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Life on the Overland Telegraph Line 1878-1903

In the years that followed, he must have ridden horses thousands of miles. Even when he became Station Master he much preferred to be out patrolling the line rather than being in the office.

One of Fred's early tasks as a Junior Operator was to be part of the retinue of the Chief of the Department on a patrol of the line.

The Chief, a Mr Little, generally known as the Old Man or OM, wasn't exactly small, but weighed somewhere about 18 stone. His retinue consisted of an operator, a linesman who was also cook and general helper, along with a black horse boy.

Once camp had been struck in the morning, the Chief had to be mounted on a sturdy, very quiet horse. It took two men to heave him aboard; one to give him a leg up and the other to hang onto the offside stirrup to stop the saddle from turning.

Once this mammoth task had been completed, the linesman and horse boy could move, as they liked, on to the next camp site. Fred was left to be the Chief's offsider as Mr Little theoretically 'checked each foot of the Line'.

A day's ride of about 20 miles was peaceful and restful for the OM but extremely trying for Fred.

Mr Little had a riding whip with which he would tickle his horse's shoulder all day long. The horse would totally ignore this, meandering along at a slow walking pace with its rider apparently deep in thought.

Fred, on the other hand, was riding a racehorse from 'The Katherine' that was to be delivered to Alice Springs by a relay of riders. It did not take kindly to Mr Little's dawdling along.

The younger man also had to keep a sharp lookout for a dozen or more things that could be amiss with the Line. Every few miles the Chief would suddenly grow alert and insist that Mr Goss should go back and check the insulator, or the lighting arrester, or maybe the big spider webs at the top of a pole.

There was no argument brooked, and back Fred would have to go, tether his horse and go 'shin' up the pole. The original timber poles had been replaced with iron ones.

Another irritation for young Fred was that by then, although everybody else was addressing him casually as 'Fred', that would not do for the Chief. It had to be 'Sir' and 'Mr Goss' between them.

It was the Chief's Annual Inspection of the Northern Sector of the Overland Telegraph Line. This sector ran from Darwin for about 600 miles to Attack Creek, which was south of Powell's Creek.

Fred, who was almost as headstrong as 'Iderway' the racehorse he was using as a hack, was in for several wearisome weeks 'on the track'.

Fred Goss was most meticulous about recording the details of working on the relay stations on the Overland Telegraph Line, but there is only a brief mention in his journal about the source of the power supply.

The power for the line came from large banks of batteries at each relay station. They were serviced by a separate team known as the 'Line Party'. Mention of Happy Dick, one of 'the pillars of the Line Party', is made in Jeannie Gunn's book, 'We of the Never Never'.

The working of the Line Party was a massive undertaking, both in man power and horse power. A huge camp moved out from the northern head of the line to go 'inside' at the end of the wet season. Slowly and cumbrously it made its way along the line until it reached the end of the section at Attack Creek. There it turned itself about to go 'outside', hopefully reaching the coast before that year's Wet broke.

In addition to the maintenance of the batteries at the Relay Stations, the Line Party had to do any major repairs necessary on the Line, be it to poles, insulators or the wires. In time 'the single copper wire' of the beginning had had a second wire added to the line. Another duty of the Party was to keep the broad cleared avenue on either side of the Line free from the encroachment of the tropical vegetation.

The Line Party camp had to be totally self sufficient for those months of the Dry. One of Happy Dick's many tasks was to purchase animals for slaughtering from the cattle stations along the way. That is how he came to be one of the characters in 'We of the Never Never'.

Naturally, breaks and faults could often occur in the line when the Line Party was hundreds of miles away. That was when my Grandfather found his true element. He had little liking for sitting in an office listening to a machine going 'click click', and doing the paperwork. Consequently, no matter what his rank was on the station staff at the time when a patrol was necessary, he jumped at any chance to get out of the office and out on a horse patrolling the line.

For various reasons he did not reach the rank of Grade Five, that of Station Master, for more than ten years. When he did make the grade he didn't bother to call for volunteers, but took on the patrolling himself. After all, he reasoned, that was why he usually had an assistant Station Master on the staff.

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