Patrick Muller was born in 1954 and he's one
of seven children to parents Albert and Vonnie
Muller. His mother, Vonnie, is 100 years old.
Patrick's great -great -grandfather, Jacob, and
wife, Annie, with three young children, migrated
to Australia on December 1854 from Hamburg, Germany.
Germans were assisted to emigrate if the British
could not supply the skills, mainly in agriculture
and wine. They travelled with 500 others on the
ship Cateau -Wattel, that is C -A -T -E -A -U
-X -W -A -T -T -E -L. Jacob and his family then
boarded the vessel Norma, arriving in the Shoalhaven
on the 14th of March 1955. He was indentured
to work for David Berry. They lived initially
in a house at Back Forest. Jacob was naturalised
in 1861, which enabled him to buy land. He remained
all his life working on the estate at Koolangatta
as a plasterer. He bought a house in 1880 in
Berry Street, Nowra, deding this to his son George
in 1882. George was to follow in his footsteps
and became a builder after his father's passing.
Next son John bought an initial 86 acres from
John Hay, which was part of the Maroo estate
in 1893, when the larger Berry estate lands were
being sold. His brother George built his house,
Pomona. Five generations of the Muller family
were to grow up and farm at Pomona. Pomona today
is heritage listed and was the heart of the Maroo
community throughout the 20th century. John married
Mary Host in 1877 and had seven children. His
son Albert married Bridget Morrissey in 1912
and leased Pomona till 1941, then he purchased
it. They had eight children. and worked as a
share farmer after he marries Vonnie Walsh in
1948. They purchased Pomona in 1959. For Pomona
to survive the introduction of milk quotas in
the 60s and 70s, extra land had to be purchased.
Even though farm practices and machinery were
improving, it was a rapidly changing industry
and economic environment. Patrick Muller, their
son, was to remain with the farm and bought Pomona
in 1986 with wife Jeanette King from Noomba.
They left the property forever in 2016, having
sold the bulk of the property a few years earlier.
Continuous ownership by the Muller family for
approximately 120 years, Patrick recalls, his
daily life farming in Maroo, and reflects on
the challenges and the stories that have been
passed to him by his neighbours and his ancestors.
I hope you enjoyed as much as I enjoyed it. So
thanks for joining us today, Patrick Muller.
That's okay. How are you going? Very good, thanks.
Yeah, very good. It's interesting to see what
you're doing with this history. It's important,
I think, that it's recorded. We're still in Maroo
Meadow and today we're going to talk about Lemons
Lane where you grew up. So how far back does
your family go in Lemons Lane? My great -grandfather
purchased a block, 86 acres, in Lemons Lane in
1893 when the Berry Estate was being sold up.
Before that he had arrived in Australia. with
his father and his elder brother George in 1856.
They came from a place called Fronstein in Germany.
My great -great -grandfather Jacob came out as
an indentured labourer for the Berry Estate and
he came out as a vine dresser, but I think he
ended up doing a lot of work as a plasterer.
John was three when he came out, my great -grandfather.
He was working on the farm and then eventually
he ended up getting a lease share farming agreement.
with David Berry and working out at Farmeadow.
Do you recall what ship they came out on and
what his wife's name was and how many kids? The
ship was the Kato Wattel and I believe it sailed
from Hamburg. Came out with his wife, I think
his wife's name was Anna. Yeah, they arrived
in Sydney and moved down to the coast working
with the Berry estate and he eventually signed
a share farming agreement in 1877. share farm
on this estate so that agreement is that the
agreement that i have here in my farm yes yeah
that's who gave you that it's just been passed
on down through the family my great -grandfather
actually john was a very avid diary keeper and
he kept diaries for 1870s right up to nearly
to when he passed away in 1941 at the age of
90 one or two so we've been able to glean a lot
of information out of those diaries And it's
a fascinating insight into life on the farm and
around that time. That land agreement, is that
the land that Lemons Lane is on today? No, the
share farming agreement was out at Back Forest,
somewhere out there. But then when the estate,
it was being sold in... In 1893, he would have
been about 40 then, so he purchased the 86 acres
at Maroo. We know from the fact that there was
a diary entry where he paid £36 an acre for the
86 acres, which we think was a fair amount of
money then, but you've got to remember that Tandingulla
Creek flowed through the property and provided
a water source at the time. But there would have
been a lot of clearing to do, there would have
been a lot of trees, which would have been done
by hand. He started a dairy farm up there pretty
well straight away, milking cows, and they also
established an orchard, and the name Pomona is
Roman for the goddess of fruit. So they established
a fairly extensive orchard there, and some of
those original trees that were planted are still
there, although they're sort of getting a bit
tired now. Can you describe the orchard? Yeah,
it had a variety of different trees, plum trees,
peach trees, pear trees, apples. And I know there
was persimmon trees, locust trees. There was
a lot of different types of fruit grown there.
And where did the fruit go? A lot of it would
have been used by the family. And we know this
from the diaries that they used to grow a lot
of vegetables. And a lot of those vegetables
were grown and then onsold through to Sydney
on the train in the early part of the 20th century.
OK, what else do you know about your great -grandfather?
He was very active. They were very active in
the community. He was very community -minded.
He actually had a tennis court built at the front
of the property, which was used by the local
community. He also had a cricket pitch built
behind the dairy, the old dairy that's still
there in the Lemons Lane, and the cricket pitch
is still actually there, although it's a bit
worn now, underneath all the grass. When we were
kids, we used to play there. There was a Maroo
Cricket Club, the MCC or the MMCC. And they used
to play in local competitions and travel quite
extensively around the place in villages like
Camberwara, Piree, Bolong. What sort of cows
do you know? Was he breeding or was...? They
would have had Ayrshire cows originally to start
with and they were mostly Ayrshires or crossbreed
cows. Grandfather, there was a new dairy built
there in 1917 on the property. They're just not
far from Pomona. That building is still standing,
although it's been modified a bit. He built that
in 1917. He was one of the first in the district
to install milking machines for the cows to be
milked. So prior to that, they would have been
milking by hand. Do you know what, was it a walkthrough?
Yeah, walkthrough. It would have been, originally
it was four, it was eight unit, but four double
up units and four milking machines. It was like
that for a long while then. I think my father
doubled them up so they could milk eight. and
eventually we converted that dairy into a herringbone
dairy. When did Pomona first get built, and do
you know anything about the plans and the purpose?
