THE BYRON SHIRE ECHO
Advertising & news enquiries: Mullumbimby 02 6684 1777 Byron Bay 02 6685 5222 Fax 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au Available early Tuesday at: http://www.echo.net.au VOLUME 22 #51 TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2008 22,700 copies every week Printed on 100% recycled paper
health and beauty pages L I B E R T Y ,
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Woolies modifies modifications
Conversations with the past come alive
Author David Vidler, left, is congratulated by his mentor Craig McGregor at the book launch last week. Photo Jeff ‘Let Them Eat Cake’ Dawson
Jann Gilbert There’s a languid pace to George Morrison’s stories; a slow telling of tales that is reminiscent of the time it recalls. Whether it’s diving off the jetty, chasing goats at the Lighthouse or ‘surfoplaning’ down the main street as a kid after a cyclone George’s stories, and those of the other 25 older residents featured in a recently-released book, unlock a door to a now foreign but not-sodistant past. Dancin’ at the Seabreeze – Stories of old Byron Bay recalls the history of a then sleepy fi shing village and, more importantly, documents the minutiae of life in early Byron Bay. The book’s compiler and editor David Vidler was born and raised in Byron and, like many other young men in town in the late six-
ties, he thought ‘life was somewhere else’. David did a stint working at the abattoirs and developed his early relationship with writing at the old Council of Adult Education (CAE), which eventually became Southern Cross University. His teacher at the time was Craig McGregor (now a well-known, exSMH journalist and Latham biographer), who remembers that he ‘loved David’s stories, they were incredibly graphic’, and encouraged him to write’. At the time David felt that Byron was a backwater and it wasn’t long before he joined the exodus to try his luck with bigger fish in a bigger pond. It was only with the wisdom of years, and regular trips back to his hometown, that David realised much of what he had known and
loved as a kid – the stories, the simplicity, and innocence – was rapidly disappearing. ‘I knew if I didn’t document the stories and the history it would die along with the older people,’ says David. ‘It’s got real value and I didn’t want to see that disappear.’ Surprisingly enough, less than 50 years ago, rather than the Double Bay doppelganger it’s become, Byron Bay was one of the most industry-based towns in NSW. NORCO, whaling and fishing, sand mining, and the abattoirs provided the majority of employment to what was a distinctly workingclass town. On the edge of this ‘strong Labor’ community were the farmers, who supplied NORCO and the abattoirs, and gave the ‘country or bush character’ that David feels
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was ‘the other side of the town’. Over the years, many of the farmers from surrounding districts worked at one of the ‘factories’ during the winter months when work and income on the farm were scarce. As Peg Gloor, one of the book’s storytellers recalls, ‘… a lot of people both men and women, weren’t able to stay at school beyond about 12 or 13.’ Peg also remembers that her ‘North Shore’ accent frightened a number of people, ‘particularly women… they thought I was a snob’. From tales of banana farming at Watego’s and a town surviving on pig bones to boats dragging whale carcasses through the bay ‘with sharks hanging off them like ticks’, the stories in the book are a fascinating continued on page 6
Woolworths now proposes to modify the section 96 modifi cation to its original DA for a supermarket in Station Street, Mullumbimby. The changes are so sweeping that objectors are calling for a lodgement of a new proposal with the NSW Department of Planning. As well as taking on board suggestions by local resident Luis Cristia to ‘soften’ the design of the building, Wooloworths has advised Council it intends to revert back to its plan to have an onsite sewage system. Garry Scott, a member of Council’s Brunswick River Catchment Wastewater Steering Committee (BRCWSC) for over ten years, said the onsite sewage plant proposed is inadequate for the development. His view is supported by local hydrologist and former Byron Shire councillor Duncan Dey. In a submission to the planning minister Frank Sartor Mr Scott said, ‘It is ludicrous for the proposed s96 single staged development to even suggest 475 square metres of disposal land exists… Duncan Dey is saying in order of 2700 square metres for the larger 2500 square metre building is required to meet the hydraulic load. ‘It is ludicrous as requirements of buffers as required by BSC Onsite Sewage Management Policy and your own Environmental and Health Guidelines for Onsite Sewage Management cannot be provided even if there was suffi cient disposal land.’ Mr Scott also said, ‘This site being previously used by the railways and the frequent history of contamination on such sites, plus land being flood prone and considerable earth works proposed as well as the development being a place of high public visitation, poses the question whether suffi cient site testing has been untaken to fully protect the environment and the public’s health. I suggest not, and that your Department require a more full appraisal of this issue.’ ■ Letters, page 11