WEBVTT 00:00:00.590 --> 00:00:03.910 Welcome to my podcast, Therese Makes History. 00:00:04.129 --> 00:00:07.990 My name is Therese Sweeney. I've been facilitating, 00:00:08.390 --> 00:00:12.130 writing and producing histories for communities, 00:00:12.589 --> 00:00:19.690 regions, industry, families, for 30 years. This 00:00:19.690 --> 00:00:23.129 project is called the Derry Lane Project. This 00:00:23.129 --> 00:00:28.190 episode is part supported by Turf Co, owned by 00:00:28.190 --> 00:00:32.060 Gavin Rogers. who is located off the highway 00:00:32.060 --> 00:00:35.359 in Jaspers Brush. They're the biggest agricultural 00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:39.200 employer in the region and have been operating 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:42.859 for 40 years. Gavin is helping me realise the 00:00:42.859 --> 00:00:48.500 production and I'm grateful. Episode 3, Boxall's 00:00:48.500 --> 00:00:51.840 Lane. I've undertaken a series of recordings 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:56.320 with Richard Boxall recently. Boxall's Lane in 00:00:56.320 --> 00:01:00.829 Maroo Meadow. named after his early daring farming 00:01:00.829 --> 00:01:03.929 family. I'm going to talk about Richard's heritage 00:01:03.929 --> 00:01:07.670 and position where his family were farming because 00:01:07.670 --> 00:01:11.129 there are many boxels in the region and beyond. 00:01:11.430 --> 00:01:14.709 Richard's a descendant of emigrant Thomas Boxhill 00:01:14.709 --> 00:01:17.810 who came on the boat Neptune from Sussex, England 00:01:17.810 --> 00:01:22.549 in 1839 with his wife Mary. They had 10 children, 00:01:22.670 --> 00:01:26.290 one of which was Richard who was 10 years old. 00:01:26.670 --> 00:01:30.650 Thomas Boxhill later died in Geringong in 1875. 00:01:31.329 --> 00:01:34.590 Ten -year -old Richard is the great -grandfather 00:01:34.590 --> 00:01:38.030 to our Richard Boxhill. Great -grandfather Richard 00:01:38.030 --> 00:01:41.950 settled on Kangaroo Mountain after marrying Catherine 00:01:41.950 --> 00:01:48.829 Nelson in 1863. They had ten children. Unfortunately, 00:01:49.129 --> 00:01:55.760 Richard died young at age 49 in 1878. Catherine, 00:01:55.780 --> 00:02:00.319 his wife, lived till 1909 up at Bellawonga, raising 00:02:00.319 --> 00:02:04.799 those 10 children. Think about her life. Slab 00:02:04.799 --> 00:02:10.379 hut, bush, no water at hand, all power, isolation, 00:02:10.719 --> 00:02:15.680 wind, heat, growing food, cooking, wood chopping, 00:02:15.800 --> 00:02:20.560 and additionally milking a small herd, making 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:25.189 cream to deliver by foot. or slide down the treacherous 00:02:25.189 --> 00:02:29.050 mountain to a creamery depot. Richard's brother, 00:02:29.189 --> 00:02:33.409 great -uncle John Boxall, around the mid -19th 00:02:33.409 --> 00:02:37.509 century, owned 160 acres in Broughton Vale and 00:02:37.509 --> 00:02:40.590 was president of the reorganised Broughton Creek 00:02:40.590 --> 00:02:46.830 Show Society in 1888 and 1890. He died in Bury 00:02:46.830 --> 00:02:51.550 in 1895. One of ten siblings, grandfather Richard 00:02:51.550 --> 00:02:55.599 Boxall, was born in 1865 on Kangaroo Mountain. 00:02:56.060 --> 00:02:59.539 The brothers up on the mountain had quite a reputation, 00:02:59.979 --> 00:03:05.139 mixing rum with boxing. Grandfather Richard lived 00:03:05.139 --> 00:03:09.680 at Forest Lodge, Maroo, up till 1892 with his 00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:13.400 wife, Miniana Graham. They had married at Bellawonga 00:03:13.400 --> 00:03:19.240 in 1888. Minnie was born in 1866 at Maroo. She 00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:21.939 was the daughter of William Graham and Isabella 00:03:21.939 --> 00:03:26.020 Emery, who resided at Woodside, Maroo, on 90 00:03:26.020 --> 00:03:31.259 acres from 1865, the year they married. They 00:03:31.259 --> 00:03:35.639 eventually accumulated a further 76 acres. William 00:03:35.639 --> 00:03:39.479 only lived till age 40. Richard and Minnie moved 00:03:39.479 --> 00:03:44.900 to Myrtlebank, Maroo, from 1892, on 220 acres, 00:03:45.199 --> 00:03:49.250 hand -milking eight cows. A terrible tragedy 00:03:49.250 --> 00:03:53.729 took Minnie early. She died in 1920. They had 00:03:53.729 --> 00:03:57.629 eight children. Richard's two siblings, Maude 00:03:57.629 --> 00:04:02.370 and Clyde, also married a Graham in Maroo. I'm 00:04:02.370 --> 00:04:06.069 going to read to you passages of a publication 00:04:06.069 --> 00:04:10.530 where the Boxall brothers are referenced. The 00:04:10.530 --> 00:04:14.310 book is The History of Illawarra and its Pioneers, 00:04:14.310 --> 00:04:18.870 published originally in 1922. written by Frank 00:04:18.870 --> 00:04:22.410 McGaffrey. The original copy sits in Cornell 00:04:22.410 --> 00:04:25.709 University Library in New York. It's readily 00:04:25.709 --> 00:04:28.589 available as a download and I strongly recommend 00:04:28.589 --> 00:04:32.170 the book, especially for those interested in 00:04:32.170 --> 00:04:37.910 breeding. I'm quoting, At Myrtle Bank, the Boxall 00:04:37.910 --> 00:04:40.769 family have been long and favourably known as 00:04:40.769 --> 00:04:44.230 dairy farmers and dairy cattle breeders, first 00:04:44.230 --> 00:04:48.079 at Omega, then Kiama, and afterwards at Berry 00:04:48.079 --> 00:04:51.500 in the Illawarra district, covering easily a 00:04:51.500 --> 00:04:55.899 period of 70 years. The writer, Frank, saw John 00:04:55.899 --> 00:04:59.500 Berry's dairy cows in the Berry district. They 00:04:59.500 --> 00:05:02.740 were of the longhorn Durham type, dairy cows 00:05:02.740 --> 00:05:07.500 of great merit. Once the low -bred bull, a mudgy 00:05:07.500 --> 00:05:11.319 -bred shorthorn, went into the boxall herd, the 00:05:11.319 --> 00:05:13.779 old longhorn Durham type gradually disappeared. 00:05:14.829 --> 00:05:17.750 The Boxall Brothers Myrtlebank stud of dairy 00:05:17.750 --> 00:05:21.329 cattle at Maroo Meadow was established in 1893. 00:05:22.029 --> 00:05:25.310 The Boxall Brothers, all through, have looked 00:05:25.310 --> 00:05:28.470 ahead and used their eyes before buying a sire. 00:05:28.649 --> 00:05:33.250 They are moving forward. End of quotes. Two of 00:05:33.250 --> 00:05:36.110 those dairy cows from the property later feature 00:05:36.110 --> 00:05:39.910 in the publication from Myrtlebank. Two cows, 00:05:40.209 --> 00:05:44.209 Pigeon of Myrtlebank and the bull, Chalmers Warbond. 00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:47.319 which you can view later, I'll let you know where. 00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:52.579 William Victor, known as Bill and Jock, and Clyde 00:05:52.579 --> 00:05:55.980 Nelson Boxall, stayed on Myrtle Bank when their 00:05:55.980 --> 00:05:59.259 father could no longer run the farm. Their sister 00:05:59.259 --> 00:06:02.480 Kate stayed too, cooking and assisting. Their 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:07.139 father Richard later died in 1936. Richard had 00:06:07.139 --> 00:06:11.480 eight children with Minnie Anna. One of those 00:06:11.480 --> 00:06:14.439 happens to be... the current Richard Boxall's 00:06:14.439 --> 00:06:17.699 father, Lindsay Charlton Boxall. He was born 00:06:17.699 --> 00:06:21.279 in 1909 at Myrtlebank. He married Catherine Ann 00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:26.160 Allen, also known as Kitty. They married in 1945. 00:06:26.819 --> 00:06:30.220 Today I'm presenting the interview with Richard 00:06:30.220 --> 00:06:35.160 Boxall. I call him Richard III, who was born 00:06:35.160 --> 00:06:39.420 at Myrtlebank and later moved to Woodside up 00:06:39.420 --> 00:06:43.079 the road at age one. Richard and his wife Laurie 00:06:43.079 --> 00:06:46.620 reside on a small portion of the Woodside property 00:06:46.620 --> 00:06:51.759 on Grahams Road and I present to you his story. 00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:55.019 So what year were you born Richard and what is 00:06:55.019 --> 00:06:59.120 your full name? 1954 I was born, Richard Lindsay 00:06:59.120 --> 00:07:02.480 Boxall, born at Myrtle Bank which was the old 00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:05.240 original my grandfather's farm. And how big was 00:07:05.240 --> 00:07:07.199 that farm and where was that located from here? 00:07:08.740 --> 00:07:11.480 East direction, just straight down over the hill 00:07:11.480 --> 00:07:14.680 from where we are now. It would have been a big 00:07:14.680 --> 00:07:20.920 farm. It would have been 220 acres, maybe more, 00:07:21.040 --> 00:07:23.259 I don't know. But I'm thinking because it was 00:07:23.259 --> 00:07:25.980 the people that own it now, or did own it, they 00:07:25.980 --> 00:07:29.100 cut off two blocks. And the only way you could 00:07:29.100 --> 00:07:31.800 do that for council regulation to get a building 00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:35.019 permit was 100 acre lots. It's 200 acres plus, 00:07:35.180 --> 00:07:38.670 yeah. So you were born there. Yes. Who were your 00:07:38.670 --> 00:07:42.209 siblings? I had an older sister, Marie. She was 00:07:42.209 --> 00:07:46.610 born in 1946. And then my brother, Alan William, 00:07:46.829 --> 00:07:49.850 he was born in 1948. So you were the youngest. 00:07:50.170 --> 00:07:53.769 Yeah. Who owned Myrtle Bank? Richard, my grandfather, 00:07:53.970 --> 00:07:56.470 Richard Boxall. What has been told to you about 00:07:56.470 --> 00:07:58.389 your grandfather, Richard? Because there's the 00:07:58.389 --> 00:08:00.850 photograph where he's got his Salvation Army 00:08:00.850 --> 00:08:04.009 uniform on, I noticed. Yeah, I believe from what 00:08:04.009 --> 00:08:07.550 I was told, he and his brothers had... I presume 00:08:07.550 --> 00:08:11.529 farmed or up on what they call the Berry Mountain. 