It's Family - by Noel Thompson (a digital story from the Lake Illawarra MAP Project)

MENTOR WRITER: Chris Mansell
SYNOPSIS: Fishing families work hard and play hard. They are contributors to their community,
and the Lake is really part of their extended family.
SCRIPT: The thing about the Lake is that it's family. We've all lived along the Lake for a long time. My grandfather, Samuel Thompson, was a fisherman here and he married my grandmother Emily Barber and her family were fishermen as well.

Fishing families work hard and play hard.

My father -Wilfred, and Uncle Stan and Tom Dennis and Eric Parkes were the Comedy Sailing Crew. Dad could play the piano in the dance band and Uncle Stan played violin and accordion, mouth organ, anything.

There'd be boating parties. People used to go over to Windang for picnics.

There was a lot of sport. Dad was a great cricketer as well. He played for the Illawarra against Southern Highlands and bowled Don Bradman first ball. They played tennis. They'd go to Katoomba for holidays.

But there was work to do as well!

My grandmother - everyone called her Aunty Em. Send for Aunty Em if there was anything to do with health or if there was to be babies born at any time. Well she was a midwife. By the time the doctor came from Wollongong, Aunty Em had fixed everything up and the baby was born. She even pulled teeth at different times.

Father was in the first world war and the second world war.

When he came back from the first world war they gave him a little fish and a medal:

"Duty Bravely Done. Private W. Thompson by the residents of Berkeley District on his return from the Great War"

He was lucky to get back: five of the six people in his cabin on the Boonah died of influenza. He was the only one to survive. Then he went to the Second World War as well.

My mother actually met Dad at a dance I think. During Dads courting days he used to pick mum up in the fishing boat and go down Duck Creek. Her name was Kathleen and as he was going up Duck Creek he used to sing Ill take you home again Kathleen

Mum was always there when we needed help. When we were down and there wasnt many prawns or things were a bit slack, shed say Oh, timell get better. Dont worry!

The men would come back from the Lake at maybe midnight or two, sometimes we'd work through to daylight, and then the prawns had to be cooked, then cooled on trays and hosed down, and then salted and cooled more and then weighed and put into boxes.

The first time I went on the Lake fishing with my dad, we were between Berkelely, thats Homeshore, and Native Dog Hill, thats Mt Warrigal today, and halfway up the Lake we approached this patch of mullet and 12 of them jumped into the boat. So this seemed like an omen that this was what I was going to do for the rest of my life. And I have.

I caught my wife June when she was 19. She wasn't from a fishing family.

I married my lovely Scottish girl. She's beautiful. And she became part of our extended family connected by the Lake.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Lake Illawarra
• digital story
• commercial fishing
• prawning
• family
• history