Rustyoznail
Aussie smartarse
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2019
- Posts
- 6,266
Benanee… What a desolate place. Not exactly the setting for a lesbian romance story.
This is going to be a different WIW&W to others. I'll be posting this in the Reviews and Essays section, but I can post pictures of the area here.
It's no secret I'm a Civil Engineer by trade, and like most engineers, I'm fascinated by railways. Unlike many, I'm more interested in the infrastructure than the locomotives. Don't get me wrong, the sights and sounds of a hard piston ramming itself into a waiting hot, steamy cylinder is exciting, but buildings, bridges and steam engine watering facilities really get me going.
About fifteen years ago, I was the project manager for a large irrigation project in northern Victoria. Like most large projects, there was a lot of hurry up and wait days. That time was pre-Lit, and after a few months of boredom I was looking for something to fill in the dull days. I discovered that there were a number of railway lines that had been built into basically desert, and then closed. As a project, I decided to drive the routes as much as possible and photograph the remains of all the station sites.
Two lines were relatively easy to trace. Red Cliffs to Morkalla was actually completed and saw traffic. The line to Yelta is still in use, but many of the stations have closed. Nowingi - Millewa South was partially built and is a well travelled track for rail and 4WD enthusiasts.
Robinvale - Lette? Ah, that was interesting. Google Maps and Google Earth were just getting going, so I could follow the proposed route I'd found in the State archives and plotted the GPS coordinates of the station sites. I printed out maps of the area and noticed a number of rectangular features in the aerials. Doing a bit more research (naturally after hours), I found that the area had been part of an irrigated water supply district. Naturally, I was intrigued and discovered that the Benanee Irrigation District was constructed, then abandoned in less than ten years. Odd.
Heading out on a day that wasn't too hot - only about 32C, I started my research at Euston. The station site and rail formation had mostly been destroyed, so I headed off to the north east. Benanee station was obliterated, but Korakee, which was the terminus for the constructed section, still had some interesting relics. After a couple of hours, I headed off along the formation, fortunately still a denuded scar on the landscape. With very little water available, mallee scrub takes forever to regrow. Along the route I noticed remains of irrigation channels and in ground tanks to hold water. The tanks appeared to have a clay lining, but the channels were cut through sand. The chances of them transporting any large quantities of water seemed slim to me. Running out of daylight, I headed back to Mildura and decided to restart from the terminus at Lette.
The station site at Lette had become part of a wheat paddock, with the only sign of its existence being fist sized lumps of white limestone spread over part of the paddock. I had seen the same material at other stations, so I was confident I was in the right place. After taking a couple of photos, I headed up the formation to the other two station sites - Mylatchie and Werimble.
The first thing that struck me was the oppressive silence once I got out of the car at Mylatchie. Not a breath of wind to rustle the grey green leaves on the mallee scrub, no bird calls, and too far away from the highway to hear any traffic. I spent about an hour at each station, looking at the abandoned infrastructure and wondering how the settlers managed to stay sane at night, just listening to their thoughts and the crackle of the mallee root fire. The next thought was the government had spent a lot of money in the area, just for it all to be abandoned. That seemed strange. In general, government departments are loath to admit defeat and will persevere with hopeless projects well beyond when a rational person would have given up. Curiosity piqued, I decided to start some online digging. And what did I find?
Nothing. No plans, no reports. Nothing. It was like the settlement never existed. Most settlements and irrigation schemes have something in the record system. I then dug into the National Library archives. They had started digitising all their newspaper collection, which included copies of every newspaper ever printed in Australia. And they were interesting.
The early articles relating to the area from around 1912 were so optimistic, lamenting the vast tracts of wasted land around Benanee and excited about the potential of turning hundreds of square miles of desert into productive fields of wheat. The First World War interfered with progress, but after that was over, the push to create the Benanee settlement grew louder. The New South Wales government struck a deal with the Victorian government to allow the southern neighbour rail access into NSW to assist development. Naturally, this wasn't easy to negotiate because of the parochial attitude each state had, but the Border Railway Agreement was eventually signed and action taken.
For Benanee, Victoria was to supply the rail infrastructure to get the farmers' goods to market in Melbourne, and to haul much needed materials back to the settlement. New South Wales had to provide the roughly 1000 acre farms with roads and water for stock and domestic use. Based on what that government had learned from similar settlements in other states, they declared that land leases would only go to men who had experience working on farms in similar country, and who had good financial backing. Returned servicemen would be favourably looked at, but the overarching requirement was experience in wheat farming in the dry areas of Australia.
Note that the leases were for men, and preferably married men. A couple of articles had no more than a line stating that the wife had relinquished the lease after her husband had died, but the wording subtly made it clear that it wasn't always voluntary.
After all this research, I planned to write an article for a railway archaeology forum. I'd written a similar article about the Millewa South line, which had been well received. Due to a change in work, relocating, and general real life issues, I didn't get to start writing until 2021 and then I found someone had published a book on the line.
