlay to Lucknow Station where they set up camp one mile east of the Warenda wool shed.

During the night a flash flood washed the camp away, all the rams were drowned and the two men spent the night up a tree.

During the years of low rainfall, severe dust storms were also a problem, usually coming and lasting up to three days, while building up at any fences, yards or other obstruction.

Dust storms were also accompanied by cyclonic winds on many occasions and wrecked windmills and caused severe damage to buildings.

About the only work available to the men of the district was droving, shearing, fencing or……..

Without droughts, floods or bushfires.

Most men found this type of work difficult as it left little time for them to see their families.

But because most of the work available was out to town it would pay more money, so men had to take what was offered as work was very limited.

Most workers dreamed of saving enough to buy their own place someday.

Education in the early days was practically non-existent but in the early 1890s a school had been built at Boulia by local workers from local timber.

It was to this school that the children of Charles and Alice Robinson went for their formal education.

It is a tribute to those workers that the original school was sold for removal in 1938 and replaced with a larger one from the gold mining town of Selwyn.

Although the country was harsh and the work exhausting the workers managed to find time for some fund and entertainment.

Tennis and cricket were very popular games at the time. Bicycle racing and goat racing were also held occasionally, in fact, any sporting activity which cost nothing was tried by the people of the North West.

Horse racing was started in the 1920s and soon became an enjoyable and popular interest. The part time studies of young Charles Earnest Robinson eventually allowed him to leave the shearing sheds.

He became Shire Clerk of Boulia Shire Council, a post he held for many years. The challenges and hardships of living in the North West seemingly had little effect on men like Charles Robinson because he lived to the ripe old age of 80 years, when he died from gangrene.

How do I know all this?

Charles Earnest Robinson was my Grandfather.

(The name of the young writer is unknown.)

This original essay, hand written on foolscap paper and badly water stained and in a fragile condition, was handed to Kim-Maree Burton by friends of the Robinson Family.  

All attempts to find the young writer and/or descendants of Charles Earnest Robinson have been unsuccessful.

Anyone connected to or knowing of this family are invited to contact Kim-Maree Burton at the North West Star newspaper.