The districts and their people: contemporary and historical reflections

CF240406_HS Sample 1 – Moving to Trentham 

Interviewer: Why did you choose this area, when you left Melbourne? 

Well, we needed to needed to keep working. We had jobs in Melbourne and we were looking at jobs that are, we were looking at areas that we could still potentially commute for work while we found our feet and thinking that it might take a while to get a job locally and there’d be limited options. So we kind of drew a circle about an hour’s travel from Melbourne more or less and also looked at train routes, public transport, roads, accessibility to Melbourne, and then of course price. And we had a look around and we really liked this area. We didn’t know much about it before, but we had a really good feeling about it. I think we were, we were looking at either Yarra Ranges, Healesville area, or here, were the two, and we liked here more. It was less touristy, felt like a little bit more forest, a bit more nature and it had good connections to Melbourne as well as, yeah, being close to places like Wood End and Daylesford and Kyneton. 

Interviewer: What was it like moving here and settling in? 

It was cold. [laughter] It was, I think it was just about sleeting when we first moved up. Um, oh it was just wonderful to be up. We were so excited and it was so beautiful. Had no Internet, so trying to work was interesting, remotely. As soon as I moved up, I drove to the CFA station and sat in my car for better reception, so I could use a computer. [laughter] And in to Kyneton, sat at the cafe a few times just so that I had Internet, and could log in. So that was a little bit stressful knowing that I had to work from home and I had no connection. But other than that, it was, yeah, it was really good. Yeah. Really enjoyed it. Just so happy with the space and the smells and the freshness and the trees. 

CF240406_HS Sample 2 – Moving to Trentham 

Interviewer: What was the most surprising or the most pleasing thing about settling in here? 

Oh, probably all the animals around and so close and just being able to, I mean, I knew there would be when we’d had a look, we saw plenty of kangaroo poo, [laughter], so we saw evidence. But it was beautiful working at home from my office and seeing the kangaroos come past and I had a wombat trot across the front lawn not that long after I started. [laughter] And all the kookaburras, all the birds. Yeah, that was, that was really special. 

And then thanks to the CFA I got to meet some local people like yourselves very quickly. And that was that was really lovely too. 

PhilS  09:40-12:18 

RFS experiences? Or historical town? 

Well, um, when I’ve, well, first came to Braidwood, and I~ I actually bought a farm, out on the um the other side up against the mountains here at Farringdon in 1979 and I was a member of the um uh what is it? Ballalaba Bushfire Brigade, is it Ballalaba or Farringdon? Farringdon Bushfire Brigade. And at that stage it wasn’t um the huge organisation it is now. It was just locals, you know and um, you know, we had an old blitz tanker and, you know, then we, you know, we raised some money and bought another one and that sort of thing. And then, then RFS became a, an organisation, and all of a sudden there’s gear everywhere and people walking around with bloody badges and medals and God knows what. And, it really took the community side out of it, you know, it was, it was just like the army basically and I mean still is. And uh, that really showed up to me during the fires. You know, like the Mozzies, they were the old bushfire brigade people, you know, they had their utes with a tank and, and a pump on the back which the bushfire brigades used as a supply, you know. And they used to come round and service the pumps every year and make sure you had a tank and everything else. And that all just disappeared and all of a sudden we had new, these you beaut tankers and everything else which, oh, suppose they’re half handy but the big tankers, you know, I mean they had to put in these uh supposed um access tracks for, to get them into the fires, you know, I mean they’re just huge and useless. So, so, it’s totally changed in my opinion, you know. The from the old bushfire brigade days.  

Interviewer: Yes, so that’s what Paul said. He was like, he was like, ‘Why aren’t they still in it?’ And he’s like, ‘Oh well, they got pissed off cos you had to do training on how to use…’ 

Yeah, well that, that was the other thing. Yeah. I mean, you had to go and get a certificate to operate a chainsaw, you know. And things like that where we’d all been doing since we were kids, you know? I bought my grandson a chainsaw when he was ten, you know? Uh, you know, and that’s what, we were taught to use those things. And oh, just the crap you have to go and, like, driving trucks, I was driving a truck when I was six. You know, but, oh no you gotta have be~ you gotta be licenced and all that things, and, stuff it, you never been, as I say, I’m happy to help anytime, but you know when you have to show them the certificate that you can do this or do that, forget it. 

