National Library of Australia - Digital Collections - Audio

  • Ginibi, Ruby Langford, 1934- (interviewee)
  • Ruby Langford Ginibi interviewed by Frank Heimans [sound recording].
  • 2000 3 digital audio tapes (140 min.)
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Transcript (page 9 of 10)
Ruby Langford Ginibi: No, actually it wasnt, it was in the damn car. We slept in the car that had broken down.
Frank Heimans: For how long did you do that?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Oh, well the car broke down at this fencing job that we got to, you know, and to get the parts for it we had to have this job. Anyhow, we used to sleep in that, and we both worked. I worked with him burning off, burning off, you know, in the bush, burning off all the timber.
Frank Heimans: Was it a hard job?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Oh, of course it was. Bush works very hard. People in the city dont understand what its like to be in the bush. Theyd soon have a turn around in their thinking ways, Im telling you, if they did, because its very hard.
Frank Heimans: How many hours a day would you work, say?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Oh, wed work from daylight to sun up.
Frank Heimans: And as well as that looking after three children?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Looking after the kids.
Frank Heimans: Six kids?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Running around the camps, yes.
Frank Heimans: You had six children by this time, did you, by the end of it?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Let me see, yeah, yeah.
Frank Heimans: But after the car where were you living?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: No, wait a minute, I was pregnant with David then, when we were burning off. Then after that we were on a farm outside of Coonabarabran, about three miles out, when I went into labour with David, my son David. Then Sams mother, Rube, and her husband, Harold Leslie, they came out in a little old truck and picked me up and took me and the kids in town and they pitched a tent next to their little hut so that the kids would be there, so they could watch them while I had my baby, you know. That was my fifth child, David was my fifth.
Frank Heimans: How old were you by this time?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Oh, God, I dont know, I never added up the years. I dont know.
Frank Heimans: You would have been about in your mid-twenties, would you, do you think?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Oh, yeah, something like that.
Frank Heimans: Where did you give birth, in the hospital?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Yeah, in the hospital, and then went back out after I had the baby, David. Ive got four children that were born in Coonabarabran. Pearly was born in Bonalbo, up my country, Bill was born in Coonabarabran, then there was David and Aileen as well, and later on young Pauline was born in Coonabarabran.
Frank Heimans: Now, after you were burning off all day, whod cook the meal at night?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Id have to cook it. Youve got no people out there to wait on you in the scrub. You got to light the fire and everything too, you know, and the camp oven, the trusty old camp oven. You have an old meat safe in the bush, hanging in a tree.
Frank Heimans: You mean the hessian variety?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Yeah, the hessian that I had around me toilet. A hessian bag, thats what I mean, thats what it is, and youd have that around your meat safe. And most of the meat that you got, like a sheep a week when you were on these properties for working, youd have to corn, corn it, because youd never keep it in the bush. I used to set the traps for rabbits, you know, set the traps for rabbits at night-time when the kids are asleep. Gordon, me old man, he was away sowing wheat or ploughing in Gunnedah so I was there by myself, you know.
Frank Heimans: Would you have to skin the rabbits as well?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Of course.
Frank Heimans: And cook them?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Yeah.
Frank Heimans: And then do the washing up ...
Ruby Langford Ginibi: I used to kill the sheep too, kill the sheep too. I had pulleys, you know, to pull it up in the whats-its-name because it was too heavy for me. You had to do that. Nobody else was going to do it for you, you know, and yet the stereotype of us mob, us blackfellas, is that were nothing but lazy layabout drunken bums, you know, dont do nothing, but we are survivors. At that time when we used to get the sheep, you know, if we didnt have anything to eat wed steal a sheep. Old Bob Menzies said it was alright, he was saying nobody should ever starve in Australia while ever theres sheeps in paddocks, you know, sheeps in paddocks, and we took him at his word.
Frank Heimans: Was he right?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: I think he was right.
Frank Heimans: How many years were you with Gordon then?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Ah, well, about five years with Gordon - long enough to have the three kids, Nob, David and then Aileen to Gordon, yeah.
Frank Heimans: So why did it end with Gordon, what happened?
Ruby Langford Ginibi: Because of his drinking, and at that time we met up with the fella that became my husband, Langford, and he had a truck and we ended up going to St George in Queensland fencing, we were doing the fencing then. I used to teach my kids by correspondence. He just used to go away and leave me and Peter to do the fence work and that and hed be drinking and bingeing, and you never knew when he was going to come back, you know. He just went and never come back so I ended up with old Chub, Peter Langford, I ended up marrying him. But at that time we used to travel - I wrote about it in Dont Take Your Love to Town. Campbell had a Hudson car and we had a Ford Mainline sedan and it had no low gear in it and I used to have to take off in second and go straight through to top, and if it stalled Id have to get the men that were working on the side of the road to give me a push so I could flat start it. And in that car would be six kids at that time and a blue dog and a pig called Oinky. Oh, good memories, hey.
Frank Heimans: You certainly needed a large car for all those sort of things, yeah. So Peter Langfords the man you married.
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