You are allowed to scream, you are allowed to cry, but do not give up.

Anonymous

Many people today must feel they that have had enough of isolation and all the restrictions imposed in an effort to combat Covid-19. However, as the anonymous writer of the advice given above says: Do not give up.

The Orange Oral History group seem to have lived much of their lives with this thought firmly in their minds. We are a group of about thirty people, both men and women, who have gathered together to share our experiences and thoughts on a variety of social issues.

We began in a very small way about ten years ago when I was seeking information for a series of historical articles on various Orange institutions. I gathered a few people together to reminisce about the railway, the post office and the telephone exchange. This was so rewarding that I decided to expand the group to talk about social history and events that have occurred during their lifetimes.

And those lives have encompassed a great many events.

In the early days, one member spoke of her mother who had nursed victims of the influenza pandemic of 1919, others of their experiences fighting in World War 2, the changing attitudes to women over the years and even the way language has transformed over our lifetimes.

At times we were able to persuade people in Orange who have a particular expertise or responsibility in the community to talk to us about their work while we responded with our own experience in the same area. We covered pharmacy, medicine, shopping, newspapers and dentistry in these meetings amongst other subjects. By recording these memories we are adding colour and vibrancy to dry facts and, in doing so, we are gathering social history.

Reg has lived in the bush for most of his life and is used to facing the hardships and problems that come with it.

“My parents, Tom and Jessie Golding, lived through World War 1 and knew of the horror and violence which overtook Europe at that time. Countries had to salvage and rebuild, restore and provide food for humans and animals. And all had to shoulder the load.

“Tom and Jessie were of pioneering stock and had drawn a block of land to farm. This land was part of a large acreage divided by the government for the farming of food, producing crops and animals.

“Paddocks needed to be fenced, dams sunk, a well dug and windlass mounted. Draught horses had to be broken in so that they could haul ploughs, combines and wagons. Trees were ring-barked and cleared away and some sort of shelter built before a crop could be harvested.

Women and children worked alongside the men.

“Then in 1929 the Great Depression struck, throwing thousands out of work. Banks were closed, only allowing enough money for people to barely survive. Tom and Jessie and their six children were allowed seven pounds and six shillings a month to live on.

“On the farm they grew all types of vegetables and fruit, fertilised from the horse yards and cow bails and dispersed by a horse drawn dray or older children with fork and shovel. Because there was no refrigeration, the excess was preserved in Fowler preserving bottles and egg glass for future use.

“Jessie and the girls washed clothes with a copper, mangle and scrub board in an outdoor washroom. They were almost completely self-sufficient”.

Reg’s mother dispensed medicine from her own cupboard at the first sign of illness and they certainly were not sugar-coated pills. Epsom salts, cod-liver oil, paraffin oil and castor oil were high on the list of favourites.

Reg remembers the horrifying epidemics which used to strike regularly:

“Polio was something to be dreaded. It used to hit children mostly and many were left with deformed limbs which affected them for the rest of their lives.”

Because of these early hardships, Reg learned many lessons in patience and survival which have helped him through a long and fruitful life.

Although this pandemic presents us with a situation like none our generation has ever faced before, Jeff Morrow has also faced many difficult times in his long life as a farmer:

“Thinking about hard times within my lifetime, the first I remember was the drought in 1944 and ‘46 when I was ten years old. The adults were talking about the chooks dying and falling off their roosts in the searing heat. Because the only well on our property was dry, we had to take the horses, cattle and sheep two miles to Boree Creek for a drink until my father was able to dig another dam.

“There were two other droughts in 1957 and ‘72 and although short, they were very severe. But the one I remember best was when I was living at Panuara. The rain dried up dry late in 1978 and although we had a couple of false starts, the drought didn’t end until May, 1983 and then, wow! did it rain!

“This is when we really started to worry. Most of the farmers in the central west remember 1982 as the worst year of the drought and the cost of carry on finance went up to 22%. The Federal Government came to the party and pegged the cost of housing finance at 14% but business borrowers were not so fortunate.

“Many farm machines were taken for auction by the financiers to sales near Molong because farmers couldn’t afford to pay the interest, particularly in the middle of a drought.”

Jeff is another member of the Oral History group who has been hardened by the challenges that life has thrown his way.

Today’s problems are of an entirely different nature but he is facing them with the same courage which he has shown all his life. 

Copyright: Helen McAnulty. May, 2020