Welcome everybody to Therese Makes History, a
podcast about the dairy lanes from Bomaderry
to Bury in the Shoalhaven region. I'm a social
historian and I've been working with media and
historical processes for 30 years. I've initiated
this project at the end of 2024. when I started
recording some of our dairying farmers, significant
throughout the 20th century. They're pioneering
ancestors who have had the lanes named after
their families. My primary sponsor for Season
2 is Ian Zanstra, a very experienced dairyman
on the other side of the river from Pirie. Season
2 would not be happening without Ian's support.
I'm very grateful he stepped up. Thank you, Ian.
Today finds us in Season 2, Episode 3. We're
in what you know as Jasper's Brush Road. I'm
going to call it Stations Lane because there
was a railway station there for many years. I'm
coming to the first area on the left as we enter
Jasper's Brush Road where the Bahams have lived
for three generations. The woman I'm interviewing
today is the fifth generation farmer of the Bahams,
who originated from Tomarong and migrated from
England. The first generation of Bahams that
migrated to Australia was a man by the name of
James Baham. You'll find the name James is going
to be said quite a bit. James Barham was born
in 1797 in Woodridge, Suffolk, England. James
Barham arrived in Australia in 1829. He migrated
to Tomarong and bought his first piece of land
in 1855. We're assuming he came out as part of
the bounty immigration scheme. He married Charlotte
Watson. In 1843, in Phillip Street, Sydney, at
a church of England, Charlotte was actually born
in 1804 in Northumberland, England. His parents,
back in England, were Henry and Elizabeth Barham.
James was a farmer, a labourer, and of course
a timber cutter. He is Jenny Barham's great -great
-grandfather. James had a few children, but his
son, Henry Barham, was born in October 1843 at
Brundy in the Shoalhaven. He married Sarah Crawford
in 1881. At St John's, Church of England in Nowra.
Sarah was born in 1847 in the county Armagh in
Ireland. Excuse my pronunciation. Henry died
in Tomarong in 1920 and Sarah passed in 1940.
Henry had five children. Charlotte, born in 1882.
James, Henry, born in 1884. Joseph, Herbert,
born in 1885. All in Tomarong. and Walter Robert
in 1887. He was born in Belfield in the Shoalhaven
area. Final child was Edith Annie, who was born
in Tomarong in 1889. The third generation is
Grandfather Barham, who was the first to arrive
at Jasper's Brush and set up farming. His name...
His... He bought the land from the oak... brothers,
O -K -E. There were two brothers that owned land
there. James Henry Barham was born in March 1884
in Tomarong. He married Iva Knapp. She was born
on the 12th of May 1915 in Nowra. She is the
daughter of James Knapp and Sarah Davis. They're
a famous breeding, cow breeding family from Bolong.
And I know the Knapps still live in the original
house. I hope to get to them throughout this
project. So Jenny, who I'm interviewing today,
remembers her grandfather and grandmother. Donald
Henry was a child of James and Ivy Barham. Donald
Henry was born in September 1924 and he married
Una Mary Eisen in 1946 in Bury at the Uniting
Church. Donald passed in 2005 and is buried in
the... Berry Cemetery. I'd like to present to
you Jenny Pastor, who reflects on her family
heritage and life growing up in Jasper's Brush.
And I'm here with Jenny Pastor. Who did you marry?
I married Robert or Bob Pastor, whose parents
had the bakery in Berry, original Berry Bakery.
They came down from Sydney, I don't know exactly
when, but it was really the only one in Bury
at that time. It used to be owned by Bamford's,
I think, beforehand. So there is still a Bury
Bakery, isn't it? That's it. They kind of built
it up a fair bit. When the tourist trade started
to come through, we met at high school. At Bomaderry?
At Bomaderry High. So what year did you marry?
In 1977. And were you married in a church? We
were married in the Methodist Church or the Uniting
Church in Bury. After that we moved to Wollongong
because we were studying at Wollongong and then
we moved up to the Northern Territory for 10
years and then came back to Jasper's Brush when
we bought my grandparents' house on the original
farm. What were you studying? I studied... I
did a Bachelor of Arts and then I did teaching.
I did primary school teaching, actually, so I'm
a teacher. And Bob was a PE teacher. Now retired,
both of us. So you returned to Jasper's Brush.
How long has your family been in the area? Can
you go back to your memory? Well, I know that
my father came here when he was four. And that
was in, I think they came here in 1929. They
came from, well, my grandfather bought the farm.
He was James Henry Barham. And he was married
to Ivy Cleta Knapp, who was one of the Knapps
from Bolong. And they did, after they got married,
they did rent a property, I think, in Bundiwala.
And then Pirie, and then when the Jasper's Brush,
when they had enough money and the Jasper's Brush
farm came up, I think it was from Oaks or someone
like that, and he bought the farm. How big was
that farm, sorry? It was about, the farm there
was about 80 acres, so it basically bordered
Jasper's Brush Road, which was commonly known
as Railway Road. in those days, the railway line,
O 'Keefe's Lane and the highway. So it was the
block there. The school, Jasper's Brush School,
was a little block out of the corner of the farm.
And that was owned by? The Department of Education.
Whether it at one stage belonged to the farm,
we never really knew, but probably originally
the land grant, it was probably part of it. What
year did they purchase? 1929. Was he share farming
prior to that? I think my grandfather was leasing
farms in other areas himself and then actually
had enough money to buy this one. So this was
his first purchase. Nap rings a bell because,
well, they were successful cow breeders. Dad's
mother was a nap. So Dad's mother was Ivy Cleeter
Knapp from Bolong. And they came there, I do
know that they came there, I think in about 1906,
something like that, from down in Milton. I think
Grandma was born in Milton and then they moved
to, I think it's called Swanley, their farm there,
which they owned a lot of land there at Bolong.
