Pat Brown

Date of Interview: 12 March 1985

Place of Interview: Montville

Interviewer: Gillian Pechey

Transcriber: Colwyn Boulton

Born: 1918

Education: Montville State School

Married, three children

Pat Brown was born in 1918 and grew up on a citrus farm in Montville. He talks about the decline of citrus farming, the Fruitgrowers and Progress Association and the change to pineapple farming.

Audio

Pat Brown oral history - part one [MP3 29MB]

Pat Brown oral history - part two [MP3 14MB]

Transcript

Farming at Montville

GP: So your father was a citrus and pineapple grower?

BROWN: Yes. May I explain exactly how things started off? In 1906 my father and his family came to Montville. They were always keen on the land. My father was in business and when he came to Montville he was only twenty-one years of age and a very wonderful, wonderful man, and he decided that they would grow citrus, in Montville. They bought a property of eighty acres on the Maleny Road.

GP: Did they select that land? Is that how they got it?

BROWN: No, actually it was already selected and they bought this eighty acres from a man. I can't think of his name now. They bought this eighty acres and it already had a couple of hundred citrus trees on it. It was just starting to be established and there was a small home on the property. And my grandfather, he got busy and got a builder up from Palmwoods where he had a lovely home built. My father lived in the home with his two brothers and four sisters and they grew citrus. They planted more and the existing farm started. It had about two hundred on it. They realised that was not sufficient for an income. So they quickly got more trees planted. They had to clear the scrub. In those days it was all scrub up here. So they cut down those trees and had them pulled out, and they planted more citrus and they eventually had a farm consisting of two thousand citrus trees. And those two thousand trees gave a very nice living.

They had all different varieties of citrus trees - mandarins and oranges and navels. The citrus trees grew exceptionally well because it's lovely red volcanic soil on the range. And these trees grew marvellously well and they were protected from the strong wind. The high trees surrounded the farm so that kept the wind from blowing the trees about with citrus trees it's detrimental if the wind blows the trees about. So he kept the scrub all round to protect them and they continued growing citrus right up until 1930; that was for twenty-four years.

GP: So what else happened in that time?

BROWN: Well during that time, at the age of thirty, my father married. In the meantime though, the rest of the family left the area except one uncle, one of my father's brothers, Uncle John. He stayed and then my father got married and he had the old home, the old home that was built in 1906. He was given that while his mother and father went down to live in Tasmania. They retired in Tasmania and my father continued, as I say, growing citrus.

They had all different varieties of citrus trees - mandarins and oranges and navels. The citrus trees grew exceptionally well because it's lovely red volcanic soil on the range. And these trees grew marvellously well and they were protected from the strong wind. The high trees surrounded the farm so that kept the wind from blowing the trees about with citrus trees it's detrimental if the wind blows the trees about. So he kept the scrub all round to protect them and they continued growing citrus right up until 1930; that was for twenty-four years.

GP: So what else happened in that time?

BROWN: Well during that time, at the age of thirty, my father married. In the meantime though, the rest of the family left the area except one uncle, one of my father's brothers, Uncle John. He stayed and then my father got married and he had the old home, the old home that was built in 1906. He was given that while his mother and father went down to live in Tasmania. They retired in Tasmania and my father continued, as I say, growing citrus.

GP: Can you remember that house? Were you brought up in that house?

BROWN: Yes, I was born in that old place, Yes and my mother had... I had two brothers, one sister; and my two brothers and myself were born in theold home. We had a midwife that came and helped my mother.

GP: Do you know who the midwife was?

BROWN: Yes, Mrs Court and she lived about half a mile Maleny side of our house. She was a lovely old soul.

GP: Is that house still standing?

BROWN: Well I'll tell you about it. It's rather interesting. It's just in the process now of being pulled down. Yes and I'll tell you why. It's full of white ants and borers, so it's necessary to remove it.

GP: How large was that house? Was it as large as this one?

BROWN: Well, not quite, it was forty feet by forty feet, sixteen squares and this house I'm living in now is twenty-two squares.

GP: Was that house very different? Was there water laid on there?

BROWN: No, we had tanks. We got our rain from up above. It fell on the roof and it was collected in the tanks. Course, we had to always be very careful because water was scarce, especially when we got a dry spell. We had to make the water go very carefully.

GP: Were you able to have water for the garden or the trees at all?

