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TRANSCRIPT OF DROUGHT STORIES INTERVIEW EXCERPT 11

Neville Bell: Well we had a very good run of years, it was just amazing that every year was a good year, for a long time until about 1959 or ’60, and we had a very late break and crops weren’t so good, but we it wasn’t a really, a drought, and there were, and next we were, bad drought was 1967, and that was a devastating drought because stock prices collapsed, and sheep and cattle were, in some instances it was shot,

And oh but that, again was followed by a very good year, 1968. We had feed to, feed to burn, we had agisted cattle, and sheep, so the drought must have done a bit of good, spelled the ground, and then we get the good year, well farmers are back into it again, and they anticipate the good years, until the next drought.

And that didn’t occur ‘til about 1982, and that was a very bad drought, but the most interesting thing about that drought was, in 1981 it rained and rained and oh farmers would say: “Well we won’t get a drought next year, because it never follows a wet year”, well that’s just what it did do (sigh), it would not rain in 1982.

And but we lived through that, and we had nothing to do much, so we pulled down fences and built fences, to keep occupied, that I had two boys at home, and then we had the ’83, and that was really a, boom year, everything grew. So, that was some of the worst droughts.

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