I was born in 1952. My father owned a small agricultural farm in Webster Road, Goomboorian. He grew pawpaws (that is how it was spelt in those days). He also grew beans in the winter months. In those days beans were a very large Gympie industry.

We had some cattle. A couple of them would be milking, to supply the family and also to raise some calves.

I would ride my bike, often alone, the length of the road. I would not be comfortable letting a little girl do that these days.

We had a gully high above our house. These were wells in this gully that gravity fed water to a tank some distance above our house. From this tank my father could irrigate his beans and it also gave us pressure water to use in and around the house. We had a house tank for drinking water. Water was never an issue for us. Always plenty of it and n

o pumps or costs involved.

I remember, in about 1959, poles being stood down out road for the new electricity service. Until then we had a kerosene refrigerator, a boiler for cleaning our clothes and a wood stove for cooking and water heating. Some of our neighbours had a telephone but it wasn’t until shortly after this that we had one installed.

Webster Road is red volcanic soil which is very fertile and excellent for growing crops. However, when it rained it became very sticky. Getting up our driveway would become virtually impossible. My father would put chains on the tyres to get traction. The neighbours grouped together and approached the local Widgee Shire Council to bitumen Webster Road. An agreement was reached that we could pay double rates for some years until it was paid off. Many of the farms also had their driveways bituminized at the same time to help with the wet red soil problems. This was done at each individuals own expense. It made getting home much easier.

By Gail