Cultured …

According to Pliny the Elder Cleopatra was keen to impress Mark Antony …

“At this moment she was wearing in her ears those choicest and most rare and unique productions of Nature; and while Antony was waiting to see what she was going to do, taking one of them from out of her ear, she threw it into the vinegar, and directly it was melted, swallowed it

In other versions it is wine. Vinegar is sufficiently acid to dissolve a pearl (eventually) wine is not, Coke would certainly have tasted better. The story is probably untrue but there are two things we can say for certain … Cleopatra was cultured, the pearls of the time were not. Nor were the pearls from prewar Australia. Indeed the WA Pearling Act of 1912 prohibited the production, sale and possession of cultured pearls. That section of the Act remained in force until 1947.

It was buttons and pearl shell inlays that sustained the industry. Pearls were a welcome bonus but a master pearler of the time could not have put together a finely matched necklace in an entire career. The war stopped the industry in its tracks. The ports and airports of Northern Australia were of stategic importance pearl shell was not. The fleet was dispersed.

National WW2 Museum New Orleans

The map, filched shamelessly from The National WW2 Museum New Orleans, to which I’ve added Broome, shows the maximum extent of Japanese expansion and how close the war came to Australia.

Pearling resumed in 1946. The work force was about a quarter the prewar figure. There were no Japanese represented, nor would there be until 1953. A shortage of Luggers hindered production but the fishery had been rested for four years and buttons were in short supply. The industry picked up quickly in a world that was changing rapidly.

As a kid, if I lost a button, my mother would sort through her sewing box to find a matching replacement. Would it be a pearl one or one of the new and cheaper plastic ones?

Hard hat diving gave way to hookah diving, air was still delivered by hose from the surface but to a mouthpiece giving the diver greater freedom of movement. He was now looking for small specimens of the same species of oyster to take home live for cultivated pearl production.

The end product was no longer high volumes of low value shell. Pearling was now truly about the pearl, little balls of calcium carbonate but with a lustre and size that would have so shamed Cleopatra she’d have shoved a snake down her cleavage.

War in the Pacific …

The seasonal rhythm in Broome ticked along. The population of Japtown was a few hundred in the dry when the Pearlers were at sea. At the end of the season the population would quickly swell to more than three thousand for the wet. The Japanese had a long association with the sea and with pearling. In 1940 they constituted about 27 % of Broome’s pearling workforce. They were outnumbered by the Koepangers – indentured labourers recruited in Timor. (45%). By comparison the Chinese constituted just 0.5% 0f the pearling workforce. Smaller numbers of other Asian people and aboriginals made up the balance. Then add the merchants and those not employed in pearling. All manner of businesses thrived. It was a happy little melting pot living in vibrant harmony – between riots.

At dawn on November 7th 1941 the Japanese struck Pearl Harbour. Eight U.S. battleships were in port. All were hit, 5 being sunk and 1 heavily damaged; also sunk were 3 destroyers. Nine other ships were sunk or severely damaged; 140 aircraft were destroyed and 80 more damaged. 2,330 military personnel were killed and 1,145 wounded. It was the start of the War in the Pacific. For the next 6 months the Japanese carried all before them.

In Broome Pearling came to a halt. Women, children and nonessential workers were evacuated. The Japanese were interned. Many of the luggers were commandeered by the Navy – imagine the terror of the Japanese at the prospect of a fleet of luggers bearing down on them.

On February 19th 1942 Darwin was bombed. Japanese fighters and bombers attacked the port and shipping in the harbour twice during the day, killing 252 Allied service personnel and civilians.

On March 3rd 1942 nine Zero fighter planes strafed the moorings at Mangrove Point where there were 15 Flying Boats parked for refuelling. The airport was also attacked. The Flying Boats and 9 other aircraft were destroyed. At least 89 people were killed. The Flying Boats were carrying refugees from the Dutch East Indies. Most of the dead were women and children fleeing the Japanese advance. There were three further attacks on Broome.

In succeeding months air attacks were made on Wyndham, Port Hedland and Derby in Western Australia, Darwin and Katherine in the Northern Territory, Townsville and Mossman in Queensland, and Horn Island in the Torres Strait. In all Darwin was hit 64 times.

And now we call that part of town Chinatown.

Offering …

The shore of Dampier Creek offered a place where boats could be hauled out and there were fresh water soaks close at hand. It was a useful base for the pearlers. Streeter and Male founded a store nearby, a passage was cut through the mangroves and a jetty was built. It seems that the exact date is unknown but it was in existence prior to 1897. Streeters Jetty is still there and has recently been given a major facelift. It is as fine an example of a plain wooden jetty that you will find anywhere in Broome.

It had its limitations being useful only for small boats at high tide. It was underwater at very high tides and a long way from water at low tides. In 1897 a government jetty was constructed at Mangrove Point now called Town Beach. This served until the 1960’s. It was an improvement but ships still had to take the bottom between high tides.

Between Streeter’s and Town Beach there is a spot that gives a good view over the mangroves to what was then the port. There is a monument here to the womenfolk who waited here for the return of the luggers and schooners. If that gives the impression that life was a picnic spent sitting on the grass waiting for their men to turn up forget it. Think instead of the anxiety that would follow a storm. Who will return and who will not?