And they were big cattle breeders in the AIS.
Good Australian Illawarra shorthorns. That's
where Dad always used to get a bull from his
uncles. So we always had a bull that was from
the knap farm and that's what Dad bred the herd
from. And I guess Pop before him too. How big
was the herd your grandfather had? Do you know?
And how big did it get? Well, I think it was
probably fairly small to start with. I'd say
probably around 30. But I know Dad was milking
around 40 to 50 when he was milking, which was
quite a big herd in those days. I know that when
Dad took over the farm, they put on an extra
bale so they milked more cows and whatever, and
they built a stall and so on. They built up the
farm quite a bit, bit by bit, while they were
there. Did they have a silo there? No silos.
No, Dad wasn't a big believer in silos for some
reason. He thought that they were very expensive.
A lot of farms down the road did have silos.
We had a pit, so they used the pit. When was
the pit located on your property? There were
two houses on our property. There was my grandfather's
house and then there was the house that we grew
up in, which was Mum and Dad's house, which was
like a worker's cottage. and the pit was just
on the top of the hill below that because it
was pure shale. So their pit was in pure shale.
They used to use it a lot, but then, you know,
when I was only fairly young, Dad stopped using
the pit too, because he was a grower. Dad was
a real grower. So our farm always had corn, what
we called saccharine, which I think it's a type
of sorghum, really. He would go down every day
when the corn was there, cut enough, him and
Pop with the old cane cutter, cut enough, load
it on the trolley, take it up there, and then
they would chaff cutter it up and then feed it
to the cattle every day in the stalls before
they milked them. So it was a lot of work, but
Dad tended to grow a lot of fresh crops, fill
the pit if they had a lot of excess yeah it's
an interesting approach and understandable he
made a lot of hay too so obviously we had a lot
of he had a lot of hay and big hay shed with
lots of hay so they got that as well he was very
into to growing and he was very into farming
like dad dad actually loved the farm and he left
He was quite bright at school, did really well
at school, but really didn't want to go on. His
brothers and sisters did their leaving certificates,
which was unusual in those days. But Dad was
apparently adamant that when he did his intermediate
certificate at 15, he was out of school and he
just wanted to work on the farm. And that's basically
what he did. So this is your father? My father,
yeah, which is Donald Henry Barham. And who did
Donald marry? He married Una Ison, which was,
I think you would have talked to some of the
Isons because they also, they came to Jasper's
Brush from Narra Hill when Mum was about 15 and
lived just down the highway basically from our
road. So we had a lot of family around when we
were growing up. all of Mum's family as well
as all Dad's family, basically, in close proximity.
So we spent a lot of time with family, I guess.
We had a very idyllic childhood, really. So what
did that involve when you reflect on the family
activities? I mean, I know it sounds like a silly
question, but you had a lot of family around
you. What were you doing? Cooking and playing?
Playing with, well... The Isons, I think you've
probably spoken to Karen, and they had like eight
children. So there were a lot of children to
play with and a lot of them were around my age.
So we did a lot of playing. But then things like,
you know, hot summer days, after milking, they'd
come up and we had a creek on our farm and we
had a great swimming hole. All the kids around
the place used to come to our swimming hole.
Summer was spent at the creek, basically. Who
were some of those kids, their names? Well, there
were, down our road, I can sort of go through
who was in our road. There were the Joneses and
they had, like, there was Barry and Barbara and
then the Joneses still have their property there.
Errolyn's still on the property and Barry's daughter
Cindy is still there. So we're lucky. Look, our
road still has a lot of original Jasper's Brush
people in it, which is nice. Not many of the
roads do anymore. So we had the Joneses and then
we had the Farls. So we had, there was Betty
and David. They were older than me. They were
more in my older sister's age group. And then
there was a railway house. where the Burgesses
grew up. Mrs Burgess was the gatekeeper, closed
and shut, opened and shut the gates whenever
a train went through. So you remember her doing
that? Oh, yeah, yeah. So what did she wear and
what sort of person was she? I know she's still
alive, but... Yeah, she was a lovely person.
She was just always bright and bubbly and never
complained about opening and shutting gates,
which was a... Big job during the day, you know.
She didn't do it at night. I don't know that
any trains went at night then, but possibly.
But it was all during the day. I think, no, the
gates shut at night. That's right. And if you
went out at night and you were down that end
of the road, luckily we didn't have to go through,
you had to open and shut the gates yourself.
So was it literally a gate? It was literally
gates, two gates, either side. Yeah, literally
she had to open and shut, like big farm gates,
basically. Did they have any other security,
like any lights or anything? They wouldn't have
had anything like that, really, would they? No,
but there was a railway station right there.
That's right, sorry. So it had a light, so there
would have been a light there, yeah. So we actually,
even as kids, like I'm talking about in the 60s,
like 50s and 60s, we actually could get on and
off the train there. Dad went to school, to now
a high school. He caught the train. from the
station at Jasper's Brush, all the kids did,
went through to Bomaderry and then had to get
a bus from Bomaderry over to the school. Was
it always electric trains in your memory? No,
no. Not diesel, all the diesel ones, obviously,
yeah. Not as flash as they are now, the old chuggers.
How many carriages? Oh, more than there are now.
Probably about five, six in my memory, because
freight still went by train then too. See, in
the old days, like, Grandma, that's my grandmother,
which was Ivy Cleeter Knapp originally, she used
to grow a lot of produce too. So she supplemented
the farm income, like Pop basically ran the farm,
but she supplemented, she'd grow peas and...