We don't have any plans for it, but as I said,
my great -grandfather's brother George built
that for him in what would have been not long
after the purchase of it. It would have been
starting to build straight away because they
would have had to live somewhere. So this is
George Muller. George Muller, yeah. Did he build
anything else nearby? Yeah, I think he did build
a place called Exeter, which I think is the one
on the hill just opposite Murray Road down there.
And also I know of another place that's just
at the bottom of Morton's Hill where Bolong Road
joins the highway. There's a house in there,
an old house there. I believe he built that and
probably other houses around in our area as well.
So they came out from Germany as...? It came
out, I think, as a vine dresser. My great -great
-grandfather ended up working as a plasterer
and sort of builder and probably doing agricultural
pursuits as well. Do you know if they ever grew
vines? Don't think so, no. He used to go to the
Sydney show, preparing the district exhibits.
There's a lot of mention of that in the diaries
about how he went to Sydney. And because of their
involvement in the community and the way they
embraced the community and invited people. into
their home and into the property, into Bermuda,
they went to my great -grandfather and my great
-grandmother went to New Zealand, I think in
about 1920. And when they arrived back, they
were presented with an illuminated address, which
I'm not sure whether you're familiar with, but
it was a big framed address just thanking them
for their contribution to the community and how
well they were received by the community and
how they were perceived by the community. It
was something that took pride of place hanging
on the wall at Pomona because it just embraced
what my great -grandfather and great -grandmother
did for the community. Let's talk a bit more
about the house. Later days, the Sunday school
picnic used to be held there. When the Maroos
school was going, they'd have a picnic day there
every once a year, which involved all the local
kids and community and families coming together.
Do you remember those yourself? Oh, yeah, I can
remember the picnic. So tell me a bit more about
your lived experience of it. I have a guilty
conscience about that because I know they used
to have the... They had a big tent and they'd
had an ice cream, the canvas bags of ice cream
with the dry ice in them and all the ice creams
in there. And I can recall myself and another
kid, and I don't know who it was, thought that
was just too tempting, so we snuck around the
back and got in and took an ice cream each, which
meant we probably got two for the day. That's
pretty normal. It was just one of those things.
I mean, yeah, there was the races they used to
have, the three -legged races and egg and sperm
races and all sorts of things. It was just a
great community day. How many people would be
there? Oh, I don't know. There might be 40 or
50. Lots of kids? Lots of kids, yeah. It was
a great day. The kids used to look forward to
it. Part of the school, the hall also was part
of the... Maroo community, that was built in
1933. A little bit of history about that, which
I gleaned from George Marshall, and I think also
my father spoke about it, to build a hall in
the community, and it was right beside the highway,
the old highway that was there. It was either
going to be on Tom Hitchcock's land or... Or
Dick Barron. And apparently the hall was eventually
built on Tom Hitchcock's land. Yeah, so the Maroo
Hall, it was... became a focal point for the
community and it was sort of opposite the school.
They used to have end of year function there
for the school presentation I suppose and also
a Christmas function which the whole community
would welcome to attend and of course everyone
brought a plate and there was always a wonderful
supper as you could imagine. A lot of fun for
the kids, Santa Claus would arrive. The hall
was also used by the community for other different
functions throughout the year. A local resident
was leaving. They'd have a farewell there in
the hall. If it was a new family moved into the
district, they'd have a welcoming get -together
there at the hall. And there was a lot of dancers
there in the early days. My mother's family,
actually the Walsh family orchestra, used to
play there. Who in the Walsh family? Do you know
who played and what instrument? It would have
been Mum's brothers and her sister. Her sister
Sheila. Mum was a bit young to be playing at
that stage. But her brother Frank, Mick and Bede
and Tom and Ted, I'm not sure whether they were
all in it, but they were all very musical. They
all played, I can't remember, I know there was
saxophones involved and pianos. So they must
have been trained as young kids. I think a lot
of them, they were probably self -taught, I think.
I'm not sure whether they had lessons, but they
were very well known around there. and the district
needs to play in a lot of places. Mum, she became
a very accomplished singer and you sang at many,
many weddings and events right throughout the
district and involved with the church and the
choir. So you'd go to Maroo Church? No, we went
to the Catholic Church in Narra. The Maroo Church
would have been functioning in those early days,
obviously. It was a union church, so it was different
denominations. But the Catholic Church... Didn't
have services there. You said something about
Maroo Church and the stained glass in the windows.
Yeah, that stained glass window, that was commissioned
by Rennie Warshall, one of George and Len Warshall's
sister. And her brother, then George and Len's
brother, Mark, was killed in the Second World
War in New Guinea. And she had that stained glass
window commissioned in memory of Mark. Can you
recall that window, what it looks like? Yeah,
it was very... Because it was on the western
side, and so when the sun was shining through
it, I mean, all those stained glass windows are
amazing, what they can do. So it is very... Beautiful.
Yeah, beautiful. Beautiful tribute to one of
the local pioneering families. And that church
itself was... It sort of... It was used a lot,
but then it fell into... Like it wasn't used,
and there was... I can't remember, it would be
35 years ago or so, there was an advertisement
appeared in the local paper that the council
was going to sell the land because that was left
to, by David Berry, to the people of Maroo and
also the same church was built out at Cromwell
Point. So there was an advertisement appeared
that the council were going to sell the land
and Renny Marshall, Morrissey, her daughter Marcia,
who lived next door to us in Lemons Lane in the
old Charlie Lemond house, she was... pretty upset
about that, and a lot of other people were very
upset about that and said, no, this is not going
to happen. And so the Maroo community got together,
formed a committee called the Friends of Maroo
Union Church. The Friends of Maroo Union Church
took over the running and maintenance of that
block of land. There's a couple of acres there.
What era are we talking about? That's about the
1990s or late 80s. Were you involved in that?
No, but my father and mother were very involved
in that. I was busy working on it. on the farm
that Dad sort of had a bit more time and he was
very involved with that. And it became a focal
point. They have services there and I think they
still have services there probably once a month
by the different denominations. And it was very
moving. We actually, our eldest daughter was
married there in 2005, which was very touching
and very, very special to us. And there's other
tributes in the plaques on the wall for all the
people that... from Maroo that went and served
in the war or were unfortunately killed in the
war as well. You said George Marshall said a
few things to you before he passed. What was
the context of the conversation? I was just filling
in some holes that I had from... Unfortunately,
after my father passed away, I had a lot of questions
about Maroo that he would have known and I...
