Pat Ritter. Books

[patritter]

'Click Go The Shears' - Page 36:

‘Be seeing you Joe, maybe see you again some other time. Keep out of trouble.’ Constable Fitzgerald shook hands with Joe and left the police station.
The desk sergeant entered details into a charge book. ‘Have you any property to declare?’
Joe shook his head.
‘Constable Thomas,’ the desk sergeant shouted. ‘Can you take this prisoner to the cells.’
Joe accompanied the young constable to a cell block who unlocked the door. ‘Here’s your accommodation. I’ll take these shackles off to make you more comfortable.’
Soon after the leggings and shackles removed Joe felt a relief to be free to walk. He entered the cell similar to the one in Cunnamulla. The cell door locked. A stretcher against the far wall beckoned him.
Settling on the stretcher his mind filled with one question, ‘why did I take the place of Joe Ryan?’ Most of his life he considered his upbringing good resulted by loving parents who always pointed him in the right direction. His love for his mother and father went deeper than the normal love for a parent. Memory of his mother slaving over a hot stove, baking bread, preparing meals, washing in a copper in the heat of day, reflected her work ethics. His thoughts went to a city born child, lived in Brisbane, and always wanted to travel west to be a shearer. Since his childhood memories, his deepest desire to become a shearer took over all other thoughts.
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'Click Go The Shears' - Page 37:

Aged twenty-one years old he left his family home walked west carrying his swag living and working wherever he could until he reached Cunnamulla to work in the shearing industry. His escape from his parents. They would never have wanted their son to be a shearer. Living far from home at times lonely.
On his twenty-third birthday he met Joe Ryan whilst shearing on Tilbooroo Station outside of Eulo through another shearer, Jack Reardon. First time he met Joe Ryan his admiration and desire to help his fellow shearers stood out in his memory. Joe certainly displayed fire in his belly, enthusiasm in his voice and needed all the help he could get. I honestly thought I was helping Joe with his mission to improve better working conditions and wages. How did I know what was going to happen later and lead me to landing in prison. His memory returned to the moment.
To prove he wanted to go ahead with his plans Joe took his place at Farnham Plains whilst he tried to contact William Spence, the mastermind behind ‘The Australian Shearers Union’. A fortnight later Joe joined him at the Eulo Queen when he informed Joe about what happened at ‘Wellshot Station’. Then a stranger walked into the bar and Joe introduced us. When the stranger went to shake his hand Joe identified a ring and necklace he’d given to his girl Hannah.
Joe went off his brain, punched the stranger and knocked him to the floor. He kept punching him until Constable Fitzgerald walked into the bar and pulled Joe off. Joe and the constable took the stranger to the police station.
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'Click Go The Shears' - Page 38:

Afterwards when Joe re-entered the bar everyone cheered and became the moment the penny dropped to help him with his mission. His bravery and courage to do what he did for his girl. Then when he returned after Christmas and he told Joe about the meeting in New South Wales when William Spence would be the guest speaker Joe’s face lite up like a Christmas tree. Joe rode his horse to Bourke to attend the conference.
Thinking back on the journey he had with Joe, his decision not to join the Queensland Shearers Union, the right one because had he joined he would’ve been camped on the banks of the Warrego River on the outskirts of Cunnamulla when the shearers went on strike for five months.
Instead Joe worked on different properties because he had a ‘Freedom of Contract’ which enabled employment of non union shearers. A rough time because union shearers couldn’t obtain work on any property whilst the non-union shearers had all of the contracts to shear sheep. Thinking back now I should never have gone to Joe’s camp to warn him about the police coming to arrest him. Instead I should’ve cleared out. He appeared a beaten man, long beard, unwashed and clothes he’d lived in for weeks. That moment I decided to take his place so he and Hannah could ‘get on with their lives’. What a foolish act . It’s too late now just take the punishment and accept what my future holds.
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'Click Go The Shears' - Page 39:

The lock on the cell door opened and Constable Thomas held a tray with food and a pannikin of tea, ‘here’s your meal, enjoy. Next meal is morning.’ He left the tray of food, relocked the cell and left Joe to eat his meal.