She'd, you know, do fruit and all that sort of
thing and she used to... Dad talks about how
every Christmas she'd breed ducks and chooks
and every Christmas they'd have to dress the
chooks, you know, pluck them, get them ready
for the table and whatever and she'd send them
up to the markets in Sydney on the train. So
the train was really big in Dad's day, in Mum
and Dad's day, and then it was... For us, it
was more... oh we're going to go to sydney how
exciting we'll catch the train at jasper's brush
and get off sort of thing not so much freight
so the freight would be loaded at bombardieri
for her no at jasper's brush so there was a siding
see there was a milk factory there at jasper's
brush oh that's right so what do you remember
about but she's at bolong so this was when she
was at jasper this is after she'd married and
they'd bought i'm talking about after she'd married
and they bought Jasper's Brush Farm. So this
is while she was at Jasper's Brush. And she used
to do crocheting too. She was a really fine crocheter,
and she used to send that to the markets apparently.
She was very, very... Resourceful and gifted,
like all those great... Very resourceful she
was apparently. I don't... My grandmother, she
had a stroke when she was 69. I was born just
after she had that stroke. So I only remember
her as incapacitated, I guess, for want of a
better word. But she kept going for another 10
years and used to still try and garden and things
like that. Do you want to describe the main house
that you didn't grow up in, your grandfather's
house? Is that still there? It is still there.
We live in it. We bought nine acres. That's Bob
and I. We bought nine acres off Dad when he took
a couple of blocks off the farm. And so we are
actually on the original house, in the original
house. And my mother and father built a house
on another five acres off the farm and Mum still
owns that. Mum is still with us. She's a hundred
and a half. She had a stroke when she was in
her 90s, so her communication has basically gone.
She hears and all that, but she can't speak at
the moment anymore. Did we get her name? She
was Una Mary Ison originally. Una Mary Barham.
That's one thing I have to say, is that interestingly
for that era, but Mum and Dad were always a team.
They always were D -H and U -M Barham. The farm
belonged to D -H and U -M Barham and everything,
checkbooks, everything was the two of them. So
they were a great team running the farm. Mum
was busy with four daughters too. So your mother,
where is she residing today? RFBI home, Freemasons
Home in Bury. It's quite good accommodation there,
isn't it? It looks nice. It's nice. Yeah, it's
nice. She's well cared for. Your father had his
own way of farming in terms of cutting fresh
feed as he went, which was a bit unusual because,
you know, did he change that way after he inherited
the farm? I think Pop was a grower too. I think
they were all growers. My sister, like my oldest
sister, she can remember. still like our pop
using the draft horses planting crops down the
bottom on the on the flat so i think he was a
bit the same but certainly after dad took over
dad mum and dad took over it was because they
they actually bought the farm off pop it was
probably upped a lot i think since then so can
you describe the land that you're grandfather
it was a bit there was a bit of hill and flat
or it was we always thought it was the best farm
in the brush but that's probably a little biased
it was a beautiful farm um we had the creek running
through it just as jasper's creek runs right
through it so that was a real asset we had the
flat the flat area which was obviously on the
creek banks which did occasionally flood like
we still get floods there occasionally and then
The hilly area, it went up towards Jasper's Brush
Road. So we had the hill paddocks as well. And
then... And what was happening with the hill
paddocks? Like corn. On one of the paddocks,
Dad often grew corn. He often grew saccharine.
He grew it on the bottom paddocks as well. And
he grew not only the corn and the saccharine
and so on, he grew grasses as well. So he always
had a paddock of like... at the right season
obviously ryegrass and clover growing he grew
a lot of clover and things like that he did a
lot of strip feeding of the cattle so every day
it was shift the electric fence and put the cows
on that strip and then then some of the area
he had open so when they'd finished their strip
they would just then wander out the paddock and
into the open area on the flat yeah but so he
was quite meticulous Very much into, yeah, cropping
and, yeah, farming. And he also was quite meticulous
with the cattle. He built up the herd a fair
bit and was very much into the AIS, which would
have come through his family too from the naps.
And he used to breed. Did they show? They did
show, not in my time, but certainly before that.
There were plenty of ribbons in the dairy, you
know, hanging up there. And Dad had a prize cow
that he used to show all the time. But they did
show all the local shows. And they used to win
quite a few prizes, obviously, from the gnat
breed. So what equipment is your father using?
What tractors do you recall? Is he on a tractor?
Yeah. From my memory, like in my era, we had
a tractor. My older sister remembers when we
got the tractor. So she remembers the horses.
We still had the horses in my memory too. They
were still there. Dad loved animals. He loved
horses. So it was very hard for him to say goodbye
to Captain and Nugget and Prince, which were
the three horses, but eventually he did. I remember
when they went, but my sister remembers them
being used. But I always remember Dad with a
tractor, just an old red Massey Ferguson. Yeah,
we didn't have a... Some people had the grey
one earlier, but we didn't get ours till later,
obviously, which was the red one. And he had...
Because Dad did so much cropping, he had things
like, you know, ploughs and rakes and all the
hay equipment, except a baler, because Mr Farl
down the road had... Dad did the raking. They
worked in cooperation a lot, the farmers, down
our road. Mr Farrell had the baler. Dad had the
rake. Dad would do the raking. Mr Farrell would
do the baling on both farms. And I can remember
even going down to Farrell's and driving the
tractor while they loaded up the hay. And that's
like when I was probably about 12, I think. Yeah,
so what else did he have? Oh, the harrows. Basically
all the farm equipment that a farmer would use.
Was the water sourced from the creek? And how
did you collect the water? We actually had town
water because the actual pipes to bury go right
through the centre of our farm and through the
creek and across. So we were on town water, which
was a big bonus in those days. Later on, when
Dad was leasing the farm, one of the farmers
did actually put in a, did put in a, not a pump
so much, but he worked out a system where, a
gravity system where he could get water from
the creek to fill the troughs down the bottom.