00:08:12.610 --> 00:08:15.709 They were pretty wild lads. They liked to scrap, 00:08:15.850 --> 00:08:20.350 as in a boxing, and they liked their rum. But 00:08:20.350 --> 00:08:24.050 I'm not sure what stage. A cousin of mine, she 00:08:24.050 --> 00:08:28.009 was visiting, she told me that the story about 00:08:28.009 --> 00:08:33.909 him had been pretty rough. But he took up a vision. 00:08:34.789 --> 00:08:37.210 at some stage, and that's when he joined the 00:08:37.210 --> 00:08:39.789 Salvation Army and stopped drinking, smoking, 00:08:40.210 --> 00:08:43.909 dedicated the rest of his life with Minnie Hanna, 00:08:43.990 --> 00:08:48.110 his wife, in the Salvation Army. What was his 00:08:48.110 --> 00:08:50.669 stature? Do you know how big he was physically? 00:08:50.669 --> 00:08:53.090 Yeah, he was a big man, six foot six, solid, 00:08:53.309 --> 00:08:56.190 yeah. So you didn't get his genes? No, I didn't. 00:08:56.309 --> 00:09:00.649 My dad didn't. My dad got it from, as they called 00:09:00.649 --> 00:09:03.960 her, Granny Graham, Isabella. She was about four 00:09:03.960 --> 00:09:07.960 foot six. So he was six foot six, Scottish Protestant? 00:09:08.460 --> 00:09:14.279 Yeah, Scottish English, Cornwall. Their water 00:09:14.279 --> 00:09:17.779 supply, where was that sourced? Yeah, it started 00:09:17.779 --> 00:09:20.039 up in the spring up in the top of the mountain 00:09:20.039 --> 00:09:24.779 in Woodside. I believe it was pipe, gale pipe 00:09:24.779 --> 00:09:27.600 was put in after the war to feed water down to 00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:30.399 the dairy. Prior to that, it would have been 00:09:30.399 --> 00:09:33.120 just water holes. There was wells where the house 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:35.460 is now, the original house. Dad said over the 00:09:35.460 --> 00:09:39.279 house going west, there was a well where his 00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:42.240 grandmother used to draw water from for the house. 00:09:42.799 --> 00:09:46.399 Which is probably the main source for them to 00:09:46.399 --> 00:09:50.179 carry the water. Yes, yeah, it was carried, yeah. 00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:52.679 When you talk about pipes coming down with the 00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:56.340 dairy, when your dad was... working the dairy. 00:09:56.580 --> 00:09:58.899 What sort of pipes? What were they made of? It 00:09:58.899 --> 00:10:04.059 was inch galvanised pipe, which withstood the 00:10:04.059 --> 00:10:07.899 time for rusting and eventually it corroded inside. 00:10:08.100 --> 00:10:12.080 It was there until probably 1991, 1992 we replaced 00:10:12.080 --> 00:10:14.279 it with polythene. That would have been a bit 00:10:14.279 --> 00:10:17.240 of an effort to install that piping. Yeah, it 00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:20.580 took a lot. The people that had brought mum and 00:10:20.580 --> 00:10:27.850 dad part of the farm. back in 1977. What was 00:10:27.850 --> 00:10:30.529 their name? Ganderdons, Bob and Mary Ganderdon. 00:10:30.629 --> 00:10:35.009 He was a butcher from Wollongong. So they had 00:10:35.009 --> 00:10:38.350 beef cattle on here. They'd come down probably 00:10:38.350 --> 00:10:42.169 weekends and that sort of thing. Did your parents 00:10:42.169 --> 00:10:46.889 subdivide the land? They sold it off in one chunk, 00:10:47.210 --> 00:10:50.169 which was 100, and Dad and them kept about 25 00:10:50.169 --> 00:10:54.080 acres, part of where we are. At the moment, Laurie 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:58.700 and I. And how much would have been sold? Probably 00:10:58.700 --> 00:11:02.940 140 acres. It's been sold probably twice since 00:11:02.940 --> 00:11:06.080 then. When you're talking about them sharing 00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:09.879 food with the killing of a beast, who would they 00:11:09.879 --> 00:11:11.779 be? What were the neighbours then? Do you recall 00:11:11.779 --> 00:11:15.440 any of the names? So Mum, main one, would have 00:11:15.440 --> 00:11:17.519 been up on Browns Mountain. So you would have 00:11:17.519 --> 00:11:20.840 had, obviously, the Brown family. Foresights. 00:11:21.559 --> 00:11:23.700 with the other family up there. Do you recall 00:11:23.700 --> 00:11:29.120 how your mother washed? Here in the laundry, 00:11:29.500 --> 00:11:34.480 they had a copper boiler in the corner. She did 00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:36.980 have a washing machine with the ringer up the 00:11:36.980 --> 00:11:39.899 top. Okay, so you had the dairy. What type of 00:11:39.899 --> 00:11:42.700 dairy was it? The one up here where we are was 00:11:42.700 --> 00:11:46.899 a six stand, six bale, so six cows at a time, 00:11:47.039 --> 00:11:49.460 two, two, two. A lot of them, when you look at 00:11:49.460 --> 00:11:51.659 them, there were only four stand. So how would 00:11:51.659 --> 00:11:56.340 you store feed? You couldn't make hay up here, 00:11:56.379 --> 00:12:00.399 it was too steep. There was no frost. The mainstay 00:12:00.399 --> 00:12:04.179 was kaiquia, paspalum, so it was all just natural 00:12:04.179 --> 00:12:08.559 grass. Your subterranean clover, which was a 00:12:08.559 --> 00:12:12.059 native. Later on during the farming, Dad and 00:12:12.059 --> 00:12:15.039 them, they would introduce some ryegrass for 00:12:15.039 --> 00:12:17.519 the winter. And then later, probably in his last 00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:21.730 six years of dairying, They started to grow corn, 00:12:21.870 --> 00:12:24.090 paddocks of corn, and they'd hem a mill that 00:12:24.090 --> 00:12:26.690 through the winter for winter feed for the cows 00:12:26.690 --> 00:12:29.570 to feed them up in the dairy as they were being 00:12:29.570 --> 00:12:32.889 milked. They didn't store it? No, it was picked 00:12:32.889 --> 00:12:36.429 by hand, stored in bags, and then it was put 00:12:36.429 --> 00:12:39.529 through a hem a mill and back into bags, and 00:12:39.529 --> 00:12:41.289 then it was taken up to the dairy and dished 00:12:41.289 --> 00:12:44.490 out, ladled out into the feed bins while the 00:12:44.490 --> 00:12:47.639 cows were being milked. Where was the corn stored, 00:12:47.879 --> 00:12:53.399 the bags? It was an old cream separating room. 00:12:53.519 --> 00:12:56.580 They had a cream dairy just down below where 00:12:56.580 --> 00:12:58.799 we live at the moment. Beside that, there was 00:12:58.799 --> 00:13:01.580 a hand -mixed... There's still a bit of the concrete 00:13:01.580 --> 00:13:05.200 remaining there. That was a separating room. 00:13:05.480 --> 00:13:08.440 So later on then, when we farmed up here, my 00:13:08.440 --> 00:13:11.679 dad and my brother, who worked on the farm, they 00:13:11.679 --> 00:13:16.500 enclosed it with... post cut from trees over 00:13:16.500 --> 00:13:21.120 the back with corrugated iron. And that was where 00:13:21.120 --> 00:13:23.440 the hemer mill was. The hemer mill was driven 00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:27.059 by the PTO of my brother's tractor. How did they 00:13:27.059 --> 00:13:31.600 heat the water? Explain the system for the milk 00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:36.059 to pass from the cow. Was it hand milked? I know 00:13:36.059 --> 00:13:41.820 they had the vacuum machines, so the teat cups. 00:13:42.379 --> 00:13:46.610 The heater. As a kid, it was pretty modern. It 00:13:46.610 --> 00:13:50.330 was an electric heater. Later on, it wore out 00:13:50.330 --> 00:13:53.149 and they replaced it with a copper chip heater. 00:13:53.649 --> 00:13:56.350 Milking machines, you had two pipes running through 00:13:56.350 --> 00:13:59.690 the full length of the dairy. One was your air 00:13:59.690 --> 00:14:02.970 vacuum compressor and the other one was the big 00:14:02.970 --> 00:14:06.710 milk line that went through to the vat. The pressure, 00:14:06.809 --> 00:14:10.509 from memory, worked on about 15 pounds per square 00:14:10.509 --> 00:14:14.019 inch. had a gauge there which had to be a safety 00:14:14.019 --> 00:14:17.440 gauge. Yeah, and there was a compressor, a milk 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:20.100 compressor, which drove the air, the suction, 00:14:20.259 --> 00:14:22.559 that worked the teat cups. So you had your air 00:14:22.559 --> 00:14:26.440 line, your milk lines, coming down into the teat 00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:28.500 cup. The cups had to be pretty clean, didn't 00:14:28.500 --> 00:14:30.519 they? Because you didn't want to get bacteria 00:14:30.519 --> 00:14:34.039 or the teats had to be... Yeah, the morning, 00:14:34.179 --> 00:14:38.240 the first thing in the afternoon, you run sterilised 00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:41.279 water through the... Teat cups. Then at the end 00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:44.419 of the dairy, they were the same thing. They 00:14:44.419 --> 00:14:48.740 were flushed through to the vat. Then they were 00:14:48.740 --> 00:14:53.220 hot water sterilised, flushed again. Then the 00:14:53.220 --> 00:14:58.159 main milk line, it was like a coarse brush, probably 00:14:58.159 --> 00:15:00.840 about six, eight inches long, and that was fed 00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:04.259 through. It was a trick. You'd take the plug 00:15:04.259 --> 00:15:07.649 out of the end of the milk pipe. and you'd feed 00:15:07.649 --> 00:15:10.330 the brush into that. It was on a long string. 