I'm sort of always sorry that I never followed
up on some of that things. I mean, at the time
you're young and you just don't think about it
and that's why I find this is so fascinating
to find people that can recall all this sort
of information that's important to be recorded.
Yeah, he told me a bit about Charlie Lemond and
I mentioned that about the sale. Describe it
again. So what happened? Well, Charlie Lemond,
after he died, his land was sold. Well, he had
a fair bit of land around Baroo, I'm not sure
how much, but he had that block on Lemons Lane
on the right as you drive down, 80 -odd acres
there, and that was a block of land that we ended
up buying in 1973, except for the two acres that
the old house, Charlie Lemons' house, is on there,
because that was Leonard Marshall's niece, Marcia,
and her husband, Ray Collins. got that old house
and it had been completely run down and no one
had lived in it for about 30 or 40 years and
so it was a bit run down but they did a marvellous
job of restoring it and bringing it back to life
and it was just a credit to them the way they
did that. And then they took off two acres and
we purchased the other 79 acres. That was there.
They built that in 1973. Was he? Well, after
he passed away, I think he stayed in 1908. And
then he must have had 100 acres on the swamp
that my grandfather bought as well at the time.
What was your grandfather's full name? His name
was Albert too, but he was known as Bert Muller.
And who did he marry? Bridget Morrissey. I think
she was from South Australia. I'm not sure how
they met or anything, but yeah. So that was...
1908. And there's this interesting story about
the, I'm not sure whether it's been mentioned,
about the Chinaman that had a property, had a
couple of acres there in that corner of that
block that we bought, virtually at the corner,
north -eastern corner of the block, which sort
of fronted Lammon's Lane and Morshall's Lane,
what's now known as Morshall's Lane. There was
a Chinaman there that had, used a market garden,
a little market garden, and he lived in a slab
hut there. He used to take his produce. grow
produce there, and there's still some remains
of pipe work and that that's still there. We
could see it there after we bought the property,
and it's still there now. Apparently he used
to take his produce into the bombardier and sell
it in there, but he used to go along the railway
line, follow along the railway line with the
horse and cart. Apparently one night, this is
all according to George, he was coming back,
I think he'd visited the pub before he came home,
and he'd come back and the train hit and killed
his horse. So he had no way of getting his produce
into town, into Bombardier. So he moved his farm
from there into an area there now, which is opposite
Hanlon's windows, apparently. And he set up a
market garden there, right near Bombardier Creek.
Did you know his name? No, I don't know his name.
So we're going back to the sale. There was a
particular sale under a tree. Yeah, that was
Charlie Lemon had the sale of his cattle, which
would have been a big sale because he had some
pretty well... He used to show his cattle. I
think he had a pretty good herd. And he did tell
me that an auctioneer from Sydney came down to
sell them and that they washed them in the creek.
You know, you're selling cattle, you've got to
prepare them and make them look good. So the
creek ran through the corner of that property,
Tandingulla Creek. Was there any mention of the
herd? What type of breed? I think they would
have been Ayrshire or a shorter one. So the Ayrshire
breed, do you know much about that breed when
it first came? It was probably one of the most
popular breeds around. Then the Friesian. Friesians
were introduced particularly in the 50s, late
50s, when the Graham Park breeding facility was
opened and it opened up opportunity for farmers
to use semen from bulls that were from overseas.
England and Canada mainly at that time. And also
Australian bulls too, so Friesian herds. Do you
know who bought the cattle? Probably mostly local
people would have bought the cattle at that particular
sale. And you said it was a type, what type of
tree? Fig tree, and the big fig tree is still
there, still standing. It's a strangler fig,
which I learned a lot about, a bit about. Later,
I didn't realise what it was at the time, but
it's a strangler fig and you can actually see
how it's completely strangled, probably a tea
tree that was growing there. You can see the
inside of the tea tree inside it. So it's probably
hundreds of years old. It's fascinating. There's
a couple of others down there as well doing the
same thing. They would have been probably fig
seeds from up in the mountain that were dropped
by birds flying down from the mountain, dropped
into the tree and then they germinate and slowly
over hundreds of years strangle the tree, grow
on the... Tree. Sent the roots down to the ground.
Beautiful trees, aren't they? They are. Yeah,
it was amazing. What else did George tell you?
Do you remember George and Len there? Oh, yeah,
yeah, I remember. We used to... One of the other
stories was with Lemons Lane, used to run from
the highway right down to the railway line. But
in the early 60s, the bridge was washed out.
There was an old wooden timber bridge there that
was washed out. So at that stage... So they used
to go down Lammers Lane to get to their property.
So once that was washed out, it wasn't replaced
by council until later on, which I'll get to.
They constructed a lane just for them up what
is now Marshalls Lane. They owned land on the
western side of what is now Marshalls Lane. George
and Len both owned a bit of land there. And they
built that road up themselves, which is the little
tractor and pick and shovel, probably in the
60s. I think when that bridge was originally
washed out. Because we had land on the swamp,
so we had to access that land too. And once that
bridge was gone, we didn't have access. So what
Dad and I can still remember doing it myself
on a little pony, taking cattle down to our swamp
block, which was over the railway line at the
end of Lennards Lane. We'd have to go down Lennards
Lane, then go into the Lennards property and
chase the cattle through there and put them out
down the corner and then cross the railway line
into our property. So it was a big day out because
Leonard would have his cattle in there or Marshalls
would have their cattle in there and we'd have
three or four or five cows or whatever and you'd
have to keep them separate. So Dad was on horseback
and had a good dog and so we were able to do
that. But it was a bit of hard work. And then
you'd have to bring cattle from the swamp back
up the same way, reverse. We also had a property
up the end of Strong's Road. a run up there,
which my grandfather had purchased sometime probably
in the 1920s, 30s. And to get our cattle up there,
we would have to take them down Lemons Lane,
up what is now Marshalls Lane, across the highway,
up Devitts Lane, and then we'd chase them up
through Wessie Waters Place up the side of the
hill. There was a bit of a track up the side
of the hill. So that was a big day out because
these heifers that we used to put young stock
up there. they would have never been there before,
so they didn't know where they were going. So
the best way to do it was on foot, so that's
where those kids came in handy. With the dog,
dad on horseback, we'd herd them up the side
of the mountain and get them up to the top, put
them in a yard, and then there'd be some up there
that'd have to come back, so we'd have to bring
some back because they might have to go with
the bull. They were old enough to be mated and
come into the herd, so we'd have to reverse the
procedure and bring them back down. through Wessig
Waters, down Devitts Lane, back across the highway,
all the way back home. So it was a big day out.
