Bona Vista — High on the Hill
By Christine Leonard
Bona Vista in North Mackay Queensland was never simply a house or home for the property was so much more than the gracious 11-room colonial built at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Spacious rooms spilled onto expansive verandahs in all directions taking in a panorama of mountains to the west, cane fields to the north, Mackay harbour to the east and the city behind facing south. Turning off Malcolmson Street, Bona Vista Drive wound up a hill shaded by old mango trees ladened with fruit during mango season.
From the age of nine I boarded at a Brisbane school as my parents lived in a remote area of Papua New Guinea. May school holidays saved me as that is when I flew up to Mackay to stay with my grandmother Millie Hallam who in late 1962 took over the lease of Bona Vista from my aunt and uncle Clive and Marion Mahon.
Front verandah of Bona Vista
Bona Vista was a home but it was also a function centre for wedding receptions and special events. My grandmother couldn’t read a note of music but she had an ear they would say and after hearing a tune once and her fingers could make the ivories sing. Our grandmother who earlier that day had us peeling tubs of potatoes and raking leaves transformed into a honky-tonk entertainer with shoulders shaking and a beaming smile as her fingers ran up and down the key board.
Following the pied piper.
As long as we were quiet and kept out of the way my brother and I could watch the band play as people twisted, rocked or limboed under a broomstick. If we were really lucky we got to shake pops over the dance floor like salt and pepper so the revellers could slide and swivel like Fred Astaire.
On the northern side, cane was planted right up to the base of Bona Vista hill. An abiding memory before harvest time was watching the fields set alight against a setting sun, billowing smoke transformed a lush green landscape into a blaze of red and orange heralding another kind of fireworks licking the night sky. One time the fires looked very close and about to race up the hill. Millie called the fire brigade which responded in good time.
When my aunt and uncle signalled they wanted to return south my grandmother offered to take over, as there were still some years to go on the lease. Recently widowed Millie was on her own and for a woman in her late 50s the move was quite an undertaking but hospitality was in Millie’s blood having run Hayman Island as a tourist resort in the 1930s the prospect of moving north and be near the Whitsundays and family was a siren call home. Her brother who we knew as Uncle Bill drove a black and white taxi in Mackay and was on hand should she need transport.
My parents being somewhat daunted by the work in store for Millie subsequently took my brother Wayne out of The Southport School during his Grade 10 year in 1963 to live with his grandmother for a year and help out around the property. He was 16 years old. Wayne enrolled in the brand new high school on Mackay’s southside. The freedom of cycling to school over the Pioneer Bridge and past the showgrounds was an adventure and every day was different. Before and after school and on weekends Wayne was fully occupied with grounds work, guiding visitors in car parking, and generally being his grandmother’s factotum. Truth be known he loved every minute – it was a boy’s dream. The work was hard but after boarding school Bona Vista was thrilling.
Sugar cane was first planted around Mackay in 1865 and within 20 years there were 30 plantation mills in operation. By 1900 the plantation-owned mills were Farleigh, Habana, Homebush, Meadowlands, Nindaroo, Palms, and Palmyra. Farmer-owned mills were Racecourse, North Eton, Marion, Pleystowe and Plane Creek (Moore: 1981 p. 3). The first South Sea Islanders started arriving in the district from 1867 (Moore: 1981. p. 385). The following story provides some insight into this early period and the power relations between indentured Islanders and white settlers and farmers:
Kanaka Accidentally Shot
“A South Sea Islander named peter was accidentally shot, near Bona Vista yesterday morning by an orphan boy named George Moore, a European aged 16 and a half years, in the employ of Mr J. Croker. Fortunately no serious consequences are anticipated.
The boy went down the paddock to shoot flying foxes on the fruit trees and after having accomplished his purpose turned the gun, the second barrel of which was leaded, on the kanaka who was standing nearby. Remarking quite jokingly that he would shoot him. Unfortunately the gun went off and the black boy received the shot in his right shoulder from a range of about 20 yards. Seeing what he had done the boy immediately communicated with town by telephone and the Ambulance set out for the scene. Moore harnessed up a horse and started in a sulky with the kanaka for town. He met the Ambulance on the way in and the injured islander was transferred to the litter and taken to the District Hospital.”