BROWN: No, we didn't have irrigation on our citrus. We had lovely creeks running through our property but we never bothered to harness it up. We just depended on the weather. In those days we used to get a good rainfall. We'd have a worthwhile rainfall and the rain came at the right time. For citrus, as you can understand, you must have rain in the Spring when the trees are blossoming, setting their fruit.

GP: Do you remember what happened to the fruit after it had left here?

BROWN: Oh yes, we used to pick the fruit and then we'd grade it. We had a grading machine - that's for size - and then we'd pack it in bushel cases. A bushel case used to weigh in the old scale fifty-six pounds. Then we'd send it down by truck to the station at Palmwoods where it was sent on to Brisbane, the Brisbane markets. A train would take it to Brisbane and then the agents used to sell the fruit for us and they used to charge ten percent commission.

GP: Who did they sell it to?

BROWN: They would just sell it to anybody who came in the markets. They had markets in Brisbane and the agent would sell it to whoever came in, either in case lots or bigger quantities. Course if you bought the bigger quantity you got it much cheaper.

GP: Do you know who was handling the fruit in Brisbane?

BROWN: Oh yes, our special agent was a man called J.H.Leavy. He was a very honest and very decent man. In the markets in those days would be about fifty different agents, so you could pick and choose. But Mr Leavy we found a very honest man. He gave us a good deal.

GP: Why did you go out of citrus?

BROWN: Well what happened was they began to fall all the trees, all the scrub, and once they took up all the trees, fell the trees, it let the wind in. Then of course, as I was telling you before, wind is detrimental to citrus, blows the fruit off, blows all the leaves off.

GP: Why did they knock all the trees down?

BROWN: Well they wanted to open up more land for farming you see and of course once they took the trees away that's when the trouble started.

GP: So obviously there wasn't any talk about leaving belts of trees and things like that?

BROWN: No I'm afraid each farmer would just keep to himself. We weren't working collectively. Today I feel in the modern world I think we get our heads together and we would have done something about saving those trees. But in those days it was just everybody to himself, without any thought of the damage that was being done.

GP: Was there any other advantage to leaving the belts of trees or was it just for the wind?

BROWN: Well actually the trees too did a lot to promote the rain. We do know that where you have a lot of trees growing it does do such a lot to keep the moisture in the air and that's why in those days we were blessed with good rainfall because the trees were there.

GP: Did you ever hear of the Montville Fruitgrower’s and Progress Association?

BROWN: Well actually I was Secretary. I was Secretary of the Fruitgrower’s Association. Well it actually started, the Fruitgrower’s and Progress Association, started very early, in 1920, and when I was at the age of twenty I was appointed Secretary of the Montville Fruitgrower’s and Progress Association. And I kept on that job right up until I lost my sight, in 1954.

GP: And what did that group do?

BROWN: Well I'll tell you what they did. They did a lot to help growers in any way they could to work together and to help in the marketing. In 1924 the Committee of Direction was formed. That's what's known now as the COD. And this organisation was comprised of sectional group committees: that meant the pineapple sectional group, citrus sectional group, the deciduous sectional group and the vegetable sectional group. These committees used to meet in Brisbane every three months to formulate a scheme to promote all the different things represented. Each particular group looked after it's own particular group that it was nominated for, and this COD still stands today.

To make it more interesting, the COD in 1944 decided to build a cannery to help sell the excess fruit that the markets wouldn't take. And this factory was formed in Brisbane at Northgate called The Golden Circle Cannery. And why this cannery is so interesting to me is that my brother, John Brown, was commissioned to be the Managing Director of this big cannery. He directed this cannery right up until he retired when he was sixty-five. That's just three years ago. He was Managing Director for thirty-one years and started off just a small cannery and now there's forty acres of buildings at the cannery. So it's the biggest fruit cannery in the Southern Hemisphere.

GP: Why was this cannery started?

BROWN: It was started Gillian, to use up all the excess fruit. As you can understand, more and more farmers planted both citrus and pineapple, vegetable and then up in

Stanthorpe they were growing more and more deciduous fruits. Well the cannery was necessary to operate to absorb all this extra fruit. Talking about the factory, it really is a magnificent show. It's known all over the world. The Golden Circle products go to every country in the world. They're exported. And the emphasis is on quality and presentation. And they really are doing a magnificent job because Golden Circle now has become a household word and everybody thinks so much of them. And I know when I try them myself how I enjoy them. All my friends say, "Oh, you can't beat Golden Circle."

