Welcome to The Dairy Lane Project, Season 2.
Today, you'll be listening to Episode 5, brought
to you by myself, Therese Sweeney. I'm a social
historian, and I've been engaging descendants
of the lanes between Bomberderry to Bury, and
I'm currently in Jasper's Brush. My primary sponsor
for Season 2 is Ian Zanstra. A very experienced
dairyman on the other side of the river from
Piree. Season two would not be happening without
Ian's support. I'm very grateful he stepped up.
Thank you, Ian. Now, today I'm going to be interviewing
the Fahl family. F -A -H -L. The focus initially
will be on Henry Fahl. Henry bought land. in
the Jaspers Brush area in 1941. And the Fowles
still live in what is known today as Jaspers
Brush Road. It used to be called Railway Station
Lane. Three generations still live in the lane.
Now, Henry Fowle was born in 1909 in Sydney.
He married a woman by the name of Charlotte Mabel
Stutchbury. They were married in Nowra in 1935.
Her parents were James William Stutchbury and
Edith F. Johnson. Her great -grandfather James
Stutchbury was born in Buckingham, England in
1830 and he migrated to Nowra. He was a farm
labourer. He married Mary Ann Holt. He died in
Nowra in 1908. So Charlotte was the fourth generation
to live in the area. Henry Fowle's father was
Charles William Fowle. He was a dentist and had
premises in Martin Place. And he was born in
1882. He married Vera Elsa Love in Gordon in
1907. Now Vera came from a wealthy family. Vera's
father, Harry Clifford Love. was born in Ireland
in 1835. He married Anne P Bell in Gordon in
1862. Harry became very wealthy. in Australia.
Originally he arrived at the port of Melbourne
and travelled to Queensland where he set up a
road building business in Brisbane. On moving
to Sydney he set up an importing business as
a merchant. He imported spices and breakfast
cereals as well as Uncle Toby's oats. He was
the first to make penicillin under licence. He
was also a freemason. There were 12 servants
in the home. at Gordon, a beautiful constructed
home. Each child in fact had their own servant.
So Charles William married into great wealth.
Vera's grandfather was known as Joseph Love and
he was a builder and his wife was Teresa Gibbon
and they came out to Queensland on a free passage.
Harry was one of the first to run a soup kitchen
on a Sunday morning at North Sydney to feed the
homeless. Vera was born in 1886 and passed away
in 1978. Charles was born in 1882 and died on
the 1st of October 1953. Charles was the youngest
son of Captain Frederick John Fowle, who was
born in 1843 and migrated from Prussia, Germany.
to Balmain, where he was a shipbuilder, a master
mariner. When naturalised, was able to purchase
his first ship. Frederick married Margaret Tomlin,
who was born in New South Wales in 1857. They
got married in 1873. So Henry's grandfather was
a seaman, master builder of boats. Henry had
two children, David Fowle and Elizabeth Fowle,
known as Betty. Betty was born in 1938 and David
in 1941. Henry's brother worked the farm as well.
His name was John for a while. David Fowle married
Margaret Macpherson in 1970. Margaret was born
in 1951 from Tumut. They had three boys. Terry,
born in 1971. Jeff, with a J, born 1973. and
Mark, born in 1975. The Fahls also have a lane
named off Jaspers Brush Road, Fahl Lane. By approaching
council via word from the Isons, they have their
name approved. In approximately 2004, today I'm
going to be interviewing Margaret Fahl, Terry
Fahl, Jeff Fahl, And Geoff's two sons, Jeremy
and Ewan, will be sitting in. So there's quite
a big table we're going to be sitting at. Geoff
is going to kick off the interview going over
Henry's legacy. I hope you enjoy it. So when
Henry was a child, he contacted polio because
they lived on the harbour at Collaroy and their
backyard went down into the harbour. And they
had a live -in nurse who put Henry in the sea
every day at Collaroy and massaged his legs.
with the polio and Henry always said that that
cured him. He attended Narrabeen Primary School
where he was ducks. He then went to Hurlstone
Agriculture College where he was a boarder and
they had porridge every morning so he hated porridge
for the rest of his life. He did his leaving
certificate at Hurlstone Agriculture College
and then went to Hawkesbury Agriculture College
where he was also a boarder and he obtained his
HDD which is his Hawkesbury Diploma of Dairying.
Dairying was looked down upon by his family.
It was a lower occupation but I'll bet that his
parents enjoyed their cream and butter. That
was a bit of a privileged item if you know what
I mean. So after he left Hawkesbury he went up
to Kempsey and he worked at a horse stud at Kempsey
and the owner thought he was so good that when
he sold the stud and moved to Ireland he wanted
to take Henry with him. Henry wanted to be a
dairy farmer. So he moved down to the Shoalhaven,
where he started share farming at Brundy, opposite
Lemons. And he used to go pruning Lemons fruit
trees all the time, VJ Lemons. He talked Henry
into starting a stud. So where is Brundy? It's
east of Nowra, kind of towards Greenwall Point.
Greenwell Point Road. And it's past there, it's
down on the flats. Sorry, get back to VJ Lamond's.
Was this the really good breeder? Yes, that was
the VJ. Yeah, of cows. Yes, of cows. Just go
back over that again. Henry was share farming
at a farm opposite VJ Lamond and VJ Lamond talked
him into starting his own stud and Henry said,
well, what am I going to call it? And VJ said,
there's a whole bunch of lilies there, call it
Lily White. That's how the Lily White herd name
started. Henry registered the stud as Lily White.
He met Mabel. Her name was Charlotte Mabel, but
she hated Charlotte and insisted on being called
Mabel. So that's where he met Mabel. They then
moved to share farming up Long Point on Shoalhaven
River. And I was only thinking last night about
the step down from living in all that wealth
in Sydney to share farming on the banks of a
river. Living with no power. Around what time?
