George Thorpe's story

George thought he was born at the end of the 19th century possibly on a Christmas Day (he loved receiving presents) or so he told the Burketown police officer when he went for his driving licence.

Never one to hold back on a good story, George always said he was born under the tail of a wagon, on an aboriginal camp outside of the town of Camooweal, to a Kalkadoon woman and a white-fella station worker who after giving him his name, disappeared.

When his mother became ill she and baby George were sent down to Cloncurry Hospital and on regaining her health they moved to Quamby.

How he ended up living with the fine pioneering Scottish family, the Kennedys, on Chatsworth Station, is unknown but George soon became one of their own children.

He later recalled that his upbringing, stern and just, was no different to that of the Kennedy children; with strong emphasis on the proverb that to spare the rod was to spoil the child.

Always a jokester, George often recounted his first puff of a cigarette as he hid in the 'dunny' outback where ... I sat on the throne of the old fashioned 'thunderbox' and puffed and coughed.

Unbeknownst to him the smoke billowed out under the roof of the 'dunny', alerting Mrs Kennedy to his shenanigans, so with stockwhip in hand she called out to him to come outside, to no avail.

"I sat tight while the flames warmed my most tender bottom, while deciding which was the lesser of two evils", he laughingly, told Bill Aplin.

But when the dunny started to burn he flew out the door right into the path of Mrs Kennedy and her stockwhip.

And all this happened when he was still only five years old.

Being too much of a scallywag and with a hatred of being cooped up inside, George never did succeed in learning to read and write but rather became a raconteur with something of a showman in dress sense and speech but always well-spoken and courteous in manner.

At one stage, George was employed as a railway porter where his friendly manner earned him popularity with the locals.

On one occasion, a woman once asked him what time the next train would be arriving?

"Ten past nine, Madam."

Ignoring George, she then asked the next porter the same question.

"Ten past nine," was the brusque reply.

Politely, George said, "There you are Madam. It must be coming in at ten past nine. You have it now in black and white!"

He always had a laugh against himself and none more often than during the Festive Season when he would don Santa's costume to greet the children at the Buffalo Club's Christmas party.

Little children do not see colour, like adults, so they excitedly accepted a black face smiling and laughing loudly from under Santa's red cap and white beard, but not for one little boy who gave Santa a quizzical look and stated, "You're not the real Santa. You're black! Santa's white!"

Quick as a slithering snake, George sat the little boy on his lap and said, "You know the big red and white chimney stack?"

"Yes", came the boy's bold reply.

"Well, that's my special Mount Isa chimney stack. Rudolph pushes and squeezes me down for a laugh, every year."

"I start out white at the top of the chimney and by the time I slide down to the copper smelter, I'm black all over."

George learned early in life, the adage, that if you cry, you cry alone, but if you laughed then people would laugh with you: he had a happy knack of laughing especially at his mixed breeding.

As was evident in his recollection of the time a friend proffered his cigarette packet to George with the invitation to have a cigarette.

George said, "I had one of yours last time, have one of mine."

When the friend asked what sort of cigarettes they were, George said, "Ahh! Just like me - black and white - of course."

Life was not easy for George as he grew into the twentieth century along with the rest of his mob, but he believed laughter would ease most tension and being the jokester that he was, many a laugh he would tell at his own expense.

Like the time when he was only a youngster and told to gallop 14 miles down the track.

"As you go down, George, run all the horses in and see you have Mrs McLean's horse - don't stop talking at the copper show."

After handing over the urgent letter to Mrs McLean, he threw a side-saddle on her horse 'Bullswool' and together they rode back to Chatsworth Station.

Some hours later he saw Mrs Kennedy holding a baby and asked where it came from?

She said she caught it fishing.

He would laugh when he told this story, "By crikies, I was the talk of Duchess because I didn't know where the baby came from."

In later years, he would laugh at his own naiveté when telling this anecdote saying, "I was a grown man and shaved both sides and my chin before I found out where that baby came from."

He was a jokester, a raconteur, a well-loved grandfather and a proud Kalkadoon man born under a wandering star.

And he was a shining example of the successful mixing and integration of two proud races.

In any language, in any culture, George was a gentleman.

Researched and written by Kim-Maree Burton www.kimmareeburton.com

Photographs supplied by the North West Star newspaper.

Information sourced from John and Dennis Canning, the Memoirs of Bill Aplin Snr, and the North West Star.