Inarrabri

20 / 24

Feature
Anne Rae - Narrabri
“My father was a member of the Namoi
Bushman’s Carnival and I got involved with
the very first one of those. About 1954, I
think. My father was just back from the war
and had all sorts of health problems and
things but he still loved his horses, so that
was a wonderful thing for us. Those days
there was very little social things, sports and
stuff. It was great and my father was put in
charge of the buck jumping horses. So we
would all get involved helping and then I
learned to campdraft. I had a bit of that for
a while.”
“Then the pony club started so I helped my
father. He was a troop leader for the little
kids at the pony club. That was the very first
camp and I did that for a long time. I
became a troop leader myself later on and
then the show, we always got involved with
the local show. Then I joined the CWA
Younger Set which was happening in
Narrabri at the time. I was secretary/
treasurer for the North West branch of the
Stockhorse Society for about five years and
during that time we held the first NSW State
Championship in Narrabri. About 1989.
And it was huge. There was hundreds and
hundreds of horses and it was just the most
spectacular.”
“You didn’t have the opportunity to be wild
in those days. Being restricted on food,
food rationing, clothing rationing, petrol
rationing and every other rationing. My
mother had five children and we led a quiet,
sort of basic life. Our social outings were to
go to Sunday school and church and we’d go
to a school concert once a year. We’d visit
out grandmother and we loved doing that. It
was the most fun we’d have.”
“I was in Narrabri toastmasters for many
years. It was a big part of my life, filling a
void and getting me through some difficult
times, like after my husband died.
He was a funny man, he would entertain
people. He was a bit shy but give him a
couple of drinks and he’d liven up. He’d quite
often sing. People used to say, Bruce, sing
this and sing that and he had all these little
romantic ones like, ‘Give me a kiss to build a
dream on’.”
“He had this other thing where he’d push
the front of his hat up like an old drunk,
pretend he had a drunken voice and wob-
ble about his little stage. He was quite the
performer. We had some funny nights with
Bruce entertaining people. When Bruce was
around there was always something
happening. He would make something like
just going to feed the chooks sound like it
was some marvellous, exciting thing to do.
He loved life. Never a dull moment. He was
the live wire around the place.”
photo: John Burgess
Words & Photography by Namoi based
professional photographer, John Burgess.
To contact John, phone 0423 690 586 or via Humans of the Namoi
20 | iNarrabri Magazine | November 2016