Henry and Mabel were married in 1935. Mid to
late 30s. Financially, times were very, very
tough. Because we're talking about people are
coming out of the Depression, which his family
would be coming out of as well. Were they affected,
impacted, do you know? Yes, they trapped rabbits,
they grew veggies, and in the drought times they
put river reeds through the chaff cutter for
the cows to eat. So river reed, describe, this
is the first time I've heard of river reed. Tell
me about river, is that the weeds in the river,
the long? But yeah, the long tall reeds that
grow on the side of the river. And they chaff
them up? For cow feed. And they would have fed
the cows directly? Yeah, that's at Long Point
on the banks of the river. About 15 years ago,
I met a bloke, an old bloke called Charlie, and
he was talking to me. And he remembers going
up the river with his father to collect the milk
cans from Henry, where he was milking the cows,
and taking them back down the river to the milk
factory. It was called a narrow co -op. A narrow
co -op with Tim Lombardieri. So they're up there,
and then Henry's father, Charles, they must have
come around to Henry milking cows instead of
being a wealthy landowner. Charles financed the
farm at Jasper's Brush for Henry in Henry's name.
and Henry had to pay back every cent. Do you
know what he purchased the land for? No, I don't.
So that was the original home farm of 120 acres.
In September 1941, Henry and Mabel and Betty,
Betty was born by then, she was three, moved
the cows back here to the farm in Jasper's Brush.
Can we assume that Lamond would have helped with
the breeding? Possibly. Would have given him
a bit of a kickstart with... With the stud, yeah,
possibly. Possibly. Otherwise, how might he...
Well, he probably had a good eye. He would certainly
have had. At Berry Show, I think, we still have
the BJ Lemon Memorial trophy for the dairy. I
think we still have that. Pop's cows, he never
showed them. Betty did have some calves at the
showground, but that was junior farmers. Though
Pop never showed his cows, they were all registered.
Cole Bowley bought one of his cows, and that
cow became champion at Berry Show. And another
cow was in a framed photo on the wall in Graham
Park Breeding Centre. So even though he never
showed cows, his cows were renowned. So this
is Henry's cow on the wall at Graham's Park?
Yep. Was it a bull? No, it was a big white cow.
Beautiful cow I saw of myself. It's a shame all
the pictures were thrown away. Yeah, so September
1941, Henry moved to Jasper's Brush. He walked
all the way with the cows from Long Point. They
had Harry Wheatley helping them on horseback
and Mabel drove the old ute with Betty sitting
beside her and Mabel had no driver's licence.
How long is that distance, roughly? And what
would you imagine the mustering would have been
like if the roads were all, I suppose they were
gravel, were they? I would have been back then.
Jeez, Geoff, I'd be 20, 30 k's or more. It'd
have to be 30 k's. Betty said that she only really
remembers, she was three, she only really remembers
the big thing about the trip, obviously was sitting
beside Mabel in the ute, or the old Ford truck,
there was a very big schmuzzle at the narrow
bridge. because the cows didn't want to cross
the bridge because of the wooden decking and
she said Harry rode his horse up and down chasing
cows in all directions trying to get them across
and it was a big schmuzzle. So they came to Jasper's
Brush at the end of a long day to a place with
power and milking machines. That was possibly
one of the reasons they bought this farm is that
it had the new dairy at the time with milking
machines already fitted. Do you know who they
bought the dairy from? They bought the property
from Taylors, the Taylor family. Now, I think
there was two generations of Taylors farmed the
property before Henry bought it. Henry's brother
John was helping them. He was also up the river
at Long Point helping work. He came with them
to Jaspers Brush. John couldn't get into the
army because the war was on, and John couldn't
get into the army, so Henry gave him a job. working
here on the farm so john worked here with henry
right through the 40s they built the hay sheds
david told me that henry and john stood the long
poles for the hay sheds by pulling them up with
the old ford truck that's quite an engineering
feat john and henry also did a lot of work on
the old farmhouse they enlarged it they put a
bathroom in because there was an old slab lean
to out the back a couple of extra bedrooms through
the 40s it was a lot of hard work with very,
very little return, and even through the 50s.
There wasn't a lot of money, and by the end of
the 40s, John had to leave. Part of that was
there was another house on the property, and
John took that with him to Bomaderry. On the
property in Strong's Road, peas were grown, and
one year there was a crop of beans were grown.
That was to supplement the income for the farm.
Local people came out from Nowra to help pick
them, and they were bagged up and... taken to
the bottom of Strong's Road to be collected.
We don't really know where they were going. There
was one memorable occasion in the 40s of a barn
dance being held in the stalls at home here because
there was a band room at the top of Jasper's
Brush Road that blew down in a big storm. Mabel
and her sister talked Henry into having a barn
dance here in the feed stalls. From my understanding
there was quite a bit of trouble. and there was
never a barn dance held again, caused by children.
The ringleader was David himself, and they stirred
up the ball, made him very cranky and upset the
cows. So Henry swore that was the first and the
last. There would never be another barn dance.
So David was born in October 1941, so not long
after they got here. David and Betty both went
to school at the Jaspers Brush School, with David
going on to Nowra High School. and then leaving
at 16 and coming home to work on the farm. David
worked helping Don Barham cutting saccharine
and bringing it down in the sled behind the horse.
Saccharine and corn were grown here at home as
well and put through the chaff cutter and into
the concrete silo. When I was a very, very little
boy... I do remember vaguely of the chaff cutter
in action once and I remember it got blocked
up. So was the chaff cutter used in the field
ever? No. No, it was fixed. It was stationary
at the bottom of the concrete silo. With a three
-phase motor on the bottom of it. David spent
a bit of time working with Don Barham with the
saccaline and bringing it home for them as well
as our own. He would have learnt a lot about
growing through. Probably Henry. Because Henry
did all that through Hawkesbury with his Diploma
of Daring. I have some books at home of Henry's,
of his workbooks and formulations for making
silage and dimensions for silos. So you're saying
his own books, his own records? His own workbooks,
with his own writing from uni. And where do you
live? Just down the road in the old farmhouse
at Jaspers Brush Road. What was the road called
originally? Railway Station Lane. And then it
was changed to Jasper's Brush Road. We're getting
into the 60s and things were very hard financially,
as well as growing the peas. Not a lot of mechanisation
at that time. I think the tractors were here
by then. I think the first one could have been
a David Brown. Yeah, definitely David Brown.
