‘I met Diane when she came to visit Lismore for a few days with her daughter They were here to see the Macleods Daughters show at City Hall and visited the galleries, loved the quirky shops especially the op shops where they scored lots of treasures, the delicious cafes and restaurants and both said that Lismore is a gem. We got talking and I found her story interesting, inspiring and includes some information which may save a life.’
Diane – “I was born in San Angelo, Texas which used to be part of Mexico before The Alamo. Dad was quite a bit older than Ma. When they married he’d been working for an oil company as a Geophysicist for quite a while so we moved a lot to different oil fields. When I was 3 we moved to Algiers during the Algerian revolution from the French back in the 60’s. We were evacuated to Paris quite a few times and eventually ended up living there. We then moved to Libya when I started school but during that time we went back to the States for specialist care for my sister who was dyslexic.
I moved to Australia when I was 11 for the first time with Dad’s work. We stayed for 18 months in Brisbane. We were transferred to Singapore then onto Alexandria, Egypt where I completed 3 years of high school. That was the most amazing country to be a teenager. For our Year 10 trip we went down to the Aswan Dam and saw the ruins. My school was small, only 4 kids in my year and the school had a house in the Alamein Desert we went to twice a year. They had also had a houseboat on the Nile in Cairo which we went to regularly. Every time we were there we had choices to go to the Pyramids, The Cairo Museum, The Citadel or the Market Place. I always chose the Pyramids and the Market Place. I never saw the Cairo Museum. We climbed the Pyramids inside and out, right along the arms of The Sphinx and had a wonderful time. It’s different now, you’re not allowed to do all those things but back in the 70’s we could.
We came to Australia again when I was 15 which is where I met David who was a friend of my neighbour. David and I sat on those steps and talked for about 3 years before we looked at each other and thought Oh…!! 3 months later we married. I was 18 and he was 20. Five kids and eight grandkids later we are still happy.
We live on the side of a mountain on 550 acres. It’s really rugged country and not much good for anything but we love it because of that. Our road is 4WD, high clearance, dry weather road only so we don’t get many visitors. I’m very spoilt as I have 2 wood stoves, one inside for Winter and one in the outside kitchen I use in Summer. We have a solar system set up to run Davids machinery, lights, fridge, etc. At the moment we are in drought with the recent bushfires to the South which are out now. There is a lot of wildlife. I have my chooks, my veggie garden, a greenhouse and fruit trees. In the greenhouse is my pharmacy. I grow all my own herbs for medicinal purposes. I have Elderberry trees for cold and flu medicine. I have Comfrey for bones and bruises, Aloe vera for burns, tummy, hair conditioning. I have the memory herb Brahmi. I have Mullein which I infuse in oil for ear drops or I make it into a tea for chest complaints. Plantain to stop bleeding from wounds and promote healing, Calendula which I make a salve and use it for wound healing, Dandelion for Liver, Turmeric, Garlic, Horseradish and Jerusalem Artichoke. I make my own soaps, salves, face creams. I make beeswax wraps because we have native and European Bees. We have our own honey. I use Kombucha for cleaning when it gets too vinegary to drink. I have lots of citrus on our trees so I take the skin from the citrus and put it in a jar, fill it with Kombucha and let it sit for 3 weeks, strain it and it’s a great all purpose cleaner. I do milk and water Kefir for the family gut health.
We are only 15 kms from the nearest town Blackbutt, but it takes half and hour because of our road. We have Koalas, Kangaroos and Echidnas. We’ve cleared around the house and buildings but we’ve left over 500 acres in tree. It’s too steep to do much else. When it rains and it will rain again, our creek comes up and we can’t get into town so we keep stocked. We don’t get mail or a rubbish pick up. I’m careful with what I buy because I don’t like carrying rubbish out. We have the chooks, the worm farm, the compost and a dog which gets rid of the wet rubbish. I’ve always used my own bags way before plastic was a thing.
One of my neighbours has 7,000 acres with no grass. His dams are drying up so his cows come through the fence regularly. We have had to put electric fences up to protect our fruit trees because the cows come in and break them, they’ve chewed through the irrigation pipes and make a huge mess. They chewed my veggie patch down to dirt and trampled what was left including plants, some of which are rare. I have dog wire around everything to keep the deer, the roos, wallabies and rabbits out but the cows break through it all because they are hungry. We lost 20,000 litres of water when they broke the pipes. It’s like losing gold. These neighbours keeps promising they will replace or compensate but they never do.
We had a year of a lot of little things going wrong and I ended up with breast cancer in 2006. It was a hard year and I was between mammograms. Don’t ever fully trust your Mammograms. Do your checks yourself. I found a lump between Mammograms which hadn’t shown up on the Mammogram I had just previously had. It was a lump big enough for me to feel and it showed up in an Ultrasound. Another Doctor told me if the lump is painful then it’s not breast cancer. Don’t believe that either because I was having a shower and …oh that hurts..there’s a lump there. I went to the Doctor for peace of mind and she knew straight away. They did an immediate biopsy and said I can tell you now, it’s a bad one. My eldest boy was in medical school at the time in his final year and he was working as a Surgical Wardsman in one of the best private hospitals in Brisbane. The Doctor he was working with was one of the most brilliant cancer surgeons so after the official diagnosis on the Wednesday, the following Saturday they operated. They didn’t get it all the first time so I went back a week later and there was lymph node involvement. I had wonderful reconstruction surgery. They take the fat from your tummy and move it up so it’s not silicone and it moves the same as a normal breast. I lost all my hair. It fell out the morning of my son’s wedding. It all came out in the hairbrush but I had a lovely scarf to wear.
I work with special needs kids and one of the little boys who is autistic didn’t like my funny little hat I wore. I said… Do you know why I wear this funny hat? And I pulled it back. He said…Oh no that’s much more scary and pulled it over my face. I wasn’t going to do the Chemo but my kids talked me into it. I only had one grandchild when I was diagnosed and then there were 3 in 9 months so all the kids were like Ahh Mum’s gonna die before we do our job (laughs). I’ve been clear ever since. Out of all the indicators apparently the only one I’ve got is that I was female. I was under 50, I had children, I breastfed, I wasn’t overweight, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, I’m a healthy eater and have very little meat so you never know.
We will stay on our property for as long as we can. Because it’s so remote we know that as we age we may not be able to stay there but the grandkids love it. They ride motorbikes, build cubbies, climb trees. It’s adventure-land and we’ll definitely return to your wonderful town.”