How much detail is enough? Tricia McGill.

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When I am writing a historical or time-travel it always causes a bit of a holdup while I work out just how much of the day to day details to put it. Of course, it’s imperative to show just what life was really like in the early days of say, settlement in Australia, and I always feel that the biggest load was put on the females. Imagine life in the bush without all the personal aids us females need. Then there is cleanliness to worry about. It’s all very well letting our characters take a dip in the nearest river or creek, but just supposing it is freezing cold, or you have nothing to dry yourself on but a piece of rag, or worse yet, there are crocodiles, snakes or worse to worry about. Even when they reach a town there will not be any of the amenities we take for granted. No nice warm baths, showers or inside toilets. Melbourne did not have a sewage system installed until around the late 1890s.

By 1838, Melbourne was composed of 3 churches, 13 hotels, 28 places of business, 64 homes, making a total of 108 structures. On August 12th 1842 Melbourne became a ‘Town’ by order of the Governor and Legislative Council of New South Wales. Is it any wonder that in 1850 the river became so polluted a typhoid fever outbreak killed many people.

After gold was discovered in the Melbourne surrounds, it became one of the richest cities in the world. The population in the 1880s was around half a million, yet they gained the reputation of being called Smellbourne, due to the fact that all waste was still being emptied into open drains along the streets. These drain channels then flowed into the Yarra River, and therefore ended up in the sea. That included all kitchen and laundry wastewater, the contents of chamber pots, not to mention the run off from farms and subsequent industries. 

I have to imagine myself in the period I am writing about. Currently my characters are in the early 1840s of Australia. They have travelled the 600 miles overland from Sydney to Melbourne (Port Phillip as it was first called) on what could only roughly be termed a road. At that time it took around a month, so I guess wasn’t much different to the travellers of America who headed west on the wagon trains. I loved those old Western movies in my youth but never once considered the inconveniences they had to endure.

In our travelling days, we would be away from home for at least four months a year and after trying camping out in a tent once I insisted I would never go anywhere again unless it was with a camper trailer or motor home. All that we needed was stashed away in the van and I would always insist on staying at a camp park where we could connect up to water and power. Sleeping rough was not for me, thank you.

So that brings me back to how much detail to insert in my stories, never forgetting that I am basically a romance writer and not a historian who must stick rigidly to fact. I am not the outdoorsy type but did a lot of horse riding in my younger days, yet could not imagine being in the saddle for 600 miles over a month. The road in 1840 was not so bad for a while, once they left Sydney, and there were even a few bridges across some rivers.  There were a few inns to be found in the sparse newly settled towns along the way, but after the first 178 miles the hostelries became scarcer and then the travellers had to sleep rough. There was always the danger of attack by bushrangers, whose gangs often consisted of escaped or ex-convicts.

When researching for my stories it never ceases to amaze me how far we have come in a short space of time. I often feel that some things have not changed for the better—all the traffic clogging our highways and roads for one thing could be improved on. In the suburb where I live there is so much building going on—which is great—but the roads are not keeping pace with the traffic, causing congestion—one thing the early travellers did not need to worry about. Some folk have to spend a few hours each day in their cars, probably an hour or more waiting for the traffic to move. There is a supermarket on almost every corner, making it hard to envision going weeks on the road without a handy store to stock up. And that brings me back to the niceties of life—and the lack of them in the old days. Is it any wonder the settlers were made of tough stuff—especially those women who followed their menfolk over treacherous tracks to build a life for themselves and their children. I salute them.

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Challenging Mountains (Book 3 in my 'Settlers' series)
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