Sir Robert Menzies

Posted in 1902

  • Horsedrawn wagon with solid wheels, Jeparit c1900Continues to attend school in Jeparit.
  • Drought comes to the Jeparit district:

"In 1902, there came the Great Drought. Our district had 2½ inches of rain for the year, and all at the wrong time. What grass there was withered, and was blown away, so that the soil lay burnt, and pale brown, and vacant. A farm in the Jeparit District, c1900The river receded into a series of unrelated and stagnant pools. The lake dried up, the sandy floor naked to the sun. All seemed lost. I was seven years old; and it remains a vivid memory. Then an astonishing thing happened. Up from the bed of the lake there came a green tuberous growth, fibrous but succulent. Cattle were brought in by the hundred."
Sir Robert Menzies, Afternoon Light, 1967 p 8.