The Durheims are a well-known name in Lismore. The family came to Australia from South Africa some six generations ago starting life as farmers before moving into the painting game and now the pub game with the Northern Rivers Hotel. Lilly Harmon sat down with Len Durheim to find out his life story.

I was born in Lismore on the 23rd of October 1944, the fourth child of seven to Reg and Unita Durheim and raised locally, on the family farm at Eltham.

Dad was born in Byron Bay and Mum was born in Lismore.

Mum died in 2011, thirteen years ago and Dad died about thirty-four years ago. My grandfather died at a young age, tragically. He was chopping wood under the house, lifted the axe too high and hit a board that came down, hit him on the head and killed him.

Mum and Dad had a dairy farm in Eltham, I lived there until I was 23 when I came into town, got married and bought our own house.

It was that cold sometimes, when we had to get the cows in of a morning, we had no boots in those days, you had to stand in warm poop to keep your feet warm (laughs).

You always had to help on the farm. You get up early in the morning to help get the cows and then we got home from school in the afternoon you always had to help in the yard. It's all we did through primary school and high school.

I went to Bexhill Public School and then onto Lismore High School. We used to catch Sheath's bus from Mullumbimby to Bexhill. There were my three older brothers, a younger brother and two younger sisters.

I was a very average student and not really brainy. Maths, math's was my best subject and that's what got me through. I was never into sports because I used to work on the farm all the time.

Then when I was 15 and six weeks, I got my first job as an apprentice painter with Public Works.

While I was at school we heard they were looking for apprentice painters at the Public Works and I went for an interview and I passed. I started on the 5th of December 1959.

I went for the job because when I was about 12, my old neighbour Mrs Virtue wanted some pot plants painted which I did. I discovered that I didn't mind painting and that was what made me go for the apprenticeship.

Dad didn't want me to do it because he was in a position to buy another farm at Uki and he wanted me to go and run it. But I went and gave the apprentice painting job a go and I loved it and stayed there for 8 years. It was a five-year apprenticeship in those days.

The day I came out of my apprenticeship, the big boss came around and said because you're such a hard worker, on Monday you've got to go out to the Numulgi school and take over the gang that's out there. He said you're leading hand from today. I never received ordinary pay and I stayed like that for another three or four years.

Then I went into contracting because I used to buy old houses, do them up and sell them. Number four Crescent Street was my first house, I bought it off my brother Warren for 4000 pounds and then I bought 12 Fowler Street and then 112 Dibbs Street.

A real estate agent, Johnny Shearman, knew a lot of people who wanted to sell their houses, most of them were run down. We would do it up and sell it and then Johnny would have another lined up for us to buy. I did 64 altogether, 64 different properties we did up.

I started the painting business on my own initially before George Hewitt and I became partners, and it was Durheim and Hewitt for a while. George was working at Public Works too and asked if he could come in with me. We got up to about eight or ten blokes before he got an apprentice and wanted to go on his own and I carried on. We had 30 blokes when I handed over to Tony and now he's got 70 blokes working for Durheim Painting.

I would work 7 days a week in those days including renovating the old run-down houses with my wife Julie. We worked very hard in those early years when the kids were young.

I met my wife, Julie, at the Lismore Show in 1963 and we have been together ever since. We have 3 children - Anthony(Tony), Jodie and Jason, 9 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren (this figure keeps growing which is wonderful!).

We got married at the Methodist Church on the 29th of April 1967. I was 23, about the same time I started contracting.

We had bought a house six months earlier, rented it out to the local police sergeant then moved in after the wedding. We didn't stay too long in any house in the early days, maybe 12 months or so, just long enough to do them up and move on to the next one.

We built a new home on William Blair Drive in Goonellabah, at the same time as when the Hilltop was being built. Julie's Mum said don't let him sell this one because she had seen all the run-down houses Julie and I had moved into! (laughs).

(On holidays in 2005)

We did end up selling that house after Julie's Mum died, we owned it for 20 years, and we built a new house that is near the Hilltop.

That house was built by Morgan Homes. We used to paint a new house for him every week. We would start on a Monday, finish it in four days and then the next Monday he'd say the next one's ready for you to paint. That went on for years.

He used to build a house on a 12-week cycle back then. Everything was done to a system. We had a special crew that just used to stay on his work. He said, "You do one house for me and you do the bloody lot". We did 525 homes for him. There were many times we had to work weekends to catch up because there was another one coming.

In 1999, I was 55, when Julie wanted to go to England for a holiday. Tony was sick with chronic fatigue syndrome and had just given away playing football for the Gold Coast Seagulls up the coast. So, I went to him and said, I want you to look after the business for me when I'm away, do you think you can do it. He said I'll make myself do it. And he did.

When we came back from England, he was going so well that I let him keep going. I never went back, I retired at 55. Not that I stopped completely, just the day-to-day running of the business. I still worked on houses and things like that.

(When painting is in your blood, you don't stop)

Both Tony and Jason are heavily involved in the business and have both put a lot of their time into our new venture, the rebuilding and reopening of the Northern Rivers Hotel.

We purchased the hotel in August this year. Tony was keen to do something with the pub ever since the flood in 2022 but it took a bit of time to come to fruition.

Like so much of Lismore, the damage was huge, and Julie and I did initially take a bit of convincing. It’s been a mammoth effort and there’s still a long way to go. None of this would have been possible without our grandson, James’ involvement. James and his carpentry team, together with all the trades involved, (special mention to Jason and Louise Spencer for their painting expertise) have led the way in changing what we purchased, to what the pub is today.

We now have the Bottle Shop open as well as the Beer Garden where we have live music again and local food vans. We’ve had amazing support already from the community.

We are hoping to have the main bar open in the coming weeks, then the kitchen and dining room and indoor kids playroom. Finally, the fit-out for the accommodation upstairs will be completed very early in the new year.

We still have our painting contracting business as well as the Lismore Paint Centre and Paint and Trade Supplies. Between these 3 businesses, we have about 70 employees. Julie once did all the bookwork, however, we now have

an admin team to manage things for us. Our granddaughter, Laura is in the Lismore Paint Centre and has been very involved in the reopening of the Northern Rivers Hotel.

(The famous red building on Zadoc Street)

We never envisaged owning a pub-it had never crossed our minds. However, when the kids came to us, we realised we could make it work. It is coming together now and we are past the “gosh what have we done” stage.

Prior to the flood and COVID, we were told there were 11 full-time employees at the Northern, and we hope, moving forward, we can get back to that number again. We have some very familiar faces back already, especially Crocky (Darrell

Crockford), who is a bit of an institution in himself. The Northern Rivers Hotel is great for North Lismore and for the entire region. It’s the people’s pub and the people of Lismore need this.

The community has been good to us and our family and we want to give back.

We have always been hard workers who get up and have a go. From working on run-down houses each and every weekend when we first started out and our family was young, to where we are today. It has taken a lot of time and a lot of hard work and we are looking forward to the future.