SYDNEY’S CAVE MAN.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 19093, 28 January 1932, Page 9

SYDNEY’S CAVE MAN.

RENT FREE FOR 30 YEARS. Ever since the South African War he has paid no rent; yet, whenever he feels like it, he changes his home. He goes to bed in the middle of the night or in the middle of the day. He eats as casually. He has never been ill. He owes no one a cent. You envy him — this cave-dweller of Sydney? Meet Thomas Tibbings, in his cave above Taylor Bay, one of the finest fishing grounds in Sydney Harbour. Let us sit with this grey-haired bachelor in his cave home and survey life and the city and work and politicians, says the Sydney “Daily Telegraph.” In a few minutes he can take you back to 1861, the year he was bom in Foxlow place, now Martin Place. That was long before the days of the G.P.O. and trams and the Sydney Cup and electric light. People lived in shanties and rode in ox waggons and drank their Irish whisky neat. Our Thomas began work in a foundry on “the Rocks” at George street north. He started at 7 in the morning, half an hour for breakfast, and an hour for lunch, and stopped for the day at 6 in the evening. His pay—ss a week. Everybody walked to work in those distant days—no trams, motor buses, or Co-ordination Boards. And everybody walked. You could afford to walk. Stout bluchers cost only 2/11 a pair. Tibbings is precise about that amount, for later he was apprenticed to T. Williams and Co., manufacturing bootmakers, of George street. He remained in the boot trade until about 1900. The gay nineties brought troubles. Sir George Reid was Premier; Owing to general industrial depression and disastrous strikes unemployment was rife. When War Came. “George Reid made the unemployed register through the Labour Exchange, and gave men work shifting sand near Centennial Park, on the site of the present Waverley tram depot, and elsewhere.” Tibbings recalled. “No dole in those days. If you wanted food you worked for it. Reid paid the men 2/6 a day in coupons for necessary foods. No cash. A few years later he increased the value to 5/-. When the South Africian War started it solved the unemployment problem for thousands of men.” It was after the South Africian War that Tibbings came to Taylor Bay. Fish teemed in its waters. He had contracted a vocational illness, and trade unionism had upset his trade. “Prospects weren’t much all round,” Tibbings reflected. “And I imagined a caveman’s life in a snug cave couldn’t be any worse. My first cave was in the tree-clad slopes of Chowder Point. I started net fishing, and fishing with lines for beam. As the years rolled by Taylor Bay had a floating population of six to eight men, who fished and lived in caves, too. “I’ve seen at least thirty-six men come and go. There were two brothers who yearned again for the city, and returned to their trades. But within three years both were dead!” Tibbings is the “complete bachelor.” He does his own cooking and sewing. A man lived with him for ten years once, but had a stroke and died. “That scared six months’ growth out of me, and I haven’t encouraged ‘boarders’ since,” Tibbings says. The crews of yachts and launches that visit Taylor Bay every week-end know Tibbings well. They visit his cave and cheer him with their laughter and news of the city, and home-cooked food. Whenever Tibbings feels like it he finds a new cave, which gives him a new angle on the glorious bay. He pays no rent. His food is simplefish. fruit, bread, butter, and vegetables. He makes hay in the summertime. He sells his catches of tayler, travalli, flathead, whiting, mullet, and beam from door to door on the point. No Troubles. When the fish go off in the winter, he lives on what he made in the summer. He has an account in the old division of the State Savings Bank. “When the bank closed,” he said: “I didn’t worry. I know the bank is solid. I simply caught more fish, and when they weren’t biting I went and ‘bit’ my friends!” He plans to open an account in the new division when money comes in this summer. Tibbings has a very simple and placid philosophy. Why didn’t he go to the South African War? He had a job. Why does he remain in a cave after twenty-five years? Because he has never had any sickness—even a cold —and he has no earthly worries. No taxation, wallpaper, fence repairs, lawns to mow, or babies to feed and clothe. How does he keep warm on wet winter days? He sits by an open log fire, snug in blue jersey, tweed trousers, bare feet. No liquor. “I started drinking whisky at fifteen, and gave it up the year Vanity Fair ran second in the Melbourne Cup,” he recalls. This old man by the sea has no pet like a dog or a cat. Instead he communes with the wild life that abounds —kookaburras doves, honey-suckers, coach whips and large lizards. They come to his meal table for morsels and many eat from his hands. It is amazing that man can live in such sheer peace so close to a tremendous city. But the city problems echo in his cave. Tibbings was interested in the elections.

“I’ll vote for Senator Duncan,” he said. . . . “The politicians are promising and boasting just as they were in the ’eighties. If people talked less and worked more our country would be better off.

“Conditions for working have improved tremendously. Opportunities are on every hand. . . .” A rain shower swept across the bay and darkened the cave; as he talked to his interviewer Tibbings flung another log on the fire. Birds scampered into branches for shelter. The log crackled and burst into flame, lighting the bronzed, grey head, and casting shadows on his wrinkled face. He leaned forward from his stone “chair” and put the billy in the flames. “Yes, I’ll be seventy-one next April,” he soliloquised. “I’ve seen many changes, but life has been kind. Any time you are passing, call in. The cave is always open. . .