00:15:10.509 --> 00:15:14.629 You'd hold your hand over the milk line until 00:15:14.629 --> 00:15:18.009 you felt that suction come and pulling your hand 00:15:18.009 --> 00:15:20.830 in, and it was a trick. You let go all of a sudden, 00:15:20.929 --> 00:15:23.269 and it was just like a pull -through. It just 00:15:23.269 --> 00:15:26.029 went like a rocket straight through to the vat. 00:15:26.210 --> 00:15:29.210 It pulled the brush. So you do that probably 00:15:29.210 --> 00:15:32.570 about three times to clean out your milk lines. 00:15:33.269 --> 00:15:37.159 Alpha Larval. was the pipeline, the milking lines, 00:15:37.419 --> 00:15:42.220 dengue G, the vacuum pump. What were the teats 00:15:42.220 --> 00:15:44.340 made of? It's hard to say what sort of rubber. 00:15:44.519 --> 00:15:48.419 They were very pliable but strong but not harmful. 00:15:49.059 --> 00:15:51.899 So durable. Durable, yeah, if that's a word. 00:15:51.980 --> 00:15:53.620 Do you know how long they'd last? Did you have 00:15:53.620 --> 00:15:57.919 to replace them? Yeah, they'd perish. You'd hear 00:15:57.919 --> 00:16:01.019 them sucking air because of the action of them 00:16:01.019 --> 00:16:05.179 in and out. sort of to create the suction for 00:16:05.179 --> 00:16:09.059 the teats. I can remember Dad, Sunday was his 00:16:09.059 --> 00:16:12.259 day where he didn't work, but after breakfast 00:16:12.259 --> 00:16:14.519 he'd spend a couple of hours up in the dairy 00:16:14.519 --> 00:16:17.279 and he'd pull all the teat cups to bits, replace 00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:19.740 the rubbers that were worn, scrub everything 00:16:19.740 --> 00:16:23.759 inside with a small brush, sterilise them, put 00:16:23.759 --> 00:16:25.639 them all back together. That was an art. He had 00:16:25.639 --> 00:16:29.059 a special tool because of the rubber teat cups, 00:16:29.179 --> 00:16:31.299 the way they fitted over the metal moulding. 00:16:31.320 --> 00:16:34.690 They were... It was like fitting a tyre to a 00:16:34.690 --> 00:16:37.350 rim on a car. It was very hard. Who supplied 00:16:37.350 --> 00:16:42.090 the dairy mechanisation? I'm thinking it would 00:16:42.090 --> 00:16:43.710 have come through the dairy co -op somewhere, 00:16:43.909 --> 00:16:47.649 but you also had an agent. He was a representative 00:16:47.649 --> 00:16:51.769 for the alpha larval vacuum pump, compressor 00:16:51.769 --> 00:16:54.909 pump. And how would the agent appear? If Dad 00:16:54.909 --> 00:16:58.250 had a problem, ring him up, or in some cases 00:16:58.250 --> 00:17:01.600 it was all done around the bombardier pub. You'd 00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:03.539 mention it and they'd say, yeah, I'll come up 00:17:03.539 --> 00:17:05.900 and have a look. So he'd drive up in his car. 00:17:06.180 --> 00:17:09.440 The agent was a local person? Yes. Yeah, Colin 00:17:09.440 --> 00:17:11.799 McCoy is the one I remember. So how many cows 00:17:11.799 --> 00:17:18.799 were they milking then? Probably 58 to 60, 62, 00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:23.460 65. They'd increase through the winter. Why would 00:17:23.460 --> 00:17:26.880 you increase the herd in winter? Well, with the 00:17:26.880 --> 00:17:30.450 weather and that cold. Wet, miserable weather, 00:17:30.569 --> 00:17:34.069 the cattle, the milk production, they suffer, 00:17:34.349 --> 00:17:37.250 yeah, so they don't let down or produce as much 00:17:37.250 --> 00:17:40.150 milk. What's the weather like in winter up high, 00:17:40.410 --> 00:17:45.309 up here? Windy, wintertime, the South Wesley 00:17:45.309 --> 00:17:50.029 winds, they were savage. Look, you took it in 00:17:50.029 --> 00:17:52.549 your stride. You look out now when some of those 00:17:52.549 --> 00:17:57.319 big rain squalls and hail hit. You took it in 00:17:57.319 --> 00:17:59.259 your stride, you were up there milking, so you 00:17:59.259 --> 00:18:01.680 just looked out and, oh yeah, it's pretty wild, 00:18:01.720 --> 00:18:04.259 it's cold, I'll put a coat on, walk out, bring 00:18:04.259 --> 00:18:08.500 some cows in. Winter time, you'd rug up, you'd 00:18:08.500 --> 00:18:13.880 have singlet, flannelette shirt, overalls, possibly 00:18:13.880 --> 00:18:17.019 another jumper on that, but by the time you got 00:18:17.019 --> 00:18:19.240 it working in amongst the cows, the heat coming 00:18:19.240 --> 00:18:23.039 off them, by the end of the milking and the sun 00:18:23.039 --> 00:18:25.410 starting to come up, you'd be... down to just 00:18:25.410 --> 00:18:28.309 the short sleeves. Roll your sleeves up. The 00:18:28.309 --> 00:18:30.710 milkers, what type of cows were they at this 00:18:30.710 --> 00:18:34.569 point in your dad's era? Was it the same as your 00:18:34.569 --> 00:18:37.470 grandfather's era? Yeah, yeah. They stuck with 00:18:37.470 --> 00:18:40.609 the Illawarra shorthorn. They were deemed to 00:18:40.609 --> 00:18:44.150 be a... Dad said they were a tougher breed. They'd 00:18:44.150 --> 00:18:47.009 handle the elements a bit better than the Holstein 00:18:47.009 --> 00:18:52.849 and the Jerseys, but mixed in amongst the herd. 00:18:53.700 --> 00:18:55.839 They would have some Guernsey and a couple of 00:18:55.839 --> 00:18:59.420 Jerseys just to build up the butterfat content. 00:19:00.380 --> 00:19:04.099 So when they initially had a smaller herd for 00:19:04.099 --> 00:19:06.900 cream and butter, what type of cows were they 00:19:06.900 --> 00:19:09.099 using then? They would have had a lot more of 00:19:09.099 --> 00:19:12.700 the Jersey breed mixed in them. It's hard to 00:19:12.700 --> 00:19:16.079 say when they were first at Myrtle Bank. I don't 00:19:16.079 --> 00:19:19.559 know. They may have had Jerseys and Guernseys. 00:19:20.109 --> 00:19:22.950 And it might have been after that where Dad's 00:19:22.950 --> 00:19:26.049 two brothers figured in breeding of the Illawarra 00:19:26.049 --> 00:19:29.710 Sugarhorn. So can you talk a bit more about that? 00:19:29.750 --> 00:19:32.970 Because I noticed sort of around 1912 they looked 00:19:32.970 --> 00:19:35.190 like they'd won some of the shows. Yeah, that's 00:19:35.190 --> 00:19:38.029 all I know. They figured up and down the coast, 00:19:38.109 --> 00:19:40.990 winning a lot of prizes with their breeds. So 00:19:40.990 --> 00:19:43.569 what shows were important to the family? Do you 00:19:43.569 --> 00:19:47.049 know what people attended generally? Yeah, the 00:19:47.049 --> 00:19:52.410 local shows. all from Kiama down. Dad's oldest 00:19:52.410 --> 00:19:56.150 brother, Richard, Uncle Dick, he judged a lot 00:19:56.150 --> 00:19:59.410 of the fruit at the shows. Friday was the main 00:19:59.410 --> 00:20:01.950 judging, so that's what Dad's two brothers would 00:20:01.950 --> 00:20:04.410 feel, Laura Shorthorn and all the others. It 00:20:04.410 --> 00:20:08.349 was the main parade day, judging and parade day 00:20:08.349 --> 00:20:11.829 was Friday. And then you had the local exhibits 00:20:11.829 --> 00:20:15.930 in the pavilion in Nauru, which was cakes all 00:20:15.930 --> 00:20:19.359 the way from the women down. Who could grow the 00:20:19.359 --> 00:20:23.619 biggest corn, highest corn, watermelons, all 00:20:23.619 --> 00:20:27.140 your vegetables, pumpkins, the whole range. Big 00:20:27.140 --> 00:20:32.720 exhibits, big. How would you take the animals 00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:35.859 to the show? There were cattle trucks in my area 00:20:35.859 --> 00:20:38.680 from memory. There was some contractors and that 00:20:38.680 --> 00:20:42.200 that had cattle trucks. Calligans out here at 00:20:42.200 --> 00:20:45.400 Jasper's Brush. Les Turner, they were small ones. 00:20:45.519 --> 00:20:49.799 Then you had Austin Henry. um in narrow he was 00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:52.839 one of the bigger contractors nelson's from the 00:20:52.839 --> 00:20:55.680 valley so they've transported in cattle trucks 00:20:55.680 --> 00:20:58.259 yeah can you recall some of your dad's biggest 00:20:58.259 --> 00:21:01.819 challenges that he had and events like fire do 00:21:01.819 --> 00:21:04.839 you recall i think you said there was a bad fire 00:21:04.839 --> 00:21:08.019 in the 60s and maybe talk about how that was 00:21:08.019 --> 00:21:11.000 fought and how what sort of equipment they had 00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:15.839 and why it was successful yeah um i think Prior 00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:19.440 to the fires, he never... Him and Mum would talk, 00:21:19.480 --> 00:21:23.500 but he never really let on that he was stressed, 00:21:23.619 --> 00:21:25.059 but he would have been, because we went through 00:21:25.059 --> 00:21:27.640 a really... It was about a three-, four -year 00:21:27.640 --> 00:21:31.619 drought, and it got that bad. That's the first 00:21:31.619 --> 00:21:35.200 time ever we had to buy... They were S trucks, 00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:39.299 so trucks of hay picked up from the Berry Railway 00:21:39.299 --> 00:21:41.839 station, and that's the only time they had to 00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:44.420 buy feed here on the farm, so that would have 00:21:44.420 --> 00:21:46.980 been pretty... Pretty bad times for them, I reckon. 