Vanessa Ekins is our current Mayor of Lismore City Council. She spoke to Denise Alison about her well-travelled life as a child living in Queensland and overseas before settling in Lismore. Vanessa has a science degree in Australian Environmental Studies and loves looking after our environment to this day as well as her mayoral duties. This is her story...

My parents were quite adventurous. They met in Morwell, Victoria which is a mining town. My father was a Surveyor and Mum was a teacher. They went to New Guinea to work in Madang.

They loved the outdoor lifestyle.

When the family came along they moved to Townsville in a place called Palmarenda which had the beach on one side and on the other was the Commons which had Brolgas, wetlands and Kangaroos hopping down the street. We’d spend all our time on the beach and it was a wonderful childhood.

My father worked away out west on contracts so my mum had 3 children under 3 pretty much on her own. I’m the eldest with 2 younger brothers. It was really hard for her.

Mum’s mother died and she couldn’t afford to go to the funeral which was in Melbourne because she had us 3 on her own, Dad was away and she had no one to look after the children so she couldn’t get there. She regretted that her whole life.

The ocean has always been a big part of my life, that’s why I love living here. It’s a little trip to Ballina, Evans or Byron.

After Cyclone Tracey which devastated Townsville, we moved to Brisbane for a few years where I went to an independent school just outside Brisbane which is still going now. They had acreage and we knew our teachers by their first name. I’m still Facebook friends with my teacher Margaret.

I remember we had animals at school and once we went to Uki on a school camp and bought some Clydesdale horses. We also had really scary goats called Nibbles and Squashy and they terrified us kids.

The curriculum was fantastic because someone’s mum would come and teach us things like bread-making. Film making was really big for a long time. We also made a shingle hut ourselves. It was so creative and relaxed. It was a really good way to engage in learning.

I think I was in Year 5 before I’d actually read anything and my teacher sent me down to the library. He found War of the Worlds and started reading it to me. He would leave to go back to another class and I would have to know what happens next so I learned how to read through wanting to know the rest of the story.

My father got a contract in Fiji so we lived there for 4 years which was wonderful. I went to the local school for a couple of years and then correspondence with my Mum while she did her Bachelor of Education by Correspondence.

I feel I have the same lifestyle here in Lismore as I had in Lautoka in Fiji. Lismore reminds me so much of Lautoka. We have the Mango trees, the Frangipanis, the vistas and the huge cultural connection we have here with the theatre, art and the beaches. School was interesting with the different cultural groups. I was 10 and left when I was 14 so very formative years.

We went sailing and I got my Scuba Diving certificate there on those amazing reefs. With the work my father was doing, we were allowed to go to islands where most people couldn’t go back then. One of those islands was where Blue Lagoon was filmed. I just loved camping out by the fire with our lilos and mozzie nets right on the beach. Massive land crabs with huge nippers would go scurrying past and we’d make sure our Mozzie nets were tucked in tight. No way I was getting up for a pee.

It was magic and we were so sad on the flight back to Australia. I remember we stopped at NZ on the flight home and walked around Auckland at night. We saw a shop with a window display which was one Mango with a $5 price tag on it. It was traumatic. (laughs).

I came back and went to a state high school in Brisbane which was ok. Because it was a big city we didn’t have access to all the extracurricular stuff we had in Fiji like swimming, sailing or scuba diving.

I loved studying with Mum. Those were the days when you would do your lessons and post them and they’d take 4 weeks before you got your results.

11am it was time for the Goon show. Radio was really big back in the 70’s. Dad would lurk on the jetty and make friends with everyone. Every time a Navy ship came into harbour Dad would make friends and drag the sailors back home so we got to see Submarines and big ships first hand.

Dad is now in his 80’s and he has Dementia. His partner is caring from him. My Mum passed away just before her 50th birthday from breast cancer. That was hard as I was sort of estranged from my family at that time.

I finished my schooling, went to teachers college and I met and fell in love with a Musician as you do. I dropped out of college and we moved in together.

My father was horrified so basically I didn’t see my family for a couple of years. My father was quite abusive to me but particularly to my boyfriend Michael at the time which was a bit sad. Michael's family lived in the same suburb so we visited them often. They were lovely people and we would all play Bridge.

One day I saw my Mum at the shopping centre and she told me she had found a lump in her breast. I saw her in hospital and visited her sometimes. Mum decided once she’d had the tumour and lymph removed not to have any chemo so she and my father travelled around Australia and went on a world trip for a few years. Five years later she died. So I always figure every year after 50 is a bonus so I’m going strong.

I did my Science degree at Griffith University studying Australian Environmental Studies and I loved it. I was still with the boyfriend. We were together for 9 years which was lovely. We listened to a lot of music and collected a lot of vinyl which I still have. We loved the cinema, riding our bikes along the river, seeing live music and studying.

After I dropped out of teachers college I decided I better get a job so I worked with computers. I did a TAFE course on the latest computer programs which at that time was Word Perfect, Lotus 123 with the double-disc drive, remember the old floppy discs? I worked for a company that had an office in Lismore and they actually came up with the first portable computer which was a big box. We used to supply all the government departments and I loved that job.

I then got a job reading Newspapers for a publishing company, so every morning I’d go to the office in town and read 250 newspapers, all the way from QLD down to the Byron Echo. I’d read articles for DA’s or buildings that were happening. They would compile and sell this info, say to a carpet manufacturer who would buy our magazine and know that a hotel was being built and they’d know what to tender for.

