Tales along the riverbank - The Millington House - for Knots in the String.

We’ve been helping my brother prepare his home, the almost 100 year old family house, for sale and it’s been a journey through so many memories.

Yesterday, before the rain came overnight, the light shone through the sparkling windows and I walked into an empty house.

In my 70 years, this house has never been empty and I was rather moved – enough to write the copy for the agent. But then how does one encapsulate generations of history? How can I say that my grandfather was a part of the Progress Association that wanted to keep the essence of this seaside paradise? That my grandmother was a stalwart of the local CWA and such a gentle, pretty woman loved by everyone?

Especially, how does one catch it all in a paragraph for a real estate ad?

“Known for its distinctive black oiled boards and its iconic Norfolk Island pines, The Millington House has belonged to the same family for almost a century.

Built in 1925 by Harold Millington for his wife and three daughters, it is a stone’s throw from the riverside and five minutes from the ocean beach that bears his name.

The house captures daylight from every compass point in spacious rooms that still have their original features and it has a private back garden for dining alfresco.

Such an historic home and commanding position on the Prosser River appears on the market perhaps once in a hundred years…”

And thus I leave it to Knots in the String to really convey what I want to say. What I must say.

The house has good bones.

It has such big rooms and so much light and I had forgotten you could see the Prosser River from every window. When we were children, we would lie in our beds at dawn and listen to the professional fishing fleet fire up the clunky engines in their beautifully crafted wooden boats, to rumble out to the ocean for a day or two or more of fishing up and down the east coast. They were humble boats, humble men – tanned by sea life and with hands and faces seamed with white puckered scars from hooks, knives and flathead spikes.

The sound, as we lay under green floral eiderdowns, snuggling deep into flannelette sheets, was like Dunkirk. I had watched Mrs. Miniver and truly, the sound of all those boats heading across the channel was just like our river.

Most nights, as we drifted to sleep, the ocean waves slapping onto Millington’s Beach would soothe us. If there was an easterly swell though, the house would shudder, windows rattling as the crash of breakers vibrated through the sags and down the street to the garden.

I read Australian Country Style ever month and love the stories about those folk who want to sea/tree change and who find an old house with good bones, pull it apart and put it back together again with empathy and clever thinking. This is what I hope for my brother’s old home.

If I was able to communicate with any likely buyer, I’d love to tell them of the history, of the river regattas, of the jetties, fish, swimming, of the diving tower in the middle of the river. Of the old green boat that swung on a rotted mooring line in front of the house, and which we would swim to, climb the rope, lie on the deck or go below to the musty interior where ancient ticking mattresses rotted. Then we’d go back to the prow and dive into the deeps of the river. We were Ratty, Mole, Badger, Toad and every other creature who lived along the riverbank.

Today we will do a little bit of tizzying. Just to make the house hum to itself subtly, sifting through its memories, and in so doing, my childhood will flash before my eyes.

I will see my grandmother in her floral pinnie with her grey hair in pinwheel curls, feeding her pet seagull. My grandfather with his round shining face as he strode through the house at dawn, rattling an old axe handle against a kerosene tin to wake us, calling us his Milky Crew and that if we wanted to go to Maria Island for the day on Wanderer, to get up and be at the Triabunna jetty by 8.30. We kids would be dressed and at the back door before he’d finished speaking!

My mum and dad, leaving the house at dark, armed with long trident-like forks and a light and battery, in order to catch flounder in the river. Mum packing bread, cold meats, chutney and cheese, homemade cakes and shortbread for the said sail to Maria Island. Or both looking fab in swimwear, a handsome couple, with towels over the shoulders as they headed to the river beach to swim. They were an amazing partnership, joined at the hip by a lifelong glue.

And I can see my young brother, rod and fishing box in hand, heading across the road to the jetty to while away the hours catching all manner of fish – brim, salmon, mullet, flathead – before coming home to grab a Vegemite sandwich and doing the same thing again in the afternoon.

They were wonderful days on the riverbank.

I hope The Millington House finds someone who will love it for another generation, put their own clever stamp upon it and care for it, retaining its essence.

After the joy it has given the generations of our family, it deserves it.

But then, that’s in the lap of the Gods and someone’s pockets and vision, isn’t it?

So send the dear old house your best hopes and wishes and if you live somewhere intolerable and want to be like Ratty and Mole by the river, in the far south of the world away from global distress and where our island is separated from the rest of Australia by a day’s sailing by a 21st century ferry, then trust me, this house could just be waiting for you to love it as much as our whole family (but especially my brother) has.