“ I was born in a little town in NSW called Harden. My parents were both young school teachers. If you went out into the country as young school teachers you could pretty well have your pick of where you could go after that. When I was 10 we moved back to Parramatta because my Mum and Dad met at Parramatta High School. They were both teachers and wanted to teach at Parramatta which they both finished up doing. Dad ended up being the Headmaster.
I went to school at Parramatta and at 17 I went into medical school because I’d always wanted to be a Doctor. The reason I think I wanted to be a Dr was we were in this little town when I was a kid opposite the hospital and at the time Polio was in Australia. Two of my class mates finished up in the hospital on iron lungs. We could hear the iron lungs from our house. One of those boys was in one for 18 months. Every now and then the electricity would fail, the iron lungs would stop and they would have to hand pump them. The doctor would swing around the corner in this great big Buick in the middle of the night with his pyjamas sticking out from under his white coat. There was all of this drama. So I was going to be a Doctor, no question and school teachers like their kids to become doctors.
I did medicine and when I finished I had pretty much decided I would do Psychiatry because it was the most interesting part of medicine for me as a Med student. It was the 60’s and I was a student at the University in Sydney. There was a very famous Psychiatrist at the time holding LSD groups. His name was Ian Kent and he’s still alive. He’s 90, still writing books and still seeing patients. He’s an extraordinary man. He eventually got run out of the country but at the time he was doing LSD therapy it wasn’t illegal.
Before I finished doing Psychiatry I was into student politics and I became involved in the Aquarius Festival. It was just after Woodstock really and there were images of kids getting sick and all of that sort of stuff at Woodstock. There was no hospital at Nimbin then. The town was dying so I arrived with my hair down to my waist, already a hippie and involved with mind altering substances. I came up here and opened Nimbin Hospital just in case it was needed, which it wasn’t. With 5,000 naked hippies I though we just may need a hospital.
I came up with a bunch of us who were all living together in Sydney. I was always interested in communal living and share houses and we bought a 200 acre property out at Nimbin for $9,000 with power and a shed. We all moved up over the next 18 months.
A mate of mine had decided to start a Psychiatric service up here because believe it or not in 1973 which was when the festival was, there were no Psychiatric hospitals between Newcastle and Brisbane. He decided to start one in Lismore and I said I would help. Thus began the Richmond Clinic.
I’ve always been a professional piano player as well as a doctor so I never really wanted to work full time in Psychiatry. The two of us came up here and we started the service. I was the Robin to his Batman act. I was living on a commune, playing piano and doing Psychiatry 3 days a week in the Richmond Clinic. I came up here for the sex, drugs and rock and roll but I have been very lucky to be able to still do music and work.
We all smoked dope but there were no other drugs. It was another 10 years or is before heroin and other drugs hit the place. I lived on the community for about 10 years out the back of Nimbin. We participated in the social experiment of my generation. That was the 60’s. At one stage we had 14 adults and 11 kids. We started our own school, the Nimbin Community School.
I met Jennie in the late 70’s. She arrived from England in the mid 70’s. She went out to one of the communities and we met and fell in love. Jennie was working as a Journalist, always and I was playing piano and doing Psychiatry which I am still doing to this day. I work in the hospital in the crisis team now and only on a couple of long mornings. I no longer look after patients in the hospital. I also teach the Med students who are doing Psychiatry. I’m very lucky to still be employable at my age. I am 74. I smoked until I was 62, I was still jogging and had a heart attack about 18 months ago I had a couple of stents and went back to work within a week.
I’ve been lucky. The Aquarius Festival came along at the right time, I was at university at the right time, Jenny and I met at the right time.
Our little band at the moment is playing at La Vida every Friday night. Our band consists of Laura Nobel’s beautiful vocals, her partner Ray, who was Jimmy Barnes’s drummer (and is now the drum whisperer) and a fabulous guitarist Brad and myself on piano. We got together here at home in the lounge room and gradually the others joined. We’ve been getting together for 2 years now but we only performed to an audience a couple of months ago to a standing ovation. We play between 7 and 9 at La Vida and it’s fantastic. Laura is a wonderful singer.
My last name is Freeman. I got that when my illegal immigrant grandfather was asked what his name was and he said Free Man and we’ve never ever found out what his real name was. My Dad knew nothing about him either so it’s Harry Freeman.”