Pineapple growing

GP: Can we go back to when you started growing pineapples?

BROWN: Yes, regarding that, we, as I say, grew citrus from 1906 until 1930 - that was for twenty-four years - and then we started to change our farm from citrus to pineapples. Then we had a big pineapple farm, consisting of thirty acres of pineapples. It meant that we were all very busy, picking and packing them. We used to send pineapples to Adelaide, Melbourne, Newcastle, Sydney and Brisbane and we even sent them north. We sent them to Rockhampton and Townsville, and then of course we sent a terrific amount to the Golden Circle Cannery. We used to find it most interesting because we studied the markets to see which markets seemed to be the best proposition. And of course, as you can understand with selling the fruit, you've got tobuild up a good name in the trade to get first choice. But we concentrated on that and we really found it most exciting. In 1954 I lost my eyesight due to sugar diabetes. I got this sort of condition of diabetes at the age of ten and when I was thirty-six I lost my sight completely. That of course will be thirty-one years this coming October since that happened.

GP: So that would have changed you life?

BROWN: That changed my whole mode of life, Gillian, because it just meant from being an actively engaged person in the fruit, I had to just quietly relax and spend my life quietly, doing what I could. But what I did do, may I say this, at this stage, Gillian, what I did was when I couldn't work the farm anymore, my brother-in-law sold his property at Palmwoods and he came up and took over my share of the property. He took over the farm that I was looking after. He is still growing pineapples there now.

GP: Here or down at Palmwoods?

BROWN: No, at Montville, our old farm.

GP: Were there any changes that you recall in the way you grew the pineapples? How did you ensure the quality of the fruit?

BROWN: I'll tell you about that Gillian. There's a good point regarding that. Pineapples need very well drained soil. So to ensure good drainage, we used to plant the pines on the contour. We'd have a little drain going down the centre of each row and the pineapples planted on each side of the drain and there you see they were well drained and that ensured good drainage. Pineapples don't like wet feet and it meant excellent drainage which is essential. Of course the bigger the pines you can grow that means the bigger tonnage to the acre and that of course is very important from the economics. You must get production and you must get the weight. So that's important. After having grown pines in Montville, for my working years up until 1954, I would now suggest to any person who wants to come into the industry to grow pineapples on the lowlands, because pineapples need to be protected from the strong wind which we get up on the top now it's all been cleared away, and warmer conditions which you get down below. And so that's what I feel is a much better proposition for getting the extra tons per acre.

GP: How many pineapple farms were there in Montville in those early days? In the

Thirties?

BROWN: There was seventy pineapple farms in Montville in those early days and now there'd be now more than three. And even they are going out. So very soon there won't be any pineapples growing in Montville, indication that our area now is definitely sub-division because the land is so rich and the views are so beautiful that it isn't economical to have it now, growing anything. It's worth more to the farmer to sub-divide it.

GP: Do you think this is okay?

BROWN: Well regarding that Gillian, I feel that when we've got something good, then we've got to use it to the best advantage. I feel that we can get a lot more money for our land in sub-division than what it's worth to try and grow fruit and vegetables.

GP: Do you have any thoughts about how it's sub-divided and how it's treated by the people who lived here?

BROWN: Well, you get lots of people with different ideas. Some want it to be cut into five acre blocks, but I'm against that because I feel that if a person wants five acres well then they can go to the extent of buying a little extra, having their five acres. But the average person who comes here to retire - a quarter of an acre is plenty. You can have a lovely garden at the front and the back of your house and your lovely trees and that's quite enough to look after in the evening of your life. You see young people who want to be in a big way and want to grow big areas of stuff. Then they go and buy a lot of the big areas of land. But the people who will in the future be the citizens of Montville will be the elderly and so we've got to prepare for them.

Social life

GP: Can we go back to when you were younger? You were in several groups or clubs or organisations?

BROWN: Oh yes, well when I was a boy - I might add at this stage I have a great faith in God. I've always loved our Lord very deeply, because I feel without God we've got nothing but with God we've got everything, everything that’s sweet and beautiful and wonderful. When I was a boy I went to Sunday School. I loved that and later I became a Sunday School teacher and then I became a warden in our church and a synodman and a Councillor. That's in the Anglican Church. For the little bit of pleasure that goes with life, little things on the side, we had a lovely club. It was called St. Mary's Pastime Club. And in that club we played all manner of games; ping pong, quoits and - you name it - billiards.