Things were still done the old way through the
wooden feed stalls and the chaff cutter. Did
they have a runner through the feed stall or
were you just hand feeding? Well, David did a
welding course and one of his earlier constructions
was a three -wheel cart, which Mum has very fond
memories of the three -wheel cart. I do. Pushed
up and down in front of the wooden feed stalls,
feed put into the cows. It was filled from the
silo, was pushed up and down and bucketed into
the individual. feed troughs for the cows. Depending
on the cow stage of lactation, there was different
degrees of the amount they were fed. A big producer
was given extra feed. One about to calve was
given extra before being dried off. I do remember
that the cart used to tip over sometimes because
it was three -wheeled. Two car wheels at the
back and a small steel wheel at the front. And
I think it was a bit ungainly. And a very rough
floor. Margaret, what year were you born and
where? I was born in Wagga Hospital in 1951.
And what is your former name? Macpherson. What's
your full name? Margaret Anne Macpherson. And
who were your parents? Cecil William and May
June. May June Herring. Do you know what year
your parents were born? My father was born in
1915. My mother was born in 1919. Were they all
born in Wagga? No, they were in the Tumut area
to start with. What was your journey to here?
The family moved from Tarkata to Lake Tabauri
and then to Falls Creek when I was five. I had
three years at Falls Creek Primary School, then
we moved to Bury. Okay, and you had siblings?
I had three brothers and one sister. Were you
related to the Macpherson Pioneers from this
area? Not this area, no. No, mine were more around
the Batlow, Tumut area. What were the circumstances
around moving here? Do you know? And what were
your parents doing here? They owned the house
in Tarkata. That was sold. They rented until
we moved to Bury and then my father purchased
a small house. Okay, so never farmed? No. Where
was the house purchased? In Ford Street, Bury.
Is the house still standing? It's been fully
renovated and changed a great deal. You wouldn't
recognise it. What school did you go to when
you arrived here? I went to Bury Primary School
and then Narra High School from about 59 through
to 6th class. My best friend was Margaret Sprague.
They were a farming family on the outskirts of
Bury. How did you meet your husband? At an old
-fashioned dance in the Bury School of Arts.
And do you remember the night you met him? No.
And what is your husband's full name? David William
Fowle. Did you go dating or dancing or what happened?
We dated for some time. before engagement and
marriage. And what sort of person was David?
Well, he was very hardworking. He had moral standards.
He loved his children. He was devoted to his
children. And he loved all his daughter -in -laws.
Right up until the end, his family meant a great
deal to him, and especially the grandchildren.
Did David have brothers and sisters? He had one
older sister, Elizabeth. Everyone called her
Betty. So is this where we are today, the farm?
Yes. Father bought the farm, Henry. He moved
from up the Shilhaven River. He bought the home
farm, which is number 60, and then they bought
a property up Strong's Road because the home
farm had a lot of flood -prone land and he needed
the higher ground. So he bought 66 acres at Strong's
Road. So where we're sitting today, is this...
Part of that property? It's not the original
farm. In the 70s, David and I bought the property
across the road, which is commonly called Johnson's.
That's at number 98. And then after that, Dave
and I purchased this particular site from Don
Bowram, and this property goes from this lane
across to O 'Keeffe's Lane. A lot of it was on
the Shilhaven flood plain. and it would flood
periodically. That left a lot of ground that
was unusable, so Henry needed more ground. So
he found the money to buy Strong's Road. How
big was the operation? How many cows was Henry
milking? Henry and David were milking about 80
to 90. By the time David and I retired, it was
about 120 to 30, which was getting to be quite...
a large number at that time. Your husband was
a moral man. Were you a religious family? Yes,
he was raised to go to church. We attended Berry
Uniting Church for many years. The children attended
Sunday school and youth groups there. David didn't
go to church in his latter years, and especially...
the last two or three years because he had dementia
by then. So he was born here? Yes, he was born
in the cottage hospital in Narra, Junction Street.
What year were you married? 1970. Were you married
at the Uniting Church? Yes. Do you recall much
about who attended your wedding? It was mainly
friends and family and a few neighbours. I do
remember I was so nervous, I was shaking so much,
flowers fell out of my bouquet on the church
altar. Did you have your dress made? No, it was
purchased in Wollongong. And what colour suit
did your husband wear? He wore a navy blue suit.
We had two weeks away up the north coast and
then it was back to work. We went as far as Coffs
Harbour. What sort of car did you drive back
then? Oh, we had an EH Holden. His pride and
joy. So the farm was mechanised, was it? There
were tractors or...? Oh, yes, yes. When David
was a boy, there was the horses. He hated the
horses. They were very big and he was a bit frightened
of them. By the time I came, it was all tractors.
Where were you living here? We lived in the original
farmhouse at number 60. What do you recall about
the water being on the floodplain? Was there
any event that...? really knocked you around?
A lot of the floods were what we called dirty
and they'd deposit a silt over the grass. And
as the water was receding, if we had too many
really, really hot days, it'd tend to burn the
grass a bit. Some people lost cows. They didn't
get them in soon enough. One really sudden big
flood, we did have to bring in cows ourselves
and they had to go in the shed because they were
in a bad way. So we're into the 60s now. How
many silos are there? There's four silos there.
