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Interviewee

Place Recorded

Coffs Harbour-NSW

Interviewer

Kerri Moss

Collection

Agency

Yarrila Arts & Museum (YAM)

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Snow Lucas & Hazel Lucas Interview

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IntervieweeSnow LucasHazel (Secomb) LucasInterview Date2 December 1986Place RecordedCoffs Harbour-NSWDuration56m08sAccession NumberLS2020.1.143Credit LineCoffs Harbour City Council, 1988.

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Description

Snow was born on 27 October 1908 at Upper Orara. He was brought up on a dairy farm near the present Upper Orara Public School. Hazel was born in Coffs Harbour on 6 November 1919 and lived at Dairyville from the age of seven.

InterviewerKerri MossCollectionYAM Museum CollectionVoice of Time oral history projectAgencyYarrila Arts & Museum (YAM)SummaryStandard disclaimer. Visit the 'Voice of Time' web site to read or listen to the disclaimer. Most children were born at home in those days -- There was mainly scrub at Orara then -- Snow lived near the school, which at the time was called 'Dunvegan' -- There were approximately 50 children at the school then -- John Morrisey was Snow's first teacher -- A teacher named John O'Hearn came in 1908; he also had an assistant teacher -- "We all enjoyed ourselves but we all had our work to do" -- Snow bailed up cows before school -- There were 90 cows on the dairy when Snow was about 12 years old -- Fishing on the Orara River and catching perch, mullet and catfish. Swimming after school and at weekends -- "I could swim when I was 6 years old quite good" -- Mainly dairying plus two timber mills (1915 Jones' and Seccombe's Mills) -- 15 or 16 men worked at each mill -- The close community -- Snow had 4 brothers and 4 sisters -- His sisters helped milk the cows. The eldest sister, Ethel, looked after the house and children when his mother died. "I only have a faint recollection of my mother" -- World War One -- John Morrisey's son, Pearce, went to the war and was killed -- "Mr Morrisey was a real fanatic about the war" -- Boys and girls used to knit socks to send to the soldiers -- Molly Morrisey knitted 48 pairs of socks in 12 months. "I liked drawing and reading (at school)" -- "I only ever got about 4 cuts of the cane" -- The story as to why Snow got the cane -- "He was a bit mischievous (Ben Burling, Snow's cousin)" -- "It wasn't a good playground out there". Snow's father and his teacher Mr O'Hearn wanted Snow to become a teacher when he left school -- He helped his father on the farm - "I felled my first tree for the mill when I was 14 years old" -- "He didn't pay us wages" -- "When I was 18 or 19 we'd come in (town) and go to the pictures or something like that" -- After Snow's father died he and his brother took over the farm. The Depression - "We grew all our own vegetables" -- His elder brother enlisted during the Second World War -- Snow started to grow bananas -- Milking machines made life a lot easier -- He played tennis at Orara and was a very good player -- He won quite a few tournaments. In 1937 he won the B grade singles -- Hazel and Snow first met at tennis -- They used to go to the pictures whilst they were courting. Snow was about 25 and Hazel about 15 years old when they first met -- Hazel was 21 and Snow was 30 when they got married -- They were married in the Methodist Church at Orara -- The reception was held at the Orara Hall and they went to Sydney for their honeymoon -- They bought a banana plantation at Boambee (7 acres) -- After 3 years they moved to Red Hill to work on their brother's bananas. Hazel first lived at Dairyville -- There were 13 to 14 pupils at the school she attended -- Miss Macmillan was Hazel's first teacher -- A new teacher, Bob Hanna, came to the school when Hazel was 11. They were very young teachers -- Mr Hanna had to walk over a mile to school each day -- "When we learnt to read we learnt to read by sounds" -- "I loved reading, I read everything" -- "I loved tennis and dancing" -- The types of dances done at that time. The clothing worn at those dances -- Ladies with 'a plate' got in to the dances free and the men paid at the door -- They used to get an orchestra from Grafton that cost over a hundred pounds -- Hazel's father used to drive her to the dances by horse and sulky, then later by car -- "Men used to build a big fire outside the hall on a real cold winter's night" -- She had 3 sisters and 4 brothers. Her father used to drive a horse team to town. He later became a farmer -- Her memories of dairying and growing vegetables -- Hazel learnt to milk cows at 6 years of age -- Because the 3 girls were born first they had to help their father quite a lot on the farm until the boys were older -- Hazel and her sisters did farm work every morning and night -- In the 1930s Hazel's father and the other farmers tried growing bananas at Dairyville. "I used to help Dad quite a lot on the bananas." -- Hazel had terrible trouble getting the black off her hands before going to the dance -- She caught the horse and rode out to work on the bananas -- "I just lay back on the ground. I was looking up at the sky and the trees, the clouds floating by and I'm just looking up like that and the next thing I opened me eyes and there was my father sitting on a log looking down at me and he said "feeling a bit tired mate" and I hopped up and helped him put the cases on the slide because it was the first time I'd ever gone to sleep on the job". Hazel and her father had a very good relationship -- "It was all very necessary" -- When Hazel was 18 she went to work in the town for the dentist -- Hazel had board in town. She got paid 29 shillings from the dentist and had to give the people she boarded with nearly half her pay -- "I could go down town and buy 3 yards of material for 13 shillings and 6 pence and make me a nice dress" -- "It took me three months to pay off a good pair of linen sheets". The next job she had was working in the house of the doctor and his wife. She stayed there until she got married (1 pound per week plus her keep, if Hazel did washing or something she got 5 shillings extra) -- "Got married, had my children, well you're everything then" -- The house at Boambee had to be straightened up including new floorboards and fixing up the fireplace. They had chooks and bought milk from the next door neighbour -- Bananas "went real low in price" so they sold the property -- Bananas went from one pound per case to six pound per case -- They lived at Red Hill for about 20 years and then rented a house where the present vegetable Superbarn now stands -- "I'm very grateful for what I have had, even though it was hard but if I had my life all over again and I knew as much as I do today and had the confidence of the young people today I would have gone into the Signaling Corp. in the army. They were asking for recruits then but I was too scared -- Hazel feels children are encouraged to speak up these days.