A fortnight after a train journey from Charleville to Rockhampton Joe appeared at Rockhampton District Court before Judge George Harding, who presided over the hearing of 13 leaders of ‘The Great Shearers Strike of 1891’, 12 charged with conspiracy whilst Joe charged alone with rioting.
After a lengthy court hearing each prisoner found ‘guilty’. Judge Harding sentenced each person to three years hard labour at St Helena Island. Joe collapsed when he heard the Judge pass the sentence. Another prisoner shackled to Joe tried to hold him from falling to the floor, ‘come on mate’; he whispered and held onto Joe’s shoulders.
Uproar erupted through the court room, unlike the 13 Eureka stockaders whose acquittal on the charge of treason in a Melbourne court; these 13 leaders of the shearers strike condemned to prison with hard labour. Where was justice?
Poet Henry Lawson showed his disgust with the manner in which these leaders treated by the courts and penned a poem:

‘Freedom on the
Wallaby’
published in
The Worker
(16 May 1891)

So we must fly a rebel flag,
As others did before us,
And we must sing a rebel song
And join in rebel chorus.
We’ll make the tyrants feel the sting
O’ those that they would throttle;
They needn’t say the fault is ours
If blood should stain the wattle!
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'Click Go The Shears' - Page 40:

Chapter 5

With Joe’s future set in stone for the next three years. Why did I take his place? Joe repeated over and over in his mind slowly recovered from his fainting spell. Too late to admit he’d changed places with the true Joe Ryan. Who would believe him especially after what happened. Who would believe his story. He couldn’t prove anything because he handed his identity to Joe before taking his place? His world turned upside down. How could a rash decision of changing places bring him to this point in his life?
With the other twelve convicted men each pleaded their innocence to no avail, judgement passed and each prisoner knew their next three years locked up in the harshest prison in the land to be their destiny. Would they survive? Joe realised at that moment he needed to survive to end this hideous experience.
Together with the other twelve prisoners shackled together they were quickly escorted from the court room, taken directly to the docks and boarded the Otter, a small government boat with the captain waiting to cast off. Soon as the prisoners were safely on deck the captain cast off from the dock reaching the open sea. The Otter tossed like a cork in rough seas. Each time the boat nose-dived into a wave the sea washed over the deck swamping the prisoners. Being tossed through the seas, especially after they left Keppel Island, the weather grew worse. The captain anchored at Burnett Heads until the weather improved. Each prisoner still chained to one another, each slept on the floor with a couple of straw pillows shared among all of them.
‘Can’t we have these shackles taken off?’ One of the prisoners asked the police escort.
‘You’ll be right!’ He blasted just as the captain of the boat walked by.
‘Take them off constable. If this weather gets rougher, we could all be sent overboard. I’m not taking responsibility for these men drowning because they’re shackled together. Would be suicide. Take them off!’ The Captain shouted to the constable above the roar of the ocean who leaned down to unshackle each prisoner.
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'Click Go The Shears' - Page 41:

Relief flowed through Joe’s body when the shackles were removed. He felt the pain release from his wrists and ankles slowly soothing them with his hands to create enough blood flow, if I had the strength and a good swimmer, I’d jump off this bucket to try and make it to land. There must be plenty of islands where I could hide and no one would find me, he pondered before sitting on the deck, held on tight waiting for another enormous wave to swamp them. The sea eventually calmed, his head fell against straw and soon his eyes closed and sleep overtook him. His body exhausted and weak.
Joe awoke before daylight, silence; they sailed all night to arrive at St Helena Island. Each prisoner was given coffee which would be their final time for the next three years to taste the golden liquid. Whispers from different ones around the boat carried the reason why they were taken directly to St Helena Island because the authorities were in fear of a demonstration from union members. Word had quickly spread about the thirteen leaders being sentenced to three years hard labour on St Helena Island.
Before leaving the Otter their escorting officer said to the thirteen prisoners whilst he shackled each one. ‘You fellows want to stick together because St Helena Island holds seventeen murderers, twenty-seven men convicted of manslaughter, twenty-six convicted of stabbings and shootings, and countless individuals responsible for assaults, rapes and similar violent crimes. I wish you luck.’ They couldn't tell if he was kidding or to place the fear of God into them.
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'Click Go The Shears' - Page 42:

With each prisoner again shackled to form a dog-chain linking each together, a guard of honour with more prison guards awaited the prisoners when they departed from the Otter. A tramline connected the jetty to the stockade. On the shore end of the jetty an elevated sentry box or watch tower, in which a warden with a rifle stood on lookout.
Joe hobbled with his fellow prisoners, walked the plank from the deck of the boat to a waiting wagon being drawn by six horses. A huge cage on top of the wagon held the prisoners. Slowly the wagon load of prisoners followed the tramline from the jetty to the stockade, a distance of about quarter of a mile uphill. Not before the gates to the stockade were secured, each prisoner unloaded from the wagon and the shackles removed.
They were escorted from the inner circle of the stockade and placed in a cell, half the size of a police cell. This would be their living quarters for the next three years. Six prisoners to each cell, their sleeping beds being hammocks fastened to each wall, one on the bottom, one in the middle and the other on top, three hammocks on either side of the cells.
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