Well, the chaff cutter was only on the concrete
silo, so there must have only been one silo at
that point. And how many cows, you think? Probably
about 60 to 70 at that time. And where's your
milk going? The milk was going to Nowra, and
it was still in cans. It was in vats by the time
I came here, in 70. Yeah, but it was still milk
cans up until, Betty said, late 60s. So through
the 60s things were very hard. I'm guessing Pop
still had this loan to pay off for the farm.
Henry got a small loan to buy a hay baler. They
started hay baling contracting. David always
said that that's what put them ahead and got
the farm paid for, finally. They used to hay
bale for Barums. There must have been a close
association with Barums because I remember Henry
went up and fixed putting in a new hearth. for
Barham's as well in their house fire. But they
spent many years with David carting Sakhalin
down for Don and then they bailed for Barham's
as well. They would have shared probably what
equipment they had. I know the Cochrane family
in the valley had them over there bailing. Barham
had a run up Strong's Road as well. I do remember
Dad saying it was that steep that they could
only row up the hill standing on the footplate.
Rotary hoes don't go well down hills. That was
because the way the rotary hoe turned, it tended
to push the tractor, so the tractor would have
been starting to accelerate going down the hill.
And then he said it was so steep, standing on
the footplate ready to step off if something
happened. They did some silly things in those
days. Anyway... They did what they had to do,
didn't they? They did. They did. They took risks.
They took chances. Yeah. Was there any injuries
that you know of? Yes. I don't know when it was.
Mum would know, probably. There was a tractor
accident with Henry. He was bringing a tractor
back from Narra Truck and Farm. It was a lone
tractor. And a car hit the tractor while attempting
to overtake it. And the tractor rolled over,
rolled over at Henry. And Henry had 12 broken
ribs. That was on the highway driving home around
just at... Ray Isons. Yeah, it was somewhere
along Ray Isons. I do remember Henry having the
splint, so it would have been in the 70s. It
was certainly before 70, because the tower had
happened late 60s, and Henry was so badly injured,
he wanted to sell up and stop dairying. But because
of David, he kept going, and David eventually
inherited the farm. Was Henry... In the local
hospital, or was he moved? I don't know any of
the details now. He would have definitely gone
to hospital. I do remember him moving straps.
What would that have been for? He could have
hurt his back or anything. I think that was when
a cow butted him. They were trying to get some
cows. I always thought that was the rollover.
No, no, that happened beforehand. Yeah, so they
used to go hay baling far and wide, contracting,
and that paid for the farm. That was a positive
enterprise. It was. And then at some stage the
chaff cutter was replaced with a forage harvester
to get in the corn and the saccharine and the
grass and more silos were built then. The old
wooden feed stalls were pulled apart and the
new feed pad was built and that was a fully enclosed
shed with concrete floor and a brick trough down
the middle. for the silage to be put into with
a hay rack above that. Would you drive along
in the tractor and it would just run the feed
through? Yes, there was a self -unloading forage
wagon and that was driven up through the shed.
The brick trough was in the middle and it unloaded
into the brick trough as David drove along with
the tractor. Do you know the brand of that sort
of machinery and where that would have been supplied?
It was a dad special. So the forage harvester
was a Gale. Gale, yes. And that came from Nara
Truck and Farm, Fred Porter. And that was situated
where the Ford car yard is now, opposite Stocklands
Nara. The forage trailer was made from a Gale
parts kit, and then Dad constructed the rest.
With the Holden diff on the front. Everything
was a Holden diff with Dad. It was originally
a twin -steer trailer with Holden front wheels.
He kept breaking the stud axles because of the
weight. He would put about five to six tonne
in this trailer. So I remember it jacked up and
a truck axle was put under the front of it so
that he could still have a steering trailer.
And that solved the issue? That solved the issue.
How many cows are getting fed? Oh, we'd be up
to 80 at least. 80 to 90 by that stage. The stalls
were designed for 90 capacity. So that's 45 cows
each side of the trough. On a good day, you manage
to squeeze 100 in. How are you milking them?
Still in the original walk -through dairy. How
many walk -throughs? Six. So it took a while.
I remember when we were kids that we used to
have lots of jobs. As soon as there was, on the
weekend, there was always things going on because
full mechanisation had occurred by then. So there
was haymaking in the summer. There was riding
on tractors getting in. Corn and grass silage.
Was that fun? Oh, that was great fun. There was
always stuff going on. Oh, when you were a little
boy. I don't know if Mum knows this. I remember
at one stage Dad was cutting corn on the Strong's
Road property and Dad had the three of us kids
in the front of the silage cart and he was blowing
the corn over our heads into the back of the
silage cart, steering the spout to fill the cart
evenly and every time it came over the top of
us we would all duck down the front. So it would
go over our heads. And how did your mother feel
about that? She didn't know. I don't know if
she knew. No, I never knew that. I might have
had something to say. After school, there was
always bales of hay to get in while Dad milked.
As soon as we were all old enough... And how
old was that? Mark had to be old enough to drive
the tractor. He's my younger brother. So he drove
the tractor and Terry and I stacked the hay on
the back. Dad had made a homemade hay elevator
that went on the side of the trailer and the
bales used to come up and we stacked them on
the trailer. Do you have a list of the... His
workbooks? Henry may have, or it may have just
been in his head, but a lot of that was thrown
out unbeknownst to us when he passed away. There
was a big clean -out and a lot, unfortunately,
was destroyed. Yeah. There was many, many boxes
I remember looking through of black -and -white
photos of calves because to register a cow, you
needed to have... A photo of the left -hand side
of the animal standing still so you could see
all the patterning on it. That was part of the
registration process. I think they've all gone
now too. Yes, I haven't got any of those now.
So you would have to shoot that photo and send
it in with the registration papers. Yes, and
you still do. I think there was a lot of things
that went on that Mum didn't know about and I
think we were given jobs to do. Before we were
probably really big enough. I remember as soon
as I was big enough, I used to climb up the silo
and steer the blower pipe, the top of the blower
as it was filling the silo. There was a ladder
up the outside. Yeah. And there was a small wooden
platform, just barely big enough to stand on,
outside at the top of the silo. Did it have windows?