A fine pearl resembles the full moon …

Buttons Mainly …

but also knife handles, watch faces, jewelry boxes, in the beginning it was all about the shell.

The first pearling fleet arrived in Roebuck Bay in the 1870’s. Shark Bay and Thursday Island had been fished for Mother-of-pearl but the North West had a superior oyster, Pinctada maxima. The site that became Broome offered a suitable place to haul out boats for repair and a source of fresh(ish) water. Broome was proclaimed in 1883. Named after Frederick Napier Broome, Governor of the colony of Western Australia, it didn’t get off to a roaring start. No lots were sold until 1886. The Governor was so disappointed to have his name associated with so miserable a place he was considering cancelling the proclamation.

Mother-of pearl was in big demand, pearling was profitable Broome grew. There were some major obstacles, essential supplies had to come a significant distance – Perth is more than 2000km away, the markets for shell were on the other side of the globe. Labour was hard to find, heat, humidity, cyclones and sickness had to be overcome. Nonetheless, by the end of the 19th century there were wealthy folk living in fine bungalows in Old Broome with a plethora of servants to wash and starch their white outfits and bleach their white suede shoes.

Meanwhile in Japtown indentured workers from Asia were enjoying life of a different style and largely banned from town the displaced Aborigines were not enjoying life all that much at all. If you wish to explore the social history further let me commend Beyond the Lattice by Susan Sickert (available online from Kimberley Bookshop). A popular song dating from that era that survives today (in various forms) puts it this way…

But, forget for the moment Beri Beri, the Bends, hardship and injustice and take the time machine to the days of hard hat diving …

Of all the gin joints …

I have always been a sucker for books. Sadly, good bookshops are a dying breed but here in Broome we have one. A shout out to the Kimberley Bookshop where the lovely Gayle and I were shopping for local history and natural history books. In the bird section we know many of the authors personally, the world of truly obsessed birdos is relatively small. There’s probably not enough of us to keep more than a couple of psychiatrists in business. I turned to remark on this when I saw a name on a different shelf that came as a complete surprise.

Let me take you back 50 years. I was a junior House Officer employed by the United Sheffield Hospitals. The ink was still wet on my degree certificate, my job entailed no executive authority what ever, I was there to do as I was told, mostly by the nursing staff. Towering high above me were the gods in my pantheon, Professor Sir Paul Bramley, scholar, gentleman and an inspiration; the irascible Ronnie Rastall, exceedingly skillful hands but a devil if you were on the end of a bollocking and John Edgar deBurgh Norman, brilliant, aloof and eccentric – black cloaks with scarlet linings were not fashionable even in those remote times.

J E deB was Australian and subsequently returned home and practised as an Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon in Sydney whilst I did likewise in Melbourne. Subsequently our paths crossed only once, at a conference at which I was in the chair. Even though I was dry behind the ears by then I couldn’t summon up the confidence to remind him that we had once worked together (or that he had once resuscitated a patient who had collapsed whilst in my tender care).

Back to the present and there on the shelf …

They just don’t make names like that any more. In fact, where I come from they never did. It had to be. And indeed it was. Not only is the man distinguished in his own right he is pearling nobility, a scion of one of Broome’s founding families. G V Norman is Verity, his wife now, sadly, dead.

What were the odds?

Interesting book, by the way.

Subtitles …

I try to keep up with events in Ukraine where the people have displayed remarkable resilience. Slava Ukraini.

I was surprised (again) this morning …

I’m sorry I’ll read that again, “Ukrainian forces keep up the pressure along the Dniepro …” Automatically generated subtitles can do for a speaker what my spell checker does for me when I’m writing.

Weather …

T’is nobler to stay in bed.

It arrived last night and a tropical downpour has been drumming on the roof ever since, a soothing and hypnotic sound. Tourists were not expecting this in the dry season. Caravan parks are overflowing – just like the gutters. By road Broome is a long way from anywhere else. City dwellers may be challenged by the notion that roads will be flooded and impassable.

The Gibb River Road winds through the remote KImberley region. If you take it easy in fine weather your 4WD will get you through, with skill and care your caravan may even survive and you can pick the contents of the cupboards up off the floor when you reach your destination. If anything goes wrong you are a long way from assistance.

This gem was posted on Facebook this morning …

“During the GRR closure, are we still able to use the road to leave? We’re currently at Drysdale River Station and urgently need to get to Derby to get our fridge fixed 🙄 “

… and pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space – everybody knows you can’t get a fridge repaired in Derby!

Broome Time …

The monsoonal parts of Australia have simplified the calendar to just two seasons but that is nothing compared with what Broome has done to the clock.

Ask a tradesman when he can come and fix something, measure up, give you a quote, whatever. He’ll tell you next week, maybe. If you eventually get a quote you ask him when he can start. He tells you next week, maybe. If he starts its likely that he will disappear for a while. You ring him up and ask when he might finish. He tells you next week, maybe.

If you complain about it to a friend they are are likely to nod wisely and say Broome time.

Broome time is very similar to the Spanish concept mañana but without the urgency.