WOZZA'S STORY
G'day. I'm Warren. Third child of Jessie Lello and George Benjamin (Pat) Rooke. I was born on 13th May, 1943 perfectly formed and absolutely adorable, so much so that I won the Most Beautiful Baby Award that year in the annual baby contest in Queenstown. Mrs Dr James said she was honoured to be wet on by such a supreme champion!
I remember going to the pre-school at the South Queenstown Hall before we moved to Lake Margaret. One day we went out to the toilet outside and Chum Price and I were locked out of the hall and couldn't make ourselves heard knocking on the door, so we stole a loaf of bread delivered to Chum's place and "went bush" until after school was out before we eventually appeared back home. I remember Guy Fawkes night down on the river bank with a huge bonfire when all the old tyres were thrown on the fire and one year Ernie Cavell threw live bullets into the fire.
At Lake Margaret I had a wonderful childhood. We built sleds out of King Billy pine and slid down the clay hills, old log tracks, landing in the thicket of tea-tree at the bottom. We went gold-prospecting, fishing, were taught how to make the perfect shanghai out of sassafras prongs by Ned Rush.
We climbed the haulage and walked the pipeline to the lake to go fishing. On wet days, and there were many, we played badminton in the small local recreation hall, collected and sold beer bottles to buy pieces for our electric train set which was also set up in the hall. On fine days we caught and sold black jays for threepence each – sometimes we could get fifty in a weekend. Roast black jay was quite a delicacy!We used to have a "donger" to do them in before we took them from the trap which was an old iron bedframe with a mesh base. Otherwise you could be nipped quite unpleasantly. I learned to drink and smoke at Lake Margaret. "Tiny" O'Flynn would get me to roll his ciggies so he would give us a few as payment. Dad, in his cups, would allow us to have a sip now and then. We had the job of taking out the empties, and we would always make sure they weren't quite empty. (Hic.) Alas, our days at Lake Margaret came to an end.
Back to Queenstown. Finished primary school and through lack of interest, failed to get to High School and spent four years at Senior Secondary School where I topped the class in woodwork and metalwork, so was given the job of building the storage cupboard for the daily governemnt-supplied milk quota – half a pint each per day per child, with no such thing as refrigeration. I was also a goitre tablet monitor. As Tasmania was found to lack iron in its natural water source, the government decreed that all school children were to be issued with one goitre tablet per week, and I was given the heady responsibility of issuing these.
On leaving school, I had ambitions of joining the navy, as cousin Max Rooke, who had enlisted, came home with wonderful tales of his trips around the world, but father, in his wisdom, informed me that I had an apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner with the Mt Lyell Company starting on the 12th January, 1959, where I spent my next five years. At the end of this I was issued with my trade papers, having never seen a house built!Not bad, eh?
Tried various sports such as football, cycling, badminton, basketball, snooker and billiards. My father once defeated the great Walter Lindrum at snooker and won fifty pounds, and when I defeated my dad I decided to call it quits. I wasn't going to spoil my average by carrying on, and it was the only thing I had to Lord over my father who was very good at all sports.
In March, 1964 I moved to Scottsdale, having been lured there by my wife-to-be Kerry whom I'd met previously on a football trip in 1962, and I felt I had to save her from being a spinster. She felt she saved me from the dreaded West Coast syndrome. On 27th March 1965, we were married and have now celebrated 40 years of wedded bliss. We have two wonderful daughters, Krista Lee and Lisa Joy, and two grand-children Ella Jean Isabel and Daniel Morgan Phillip Cain – the idols of Poppy Rooke and Nanny Kerry's eyes.
I have been a self-employed builder since 1969, just about to retire and live the life I deserve together with my lovely wife. We plan to move back to Scottsdale from St. Helens where we have spent the last twenty-two years, moving home frequently over the years, each time building and developing a home and garden, but hopefully we will finally settle and put down our roots for our later years.
Yours truly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Woz
April 2005, St Helen's