And that happened up until about the 1970s, early
1970s. We'd purchased this other land at Leonard
Marshall's block. We'd also purchased a bit of
George Marshall's block, 25 acres over the creek,
beside the lane that's now Marshall's Lane. And
Dad used to share that with his brother, Norman,
who lived in Muller's Lane. He had a dairy farm
there too, and he used to put some of his stock
up there. But he used to truck them up there
and jump off a truck up there, which we probably
should have done that too. It would have been
a lot easier. So you didn't need to cross the
highway and go up. You sold the land up at Strongsville.
Yeah, eventually Dad and his brother Norman sold
that land, and we didn't need that because we
had more land, and we bought other land as well,
which was George Martin's, which was Tom Hitchcock's.
farm. We bought 65 acres of that in 1981 as well
so we had eventually ended up with all our land.
How many acres did you end up with and how many
cows are you milking? We ended up with 360 acres
about. We sold the swamp block in 2000 and we
bought part of Liz Vaughan's farm which used
to belong to one stage by my great uncle Jacob
Muller. We didn't either. the mountain block
anymore which was a good thing it was always
hard work going up there we um oh just just you
just about get the heifers to the top and then
one at bolt and straight down to the bottom so
you'd have to let them all go back down start
all over again that was pretty well and what
are you carrying with you like what are you doing
you just using your hands yeah just on foot might
have that had stock whip and the dog get them
on the track and hopefully they stay there was
a lot of work a lot of hard work but that was
just what we did yes So your father's full name,
and who did he marry? He was Albert Muller, Albert
Timothy Muller, and he married Veronica Walsh,
or Vonnie, as she's known right through the community.
In 1948 they were married. Yes, and what year
was he born? Dad and Mum were both born in 1924.
And Vonnie's still alive? Vonnie's still alive,
yeah, just turned 100. And what about your siblings
and their names and years? Two older brothers,
Michael is 75, Greg's 73, then me and my sister
Kathy, she's 69, Brian is 66 and Margaret and
then David, so David's the youngest, he's 61.
There's a few of you helping out with the cows?
Yeah, when it was required around the farm, yeah,
we all chipped in, we all had jobs to do, we
all helped with the milking. Because we were
all off at school, he had to employ labour, which
was always a problem, to try getting good labour.
I know Mum did an enormous amount of work, and
we really respect what Mum did, because she was,
apart from raising her seven kids, she was keeping
the house, helping Dad, doing different chores
and everything, and she was very involved in
the community as well, so she was amazing. So
what was she doing in the community? Originally
with the school, with the school and the church,
she was on the PNCs and PNFs at St Michael's
and the church. She was very involved with the
Catholic church in Nara and the choir and things
like that. So your father was a volunteer for
the rural fire? Yeah, they were volunteers, yeah,
and they had a bit of equipment at Baroo. And
one thing, they were involved in fighting the
fires. Fires occurred in 1968. And we were up
on the hill near towards our run and up the back
near Boxall's up that way, a bit further around
towards the north. I remember going up there
with the knapsacks and the rakes and just trying
to beat it all out, stop it burning. Burnt right
down to the highway nearly at Jasper's Brush
that year. It was a very dry year. How intense
was that fighting it? I was only 14, 14 years
old then, 14, 15 years old. It was, yeah, it
was pretty intense. And, you know, the sky was
just, I can't, whether you can remember what
it was like. Four or five years ago, we met those
big fires. It was just like that. The sky was
black. There was ash falling everywhere. It was
pretty horrible. It was very scary. Yeah, ominous
-looking sky. How much milk were you producing
a day? I'd say when I started going milking,
working with Dad in 1973. When I left school
in 1971, I wasn't sure what I was going to do.
The opportunity came up to start doing accountancy.
It was the sort of career that Dad and Mum envisaged
would be good for us kids. We didn't think dairy
farming wasn't... You know, you can do something
better than dairy farming. Dairy farming was
considered a good occupation, but hard work,
obviously. But he wanted something better for
all of us. And I thought, well, I'll give it
a go. And so I started with a local accountancy
firm in town. It was Ross of Leslie and Payne
at the time and became John Tobin and Co. And
John Tobin, I was very grateful to him, gave
me that opportunity as a 17 -year -old straight
out of school to start doing accountancy, which
was something very new to me because I did not
know the difference between a debit and a credit.
But I quickly learnt. And so all the books were
done by hand then. They were all written up.
Cash books were written up, journals and ledgers
and everything. So I quickly learnt how it all
worked together. So after about two years there,
I suppose I was a bit restless. I always thought
I would end up doing something outdoors. I was
looking at national parks or forestry or agriculture
or something. When I ended up in an office, I
was a bit surprised in a way. But it would have
been a good career, but it wasn't for me. So
I had to come and tell Dad and Mum that I was...
wanted to leave that and wanted to come work
on the farm. Massive turnover of labour, getting
good, reliable labour. Why is that? Oh, it's
just getting people prepared to work hard, and
it's still the same today. And you've got to
have someone that's trustworthy and you're working
with your cattle and all the machinery and everything.
So I told Dad I wanted to come work on the farm
and he said, no, you've got to finish your accountancy
course first. I said, righto, I'll do that. I
was doing it by correspondence, but that didn't
last very long. And he just said, well, I'm glad
you're here, but I hope you don't regret what
you did, and I never did. I learned a lot in
those two years doing accountancy, so I was able
to do the books right up until now. Yes. I understood
it all. It's difficult correspondence, I would
imagine, when you're isolated as well. Yeah,
it was, but there was no computers around then,
so that's the only way I could do the course
was by correspondence. By post? By post, yeah.
Do your assignments, post them away and get the
results back and then do the next assignment
and post it away. You talked last, your family
had some connection to the post office. Everyone
in Maroo had a connection to the post office
because it was central. The school, the post
office and the church were central too. And a
lot of the other little communities around the
district were all much the same. Yeah, we used
to, the post office and the telephone exchange,
I can still remember going, knock on the window
to get our mail and, you know, Ada Marshall would
be there and then she'd say, excuse me, and she'd
have to, the phone would ring and she'd... put
the plugs in to connect the phones. The switchboard.