00:21:47.240 --> 00:21:51.220 Then at the end of that drought in 1968, October, 00:21:51.319 --> 00:21:54.259 the bushfires had been burning down in the Morayla 00:21:54.259 --> 00:21:57.640 State Forest west of Kangaroo Valley probably 00:21:57.640 --> 00:22:02.140 a month before they actually hit here. And the 00:22:02.140 --> 00:22:07.039 firefighters, they were trying to stop it as 00:22:07.039 --> 00:22:11.200 they could. The fire spotting, the winds and 00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:13.559 the westerly winds were horrific, were beating 00:22:13.559 --> 00:22:17.539 them, but they only had... Well, they would have 00:22:17.539 --> 00:22:21.059 had a small fire truck, which was limited, but 00:22:21.059 --> 00:22:23.940 most of it would have been knapsacks, 15 -litre 00:22:23.940 --> 00:22:29.519 knapsacks. There was a hoe specially designed 00:22:29.519 --> 00:22:33.380 for digging and knocking over a burning stump 00:22:33.380 --> 00:22:37.589 or raking the leaves. wet hessian bag, green 00:22:37.589 --> 00:22:42.170 tree limb. It was pretty basic, but they were 00:22:42.170 --> 00:22:45.670 able to access it. What helped them a lot to 00:22:45.670 --> 00:22:49.089 get in was, back in the day, the logging industry 00:22:49.089 --> 00:22:54.309 was really, you know, booming. And those logging, 00:22:54.470 --> 00:22:58.930 that was their livelihood in the bush. So those 00:22:58.930 --> 00:23:01.509 logging tracks were maintained by them all the 00:23:01.509 --> 00:23:04.789 time, their own expense. That allowed, and plus 00:23:04.789 --> 00:23:08.750 they had bulldozers. So they, along with the 00:23:08.750 --> 00:23:10.950 firefighters, they'd be there and they'd push 00:23:10.950 --> 00:23:13.670 in containment lines to try and stop the fire. 00:23:13.990 --> 00:23:17.309 It came over the mountain? Yeah, eventually the 00:23:17.309 --> 00:23:20.490 embers, about a week before it hit, the embers 00:23:20.490 --> 00:23:22.490 were coming over in the westerly wind, the leaves. 00:23:23.490 --> 00:23:26.990 You could still see a spark on them. I can remember 00:23:26.990 --> 00:23:29.809 my mum and dad, they blocked up the gutters, 00:23:29.829 --> 00:23:33.660 down pipes around the house, and my mum... She 00:23:33.660 --> 00:23:37.579 would fill the gutters with water. And then eventually 00:23:37.579 --> 00:23:40.660 the Wesleyan, it jumped, it beat them in Kangaroo 00:23:40.660 --> 00:23:44.980 Valley and it jumped the top of the Kambora Mountain 00:23:44.980 --> 00:23:49.259 here above us. And hence it just spent three 00:23:49.259 --> 00:23:52.140 days and come down around the bush, out into 00:23:52.140 --> 00:23:55.359 the paddock on the farm. So they were three days 00:23:55.359 --> 00:23:57.660 fighting that. It eventually ended up in the 00:23:57.660 --> 00:24:00.759 bush just around below mum and our house, mum 00:24:00.759 --> 00:24:04.170 and dad's house. And the only thing that saved 00:24:04.170 --> 00:24:06.809 Maroo, if the Wesley wind had kept it going, 00:24:07.029 --> 00:24:09.650 it would have kept going straight through Maroo 00:24:09.650 --> 00:24:13.529 out Jasper's brush. But the southerly, a southerly 00:24:13.529 --> 00:24:17.529 buster come in and blew it back into itself and 00:24:17.529 --> 00:24:20.170 helped put it out. I don't know, Dad would have 00:24:20.170 --> 00:24:21.990 been remembering. He was about three days in 00:24:21.990 --> 00:24:25.369 bed. He was exhausted. I think there was a story 00:24:25.369 --> 00:24:29.130 about Kitty in the fires. Mum was a pretty reasonable 00:24:29.130 --> 00:24:34.019 frame woman, but... Albert Muller was the captain 00:24:34.019 --> 00:24:35.900 of the fire brigade down here, Muller's Farm. 00:24:36.140 --> 00:24:38.819 They had a small truck with, I don't know how 00:24:38.819 --> 00:24:41.240 many gallons, a tank on the back and a little 00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:46.319 pump. But there was something like 20. So I was 00:24:46.319 --> 00:24:50.779 only 14. I probably thought it was pretty good 00:24:50.779 --> 00:24:53.440 at the time. I had three days off high school. 00:24:53.960 --> 00:24:58.019 But Mum and I did the milking. I'd take the milk 00:24:58.019 --> 00:25:01.329 down on the tractor when I'd come back. We'd 00:25:01.329 --> 00:25:06.630 clean up, load the milk cans up with fresh water 00:25:06.630 --> 00:25:09.589 and put it on the back of the Carriola tractor. 00:25:09.829 --> 00:25:12.990 We'd drive as far as we could and then she'd 00:25:12.990 --> 00:25:17.809 get on one side of the can with me and we'd carry 00:25:17.809 --> 00:25:20.470 it across the gullies for them to have a drink 00:25:20.470 --> 00:25:24.259 or replenish the knapsack. Can I just move to 00:25:24.259 --> 00:25:27.180 the logging industry? What wood were they logging? 00:25:27.299 --> 00:25:30.099 What's natural to this area and what were they 00:25:30.099 --> 00:25:33.240 logging? In the early days, and they stopped 00:25:33.240 --> 00:25:37.839 it not long after, I can remember, a lot of it 00:25:37.839 --> 00:25:41.039 was the cedar. Then it turned to the hardwood, 00:25:41.160 --> 00:25:47.059 your grey gum, iron bark, box. They were the 00:25:47.059 --> 00:25:51.579 main timber milling. Where was the mill? You 00:25:51.579 --> 00:25:54.700 had one at Williams' at Bury, the one out at 00:25:54.700 --> 00:25:57.440 Beach Road, I'm not quite sure who owned that. 00:25:57.539 --> 00:25:59.119 There was Bombaderry, where Bombaderry Bowling 00:25:59.119 --> 00:26:03.119 Club is. That was Hoffman's Mill, run by Tetley's. 00:26:03.339 --> 00:26:07.079 And then down where Do It Yourself in Bombaderry 00:26:07.079 --> 00:26:10.619 is now, Mitre 10, that was Reed and Hearn. Yeah, 00:26:10.740 --> 00:26:14.700 Artie Hearn and Jack Reed. Can we just go back 00:26:14.700 --> 00:26:17.700 to Derry and your grandfather Boxall's time? 00:26:18.509 --> 00:26:22.410 The water came from what creek? Tullian Creek. 00:26:22.650 --> 00:26:25.349 That runs under the highway down here now near 00:26:25.349 --> 00:26:31.029 Muller's Farm. So how would they keep the milk 00:26:31.029 --> 00:26:34.529 cool before it went to the factory? They would 00:26:34.529 --> 00:26:37.170 have had to carry it around to the creek up here 00:26:37.170 --> 00:26:42.450 where the grains were. But down Myrtle Bank where 00:26:42.450 --> 00:26:45.910 the boxels were, they had a water hole that they 00:26:45.910 --> 00:26:48.859 kept after a flood. They would get in and work. 00:26:48.920 --> 00:26:51.259 They'd take out all the big boulders. So down 00:26:51.259 --> 00:26:56.579 in the creek, in the shade, they'd put the cream 00:26:56.579 --> 00:26:58.980 cans in there. I'm not sure how often they went 00:26:58.980 --> 00:27:03.059 in. But it was cool enough. Oh, yeah, cold. Was 00:27:03.059 --> 00:27:06.539 there a relative that made some jelly or something? 00:27:06.779 --> 00:27:10.079 Yeah, Aunty Kate. I'm not quite sure what order 00:27:10.079 --> 00:27:13.579 she'd come in, but she was still left on the 00:27:13.579 --> 00:27:18.450 farm. done a lot of the cooking and what have 00:27:18.450 --> 00:27:21.430 you for her two older brothers, Jock and Clyde. 00:27:21.750 --> 00:27:23.930 She'd make a jelly and she'd take the jelly down 00:27:23.930 --> 00:27:27.009 and set in the Coal Creek. The jelly she made, 00:27:27.190 --> 00:27:31.089 when she went to get it, it had tadpoles that 00:27:31.089 --> 00:27:34.630 set in the middle of the jelly. They would have 00:27:34.630 --> 00:27:36.390 just picked them out and they would have ate 00:27:36.390 --> 00:27:38.710 the jelly. I mean, somebody now looked at it. 00:27:39.150 --> 00:27:42.710 Like Dad's oldest brother, he had a dairy farm. 00:27:42.730 --> 00:27:45.990 When he'd come back from the war, he... settled 00:27:45.990 --> 00:27:48.910 on a dairy farm out of Broughton Vale. Whenever 00:27:48.910 --> 00:27:52.490 I'd go out there, he had magnificent mandarin, 00:27:52.769 --> 00:27:59.289 orange, fig. He and Dad would walk around talking. 00:27:59.569 --> 00:28:02.309 They'd never pick anything off a tree. It was 00:28:02.309 --> 00:28:07.890 picked up off the ground. Like Mum preserved 00:28:07.890 --> 00:28:11.329 a lot of peaches and that sort of thing. Maroo 00:28:11.329 --> 00:28:15.160 had its own... Did it to collect the milk? Yes, 00:28:15.180 --> 00:28:18.279 yeah. It started, the one that I can remember 00:28:18.279 --> 00:28:21.720 as a kid was Jack Atfield from Bombardier. The 00:28:21.720 --> 00:28:26.240 run started about the silos, Turner's Lane silos, 00:28:26.559 --> 00:28:31.700 going into Jasper's Brush and continued all the 00:28:31.700 --> 00:28:34.619 way around through Maroo to Bell's Lane. Later 00:28:34.619 --> 00:28:39.440 on, probably the late 60s, he finished up and 00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:43.400 Bill Schofield took over. until then when bulk 00:28:43.400 --> 00:28:46.920 milk came in. And obviously then he went out 00:28:46.920 --> 00:28:50.079 of business. How many dairies were in the Maroo 00:28:50.079 --> 00:28:52.339 area? And do you want to talk about the run, 00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:55.240 the pick -up run? Yeah, I can do that. From memory, 00:28:55.279 --> 00:28:59.000 I can pretty well get through. So starting at 00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:05.099 where the Siloes winery is now, that was Wiley's 00:29:05.099 --> 00:29:07.519 Farm. That was on the north side of the highway. 