But was that underground? Well, he put the pipe
down into the creek and then, yeah, it was underground
to the trough somehow. I'm not exactly sure how
he did it, but it was just a gravity feed from
the creek. Very clever, really. What's his name,
do you recall? Yeah, that's the Farls. That was
David, actually. David. So how did... Did they
have to put... Like, it does get a bit wet around
there, doesn't it? Yeah. Did they have to implement
any sort of drain... drainage systems that you're
aware of in that swampy area no because when
our farm it wasn't really swampy area yes it
would flood but it would drain really fast so
we didn't have a problem with that obviously
down on the other side of jasper's brush there
was a lot of swampy area which they put the drainage
system in so where's that when you say the other
side of jasper's brush well down on the Swamp
side? Yes. So the lower. The back of, yeah, the
lower side. So down, if you know the area down
where the airstrip is, the Jasper's Brush airstrip
that's there now, all of that area, they put
the drainage ditches through, which was part
of the Isons farm, part of the Files farm, part
of the Jones's farm. Yeah. So important. Very
important. It was a very big thing. It was a
very, I think you'll find, you'll be able to
find lots of information. It didn't affect us.
That was lucky? Yeah, we were lucky, yeah. We
were pretty lucky. How was life when your grandfather's
here in the early part of the 20th century? What's
the community doing, do you know? Like you've
got, what facilities do you have for socialising?
Yeah, so, I mean, we always had, we had the school,
which was very, it was like the centre. the jasper's
brush you know we had lots of things connected
to the school so we went there to school but
they'd have socials and they'd have crack a night
and all that kind of thing you know the pmc used
to do did they call it empire day then empire
day yeah well even when i was young it was empire
day yeah and then we just changed it to crack
a night but yeah empire day and we had all that
so we'd have did you know what it meant I think
we did because I think we used to have a little,
I remember being taught about it in school and
then having half a day off. We got half a day
off to build the bonfire. Bonfire. And, you know,
Dad and Uncle Ray and other people would come
in and help build the bonfire. We just did it
that day. Everyone had plenty of sticks, stuff
around. Who would have provided the tutney bungers
and the crackers? Yeah, well, the P &C. Actually,
which I think Dad was the secretary for many,
many years, but they would go out and buy lots.
You could also buy your own then, so everybody
had a few little ones of their own, but they
had the big display and they used to take charge
of the big display. That would have been exciting.
Oh, it was so exciting because our life was Jasper's
brush, so that's what it was like. Dad's life
was Jasper's brush when he was a kid and our
life really was Jasper's brush for most of us.
The only reason we went to Berry was for church.
We went to the Methodist or Uniting Church on
a Sunday every Sunday morning. And how would
you get there in your time and in your dad's
time and in his granddad's time? Well, apparently
Pop, who was a very bad driver from all accounts,
had a little car. But mum and dad talk about
when they were younger, they used to actually
ride their bike into Bury or sometimes they'd
go along the railway line in the trolleys that
the Fettlers used because there was, you know,
a Fettler's house down our road as well. What
is a Fettler? Well, good question, but they used
to go along the railway all the time and make
sure that everything, yeah, make sure everything
was safe and they'd make sure there was enough.
and the lines were safe and the track was safe
and clear and all that. So they checked the infrastructure
of the railway tracks? Yeah, and they'd go through
quite regularly and do that. I don't know how
often, but we had like... There was a house at
the railway station. There was also a fettler's
house as well as the gatekeeper's house, which
was the Burgess, the fettler's house. In my day,
the Browns lived in that. But it went. It must
have gone when the... Took away everything else
when they took away the station, I think. In
my later life, it wasn't there, but I can't actually
remember it going. So was it the Fettler's house?
So the Browns, he was a Fettler? He was a Fettler.
Could you see them from where you lived, the
Fettlers, on the track? Yeah, yeah, we could,
because we can see from our hill, which was where
our house was, we could see, not from Pop's house,
but from our house, we were on the top of the
hill, so we could see down to the railway line,
yeah. So you'd see them going along. What else
would you see? Describe it when you're looking
out. Would you see lots of cows? Lots of cows.
Lots of corn. Lots of corn paddocks up pretty
close to the house. Perfect view of the creek
all the way through. And you talk about the waterhole,
a deep waterhole. Yeah, we had a good swimming
hole in the creek that we all used to congregate
at. How many kids would be there? Probably ten,
around ten -ish. Ten we'd spend often. all morning
there and then wander up home for lunch and then
wander back down in the afternoon it was a it
was a wonderful life and it was yeah and everyone
looked after everybody else you know so we had
as I said there were the Joneses and the other
Burgesses and the um the Harris's when they came
and then there were the Johnsons and so there
was a lot of kids down our lane so and to go
to school Because the school was just across
basically the creek from us. Everyone used to
walk up to our house. They'd go in our top gate,
pick us up as well. We'd all go through the bottom
gate, down the hill and over. We had a plank
across the creek to get to school. So we'd all
walk across the plank up the bank and we were
at school. So it was very handy. So that was
Jasper's Brush School? That was Jasper's Brush
School. And who was your teacher there? Mr Williams
was the teacher there for a long time. He had
Dad. And he also had my three older sisters.
And then... What sort of man was he? I do remember
him and everyone speaks very highly of him. Everyone
thinks he was a wonderful teacher and a wonderful
man and he was very clever because he made quite
a few things that we had in our house, you know,
things like a copper dipper and we had a table
that he made and things like that. Did he blacksmith?
Not that I know of, no. I don't remember any
blacksmithing around there. Who's sheared your
horses? Dad had the one riding horse and he had
a few paces. Dad bred paces with Mr Johnson.
Okay, let's talk about that for a bit. So when
you say, you mean trotters? Yeah, but they're
paces. There's a difference. Okay, tell me the
difference. Look, this could be very confusing.
It's to do with the way they run and their legs,
whether the two... whether the two sideways legs,
the two sides go together or whether the opposite
sides go together. What type of horses were they?
