In August 1912, my Grannie and Grandad Pearce and their five children left Peebles in the border country of the River Tweed, Scotland. The family business was running an aerated soft drink factory utilising the natural spring on their property. But having eight sons meant too many workers, so three emigrated to Canada, and my Grandad to Australia.
He took up an irrigation block in Victoria, in No 2 settlement, East of Shepparton in the Goulburn Valley. Wheat had been previously grown there.
The family of three boys and two girls along with Mum and Dad lived in a tent through those first long rainy months. They cooked outside over a make-do fireplace, straining the muddy water through cotton to make it potable. Being an irrigation area, they had the nearby channel to wash in.
The men built fences on the land and prepared it with the help of their horse to start a fruit orchard.
Watering the rows of trees