The switchboard on the big switch. I can still
picture it in my mind. And also they had a small
dairy there and we ended up, that ended up leasing
that dairy there because it had a quota on it,
a 20 -gallon quota on it. And at that time, if
you wanted to grow your business, you could buy
a quota or lease land that had quota on it and
bring it to your... property so that's what we
leased that for about 23 years i think off ada
and polly and then when they passed away it was
their estate and eventually they sold it and
so we used to run put cattle up there same thing
we used to run them across the highway until
it got too busy and then we bought a trailer
and we could take them up on a tractor how did
you manage the traffic on the highway well it
was nowhere near like it is now if we were shifting
the cattle up to our mountain block we would
um there'd be there were always plenty of us
so we just stopped the traffic Someone would
stand out in the middle of the road, traffic
would stop, push the cows across and away we
go. Did you separate the calves? We made sure
they were always at home on the dairy. We had
a separate place where they'd calve. We did separate
them. It was always hard, but that's what we
did, particularly there for calves. We were rearing
them up for the herd for replacements. So you
leased how much land from the Marshall girls?
There was only 25 acres there. But we'd end up
buying... I'll just run through the purchases.
1967, Dad bought 25 acres on the eastern end
of the property, which joined the property, the
original 86 acres, off George Marshall in 1967.
Then in 1973, he bought the other 89 acres off
Leonard Marshall. That's where Jeanette and I
built our home on that block. 1981, Fred Martin
and Fred and Mari Martin and their son John were...
They were only a small operation. They were milking
35 cows, 40 cows. They decided they'd had enough,
so they got out. Fred was getting on a bit in
age, and John didn't want to keep on milking,
so we bought 65 acres there. In 2000, we bought
the Poet of Les Vaughans, which was originally
owned by my great -uncle, Jacob Muller. There
were 65 acres there. In 2006, there was another
block which ended up being right in the middle
of our... All the land that we'd owned and purchased
that we'd been leasing for about 15 or 20 years
was the estate of Artie Hearn. And we bought
40 acres there and we had an arrangement with
another fellow, Glenn Mitchell, who lived at
Jasper's Brush and we ended up with 40 acres
and he got 10 acre blocks there. So that ended
up, after selling the swamp block when we purchased
Les Vaughans block, we ended up with about 360
acres, all in. all joined together, which made
it really easy to manage. It was a lot to manage,
but it was... So you had 360 acres in total.
Yeah. Is that the biggest land you had? Yeah,
that was the most we ever owned. And how many
cows are you... And what are you growing? When
we finished up in... When I finished up in about
2012, we were milking about 180 cows. When I
started out in 1973, we would have been milking
about 70. So we've grown just... Gradually over
that period of time. But we would have had over
300 head altogether with replacement heifers
and dry cows. Who's collecting your milk? Originally
we were sent into the Narra Dairy Company and
then Narra Dairy Company had an amalgamation
about 1989 -90 with Hunter Valley Dairy Farmers
and Shellhaven Dairy Company formed Australian
Cooperative Foods and they were still going into
Narra. But Narra had built a new factory there
which is now part of the Manildra Group there.
by a long road. So they built that factory in
1986. A milk factory? Yeah, a new milk factory
there. And then that became Dairy Farmers, Dairy
Farmers and Milk Company, cooperative. And how
did Maroo get on with Jasper's Brush and Berry
Milk Cooperative? That was sort of way back.
Berry Cooperative was still operating then. They
opted not to become part of the amalgamation.
And they proved to be very successful in their
own right. But even though it was a small cooperative,
it seemed to... go pretty well but back in the
day there was uh maria cooperative which i think
was on the corner of maria road and the highway
there somewhere there or near fletcher's lane
jasper's brush factory and i think dad my grandfather
used to supply jasper's brush factory i can recall
too in some writings that my uncle norman did
that he he used to drive take the milk to the
factory you know when he was only 14 he'd drive
the drive the truck to the jasper's brush factory
you Dodge truck, I think, he had. How much would
he have on the back of that? I don't know. It
might have been only about eight or ten, eight
cans or something like that, ten cans, which
was about 80 gallons. But then they were doing
butter then, Berry Factory, but then they started
to send their milk to Sydney. They had to spend
a lot of money to upgrade the Jasper's Brush
Factory. They couldn't do it, so they decided
to shut down. And I think half the supplies around
the Jasper's Brush River area went to Berry and
the other half went to Nara, my great -grandfather's.
Ended up taking his milk to Narra, and he actually
started carting, and then he started carting
milk for other farmers in the Murray area as
well. He had a Dodge truck. Tell me about that
house. You were talking about a house that was
moved. Yeah, well, that's the house down Lemons
Lane that Charlie Lemon built, or he moved part
of it to there, obviously just after he purchased
the land there. Where did he move it from? Narra
Hill. Apparently he had a tannery out there and
it was part of the house he probably lived in
there and he moved that to Maroo and then probably
added on to it. I'm not sure who the builder
was. I don't believe it was my great -uncle George.
I think it was someone else. But it's a lovely
old house in the same style as Pomona. It's a
beautiful old home now. It's been lovingly restored
by, first of all, Ray and Marcia Collins and
then the current owners, the other people. A
couple have moved down from Sydney and they've
done an amazing job in restoring it. How would
they have moved that house? I don't know. Might
have pulled it to bits and restructured it and
probably would have been horse and cart for sure.
Do you remember butter trails yourself, logging
trails? After those fires went through in 1969,
we went up after the fires. We had cattle up
there under the mountain, under the escarpment,
and we couldn't find them. Eventually we found
them. They were right up on top of the escarpment.
How they got there was there was an old pony
trail that went up the side of the mountain around
the edge of the property that we owned there.
And they must have found that and gone up. So
we had to go up and chase them back down. So
it was pretty steep. Mum's brothers, Tom and
Ted Walsh. Mum moved from Kangaroo Valley to
Farm Meadow when she was 12 years old. And they
still had a property in Kangaroo Valley. But
they were out at Farm Meadow. And Tom and Ted...
When they were only about 12 years old, they
would move cattle on horseback from Farm Meadow
over Berry, up over the mountain to Kangaroo
Valley. It must have taken two or three days.
Their mother would have packed all their lunch
there. They went over there and they'd bring
cattle back as well. Uncle Norman, he kept a...
