Growing up in Far North Queensland was as sweet as Sugar. #AFNL4

in #life6 years ago (edited)

The sugar industry was not something I thought about a lot growing up yet looking back, the sugar industry influenced everything from our economy to the landscape to many of the personal friendships formed. By the 1970s the sugar industry was transitioning to green harvesting, but cane fires where still commonplace. In the decades past cane was often cut by hand and burning helped to rid the fields of snakes and rats which carried the dreaded Weil’s disease. Many of the cane cutters, who harvested the cane back then were migrants from Italy and the Baltic States.

The burning of sugar cane continued on many farms throughout my childhood and was helpful for harvesters, particularly were fields were rocky or other hazards may have otherwise been hidden from the harvester driver by the weeds and other vegetation known commonly as ‘trash’, thus lessening wear and tear on the harvesters. Despite the absence of cane cutting by hand when I was growing up, old cane knives could still be found in the sheds of most people. I can well remember making a mess of the vegetation along our creek with grandad’s cane knife.

In Edmonton the hub of the Sugar Industry was the Hambledon Mill. It was to the west of the township and along with the mill itself there were many houses for mill staff all owned and paid for by the mighty Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR). That said it was what the staff made of it, with CSR employees building their own swimming pool and tennis courts to enhance the area. ‘Mill houses’ were occupied by white collar staff such as accountants, chemists and managers.

My parents formed close bonds with several members of the CSR community, to the extent that school vacations often consisted of travelling down the Queensland coast to catch up with former Hambledon Mill employees who had moved to other locations for CSR. This included people like Allan and Carol Hughes who moved to Ingham. Don and Vai Hamilton who moved to Mackay and David and Jill Sanders who moved to Brisbane.

One of my early memories as a small child was working on the ‘mill float’ for our local parade called ‘Fun in The Sun’. It consisted of a flatbed truck with sugar cane woven into circles and decorative patterns.

While the CSR mill community consisted of white collar workers, blue collar workers, including labourers, boilermakers, fitters and turners and the like lived in the town proper. I can’t remember any class distinctions or petty snobbery between the two groups, though it no doubt existed in some form.

Going to this area today one finds a water slide type theme park known as SugarWorld and it is hard to recognise much at all. Proving that for most of us, where we grow up is a time and place just as much as a geographical location.

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