Aged 10 he helped his father with his horse team and dray to get food supplies and transport goods for people around Boulia and Middleton.

From 1918 to 1920 at the age of 17, Charles with many others went to serve his country in the AIF during the First World War.

In 1922, while shearing at a station near Winton he met a local girl, Alice Moore, whom he married in 1925. January 1926, They moved to the Boulia district where he sheared for local stations.

He spent every minute of spare time studying and the newlyweds faced many disadvantages and disasters.

One of the most tragic was the fire started by lightning near Elrose Station, in October 1917. Early on this day workers had put out a fire on Ninman Station.Men were travelling with 7000 young sheep to Warenda Station and camped at a mill.

A strong westerly wind arrived from a storm followed by several lightning strikes. An enormous line of fire travelled speedily between Boulia and Winton. Within an hour the fire had reached Warenda where 20 points of rain put it out. Mill workers, Warenda horsemen and men in a buggy beat the flames to clean grounds. The horse men made it, but the men in the buggy were caught in flames. They found the buggy with two men badly burnt and they died on the way to Boulia.

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.

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

Dust storms were also a problem, lasting up to three days accompanied by cyclonic winds and wrecked windmills and caused severe damage to buildings.

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 popular games. Bicycle racing and goat racing were held, they tried any sporting activity which cost nothing.

Horse racing started in the 1920s and was 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 of life in the North West had little effect on men like Charles Robinson because he lived to 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.