The silos. How would you, yes, no windows, just
cement? The later ones were made of tin. Yes,
in the 70s type thing they came in. I actually
do remember the last one being built. And they
had long wooden poles. The tin was curved around
in a circular silo fashion. The last one he built
was made of galvanised pipes instead of wooden
poles to hold the tin in a circular fashion.
Another one of our jobs was pitchforking the
silage out of the silos. Yes, that's what I'm
interested in. So Dad had, yes, so there was
a chute down the front. Each silo had a vertical
chute down the front and Dad had made a steel
elevator, conveyor belt with chains and slats
and that was put at the bottom of the chute and
it would go up and it would come off the end
of that and fall into the silage cart. We would
be pitchforking the silage out of the silo, chucking
it out the door and it would fall down the chute.
And then as we got lower and lower, the silo
got emptier. There were boards. Pop, pop or Henry
wood paint. I'm not sure if it was bitumen paint
or tar paint or something on the tin in sections
as we got lower and lower. to preserve the tin
from the silage acid as it was filled next year.
Like Terry said, there was all boards up the
front, and each, as we got lower, the boards
were taken out so that, you know, we didn't have
to throw the silage up to the top of the silo
to fall down the front. Like, if you understand
what I mean. I'm following. Keep going. So every
year that we were forking out of the silo...
Henry would be painting bitumen paint as we got
lower and lower on the tin. Now remind me why?
To stop the silage acids eating through the tin
and rusting it out. So you had to do a different
preparation for the tin as opposed to cement?
I don't recall ever pitchforking out of the concrete
silo. That kind of got a bit waylaid. Once the
tin silos were built, the concrete silo tended
not to be used. I think because the concrete
silo had manholes up the front and it was difficult
to... throw the silage out of the manholes was
it dangerous what you were doing probably how
would you imagine it would be dangerous in case
you fell yeah yeah working at heights especially
on the outside of the silo steering the blower
pipe it was a long way down so that's blowing
the silage yeah so when dad was harvesting the
silage it would be brought up to a blower in
the silage cart and the pdo on the tractor would
bring the Chains and slats on the floor would
bring the silage forward through the beaters
and then out the side of the front of the trailer
into the blower. And every time a big chunk of
silage would go up, the blower pipe would give
a bit of a kick. It was probably a bit of a wild
old time. Your father sounds quite mechanical.
Was he self -taught? He did a welding course
and that's what taught him to make a lot of the
stuff at home. I think he was self -taught. A
lot of it was pretty much self -taught. Pretty
clever. He could... fix just about anything or
work out how to make just about anything. And
was that passed on to his children? Yes, Terry's
very practical. I think we're all reasonably
handy. Yeah, Terry has made a lot of innovations
and Geoff's very practical and he's passing that
on to the boys, I hope. Part of the innovation
was David assembled and built the auger system
to cart grain across to the dairy. So there was
a loft. above the wooden feed stalls, and when
they were dismantled, a wooden chute was put
into this loft, and then there was an auger pipe
running from the chute up and across on a support
through the air to the back of the dairy, and
that filled the bins in the walk -through dairy.
So Dad built... All that, put all the auger system
together and got it to work. That took away the
need for carrying bags of feed across to fill
the bins in the dairy. The very last innovation
was the building of the herringbone dairy. That
was kind of the last big project on the farm.
And that happened in 93. Describe a herringbone.
OK, so the cows come in either side of a central
pit and the farmer is standing in the pit. and
that puts him a lot lower so he doesn't have
to bend. Put the cups on the cows, he's at the
right level. He can just reach across and put
the cups on the cows. So our dairy was eight
cows on each side with eight sets of milking
machines that he swung across from one side to
the other. So is this a new milking machine?
It was all new at the time. Well, it was a mixture
of new and secondhand. And recycled. Recycled.
It had to marry in with the old vet. Right. Yep.
How did you build it? The feeders and the pipework
was bought from a dairy at Milton that had closed
down. That was Henry Porter? And then that was
brought up to Jasper's Brush, and then Fred and
Jason Dean put it all together and built the
dairy shed, and Class Dean did the milking machine
side of it. Jason Dean's still working on dairies
now. He was quite young at the time. 17 or 18,
working with his father doing the dairy. That's
what the Dean family does, build dairies. They
build dairies and farm sheds. Where are they
located? Jamboree. Yeah, Jamboree. I see Jason
occasionally working at the dairy that I work
at now. And where do you work at now? I work
for McIntosh's at Bury. And what's your role?
Dairy hand. How many cows have they got there?
285 this morning. What system are they on there?
It's a 20 -year side herringbone dairy. Where
does their milk go? Lactalis. Getting back to
the milk that side of things. Please. So the
cans were picked up until the late 60s. Our cans
had a yellow strip on them. Colours, different
colours were used to identify the different farms.
Some farms had their names stamped into them.
Some of our cans had HC file into them. I was
just going to say, on the completion of the herringbone,
it cut one hour off milking time. The dairy co
-ops were keen to start refrigeration rather
than having milk cans. They persuaded the farmers
to put in bulk tanks by the carrier's stopping.
So that happened in the late 60s. The first milk
vat was put in at the farm here. Henry must have
been able to afford it at that time. And I do
remember David, my dad, saying to me that the
first milking, he looked at the little bit of
milk in the bottom of the milk tank. and thinking
that they would never ever fill that. In a little
over 20 years' time, there was enough milk that
there was a need to put in a second milk vat,
which was then filled as well. That was 1988.
I think I remember drawing up some rough plans.
I was still at high school then. So that would
have been 20 years. Yeah, it would have been.
