Fortunate/Unfortunate by Gordon Orange (a digital story from the Lake Illawarra MAP Project)

SYNOPSIS: The story of a man who kept making and losing fortunes over his life,
but who never gave up.
SCRIPT: Fortune was not always kind to my father.  He did make three fortunes in his life.  But he lost two.
 
Dad came over from England and landed in Brisbane with 75 cents to his name.  Fortunately, after a few years and quite a few jobs he was able to set himself up on a little farm in Boonah. 
 
Unfortunately we were forced off the land by the drought.  I was only about four.  I can remember we had a cow that was so weak it couldnt move and they had to put a Hessian bag and ropes around it to help it stand up under a tree.  And wouldnt you know it, the night they sold up it rained cats and dogs.
 
We moved down to Sydney.  Dad got a job selling insurance to farmers, but things were tough.  For about three weeks,  we lived on bread and dripping and a big box of groceries my auntie sent up from Melbourne. 
 
Fortunately, Dad made enough money from the insurance to buy an estate at Albion Park Rail. 

He bought all the land from creek to creek and in two years he had sold the whole estate and was able to buy the Panorama Estate at Oak Flats and then, later on, Little Lake at Warilla.
 
Unfortunately, the Depression hit.  Well that left Dad high and dry and he lost all his estates because none of the people hed sold land to had any work. 
 
Fortunately, Dad had a good friend who gave him 60 acres of land on the Illawarra Highway at Albion Park and told him, Pay me when you can.   And thats when we started the chook farm.  People used to call the Illawarra Highway Chicken Lane because we had little signs all along the front of the property saying, Chickens, Chickens, Chickens.  You couldnt miss the signs. 
 
Well it took 20 years to pay back four thousand pounds and then, unfortunately, the government took 30 acres away during the war.  They wanted it for the airstrip which is still being used of course.




So between the Government, the Depression and drought there always seemed to be some obstacle for my father. He lost everything twice, but he didnt give up.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Lake Illawarra
• digital story
• farming
• albion park