Joseph Nathaniel Robert Giddins

Was probably a bit of a character. Yes, without a doubt he was a bit of a character.

Joe or perhaps "Bob" grew up in Kurrajong as one of the large Giddins family in the area. After his mother's death in 1899 he seems to have lost contact with most of his family.

He must have made his way to Townsville, North Queensland sometime before 1903 as he married Johanna Ryan in St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Townsville on 25 June 1903. Their first child, Robert, was born in Townsville 18 December 1903.

Joe and family led a very nomadic existence. Robert was just a small baby in 1904 when the family traveled by dray from Townsville to Chillagoe. Along the way Johanna and the baby were thrown out and injured. Johanna's leg was run over by the wheel. They only stayed a short time in Chillagoe as there was an epidemic there at the time, sometimes with whole families dying.

They returned to Townsville for a short time only and by 1905 were in Canungra in Southern Queensland. By 1909 they had moved to Northern NSW where they moved around the area for the next nine years.

Joseph was a good axe man and worked at timber cutting on the Richmond River and various other timber camps. He cut sleepers near Coff's Harbour and Grafton. It was near Grafton that Joseph fell ill with typhoid fever. His son, Bob, thought Joseph had contacted his brother, Isaac around this time to ask for help.

By 1917, Joseph and family were moving around in the Armidale, Glen Innes and Emmaville areas where they did some tin scratching and went rabbiting. They got sixpence for a pair of rabbit ears and skin, and of course there was the rabbit meat to eat. By now there were eight children to feed and it was a very hard life.

In August 1918 they decided to head north the Innisfail, where Johanna's parents now lived. The 1918 cyclone had wreaked havoc in the town so there was plenty of work available. Joseph's first job was to repair the Ryan house which had cyclone damage. They moved into another house owned by the Ryans after repairing it also.

The next three years were spent in Innisfail, repairing houses, cutting timber and carting road fill for the building of the Mourilyan to Mourilyan Harbour road.

In September 1921, the chance to make money in the mining town of Chillagoe drew him back there once again. The family returned to Innisfail around 1924 and settled on a cane farm on the Harbour Line road, Mourilyan.

Joseph had a very fine singing voice and though not a church goer, liked to sing hymns. He also played the fiddle (violin) and owned a gramophone. The teenage daughters would organize Saturday night parties and sing-songs with Joseph's so Bob playing the push button accordion. The family remembered very happy times on this farm. It was around this time that he had a small gold mine in the Palmerston area. Joseph was a keen and able bushman, and spent a lot of his time bush-walking and fossicking in the mountains.

The Mourilyan farm was eventually sold and the family moved back to Innisfail, where Joseph's youngest child, George was born in 1924. About four or five years later the family moved to Babinda. Giddins Creek, in Babinda, is named for the family.

Around this time, whilst timber cutting, Joseph's foot was run over by the metal truck wheel. The foot was amputated but subsequent infection led to his leg being amputated just below the knee. He was a tough old bloke and made himself a wooden leg and carried on as usual. He was known to go off into the bush fossicking over the rough rainforest clad mountains of tropical North Queensland. He was once heard to remark, "I should make a telescopic leg so that I can walk on the slopes better". The self made leg was so heavy and stiff, it was a wonder he could walk with it at all.

He died from a ruptured hernia around 1940. Both he and his wife Johanna are buried in the Babinda cemetery. Their graves are L19 and E36.

Joseph's older grandchildren remember "Father", as everyone called him, as being a real teaser and tickling them, taking them fishing and crushing quartz in dolly pots to extract gold.

(Written by Diane McKay from information from the booklet compiled for the Giddins Family Reunion in 1999)