Bugger. I didn't want it to seem like I was plagiarising the author, so I shelved that idea. But like most good story ideas, it did not want to leave. I kept looking at the photos and the articles I copied, wondering if I had enough to do something different to the new book.
I didn't think I did. If I wanted to do my non-fiction article, I needed more information, and I couldn't devote that time to research what was basically a vanity project. By this stage, I'd published a few stories on Lit, and surprisingly, found that I was a reasonable fiction writer. Inspiration for my stories come from all sorts of odd ball places, and usually without warning.
I read the kick off thread for the Pink Orchid 2024 event, and pencilled it in for a possible challenge to write a story for. A bit later I went back on the railway archeology forum and a thought bubbled up that one of my characters had wanted to study archeology at university. That was Daryl, a mechanical engineer. She and her two friends had appeared in a couple of stories, and I was sure they wouldn't mind another outing. Unfortunately, having Daz, Jo and Vicky wandering around the bush looking at stuff would make for a very boring story. I needed something else to liven it up, and put the idea on the backburner again. It sat until late October, when ads for Remembrance Day (Armistice or Veterans Day in the UK/USA) related movies and TV shows started to pop up. One was about a series, ANZAC Girls, which followed the lives of nurses who volunteered to serve in the Australian Nursing Corp (ANC). The only way women could serve their country in the military was by being a nurse, and even then, there were so many hurdles to their enlistment.
The Halloween competition had also been on my mind, and suddenly a fully formed concept fell out. The girls would meet the ghost of an Army nurse, who married and moved to the desert. As it was too late (or too early) for the Halloween event, and not really suitable for anything else, I thought I could write it for the Pink orchid event. I didn't need to change my characters - they are strong willed and independent.
To fit the general penis-less story concept, my nurse had to be a lesbian, and her husband gay. It was a marriage of convenience, but for the era, it made sense at many different levels. What people forget is that women were expected to leave paid employment once they were married (at 18-19…) and stay at home to look after their husband and their children. The Army's requirements for deployment was that a nurse had to be over 25 and unmarried, which to me, flagged that a number of nurses would likely be gay.
And from there, the story started to be assembled. I re-read all the newspaper articles I'd downloaded and copied the more interesting quotes and snippets of information into date order. I wanted to present as much historically accurate data as possible, which meant Clara, the nurse, would be writing in a diary. I would include newspaper snippets to head each scene change. That meant three different methods of presenting the story, and I wasn't sure how that was going to be accepted. Still, the story had hold of me now, and so I put on my writing pants and forged ahead.
The result is "The Ghost of Benanee - A Broken Heart Can Last Forever."
https://literotica.com/s/the-ghost-of-benanee
My small acknowledgement of these historical travesties.
This is going to be a different WIW&W to others. I'll be posting this in the Reviews and Essays section, but I can post pictures of the area here.
It's no secret I'm a Civil Engineer by trade, and like most engineers, I'm fascinated by railways. Unlike many, I'm more interested in the infrastructure than the locomotives. Don't get me wrong, the sights and sounds of a hard piston ramming itself into a waiting hot, steamy cylinder is exciting, but buildings, bridges and steam engine watering facilities really get me going.
About fifteen years ago, I was the project manager for a large irrigation project in northern Victoria. Like most large projects, there was a lot of hurry up and wait days. That time was pre-Lit, and after a few months of boredom I was looking for something to fill in the dull days. I discovered that there were a number of railway lines that had been built into basically desert, and then closed. As a project, I decided to drive the routes as much as possible and photograph the remains of all the station sites.
Two lines were relatively easy to trace. Red Cliffs to Morkalla was actually completed and saw traffic. The line to Yelta is still in use, but many of the stations have closed. Nowingi - Millewa South was partially built and is a well travelled track for rail and 4WD enthusiasts.
Robinvale - Lette? Ah, that was interesting. Google Maps and Google Earth were just getting going, so I could follow the proposed route I'd found in the State archives and plotted the GPS coordinates of the station sites. I printed out maps of the area and noticed a number of rectangular features in the aerials. Doing a bit more research (naturally after hours), I found that the area had been part of an irrigated water supply district. Naturally, I was intrigued and discovered that the Benanee Irrigation District was constructed, then abandoned in less than ten years. Odd.
Heading out on a day that wasn't too hot - only about 32C, I started my research at Euston. The station site and rail formation had mostly been destroyed, so I headed off to the north east. Benanee station was obliterated, but Korakee, which was the terminus for the constructed section, still had some interesting relics. After a couple of hours, I headed off along the formation, fortunately still a denuded scar on the landscape. With very little water available, mallee scrub takes forever to regrow. Along the route I noticed remains of irrigation channels and in ground tanks to hold water. The tanks appeared to have a clay lining, but the channels were cut through sand. The chances of them transporting any large quantities of water seemed slim to me. Running out of daylight, I headed back to Mildura and decided to restart from the terminus at Lette.
The station site at Lette had become part of a wheat paddock, with the only sign of its existence being fist sized lumps of white limestone spread over part of the paddock. I had seen the same material at other stations, so I was confident I was in the right place. After taking a couple of photos, I headed up the formation to the other two station sites - Mylatchie and Werimble.
