Farewell to a local

from Tweed Valley Weekly, March 30, 2023

Meet theTeam

By Jo Kennett

THE TWEED Shire community has been rocked by the tragic loss of Cudgen farmer Doug Paddon, a pioneer who contributed hugely to the community and “gave 200 percent” to everything he did in life, according to his wife Lyn.

Doug will always be remembered for his sweet potato and corn stall near the intersection of Tweed Coast Road and Plantation Drive and was also known as the ‘watermelon man’. Everyone who met him found him unfailingly kind and down-to-earth. Lyn said Doug, who even in the middle of winter could be found working barefoot around his farm, “always treated people from all walks of life the same.”

Lyn described Doug as her “beautiful soulmate” and kindly shared his eulogy from his funeral on Wednesday, March 29.

Doug Paddon was born in 1944 at Glen Innes. His maternal grandparents were Frank and Irene Julius who owned a dairy farm beside Cudgen School where his mum had lived all her life.

Doug’s parents took up a soldier settlement block in Glen Innes and established a successful sheep property.

“When Doug was three and his brother John was five they sold the farm and moved back to the Tweed as the weather was far too cold for their mum up there,” Lyn said.

They bought a cane farm at Condong and their youngest brother, Ken, was born in Murwillumbah.

“Doug’s claim to fame was that he wasn’t very bright because he had to repeat kindergarten,” Lyn said.

“He was always a prankster.”

Doug went to Murwillumbah High School and then completed a carpentry/joinery apprenticeship at J.J. Williams Joinery Works and topped the course.

“I first met Doug at Danceland at Coolangatta when I was 16 and he was 18,” she said.

“Doug came across and asked a girl about four seats along from me and she turned him down, then the next and the next.

“Then he asked me, and I accepted. I think we both must have been pretty desperate! I was just reminiscing now, those other girls were the losers, I got a gem!”

Doug and Lyn married on April 9, 1966, at All Saints Anglican Church, Murwillumbah.

They bought “a little half-built house on a large block of land on the river coming into Murwillumbah, just past the sugar mill, with our savings” of 1800 pounds ($3,600).

Their daughter Kim was born in 1968.

“We sold the house for $8,900 and bought our first farm, 25 acres at Cudgen where we are now with the profit and borrowed from the bank the balance,” Lyn said.

“The farm cost us $21,000. It was very run down and had an old house on it.

“James (Jim) our first son was born in 1971 and Stephen (Haz) in 1973.

“Doug was happy then. He had his daughter and two sons to become farmers if they wanted to be.

“Around 1976 we had a bumper season of peas and a good price. Doug said ‘I will build

Is Calling All Residents

It Takes a Town would like to invite you to participate in Imagine 2484. A year-on from the worst flooding in our region’s history, what might it be like to turn our gaze away from crisis, towards imagining futures where everyone and everything is thriving? The type of future we would most like to live in.

It Takes a Town is hosting a shopfront for residents, schools, clubs, groups, notfor-profits and business owners, to come together and build a shared vision of a better future. A vision that will guide us as our community continues to recover. A vision that will inform government planning and the work of community organisations for years to come.

We would like to invite you (and your family or friends) to participate in a conversation at the shopfront. Working alongside others, you’ll contribute to answering the following questions:

1. What does a thriving, regenerative and safe future for Murwillumbah and villages look and feel like?

2. What strategies and actions will take us towards this future?