The Crokers were noted pioneers in the district. Mr James H Croker married to the daughter of the Walkers, part-owners of Dumbleton sugar plantation, was in 1891 shipping agent for the Adelaide Steamship Company. He was a man with a vision destined for the big time. In that same year the Crokers bought the Ryan’s property which encompassed what was then called Ryan’s Hill (Mackay Museum: 2015). James Perry wrote in the Mackay Daily Mercury on 23rd February 1944 page 2 of the first registered birth in Mackay on 27th March 1863 purportedly being of Bob Ryan, son of Patrick Ryan of Ryan’s Hill which was subsequently called Croker’s Hill. The Crokers replaced the original homestead in 1909 with a new home they called Bona Vista and after Mr Croker died in 1927 various family members lived there periodically (Pritchard: 2015).
During WWII Bona Vista was used by American soldiers for rest and recreation. Tennis courts once occupied the flat area where Bona Vista’s car parking area was in later years. In 1947 the property was elected to host a royal visit by the then Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. Bona Vista received a facelift and local businesses and private homes generously came forward to loan the appropriate furniture (Pritchard: 2015). Ian Wood, a well-known Mackay identity and entrepreneur purchased Bona Vista and the surrounding 60 acres from the James H Croker Estate in 1953 after which he rented the property out for functions until it was leased by various people such as my family in the late 1950s to early ‘60s. Mr Wood owned Bona Vista until 1990 and sadly the following year the grand old home was demolished.
Remnants of what must have been a hive of activity were still evident behind the main house. My brother and a school friend found an old spring cart in the back of the stables and below these was the ruins of a small farm cottage. There was also a well close to the main house but the area was full of snakes so thrashing and cutting the long grass meant keeping a close watch out for sudden movements. Directly behind the house facing the back stairs was what we called the butcher house as under the roof sat a very large table and wood chop block and all the indications this was where animals were butchered. Next to the butcher house was what was called the Billiard Room, it was a larger structure with a full size billiard table and looking down from around the timbered walls as the daylight streamed through were a series of faded black and white photographs. The Billiard Room was somewhere men gathered to have a drink, smoke and play billiards. Wayne remembers at the extreme end of this room was an enormous taxidermied crocodile attached against the wall. These buildings were spaced apart to generously allow for sulkies and horse drawn carriages to come around from the front. Whatever happened to those photographs and the crocodile I wonder? These were some of the reminders of Bona Vista’s history including rumours of the residential friendly ghost. If walls could talk there was so much to tell.
During my family’s time Bona Vista was a hub that drew people in; family, friends and guests for functions. Between functions and events the family enjoyed the property as a home, there was always something happening. Mango season brought family and friends in with tin tubs and buckets, loads of sugar, ginger and all the ingredients to make chutney. But first there was a parade down the driveway with ladders and long sticks to bring the fruit down. An assembly line was set up in the kitchen and the downstairs laundry. It was a hive of activity, peeling, slicing, stewing, stirring, tasting and bottling. Spicy and sweet aromas floated through the house for days.
Author, Christine Leonard, with grandmother, Millie Hallam.
One of my jobs was to pick sunflowers and help with the flower arrangements. Cleaning the silver and tableware was another. Every task was a team effort coaxed along by tales and local gossip. Lots went over my head but the laughter and sense of bonding has never left me.
Our Bona Vista days are forever memories for those of my family who were around in the 1960s. Whilst the time associated with the property was less than 10 years everyone knew it was a special place and that we were temporary custodians of a unique and historic landmark. The building is no longer there nor are there physical reminders of the grounds, the mango trees, the bamboo grove or the sunflowers but our memories and experiences live on as we recount them to future generations. Historical tales are gifts that travel through time and first-hand memories of such gifts bring comfort and self-awareness to the tellers of such tales.
Millie Hallam and the author’s mother, Merle Wall MBE.
