Away From the Hurley Burley - by Bob Terry (a digital story from the Lake Illawarra MAP Project)

SYNOPSIS: In Oak Flats there were always plenty of things to do and plenty of ways to learn responsibility.
SCRIPT: In 1930 my Aunty bought some land on the lake and put up a shack. Whenever wed visit Mum would always say she was going to move here one day and six years later we did.

We moved into a house called Monte Vista for 25 shillings a week it even had a pianola. You could pretty much live off the land in those days.

The local councillors used to run their horses and cattle on Oak Flats - the mayor was the milkman, so we got a cow ourselves and ran her there as well. The holidaymakers and campers didnt seem to mind all the livestock grazing around their tents.

I got three hundred yards of meshing net and we had all the fish you could imagine and buckets of blue swimmer crabs and prawns.

I built a chicken pen, got some money off Mum and caught the train to Wollongong. I came back with a box full of 50 chicks. I bedded them down nice, with heated bricks and good feed and we were never short of eggs.

Monte Vista was on a big block, right on the lake and it was my job to cut the lawn with a hand mower and milk the cow and tend to the chickens.

You were always occupied as a kid never sat down and listened to the radio all day. But once summer came along and the school holidays, youd have your swimmers on for six weeks.

It gave me a good foundation, living that way, being responsible for all those things Ive never got into to trouble in my life.

The Lake was a real country retreat getting away from all the hurly burly. It was the best thing that ever happened to us.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Lake Illawarra
• digital story
• childhood
• nostalgia
• Oak Flats