My father owned a 300 acre property at Kynnumboon, Murwillumbah. It was a dairy farm. My father employed a family to milk the cows by hand. They were paid 14 pounds a month, with milk, cream, butter and vegetables grown from the farm. They were supplied with a modern house to live in. We four children were driven to Murwillumbah Primary School three and a half miles from home.
In about 1920, my father, A.J T. Brown, brought a cottage on the hill at Cudgen Headland (now Kingscliff), further southwest of the present primary school, at the corner of Sutherland and Orient Street.
There were only five houses on the entire hill. Owned by Hungerford's, Quirks, Dr. Benson, Mrs. Acre and us (the Browns.) This was to be our holiday home for six weeks during every Christmas school holidays.
On the beach front was a little shop where necessitaries could be brought. As we lived on the farm and used quarts of milk daily, my parents decided to take our house cow to supply us with milk for the six weeks. So the cow walked from the farm three miles to Murwillumbah where it was put upon the river boat called the 'Emma Pias'. In those days the main transport from Murwillumbah to Tweed Heads was by boat. There were two boats, I can't remember the name of the other boat.
However, the cow traveled on board the boat as far as Chinderah. Here my father took charge of it and walked it along the sandy track to our hill cottage. The cow roamed about the hill during the day time and came back to the cottage at night. There was ample grass for it to eat. The hill was covered in wild shrubs about two feet high and grass. The cow was milked once a day.
We spent lots of time on the beach. There was a narrow sandy track from our cottage to the shop area. Our mother insisted that my sister and I wore bonnets in the sun. We didn't like those, so when we were out of our mothers sight. We poked them under a bush and we collected them on our return from the beach. Our mother was none the wiser.
As there was only sand around the cottage, we, as kids, daily dug up strips of buffalo grass from the hill and planted it round the cottage. With daily watering it did not take long to spread. In a few years the area was covered in grass.
To revert to our arrival at Cudgen Headland. We kids, my sister Bessie, my two brother, Boy ( later called by his right name of Daniel) and Ronald, were collected as soon as school was out at 3.30pm by our parents, who had hired an opened back truck owned and drive by a neighbour, to take us to Cudgen Headland.
On arrival, we busied ourselves, making beds, sweeping out the cottages and preparing food. Lighting was by kerosene lights with the main dining room one, an Aladdin's lamp.
There were four rooms and a front verandah in the cottage. Two bedrooms, a kitchen and a dining room. The front verandah was converted to a sleeping area for two beds. The west side and half front being covered with canvas. The toilet was an outside one, as they were in those days.
We had a fuel stove in the kitchen but no sink. We had to use a large dish to wash the dishes. The water was thrown out the back door. To wash our clothes, we had a very large two handled galvanized tub. We washed our clothes in a big portable tub and hung them on the clothes line out the back. The house had no bathroom so we used the back bedroom when we needed a bath. Perhaps, only once or twice a week, not everyday as we do now. We had an improvised copper for heating lots of water. Wood was plentiful as we brought it down from the farm
We frequently packed lunch and went for a beach picnic. My father carried the main basket on his head. We frequently went to the south beach, crossing the creek at low tide, about that area where the Kingscliff Bridge now is.
My father liked fishing. I learnt to catch sea worms which were plentiful on the south beach. Leslie Moss taught me by hard swinging a pippi as the waves receded. The worms would pop up their heads. And with the left hand fingers away from the worm head and pump it up slowly. The worms were fat and easily caught once you learnt that way. Leslie Moss, his sister Patsy and father Louis were South Sea Islanders who lived on the creek bank, which is now called Moss Street.
My father and Louis occasionally went fishing in Louis boat out through the surf to fish in the deep sea. They always caught Drummer, which were large fish, 23 to 30 pounds in weight.
Crabs were plentiful along the creek bank. At night my father and I would take a spiked long handled implement, made by my father, a touch and off we'd go to catch crabs. The torch shone into the water, would locate the crab and dad would stab it. We would take what we would use, usually two. The next morning dad would light up the copper, half filled with water, when boiling, and we would drop the crabs into this till they were red and cooked.
My father wasn't always at Cudgen Headland as he had to attend the farm. On one occasion he thought he'd give us a food surprise and send it down on the river boat, but it was days arriving and the food smelt bad, so we dug a hole in the backyard and buried it. Two days latter my father arrived and asked if we enjoyed the parcel he had sent. Mum said no, we had buried it. Amongst the passion fruit dad had scooped the seeds out of one and replaced it with a 20 pound notes. So, he got busy unearthing the food till we found the money. 20 pound in those days would be equal to around $50 now.
Because the cow was a lot of trouble to get to the cottage, my father thought goats would be easier, as they could be put in the back of a truck and they were easier to milk.
One day, as we returned from our south side picnic late in the afternoon, as we approached the cottage we saw one goat, then another jump out the of the house window. They had fun all day inside the house, jumping all over the beds. Our poor mother and we had to re-make the beds. No one ever locked the front door of their house and never closed the doors. We learnt our lesson, after that we always closed the windows.