The Miller family in Gerringong has a long and distinguished history. There was never any shortage of Millers around if you wanted to make up a cricket or rugby league team. In fact, there were so many that on one occasion a cricket challenge match was arranged. One team had members of the Miller family, and the other was ‘leftover’ members of the Gerringong Cricket Club.

Hedley Miller was a great man. In 1982, at the age of 70, he was asked to share some memories he had of his own family and of the Wodi Wodi people, who lived around the Gerringong area. The story was published in the original Gerringong and District Historical Society’s first newsletter.

Note that some of the language used may be inappropriate today but in no way was any disrespect intended by the author to any person, quite the contrary. Hedley was one of several local people  who had nothing but the greatest respect for the Wodi Wodi people.

Hedley Miller: 

I was seven-years-old when we came to live in Gerroa. This was pre-war, about 1913. Prior to that, my father was farming at Robertson. When the family had to shift everything to Gerroa we used sulkies, drays, carts, and everything was loaded. I was entrusted with driving a loaded dray down Macquarie Pass to Jamberoo in one day, while the riders brought the cattle down the mountain to 'Terragong House' where the Marks lived. We stayed there that night and milked the cattle, and came on the "Wingeewah' the next day. 

My brother Ray and I went to school at Gerringong and associated a lot with the blackfellows that lived at Gerroa. There were two camps, one at Werri Beach and one at Gerroa, the Dixons and Bloxomes, and they were nearly all girls. Joe Dixon was an old man, a wonderful old chap. There were 100 kids coming to the school, and I remember them. There were as many black kids as white kids. 

Now, at the time, Joe had been timber-getting down at David Berry's mob and one of the cedar logs had washed up on Seven Mile Beach. My brother Ray and I helped old Joe to roll the logs across the beach to his camp, which was over the river and east of the present bridge. Joe put in about nine months of hard labour chipping and made it into a cedar boat. Ray and I were the first white fellows to ride in Joe's boat. 

Now Joe had a sister, who was a wonderful woman, and she married a fellow by the name of John Bloxom. There were still a lot of Bloxoms in the Nowra district as far as I can ascertain. The Sims of Werri and the Dixons and Bloxoms of Gerroa were all under King Mickey of Minnamurra, which was their tribe. They were wonderful people. I recall Louie, Joe's daughter, used to sing at the school when we were kids. The Moon shines tonight on Pretty Redwings was the one she used to sing, and she won the prize at school.

The only water that they got at the camp was at Malcolm's Hill on the ''Sand Track'. At one time I remember old Joe talking about some weed or other that got in the waterhole on the Hill. They went onto Bill Sharp's place where the windmill was in later years and there was a good spring there. They walked to school, the black children and all of us kids, there was no bus to take you to school those days. We had a sulky between the Stainer kids, the Walker kids and the Miller kids. Sometimes, the sulky had nine in it. The black children walked to school and there were quite a lot of them.

Joe Dixon was an old man when this happened. He used to keep wickets for the old Crooked River team before and after the war, I expect.

The Sims were at Werri beach. Old Jackie Sims used to work for the Sharpes (my wife's father) years and years ago. His great grandson Eric Simms played for South Sydney. Their camp was under the big figtree at Werri Beach, everyone knows where that is. They did have some disagreements, the Sims, Dixons and Bloxoms. But they were under King Mickey of Minamurra. I remember Joe telling me that they could not have any tribal law at all unless King Mickey sanctioned it. 

Joe was a big man, too. He grew a snow-white moustache in later years. He was a very fine old chap, Joe Dixon. Wal Dixon, Joe’s son, became a pretty good footballer for the Kiama Rugby League Club.

I would like to correct an error from the last issue’s story on Gumboot throwing. I said that the chemist in Gerringong was Greg Wishart. I apologise – actually, it was Graeme.