The first thing that struck me was the oppressive silence once I got out of the car at Mylatchie. Not a breath of wind to rustle the grey green leaves on the mallee scrub, no bird calls, and too far away from the highway to hear any traffic. I spent about an hour at each station, looking at the abandoned infrastructure and wondering how the settlers managed to stay sane at night, just listening to their thoughts and the crackle of the mallee root fire. The next thought was the government had spent a lot of money in the area, just for it all to be abandoned. That seemed strange. In general, government departments are loath to admit defeat and will persevere with hopeless projects well beyond when a rational person would have given up. Curiosity piqued, I decided to start some online digging. And what did I find?
Nothing. No plans, no reports. Nothing. It was like the settlement never existed. Most settlements and irrigation schemes have something in the record system. I then dug into the National Library archives. They had started digitising all their newspaper collection, which included copies of every newspaper ever printed in Australia. And they were interesting.
The early articles relating to the area from around 1912 were so optimistic, lamenting the vast tracts of wasted land around Benanee and excited about the potential of turning hundreds of square miles of desert into productive fields of wheat. The First World War interfered with progress, but after that was over, the push to create the Benanee settlement grew louder. The New South Wales government struck a deal with the Victorian government to allow the southern neighbour rail access into NSW to assist development. Naturally, this wasn't easy to negotiate because of the parochial attitude each state had, but the Border Railway Agreement was eventually signed and action taken.
For Benanee, Victoria was to supply the rail infrastructure to get the farmers' goods to market in Melbourne, and to haul much needed materials back to the settlement. New South Wales had to provide the roughly 1000 acre farms with roads and water for stock and domestic use. Based on what that government had learned from similar settlements in other states, they declared that land leases would only go to men who had experience working on farms in similar country, and who had good financial backing. Returned servicemen would be favourably looked at, but the overarching requirement was experience in wheat farming in the dry areas of Australia.
Note that the leases were for men, and preferably married men. A couple of articles had no more than a line stating that the wife had relinquished the lease after her husband had died, but the wording subtly made it clear that it wasn't always voluntary.
After all this research, I planned to write an article for a railway archaeology forum. I'd written a similar article about the Millewa South line, which had been well received. Due to a change in work, relocating, and general real life issues, I didn't get to start writing until 2021 and then I found someone had published a book on the line.
Bugger. I didn't want it to seem like I was plagiarising the author, so I shelved that idea. But like most good story ideas, it did not want to leave. I kept looking at the photos and the articles I copied, wondering if I had enough to do something different to the new book.
I didn't think I did. If I wanted to do my non-fiction article, I needed more information, and I couldn't devote that time to research what was basically a vanity project. By this stage, I'd published a few stories on Lit, and surprisingly, found that I was a reasonable fiction writer. Inspiration for my stories come from all sorts of odd ball places, and usually without warning.
I read the kick off thread for the Pink Orchid 2024 event, and pencilled it in for a possible challenge to write a story for. A bit later I went back on the railway archeology forum and a thought bubbled up that one of my characters had wanted to study archeology at university. That was Daryl, a mechanical engineer. She and her two friends had appeared in a couple of stories, and I was sure they wouldn't mind another outing. Unfortunately, having Daz, Jo and Vicky wandering around the bush looking at stuff would make for a very boring story. I needed something else to liven it up, and put the idea on the backburner again. It sat until late October, when ads for Remembrance Day (Armistice or Veterans Day in the UK/USA) related movies and TV shows started to pop up. One was about a series, ANZAC Girls, which followed the lives of nurses who volunteered to serve in the Australian Nursing Corp (ANC). The only way women could serve their country in the military was by being a nurse, and even then, there were so many hurdles to their enlistment.
The Halloween competition had also been on my mind, and suddenly a fully formed concept fell out. The girls would meet the ghost of an Army nurse, who married and moved to the desert. As it was too late (or too early) for the Halloween event, and not really suitable for anything else, I thought I could write it for the Pink orchid event. I didn't need to change my characters - they are strong willed and independent.
To fit the general penis-less story concept, my nurse had to be a lesbian, and her husband gay. It was a marriage of convenience, but for the era, it made sense at many different levels. What people forget is that women were expected to leave paid employment once they were married (at 18-19…) and stay at home to look after their husband and their children. The Army's requirements for deployment was that a nurse had to be over 25 and unmarried, which to me, flagged that a number of nurses would likely be gay.
And from there, the story started to be assembled. I re-read all the newspaper articles I'd downloaded and copied the more interesting quotes and snippets of information into date order. I wanted to present as much historically accurate data as possible, which meant Clara, the nurse, would be writing in a diary. I would include newspaper snippets to head each scene change. That meant three different methods of presenting the story, and I wasn't sure how that was going to be accepted. Still, the story had hold of me now, and so I put on my writing pants and forged ahead.
The result is "The Ghost of Benanee - A Broken Heart Can Last Forever."
https://literotica.com/s/the-ghost-of-benanee
My small acknowledgement of these historical travesties.
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