John James Maloney was born in Lismore and grew up in Lismore, a true local. From aged care to founding The Goold Old Days of Lismore to hosting a radio show, James Maloney makes an interesting story. He sat down for a chat with Denise Alison from The Humans of Lismore.

I was born in Lismore Base Hospital in December 1967. Mum remembers being in hospital and hearing on the radio that Harold Holt had drowned. A couple of years ago I went down to that beach in Victoria where he drowned…I don’t know, I just felt a strange connection to that event.

We lived at 96 Terania St. The house we were in has been replaced now and North Lismore was a great area to grow up. People were very friendly. Flooding was bad though. The house we lived in was on stilts and I remember in the 1974 flood, the water came up to the light switches upstairs. Mum had 6 of us children under 8 at the time so it was pretty tough.

As soon as we saved enough money we left North Lismore and moved to Goonellabah where we still live.

Lismore was such a great, laid back place to grow up though. I went to school at St Carthage's and Marist Brothers which is now Trinity. I did a cooking course at Lismore Tafe and then another 2 years cooking at Grafton TAFE.

I was doing some cooking in Caroona Nursing home which is what introduced me to Aged Care. My mother’s mother worked in St Josephs Nursing home as a trained Sister. Her name was Marie Boyle and she grew up in Casino and got a Scholarship to go to school in Sydney.

She used to have to go on a horse and cart to Casino from the farm, then catch the train to Byron Bay, then catch a ship to Sydney to go to school. When she finished her schooling in Sydney the Nun’s said she should train to be a Nurse so she went to St Vincents Hospital in Sydney to work. When St Vincents opened here in Lismore they were looking for Nurses who wanted to work in the country. They said… We have one of your girls from the Northern Rivers who’s just finished her training, so she came back to the area.

She also worked at Coraki Hospital and was a great advocate for the Indigenous community. The last 10 years she was at St Joseph's so I was around there as a young fella and my Grandmother was a great influence. We had my father’s father living with us for about 15 years and I was helping to look after him too.

Mum was volunteering at St Carthage's with a seniors day group so I would go and help her too. They offered me a traineeship in Aged Care which I did. It took 2 years and after that I was employed by them and I’ve been there ever since. That was 1992 so nearly 30 years now at St Carthage's Community Care.

I’ve always been a collector of Memorabilia, specifically to do with Lismore and the Northern Rivers. We go back to the 1840s living around this district. I had a lot of photos in shoeboxes and drawers and one day I uploaded a couple to my personal FB page and it got a great response from people.

Another year later I was a bit bored and decided to set up a page to share photos. Within a week there were a thousand people following the page and 5 thousand after a couple of weeks. Now we are coming up to 20,000 people. It’s like a tsunami of people from the diaspora of Lismore that have moved away. We have people from Russia, Kuwait, America, UK, everywhere. They talk about growing up here.

We try to keep it interesting and positive. There’s a lot of pages and groups that get into heavy debates so we try and steer away from that. There’s so much negativity in the world and we want to have a safe space where people of all ages feel free to share in some lovely nostalgia and history of our region. We notice in our group that we have more people over 70 which is amazing because it means they are enjoying social media and the page tempts older people to try it.

Through lockdown, they have not been so isolated. They can talk to others and share their stories. I find that really heartwarming.

One lovely story I can tell you is I was contacted by a couple who were high school sweethearts . Both ended up having separate lives, moved away to different areas and married. Many years later both their partners had passed away from illness and they connected again through our group. They organised to meet for a coffee and now they’re married. The good part is they realised they were living only a few kilometres from each other so it was meant to be. They just wanted to say thank you for bringing them together. People are connecting all over the country.

We had a reunion after the group had been going for about a year. ‘Back to the Good old Days’ at the Workers Club. The auditorium was overflowing with people. It was packed. We ended up raising about $15,000 for the Rescue Helicopter that night. People were coming up to me all night saying how we’ve brought Lismore together. We had a lot of the old muso’s come back and play. They said, this is the first time my grandchildren have seen me perform and they’re so proud of me. That was so good to hear.

I do two shows with RiverFM as well. Sunday morning Memories which is just nostalgic music like Frank Sinatra or Johnny Cash and then Thursday night I do a program on Vintage Country Music which a lot of the old farmers love, stuff like Tex Morton, Burl Ives or Marty Robbins, all those guys.

In 1980 when I was in Yr 7, I wanted to go up in the bell tower at St Carthage's. I was always fascinated. The bells weren’t being rung, there were a lot of cobwebs so we found someone to train me to do it. There are 12 bells at St Carthage's and they are very heavy bells. There are big keys the size of baseball bats which you push down to pull the rope to ring the bell. One person can play many songs. I also ring the bells at St Andrew's but we have a team as we need one person on each rope. The bell swings in a full circle and you do mathematical patterns more than tunes. I like to call it heavenly metal music. It’s good exercise. It’s an iconic sound of Lismore.

I’ve been ringing the bells now for nearly 40 years. The ABC filmed a bit for their Christmas special which is on Youtube. People loved it. We are so lucky to have a set of 12 in Lismore. Only the main cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Perth have a set like that. They are so valuable. It’s a historic musical instrument which is so rare. We are so lucky.

During Covid, I’ve been going out and helping people cook meals, have a shower or take them shopping. It’s good because we can connect by talking about the old days. We have to look after our seniors.

The Good Old Days in and around Lismore NSW