Graeme Palmer and his wife Janice are branches of a family tree that has deep roots in the Northern Rivers and their family business. Graeme met with Sara Browne in the work area at the back of the Keen Street premises to share his story.

I was born in Bangalow. Mum and Dad lived here in Lismore but Mums mum had a favourite doctor in Bangalow so that’s where I was born. We lived up on Ballina Road and my folks had the toy shop which was the North Coast Hobby Centre. It was in Woodlark to begin with and then it went over to Magellan then moved up to here on Keen Street. 64 years of being a shop – three generations – and I was told by my nephew who had it when it was closed after the 2017 flood, it was the longest registered toy shop in Australia.

As kids, we worked there. School ended in December and down you came to spend a fortnight in the shop up until Christmas, flat out doing wrapping and bringing stock in to get it out for the next day. I thought it was good, it was a fun thing to do during the day and night time was family.

Of course, Christmas came and then you had your school holiday. My parents pretty much worked the whole time. There were occasions when I remember going down to Iluka to go fishing with Dad’s brother and my cousins.

My dad was mad keen on model aeroplanes hence the hobby shop. He would take us on weekends to various events – Tamworth, Armidale, around the district, he had mates in models. I’ve got bits of film and photographs back in the 50s when the Lismore cohort used to gather over near the airport in the paddock.

Back in those days there was no radio control so they just had these sort of balsa planes covered in silk with motors in them. They used to carve their own propellers and they’d free fly, just send them up. I was into it but not as much as my two brothers, you couldn’t help but be into it. Underneath the house up in Goonellabah was a whole cave of wonders. It was a thing we all did.

I went to Richmond River High School. That’s terrible what’s happened there. I guess all things have a life but it's such a wonderful old school and the architecture from the day, so sad to see it go.

My folks were big on education, like every parent, they wanted us to have opportunities they never had. The eldest, my brother Dallas, was the first to go through the system. I remember it was the time when all results were published in the paper.

The state government had a selection process for the top few to get scholarships so Dallas was under pressure from the whole family to not only matriculate but to good enough marks to get a scholarship, which he did. He went to Armidale and became a teacher.

When my time came, by then it was a case of some leaving at year 10 and go to tech and do a trade, there was more pressure in some ways to go through to year 12. I was one of those first cohorts where probably the majority of students stayed until year 12. I did all those subjects that we were told to do – maths, physics, chemistry. I didn’t do so hot the first time round with my HSC.

I went off for two years, spent a year in Sydney working and then the second year I lived in Newcastle where I had friends that I went to school with. I went back and did my HSC at night school and did quite a bit better, as I should have done in the first pass.

There was a bit of turmoil in those days because Mum was killed in a car accident when I was 15. I’m not blaming anybody but there was a bit of unsettlement in the arrangement of things and I probably took advantage as a young teenage boy, rather than study and be good I kind of played up. I’m the youngest.

I mentioned my brother being a teacher and that was regarded as a pretty good job, a job in the public service was like gold. I had that in my head as I went through but as time passes people talk to you and you learn of other opportunities. I was always quite interested in design so I thought architecture would be a good thing. I flirted with the idea of law but then thought nah too boring.

The family – back generations – have a bit of history in the district and there were family members involved in the wood industries locally. There was a book at the time called Background Careers printed by the state government. It was a great thick thing where every possible job was mentioned with a bit of background to what it involves and how to get it into.

I was thumbing through that when I was in Newcastle doing my exams and came across forestry as a profession and I thought gee that’s got to be good, out in the bush. I had a read and could see that it was a fairly technically demanding and suitable challenge. So, that’s where I went, over to the Australian National University, and enrolled in their Bachelor of Science Forestry course.

Graeme on site with some of his students

I met my wife there in Canberra, she was doing forestry as well. I was a few years in when I picked up a second degree in computer science, I had generated interest there and it looked good so I signed up for that.

We had a child so we took turns in enrolling so the whole thing took us from 1980 then I finally got my first job after uni in 1989 in Queensland.

We were both parenting and studying and we couldn’t do both at the same time because we needed income. Janice went through first. Much to her disappointment, she backed away from forestry and just did straight science in plant sciences. She was lucky enough to get work straight away with CSIRO because she was quite a good student, dissimilar to me. She was very applied and clever.

I’d already been starting to do building and concreting as a way to make extra money so when she took up the job, I backed off from that a bit. As long as one of us was earning money we could get along with it. It was a fairly austere time but it worked for us.

