Winkling Out a Living
John Freeman was an acute observer of life in late nineteenth-century Melbourne. Here he follows the fortunes of some of the lowest on the social ladder, the destitute men who gathered periwinkles for a living. The molluscs were easily overexploited and soon became rare close to Melbourne, much to the discomfort of those whose livelihood depended upon them.
The few men who go about Melbourne selling winkles belong to the loafer class, and are mostly old men. As a rule, they patronise the sixpenny lodging-house, when they save the wherewithal to pay for the bed; when they haven’t they usually ‘doss it’ where they can, which is usually in an old boiler or empty malt tank in winter, and sub Jove in summer.
At one time these men could fill their baskets at Williamstown or St Kilda, but for the last few years they have been rather scarce in those localities, owing to the number of excursionists who, when there, make ‘winkle-hunting’ part of the day’s amusement. Consequently, those who want them for sale have to look elsewhere for them.
It is but a hard and precarious living the ‘winklers’ get at the best. With basket on arm, they trudge along the road in all weathers to the few remaining spots where the tiny molluscs are yet to be found. Sometimes they are so fortunate as to be able to fill their baskets at Brighton, but frequently they have to go as far as More-halloe1, and sometimes further than that. Leaving town early in the morning, they may be able to get to Brighton, fill their baskets, and return to Melbourne in time to sell them that same night. If, however, they have to go beyond the latter-named place, all they can do is get there in one day and return the next.
It would be a weary walk for these elderly gentlemen if they could not get an occasional lift on the road. But, fortunately for them, there are plenty of carts or empty drays going the same way as themselves, the drivers of which will always give them a ride, if civilly asked for permission to ‘jump up’.
The winkles are found loose among the gravel or sand upon the beach in greater or lesser quantities, more frequently the lesser. They also hide themselves in the friendly shadow of the loose boulders lying about, which have to be removed before the searcher can reach his prey, often not an easy task for men whose muscles have become softened, and whose strength has been sapped by a perpetual soaking in ‘colonial’.
Having filled his basket, which, by the way, is no light load, our winkle man gets on the ‘back track’, as he calls it. Having arrived in town, he goes to the place he stays at, and begins to prepare his stock for the market. The first process the winkles undergo is washing—a very necessary operation, as the sand clings to them with great tenacity, and can only be removed by repeated rinsings under the tap. Having washed them to his satisfaction, the next thing our friend has to do is to boil them, and a few minutes suffices for that, if he can get anything to boil them in. The culinary arrangements of these six-penny lodging-houses are not always of the most perfect description. Neither does the manager or chucker-out consider it part of his duty to provide boilers for cooking winkles in, as the only recognised cooking in these establishments is the preparation of whatever small articles of food the lodgers may bring in, and for that a saucepan and gridiron are at their service. Should the saucepan be engaged at the time the winkle man wants to cook his winkles, he borrows a billy, and does as many as it will hold, and repeats the operation until all are cooked.
Having prepared his stock for sale, all that remains for him to do now is to sell it, and before he can do that he has to travel up one street and down another for many weary miles in search of customers. The great bulk of his patrons are to be found in hotels, among the half-drunken people lounging about the bars, whose appetites being somewhat palled by drink, are tickled by these tasty little things, and restored to their normal condition. Many people, especially new arrivals, like them with their bread and butter at tea-time. Others are fond of them, but cannot command sufficient patience to extract them from their shells; and some ‘can’t a-bear’ them on account of their strong resemblance to snails.
If our friend can get back to town with a peck of winkles he considers himself very fortunate. Mostly, however, he has to content himself with about half that quantity, which being sold a threepence the half-pint leaves him something like four shillings for his trouble, and as it sometimes takes him two days to gather and sell them, it cannot be said his business is a lucrative one.
The possession of money is not always an unmixed blessing. Strange as it may sound, people sometimes have more money than is good for them, that is, when they make an injudicious use of it. It is much better for our friend that his income is limited to about two shillings a day, as out of that he must pay for a bed, and at least one meal, Sunday included, and that will not leave him sufficient for a very extended ‘drunk’, whereas, if he had more he would never be sober. He is tolerably contented, however, and accepts his position with great philosophy, saying, ‘If I cannot get drunk every day, I will as often as I can.’ In carrying out that resolve, he hangs about his favourite tap till all his money is gone, and then he and his basket disappear till the following evening, when there are other rinsings and another boiling, soon after which the streets are again resonant with ‘Periwinkle…’
In summer when the weather was hot, our friend used to go to the banks of the Yarra, between the falls and Princes bridges, and having washed his shirt in the stream, would spread it out on the banks for the sun to dry it. While the drying was going on, he usually lay down to have a nap, till one day, on awaking, he found his shirt had disappeared. He never knew if it had been blown into the river, or whether it had been stolen by some loafer who had thought it a favourable opportunity of getting a change of linen. He inclined to the former belief, because, as he observed, the shirt was in such a dilapidated state that any loafer must be hard up indeed who would think it worth the trouble of walking off with. Ever after that, he said, he always took the precaution of going to sleep with one eye open till the garment was sufficiently desiccated to be resumed.
When washing day came round he used to go to the Public Library and take a piece of soap out of the lavatory in the full belief that he had a perfect right to do so, and when we informed him he had committed a larceny for which he was liable to imprisonment, he was not only greatly surprised, but highly indignant as well.
‘Wasn’t it bought with the public money?’ he asked, ‘and put there for the public use, and haven’t I, as one of the public, as much right to it as anyone else?’
‘Of course you have, but you must go there to use it.’
‘They wouldn’t let me wash my shirt there, would they?’
‘Not if they knew it.’
‘Well then, what benefit is the soap to me if I can’t take it to where I can do my washing?’
‘My good fellow, you must understand the trustees do not find soap for washing shirts, either there or anywhere else. It is placed in the lavatory for the use of those visitors who want to wash their hands before they handle the books, and you may go there and use it as often as you like and as much as you like.’
‘But if I have the right to use the soap at all, what difference can it make whether I use it inside the building or outside?’
‘None whatever, as far as the soap is concerned, but the law says you must not take it away.’
‘The law be hanged. Right’s right, and wrong’s no man’s right.’
1. Mordialloc.