Memories of bygone Branxholm
• Scottsdale’s Kit Ranson looks back on her 95 years well lived.
By Daisy Baker
August 05, 2020
Kit Ranson remembers a simpler time, before electricity, when hurricane lamps and candles were part of daily life and she and her brother would trap rabbits for pocket money.
She grew up in Branxholm during the late 1920s and 1930s, as one of eight children living in a small weatherboard house a few doors down from the school.
Motorcars were few and far between, with just six in the whole town.
She said there were lots of families living in Branxholm at the time, many of which had seven or eight children.
Other than a pushbike shared between her sisters, Mrs Ranson said walking was their only option.
“We didn’t know any better. We were very poor – everyone was in those days – but we were very happy,” she said.
“Everyone helped each other.
“We had our own vegetables, pig, cows, ducks, chooks and fruit trees.”
She has fond memories of the dances they would attend as a family of a Saturday night, walking there and back regardless of whether it was wet or fine.
Her dad was a saw doctor and benchman and worked in Derby, leaving home early each morning and returning in the dark.
“When they ran out of logs he would go to Alberton out past Ringarooma and rode there every day on a pushbike and he’d have his tucker bag on his back and a big chaff bag,” she said.
“If it rained, he’d put that around his shoulders with a safety pin to keep him dry until he got home.”
Mrs Ranson said on some Friday nights she and her siblings would get a penny each from their father’s five pound a week wage, with which they would rush to the shop to buy whatever lollies they could afford.
While the money was tight, Mrs Ranson’s mother was resourceful, making the best of what they had.
“My mum was a wonderful cook. She could make a meal out of nothing as the saying goes,” she said.
“Mum made our clothes, cut our hair, she was our doctor and was the weather forecast.
“We looked straight out the back door to Grey’s Hill and when the sun shone you could count the cattle.
“When the mist came Mum would say ‘the weather’s changing’, and then came the black cockatoos. Within that night or the next day there would be a storm or rain or wind. She was right.”
Mrs Ranson learned to milk when she was about 12, getting up early each morning to get the cow, bring her home and milk her before going to school.
“Then I had to separate it, get the billies filled with a pint of milk for sixpence and I used to run to school with them and drop them at the neighbours and pick the billies up on the way back for the next day,” she said.
Each Saturday, the whole family was very busy, pitching in to get the jobs done.
“We would churn the butter and after the churn we’d sweep all the bedrooms and then polish the floors on our hands and knees,” she said.
“Then Mum would make a buttermilk loaf which would be in the oven in the afternoon ready for tea.
“The butter was made and put in a container and sat in the lounge fireplace in the draught.”
Of a Sunday when the open fire died down, Mrs Ranson’s mum would make a scone, hang it up the chimney and turn it every now and then.
“It was delightful for everyone. It would be ready just in time for afternoon tea.”
The family had two beautiful calves, which were trained up to pull a cart.
“They would follow you everywhere. Dad made a cart and we trained these two calves and we would go into the bush and pick up sticks for the stove.”
Nearly every day, Mrs Ranson would go and trap rabbits with her brother, which they would sell for sixpence.
“If we got them, Mum skun them, pegged them out on the wall,” she said.
“One day we go a black one which was worth lots of money.
“Jock Hodgetts at the shop he used to call around and buy the rabbit skins off us. That’s the only way we had any money because the milk money went back into buying groceries.”
With no fridge, their meat was kept in a meat safe, hung in the nectarine tree.
When she was 16, Mrs Ranson moved to Scottsdale with her sister to work at the Dewcrisp factory.
Together with her husband Ken she had three children, Gary, Jennifer and Craig.
They built their first home at 70 George Street opposite the school lane for 1200 pounds, where they lived for almost 50 years.
25 years ago, they made the move to Northbourne, where Mrs Ranson still lives today.
In her adult life, she found much joy giving back to the community through the NESM Hospital Auxiliary, which she was a member of for 61 years and only retired three years ago.
“It all began because a lady opposite the factory, Lorna Anderson thought we could help the hospital as they didn’t have any support,” she said.
“They decided we ought to have a kiosk in the hospital. That’s where we started making money for the hospital.
“We started making booties and matinee jackets, we would make little bonnets for babies and then the auxiliary got bigger so we started the sewing roster which was a fortnightly affair.”
With one sewing machine between them they would patch the doctors’ gowns, cut up old towels for bibs and face washers.
“Lorna who was very talented, she even made the curtains for the beds and the bedspreads.”
These days Mrs Ranson enjoys taking part in some of the Northbourne social activities and going on trips around the North-East with the Seniors group.
She now has five grandchildren and four great grandchildren who she loves to see when they are able to visit Tasmania.