Music at the heart

Little Moora strikes a chord for RUARI REID

In the late 1990s, my grandmother left me her Beale iron frame piano, circa 1909. My great­grandfather’s violin, which was brought to Australia as a wedding gift for his son, was given to me by my uncle during a visit to Perth a few years ago. My grandparents’ marriage took place in Moora, which, as it happens, comes from the words for “good spirit” or “grandparent” in the Yued Noongar language.

Tales about hardy souls who made their way inland, settling down to work the land, raise livestock and start a future, abound in the Wheatbelt, and in Moora in particular. George Fletcher Moore explored the area in the 1830s and sheep grazing started about the 1840s. The Benedictine monks arrived in 1846 and pastoralists were encouraged to the area with discounted land prices. With New Norcia growing under Dom Salvado, the mail service changed from a coastal run to an inland route. The telegraph passed through Moora in the 1870s.

With the arrival of a rail line in 1893, land sales of more than 400ha of prime farmland increased as did population growth, and within a few years Moora had a newspaper, a bank, mechanics and a small medical centre. It was known as the “capital of the plains”.

The Moore River which divides the town is also the line of a geological division, with rich red soil on the eastern side of the river part of the ancient Yilgarn craton, while the sand and gravel on the west are part of the more recent Dandaragan plateau. Clearing in the east has allowed for orchards, grain crops and livestock farming, while the poorer soils to the west are for wheat and sheep farming.

Men with trade skills were in great demand in the late 1890s, and with the gold rush increasing Perth’s population there were many arrivals through the ports at Albany and Fremantle. One such man was David Griffiths, a stonemason from New South Wales who supported his young family working hard 12­hour days in East Perth. A member of Trinity Church, David was asked by fellow Congregationalists to build stone and timber houses for them in Berkshire Valley, just outside Moora. Keen to escape the city and work for himself, he moved his family to Moora in 1906.

My great­grandparents David and Rose Griffiths had 12 children, and all were expected to help in some way with running the farm, cutting stone or looking after the younger children. David himself was busy as the stonemason for the Catholic and Anglican churches in the town as well as the Road Board offices and the rebuilt post office. He built his own farmhouse, too, from sandstone quarried from his property and it still stands proudly, near the town.

When World War I broke out, the three eldest Griffiths sons enlisted, and chance brought two of them to fight alongside an English regiment in Beersheba. This meeting, where Australian larrikin spirit clashed with British regulation, convinced one young Lancashire lad to emigrate once the war ended, and so Charles Reid happened to arrive in Moora, where he set up a blacksmith shop.

Charles’ blacksmith shop has gone, but the old butcher’s shop from the 1930s remains, as does Melrose grocer store. The town is still a busy hub for the area and the locals have done a lot to encourage visitors. The Interpretive Walk around the town shows off the salmon gum trees and gives a good tour around the historic buildings. A short drive out to Jingemia Cave shows a collapsed roof cave with 26m­high walls and plenty of orchids in the cooler months. In wildflower season, pink and white feather flowers, lilies and orchids make Moora a colourful destination. Carnaby’s black cockatoos roost in the old wandoo trees and more than 2300 species of flora and fauna live in the region.

As I drive to Moora along Great Northern Highway, my father points out the jamwood trees on the roadside. We stop off at New Norcia to see St Gertrude’s College, where my grandmother’s piano examinations were held. She would play for the weekend services at St James’ Anglican Church in Moora, and on weekends would be accompanied by an English blacksmith on a regimental violin at town dances in the Road Board Hall.

The instruments are no longer in Moora, but they are together again. I lift the piano lid and play a chord. I give the violin bow some rosin and try a scale. I am connected to them, and to Moora.

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