That would have been about 20 years since the
first tank was put in, that the second tank was
put in. When we had a lot of fresh cows coming
in, that was inadequate too because we had to
move to daily pickup. It was regularly every
second day pickup from the tankers, but with
the Great Flush we had to move to everyday pickup.
So you're producing more milk? Yep. It was the
bottom line. Costs would go up and you had to
produce more milk. It was by that time the only
way to increase your income. So it was produced
more milk to pay for everything that was rising.
And you needed more land. We did buy more land,
yes. Yes. In 1976, we bought 98 acres across
the road. Johnson's property, that was a repat
farm. At the end of the war, a lot of farms were
bought by the government. and sold very cheaply
to return servicemen. Must have been in the 80s.
We bought this side from Don Barra. It was early
90s, I think. I think it was early 90s. So you
have a shirt on called Woodside Park. Is that
the Macintosh farm? Yes, that's the Macintosh
farm. Thank you. OK, so you want to continue
with where were you at? Henry was chairman of
Narra Dairy and when that finished is when we
changed to Berry Co -op. And I do know also that
Henry was also chairman of the board of the drainage
trust. What is that? I can go back to the chairmanship
of the co -op. I do know he was the vice chair
from 68 to 72. He took the chair in 72 to 74.
After that, he went back to being a director
of the board. That was Henry. When did Henry
pass? He passed away in... 89. 89. Yeah. David
inherited the property in 89. Yes. So what is
the drainage? It was a flood mitigation scheme.
I think it was funded by the state government,
overseen by Shullhaven Shire Council back then.
John Downey was the person in charge through
council. They would have got the landholders
together. and formed a trust. Going by our flood
gauges and records that we kept of rain and flood
gauges, I'm saying 1963. No, Henry was the chairman.
I don't know the dates. Not all the drains were
put in. There was a master drain that ran from
basically, would have been Leo Davis' farm, through
to somewhere near the paper mill was the master
drain that was never put in. Before that was
put in, I know high tide used to come in all
the way across our end of the flat, all the way
to Davis's farm. What would happen? Buy a saltwater,
kill the grass. So the high tide will come in?
Yes, along the low country. Leo Davis' farm would
have to be two mile from Broughton Creek. I have
seen LIDAR images of the area. It's only two
feet above sea level. How much of your farm would
go under? In a flood? Half of it. In a high tide,
I'm not sure how much of it would have gone underwater.
It would have only been the back corner. It would
have been the back corner. Now, when the drainage
truss was formed, I think that's when the levee
banks were put in. and the floodgates and the
drainage was put in with drag lines i do know
dad's this is in jasper's brush there were two
schemes there was the one oh it's the northern
side of the shell haven and the southern side
it encompasses more than jasper's brush on the
northern side it's sort of in towards berry as
well and back forest when was this roughly i'm
saying 63 is when our records of the flood level
start so probably a couple of years before that
we actually did have three flood gauges that
were proper flood level gauges. If only I could
find that book, I'd put it somewhere safe. We
have records from 63 to 98 of flood levels and
rain. So when the drainage scheme was wound up,
we did end up with the old channel cleaner and
the old drain, little rotary drain digger. They
ended up at our place. And I remember Dad using
them on the back of the tractor. And what was
their purpose? so the channel cleaner was on
the back of the tractor and you used to back
up to it drop it into the drain and drive forward
and it would just clean clean the muck out of
the drain you just drive forward and pull it
out of the drain the rotary drain digger was
a small implement that went on the back of the
tractor with a spinning of course it was covered
but a spinning blade a little bit like a rotary
hoe blade and that would dig a small ditch drain
as you would Driving along. But it did throw
dirt up in the air in all directions. I remember
Dad using it. The last time it was wet, there
was mud and stuff flying everywhere. And when
you're a little boy under 10 years old, it was
the coolest thing. What, did Dad get covered
in mud? Did it smell? No, it's just mud. It's
just mud and dirt. I'm going to introduce Terry
Farl. We're sitting in at the old mayoral premises.
at Berry Showground. Terry is now President of
the Berry Show Society and I'm meeting him for
an interview the next day after the original
recording. It's a very windy day and there's
a lot of echo in council chambers. I didn't have
much choice as Terry's very busy. It's like trying
to catch a wild cat. So forgive us for a bit
of echo. I've done my best. And here we are.
Terry's going to talk a bit about the environment
of Jasper's Brush. Can you describe the landscape?
Where we are, it's a clay on shale ridge that
runs down into the swamp. The swamp is an ancient
lake bed. I tried to work it out this morning.
It basically runs from Bury through to the Shoalhaven
River and further south. It is peat soil on the
swamp proper. There are patches of pure white
sand indicating the ancient beaches that used
to be there. If you know where to dig you can
find that. There's ancient sea shells buried
in some of it as well. It is very fertile country,
especially in a dry season. Just before the Christmas
fires of 2019 -20, a few weeks before the fire
jumped the river, we were cutting hay down there.
Now, that's the reason Henry bought the place.
It was back in 1941, it was similar weather conditions,
and it was the only place that had feed. They
were carting the Paspalan, which is native to
the area. as far away to at least Bundy Waller,
which is out the back of Bury, west of Bury.
This was before the flood mitigation scheme was
put in. The story from Henry was you couldn't
see the fences for the past pale, and this is
in a dry year. So in a wet year... In a wet year,
it's funny soil. In a wet year, I'll go to 1989
when I first went onto the dairy, we had mud
around. basically knee deep that used to go green
between milkings. So you couldn't ride the motorbike
anywhere off the road, but down on the swamp,
you could walk around in your leather boots.
It's real funny soil. But if you break that crust,
which is only six inches deep, you instantly
stop and go and get something to pull yourself
out because if you keep going, you're going down,
not out. It's real funny soil. So you can get
trapped in it. You say? With machinery, yeah.