GP: Where did you do this?

BROWN: We had that in our Montville School of Arts that I was Secretary of later, you see. And we had all these games we used to play. Then we knocked off about 10 o'clock and have dances. We danced then ‘til 12 o'clock. And I used to love dancing.

GP: Tell me about the dances and the music?

BROWN: I'll tell you about that. You'll laugh when I tell you this. We used to have squeeze box, an accordion, and there we danced and frolicked around, doing all the old-time dances to the accordion. Then occasionally somebody would come and visit our area and we'd hear that they were good at 'tickling the ivories'. We got them in to play the piano.

GP: So you had a piano there?

BROWN: We had a piano in our hall, lovely piano. And then we had sports. We had a lovely Tennis Club and I was Secretary to that. And we played tennis, and then cricket in the cricketing season in the summer time.

GP: Did you play just in Montville or did you have visiting teams?

BROWN: We used to play against other places. We'd go down to Palmwoods and Nambour and Woombye and Maleny and all those places. We played them in sport.

GP: How often did this happen?

BROWN: Well, in the summer time we played cricket and in the winter time we played tennis. And there we enjoyed a little bit of pleasure.

GP: Was this only the men who played these games?

BROWN: Oh no, we couldn't do without the girls. Be amongst the girls. Oh no, we enjoyed playing. Well, of course, the girls didn't play cricket, but the girls joined in the tennis. See in tennis, as you know, there's four men and two girls to each game, each match I should say, and the matches consist of nine sets - four mixed, four men and one ladies per set - and those were the nine sets that each match consisted of. And they were played from 1 o'clock in the afternoon until five.

GP: Was this just on Sunday or Saturday?

BROWN: Well actually, we played our fixture matches on a Saturday afternoon and our practice on a Sunday afternoon.

GP: What did your children do when you did those things?

BROWN: Oh well, I was blessed. I was married to a very beautiful woman called Joan and she gave me a lovely son and a lovely daughter. And they used to come out with us and they'd play about outside the court on the green grass while we were enjoying the tennis. They were very well-behaved children. They never gave us any trouble. All the other children joined in. They were all kind and friendly. They really had a lovely time.

GP: So you had a picnic, I suppose?

BROWN: Well what we did was we used to boil the billy, the good old fashioned billy. Boil the billy and put the kerosene tin full of water over a fire and there we'd boil the billy and pour the tea in and stir it with a stick. And we used to have lovely afternoon teas and enjoyed it all to the fullest.

GP: Sounds great.

BROWN: It was lovely Gillian, we enjoyed every moment of it, it was so delightful. Being on the mountain top the air is so pleasant, you know, fresh air and healthy, beautiful to breathe in your lungs.

GP: What were some of the other groups that you belonged to?

BROWN: Well, you're beginning to cut me down a bit. As I say I used to play cricket and tennis in season. Then, as I say, we had our Pastime Club.

GP: What about the School of Arts?

BROWN: Oh well with the School of Arts we used to conduct dances every Saturday night. Every Saturday night we had a dance to raise funds.

BROWN: Getting back to the story, we had these dances every Saturday night and we all enjoyed them. We used to be very good though we'd only go ‘til 12 o'clock. We never danced on a Sunday morning. Knock off at 12 like good children. And we had lots of fun. Actually that pretty well wound up our activities because we had our cricket and tennis in season, the dances every Saturday night, and then once a year we'd have a concert. And with the concert every different group in Montville would give an item. I was Secretary of School of Arts and Trustee and I would say a piece of poetry.

GP: I just want to get the timing right. When would that have been that you're talking about?

BROWN: I'm referring now dear, before I was blind.

GP: Right so in the Forties. Can I ask you how did the World Wars affect life, the Second World War?

BROWN: Well in the Second World War, my two brothers, that's John and Hilary, they went to the war but unfortunately I couldn't go being a diabetic on insulin. They wouldn't take me. When I went to enlist they termed me medically unfit and so I couldn't go. But my two brothers went, along with lots of other young men from Montville and also the girls. The girls went with the WAFS and the WRENS, and the Land Army Girls went also from Montville, out working on different properties.

GP: So this would have made a difference to the farms with all these people gone?

