Collecting dead wool

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I am 75 and grew up on a farm in Western Australia. My father, like many of his friends, cleared much of the land by hand and without the aid of much in the way of mechanical help. They were the settlers of the day. My twin sister and brother were 8 years older than me. We all helped with chores and there were many ways in which the family earned a few shillings here and there. For us kids, one of our ways of earning pocket-money was to collect ‘dead wool’. We would go out with the horse and cart and pluck the wool from sheep that had died. Hence the term ‘dead wool’. The carcasses would sometimes be very smelly and crawling with little black beetles but we’d put the wool in a bag and later it would be sent off somewhere and we’d get payment for it. The photo shows Bonny, our draught horse, with my nephew holding the reins.