Dad raised those, had those horses with Mr Johnson.
How many? And where would they race? Oh, they'd
go, they went racing now. They went, they were
serious. They went to Bulleye. Was there a race
track there? Well, the shows. They used to do
the shows as well, but they used to go to the
races at Goulburn at some different times. They
had one horse called Honey Wynne, and she was
really the main horse that they had, and she
was really quite good. And then they bred from
her with other stallions, so we had a Viennese
Wynne and a Jasper Lad and a few others that
weren't quite as good as her, but it was a good...
Dad loved it. He loved the horses. As kids, like...
I went to the trots with Dad right until Dad
passed away, basically, was what we did. It's
a dusty old environment. It is. But we loved
it. It was fun. It was fun. It was an adventure
for us all. Was it just you and your dad or a
few others? What I can remember, it was just
me and Dad and then when Bob and I were together.
Bob would come as well. And then occasionally,
if they were going up to Wollongong, if they
went to Bulleye and places like that, I had a
sister who was living in Wollongong, so her and
her husband would come. Yeah, so different people.
But me being the youngest, I got to spend probably
a lot of extra time with Dad and Mum, I guess,
but Dad in particular. That's lovely. It was
lovely. Yeah, Dad and I were pretty close. We
were all pretty close, but Dad and I were very
close, and I loved the trots too. And what was
it about the trots? I think it was just different
to the everyday, because, you know, farm life
is hard. 365 days a year. Dad never had a day
off. You don't get Christmas off even, so it
was two milkings, 365 days a year, and every
day working. the field except for Sunday dad
always took Sunday where he only milked mornings
and afternoons and Sunday he spent with grandma
and pop we had lunch with grandma and pop every
Sunday and dad would cook the dinner while we
were at church we'd all go over there have our
dinner that dad had cooked and yeah so we had
a lovely lovely family environment and dad was
close to to pop And Grandma too. I never ever
saw them, even though they worked together all
the time on the farm, I never saw Pop and Dad
have an argument. So you now live in Pop's house.
I live in Pop's house. Can you just go through
your siblings and their year of birth? There
were four of us. I have three siblings. I had
Diane, and she was born in 1947. Then there was
Julie. Julie has passed away, but she was born
in 1949. Chris was born in 1952 and then I was
born in 1956. So Dad had four daughters. I probably
was the hopeful for a male. I think we all were.
But still, Dad was really good. Like I said,
you know, him and Mum were partners and whatever.
But when we used to say to Dad, you know, do
you wish you had a son? He'd say, I don't give
two hoots, you know. So it was lovely. We never
felt like we should have been a boy. Were you
a tomboy? Yeah, we were, we were probably, or
were a little bit, because we spent a lot of
time down in the paddocks, you know. Tell me
what you're doing. Like you say, how many cows
is Dad milking? And how big did the herd grow?
40 to about 50 he was milking, but then he'd
have like a dry herd as well. And we had a dry
run up at Strong's Road. He never took our actual
cattle, the milking cattle up there. They were
always kept on there. So sometimes he would take
cattle up there that were... dry you know which
means they were in calf or whatever so they'd
go up there occasionally but he also as I said
he was a grower and he also did a lot of planting
up there too so he grew corn and giant paddock
of potatoes he used to grow up there again with
the farls so again we did a lot of things with
the farls and we'd have big days up there when
the potatoes were ready and they missed i don't
know mr foul had a plow like a push plow that
plowed the potatoes out so they'd do that people
like david would push the plow and then All us
little kids would have to run along and pick
them all up and bag them. Dad used to actually,
again, to supplement the farm income, they used
to sell bags of potatoes sometimes. Do you know
what types? He grew everything, so he would actually
just grow all of them, but mainly in that era
it was like the Sebagos. So how's he getting
the produce from Strong's Road? With a tractor
and a trolley. So we had a trolley that... We'd
go, like, his tractor was registered so we'd
go on the highway, so out Strong's Road, down
the highway and then into our road. And he'd
tow, like, trolley loads of corn and he grew
corn up there too. I remember being very scared
when he'd grow corn up there and he'd load the
trailer up and it was quite steep up there. The
trolley right up and then when he was coming
up. We weren't allowed to sit on the tractor
then. He'd be coming up, he'd have to come up
really slowly and the tractor would be lifting
up because he had so much load on the back. I
remember as a little kid being quite scared that
he would tip, but he never did and he was a very
good tractor man. People used to get him to do
their tractor work too once he retired. What's
the highway look like? The highway was different,
obviously, to what it is now. It was two lane
and it used to wind. It used to be a little wooden
bridge over the creek. Always had accidents on
it because it was narrow and dangerous. And there
was a bend and then it used to come up and bend
around and bend around and then back down past,
you know, where Isons Farm is now. Yeah, where
Isons are now. So it was a bit windy around our
place because it went up the hill. A lot of the
boundaries have changed over the years, of course,
haven't they, with development? Yeah, definitely.
Well, even the last highway change, our block
is on the edge of the highway and we even lost
a little bit more of our nine acres then. Do
they pay you for that? Yeah, they do. They pay
market value compensation, so that's not quite
so bad. So your dad's home safely with the potatoes.
Where do they go from there? So I think at that
stage he was probably just selling them locally.
I know later on he used to also grow potatoes
with Alec Rutledge after he'd stopped dairying
out at Broughton Vale and he used to sell them
in at the factory. So they'd grow a paddock of
potatoes and bag them and whatever and then sell
them in at the berry factory shop. At the milk
factory? Yeah, at the factory shop. And he'd
grow corn out there too. He had corn, potatoes,
stuff growing everywhere. And even when we were
little, he always had a big vegetable garden
down on the creek somewhere. And then it got
even bigger at home. He was always growing. It's
a lot of work. He did a lot of work. He was a
workhorse. He was a workhorse and he was not
a very big man. That's probably part of the reason
that he ended up with such severe arthritis.