VRA_TOM_057_Percy  01:41:33-01:43:32 (2min) 

So back in the, back in the early days when Trentham was really kicking, and you had spud farmers, you had sawmillers.  

Interviewer: You also had a lot of spud farmers, lot more labour intensive. 

Correct. I reflect back to, and I’m probably going off a big key here 

Interviewer: No, no. 

I reflect back to a photo in the Weekly Times and it was called bringing in the sheaves. It was nothing major. It was just a, it was just a picture, a photo. And in that photo, you had four guys on a horse-drawn, um, header. Chatting. In behind them, so you’d have the straw. In behind them, you had four or five guys with scythes, chatting. Behind them, you had three or four guys pulling all the stooks. Then in the background you had kids running. You had the women stitching up all the bags of wheat. You had guys stooking, making the straw stacks. So in that one photo there would have been fifteen or twenty people working on probably no bigger than a twenty acre paddock. Now, to bring in the wheat, you need one bloke on a harvester, three blokes on the semi, strip, done, gone in three hours. Community gone. We’ve lost, man, and this is again only my opinion, but man has got so smart at designing new technology at the price of communities.  

B-010_CathieK_AmyK _3  38:20-41:20 (3min) 

Cath_Amy_Community 

ASR text, uncorrected: 

Well, I think it was a centre point for everyone, like all the surrounding. And it not just with Flyers, just in general, 

you know you’ve got your surrounding districts of our lawn and Majors Creek and Mongala and Erica and all of that, but Bridal is kind of the centre point for all of those little mini communities out there. So it was kind of where you could come to find out what was going on and where it was and what was happening. And you know,  

Yes, it’s funny because I’m going to talk about after the fires and then we had that afternoon tea, thank you. But we couldn’t invite everybody to cause of COVID. But it was so lovely to see everybody feed in from all those places. Mongala, Araluen, Nerica, they all sent representatives and and it was lovely. That was one of the nicest afternoons. It was just seeing everybody just talking about their experiences and it was the first time that we got together because everything had been stopped for COVID. So every time that we tried to do something, was stopped. So that was the first gathering and it was just such a lovely thing to see all these people come in. Like it’s probably like old-fashioned days, you know, when these come in from their with their horse and sulky and they come in and they all meet and have a a cricket match or a dance or something. And everyone just got to talk about their experiences and they had photographs up that had been displayed and everyone had a lovely afternoon. I thought, isn’t that what it’s all about? We’re all, yeah, we all walked to the bait of the same drum. When it all comes down to it, you know, we’ve got our little communities that feed off the big one, but we’re all part of the big little ones are part of a bigger one. You know what I mean? It’s. 

Yeah, well, it’s. And it used to be like that, like when my grandfather was young and they used to have cricket matches and they’d be Charlie Long and they’d be all these little places, May Just Creek. They all had their own little cricket teams and they all go around and you know, and it’s, I think it’s going back that way a little bit. And they’d have events in town like the Heritage Festival and things like that that, you know everyone would come to town for for the show. 

If you missed that day, you missed the whole day to show you missed everything. Forget the rest of the year, you didn’t see anybody. And it’s been sad because we haven’t had the show. Now this is the second year and sad because I was helping sort of a little bit with the heritage thing that was going to happen was gonna be amazing. There’s so much work went into that. They’ve had to can that, which is sad because those were all also thank you to all the people that contributed to the fire. So hopefully we get to do the one at Marigo which will obviously be on the 27th. So that might be, I think Phil and Sarah will really be looking forward to that. We’re going to make a point to go because I think we all need to help each other as communities, big or small, as we did through the fires. And that’s what we did. 

We try it and keep that support happening, yeah. And don’t forget about your friends and your neighbours just because they live, you know, very girl quarry or wherever. And you don’t need a disaster to keep that communication happening either.  

That’s exactly right.