User:Sherroj/sandbox

Early Childhood

Douglas John (Doug) Sherrington’s birth certificate shows that he was born on the 7 December 1914 and the doctor attending was Doctor Schmidt, who was aided by a Sister Peagam. The birth took place at the Lady Chelmsford Hospital, in Bundaberg. He was a fourteen pounds (about six kilograms) baby and he arrived at 7:30 a.m., just in time for breakfast

There is not much to recall of the next few years, except that the world was a very wonderful place for Doug. He often sad that there was nowhere on earth any more beautiful than the farm on which h lived. It was a small farm. In truth though, no one could ever have succeeded in making it into a profitable farm, let alone be able to make sufficient money from it to raise a family of five sons and three daughters. But to Doug, he was totally ignorant of all the problems his family endured. The heartbreak his parents went through, particularly his mother, never even entered into his head because my life, at that stage, was so full of beauty.

The farm, which was in Booyal of about forty-five acres, had been cleared to about two-thirds its area. It had been planted to sugarcane and maize and the remainder was a vine scrub, only about one hundred metres from the pine cottage they lived in. According to the report of the Crown Ranger of the day, the cost of the house and kitchen was 100 pounds ($200).

It was a four-roomed cottage on high stumps. At the rear was a detached kitchen, which was entered from the house by a flight of steps across a boardwalk, raised about two thirds of a meter above ground. It was a large kitchen, with a huge fireplace on one end. In fact, so large was the fireplace that, with the stove placed in its centre, they could sit on forms located behind it and so managed to keep warm during the colder winter nights.

At the other end of the room was a large built-in cupboard, in which was stored the non-perishable food items, such as tins of jam, bags of flour and other necessary cooking items. This cupboard had to be large, as shopping was done only once a week and the items carried home by horse and sulky. Bread came from Childers once a week by train, with about a dozen loaves packed in a flour sack.

In the centre of the kitchen was a large table, around which the family would gather at meal times. There were a couple of chairs, but the main seating around the table was by way of wooden forms. There was one large sliding window at the rear of the kitchen, which looked away over open space towards the fowl run. Nearby, was a large mulberry tree, the fruit from which his mother would make the most delicious mulberry pies. Much of the family life revolved around this kitchen.

The main part of the cottage was raised on stumps, about two met