Jack Ephraim James but call him Mick

I have just visited the Wilmot area where my mother grew up. Ephraim Doe the Younger moved his family into this area in the early to mid 1890s. He lived along the Narrawa Road where we found the dilapidated house of his daughter MaryAnn Bergan. I am told that the foundation stones of the cottage built for Amelia Doe (then Chiplin, later Elwin) after her separation from Charles Chiplin are still here. They later became the floor for a dairy when the cows were milked.



Mary Ann's house, last lived in by Mick Bergan



We always knew MaryAnn’s house as Mick’s house as he, the grandson of MaryAnn lived there when I was young. How he came to be Mick must be an interesting story as his name was Jack Ephraim James Bergan. Obviously that was not enough to choose from. We did not go into the house as it was raining, there were others waiting in the car, we were on our way to meet others for lunch and were short of time. Being a town girl, I am not all that confident about walking among cows, however friendly they might look. As I get closer, they seem to get bigger and their soft brown eyes are not enough to convince me that they are as friendly as the gentle bovines of nursery books and children’s stories. I am also not convinced that I can run as fast as a paddock full of cows, especially uphill in slippery conditions, avoiding cowpats and leaping gracefully over barbed wire fences to save myself when the breath has been expelled from my body.








Mick Bergan at Narrawa

 



A few more boards were gone from the end of the building and the paint was peeling but the windows and doors were intact. No more were the hordes of turkeys making their homes in the top of the walnut trees. If Mick’s blue telephone were still inside, it would have been spotted with dust and grit by now, years after making its last call. There were calendars lined up behind it, adding colour and keeping Mick in time with the rest of the world. I never saw any further into the building. Mick seemed only to live in the front, while the rest of the house settled a little and fell into disrepair each year. I notice the chimney has seen better times. No longer is it capable of sending thick smoke skywards on a winter’s night or cradling then dispersing the rich aromas of a meal cooked on the coals in the fireplace below.

The cows and horses keep guard.