Ethel Viola (Watson) Hamilton (1913 - 1995)

A story from Gran 

The Day Grandpa Had a Fright 

When your Dad was a boy, Grandpa, Gran and his brothers, David and Michael lived a short distance from Great Grandma Hamilton. 

Great Grandma’s name was Ethel Viola Hamilton. 

She lived by herself in an old stately house which was surrounded by a large garden which she tended lovingly growing many shrubs and flowers. 

The family visited her often, especially on weekends. On many occasions, your Dad’s cousins also visited and the house was filled with noise as they played. Sometimes, there was lots of running around the garden playing imaginary games and sometimes there was lots of giggling, and, sometimes there were squabbles and tears.  

Sometimes, during the summer when Great Grandma watered the lawn, the children took great delight playing under the sprinkler and squirting each other with the hose. 

After the fun Great Grandma always had treats for the children and delicious cakes to eat for morning tea. 

Although Great Grandma did many jobs around her house, she was ageing and there were some jobs she could not manage. 

Grandpa would often help her do some of those jobs.  

Great Grandma needed some rubbish removed that had piled up behind the garage.  

‘My goodness!’ Grandpa exclaimed. ‘Where did this all come from?’ looking at the mangled heap of old bricks, planks of timber, old pipes, rocks and lots of other junk that had piled up over a very long time.  

To make things worse, it looked like a tangled mess, as woven around the pile were lots of weeds. ‘A job for Superman’, grumbled Grandpa. 

The job had to be done. Grandpa made up his mind, today was the day; the rubbish had to go once and for all! 

He toiled for a very long time. Stacking bricks, pulling out the tangle of weeds, chucking unwanted goods into yet another pile. 

Great Grandma was supervising all the while, issuing instructions and warning Grandpa to be very careful.  

‘You should be wearing gloves’ she exclaimed. 

‘You have no idea what critters or dangerous things might be hiding in there’ she cried! 

‘Stop worrying’ replied Grandpa. I’ll be ok!’ 

‘If you don’t let me get on with this in my own way, it will never get done; he retorted. 

So Grandpa was a man on a mission taking no notice of any advice being given. 

At last he came to varying lengths of water pipe.  

‘Nearly finished’, thought Grandpa. 

With a sigh of relief Grandpa thought that at least these will be lighter and easier to move. 

But they were lying under a lot of weedy matter! 

‘Geoff’ called Great Grandma. ‘You must wear these gardening gloves. There maybe red back spiders or anything in there’, she cried. 

Again Grandpa took no notice and mumbled and groaned under his breath. Great Grandma’s pleas were totally ignored! 

Everything was going smoothly. All the while he was feeling confidant and wondering why there was such a fuss he had endured previously.  

‘No worries at all’, he pondered. 

Then, Grandpa picked up a pipe. ‘Hmm’, he thought, ‘this is heavier than the last pipes I moved. I wonder why’? 

Thinking it might be filled with soil or stones he decided to take a look inside. 

As he peered inside the pipe there looking back at him were two big, beady brown eyes. 

Grandpa shrieked! ‘AAARRRGGGHH!’ He threw the pipe down in horror. It landed a short distance away. It landed with such a thud a large clod of earth was expelled and followed by, with such haste, a very big RAT! Away it ran down into the garden never to be seen again. 

Grandpa took off in fear in the other direction, with Great Grandma following in hot pursuit. 

Grandpa took a little time to recover before he once again began his duties. A nice cold beer to settle the nerves he thought. 

The moral of the story was that Grandpa was always more careful, wore gardening gloves and listened to Great Grandma’s wise warnings whenever her helped in the garden again.

This would be in the early 1940s. Unfortunately the unamed one jumped out of dads car while it was moving.I guess Dad was a bit careless in that repect. The other one was a stray which Mum and Dad picked up running down the old Belair Road. Mum opened the door and the dog jumped in. Mum said he must have been hiking so the name Hoiken Unfortunately he was run over on Walkerville Road near the local shop and killed. Mum understandably was heartbroken Memories from son Geoff