I went over to Macleay Island for a fundraiser last month, expecting the usual combination of speeches, polite applause and people trying to work out whether they could sneak off before the raffle. Instead, I sat down with a box of popcorn and got thoroughly entertained. And honestly, it was absolutely fabulous.
The fundraiser was about raising money to help restore and preserve some of the island’s history and environment, but somewhere between the popcorn and the old photographs, it became much more than that. It became an afternoon of “You remember that?”, “I’d forgotten about that!” and the occasional “Hang on, they did WHAT?”
There were stories of the islands when only a few hundred people lived here. Stories of timber, farming, old houses and people working ridiculously hard with very little. Don Scott talked about his father’s old shovel, the handle almost worn away from years of use. Which got me thinking.
We spend a lot of time talking about progress. New houses, new people, new businesses and new developments. But there’s a funny little danger in progress. Sometimes we get so busy making the place better that we accidentally erase the bits that made us love it in the first place.
Wally Scott talked about arriving in 1968, when the island had roughly 600 people. He doesn’t object to change, he just doesn’t want so much of it that the lifestyle disappears. Fair call.
Then there was Judith Brady, 93 years young, born on Lamb Island and introduced as an “island treasure.” And she is exactly the sort of treasure we can’t put a dollar value on. Because Judith carries something you can’t Google. She remembers.
And then came the movies. One of my favourite was ‘It Never Did Sink’, an animated film made with island school kids and long term island residents. The kids interviewed the old timers, then turned them and their stories into cartoons, using the residents’ own voices to bring the characters to life.
And this wasn’t just an island project that disappeared into a cupboard. ‘It Never Did Sink’ went on to GOMA and was selected as the only Australian entry at the 55th International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen, Germany. And, in a very island way of doing things, when it was shown at GOMA, buses of school kids were brought in to see it during the school holidays. Not bad for a bunch of island kids turning their neighbours’ yarns into cartoons.
There was the story of the donkey that used to visit the post office. Apparently this was completely normal island behaviour. There was Possum, who declared himself Mayor of Garden Island and moved over there with goats and peacocks. There were stories about motorbike rides raising money for cancer research, the old Leather and Lace Balls, and generations of families who have made these islands what they are.
And the room laughed, a lot. Because history is much funnier when you’re sitting beside the people who actually lived it.
Kevin Hughes started the afternoon discussing the serious stuff, talking about the environment and the importance of protecting it before we get to the point where we’re desperately trying to restore what we’ve already destroyed. And that resonated, because the same thing applies to the stories. Once the old buildings are gone, they’re gone. Once the environment is damaged beyond repair, we can’t simply order another one. And once the people who remember the old days are gone, there’s nobody left to ask what happened.
That’s the bit that got me. We’re sitting on these islands with an extraordinary opportunity. We can protect the environment, we can preserve the history, we can teach the kids, we can keep the stories alive, and we can still have a laugh while we’re doing it. Because perhaps preserving an island isn’t just about saving trees, sheds, photographs or old movies. Perhaps it’s about making sure that thirty years from now, some kid is sitting in a room eating popcorn, looking at an old photograph and saying “Wait, they really had a donkey going to the post office?” And someone beside them can say “Yep. I remember that.” Now that’s heritage worth saving.
Want to help with the SAVE THE SHED project? Anyone interested in learning more and getting involved can contact Bill Marshall on 0478 111 784.