00:29:08.420 --> 00:29:11.750 On the southern side, and you had to go over 00:29:11.750 --> 00:29:14.650 the railway line with Davis. You come along then 00:29:14.650 --> 00:29:16.849 into Turner's Lane. You had Walsh's, which is 00:29:16.849 --> 00:29:20.990 still there now, run by Frank Walsh, his grandson 00:29:20.990 --> 00:29:25.710 at the moment. Turner's in that lane. Then you 00:29:25.710 --> 00:29:30.329 come out of there along Turn Right, which headed 00:29:30.329 --> 00:29:33.509 north again, into Devitt's Lane. The ones I can 00:29:33.509 --> 00:29:37.170 remember up there is Waters, West Waters, and 00:29:37.170 --> 00:29:41.180 Radford's. Come back out of there. And straight 00:29:41.180 --> 00:29:44.079 opposite was Morshall's Lane, which run down 00:29:44.079 --> 00:29:47.039 over the railway line. So down there you had 00:29:47.039 --> 00:29:50.859 two brothers, Len and George Morshall, and another 00:29:50.859 --> 00:29:54.079 chap called Warby. You come out of there then 00:29:54.079 --> 00:29:57.079 back onto the highway. So then the first one 00:29:57.079 --> 00:29:59.579 along there was Martins on your left. Further 00:29:59.579 --> 00:30:03.079 down then you had what was originally was called 00:30:03.079 --> 00:30:06.619 Aberneffy's Farm. It was run by Alec and Enid 00:30:06.619 --> 00:30:09.190 Rutledge. Then you come out of there, further 00:30:09.190 --> 00:30:12.069 along past the Maroos School to your left was 00:30:12.069 --> 00:30:16.009 Albert Muller, Muller's Farm. Come along then 00:30:16.009 --> 00:30:19.690 a short hop and you got into Boxers Lane. So 00:30:19.690 --> 00:30:22.390 on the corner then of the old post office were 00:30:22.390 --> 00:30:26.990 the Marshall sisters. Ada run the exchange and 00:30:26.990 --> 00:30:31.069 the mail. The other two sisters, they run the 00:30:31.069 --> 00:30:33.450 dairy and it was only small. I think they had 00:30:33.450 --> 00:30:37.670 a two can quota, probably about maybe 30. 30 00:30:37.670 --> 00:30:39.950 acres, if that. From there you come along then, 00:30:40.009 --> 00:30:43.410 which was Barron's farm, run by his daughter 00:30:43.410 --> 00:30:46.950 then, Jean and Fred Bennett. Out of there you 00:30:46.950 --> 00:30:52.210 come along to Elliot's Lane, and hence the farm 00:30:52.210 --> 00:30:56.049 at the end of that was Arthur and Grace Elliot, 00:30:56.210 --> 00:30:59.650 which was the old Richard Boxall myrtle mean. 00:30:59.809 --> 00:31:03.470 Coming out of there, up on top of the hill to 00:31:03.470 --> 00:31:07.029 your right was Estridge's, Ivan Estridge. Along 00:31:07.029 --> 00:31:10.150 then to the intersection of Boxall and Pestles 00:31:10.150 --> 00:31:14.130 and Grahams Road, you had the first one was Kerry's 00:31:14.130 --> 00:31:18.210 Farm, but it was farmed then by the ones I remember. 00:31:18.269 --> 00:31:21.789 I can remember Frank Kerry. By then he was living 00:31:21.789 --> 00:31:24.430 in Bury, but the farm was leased out to Bob and 00:31:24.430 --> 00:31:28.109 Jean Kellett. Later after them was Phil and Margaret 00:31:28.109 --> 00:31:32.789 Birch. And then later on, Kerry's daughter and 00:31:32.789 --> 00:31:35.630 son -in -law, Grahame Hutton, they come back 00:31:35.630 --> 00:31:39.269 to... took over, run the farm. Further up from 00:31:39.269 --> 00:31:41.789 that, at the base of the hill, was Frank and 00:31:41.789 --> 00:31:44.910 Norma Bell, and then at the top of the mountain, 00:31:45.170 --> 00:31:49.730 E .L. Graham and L .C. Voxel. So then you went 00:31:49.730 --> 00:31:54.369 back out down Pestles Lane. You had Pestles Farm, 00:31:54.549 --> 00:31:59.109 and dairying there at the time was Byron's. Opposite 00:31:59.109 --> 00:32:02.049 them were more Marshalls, Oz and Cora Marshall. 00:32:02.410 --> 00:32:04.930 Keep going out Pestles Lane back onto the highway. 00:32:05.880 --> 00:32:10.619 So I'm hopping back then north to, on your left, 00:32:10.619 --> 00:32:14.279 if you're heading north, was Hearn's Farm, which 00:32:14.279 --> 00:32:17.240 was run by his son -in -law, daughter and son 00:32:17.240 --> 00:32:20.500 -in -law, Reg and Lorna Keft. Opposite them, 00:32:20.700 --> 00:32:22.779 Patrick Muller will be able to tell you, I think 00:32:22.779 --> 00:32:26.099 that was originally another one of the old Mullers 00:32:26.099 --> 00:32:29.140 that settled in the area. But the people I can 00:32:29.140 --> 00:32:31.519 remember there were Macaulays. Come back out 00:32:31.519 --> 00:32:34.460 of there and head south to the corner of Maroo 00:32:34.460 --> 00:32:38.250 Road. You had Feeney's, Eric and Rita Feeney. 00:32:38.250 --> 00:32:40.869 Further down then to Fletcher's Lane, you had 00:32:40.869 --> 00:32:44.309 Vaughan's, Limerie's, and then down over the 00:32:44.309 --> 00:32:46.690 railway line were Shepard's. Further down the 00:32:46.690 --> 00:32:49.130 road, coming down to Fletcher's, Ernie, Henry, 00:32:49.410 --> 00:32:52.069 they had a farm there, and I think Jack Atfield 00:32:52.069 --> 00:32:53.710 and them, they picked the milk up from there. 00:32:53.869 --> 00:32:56.890 Back out onto the highway, you had on your left 00:32:56.890 --> 00:33:00.430 Abernethy's Farm, Jack and Eileen Abernethy. 00:33:00.990 --> 00:33:04.670 Watts's Farm is where the tanker... milk tankers 00:33:04.670 --> 00:33:07.190 and that, they use that now as a depot. Pretty 00:33:07.190 --> 00:33:11.490 sure that was still active. So then you went 00:33:11.490 --> 00:33:15.349 around in to the Mossvale Road, so you went through 00:33:15.349 --> 00:33:19.529 there then to Bell's Lane. So you had Bell's 00:33:19.529 --> 00:33:23.769 Farm, Joe and Florey. Up further you had Bill 00:33:23.769 --> 00:33:26.829 and Judy Erkwood. And then at the end of that 00:33:26.829 --> 00:33:29.230 lane was Clive and Adele and Marshall. That's 00:33:29.230 --> 00:33:33.150 pretty well. my memory of the milk run that Jack 00:33:33.150 --> 00:33:35.769 Atfield and Bill Schofield did. The reason you 00:33:35.769 --> 00:33:40.289 have such good memory of the dairy families is 00:33:40.289 --> 00:33:45.029 because it was a smaller community. Yeah, and 00:33:45.029 --> 00:33:48.990 most of them went to the school down here, Maroo 00:33:48.990 --> 00:33:51.569 Public School. Marie and Alan were that age where 00:33:51.569 --> 00:33:55.609 they, yeah, they didn't so much, they'd rather 00:33:55.609 --> 00:34:00.009 do something here, but I just... Jumping the 00:34:00.009 --> 00:34:02.150 Land Rover with my dad, I was only five, six, 00:34:02.309 --> 00:34:06.630 seven. But he was president of the PNC. So, for 00:34:06.630 --> 00:34:10.510 instance, when the Red Cross collection was on, 00:34:10.630 --> 00:34:13.670 he'd go and do all that. And that's, I think, 00:34:13.690 --> 00:34:16.949 stuck in my memory, all the places he'd visit 00:34:16.949 --> 00:34:19.969 to collect. So I think that helped. Those who 00:34:19.969 --> 00:34:23.010 could give, it was just you knock on the door, 00:34:23.150 --> 00:34:26.150 I'm collecting. And you respected people. Some 00:34:26.150 --> 00:34:28.590 of them didn't have the money. That's how we 00:34:28.590 --> 00:34:31.820 got... to know by driving around. I should mention, 00:34:31.900 --> 00:34:34.420 with the school, they're all the dairy farms, 00:34:34.619 --> 00:34:37.159 but you've got, there was other ones living down 00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:40.599 in Turner's Lane, Millers. Then near the Maroos 00:34:40.599 --> 00:34:44.360 School, there was a family there from way back, 00:34:44.460 --> 00:34:47.840 Duncans, and they're still there today. So they 00:34:47.840 --> 00:34:50.800 were non -farming, but they were in the area. 00:34:51.179 --> 00:34:54.159 All I know is Keith Duncan, he was a taxi driver. 00:34:54.460 --> 00:34:57.760 The Millers, I think their dad worked on the 00:34:57.760 --> 00:35:01.679 council. So you haven't mentioned Berry much 00:35:01.679 --> 00:35:04.960 because you were separate from Berry. Yeah, there 00:35:04.960 --> 00:35:07.719 was a different... And Jasper's Brush. Yeah, 00:35:07.719 --> 00:35:10.960 Jasper's Brush, that was another... It was collected 00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:15.639 by Bert Mitchell that owned the contract. He 00:35:15.639 --> 00:35:18.760 had the contract for picking milk up there. So 00:35:18.760 --> 00:35:23.159 Nara was small, but we figured more with Nara 00:35:23.159 --> 00:35:25.880 than Berry. Even the school at Jasper's Brush. 00:35:26.539 --> 00:35:28.719 It was a rare occasion. Out of the blue, they'd 00:35:28.719 --> 00:35:30.840 just have an interacting sport day or something 00:35:30.840 --> 00:35:33.260 like that. It didn't happen often. So you didn't 00:35:33.260 --> 00:35:36.099 really venture out much of your own areas? No, 00:35:36.119 --> 00:35:38.960 no. It was all contained. The Maroo Hall down 00:35:38.960 --> 00:35:41.059 here, that was the anatome. Probably a lot of 00:35:41.059 --> 00:35:44.099 people come from Jasper's Brush. Obviously Jasper's 00:35:44.099 --> 00:35:46.699 Brush in for the dances. But you could get the 00:35:46.699 --> 00:35:49.440 radio here. Yeah, we had the radio. There was 00:35:49.440 --> 00:35:52.940 Biggles, Smokey Dawson. There was a comedy one, 00:35:53.059 --> 00:35:56.389 Green Bottle. Those sort of things. There was 00:35:56.389 --> 00:35:58.570 a sort of get -together in Nara, though, called 00:35:58.570 --> 00:36:01.510 Shake Hand Tuesday. Oh, that was from before 00:36:01.510 --> 00:36:04.650 I went to school, so what would be my memory, 00:36:04.789 --> 00:36:06.909 two -year -old, three -year -old, going into 00:36:06.909 --> 00:36:09.670 town. Yeah, they called it Shake Hand's Day. 00:36:10.269 --> 00:36:12.989 Everybody knew everybody. 90 % of them would 00:36:12.989 --> 00:36:16.570 be farmers. Yeah, the car park then, where Jelly 00:36:16.570 --> 00:36:19.650 Bean Park is, all down the back where Woolie's 00:36:19.650 --> 00:36:22.840 car park is, that was all bush. Over where Woolworths 00:36:22.840 --> 00:36:25.780 are now, that was Harrison's Bus Depot garage, 00:36:25.900 --> 00:36:29.119 where you walk up through Morrison's Arcade, 00:36:29.119 --> 00:36:32.719 where Darrell Lee, all that up there was Morrison's 00:36:32.719 --> 00:36:36.099 Butcher, Henry Morrison. Further up the main 00:36:36.099 --> 00:36:41.460 street, you had Bash's, Ted's Milk Bar, Clemmie 00:36:41.460 --> 00:36:44.159 Holland's Butcher. Right up the very top, that's 00:36:44.159 --> 00:36:47.280 a government building now, that was West's Picture 00:36:47.280 --> 00:36:49.760 Theatre. So there was two picture theatres in 00:36:49.760 --> 00:36:53.840 town. And further along Berry Street, you had 00:36:53.840 --> 00:36:57.219 the Roxy. Come back down on the other side, you 00:36:57.219 --> 00:37:00.659 had the Red Rose Cafe, the Bank. You had the 00:37:00.659 --> 00:37:03.260 New York Cafe in the middle of the town, near 00:37:03.260 --> 00:37:06.880 Davies Newsagent. Was that owned by a Greek person? 