The Outer Barcoo

Learning to fly

Looking Up

Published by Southern Riverina News, April 08 (The Finley Paper)

You know when there’s a pilot in your midst, because an aeroplane flying overhead will usually cause them to halt mid sentence, forget what they were saying, and look up.

It was something I noticed my father doing in the early 70s. As soon as a plane flew over, he’d be in the back yard looking up.

Dad spent his early teens in Moonee Ponds, and during the war, from the age of ten would ride his bike to join the crowd at Essendon Airport watching the aeroplanes.

Returning to farm at Blighty after the war, general aviation had made its way to Tocumwal and lessons were $10/hr. He gained his license in 1972 and bought into the Finley Flying Group. At home, he would often talk flying, with maps spread on the kitchen table planning the next trip, or sharing the last one. Guests would be treated to a local flight, and one of the family would usually jump in as well. Against this background, flying for us was quite familiar.

Driving past the Corowa Airport on a perfect spring day in ‘87, I found myself thinking for the first time unprompted “What a Great Day for a Fly”, and so it seemed the idea was borne. A couple of years later, as my 20’s slipped by with alarming speed, I perused my list of things to do, and second from the bottom (still haven’t been to China) was flying.

Dad recommended John Williams, and so packing my insecurities, a fairly lean cheque book and a silly grin, I presented myself at Toc. In the 15 years since, flying has provided me with a wonderful sense of fun and achievement, and is a hobby I enjoy sharing with my husband. It’s one of the best things I could have done.

Last year, I sent my sister Fran a book called “West with the Night” by Kenyan aviatrix Beryl Markham, attaching a note “if you can put up with the flying bits, I think you’ll enjoy the rest of it”.

The next thing I knew, she was on the phone declaring “I’ve read the book; I want to learn to fly”. It took me four years and a trip round the world to get back to my brilliant idea, but Fran is no time waster. When the idea hits you, it rarely leaves you, and you suddenly find yourself Looking Up!

Interiewing lots of Melbourne flying schools, Fran also chose to return to Toc to Williams’ and before I could say “Good Luck and Don’t Forget to Breathe”, she had done it and was flapping her Restricted Licence at me, demanding to know “WHY didn’t you ever TELL me it was so much FUN???” (Some things you just have to learn for yourself!)

Dad flew for fun, and for his work as a stock and station agent, and over twenty years logged 997 hours throughout NSW, Qld, Vic, Tas and S.A.

I still fly when I can, and enjoy returning to Toc for currency training.

Fran is hopping from one foot to the other, anticipating the start of her Navigation training some time this year. Grateful for such a wonderful local facility, we look forward to flying together.

Fran Whitty, Pat Whitty, Kathy Mexted

Bob & Gladys Adams 80th Anniversary

Published Elliott Midland Newspaper Group, April 2008

When writing wedding invitations 60 years ago, Kyneton girl Gladys Fraser decided it best to invite the Groom himself.

The reply is tucked inside their wedding album and reads “Your kind invitation to be present at the marriage of Gladys May is accepted with very much pleasure by Mr R G Adams. Hope this is not too late. Glad, be early like this. “

Born on his parents farm at Newham, Bob attended Newham Primary School until joining his father on the farm “milking cows, digging spuds and growing farm produce”.

Gladys was born in Kyneton and attended school there until she left to work at John Brown’s Lincoln Mills as a machine operator where the bulk of the work was knitting socks.

Their paths crossed when they were introduced in High Street, Kyneton in 1945 by mutual friends Ken and Eileen Bryce.

Reminiscing, they reveal that the three year courtship took place with Bob ferrying Gladys around on his Excelsior 2 stroke motorbike, which might account for the pre winter wedding date!

Petrol rationing during the war was 1 gallon per month, so the trips from Newham to visit Gladys in Kyneton were restricted to Weds and Sat nights when Bob would take Glad to the pictures. One night burned in Bob’s memory is when he ran out of fuel at the Carlsruhe bridge and had to walk the last few miles home to Newham in the dark.

Married at St Paul’s Church of England, Kyneton at 3pm on 10 April 1948, the young couple lived at the Adams family farm for three years before buying the house they still occupy, 3kms up the road in the Newham Village.

With smiles as broad as in the wedding photos, Bob and Glad celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with a meal at the Kyneton Bowling Club last week. Family and friends travelled from as far as Geelong, Bridgewater and Pt Cook to congratulate this much loved local couple who suggest the secret to such a long and happy marriage is “honesty, trust, talking and a bit of good luck”.

Farming Families Of The Macedon Ranges

Published by Fairfax Community Newspapers in The Telegraph, July 2008

Alistair Fincher

Fourth generation farmer Alistair Fincher can trace his ancestors back to their boat ride out from the UK in 1844.

Born in 1808, Alistair’s great great grandfather Thomas Anderson and his wife Elizabeth arrived in Australia as immigrants from County Armagh in Northern Ireland with five children in tow. Widowed at an early age, Thomas remarried and settled in Melbourne and with his new wife had another four children.

When the land now known as ”Springbank” at 110 Anderson Rd, Newham was advertised in Melbourne, Thomas’s third child James purchased same from the Colony in 1857 and took up residence at Newham.

James married Alexina McIntosh from Cobaw, and together they had 11 children. Active community involvement saw James as one of the early members of the United Shire of Newham.

James met an untimely death from pneumonia in 1875 at the age of 40, and though he had paid off the farm, it remained a difficult task for his widow to manage with 11 children. She eventually moved to Prahran, leaving fourth child Alexander to run the farm which he leased and later purchased from his mother.

Alexander was a foundation member of the Australian Farmer’s Union which later became The Country Party, and now the National Party, which had it’s inaugural meeting at the Newham Hall in 1914.

Married to Joanne Cameron, a daughter of Angus and Janet Cameron of Kyneton (formerly of Inverness, Scotland), Alexander served as a councillor in the Shire of Newham and Woodend. He was still a serving Councillor when he passed away in 1926, aged in his mid 60’s.

Third generation to take over the farm was Alexander’s daughter Vera who married George Fincher in 1931. Being a WW1 soldier, George took up land in the Mallee under Closer Settlement (soldier settlement). Unfortunately the depression, compounded by very low prices and five years of drought, forced George - along with many others - to walk out, and in doing so they chose to return to the family farm at Newham in 1937.

Vera and George had twin sons Alistair and Graeme. Upon leaving school in 1951, Alistair spent time doing National Service with the RAN before returning to become the fourth generation on the farm with his father. At this stage they were growing potatoes, sheep and cattle. Alistair admits that getting in early (1955) doing contract baling helped a great deal towards the running costs of the farm.

The farm’s main income now is from fat lambs, however due to drought conditions, stock numbers are down to around a third of usual carrying capacity.

Alistair says “I see farming has a future, but that we are currently in a lull. We are now in a drought cycle, as we have been before, just not to this extent, however I tend to think we’ll come out of it. The scene changes all the time, and whereas I earnt my money from hay contracting, potatoes and sheep, there is now a leaning towards cropping.

Unfortunately, opportunities at Newham with cropping are very limited because of our severe frosts. No matter whose hands the farm ends up in, there is little doubt they would be able to make a living from it - once things improve”.

151 years on, James Anderson’s original holding is one of very few in the area to remain in the same family hands.