When the change came to bulk milk, so from the
cans to bulk milk, he was getting pretty crippled
by that stage and he was only in his early 40s.
And he would have had to invest quite a bit of
money because our dairy wasn't big enough for
a big bulk tank and he had to make the decision
to continue or... And he realised that he couldn't
keep working like he was and to invest that amount
of money, plus he would have had to actually
got bigger because most of the farms got bigger
when bulk milk came in. And he just didn't think
his body would do it anymore. And there was no
one really to take over. I would have loved to
have taken over at some stage, but, you know,
really it wasn't realistic. Were you too young
then? Oh, well, I was too young. I was only about
13 or 14. And really, really, I probably never
would have realistically. But I loved the farm
too. And that's why we probably came back and
bought the old house there. So tell me, were
you girls working and helping on the farm every
day type thing? We had our little jobs like,
you know, we'd feed the calves, that kind of
thing. We didn't do the milking. How would you
feed the calves? In buckets, so they had big...
Sometimes it was... If Dad had lots of fresh
milk, we'd use that, but mainly powdered milk.
And we'd mix it up and then feed them in buckets
and we'd have to stand there while they... Some
of them were quite strong. Powdered milk's coming
from where? I actually don't know where he got
it from, but he'd buy it in big bags. Probably
down at the... Co -op? Yeah, somewhere down there,
yeah. I don't know, it was big bags of it. We
just called it powdered milk. It was probably
some proper calf powdered milk. I'm not exactly
sure about that. So with the calves, were they
in their own area, what you recall? They were,
yeah. Dad always had the calves up close to the
dairy, so there was a paddock between the dairy
and where we lived. And that's where the calves
were. They didn't have, in those days, we didn't
have, like, separate pens and that for them,
but they were there. And then Dad would just
keep the calves that he wanted, you know, that
were heifers for a start. He would keep those
that he thought would be good and then other
calves he'd get, he would sell. And that was,
like, extra money for Mum to feed us all. So
where's he going to sell the cows and the calves?
The calves, a truck used to come around. A man
called Tib Reed, who was actually a friend of
Mum's family, and they used to come around. We
called him the calf man. He would come around
and buy the calves and then take them into the
sale yards. I think he mainly went to Berry,
but he probably went to Bomaduri as well. But
our calves would have usually ended up in Berry.
Are you milking at all? Are you helping milk?
We didn't really milk. Dad didn't. want us to
milk because he was afraid of the danger i think
he didn't want us to get kicked or knocked over
or something as the cows got restless in there
so we do things like help clean up you know hold
the shovel under their tails if they did anything
in the in the bales that kind of thing um we
used to have to do things like shell all the
corn when dad used to grow the corn he'd dry
a lot of the cobs And then we had an old corn
sheller that we'd have to put them through and
get all the corn so that would provide feed and
also feed for the chooks and so on. That was
another job we did. We used to go down the paddock
a lot with Dad and do things. After every flood
there was always rocks on the flat that came
up from the creek and our job was to go with
Dad and pile them all back up and put them back
where they belonged or put them in piles. Bit
of weeding down there. After the floods, there'd
be a bit of swampy grass that would get in that
Dad would get rid of, so we'd have to go and
pull that out at times. Shift the electric fence,
we always went with him to do that, especially
once his arthritis got worse because he'd just
send us along the fence line and he'd just stand
at one end, basically. Yeah, and pull corn. We
spent many hours in corn paddocks pulling cobs
of corn for Dad to dry and whatever. That was
a big job that we did. How then would the corn
be finally cleared, the stalks and whatnot? Well,
Dad used to chop it by hand with cane cutters,
him and Pop. I can still remember Pop down there
doing it as well with cane cutters bit by bit.
His hands would have been almost like a cane
cutter. Yeah, he had terrible arthritis in his
hands as well. It's hard work, all manual labour.
It was. He worked very hard. And then, of course,
he would then bring in the plough and plough
it all up and ready to do something again. So
he might then plant it with, I don't know, ryegrass
and clover or something next time and then something
else and then back to corn. He probably wasn't
using fertilisers. He used just superphosphate.
We had a little tiny seeder. and a little tiny
fertiliser spreader that was like the size of
a funnel that used to go with it. So he used
to use superphosphate at times. He used to do
things like, as I said, he'd grow a lot of ryegrass
and clover. So then once the cows had eaten it
off, he'd then plough it in, which of course
is nitrogen and whatever, and clover's high in
nitrogen. He was really like a serious cropper.
I imagine other farmers would have learned from
his example in Jasper's Brush. Mr Farrell was
very industrious too. He did a lot of growing
and he, as I said, he had the hay baler and he
used to go around all the farms and bale their
hay and that kind of thing. Yeah, a lot of people
did grow corn. People down at O 'Keeffe's Lane
grew a lot of corn. It's interesting because
Terry's baling now, isn't he? Yeah, he's baling.
A much bigger baler than Mr Files. Mr Files was
the little, you know. What did he have? Little
rectangular bales that used to come out. Do you
know the old bales of hay? Yeah, I've seen them.
Yeah. Yeah, I've seen it. But that was good in
those days. Nobody else had a baler. Do you ever
remember them stooking the hay? Very vaguely.
Somewhere way back there, I can remember down
on Johnson's Farm them doing that. For some reason,
I'm putting it in a shed, but I don't really
know why they did that there and then, but I
can remember it just. What's your dairy at home?
What do you call it? The bales, we used to call
it the bales. It was a six cow bales. It used
to only be four, and then Dad and Pop added on
another one and turned it into six as they built
up. Is that still there? It had an extension.
It is still there. But it's kind of a bit dilapidated.
