Skatey...The life of Les Skate
Biography of Les Skate edited and prepared for publication by volunteer biographer Lorraine Blythe on behalf of Eastern Palliative Care October 2019
Biography of Les Skate edited and prepared for publication by volunteer biographer
Lorraine Blythe on behalf of Eastern Palliative Care October 2019
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<strong><strong>Skate</strong>y</strong><br />
<strong>The</strong> Life <strong>of</strong> <strong>Les</strong> <strong>Skate</strong><br />
He badly wanted to fix it up<br />
so he could bring his boys<br />
home. So, we got stuck into<br />
it.<br />
His brother lived in the other house on the property…<br />
it was a dairy farm. It was a better-looking house, but<br />
when it had been built … well I don’t know what the<br />
bloke was thinking … he obviously had absolutely no<br />
idea. He just carved out a trench about a foot deep<br />
around the perimeter <strong>of</strong> the house, chucked a bit <strong>of</strong><br />
rough concrete in it, whacked his wall plates on and built his house on top <strong>of</strong> it. And then<br />
poured concrete (which he mixed himself) inside each room. So, there was no waterpro<strong>of</strong>ing<br />
… nothing!<br />
Being on the ground I had to jack that up 600mm. I only had about three jacks and that<br />
clearly wouldn’t do the job. I rang up a bloke who was advertising as a house lifter in<br />
Bendigo and he loaned me about forty jacks! That was pretty unique. When you are<br />
jacking you must have equal jacks. If there was the slightest tilt, it would all just fall down. I<br />
took on a lot <strong>of</strong> risks.<br />
In fact the Bendigo bloke did say to me,<br />
‘You’re taking a hell <strong>of</strong> a risk…’<br />
So, I had to find a way to make it more stable out on the farmland. Lindsay, the feedmerchant,<br />
had plenty <strong>of</strong> wooden pellets which I could use. So, we got underway. I’d jack it<br />
up two inches and drive in a wedge. In between each stump I’d put a pallet and then move<br />
on and jack it up another two inches and in would go another wedge and then another<br />
pellet. That’s the way we went around the house. Day after day after day.<br />
Eventually it was all sitting on the big pallet and I could get under to dig the hole. Took us<br />
about a month to get that up. Boy was I glad when I got up to 600mm. It slipped once! I<br />
had a Trewhella jack on each corner, and I had string lines pulled all the way around. Every<br />
time I moved it, I measured along the string. One day I actually felt it slide and I raced to<br />
the corner and gave a couple <strong>of</strong> ‘ups ‘on the jack and got it stable again. <strong>The</strong>re were a lot<br />
<strong>of</strong> people working inside too … oh we took some risks!<br />
But it was the only way to get it done, and we<br />
did it.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was a group <strong>of</strong> young people who all got together to help in cases like this. (I can’t<br />
remember the name <strong>of</strong> the group.) <strong>The</strong>y would paint or clean up or whatever. In this case<br />
there were about twenty <strong>of</strong> them and the community housed them up there in the local<br />
hall. <strong>The</strong>y painted the house and it didn’t take them long! <strong>The</strong>y came on the Friday and by<br />
the Sunday night it was done. It wasn’t a perfect paint job, but it was good to get it done.<br />
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