The Fighting O’Haras
Some time during the summer of 1947, a new family moved next door. They had come to Box Hill from Ireland under Arthur Caldwell’s plan for Australia to “Populate or Perish”.
The O’Hara’s had eight or nine children. They all wore green. Every Sunday morning, Mr. O’Hara would walk up and down the back path which adjoined our side fence, playing loud Irish airs on bagpipes. The children attended the school of St. Francis Xavier Church which was over the road from our house and on top of a hill, except for one or two of the older girls who went to “Notre Dame de Sion”. The arrival of the O’Hara family strongly strengthened the Catholic cause in Box Hill.
I joined with some of the other Protestant boys in our area in welcoming them to town. We gathered outside their house and chanted together:
“Catholic dogs, sitting on logs,
eating gizzards out of frogs”.
The O’Haras replied with the time honoured method of taking us one at a time, over the next couple of weeks, and belting us. I was aghast when I saw the big Beenland boys bashed with bloodied noses. I feared that it must be my turn soon.
I was in Grade 3 at Box Hill State School at the time. Going to school one morning, I turned the corner from Miller Street into White Horse Road and saw five of the O’Hara boys nonchalantly standing alongside their fence. Instantly, I turned back and went around the corner again. But it was too late. There was no use now trying to run down the back lane or go the long way by the railway line. They had seen me.
I contemplated my move as I stood there under the quince tree hanging over the side fence of the Moldova dairy beside our house. Idly I picked two quinces. They were hard and green, but in my hands they felt like hand grenades.
One game we enjoyed in Grade 3 at the Box Hill State School was British Bulldog in which we ran against a well of opponents and, dodging from foot to foot, tried to break through before they upended us on the hard gravel.
I decided to turn the assault on the O’Haras into a game of British Bulldog. Grasping the two hard quinces, I started running down White Horse Road, my school bag bumping on my back.
The O’Haras sprang into action. The biggest boys were in the centre and the smallest near their fence and the edge of the road to stop any attempt to by pass their line.
I ran faster. I kept thinking “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes”. The nearest O’Hara, about twelve years old and so much larger than I, stood there tough and resolute with his steel rimmed glasses. Just as he was about to grab me wham! He turned his head from the projected missile and the quince hit him in his ear. His hands flew to his head.
Wham! The second quince fired at the next O’Hara and hit him hard in the stomach, or perhaps a little lower down. He dropped to the ground. I leapt over his prostrate form as the other three O’Haras fell back.
I had broken through. My legs propelled me to a safe distance where I turned to look at the routed O’Haras and to sing a final chorus of “Catholic dogs, sitting on logs”.
All day I felt triumphant. Miss Higgins never had a more diligent monitor. I cleaned the board and emptied her waste paper bin with enthusiasm.
At lunchtime I played British Bulldog with the other lads and every memory of the morning’s triumph lifted me to higher levels of achievement.
Then the bell rang and it was home time. The colour began to drain from my cheeks. I stayed behind and filled all of the inkwells from the ink bottle with its rubber spout.
I dawdled up Station Street and then turned and started to walk up the hill in Whitehorse Road.
As I drew nearer to St. Francis Xavier church I noticed seven boys nonchalantly standing by the fence in front of the O’Hara house. The O’Haras had called up reinforcements.
I considered my position. Go up the lane at the back? That would leave me trapped in a very narrow lane with seven of them. I could not go the long way around the railway line because they had already seen me and would head for the railway line which was wide open territory.
There was no other alternative but to face a belting.
As I was contemplating the belting, I paused outside the fire brigade when a large voice spoke to me. There was Captain Clements. He was standing with his legs apart with his knee high leather boots holding a good grip of Australian soil. His coat with its shiny brass buckles was open. Underneath, I knew that he was wearing broad braces with silver buckles which stated “For Police and Firemen”. From his leather belt hung a black leather pouch containing his fireman’s axe.
He was a friend of my late father. He had a sense of responsibility towards our family after my Dad died.
I often spoke to Captain Clements. Sometimes he let me come inside the fire station and go upstairs where the firemen played billiards while they waited the summons to important fires. Sometimes he let me slide down the brass pole which ran from the first floor through a hole down to the garage of the brigade where a thick mat broke my descent down the sliding fire pole.
“Hullo young Mick What’s making you look like you’ve lost a quid and found a zack?”
I explained to him my predicament with the O’Haras.
“O’Haras? Is that their name? I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re the young larrikins who have been ringing the bell on the front of the station at night setting off false alarms. I think I’ll have a word with them.”
And with that he set off up White Horse Road with long strides while my short legs were running to keep up with him.
The O’Haras and their reinforcements disappeared, melting behind hedges and kneeling down behind the low brick wall that surrounded their front verandah.
The voice of authority stopped outside their house and said: “Listen here you boys. If I catch one of you around the fire station or interfering with this young lad as he goes up and down this road it will be curtains for you do you understand? You keep off the street and do not let me see you causing any trouble.”
His voice was full of authority. The enemy kept in hiding and with a wave he turned back to the station. I walked past gradually picking up speed as I softly whistled “Catholic dogs”. I never had trouble from the O’Haras again until the time when Mrs. O’Hara came to our side door abusing my mother over some issue or other and my mother pushed her backwards. How it happened, I do not know but Mrs. O’Hara’s heel caught on the low fence around our vegetable garden and she fell backwards into the potatoes.
And Captain Clements? I do not know what happened to him. Years later I saw him dressed in fine uniform as he was leading a march of the Members of the Royal Orange Lodge down Station Street.
The war with the O’Haras subsided and I was never again threatened although I changed my habit of walking home up White Horse Road and instead used to walk up Bank Street along the railway line to the hill, and to 5 Miller Street, Box Hill, a great city that was still a village where the adults were kind and where the children grew up responsibly.
GORDON MOYES