But yeah, and all of that, the bales and the
stalls are on the now 8 acres that we own. So
it won't go, although it's slowly deteriorating.
Dad actually, with my uncle Ken, mum's brother,
they actually built the stalls back in the 40s,
I think. Yeah, so it's quite a construction.
And they got the timber from... Up on the run,
up Strong's Road, because there was a forest
there, they actually got a lot of the timber
to cut themselves and did the whole lot themselves.
How much land at Strong's did he have? I think
it was only about 20 -odd acres, but I can't
actually guarantee that. Around 20 acres, I think.
So it made our farm about 100 acres. And when
was that sold? I actually don't know, but our
access to that was through... I think there was
an access the other side too, but we always accessed
it through Matthew's farm and Mr Matthew ended
up buying it off Dad. So we used to go up through
Matthew's farm to reach the block that Dad had
up there and I don't know who he got the block
off and why he got the block up there, but him
and Pop bought it at some stage. Now you had
a school of arts in Jasper's Brush. Yes, it had
blown down before I can remember. Apparently
it disappeared in one big windstorm, crashed
to the ground. What were the winds like? Westerlies?
We get very good westerly winds, very strong
westerly winds, yeah. So they're coming from
Canberra Mountain, are they? Or somewhere? Yeah,
all I gather that's where they're coming from,
up that way up and then like, yeah, that ridge
of mountains there. But they come over that ridge
and it's the same. Maroo probably gets it even
worse than us. Yeah, we did get good wins. So
what did you do for social life as a teenager
and growing up? So, yeah, when we were little
kids, the social life was basically Jasper's
Brush, Jasper's Brush School, but we went to
church and Sunday school and that in Berry and
we had Sunday school picnics and that kind of
thing. Who was your Sunday school teacher? Oh,
my goodness. The one I remember mostly was Mrs
Thompson from Broughton Village. And she was
lovely. And, of course, Mr Agar used to run the
Sunday school. Yes, I saw that plaque on the
community library the other day. Oh, OK. There's
a plaque there. Oh, is there? Well, Mr Agar used
to run the Sunday school. He was the superintendent
or whatever you like to call it. That's what
it says. Well, the minister when I was there,
the one when I was little, was... There was one
earlier that I can vaguely remember. Mr. Udy,
I think that was. But then there was Mr. Bird.
He was the main one when I was a... How did you
experience your spirituality? Do you feel like
you're a spiritual person? Well, yes. I wouldn't
say I'm a religious person. No. I feel like...
I think I get mine from the farm, to be honest.
I actually feel that. And that's, I think, why
we came back and bought that. And I... would
like to think that when I go from this world,
my ashes might go in the creek and go down the
creek, you know, and sail down there. But I think,
I don't know, I think I just get it from closeness
to the land, I think. I think that's what it
is, to be honest. Do you have animals there today?
We've had a variety of animals. At the moment,
we don't have any animals. When Dad gave up milking...
um he went off and worked on farms and like you
know he did a lot of tractor work for all the
farms around the place and he also milked for
people when they went on holidays and that but
he also got into pig breeding he had a very varied
life dad got into that with my again with my
uncle ken mum's brother big pigs i don't know
what sort they were he got them off somebody
else we had like all colors they were black and
they were white ones you know the pink ones and
there was a brown and white and he just got them
off other it was it was a hobby you know he just
he loved animals he you know he probably found
it hard to give up the cows so he did that after
the cat so the cows yeah actually he had them
a little bit before that he did start to get
them because he used to feed them surplus milk
that was another little thing that he used to
do so yeah but he didn't then he got more after
that and then he had a few sheep for a while
so we've had a variety So were they all going
to be slaughtered eventually? Yeah, well, yes,
probably eventually. He did sell them to... There
was a pig farmer down further along the highway
and his dad would breed them and then when they
reached a certain height, size, he would take
them down to him and then he'd continue it on.
He was more serious. Do you know what sort of...
This is a bit random. Do you know what sort of
ducks your grandmother... You know, I don't know.
I actually don't know. Any photos of any of that?
No, we have no photos. I couldn't find any photos.
I went through Mum's photo box and I couldn't
find any photos of the farm back in those days.
Well, I mean, you either had money and could
afford to take photos or you didn't. They didn't
have money. That's really it, isn't it? My father's
family, the Barhams, were actually from... They
came from Tomarong Farm down there. So they did
really well and they bought land down there around
1855 or some time like that, apparently. How
do you spell your last name? B -A -R -H -A -M.
So you will see in the Tomarong family history,
you'll see something about them. Do you know
your father's siblings? My father's siblings?
Yep, there was... Olive was the oldest, and then
there was Vera, she was next, and then there
was Geoff, Geoffrey, and then Edgar, and then
Dad, he was Donald. What about your mother's
side? Yeah, so my mum had, she was the ison,
so she had, she was the oldest, she was Una,
and then there was, we called her Peg, but it
was Ailsa Margaret. Ailsa Margaret was her real
name. And then there was Kenneth and Alfred Ray,
but he was called Ray. I want to get back to
the milk just quickly. So who was your carrier?
Bert Mitchell was our milk carrier during my
time and his son, Johnny. They would come and
pick up the cans and load them on their truck.
We had it like everyone had a loading ramp kind
of thing that they would pull it back in and
they'd put the cans on the truck. Everyone's
cans had a different colour paint around it.
Most people painted their can with a stripe of
some kind of colour. If they ever got mixed up,
people knew which was their can. Some cans were
stamped, but a lot of people couldn't afford
to have a personal stamp. What was your colour?
Well, we had cream at one stage, but then we
had pink for some reason. So I remember the cream
ones, and then I remember they turned pink for
some reason. Dad must have got another tin of
paint from somewhere. Our milk went down to the
Nowra Dairy Co -op, which was at Bomaduri, obviously,
yeah. So do you ever recall anything at Jasper's
Brush, a milk co -op or creamery? I don't recall
it, but it was still there when Dad came there.