00:37:07.099 --> 00:37:11.119 Yeah, Theo Napolopoulos or something. It was 00:37:11.119 --> 00:37:15.440 a big cafe. Handshake Tuesday, what was the purpose? 00:37:15.559 --> 00:37:18.960 You'd go in. If they owed money at bashes. like 00:37:18.960 --> 00:37:21.699 paying off a monthly thing, put in the butcher 00:37:21.699 --> 00:37:24.420 order if they needed new shoes. Pat McGuire, 00:37:24.519 --> 00:37:26.699 he was the shoe man down there, not far from 00:37:26.699 --> 00:37:29.860 the New York cafe. There was a dentist on the 00:37:29.860 --> 00:37:33.340 corner of Rodway Arcade called Phil Lusk. There 00:37:33.340 --> 00:37:36.239 was a chemist, the Morrises. Anybody had a problem 00:37:36.239 --> 00:37:38.940 with their kids or anything and you couldn't 00:37:38.940 --> 00:37:40.940 get to the doctor, she was probably better than 00:37:40.940 --> 00:37:43.539 a doctor or Mrs Morris. Did you go to particular 00:37:43.539 --> 00:37:48.590 places? Yeah, I can remember. I'd go with Dad 00:37:48.590 --> 00:37:51.170 to start with. Mum must have went her own way. 00:37:51.329 --> 00:37:54.329 Put the order into Henry Morrison, up to Bash's. 00:37:54.449 --> 00:37:57.530 It was a real treat. But Ted's Milk Bar, a little 00:37:57.530 --> 00:38:01.309 narrow place, as in Ted Hewlett, which was later 00:38:01.309 --> 00:38:03.690 moved down the bottom where Rockman's are, Hewlett's 00:38:03.690 --> 00:38:07.989 Sports and Record Bar. But he had a machine there, 00:38:08.030 --> 00:38:09.969 then it was new, it was a soft dairy delight, 00:38:10.230 --> 00:38:12.929 ice cream. We'd go and then probably by then 00:38:12.929 --> 00:38:15.969 meet back up with Mum. So I'd be handed back 00:38:15.969 --> 00:38:18.550 over. Dad would go down to the sales, cattle 00:38:18.550 --> 00:38:21.710 sales, which was down near the entrance to the 00:38:21.710 --> 00:38:24.010 Stocklands now. Dad would come back up from the 00:38:24.010 --> 00:38:28.130 sales with a few of the other farmers. They'd 00:38:28.130 --> 00:38:29.750 probably slip into the Prince of Wales Hotel 00:38:29.750 --> 00:38:33.250 out in the back garden and have a beer. Then 00:38:33.250 --> 00:38:36.309 it was in the Land Rover back home for milking 00:38:36.309 --> 00:38:41.530 time. Did you dress up? Yeah, I had a denim type 00:38:41.530 --> 00:38:48.050 of pair of shorts. Grey shorts, braces, little 00:38:48.050 --> 00:38:56.090 braces, buttons on the fly. My claim to fame 00:38:56.090 --> 00:38:59.349 is that I've actually done a wee in the main 00:38:59.349 --> 00:39:01.969 street of Nowra. Mum said, your father taught 00:39:01.969 --> 00:39:05.170 you how to wee like a man. This day I thought, 00:39:05.269 --> 00:39:07.469 I've got to go to the toilet. And while mum was 00:39:07.469 --> 00:39:10.769 talking, I walked out into the gutter and undone 00:39:10.769 --> 00:39:14.110 the fly and I had a wee. How old were you then? 00:39:14.269 --> 00:39:16.849 Probably about three, four. Obviously, I was 00:39:16.849 --> 00:39:19.789 there with them, so I wasn't at school. Who were 00:39:19.789 --> 00:39:22.929 your friends? Most of it was at school or picnic 00:39:22.929 --> 00:39:27.989 days. We just made our own fun up here with my 00:39:27.989 --> 00:39:31.630 brother. But we were all, the school was pretty 00:39:31.630 --> 00:39:35.349 small in numbers, so, yeah, we just all knew 00:39:35.349 --> 00:39:38.650 each other at school. Tell me about picnic days 00:39:38.650 --> 00:39:41.110 and how often. Once a year was a Sunday school 00:39:41.110 --> 00:39:44.679 picnic. And that was run on Muller's farm. It 00:39:44.679 --> 00:39:47.019 was pretty flash. They had a cement cricket wicket 00:39:47.019 --> 00:39:50.139 there. So that must have dated back to the early 00:39:50.139 --> 00:39:52.760 days. Vonnie and Albert, they opened up their 00:39:52.760 --> 00:39:56.539 farm there and we'd all gather down there, all 00:39:56.539 --> 00:40:00.260 the denominations, hence the Catholic -Protestant. 00:40:00.679 --> 00:40:03.360 There'd be all novelty race, egg and spoon race, 00:40:03.880 --> 00:40:07.480 three -legged race, knapsack race, foot race, 00:40:08.159 --> 00:40:12.250 game of cricket. But the men... Their main one 00:40:12.250 --> 00:40:15.590 was the competition, who could nail a nail into 00:40:15.590 --> 00:40:18.369 a tree stump, how many blows it would take. They'd 00:40:18.369 --> 00:40:21.550 have a block there. By the end of the day, you 00:40:21.550 --> 00:40:23.309 couldn't drive another nail into it. There was 00:40:23.309 --> 00:40:25.809 that many nails. They'd step up and have a go. 00:40:26.349 --> 00:40:29.329 And I think Frank Bell down, so it was all in 00:40:29.329 --> 00:40:33.389 the eye and the power, what they call a four 00:40:33.389 --> 00:40:36.369 -inch nail. And I think Frank Bell, it was something 00:40:36.369 --> 00:40:39.510 like four hits. And that nail went straight in 00:40:39.510 --> 00:40:42.219 without bending, obviously. How did you meet 00:40:42.219 --> 00:40:44.840 your wife, and what is your wife's name, and 00:40:44.840 --> 00:40:49.380 when did you get married? Yeah, well, Laurie, 00:40:49.380 --> 00:40:55.219 or Laurie Kilner is her maiden name, she worked 00:40:55.219 --> 00:40:58.500 at South Coast Register with my, well, she was 00:40:58.500 --> 00:41:01.280 my sister -in -law at the time, but she worked 00:41:01.280 --> 00:41:04.260 there at the South Coast Register, and there 00:41:04.260 --> 00:41:07.239 was a cricket presentation night coming up, and 00:41:07.239 --> 00:41:11.010 just out of the blue, something... Diane, she 00:41:11.010 --> 00:41:13.590 just said, oh, she said, Laurie that works with 00:41:13.590 --> 00:41:15.769 us in the South Coast Register is not going out 00:41:15.769 --> 00:41:18.230 with anybody at the moment. And I thought about 00:41:18.230 --> 00:41:19.909 it and thought about it. There was three of us, 00:41:19.989 --> 00:41:23.869 my mate Trevor, Henry and Chris, and they were 00:41:23.869 --> 00:41:25.469 saying, oh, yeah, we'll ask her out, we'll ask 00:41:25.469 --> 00:41:28.230 her out. So nothing was done. So I rang her up 00:41:28.230 --> 00:41:31.690 one day at work, while she was at work, and said, 00:41:31.730 --> 00:41:33.309 do you want to come out? And the rest is history. 00:41:33.730 --> 00:41:39.599 So we were engaged in 1975. probably the end 00:41:39.599 --> 00:41:44.179 of 1972, beginning of 73 we went out, married 00:41:44.179 --> 00:41:50.199 on 13th of March 1976. And where did you live 00:41:50.199 --> 00:41:54.300 after you were married? We moved into a flat, 00:41:54.440 --> 00:41:56.920 set of flats in Bombadour in Numrock Street. 00:41:57.960 --> 00:41:59.940 We were there for probably about three, four 00:41:59.940 --> 00:42:05.699 years. By then we had the block out here, we 00:42:05.699 --> 00:42:08.789 brought the block off Mum and Dad. the acre and 00:42:08.789 --> 00:42:12.329 a half, and it was a matter of teeing up a loan, 00:42:12.409 --> 00:42:15.989 then a bank loan, where we could start, and we 00:42:15.989 --> 00:42:18.070 ended up with a building company called A .V. 00:42:18.090 --> 00:42:23.030 Jennings. So in 1980, we moved up here. Mark 00:42:23.030 --> 00:42:26.690 was born when we were in Bombardier in the flats, 00:42:26.829 --> 00:42:32.949 and then later in 1981, well, Mark was born on 00:42:32.949 --> 00:42:39.539 the 5th of April, 1979. And Tanya was born up 00:42:39.539 --> 00:42:44.119 here in the 14th of March, 1981. You didn't go 00:42:44.119 --> 00:42:47.619 into dairying, though, did you? No. Why not? 00:42:47.860 --> 00:42:51.900 There wasn't enough financially. My brother, 00:42:52.059 --> 00:42:57.940 Alan, he was paid on the farm for a while. Later 00:42:57.940 --> 00:43:02.099 on, he was here for a few years. He eventually 00:43:02.099 --> 00:43:05.119 went out and worked on other farms, employment. 00:43:05.900 --> 00:43:09.219 But no, there wasn't enough to keep me on the 00:43:09.219 --> 00:43:12.639 farm. Dad would have liked it. So I ended up, 00:43:12.639 --> 00:43:15.780 applied for three jobs. I ended up for apprenticeship, 00:43:16.039 --> 00:43:18.800 greenkeeping apprenticeship at Berry Bowling 00:43:18.800 --> 00:43:21.760 Club. All our growing up, we were in the dairy, 00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:25.760 done our bit. Even when I started at Berry, I'd 00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:29.440 be up early to help Dad. By then he was on his 00:43:29.440 --> 00:43:32.480 own, his cousin had passed away. And then I'd 00:43:32.480 --> 00:43:34.880 go to Berry Bowling, I had to be... Bury at 7 00:43:34.880 --> 00:43:39.739 .30, come home in the afternoon and go up to 00:43:39.739 --> 00:43:43.480 help them finish up washing up. So it just went 00:43:43.480 --> 00:43:47.820 on, yeah, we all hooked in. Did you spend your 00:43:47.820 --> 00:43:52.179 career as a greenkeeper for years? I did, I did, 00:43:52.219 --> 00:43:54.699 not much variety in my life. I was seven years 00:43:54.699 --> 00:43:59.500 at Bury Bowling Club and 40 years at Nowra Bowling 00:43:59.500 --> 00:44:03.780 Club. Took over as head greenkeeper. in 1988 00:44:03.780 --> 00:44:06.840 at the Narra Bowling Club and remained there 00:44:06.840 --> 00:44:11.199 until 2018. You would have been impacted by some 00:44:11.199 --> 00:44:14.820 weather events? Oh yeah, yeah, everything revolved. 