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TRANSCRIPT OF DROUGHT STORIES INTERVIEW EXCERPT 9

Henry Morrell: They think it was a place where this, I felt the sporting, the sporting was a means by which we could, the community could, get together, and have some fun, and just being able, it’s a vehicle whereby you could talk, you could communicate.

And I’ve got a high regard for the ability to be able to talk to each other, as a community, get oneself away from the farm, even if it’s only a day, to be able to talk to others, that are going through, and to talking together, and to be able to join hands as a community, to me they were just important days for us, to be able to play sport, and to just be able to get away, from bank balances, and just look, getting out of the office, and seeing all those things, you know, just having fun.

Um, fun seems to drain from you, when things are difficult, and I believe we thrive on fun, and farmers need to get out of their tractors, they spend a many a, a lonely hours, driving around, the tractors, and they need to get out,

And I guess one of the things that we started, back in South Australia, I met with a man and I said: “We need to get them, these men, we need to get them out of the farmers’ track, we need to get them out of the tractors, the women seem to be able to, the farming women seem to be able to come together, and organise themselves, and talk things through, maybe that’s, they’re better equipped, in that area”.

I have sympathy for the young farmers, who are very buoyed, and want to get on, and have set goals, and to want it all to happen, yesterday, but that’s not a reality, the reality is that in farming, in Australia, you will suffer some form of drought in some form.

But it’s about being resilient, and mm, equipping oneself to, to realise that this is going to happen, and to be resilient, and find ways that we are able to be strong enough to negotiate the difficult times that come, and so that has been my experience, and it’s been, I think it’s been a learning, and a great experience, and I’m a better person, for having journeyed through these times.

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