McCormack Funerals Ken Leatham Order of Service Booklet | Page 3

I have been asked to write a few words about my brother Kens life.
It’s hard to keep it to a few, since his death the memories have flooded
in.
We grew up in Bridge Creek on the Broken River, there were six of us,
Mum, Dad, Ken, Bob, Dick & Joy.
There we had a great childhood, free to run wild on the farm, we had
cousins up the road & with Johnnie & Jill McMillan we swam in the
dams in summer & had cubby houses over half the district.
There were many funny events that took place but one of the best was
when Ken was about 13 & myself, 11 years old, we had just learnt to
set snares & we rode our bikes up to Bert Walkers bush block & set
some. We were up at daylight the next morning eager to check them,
Ken being somewhat of an opportunist thought he’d go in & ask Dad
if we could take the car, an almost new, brown & white EH.
Dad had the flu & when Ken woke him, he groggily said “yes”.
We cruised up the road to Bert’s & walked around the snares & there
in the first one was a big buck kangaroo, the trouble was he hadn’t
been caught around the neck but by a front leg & he wasn’t too happy about it. We found a couple of strong sticks & there began a fairly
ferocious battle, it’s a wonder we didn’t clout each other in the heat of
the moment! We subdued the roo, dragged him back & put him in the
boot of the EH.
Then the best bit was us as we drove home with the windows down
& our elbows sticking out. We passed Alan Hardy who was fixing his
road fence, he never liked us rabbiting on his place so we took great
pleasure in cruising past him with our prize catch in the boot. I can
still see him looking at Ken behind the wheel.
Of course when we got home we were in big trouble for taking the car
but we had a good defense; “you said we could!”.
Another time in the early 60s when the power lines went through
Bridge Creek, Dad brought home some of the big wooden reels the
cable came on. Ken & I found them great fun to roll around, particularly down the hill at home, we got a bit tired of doing this so Ken