He just wrote a bit about his life story, which
was really fascinating. You might find out more
about that if you talk to Peter Muller, who lived
in Mullis Lane. He talks of when he was 14, living
at Pomona, he would take... cattle from Pomona
down to his uncle Jim Ryan's place down to Piree
drive them all the way on horseback in through
town down to Piree mother would have to give
a note for him to take to school to say he wouldn't
be at school tomorrow because he'd be shifting
cattle remember that there was nowhere near the
amount of people traffic houses around then it
would have been just a basically a dirt road
into town probably across the bridge and they
used to take cattle into the sale yards in town
too. Dad spoke about that. He used to drive cattle
into the sale yards on horseback. Where's the
sale yards? The sale yards used to be opposite
the Ex -Servicemen's Club in there, where the
car park is. That was moved from there in the
early 70s, I think, out to where it is now in
Mossvale Road. One story I hear is people would
be driving their cattle up Bridge Road because
that was the old highway then. People would make
sure they left their gates closed because the
cattle could get into their yard. I heard one
story of a... I'm not sure whether it was my
father or someone else was chasing cattle up
there and someone had left their gate open. The
front door was open. The cow went straight up
through the front gate, through the front door
and out the back door. So there's all sorts of
stories like that that you can pick up from around
the place. Yeah, it's just a different life and
different times. Great visual. Yeah, yeah. So
let's talk about crops and mechanisation. What
sort of tractors did you have on the property?
Were you growing corn or did you have silos?
Yeah, the silo on Pomona was built and the stalls
were built, I think, in about the 1940s. Yeah,
they used to grow corn and saccharine and millet
and there was a pit down near the creek on Pomona
where they used to put it into that. They'd just
cut it and put it in and then they'd cover it
to preserve it. Then when they'd go to feed it
out in the winter, they would have to dig it
out. And then they'd put it through a chaff cutter
to chop it up for the cattle to eat and feed
it out in bags, actually. So it was a lot of
hard work then. But then after they built the
silo, they grew corn, cut that by hand and put
it up through the chaff cutter up into the silo.
And my dad was only milking about 40, 50 cows
then. That was enough to keep them going for
two or three months. Pretty exciting time for
us. A lot of hard work for the adults. When I
got a bit older, obviously, I was doing the work
too, cutting corn by hand and loading it onto
the trailers. putting it through the chaff cutter
and up into the silo, and then you'd have to
get up in the silo and spread it with a fork
and tramp it all down to get all the air out,
and then we'd cover it up with a bit of sawdust,
and time come to feed it out, you'd have to fork
it all back out into a trolley that we had. I'll
never forget the smell of the corn silo. To me,
it's a beautiful smell. When it's made properly,
it's just a really beautiful smell, and the cows
loved it, so you'd have to seal it. It always
lives a bit off the top, which we'd have to toss
out. When you talk about the pit, you're talking
about a large hole in the ground, are you? Yeah,
that was, yeah. That's what we had. How early
would that pit have been operating? Oh, I don't
know when they would have built that. Probably
possibly in the 1930s, 40s. Would that have been
a risk with flooding? No, it was just above the
flood level where they had it. A lot of people
used to store it above ground. You still see
it now around the district there. store it above
ground then they cover it with plastic and then
seal it off with ties or whatever you just got
to keep the air out of it and that's basically
what the silos did we'd feed it out in a fork
it into a tray then fork it onto the individual
stalls and the cows would come in you have a
headlock so you'd lock them in place so that
they couldn't get out how big were your feed
stalls how many we fed we had 32 16 each side
fair size so some of them used to be bigger than
that some smaller depending on the size of the
herd But then eventually we got too many cows,
it was too many to feed in the stall, so we stopped
using the silos because we had that many cows,
you couldn't get enough food into it. And by
that time we were starting to make round bale
silage. How did you make that? You cut the grass,
good grass, ryegrass, clover pastures in the
spring mainly. You don't have to wilt it for
a day or two. Get most of the moisture out of
it, you bale it up with a bit of moisture in
it and then wrap it in the plastic that you see
all around the place now. Much quicker and easier
way. It was a one -man operation basically to
do that. We ended up buying our own baler and
wrapper and we could do it whenever we wanted
to. That was in about the 90s we started doing
that. Prior to that it was all little bales of
hay and hay sheds. What about stooking the hay?
Do you remember that at all? No, I don't, thank
goodness. That would have been hard work. Tell
the listeners what that stooking is. That's when
the grass is cut because there's no machines
to pick it up and bale it, so to speak. I think
there was a rake that we used to sort of drag
a row into a heap and then they'd have to be...
I think they just used to tie it up and wrap
it up. It looked a bit like a teepee, didn't
it? Yeah, something like that. They'd wrap it
up like that. And then I think they used to...
Yeah, in hay sheds or whatever. Yeah, they would
have put it up in the hay shed. Yeah, it would
have had to have been pretty dry. Because they've
got to put it... Do you remember a slide operating
at all in the field? Oh, yeah, we had a slide
that we used to use cutting the corn. We'd load
the corn on it because the slide was low so you
didn't have to lift it up. We had trolleys as
well. I can still remember the slide being actually
pulled by the drafter also. Tell me about your
first tractors that you remember and what may
have been, who supplied them, do you know? Do
you have any with metal wheels at all, like scallifying?
No, I can't remember any of the metal wheels,
but the first one I think was a little international
B275, I think, that Dad would have bought from,
would have been. They were called Truck and Farm
there. They were down in East Street now. Fred
Porter was the owner of that. Dad used to buy
it. He bought a slasher off him and the ploughs
and everything. Oh, everything was small then
because they had to be with the... They were
only about a 40 -horsepower tractor, 45 -horsepower
tractor, so you couldn't have too big a machine.
The machine would shoot the tractor, so eventually
we got up to over 100 -horsepower tractors. When
we finished, then your machinery got bigger and
bigger as you went because you were working more
and more land. What about your cows? What's the
evolution for you? Well, when I was younger,
I only remember the air shears, basically nearly
all air shears. And then in the 60s, early 60s,
Dad started to use the AI, cross the air shears
with freezing balls. Generally, you'd get a black
and white calf. In 1973, there probably would
have been about 50, 50 air shearing. And eventually
we, crossing the Ayrshire cows with Friesians,
after five generations you could have what could
be considered a purebred Friesian. So eventually
we bred out all the Ayrshire. The Ayrshires provided,
some of the Ayrshire cows we had were good Ayrshires
and they provided a very good base for some of
the Friesian cows we ended up breeding. We had
some very good families come from the Ayrshire
cows that we had. Did you have a stud name? Yeah,
we did. And of course that was Pomona. So by
the time we, about 2000 or so, the whole herd
was pretty well, all fully registered. And we
had a very good herd. We didn't show cattle.
