(from "A Force Apart?")
A more recent example of the life of a police wife was that of Mrs Jackie Gordon, whose husband, John Gordon, was stationed at Timber Creek in 1957. Again, life had hardly changed since the earliest days of the twentieth century when pioneer wives lived in the most basic accommodation. To keep the flies away from their baby daughter she was kept in a meat-safe cot and, through the day, this was kept in the cool under the house. The daily routine at the station usually commenced about sunrise when an Aboriginal woman would light the kitchen fire and another milk the goats.61 Shortly after this ‘the trackers would be performing the usual chores outside, such as chopping the wood, feeding the fowls, cleaning up the yard’. During the afternoon everyone rested from the heat and cooled off. About 5.30 pm the goats would be brought back to the paddock and ‘the house girls would come up and stoke up the fire in preparation for the evening meal and Old Paddy would fill the wood box. After tea the girls would come and wash up the dishes and mix the bread dough for baking the next day’.