“ I was born in Devon, England in a Navy family. My family came to Australia in the mid 70’s. They were posted to Canberra. We stayed for 2 and a half years , went back to England then we immigrated and my Dad joined the Australian Navy. Most of my schooling and early working life was in Canberra. I am a qualified Sign-writer by trade back when it was sign-writing.
During my sign-writing days I started DJing at night. I have a massive love for music and grew up in the Punk / Goth / New Age time. Eventually I was offered a night DJing in Canberras biggest Gay club. From there the big alternate club called the Manhattan wanted me to go and work for them. So I ended up doing 4 nights a week and it became my full time job.
I met Anna at the nightclub. We celebrate the night we met because we actually moved in together 2 or 3 days after we met and that was 28 years ago. We have lived and worked together pretty much full time since then so it’s quite unique. I loved the DJing but we moved to Sydney and I went back to sign-writing. Anna worked in a couple of Deli’s in Surry Hills. We ended up moving back to Canberra to take care of Anna’s Grandparents who raised her. We looked after them for 16 years till they were in their 90’s.
Some of my family had moved here to the Northern Rivers so once a year we would holiday here. We loved the area and eventually we bought our first house just out of Mullumbimby. We rented it out and moved back to Canberra to save. In that time my hobby was aquariums. I was DJing at night and breeding fish in the day. Anna and I both worked there. She specialised in all the aquatic plants and I specialised in the fish. We worked there for 6 years and then in another one for 7 years.
We were together 7 years before we got married. We had our first child 22 years ago. Her name is Charlotte and she lives and works here in Lismore.
About 18 years ago we moved here and started breeding tropical fish commercially. We are also both mad gardeners. Anna’s Grandmother who brought her up used to work in Pennant Hills nursery for years and was a well known Camellia propagator. As soon as we moved here to the North Coast we started planting. Our first property at Mullum was 2 acres and barren. We drove past the other day and all the rainforest trees we planted are massive and fantastic. We ended up running out of space to plant trees. In the meantime I ended up being offered a job up here at Summerland Aquarium and Cacti nursery. We became very good friends and I stayed on there for 5 years. At nights I would breed the fish and weekends we did the Channon and the Carboot markets with our plants. It got to the point we were working 7 days a week.
We decided to sell Mullum and move away from the Byron Shire so we bought 15 acres just north of Lismore. It was pretty much ex farmland. We have now planted several thousand trees on the property and we call it the jungle. We’ve dedicated the back 5 acres to koalas. We have about 500 koala trees in that corner alone which have formed a link over the gully to other Eucalypts.
In 28 years together we have never had a honeymoon or an overseas holiday. We have just worked. We came up here to have a lifestyle change and we were working harder than ever. We decided to have a change. We started doing more markets, selling plants, ponds and waterlilies. Little did I know one of my customers then turned out to be a vital link in the next state of our life. We were selling plants to a tiny nursery next door, the Seedling House owned by our friend Peter. There were 6 nurseries in LIsmore at that time and Peter was buying wholesale from us and one day Peter offered to sell us the nursery. The Seedling house was a bit of an icon and had been there for 18 years. We thought this was the break we needed. Unfortunately Peter only rented the block of land the nursery was on and there was no electricity back then. We were happy to buy the business but the people who owned the land were selling. We knew it would put us into debt. Low and behold the bank manager at that stage was one of our best customers so long story short he lent us loads of money to buy 2 shops, a flat and a nursery. Not what we were planning but we did it. We tripled the size of the nursery in 3 to 4 months. We worked 7 days a week and soon cut back to 6 days. We sold the aquarium side of things and stopped the markets. Our daughter would come to work with us when she wasn’t at school.
Within 6 months of opening we were hit by THE famous hail storm from hell that hit Lismore. We were destroyed, we lost everything. We lost the roof, all the pots were smashed. We lost 90% of our plants. It was horrendous and we cried. We had friends and family turn up and we were operating within 48 hours. We look back now after this last flood and the same thing happened. We lost so much but we had so much support from so many people.
We ended up selling our nursery 8 years later to our young employee and his partner who worked for us in the nursery for 5 years. At that time we were the sole surviving nursery in Lismore. It’s wonderful as we are right next door so we can help out if needed. We’ve seen him blossom from a teenager to a successful business person. A lot of people think he’s our son.
We ended up opening our shop into our other passion which is Antiques and Collectables, Vintage and Retro. In the meantime we kept up our love of gardening and Anna suddenly got Anaphylaxis from ticks. It came on so fast. She was always gardening and pulling ticks off. Suddenly I’m rushing her to hospital with her virtually dying. Unfortunately that put a hold on our property at home. Anna can barely walk around it so her gardening is confined to the verandahs and pot plants at home. I try to keep the rest under control. We have thousands of rare plants on the property with a future to propagate and get seed for seed banks.
Anna ended up getting more into the collectable side so we opened up Lismore Collectables and we’ve been going for 4 and a half years. We love it. Doesn’t make much money but we love it. Meeting people who collect. We are firm believers items find people so we spend a lot of time when we are not in the shop hunting for treasures. We travel all over to find things for ourselves and others collections. We love seeing people up-cycle and recycle. It’s keeping history alive.
We had our one daughter who is now 22 and then Anna had 2 ectopic pregnancies, one which almost killed her. We had to be rushed from Dunoon to LBH with a 50% chance of survival. It was the scariest day of my life and they told us we would have no more children. We were fine with that. We were over the moon with our one healthy child. A lot of people don’t get that chance. Low and behold as we hit our 40’s our little boy Oliver came along. We have a 15 year gap between our children so we’ve had to rethink a lot. Im now a grey haired dad at the same school Charlotte went to years ago at Modanville. He’s become a little collector with his vintage toys.
We’ve been in the Northern Rivers for 18 years and adore the area. It is so diverse when it comes to the people here. I’m into vintage cars and have several old 1950s American cars. It’s a passion. I have friends here who are car people, friends who are tree planting people, koala people. I also became a wildlife carer for 15 years when I moved here specialising in reptiles. We see the diversity everyday in our shop. I’ve always been a firm believer in never judging a book by its cover. Some of the most wonderful people who we have become friends with up here are some of the people that general society may look at and frown upon because of their image. They have turned out to be the most generous, caring people ever. That’s what we love here. We have decided we will live here forever now. We want Oliver to grow up here. We plan on downsizing a bit and enjoying family and life a bit more now.”