00:44:15.079 --> 00:44:17.320 I used to have my think tank at three o 'clock 00:44:17.320 --> 00:44:20.239 in the morning, what program was going, what 00:44:20.239 --> 00:44:23.280 bowls were on. When I get there, if it's raining, 00:44:23.480 --> 00:44:26.579 this is what we're going to do. If it's not raining, 00:44:26.639 --> 00:44:29.440 fine. Yeah, it was always a think tank. You never 00:44:29.440 --> 00:44:33.289 had a moment to... What about major water events? 00:44:33.550 --> 00:44:38.570 Yeah, Berry Bowling Club. My initiation, I started 00:44:38.570 --> 00:44:42.989 in January at the Berry Bowling Club, 1971. By 00:44:42.989 --> 00:44:46.889 the end of January, massive floods and the Greens 00:44:46.889 --> 00:44:50.269 flooded three nights in a row. Thursday night 00:44:50.269 --> 00:44:55.630 was 12 inches of rain. The Friday night was 10 00:44:55.630 --> 00:44:59.210 inches of rain. And the Saturday night was 13 00:44:59.210 --> 00:45:03.579 inches of rain. Three nights in a row. So it 00:45:03.579 --> 00:45:08.179 would fine up, wake up that morning after the 00:45:08.179 --> 00:45:11.039 rain, get out there. Greens would be covered 00:45:11.039 --> 00:45:13.639 in mud, full water right to the top of the plinth. 00:45:14.380 --> 00:45:17.079 The outriggering area, which we wouldn't worry 00:45:17.079 --> 00:45:19.639 about for weeks after we concentrated on, it 00:45:19.639 --> 00:45:23.139 would be all logs, debris. To do that three nights 00:45:23.139 --> 00:45:26.480 in a row, three days in a row, all the volunteers 00:45:26.480 --> 00:45:29.380 would show up, clean it off. I was there for 00:45:29.380 --> 00:45:32.650 seven years. So there's three floods in that, 00:45:32.730 --> 00:45:36.329 probably cleaned up five floods in those seven 00:45:36.329 --> 00:45:41.849 years. It was devastating. Can I divert to not 00:45:41.849 --> 00:45:47.250 many dairies left today? No, no. So all the milk 00:45:47.250 --> 00:45:51.190 in the Maroo area was taken to the Bombardieri 00:45:51.190 --> 00:45:55.989 Milk Factory? Yeah, Kangaroo Valley, Kamawara, 00:45:56.170 --> 00:45:59.809 Jasper's Brush. It was the main, all the other 00:45:59.809 --> 00:46:03.530 side of the river. Yeah, so the Nowra Dairy Co 00:46:03.530 --> 00:46:08.190 -op was the major, it was the centre for producing. 00:46:08.710 --> 00:46:11.369 All the milk was delivered to Nowra Dairy Co 00:46:11.369 --> 00:46:14.289 -op? Yes, where Truck and Tractor is now, yeah. 00:46:15.469 --> 00:46:18.730 But it was located in Bomaderry? Yes, located 00:46:18.730 --> 00:46:20.449 in Bomaderry, right beside the railway, where 00:46:20.449 --> 00:46:23.030 the railway finished. So what were some of the 00:46:23.030 --> 00:46:27.190 key factors, just briefly, in your opinion? saw 00:46:27.190 --> 00:46:32.329 the decline of dairying in your region? Yeah, 00:46:32.369 --> 00:46:39.650 I think the small holdings, they couldn't etch 00:46:39.650 --> 00:46:44.389 out enough living out of it. Age, where they 00:46:44.389 --> 00:46:47.409 didn't, families weren't taking it on, hence 00:46:47.409 --> 00:46:49.889 myself went groom keeping. A lot of the other 00:46:49.889 --> 00:46:53.670 families, the sons didn't. Carry on. Impractical. 00:46:53.670 --> 00:46:56.610 It was unaffordable to continue. Yeah, yeah. 00:46:56.789 --> 00:47:00.409 And then your next stage was when bulk milk come 00:47:00.409 --> 00:47:06.809 into it. So a lot of the farms like ours, they 00:47:06.809 --> 00:47:10.510 were unaccessible for a big bulk milk tanker. 00:47:10.710 --> 00:47:14.309 We were allowed then. The milk was accepted then 00:47:14.309 --> 00:47:17.219 at the dairy co -op. We had to put in a cold 00:47:17.219 --> 00:47:19.559 room and so did the others. It couldn't go without 00:47:19.559 --> 00:47:22.340 bulk milk. The only way you could supply milk, 00:47:22.480 --> 00:47:25.940 put in a cold room and it was every second day 00:47:25.940 --> 00:47:29.519 with the cans. So we had to take the milk direct 00:47:29.519 --> 00:47:33.440 to the co -op by truck, by our Land Rover. Other 00:47:33.440 --> 00:47:37.699 farmers did the same from outlying areas. And 00:47:37.699 --> 00:47:40.820 eventually then they squeezed and squeezed the 00:47:40.820 --> 00:47:43.599 ones that were on cans who they said they would 00:47:43.599 --> 00:47:47.010 never let down. and it got too much from the 00:47:47.010 --> 00:47:51.630 big powers, and eventually they squeezed those, 00:47:51.829 --> 00:47:56.389 like Dad and the small dairy farmers, got to 00:47:56.389 --> 00:47:59.530 the stage where they said, well, yeah, we're 00:47:59.530 --> 00:48:02.010 not going to accept your milk anymore. What time 00:48:02.010 --> 00:48:06.530 frame are we talking about? Dad was still milking 00:48:06.530 --> 00:48:10.789 surplus milk up to 1976, so I reckon we finished 00:48:10.789 --> 00:48:16.510 in 1974. would have been pretty close to getting 00:48:16.510 --> 00:48:20.449 out of the quota system. And then he milked, 00:48:20.449 --> 00:48:22.909 he still supplied milk with surplus milk, which 00:48:22.909 --> 00:48:25.869 was a lower price than obviously the quota milk. 00:48:26.650 --> 00:48:31.429 But, yeah, it's hard to say. I might be a bit 00:48:31.429 --> 00:48:37.190 harsh, but they squeezed a lot of farmers. Your 00:48:37.190 --> 00:48:39.530 milk would get rejected, the ones with cans. 00:48:40.130 --> 00:48:43.659 You'd get sediment tests. And that happened quite 00:48:43.659 --> 00:48:46.199 regularly and I think they were given the message, 00:48:46.460 --> 00:48:49.840 what they did, you'd pick the empty can, sorry, 00:48:49.920 --> 00:48:52.099 when they come back and there'd be an envelope 00:48:52.099 --> 00:48:54.599 with a letter to say your milk was rejected, 00:48:54.739 --> 00:48:58.059 sediment test, failed sediment test. And they'd 00:48:58.059 --> 00:49:03.940 have a little sample pad in there and you'd see 00:49:03.940 --> 00:49:06.400 little specks of yellow butterfat and sometimes 00:49:06.400 --> 00:49:11.039 some little tiny bits of light dust on it. But 00:49:11.039 --> 00:49:15.900 I think... It got to a regular stage where I 00:49:15.900 --> 00:49:18.320 think they were trying to give... Yeah, they 00:49:18.320 --> 00:49:22.159 were phasing out. So you'd only get surplus milk 00:49:22.159 --> 00:49:25.900 price. So they were breaking you down. I think 00:49:25.900 --> 00:49:29.519 so. Yeah, when you look at it, they wanted it 00:49:29.519 --> 00:49:33.079 all mechanised, bulk milk. They could cut down, 00:49:33.239 --> 00:49:37.139 I presume. Well, they did. The labour at the 00:49:37.139 --> 00:49:40.630 co -op would cut down because... When your milk 00:49:40.630 --> 00:49:45.610 cans come in, you had two blokes. They were metal 00:49:45.610 --> 00:49:48.510 rollers, so the truck drivers backed in. They 00:49:48.510 --> 00:49:51.190 put them like a metal conveyor belt. They were 00:49:51.190 --> 00:49:54.789 rollers, so your milk can went on that and followed 00:49:54.789 --> 00:49:58.789 a chain around. You had two blokes, Roy Woods 00:49:58.789 --> 00:50:02.980 and Ron Lee. They were the milk graders. So they 00:50:02.980 --> 00:50:05.340 had a special thing that popped the lids off 00:50:05.340 --> 00:50:08.179 the milk can. As they'd come past, they'd stick 00:50:08.179 --> 00:50:10.619 their head in and smell the can, smell the milk, 00:50:10.679 --> 00:50:14.360 and they were the milk graders. So they would 00:50:14.360 --> 00:50:16.559 have went for a start. Further down the line, 00:50:16.579 --> 00:50:18.599 you had the ones that tipped the milk. Yeah, 00:50:18.679 --> 00:50:22.519 so they would have cut back on labour. You still 00:50:22.519 --> 00:50:27.639 had your internal workers, like Ian Jorgensen 00:50:27.639 --> 00:50:31.599 you were talking to, his dad and his uncle Bill. 00:50:32.389 --> 00:50:38.309 His dad, Norman, they were retrained. They'd 00:50:38.309 --> 00:50:42.469 done all the yogurts and skim milks and things 00:50:42.469 --> 00:50:44.989 and tanker drivers. They did a bit of tanker 00:50:44.989 --> 00:50:47.989 driving, that type of thing. So they were re 00:50:47.989 --> 00:50:50.630 -skilled. Yeah, re -skilled. Think about your 00:50:50.630 --> 00:50:54.090 dad's car, all the land, and you can describe 00:50:54.090 --> 00:50:57.230 what model and how that was purchased. Yeah, 00:50:57.269 --> 00:51:01.329 that was a 1961 Series 2. long -wheelbase Land 00:51:01.329 --> 00:51:06.969 Rover. And they were having mechanical problems 00:51:06.969 --> 00:51:11.530 with the old 1949 model. It was a long base. 00:51:12.150 --> 00:51:16.130 And when they were at the pub, which is one afternoon 00:51:16.130 --> 00:51:20.530 a week, Friday night, Dad would go down and gather 00:51:20.530 --> 00:51:23.329 with his mates, other dairy farmers and some 00:51:23.329 --> 00:51:25.409 of the ones from the co -op. You'd buy your lottery 00:51:25.409 --> 00:51:27.989 tickets from behind the bar. I think they were 00:51:27.989 --> 00:51:31.400 10 shillings or... something like that, equal 00:51:31.400 --> 00:51:34.260 to what you buy now, the $2 jackpot. Him and 00:51:34.260 --> 00:51:38.019 his cousin, Eric Leslie, Jack Graham, again, 00:51:38.519 --> 00:51:42.480 I was only about three, four, and they used to 00:51:42.480 --> 00:51:46.820 announce them at lunch, midday, the lottery winners, 00:51:47.079 --> 00:51:51.340 name the names, everything, over the radio. And 00:51:51.340 --> 00:51:55.780 I can remember my mum screaming, grabbed me by 00:51:55.780 --> 00:51:59.099 the hand and out the door and off. and dragged 00:51:59.099 --> 00:52:01.380 me over the gully where they were working to 00:52:01.380 --> 00:52:04.599 tell them. So that was 2 ,500 pounds, so that's 00:52:04.599 --> 00:52:11.059 1966. So that's the price of a Land Rover. So 00:52:11.059 --> 00:52:13.400 they had to add, I think, another 200 or 300 00:52:13.400 --> 00:52:16.360 pounds to that and were able to buy it brand 00:52:16.360 --> 00:52:19.480 new. So they won the lottery. They won the lottery, 00:52:19.639 --> 00:52:24.739 yeah. And where's that Land Rover today? Yeah, 00:52:24.860 --> 00:52:29.699 when Mum's place was sold, I had big ideas of 00:52:29.699 --> 00:52:33.119 restoring it, but never had the money. But Laurie's 00:52:33.119 --> 00:52:37.960 brother, he's an avid car restorer, so it went 00:52:37.960 --> 00:52:40.760 to a mate of his who's restoring it at the moment, 00:52:40.800 --> 00:52:43.239 which is good. I wanted to ask you something 00:52:43.239 --> 00:52:46.059 about, was it your grandmother that died walking 00:52:46.059 --> 00:52:50.719 home? So when did Mindy Anna pass away? 1920. 