“I was the daughter of an army officer and grew up in all the garrison towns in England. I married a farmer and we had twin boys and we imagined our future with our boys growing up on the family farm. We lost one of our twins at 4 1/2 months but we also lost our farm. We had another baby boy and we decided to immigrate to Australia in 1962. We came out as 10 pound poms with our two little boys who were 2 and 8 months old. We didn’t have the money to buy a farm here so my husband sold cars and eventually after 20 years we realised we could buy a farm.
We came here to the North Coast in late 1979. Land was still reasonably cheap and we bought 130 acres at Bangalow. It was beautiful. We kept half as grazing and we put Macadamia trees on the rest of it.
In the meantime we had 2 more sons. I started teaching Jazzercize up here, life was happy and content but then I started seeing all these visions on TV of starving cattle. I was horrified to think of us here in this beautiful lush Northern Rivers of ours and a few hours west people were doing it so tough. I was talking to an old farmer who said, you know cattle eat sugar cane tops. I thought, but they’re burning them all.
I eventually persuaded cane growers to have their sugar cane tops baled. An article went in The Land newspaper and I had the Chairman of Australia Post contact me offering a semi trailer to transport the hay. For 7 weeks we had the use of this Australia Post semi driving out to the cane country, picking up bales and transporting out west. This would have been in 1994. As it got closer to Christmas I thought, I could put Christmas boxes in.
In the odd year I couldn’t find a drought, I’d find a flood. Grantham flood was the beginning. Within about 5 days we had enough stuff come into that little hall in Eltham. I organised a convoy. Someone even donated a car which I drove up. We were loaded with linen, boxes of gumboots, cleaning products, furniture, baby goods and food hampers. We all went in and parked at the high end of town that hadn’t been flooded. It was so traumatic. People were walking around like zombies. Eventually a man named Marty Warburton used his initiative and we placed all the food into the fire station. All the dry goods we put in the butter factory. Not long after the Grantham floods we were hearing about what was happening after the Brisbane River flooded. The insurance companies weren’t paying up and people were doing it so tough. For the next few months I was sending goods to Brisbane. People were offering me a whole house full of furniture. If there’s not a drought there’s a flood.
This year we couldn’t wait for Christmas because the drought has been going on for so long. This year is different to the past because there has been so much public awareness. We had to vacate the Eltham Hall and the Clunes firemen came to the rescue as they always do to move everything out. In the meantime this venue here at the show ground was a place for people to drop off stuff. When I opened the roller door it was chockablock full of goods people had brought in. So we work out of here now.
I met a lady who was telling me about Bangalow adopts Bingara. They had decided that they wanted to get hay, food and toiletries for Bingara. They approached me and asked if I could send some of our hampers out too. I said Yes, I have 170 boxes ready to go. I went with them so there was a big convoy of us. We took hay, molasses and all the vehicles with trailers packed with all the boxes to this little community and it was very well received. They are still doing that and I’m helping with hay and fodder. A lot of money comes into the account we have organised here so I was able to authorise $10,000 to go toward hay and molasses yesterday.
We are still packing the hampers which leave tomorrow. We do food hampers, boxes of toiletries, laundry boxes, Pamper packs, Mum and bub packs where people knit and crochet baby wear and blankets. The Lismore and Northern Rivers community are so giving. We have 35 of the most beautiful handmade patchwork quilts donated by local ladies. Each one has a heart with ‘Made by …..’ sewn on. They are stunning.
Tomorrow which is the 22nd Sept we will put out about 10 pallets. Each pallet holds about 40 food hampers and in the middle is a bit of a hole and we put in slabs of beer if we have it and pamper packs. On the top go all the laundry and toiletry boxes. They end up tall and the Firies have to wrap them in shrink wrap. Richmond Sand and Gravel have donated the use of their fork lift and they’re all loaded onto a big semi trailer supplied by a company called Tamex who freight it to wherever I send it. Our local Tamex agent is Ballina Wizz couriers. Tamex have transported my stuff free of charge for years. They have agents everywhere so the boxes consigned to Gunnedah, The Pilliga, Mungindi, Lightning Ridge, Cobar, etc., are all picked up and delivered. It’s amazing! Everything is free, time, petrol, labour, everything.
I’m 80 now and I do it because I can. I still run a Jazzercise class and I’m still an activist. I belong to a group now called Families against Fossil Fuels and we go to Parliament House in Brisbane every month when parliament is sitting and do a bit of a peaceful protest. One of my friends hires the baby petting animals so we have ducklings, baby goats and pigs, baby chicks and we have them in an enclosure under the trees outside the Botanical gardens. I have this massive sign that says Farmland not Gas land.
My poor long suffering husband John is 86 now and he’s had a knee replacement. It isn’t healing too well. He struggles up and down this bank picking up stuff. He’s always very supportive but he’s doing it tough this time with painful arthritis as well.
Tomorrow I’m going to Bexhill school where the children have had an ongoing drought appeal. They’ve raised $600. The pre schoolers have all drawn pictures for the farmers which we will put in the boxes. The farmers love that. The kids say things like, We hope your tractor still works, we hope your animals haven’t died.
I have a contact out west who is a real character called Bessie. She reminded me this morning about an article that went in The Land on what I do and I had people begging me, ‘I just want to keep my horses alive, please help.’ I can always remember this voice on the phone saying, Don’t forget Collie. I said, Who’s Collie? ‘Collarenebri! It always gets forgotten.’ That was 24 years ago so I’ve been dealing with Bessie ever since. Everybody in the whole north west of NSW knows Bessie. So far we’ve done 560 boxes and Bessie and Bill can place all those. Bessie told me she was in one of the rural land protection offices last week and a lady came in with 4 young children. Twin boys about 4 and two girls about 7 and 10. She said the children looked so hungry and the woman was in tears looking for help. She would have used precious petrol to get there. Bessie pricked her ears up and she was going tomorrow to drop off clothes and food, etc. to that office. Now that I know the children ages there is toys, clothes, big bags of rice, etc. which I can get to that family.“