From fishing boat to family home: the family who lived on paddle steamer the PS Enterprise

Today, I shine the spotlight on one of the National Museum of Australia's more eye-catching items - the PS Enterprise, which is regarded as one of one of the oldest steam-powered vessels afloat in the world today.

Launched at Echuca on the Murray River in 1878 as a working cargo boat towing barges, the PS Enterprise has served many purposes, also operating as a floating store fishing vessel and houseboat, before the museum purchased her in 1984. One previous owner even had a piano installed on the upper deck. Oh, and she's won a handful of coveted paddle steamer races.

However, arguably her most colourful era was as childhood home to Jocelyn Brown (nee Creager) in the 1930s and '40s.

Now 88 and living in the Upper Murray at Corryong, chatting to the energetic octogenarian about her childhood on the historic paddle steamer is much more than a nostalgic trip back in time to when life was so much simpler.

While her parents initially purchased the PS Enterprise as a fishing vessel, soon after Jocelyn's birth in 1933 her parents, August (Augie) and Hilda decided to permanently moor the boat at Rufus River, a quiet backwater linking Lake Victoria and the Murray.

It was here that Jocelyn enjoyed the carefree childhood many of us dream of. However, surrounded by water, it came with inherent dangers, none more imminent than the threat of drowning.

While her step-siblings, who were brought up on the PS Enterprise several years earlier, were "tied up by their mother in the saloon when the boat was moving so they wouldn't fall off and drown", Jocelyn's mum was much more liberal in her parenting approach.

"When we fell in, mum looked for a trail of bubbles, jumped in a dingy and waited for us to surface," reveals Jocelyn.

"Apparently, I only did it once, when chasing a ball, but Ken, my brother, almost drowned a few times." Talk about heart attack material. I best not share with you about the time Jocelyn was dared to swim underwater the full length of the PS Enterprise. Gee, talk about gasping for air.

Jocelyn's mum employed a similar wait-and-see tactic when items of clothing blew into the river. "If a shirt blew in, rather than chase it, she'd throw another one in and follow it in the dingy as it would always lead you to the original shirt," laughs Jocelyn.

After (very quickly) learning to swim, the next most important skill for Jocelyn to conquer was walking the gangplank which led from the bank onto the PS Enterprise, and which bobbed up and down depending on water flow and height. But Jocelyn didn't just have to master running up and down the plank, she also had to achieve the wobbly crossing while carrying fresh eggs and other produce from the adjacent chook run and veggie patch.

As Joselyn and her brother grew older, they often helped their parents "pulling nets" and "fishing up the river" and because it was pre-refrigeration, their catch was kept in a punt which had holes punched in around the sides so that the fish could be kept alive and fresh until ready to be taken to market.

But life wasn't just about cod, perch, and bream. With school a short walk away, and virtually everything they needed on or near the boat, Jocelyn learned first-hand things that today's kids stuck on ipads would never know, let alone notice. She could observe and learn from her surroundings. Natural curiosities like "swans only swim with one leg, the other one tucked up under their wing" (it's true, check it out next time you are near the lake) or that the twittering of a willy wagtail sounds just like someone muttering "sweet pretty creature, sweet pretty creature". Go on, try it. That's exactly how they sound.

One species of bird that Jocelyn never warmed to were crows. And for good reason "They'd peck the eyes out of the drought-weakened sheep on adjoining Lake Victoria Station," she recalls. Heck. I don't blame her.

For many of us, our most vivid childhood memories are of those long hot summer days lounging around a body of water, whether it be a pool or beach. And for Jocelyn it was of course the river - "lazy afternoons daydreaming, watching the fluffy white clouds drift by and nights sleeping on the deck gazing up at the stars". Divine.

Jocelyn especially remembers "occasionally slipping over the side into the cool water for a swim, peace and pleasantness all around. With no worries of the past or future, but just enjoying the present." Mmm. I think we could all do with a bit of that now.

But all good things (and childhoods) eventually come to an end.

Sadly, in 1945 Augie suffered a heart attack, paralysing him down one side and meaning Jocelyn's family had to move off the PS Enterprise, the only life that, until then, she'd known.

"It took a while to get used to live in a normal house" she recalls, adding "I can still remember the strange feeling of sleeping on solid ground instead of floating on water."

The national museum has a sign out the front stating "where our stories come alive". Listening to Jocelyn's memories of the PS Enterprise, that slogan certainly rings true.

When the PS Enterprise was recently slipped for routine maintenance at Black Mountain Peninsula, I went along for a peek.

Sitting in its purpose-built cradle, the paddle steamer looks a lot different to when moored at the museum.

"Yeah, it's built a bit like a puffer fish, with tiny rudders and this huge hull," muses Nathan Pharoah, the National Museum of Australia's large objects conservator whose job it is to ensure the PS Enterprise remains ship-shape.

Nathan is up a ladder sanding back one of the paddlewheels in preparation for a coating or two of oil. "It's a bit like painting the harbour bridge, as soon as you finish one end, you start at the other," he explains.

Nathan's favourite place on the boat is in the hull. "You can see the original timbers and you can see where the shipwright in the 1980s, charged with the restoration commission by the museum, carved his initials," he explains.

For Nathan, the PS Enterprise is so much more that nuts and bolts. "It's just as much about keeping the stories alive as what I'm actually physically preserving here with my hands," he says. He is especially enamoured by the time (1919-1945) that Augie Creager owned the boat.

"I often think of Augie when I'm doing the dirty stuff, up on the paddles and down in the bilge," says Nathan. "All the hard work is worth it when you get to see the vessel in operation, it's a sensory experience that acts as a portal to another place and time."

David Wardle, a paddle steamer enthusiast who has been documenting the PS Enterprise story for decades, agrees. "The moment the boat comes into steam and starts to vibrate, it changes from a static exhibit into something that's really alive, I love it."

Rating: Super hard!

Clue: Fairies

Last week: Congratulations to Leigh Palmer of Isaacs who was first to correctly identify last week's photo as the Green Cape Lightstation, south of Eden. "A lovely place to stay and walk the 'light to light' and watch the sea life," reports Leigh, who just beat Jonathan Miller of Curtin and Rosemary Parker of Fisher to the prize. The clue of "sadly, no miracle here for Flora" related to Saint Mary MacKillop's mother, Flora, who sadly perished when the Ly-ee-moon was shipwrecked here in May 1886.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and suburb to tym@iinet.net.au. The first correct email sent after 10am, Saturday March 26, 2022, wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.

I'm still sifting through a bulging mailbag regarding my recent series on historic treasures on the drive to Sydney. As Graeme McKie of Narrabundah points out, one place I overlooked was a short section of the old Hume Highway that you can drive near Marulan. While it starts off clear of debris, it fast turns into a bit of a bush bash, and eventually leads to a dead-end so only the adventurous should attempt this nostalgic trip down memory lane. It's accessible from the southbound lanes of the Hume Freeway about 3km north of the Marulan exit at the old Red Hill North Rest Area. Meanwhile, Michael Madrusan recalls the time his family visited a Marulan service station shortly after the town was bypassed in 1986 and couldn't find anyone to pay, "so dad left the money on top of a bowser under a rock". Imagine doing that these days.