Did dabble in it once or twice, but it was a
lot of work. And I didn't have the time. And
actually, my dad and grandfather, they used to
show some of their heirs shears. And he got reserve
champions to show Bullet, Nara, two years in
a row. Basil. Yeah, I've still got his photo.
I've got it hanging up in the wall at home. Yeah,
Dad would have bred a lot of cattle from him,
and I can't recall. That was before my time.
That was in 1951, 1952. One thing with the Friesian
herd we did, eventually right at the end when
we finished up, they have what they call a Master
Breeder Award, which is awarded to breeders in
the Friesian herd. It's based on results over
a 20 -year period and the number of... cattle
you breed and type and all that sort of thing.
And you have to get more points for your herd
than the number of animals you breed over that
20 -year period. Yeah, but we ended up with a
Master Breeder Award, which was really a feather
in our cap and something that I felt very proud
of achieving. We both felt very proud of achieving
after all that time. And unfortunately, Dad wasn't
available around to see that. So I might just
ask you at this point, your wife, and you met
her somehow connected to... Rural youth was very
big in the early 70s. And when I started working
on the farm, I started to make contact with other
farmers, obviously, and the rural youth organisation.
So I started going to rural youth. It was focused
on social and educational type of organisation
for young people, basically from 18 to 30. There
was actually Department of Agriculture officers
spread throughout the state. I think it was about
seven different regions, field days and educational
activities for the various rural youth clubs
in the regions. So I became involved in that.
I actually became president for a couple of years
and I was fortunate enough to win an exchange
trip to the Waikato region in New Zealand. They
had a reciprocal arrangement with the South Coast
region, New South Wales. When I came back, there
was a new girl in the club and that was Jeanette.
Jeanette King, and she was one of the kings from
Numba and the other side of the river. Her father
was Rex, and parents were Rex and Daisy, and
they were part of the Numba Park farm down there.
Her uncle Brian and father Rex were running the
Numba Park stud. And then we were married in
1978 and brought our family up there, living
in the middle of the farm, and it was a wonderful
experience and very, very fortunate. And it was
a wonderful environment to bring up a family.
Tell me your children's names and their years
of birth. Janelle was born in 1979. She's living
in Goulburn. Chrissy, Christine, born in 1981.
Christine's living up in the Lower Blue Mountains.
Brendan Shalaven -Heads was born in 1983. Anne
Belinda was born in 1989. She's currently in
America with her husband managing a ranch over
there. What was so special about Pomona still
around? The house has been, is it heritage listed?
The house was heritage listed, yeah. And we managed
to, when we were there, we managed to get some
funding to repair different things like bay windows
and veranda and stuff. It wasn't much, but it
was enough to encourage us to go ahead and do
it. I noticed that the people that purchased
the property had just had the roof replaced about
two or three years ago. Do you miss Pomona? Do
you miss the cows? Yeah. We do. We miss the animals
in particular. It was just very satisfying breeding
the cattle from young calves and breeding them
up into the herd. And, of course, the hardest
part was when you had to part with them for various
reasons, old age, sickness, injury, mastitis,
things like that. But we do really both miss
working with the animals. The relationship. Yeah,
yeah. They became part of the family, I mean,
and it was always hard when you had to. Put one
day at all. Extremely hard. It's awful. It was.
It was horrible. It was the worst part of the
job. Honestly, it really was. And we had each
other and that's what kept us going through all
the hard times and also the support that we got
from Mum and Dad. They encouraged us and we were
very grateful for that. It sounds like you had
good parents. Oh, they were wonderful. Wonderful
to all of us. All of us because we were all very
lucky to have them as parents. That's why I found
this so... Fascinating to read this. It's bringing
up things and I'll hear other podcasts from other
people and I already have from David and Richard
and it just prompts your memory. So I'm sure
this will prompt memories of other people and
I think it's fantastic what you're doing to record
this and it's there forever and hopefully people
will be able to get an understanding of how...
what life was like. Not only for us, but for
our parents and our grandparents growing up.
And I always said I never worked as hard physically
as what my grandfather and father would have
worked. But it was much more intense because
our operations were becoming so much bigger,
but with more machinery to do the jobs. But you
were working just as hard or harder, but not
as hard physically. It would have been costing
more with machinery, is that right? Machinery,
yeah, it was expensive, but you had to be making
sure you were utilising it. You'd buy machinery
to make sure that it was cost effective and adding
to your profitability, if that's possible. Was
there any particular piece of machinery you liked
more than others? Did you like being on the tractor,
for example? I did like doing tractor work. You
hear some farmers say they just like the tractor
work and they don't want to work with the cows.
Others like the cows and don't want to do the
machinery. I was happy doing either and I enjoyed
doing both. I like to keep in touch with the
cows. You saw them every day so you could pick
up things with them if they went sick or whatever.
And we got a lot of satisfaction out of looking
at the cows. They come in and they look a big
udder full of milk. When they're in the peak
of their condition and milking, it was very,
very satisfying to see all that work that you
put in. I used to say that milking... was a chore
that, and I always said, milking was a chore
you did before you started work and a chore you
had to do before you knocked off. And that's
why I looked at milking, even though it was a
very important part of it and it's something
I enjoyed doing. All the work in between pasture
maintenance, feeding, topping paddocks, everything
that you did in between, fixing fences and machinery,
all that had to be done in between the milkings.
A lot of people would think that, yeah, you just
milk the cows and that was it, but I was just
full on. I was working probably 80 hours a week
or more. I remember one year I had to fill in
a form, a census form, and it said, how many
hours did you work in the last week? I said,
oh, I'll just put down 75. No, I'll work it out.
I worked it out for the last week. It was only
two boxes. I got 96 hours. Because I used to
do the book work. There was herd records to keep
at night, book work, which I never had time to
do during the day, so I do. Three or four nights
a week I'd be doing a couple of hours' work at
night on the books. It was very intense, but
absolutely no regrets. And that's a really important
thing to say, isn't it? Yeah. I just want to
hear about the challenges of living on a floodplain.