BROWN: Oh yes, the farms were depleted. They went back. Because there were so many men having gone away. So I really had to play my part by working extra hard on the farm to take my two brothers' places.

GP: And if I can just go back now even further to the Thirties, do you remember the Depression?

BROWN: Oh do I what. Do you know in the Depression years we used to clear sixpence a case profit on our pineapples. A bushel and a half case of pineapples would clear sixpence.

GP: What was sixpence worth? What could you get for sixpence?

BROWN: Sixpence would be worth, I suppose in those days, about five shillings today.

GP: Not much then?

BROWN: No. Well, the tragic part about it was such a lot of them went broke. Because of the seriousness of the situation. My two brothers and myself and father, we were able to grow our fruit more cheaply because we didn't have to pay out any labour costs, but a lot of men who had to pay labour out, went bankrupt. But as I say, we were all heavily mortgaged and we were able to weather out the storm. Then when America came into war they wanted our pineapples.

GP: What did they want them for?

BROWN: They wanted them to eat. They really enjoyed them and they paid a big price

for them so that helped us tremendously. How we got out of our debts you see with the good price we got for the pines.

GP: I want to go back even past the Depression. I want to go back to the twenties or even before that and ask whether you ever remember seeing any Aborigines in this area?

BROWN: No, but I tell you what we did find. There were no Aborigines when my father first came to Montville in 1906. But we had a lot of Bunya Nut trees in our property, we used to have. We'd find little stone axes round these trees that the blacks used to have. But actually regarding the blacks they were before my father came to Montville.

GP: That's what I thought. Just to go over your lifetime, what would you say have been the biggest changes? In what areas have been your biggest changes?

BROWN: Well I feel that to really sum up everything that I've been talking about, the greatest thing in our fruit industry was the building of our Golden Circle Cannery because that's absolutely given us a satisfactory price for all our fruits and vegetables. The factory now takes such huge quantities at a price payable to growers. So thatreally has been the most important feature of the whole situation. We established our Golden Circle Cannery which is world wide.

GP: How did you get the news of the world?

Communications

BROWN: Well getting back to the situation regarding how we got in touch with the rest of the world -we used to get a "Courier Mail," in the olden days it was called "The Courier" later called the "Courier Mail." We got one of those every day and then of course the mail came up from Palmwoods in the mail coach. We used to get our letters every day, that's if there were any letters. And then regarding the advent of wireless we didn't get our first wireless in our home until 1938 but some of our friends in Montville, they got wireless sets in 1930. This meant that you got all the market reports and all the interesting things pertaining to fruit and vegetables. Then of course, we used to ring up. We had the telephone. About 1925 we got our first telephone in Montville and that of course meant being able to ring Brisbane Market for our fruit, and ring up our agents. Ring up our loved ones. This was a wonderful thing. It meant so much.

GP: So "the Courier Mail" was the main paper?

BROWN: Well I'll tell you a story. When I was a boy "The Courier" was the paper we got. Later on, "The Courier" and there was also another paper called the "Daily Mail." The Daily Mail and the "Courier" combined and they called it the "Courier Mail" and that's what we got. I can't remember what year "The Courier Mail" became that situation.

GP: And with the radio, did that go all the time or did you just listen occasionally.

BROWN: No, batteries. We had little battery sets and used to have to have a wet battery. That's a big car battery, one of those, and also a dry battery. Used to have there two batteries fitted up and there we would hear the wireless. In those days our first radio was one with a big horn and we used to tuck our heads into the horn to hear all the news. It was so wonderful hearing the news at night, the seven o'clock news. You'd come in tired from work and we'd hear all the news at night.

GP: When did you get electricity?

BROWN: We got electricity in Montville in 1939. It was brought through from Brisbane as a straight line and it came all through the back of our property. We were paid one pound for each post that was put in our land. It was City Electric Light, it was called in those days, when it first came out in 1939. Each farmer was paid one pound for each post that was put into his property and that was then the main line.

GP: Could you plug into it?

BROWN: Well what they did, they had transformers in various spots where the current was reduced and there we were able to have our power.

GP: What did you run off electricity?

BROWN: Well we had our iron, electric iron. We later brought little radios, electric radios, and then we had all the usual things: lights, anything that required that you could buy, an electric lawn mower. We had everything that walks and talks.

BROWN: (Recitation of "A Bush Christening" by Banjo Patterson.)

End of Interview