Dad used to tell us all about it and people coming
down on there. Horse and carts bringing their
milk down there and half the milk spilling out
as they were going round the corner too fast
with their horse and cart, things like that.
I think it was down on the railway line. There
was a siding and it was down there. There were
still pipes and things like that down there in
our day. We could still see pipes and that. Pipes
from the milk running through? From the milk
factory, yeah. So it was gone in our day. All
we had was the post office, the school, the railway
station, later on the airstrip. Okay. The post
office was located where? On the highway, just
south of Jasper's Brush Road now, and nearly
opposite Strong's, the entrance to Strong's Road.
Who ran that? Yeah, that was Callaghan's. And
they had the farm there as well, and they ran
the post office as well. And they're dairy farming?
They were dairy farming, yeah. Was everybody
dairy farming? Everybody was dairy farming. Basically
our school, Justice Brush School, consisted of,
I'd say, 99 % of dairy farmer kids with just
occasionally someone else. Tomarong, were they
milling? They were farming down there too. They
actually apparently, when the land was sold,
they bought land in that time and their land,
their farm, was actually where Tomarong Township
is now. apparently the barums the barums they
actually gave the land for i think for the hall
and also i think the church came off their farm
so so with your dad what year did he actually
purchase the family farm pop bought the farm
in 29 and so when we were little kids when we
were young kids mum and dad were buying the farm
so it would have been around the probably 60s
I think in the 60s. When did your father pass?
He was 80, so it was 2005. There you go. My father
passed in 2005 and he was born in 1924 and my
mother was born in 1924 and she was five days
younger than my father and she's still with us.
Where was your father's funeral held? At the
Uniting Church in Bury. And then he was, he's
interned into the... wall at the Berry Cemetery.
Did you teach locally? I did. First of all I
taught in Wollongong at Mount Morrigal, then
I taught up in the Northern Territory for 10
years and then... What attracted you up there?
Just a change I think, an adventure and my husband
was on a Commonwealth Teacher's Scholarship so
it was there or Canberra and we decided the Territory
was more interesting than Canberra and we had
a great time up there, we loved it. You teach
Indigenous kids up there? We went to Nullumboy
to start with, which was a mining town in East
Arnhem Land, and then we went over to Groote
Eiland. We were in a community there at Umbakumba.
And then we came home for a couple of years while
Bob was doing some extra study, and that's when
our daughter was born. She was born here. And
then when she was about eight months old, we
went back to Barunga, which is outside Catherine.
and that's where our son was born. He was born
in Catherine. And then once we had the two children
and our daughter was, she was four, so just about
getting ready for school, we decided it was time
to come back home and be with family, you know,
so she could have grandparents and everything
because we were in pretty isolated areas, really.
So can you tell me your children's full names
and their year of birth? Yep, so our daughter
is Holly. Erin Pastor and she was born in 1988
and our son is Nicholas James Pastor and he was
born in 1991 and that's another thing that I
should add that if you go through the Barham
family history you'll notice that there's James
then Henry then James then Henry so that name
has gone right through. My grandfather was James
Henry and then one of my uncles was Geoffrey
James and then my dad is Donald Henry. So that
name just kept going through. And our son, which
is funny, is Nicholas James. So the James is
still there. And also one of my nephews has got
a James in his name too. But it's a common name
now. When you were growing up, did you see many
Indigenous kids around? No, not really. Occasionally
an Indigenous family would come to school at
Jasper's Brush if they were working on a farm.
Or earlier, like during Dad's time, there used
to be a lot of peas growing around Jasper's Brush.
And so the Indigenous families used to come when
pea picking time. So Mum used to pick a lot of
peas too. She used to go around picking peas.
So she worked with a lot of the Indigenous families.
pick the peas, and those kids would sometimes,
like, come to the school. When we had the reunion,
there was actually a lady that came who was an
Indigenous woman. I can't remember her name.
And she actually came to the reunion. We didn't
know her at all. But she told us a good story
about how, when they were kids, like, they were
picking peas up Strong's Road somewhere, and
their parents sent them down to, supposedly,
the school, but they were hiding under the...
bridge the jaspers creek bridge and mr williams
who was the teacher spotted them and came down
and got them and took them to the school and
she remembered that as such a positive thing
which was nice you know it was nice that she
came and shared that but she came to the reunion
and shared that and she said that we're only
there for a couple of weeks but meant something
to her something to her yeah yeah she was an
older lady yeah but that was nice so no we didn't
have a Came back, what year was that? We came
back at the end of 1991, so we started sort of
back here in 1992. Our youngest child, Nick,
was only six weeks old when we came back here.
So I had a couple of years off teaching and then
I got a job at TAFE as a literacy and numeracy
teacher and worked there for a long, long time
until I was 64. And I also did a stint at one
of the local high schools for a few years in
there as well. Did you retire after that? I retired,
yeah. I loved teaching though. We enjoyed it
and we got to see lots of things and meet lots
of interesting people. It was probably a little
bit easier at TAFE too than in the school system
at that stage. That brings us to the end of the
recording. Give me 24 hours to load some photographs
on my website where you can catch the podcast
also across all podcast platforms. I'll put the
names of the Indigenous children that attended
Jasper's primary school over the years in the
written introduction before the podcast plays
so you can view the names if you're interested.
In respect of the Indigenous, I didn't want to
speak their names with this podcast. Tune in
in a few weeks when I'll present to you episode
four. I'm not telling you who yet, but it could
be Crozier's Road. I'm going to jump around a
bit this one. My website is theresesweeney .com
.au. This will also culminate in a publication
at the completion of the project. Thanks for
joining me today. See you in a few weeks.