Very easy. We've got family photos. Mum didn't
drag them out back when the army had the airfield
block back in the 80s where they used to do the
parachute training school. There's a uni -mog,
one of their six -wheel drive Mack trucks, and
one of those little John Deere Traxcavator backhoe
things buried in the mud. So let's talk about...
Some of the dilemmas before the drainage system
was implemented, what do you imagine? And how
far up does the water come in terms of the streets,
the railway, like the sites? The railway station
lane. Before the drainage systems were put in,
which I think were 1963, the tide used to go
back for at least two miles back to the low point
of the swamp, which is, what's the best way to
describe it? Over the highway from the Silo's
restaurant now, I think you've done the Davis
family. Okay, in the back of their place, the
low point of the swamp is on that place and is
only two feet above sea level. Where we are to
the east of there, it rises to about four feet
above sea level. And King Tides, before the flood
system was put in with the levee banks on Broughton
Creek, used to go all the way through there,
which is at least two or three miles. Does Jasper's
Brush Creek run through your land? Yes, it runs
through Barham's Block, which we purchased in
the early 90s. No, it would be earlier than that.
The reason I'm saying the 80s was the Army bought
the bottom of our place, what I call Callaghan's
Place, and Ray Ison's Place, and the bottom of
Davis's Farm. That was... while they were running
the parachute training school there and they
wanted someone to do the line jumps out of the
Hercules. I do remember right at the end of it
they had radio control parachutes. They were
dropping trailers with the radio control. Right
at the end they did a big exercise. I think there
was five Hercules loads of paratroopers dropped
and they invaded the airfield with blanks, thankfully.
And I think that went all night. That exercise
did. That increased the original airfield block
from 100 acres to 325 acres now. And that is
currently owned by Skydive the Beach Wollongong.
It's his personal farm. How does the water affect
animals? And then what's the impacts on vegetation?
What's arisen? Since the flood mitigation schemes
put in, unless the... drains are maintained,
the water can't run away fast enough. The big
water goes, it's the small water. By big water
I say 8 -10 feet of water. The smaller water
which is only knee deep can't get away and if
we get a lot of hot sunny days it's enough to
heat the water up that will scald the grass and
obviously it's going to kill it or retard it.
We can get floods with mud. We do get silt sometimes.
Our biggest issue is all the flood debris, which
is logs and grass and goodness knows what else
floats up. Occasionally we have to go and clean
that up. We watch the weather. Because I'm a
haymaking contractor, I'm watching it anyway.
But you get a local knowledge and a feel and
you always are on the side of caution. So if
we think there's something coming, we'll... get
our stock off the swamp up onto the high country
or at least in a paddock where the flood can
push them up onto the hill. I've got three paddocks
set up that way that I'm safe if they're in there
and I think there's a flood coming it will push
them up onto the hill. We have had one instance
in the whole time we've been in the brush since
1941 we lost five animals it was caught us by
surprise it was A hell of a storm up around Robertson.
We got four feet of water overnight, which is
not unusual. What caught us was the speed and
temperature. It was fast. It's the only flood
I've ever seen that got foxes, and it was cold.
That's what killed our stock. It was barely up
the top wire of the fence, but it was the cold
that got them. How does the water get to your
property from Robertson? A lot of people don't
realise that Robertson drains into the top of
Fox Ground, which is the headwaters of the Broughton
Creek. And, of course, it overspills onto the
swamp and comes across. Dad is often spoken of.
He went out there one day and he could only go
backwards with the tractor because it was washing
the front wheels sideways. We had skydive the
beach guys down there. They got caught. They
had an overstock on the farm. It was washing
the... troop carrier sideways. Not big floods,
but he's reckoned there was about four knot cross
-carry, which is why we try and avoid getting
caught in floods. We've only been caught once.
And for a flood to catch the foxes is unheard
of. What about rock? Do you get much of that?
Rock? That's... You get creek stone on the Brush
Creek part of the property. Some of it's not
really deep. It's just below grass level. Where
the dairies and the houses are, it's... That
shale clay ridge, there's no rock there. The
swamp, I mean the swamp is peat soil. However,
I was digging below our dam to the west of that,
which is out on the swamp proper. I think I was
burying a cow or something and I'm digging up
creek stones. And there's nothing on the surface
to indicate there was ever a creek there. So
I've got no idea. This is guessing on my part.
There was a tsunami. Back in the day, an ancient
one, there's stories of rocks that they've identified
up on point perpendicular that were lifted by
that tsunami. I do know up in the headwaters
of Crooked River, which is up in Gerringong,
Col Fay was farming that particular farm. He
had a university there and doing excavations
in the sediments and they were uncovering evidence
of that tsunami up there. It's a windy day today,
isn't it? It's not helpful. This is an indication
to me, reading the weather, it's still going
to stay dry. It's coming from the west. It's
coming off the snow. I didn't like the north
-westers in August. I'd rather have south -westers
in August stay off the snow. That was the first
indication that it was going to flip from wet
to dry. Do watch JWC closely. Those guys, I've
seen them accurate to two years out in the front.
That's why we don't watch the television. They're
more worried about, is the weekend going to be
good to go surfing? So Terry, you pointed out
some grasses yesterday when we were driving across
to the gates with the water. Is that a recent
phenomenon? The perspalum is native to the swamp.
That red stuff you said? The red stuff, the smartweed,
it's also a native to the swamp. An indication
that the previous season being wet is where the
water ponds. It just comes up. That's an indication
that your drainage is not quite right. Now, drainage
on the swamp can be a difficult proposition.
