A FAMILY STORY ABOUT MY GREAT GREAT GRANDMOTHER AND THE FAMOUS BUSH RANGER NED KELLY.

A Wild Irish Lad

     BY DAWN M D   2005.        

n the year of 1878 we took to the bush after my mother was sent to jail for banging a police constable on the head with a frying pan or some such weapon. We then had the misfortune to run into some police at Stringybark Creek and we shot a couple of 'em, and then our fate was sealed. Then we made our way on over to Mansfield across to Whitlands to a place called Power's Lookout, to rest up a bit and lay low for a few months. Then we went down to Euroa and robbed a bank, and took 2000 pounds. Early in 1879 we rode on up to Jerilderie in New South Wales and held up the police station, the local hotel and the bank I handed my famous Jerilderie letter to the accountant at the bank. Despite huge rewards, planting of snitchers, trying to intimidate the good people who sympathized with us, the police, try as they might, were unable to track us down or find us until we rode on into Glenrowan for our famous last stand.

Harry Power, as he was known, was a friend of some of my relations over Greta way; he met them while doing a bit of time in Her Majesties Jail, Pentridge. Well he was the one who taught me a few tricks of the trade, so to speak. Bad tempered cuss was he, Harry was in Jail when we were finally captured at Glenrowan and was released some years after I was hanged. Powers Lookout was very impressive, a birds eye view for miles and miles. Across the way over towards Cheshunt was another fellows bush hideout, Morgan's Lookout. He burned down a few out buildings on a farm down in the King Valley, among other things, and his fate was sealed a bit like mine. He ended up shot, his corpse put on show and propped up for people to look at and then they cut off his head and buried him headless in the Wangaratta Cemetery. Not a pretty end but as I have been quoted. "Such is life," and the rest is history so they say but just indulge me a little, and listen to me for a wee bit, and I will tell you a yarn that is not in the history book.

The sun has just dawned, and I am riding along the top of Pane´s Hill, looking

out over some majestic country, in North Eastern Victoria. It is the year of 1880

about eight months before I was hung for my crime of being a bushranger and my

famous quote "such is life".

Pane's Hill was virtually treeless at this time having been cleared, so it was a beautiful view for miles down the Carboor East Valley. My gang is just stirring from their slumber, I see that Mrs. Edmund Wills has killed a beast and has it hanging in a tree so I will ride on over and say good morning and purchase some fresh meat to keep us going for a day or so. Mrs. Wills and her husband are kindly people but the same cannot be said about old man Kirwan down yonder of the Wills farm. He will pay for his snitching to the constabulary one of these nights, to be sure.

I do not like snitchers, throughout my short life they have, along with the constabulary, made my life difficult, not to mention my poor sister Kate and my beloved Mother. Why they cannot leave us alone is beyond my reckoning. Kate has had to put up with the amorous and lecherous advances from a frightful overbearing constable and when she complained I was arrested on some trumped up charge so I stole a horse to escape and I had planned to put it back but they captured me before I could put the hapless animal back in his pen. Now it is far too late and we will be on the run until we are shot or captured and hung up by our necks.

Tonight we will have a nice beef stew, some damper and billy-tea, pack up our kit-bags ready for a quick get away just incase there's any constabulary sniffing around. We will have a wee kip then hop on our steeds and ride on down to old man Kirwan´s and see how he likes our presence. We will tell him that we have come to shoot him and if he does not come out and face up to our weaponry we will burn him out. His wife we will not harm, she can come on out with safety or hide down the bank of the creek until we have finished dealing with her conniving husband.

.

It is around midnight and we ride as quietly as we can down along the Hurdle Creek until we come to Kirwan's farm. We surround the farmhouse and I start to shout,

"Old man Kirwan come out you old motherless swine. We have come to shoot you, so come out or we will burn all your buildings."

Needless to say the old beggar does not come out so we set fire to his house, sheds, hop kilns, and grain storage. Somehow the old bugger escapes and manages to hide down the well. When we are satisfied he has no illusions to our intentions, we leave and go back up to Pane's Hill, where we have a good view of all the surrounding country and any constabulary that might be out and about. We espy his wife with a basket of food heading for the swamplands at the bottom of the Wills farm. We decide to ride on over and let him know we know he is in the swamp, and if he knows what is good for him, he will not come out of that swamp in any hurry.

We hang around there for about a month and then I decide he is waterlogged enough and I cannot be bothered shooting him now. I ride on over to visit Mr. and Mrs. Wills and thank them for their kindness and willingness to sell me some meat, and supplying us with tea and flour. I tie my horse up to the corner of the yard around the house and begin yarning when old Mr. Nolan rides in over the hill arms waving about and gesticulating wildly and shouting.

 "Constabulary, constabulary, stick 'em up"

I turn on my heel point my gun at him and say,

"Fond of you, as I am, Nolan, I will shoot you if you try that again, to be sure"

Mr. Nolan says sorry Ned and promises never to do such a thing again. We bid every one goodbye and say we will get back up this way again if our liberty holds out. Needless to say it didn´t I was captured at Glenrowan in June 1880 and hung later that same year.

                                   MY GREAT GREAT GRANDMOTHER STANDING

                                   HER NAME WAS FRANCES WILLS (NEE DIFFEY)

                                   HER SISTER HOPE DIFFEY IS SITTING. FRANCES

                                   CAME TO AUSTRALIA ON THE GOOD SHIP HOPE

                                   SHE WAS 2 YEARS OLD AND HER TWIN SISTERS

                                   HARRIET HOPE AND ANNIE HOPE WERE BORN

                                   ON THE JOURNEY SOMEWHERE CLOSE TO THE

                                   CAPE OF GOOD HOPE...HENCE THEY'RE NAMES. 

                                   THEY ARRIVED AT THE PORT OF MELBOURNE IN

                                   VICTORIA AUSTRALIA IN 1852.

Foot Note: I have stepped into Ned Kelly's shoes for this story on Australian History Rewritten.

Ned was cast as a bad fellow, but throughout my childhood I was always told the good side of him. Most people in the vicinity of Greta and all that district were on Ned's side and wouldn't hear a bad word about him and although history paints a rather bad image I prefer the story that I know off by heart, having heard it so often and because he was kindly towards my Great-Great Granny.

Mrs. Francis Wills (nee Diffey) was my Great- Great Grandmother and this story was told to me many times when I was a little girl because I loved to hear it, especially on cold nights, in the dairy, tucked up in half a 44 gallon drum on old bags while my Grandfather watched the milk vat and separator. As a child we played in the burnt out remains of the Kirwan farm buildings and my brother even climbed down the well, while my other brother kept lookout, unbeknown to Dad otherwise they would have known what for because it was always instilled in us how extremely dangerous the old well was. At the farm where I grew up an old rotting log in the mint patch near the house gate, by the garage was where my Great Great Grandparents slept on their first night at the farm "Glenvale," under the stars on the ground. I want to keep this story about one of their meetings with the infamous Ned Kelly alive for my Grandchildren. It is but a small event in my Great-Great Grandmother´s life.

22:22 - Thursday, November 10, 2005 - post comment