We went from Canberra to Queensland. Back in the day, most of the forestry management was undertaken by state governments. Each state had their forestry department. Queensland was in the habit each year of interviewing all the final-year students. We were up there on a field trip to Fraser Island in the last year of my study and they interviewed us all. QLD usually had four or five positions each year. I was unsuccessful at getting one of those. They were field forestry positions. But as it turned out, my computer science degree took the attention of their research department so they got in touch with me on the very last day of my undergraduate study. That was when the airline strike was on. I flew to Brisbane on an air force plane. Because the pilots were on strike, they were doing anything they could to fill the slots with any plane they could find. The armed forces were doing what they could to keep people moving.

I took a job in their research department. Principally it was about numerical and statistical analysis, that kind of thing. I was excited about the job. By then, I’d taken a job with CSIRONET as an assistant programmer part-time, just as a help desk person. But our daughter, who was then about 8, was a bit prone to asthma and found the winters in Canberra a bit hard to deal with so the prospect of moving to QLD to a warmer clime and nearer to home was attractive to us. We drove everyone and everything up and settled into a rental. The office was in Brisbane in Indooroopilly.

Janice went on to do a Master's degree in Agriculture. She found a scholarship for that. When she finished that she ended up doing various contract lab tech kind of jobs but she also by then had two more kids so we were a bit booked up. We’ve always all worked, all the men and women in our families.

I don’t know how other people feel about where they come from but I’ve always felt like this is my place. I can see why indigenous have such connection with land because at the end of the day, it’s all the constructs that exist when you’re young that give you confidence and security and the capacity to aspire and work and do. It becomes a bit of a foundation. I imagine for some folks it's probably not as big a thing for me the district here has always been pretty close to my heart/being …whatever you want to call it.

So at the end of 99, 10 years in, my dad was here in Shoppe 117 and we were chatting one day. I was thinking at the time about studying again and as it turned out, the field of work I wanted to work in and the person in that field, was here at Southern Cross. The idea came up that I could come down from Brisbane and study here. Dad said he thought that would be good because he was getting older, he could do with a hand.

After Mum died, the hobby centre went through a few sets of hands. First of all, my Dad’s sister then later on, my eldest brother. At the same time, Dad had found a new partner in Veronica. Veronica was a chemist’s assistant at Friths down the road here. She’d been a friend of the family for years.

Shoppe 117 had only been established in 1983 and it was being sold so they had the idea to get into that shop. Dad bought the shop, that was in this location here. The toy shop was here too in the other side. Veronica was managing the shop, Dallas and his wife Robyn moved the toy shop round to the old post office. It was in there a for a heap of time. That expanded Shoppe 117 to the full downstairs footprint which it remained.

Dad died in 2011, Veronica finally passed 2015. The business, as it were, came to the family, as an inheritance. Dallas had passed away in 2011 as well. His wife Robyn and my sister and brother – we’d all inherited – they were all doing different things and not really interested in the business. Janice and I spoke about it. We had the idea that if we took this on, after spending so much time studying, this might enable us to retire. Another thing too was that it just seemed crazy, to have a shop which was so well established and clearly had a loyal clientele, just to chuck it. With those things in mind we thought, what the hell, we’ll take it on.

We had moved back in 2000, the old man would have been 79. By then I was already doing casual work at the uni as a lecturer and I also was doing some consulting to the timber industry, mainly QLD, but also New Zealand and Fiji. Janice had got a job at Thursday Plantation and later on at the DPI at Wollongbar. Those first couple of years to about 2003, I pottered around with those jobs and tried to give the old man a hand. I think he was pretty happy to have the assistance and company.

He had just turned 90 when he passed, or a week or two before 90. He was a pretty old guy but he was still coming to work, as was Veronica. I couldn’t understand it because they were both getting very old and I was thinking to myself, why? Why do you keep doing this? Surely, they’d take a rest. They didn’t take holidays, rarely went anywhere, just the drive to Caniaba and back.

I guess if you do something and you like it a lot, why would you change it. People like us judge from outside but don’t really know what’s going on for folk. One thing you learn is – there’s no queerer than folk and what they choose to do is their business.

Graeme and students in cork oak plantation 

Southern Cross had just established their science department in 1996 and their forestry degree. I think they had a cohort that was about two years in. They rang to ask if I was interested in doing wood science teaching. I was kind of excited by that. I like to think I’m the type of person who can translate knowledge to other people. I’ve enjoyed teaching, it’s been good. I feel pretty good about what they think of me.

Week before last I was in Albury for a symposium that the Australian Forestry Professional Association ran and while I was there, I met six ex-students, all in different stages of their careers. They were all still in their field, some of them in quite senior roles. While I was there I was very much encouraged and uplifted by their contact. They were quick to come over and say gday.