It's like a bowl of jelly that moves over the
course of decades. If I can find the flood book,
the proof there is from the flood levels. The
flood gauges were put in back when the mitigation
scheme was started with the drainage trust. Water
being level. There's discrepancies between some
of them that you can trace through those flood
levels by an inch or so over decades. So detailed
drainage is the key to the swamp, just shallow,
wide drains that you can cross with the machinery
to keep them clean. But you do have to be aware
the swamp is slowly heaving and moving. Not by
a lot. It may be seasonal as it wets up and dries
out, but peat being peat. Peat also is a little
bit unique in the way it burns. I was going to
ask because I remember. Mm -hmm. I've fought
a few peat fires over the years down there. Now,
it was burning with the last huge fire. Yes,
the 19, 2019, 20 fires. Everyone's worried about
the bush burning. Manildra, just before all that
started, had a failed hay crop because it was
a dry season. They pushed their hay up to the
end of the paddock, which is on the boundary
of the airfield, and what, back in the day, I
know it as Soper's Farm. It must have had enough
moisture. in it that it spontaneously combusted
completely independent of the bushfires that
were raging the peat had dried out enough that
it did ignite and it's a smouldering fire the
best i can describe it to people that don't understand
is a cigarette butt it's smouldering but you
can't see it smouldering until you draw on it
it's just like that now that fire was only i
don't know three acres big the first day is always
scary when it's a grass fire That burns. We had
three helicopters bombing that. I don't know
how many firetanks we had because they panicked.
The fire control know what the swamp's like and
they hit the panic button. There must have been
a serious panic to draw everything away from
the major fires that were at the back of Nowra.
The second day, it did flare up. By that stage,
me and Paul Timms had set my trailer up with
two 1 ,000 -litre tanks with the firefighter
rig. He had set up his old Land Cruiser with
a 1 ,000 litre tank and a firefighter rig on
the back of that. So we were ready for it. Once
we knew it was off on day one, day two when it
flared up again, we were there. Paul Camilleri
was there with his little boom spray and quickly
found out that's not big enough. We had a couple
of fire trucks in attendance and we also had
a local guy by the name of Ken Hutt with his
little truck with 4 ,000 litre tanks on it. Ken
stayed on the fire. The RFS had more or less
disappeared by then. I ended up shuttling water
from one of the flood mitigation drains that
runs through the airfield, which is probably
only 200 yards away from the fire. I was filling
my tanks up, transferring that into Ken's truck
so he could continuously pump water on the fire.
Paul Timms, at the same time as mobile with the
Land Cruiser, I was also filling him up at the
same time I was filling my tanks up. So between
us, the three of us, we had water on that fire.
continuously. Now the way to fight a peat fire,
when the grass is gone, the scary day is gone,
is you look for the smoke or occasionally you'll
see a little flicker of flame. What you do there
is you get your fire hose, which is an inch hose
in our case, point it vertical and you literally
blast the black ash that's burnt out of the ground.
And then when you think you've got it all, you
put your hand at the bottom of the hole, feel
if it's still hot, you keep blasting. The trick
is you've got to catch it all in the first week
before it gets too deep and you can't access
it. There are stories of peat burning big enough
that you'll lose a fire truck in it if it collapses
on top of you. This is moving sideways, but this
is an illustration of what a peat fire can do.
Coombanderry Swamp is the result of a peat fire
that burned for 12 months. Now that's Agar's
Lane east to, we call it the sand track. which
is just north of Shellaven Heads. That is how
much you can lose in a peat fire, just some.
Before that peat fire, the agar farm used to
go all the way through to the sand track and
it was all ryegrass and clover country. Now it's
a swamp. That's what a peat fire can do. That's
why we like to get on it quick. In 1974, there
were six floods on record. Two of them were big.
There was one 10 -foot flood and there was one
11 -foot flood. Now, I've managed to piece together
through talking to locals that one of those floods,
I'm pretty sure, was the one that cut the highway.
It took out the railway line. North of where
we are would be on Don Barham's Creek. It's the
Brush Creek. All the bridges and the highways
went down through every creek. All the bridges
were gone. I think it may be the same storm that
took the Cigna up onto Stockton Beach. Talking
to the Agar family, Cole in particular, who was
milking cows then, it was a nightmare because
his farm is Straddles, Agar's Lane. The highway
was that cut. Police had stop and go on Agar's
Lane and that was the only way north. He's trying
to get the milkers up through a stop and go Princess
Highway situation. What a nightmare that was.
where they've lifted the highway level, so they've
put new bridges in above that flood level. They
obviously had to repair bridges, so they've done
it right. The one they missed is north of there.
It's north of Crozier's Road. It's that little
creek there at the bottom of that hill before
you get to Muller's Lane. Talking to Len Rhodes,
who used to live in that house on the western
side of the highway just there, has seen five
feet of water running out of that creek over
the highway. So that explains why the new highway
is the levels it's at. They've obviously known
about that. It's a scary amount of water. I've
actually got video on my phone of a major event
from nearly two years ago now. We had something
like 200 millimetres in an hour or something.
There's a seven -chamber box culvert under the
current highway there at O 'Keeffe's Lane that
drains into a dam and nowhere else for it to
go. I've got footage where the dam has burst.
There's two feet of water running down O 'Keeffe's
Lane. My stepdaughter was milking that dairy
at the time on Tim's Farm. The kids have got
together in the ute and I've had to drive the
tractor through to make sure the pipe hadn't
washed out. And they were following me in the
ute. The reason being the tractor weighs five
tonne. If it had gone down in a hole, it would
not have floated. Whereas the kids in the ute
would be floating down, frustrated and gone.
There's one comment I will make. It's an untapped
resource of the Aboriginal verbal history. they
will have seen this and with a bit of luck that
could be and should be tapped into because they
go back, what, tens of thousands of years. Totally.
For those that actually may remain. Those that
have the tribal law, for want of a better word,
that would be so valuable. Yeah. That brings
us to the end of the recording. There was a lot
in this last one. That brings us to the end of
the session with the Fall family. I hope you
enjoyed it. Join me next time. I'll be with you
again in a few weeks to bring you Episode 6.
Get in touch if you need to via the website.
There's a form there. Until next time, take care
and thank you.