Debbie Grant has called Lismore home for 30-odd years and in that time, she has adapted to whatever life has thrown her way. She took some time to chat with Sara Browne about love, career, floods, volunteering and everything in between.

Lismore has been my home for about 36 years. I grew up in Caboolture in Queensland. I left there when I was 16, a family break up and to work. I worked in Redcliffe for a while and Brisbane and then out to Ipswich. That’s where I met my dearly departed husband, Les. He was in the air force and I actually met him at the Palais Royal Hotel, at the disco. We were married six months later. We just knew. We got married on my 19th birthday.

We stayed in Ipswich for another three or four years and then he got out of the air force after six years. We went onto a dairy farm at Maroon near Boonah for a couple of years then we moved back down here to Lismore, his home town. He grew up here, he came from a farming background. His parents used to have a dairy farm. They couldn’t afford at the time for him to stay on the farm, that’s why he joined the air force. He became an airframe fitter working on F111s.

We lived with his parents for a while, he worked on the farm. We had two kids, occasionally I’d work driving the truck while they were picking up hay, and I’d have the kids with me. Later we moved onto one of the farmhouses on his brother’s property at Leicester and then eventually bought in town. There’s no dairy farms left out there now.

Wherever he was, that was my home. I went and did a course at TAFE, it was called New Opportunities for Women. I had always wanted to go back and do further study so I ended up doing a Bachelor of Business, majoring in accounting. That was at NRCAE at the time on Keen Street. My final year – I took four years instead of three – I was out at what was then UNE Northern Rivers. I was parenting while I was doing that and also working. I worked at the Metropole Hotel in the kitchen.

We also used to do catalogue delivery as well. We used to walk North and South Lismore, my husband and two kids. Once I finished my degree, I worked in the Shell depot that was here in South Lismore, just helping when someone was on holidays. I worked with a lady who had the catalogue delivery business and started doing some work for her. She was talking about selling the business so we asked her for a price. We took a loan out and bought the business. I ran it for about 26 years.

I enjoyed it. The last few years were pretty tough because covid hit and the bottom dropped out of the business. Before the GFC, I actually had a turnover of half a mill a year. I covered from North Ocean Shores down to Evans Head out to Kyogle so in that whole area I had about 70 or 80 staff. My husband would help after hours. He was working with a few different farming businesses that sold equipment. Sometimes he’d help me with sorting and deliveries. He passed away from a massive heart attack – it will be 12 years this weekend. It was very sudden. He’d had a heart attack a couple of years before and had some stents fitted but he was fine.

At the time I was working at the Westpac Helicopter show for Lions at the showground. We had both gotten involved with Lions by that stage. I’ve been in it now for 22 years. I started off as their secretary and then eventually I took on the job of treasurer. Then I took a few years out after Les died. Just in the last few years, I’ve got back into it as their treasurer. We do a lot of things that raise funds for other Lions organisations. There’s an Australian Lions Foundation that people can apply for grants from. We also donate to our other Lions organisations that help people overseas. We tend to do a lot here.

Debbie and Clive post flood 2022 (Photo by Jackyln Wagner) 

After the floods, we were basically set up outside Bruce Sheaffe’s business over in South with the bbq. We were supplying food free of charge to anybody that was needing it at the time. Bruce is our president so his business became like a hub for people on South Lismore. We just got in and helped out where we could.

Currently, we’re helping out with Resilience Lismore. We give them food vouchers from different local businesses. Whenever somebody has a need, we can help them out in different ways. For example, we helped out Wyrallah Road school. They had a native bee hive that actually got stolen so we’ve gone and bought a new one for them.

I’ve always been one who wants to give back to people and this is my way of doing it. I enjoy the camaraderie of the people in my club. I just really like to serve. And that’s one of our mottos – we serve. It’s something that’s important to me. Both my late husband and I were looking for something to do once the kids had left home and this is where we decided to put our time and effort.

I did find love again. I was single for a couple of years and then I met my partner online. He’s local, a South Lismore bloke. We started off just walking together, exercising. It just progressed from there. We’ve been together for almost 10 years.

We’ve been through a few floods. In 2017 we just lost everything that was underneath the house so that wasn’t so traumatic. But with this one, just to lose everything…it was so hard to watch everything being dragged out and thrown away.

My partner is a North Sydney supporter and he had a lot of his North Sydney jumpers and things like that. He found it very difficult having to go through everything. In the end, he just had to let some stuff go. We were very lucky in that one of his daughters’ friends and her partner came over from Evans Head and she took a lot of his footy jumpers home and washed them and washed them. They came up ok. At the moment they’re all still in a suitcase.

We were probably one of the first ones back into our house in Casino Street. We have no intentions of leaving. Definitely not. When Clive was looking for a place to buy originally, he had to have it within walking distance of a pub or a club. That one ticked the box.

We just roll with it. We try to get overseas once a year for a holiday if we can get there. He’s already retired and has been for nearly 10 years. He worked at the Telstra exchange. We just plod along the two of us. We have no intentions of ever getting married. We’re quite happy the way our relationship is and we just do what we need to do. We’re very happy. He makes me happy. Lismore will be our home. Although Clive says, ‘if we ever win the lotto, we might move to Kingscliff.’

I think more people should look at giving more of their time to serve others. You get a lot out of it. You might not get anything monetary but it's good for the soul, very good for the soul.

Lismore City Lions Club