In the classroom we obviously had enough going on that we could speak to each other without imposing any weird paradigms about who is in charge. They’re open to input if they don’t feel intimidated. The art to teaching at university is that there is no correct answer, there’s only the answer plus what more you can think about. It’s all about the ability think, to take in information, to analyse it, mull it about, put it in its place and produce other output as a consequence. That’s what professionals need to do. If you’re faced with whatever situation, you need to be able to calmly think about it, evaluate and so forth and then come up with solutions. Of course, in forestry, those solutions have to attend to not only the sciences but the social license of it which is very challenging.

Janice is the manager here. The decision-making, the operations, it's her gig. When we’re at home we’ll discuss things, she likes to bounce ideas. Principally my role here is the maintenance of the building but since the floods, that’s been seven days a week since February 28th. We’re still not finished but we’re getting there.

At the time of the event, there was a legion of people here to help. It was unbelievable. People came from everywhere, particularly my work colleagues at the university, they came in droves, some of them stayed for weeks. There is no doubt that without them, we’d have been stuffed.

We were granted some money from the state government to assist with the reopening. Without that, we’d have been stuffed. All the money’s gone. I guess we did think about not coming back but it's hard. What you’ve got to convince yourself of is to take a complete hit. All that was there – which has now been diminished by the action of the flood – and then throw the rest away as well just so you can be free of it – that’s very challenging.

If it happens again next summer as the doomsayers are telling us, it would probably be a case of selling up the stock for cost, take whatever monies can be drawn out of the carcass and take a rest because it’s just too… At the beginning, its okay because you’ve got energy, you’ve got commitment, you can see the path forward and you know why you’re doing it. But time and the intensity of the whole thing – the work pressure and the psychology pressure – that grinds away day upon day and you get weaker. So what you think at the beginning is an unstoppable force of commitment and tenacity, you soon learn is actually finite.

I was awarded my doctorate at SCU in 2010, something that has been important to me and was for my dad also.

Janice and I came from similar upbringings in terms of emphasis on education. I guess we kind of translated that a bit to our kids. Whatever you want to do is okay with us as long as you’re not a thief or a murderer.

If you’re asking my advice, look to something that you can call a job or a career that will satisfy you and earn you the sort of bucks you’ll need to actually live in this world. My eldest daughter just got a job as the vice principal at Kyogle High so she’s doing very well. She’s a great teacher and a really energetic person.

Our middle daughter went off to Melbourne and studied arts and in particular creative writing. She’s with the Victorian Arts Centre doing PR writing for them. Then the youngest, our son, he’s living in Brissy, he’s an engineer. He’s considering a job on the inland rail stationed at Dubbo. They’ve all got tertiary degrees and professional jobs which is great, we’re really proud of them.

working in Vanuatu

I went through the 74 flood when the toy shop was here. In that flood, there was nowhere near the damage. The district is one of those places where the weather is generally fantastic, the natural environment is spectacular, it’s the next place to live but it's also hard. Floods, droughts, the whims of the climate and our dependence on agricultural industries has always made it a bit of a struggle place.

I went to the Aquarius Festival in 72 in Nimbin. That was the most amazing cultural change I had ever seen in my life. I went to a high school that was run by nazis, not a hair out of place, tie and blazer and everything one day – and a week later – it was..I’ll have my hair long if I want. It was that quick.

I look at the town now, so bombed out, and yes the place is resilient but…if it’s coming back then it's going to take forever. It’s that kind of timeframe, I worry about what transitions. If all those reasons that people come to the CBD – if the banks are gone for example – then what’s to become of it? I don’t know.

It’s going to be okay because it’s been in the shit before and it has come back. This instance is particularly challenging. But we’re here. We have a house in Lismore Heights. During the event, I was so thankful that we had a place to go home to, albeit up to the ceiling with boxes of stock and we were getting around in it like rats in a run. But each day we could go there have a shower, have a feed and go to bed. So many people lost not only their businesses but their homes, I can’t imagine what that’s like.

We were thinking about retirement last Christmas but the flood has put an end to that. We have to recalibrate.

Just before the flood, I was about to go to Brisbane to a sale to buy a heap of woodworking machinery. My aspiration was to start making small things like boxes for the shop. There’s a resource here locally of cabinet timbers, the species that were here in the big scrub. They had been planted by mostly mac nut farmers, in places that the mac nuts can’t be put. There’s something like 200 hectares in small lots of cabinet timbers. They are all 20 years old or older.

At the university we had done some research with them – felled them, sawed them, dried them – it’s all good timber. I was gong to back off from work and pick up this theme. I was very keen to offer a market place for these people’s wood as a Lismore made product.

I had aspirations that if it went well then maybe the product could be made for wider distribution. I had a business plan that was mostly about making the business of planting wood a good thing to do for farmers.

By next March, I may yet get my woodworking machines, my toys.