00:52:53.260 --> 00:52:55.880 I'm not quite sure. She was up here visiting. 00:52:56.670 --> 00:52:59.710 A grandmother, or for some other medical reason, 00:52:59.769 --> 00:53:02.750 I know she was a midwife, but she was up here 00:53:02.750 --> 00:53:05.389 anyway, and walking back down the hill to Myrtlebank 00:53:05.389 --> 00:53:09.110 in the dark, probably had a hurricane land, she 00:53:09.110 --> 00:53:15.429 stepped into a hole and hurt herself really bad. 00:53:15.530 --> 00:53:17.349 They got her into Bury Hospital, which would 00:53:17.349 --> 00:53:20.590 have been a major thing to transport, probably 00:53:20.590 --> 00:53:23.530 sulky, but apparently she'd done severe damage 00:53:23.530 --> 00:53:27.840 to her kidneys, bruised. And she passed away. 00:53:27.840 --> 00:53:31.239 She only lasted two, three days in Bury Hospital. 00:53:32.079 --> 00:53:36.260 Dad was only 11 when she passed away. Because 00:53:36.260 --> 00:53:39.619 it's quite high, the land here. Oh, look, it's 00:53:39.619 --> 00:53:41.400 pretty treacherous even walking down there in 00:53:41.400 --> 00:53:44.179 the daylight. For us to walk down there now, 00:53:44.480 --> 00:53:49.400 it's that steep. Your parents married. Where 00:53:49.400 --> 00:53:54.300 did they meet? Do you know? Yeah, Mum. Mum, when 00:53:54.300 --> 00:53:56.360 they were on Browns Mountain, Mum had a... When 00:53:56.360 --> 00:53:58.420 she'd come back from Sydney from her cousins... 00:53:58.420 --> 00:54:03.000 OK, so let's slow that down. Can I call her Kitty? 00:54:03.280 --> 00:54:06.980 Yes. Because she's known as Kitty. Yeah. So Kitty 00:54:06.980 --> 00:54:11.159 went to the city. Yeah, she was... When they 00:54:11.159 --> 00:54:15.099 moved to Browns Mountain, it was thought by her 00:54:15.099 --> 00:54:18.900 mum and dad a better education for her and as 00:54:18.900 --> 00:54:22.239 a teenager rather than grow up fully on the farm. 00:54:22.860 --> 00:54:26.039 She went to live up in Sydney with her old aunties. 00:54:26.119 --> 00:54:31.820 Where was that? In Bondi. And she went to school 00:54:31.820 --> 00:54:37.400 and grew up with her three cousins. What was 00:54:37.400 --> 00:54:40.639 she doing? The two aunties owned a big cafe, 00:54:40.820 --> 00:54:43.940 restaurant in Bondi. So when she'd come back, 00:54:44.239 --> 00:54:47.860 obviously it could be school holidays or whenever, 00:54:48.079 --> 00:54:51.460 she had a job three days at the Kenwara lookout. 00:54:52.119 --> 00:54:55.559 in the cafe cooking up there. So she'd ride a 00:54:55.559 --> 00:54:58.800 horse from Browns Mountain up through, there 00:54:58.800 --> 00:55:01.219 was a butter trail there that'd come up on the 00:55:01.219 --> 00:55:04.840 point of the Kimora Escarpment. So she'd ride 00:55:04.840 --> 00:55:07.980 through there. At the time, my dad was working 00:55:07.980 --> 00:55:10.539 and living with his brother over at Beaumont. 00:55:11.659 --> 00:55:14.480 And he was working around the side of the hill 00:55:14.480 --> 00:55:18.199 up towards close to the road. And they started, 00:55:18.239 --> 00:55:22.099 I suppose, saying g'day to each other. Then he 00:55:22.099 --> 00:55:25.559 started courting her. So what year are we talking 00:55:25.559 --> 00:55:30.500 about there? They were married in 1945. During 00:55:30.500 --> 00:55:33.420 the war? During the war, yeah. So they're on 00:55:33.420 --> 00:55:36.679 horses? Yes, yeah, it was all horseback, yeah. 00:55:37.760 --> 00:55:40.380 What sort of rider was your dad? Yeah, good. 00:55:40.940 --> 00:55:43.719 And what sort of horses? Stock horses, yeah. 00:55:44.159 --> 00:55:47.619 Yeah, the ones from the farm here. They were 00:55:47.619 --> 00:55:50.940 probably locally bred. Back in those days, horses 00:55:50.940 --> 00:55:56.139 were everywhere. Mum only through talking to 00:55:56.139 --> 00:55:58.460 her in the nursing home and that. Her horse, 00:55:58.579 --> 00:56:02.139 Pony, was called Pixie, the one she'd ride to 00:56:02.139 --> 00:56:04.780 the lookout. There was a black mare called Mabel 00:56:04.780 --> 00:56:08.860 and then there was a pieball horse that Dad had 00:56:08.860 --> 00:56:13.260 to the end was called Del. During the Second 00:56:13.260 --> 00:56:16.380 World War, they formed a militia. The home... 00:56:17.389 --> 00:56:19.789 the English would call a home guard. They were 00:56:19.789 --> 00:56:23.409 probably ex -World War I, but the head of it 00:56:23.409 --> 00:56:29.010 was Jim Sturges from up in Sassafras. Can I just 00:56:29.010 --> 00:56:31.590 slow that down a minute? So the militia, it was 00:56:31.590 --> 00:56:34.630 a locally formed group of men? Yeah, yeah. Ones 00:56:34.630 --> 00:56:37.550 that were too old to go away, some of the ones. 00:56:37.610 --> 00:56:41.789 My dad, he was recalled for essential services 00:56:41.789 --> 00:56:46.210 after he trained and kitted out. So they trained. 00:56:46.719 --> 00:56:50.400 um one afternoon a week along where Campbell's 00:56:50.400 --> 00:56:53.519 sail yards are now apparently that was the um 00:56:53.519 --> 00:56:56.460 shooting range so they what were they training 00:56:56.460 --> 00:57:00.380 for um what was the point of well they they thought 00:57:00.380 --> 00:57:04.920 if a Japanese landed at Jervis Bay and I don't 00:57:04.920 --> 00:57:07.599 know what they were going to do but um they they 00:57:07.599 --> 00:57:10.619 put a few strategic plans in place and one of 00:57:10.619 --> 00:57:13.300 them was they had the Camberwara mountain and 00:57:13.300 --> 00:57:16.829 the tourist road It was all dynamited, ready 00:57:16.829 --> 00:57:20.250 for... Sorry, the charges were set ready to dynamite 00:57:20.250 --> 00:57:23.429 the mountain if the word come through that the 00:57:23.429 --> 00:57:27.230 Japanese had landed in Jervis Bay. They also 00:57:27.230 --> 00:57:30.349 needed... They said if that happened, they wanted 00:57:30.349 --> 00:57:32.769 somewhere to get off the mountain where they 00:57:32.769 --> 00:57:35.389 could head for Kangaroo Valley and Bajong in 00:57:35.389 --> 00:57:38.550 a hurry. So they came up to the mountain and 00:57:38.550 --> 00:57:42.380 my mum's older brother... He took them around 00:57:42.380 --> 00:57:45.659 and showed them to the point overlooking Budgeon 00:57:45.659 --> 00:57:50.500 and he said, this is where you can get off. And 00:57:50.500 --> 00:57:55.780 the story from Uncle Dud was that Jim Sturges 00:57:55.780 --> 00:57:59.920 said, no way, man nor horse could never get down 00:57:59.920 --> 00:58:02.679 there. And Uncle Dud says, well, I'll have you 00:58:02.679 --> 00:58:05.820 know my sister rides down there and rides down 00:58:05.820 --> 00:58:08.159 there bareback. So she must have been quite a 00:58:08.159 --> 00:58:11.619 capable person, Kitty. Yeah. What do you remember 00:58:11.619 --> 00:58:15.880 about Kitty as a young man? Yeah, she was a hard 00:58:15.880 --> 00:58:20.599 worker beside Dad on the farm. Yeah, when you 00:58:20.599 --> 00:58:25.320 look back now, doting Mum, just devoted her time, 00:58:25.380 --> 00:58:30.480 life, to what she did with Dad and us kids and 00:58:30.480 --> 00:58:35.420 never wanted for anything. She was a brilliant 00:58:35.420 --> 00:58:40.630 cook. Thank you, Richard. To see photos relating 00:58:40.630 --> 00:58:44.829 to this podcast, follow me on Instagram, Therese 00:58:44.829 --> 00:58:49.050 Makes History, or go to my website, theresesweeney 00:58:49.050 --> 00:58:56.369 .com .au. Give me 48 hours. Thank you. If you 00:58:56.369 --> 00:58:59.309 heard ticking whilst listening to today's podcast, 00:58:59.789 --> 00:59:04.170 it's just Richard's metal heart valves. He calls 00:59:04.170 --> 00:59:08.710 them his chaff cutters. Tune in Tuesday fortnight 00:59:08.710 --> 00:59:14.110 for episode 4, Lammons Lane, featuring Patrick 00:59:14.110 --> 00:59:18.809 Muller, whose family lived on Lammons Lane for 00:59:18.809 --> 00:59:24.150 six generations until recent years. This project 00:59:24.150 --> 00:59:28.369 that I have initiated receives no government 00:59:28.369 --> 00:59:33.849 funding. A donate button has been activated at 00:59:33.849 --> 00:59:39.619 my host... podcast site rss .com. Simply google 00:59:39.619 --> 00:59:42.440 the Dairy Lane Project should you want to listen. 00:59:43.039 --> 00:59:46.900 All my podcasts will be hosted on my own website 00:59:46.900 --> 00:59:51.360 as well. This project is my initiative and my 00:59:51.360 --> 00:59:55.860 digital investment in the region, laying foundations 00:59:55.860 --> 01:00:01.119 for future generations. At its completion it 01:00:01.119 --> 01:00:05.170 will be archived at Nowra Library. through their 01:00:05.170 --> 01:00:08.570 networks. I've just launched the business side 01:00:08.570 --> 01:00:13.309 of my work. I also offer my services to the wider 01:00:13.309 --> 01:00:17.070 community. Have a look at my business section 01:00:17.070 --> 01:00:22.309 at my website, theresesweeney .com .au. Feel 01:00:22.309 --> 01:00:25.389 free to get in touch with me. Thanks for listening 01:00:25.389 --> 01:00:28.070 and tell your friends. Bye.