My original story a couple of weeks ago on the North Queensland jockey Bill Smith is still having an amazing response, from mainly elderly people, who are passing on snippets of information via the telephone or emails.

 

The most incredible response is from an elderly lady with whom I’ve had the opportunity to talk at length. She spoke to both me and The Cairns Post journalist Steve Gray on the proviso that her identity would not be made public. As a former nurse, she felt it was ‘unethical’ to use her name. Her wishes have been complied with both here and in The Cairns Post.

 

The nurse confirmed that Bill Smith did die in the Herberton Hospital.

She said that when Bill Smith came to Herberton Hospital, she was going to book him into the male section of the hospital, but as she was doing the relevant admission paperwork the resident doctor walked up behind her and said ‘that’s a woman’. The nurse then proceeded to book her into the female section of the hospital. The retired nurse told me that she later found out that the doctor knew the gender of the patient, as he had treated Bill Smith at ‘a clinic he ran at Mount Garnet or Ravenshoe’. The retired nurse said ‘admission to the hospital required proof of I.D.’ and stated ‘Bill Smith used a government aged pension card in the name of Bill Smith’.

 

The retired nurse said that when Bill Smith entered Herberton Hospital ‘about 45 patients were there cumulatively between both the male and female sections and that there were about 13 staff all up including cleaners and cooks. One doctor looked after all the hospital patients and that doctor also had clinics he would run at Mount Garnet and Ravenshoe.’

 

The former medical worker said Bill Smith ‘was in Herberton Hospital for a couple of weeks before passing away’. Asked what Bill Smith had died from, the nurse replied ‘she was just old and tired’, but continued by saying she ‘found Bill Smith a fascinating person and when I found a fascinating person, I'd paint them, so I painted a portrait of her. She only had a few little darkened stumpy teeth, so I gave her teeth in my portrait – but that was the only embellishment.’

 

The former nurse said that Bill Smith ‘wouldn’t talk much during the day, but at night would smile a lot and talk openly. It was as if she wanted to tell someone her story before she passed away.’

 

Asked what Bill Smith’s life had entailed in her discussions, the retired nurse said, ‘She spoke a lot about her early days in an orphanage in Western Australia. Her parents had arrived in Australia, by boat, as immigrants from England. Wilhemena said her mother had died at an early age and her father couldn’t afford to look after her, so he placed her in an orphanage. As a little girl, she recalled living with her father when he worked on a property looking after cattle and horses, before he subsequently placed her in the orphanage. Her father had said he would come back and get her one day. Wilhemena told of how her father never returned to the orphanage and spoke of her disappointment when she later learned he had actually sailed back to England, leaving her alone in Australia.

 

‘Wilhemena then spoke of how she and another girl from the orphanage had run away when they were 16 or 17 years of age. She ran away because it was very hard work there, as the older kids had to look after the younger ones and she’d work from daylight to dark.

 

‘When Wilhemena and her friend got to Adelaide, Wilhemena decided she didn’t want to do housework anymore, so she dressed as a man and went to the wharfs to get a job. She got a job on a boat in Adelaide and that boat regularly sailed to Cairns, before returning to Adelaide. She spoke of how she liked getting back to Adelaide, when the boat returned to port, so she could then see her friend from the orphanage again. It was on one such boat trip that she decided she’d had enough of being a seaman and she jumped ship in Cairns. She walked Cairns looking for work and eventually got a job in stables in the city. She told of how she felt more at home in stables – rather than on boats – because of her days as a child, spent with her father, around horses and cattle.’

 

Asked if she spoke much about her life as a jockey or trainer in Cairns, the retired nurse replied, ‘No, not really, she was more intent on always talking of how she had to work so hard in that orphanage. She’d smile all the time. I think she just was happy to be telling someone her story before she died.’

 

There is no question that the retired nurse’s story is true. The portrait she painted is the only known photograph or painting of Wilhemena (‘Bill’) Smith. Her coming forward has helped piece together a fascinating puzzle. For that we are eternally grateful.