You were living on a floodplain? No, we weren't
floodplain prone. We'd get very wet. We were
on the western side of the railway line and there
was never any floods. Never flooded on the western
side of the railway. But because of that creek
that we had running through, it would get flash
floods through that. And that was always a pain
because it would come up and there'd be a hell
of a lot of water and it'd wipe out fences. It'd
leave a lot of rubbish over all the paddocks.
A few days fixing up fences and picking up rubbish
and getting rid of that. We were never bothered
by floods, except when we had the 100 acres on
the swamp. Three quarters of that or a bit more
used to go underwater. but there was always a
high ground where the cattle could get, so it
was never an issue. With Jasper's Brush Railway
going, did that impact your work? No, we didn't
have... No, no. I can't recall Jasper's Brush
Railway Station going. There was actually land
set aside for a railway station at Maroo at the
end of Lemons Lane. I imagine they didn't go
ahead with it because I was only a couple of
kilometres in, a couple of miles into Bomaderry.
And Jasper's Brush was just up the road as well.
But there was a parcel of land there that was
cut out and that block there that George Moore
shall own was eventually subdivided and someone
who bought that land, they were joined up where
this railway station was supposed to be. I think
they ended up buying it for probably just a few
dollars or just the cost so they could even up
their block. It was a bit tricky putting the
cows across the railway line. Tell me. There
was a couple of close calls. We did end up losing
a couple of cows from time to time because they
get through the fence and get up on the railway
line. But I remember one year we were there and
we closed the gates. We'd have the cows ready
to come across the railway line, chase them across.
And we had them there this year. And I thought
I could hear a train coming. And I was watching
towards Berry, looking north towards Berry. And
it sounded like a train. I listened for, I don't
know, must... Two or three or four minutes it
might have been. I just listened. No, it stopped
coming. So I think Judette was there. And I said,
righto, I'll open the gate. You chase them across.
She'll be behind them. We'd have to chase them
across. I'll put a bit of rope across the railway
line, across the post, so the cows would just
go straight across and not shoot up the sides.
Tie that up, put it up, watching north. And I
said, righto, I'll open the gate. She started
chasing. I looked over my shoulder, tore back
towards the bottom of the area, and the train
was coming around the corner. I hadn't heard
it because the noise from the highway was coming
from the north. And I jumped in front of the
car and just stopped them in time and closed
the gate. It was pretty close. Put the wind up.
The train went straight through the barling twine,
ripped it, knocked it all out. Yeah, but it was
always a bit hairy. But, yeah, you knew what
time the trains were coming mostly. Speaking
of the wind, you get a bit of wind blowing through
there? Oh. They say, there's a sign up saying,
Maroo, Aboriginal for lightning. I think they
got it wrong. It should be Aboriginal for wind.
The winds were horrendous through Maroo. Notoriously
bad area for wind. I don't know whether it's
something to do with the mountain or what, but
it just seemed to whip around that mountain and
we had horrendous, used to get horrendous westerly
winds. Seemed to blow for weeks on end sometimes
through the July, August period. And they were
just, nothing annoyed me more than the westerly
wind on the farm. It would just be... It was
hard to work in. I hated working in it. You'd
have good pastures and it'd be nice moisture
in the ground and you'd get the westerly wind
for a week and it'd just burn the pastures off
and dry the ground out and all that moisture
would be gone. That was one of the worst aspects
of living in Peru. Other than that, it was a
lovely place to live and we really enjoyed our...
It was very hard to leave when the time came.
And what year was that? Jeanette and I finished
up milking in about 2011. I'd got to the point
where I was just worn out, mentally and physically.
I wanted to keep going, but I couldn't. I loved
the job. I still enjoyed what I was doing, but
I knew I couldn't keep going. So we leased it
for a while. At the time, our youngest daughter
was working with us and she was enjoying it.
She wanted to do other things and then she met
a young fella from down near Holbrook and at
that time I just said, look, I mean, if she wanted
to do it, I would have kept going, but it would
have been hard for me. And it was hard for Jeanette
as well. She enjoyed it. Well, that's all she'd
known. Yeah, exactly. I mean, she used to help
her father when she was eight, nine years old,
driving tractors and doing what, milking and
all that sort of thing. So she really loved her
life. But, yeah, it was a hard decision to finish
up because I knew it would be the end of the
line for the... for the mowers at Pomona. I knew
it was the right thing to do in the end. Well,
it wasn't necessarily the right thing to do,
but I knew I had to do it. So we hung on. We
bleached it for five years, but then there was
no way I was going back to it. I couldn't. So
in 2016, we were still living on the... We had
a one -hectare block where Jeanette and I built
next to the Charlie Lemons old house. So we lived
there for a while, but it wasn't our farm anymore.
We liked it, liked where we lived. We loved the
aspect and we had great neighbours there and
we just got to the point where, no, I can't live
here anymore. We've got to move. So we put it
on the market and moved to Goulburn, where our
eldest daughter was, to get away from the coast.
We found the coast was getting a bit suffocating
for us from what we remembered it to be. And
how's life today? Lovely. Great. Great. We miss
Pomona. You find you're getting your energy back?
Well, yeah, I did. You're healing? Yeah, yeah,
I am. No one can ever take away the memories
we have. We have a lot of memorabilia of Pomona,
which is sometimes hard to look at, but I've
got that, and we're really embracing their life
now. I know if I'd have kept going, I wouldn't
be like I am now. Well, it sounds like you've
had a... Satisfying life. Very, very satisfying
and very rewarding and I've been very, very fortunate
and very grateful for the opportunities we have,
courtesy of my mother and father and my family
and my wife. She's been, Jeanette, she's been...
She looks strong. She's very strong, very strong.
It's good, isn't it? It is. She carries me. That's
good. Today is the 11th of March, 2025. which
happens to be the 47th wedding anniversary of
Jeanette and Patrick Muller. I'm sending love
their way with a deep respect for their journey
together. A component of this episode is supported
by Turf Co, our region's largest agricultural
employer, operating in this area for 40 years.
Thank you, Gavin. This project that I have initiated
receives no government funding. A donate button
has been activated at my host podcast site rss
.com. Simply google the Dairy Lane Project should
you want to listen. All my podcasts will be hosted
on my own website as well. This project is my
initiative and my digital investment in the region,
laying foundations for future generations. At
its completion, it will be archived at Nowra
Library through their networks. I also offer
my services to the wider community. Have a look
at my business section at my website, theresesweeney
.com .au. Feel free to get in touch with me.
Until next time, when we go to Devitt's Lane,
take care and thanks for listening.