(Vanessa on her motorbike that she used to ride through Rathdowney to Lismore)

I started coming home with all these articles about city farms, communities and all the things that were happening in the Byron Echo. That’s when I enrolled in my Science degree where I majored in Economics and Planning. We bought motorbikes and started travelling down this way through Rathdowney then through Lions Road. You come down through QLD and it’s bare then you come to the tick gate and then there’s lush rainforest. So beautiful!

One summer an old school friend John came to visit. We were both in relationships at the time but we got together and caused a bit of heartache. We fell in love, I moved down here…then we had babies.

We had 2 beautiful boys, James and Nicholas. They grew up here. They went to Larnook School which was and is a beautiful country school with 20 kids.

They used to come home and I’d say, Who did you play with today? They’d say, everyone Mum. They just ran around in a pack, just the way kids should. They were treated with a lot of respect so they came into the high school situation confident. They went to Richmond River High. James is now 25 and Nicholas is 22.

We bought a house in town in South Lismore which was easy for work. I’d push the pram into town. It was good living down on the flood plain …nice and flat. Till it rains (laughs).

I heard about the flood levy they wanted to build. I’d done all the hydrology at Uni and thought, surely we should be planting out the catchment and holding that water back. Planting up the river bank so not so much water would come down. I knew that you could reduce flood level velocities with vegetation. That’s well documented.

I found out who The Greens were and joined them. I went to a meeting about the flood levy and I had all the environmental impact assessment documents with me. It was run by Council. I was struggling in the room. I had one of my babies under the desk eating a bikkie, the doors swung open and this couple strode in. She had a baby on her hip and had obviously just been breastfeeding. Literally that day I found my family. Today they are a part of Wilsons River Landcare Group and I joined Landcare. I feel like I belong to this area now and Landcare is still a huge part of my life.

We spend a lot of time on the riverbanks of Lismore. We started over at Pritchard Park, all around the Greyhound track, over Symes Bridge as well. Also right along the river banks. We all volunteer and we spend a lot of time applying for funding and getting approvals.

The Landcare group started in ’93 but I joined in ’99 so have been planting trees all those years. We’ve created a rainforest in the CBD if you look along Molesworth St down past the Lismore Clinic.

When we first moved into Pritchard Park it was all Camphor Laurel with a Privet understory. We were able to get a Green Corps team to help us and we have nearly 200 species growing there now that we know existed when the Cedar Cutters first came up our river.

When they came up back then you could see all the way to the bottom, that’s how clear the water was and the trees were so big on either side of the bank that the branches met in the middle of the river and you couldn’t see the sky. How great would it be to re-create that! We have this vision that we want to achieve that. The cutters started coming up in 1845. That’s part of our history and it’s good to acknowledge that.

What Landcare is about for me is you are demonstrating a positive way forward and making change. It’s not like there’s no point. There is a point. Every weekend with our babies who are now adults we were there planting trees, weeding, preparing the site and proving that we can make change with our own hands. Two to five years after every planting we are still there every weekend watering, weeding and making sure they survive. We love it.

I bought a modest, little house in Lismore Heights with a great view and the relationship with the father broke down after about 9 years. He lives in Yamba now and is married. I was a single parent then for quite a while and I loved it. The boys would stay with their dad every second weekend so I had some free time to party. I had great friends and camping was a great part of our lives. The kids loved it and I am really pleased I was able to provide our children with those outdoor experiences that I had as a child.

(Vanessa with her sons James and Nicholas)

Nature is so important to kids. That stillness sitting around a fire is so important. You don’t get that at home with all the devices around us.

I got a job with an organisation called Conservation Volunteers Australia and I loved it so John did a bit more with looking after little kids. We had teams from Tweed to Grafton and my role was to identify projects working with Landcare Groups or Councils and then to recruit the teams. It was a fabulous job. I also wrote a lot of stories and got a bit of a media profile which helped when I ran for Council.

I first ran in ’99 but I wasn’t elected. I had come to every Council meeting for 4 years and listened. I started reading the business papers found out who the staff were, who the Councillors were and I was on 2 committees so I felt really informed. I remember Jenny Dowell and I were both elected that first term together. That’s been another whole lifestyle that fitted quite well with being a single parent.

We had a very modest lifestyle. I drove an old Kingswood that I paid $2,000 for. Camping was our entertainment. My boys went to Uni here. My son was interested in Law. Turns up and there are 200 students doing his course only 15 on campus and the rest external. The 15 were all mature age women so they both moved to Melbourne and went to Uni there.

My kids left home a few years ago which is completely devastating for a single mum. I was ready and then it hit me really hard. After 20 years of parenting I thought, what will I do for the next 20 years? I found that really hard. I realised I had to reinvent myself. That’s when I started learning Auslan. I enrolled in Tafe to learn Auslan and by then I had a teaching qualification that I’d got at SCU. I did High School teaching out at Casino and that got me through that feeling. I’m hanging out for grandchildren. (laughs)

Isaac Smith had a lot of things happening in his life. Neil was acting in the role of Mayor and resigned in January. I was in Melbourne visiting my sons when I heard this and they said you should have a go at this Mum. We had just assumed that when he resigned the Deputy would fill the role till the September election but we were told by the department that we needed to have an elected Mayor. The 5 of us put our hands up and I was supported by some colleagues and was voted in. It was a very Wow moment for me.

It was pretty traumatic too as we parted ways with our General Manager that same night so that was a really tough night. I had a couple of hours sleep and had to face the media the next morning. They didn’t want to talk about me being Mayor, they all wanted to talk about the GM. Since then we now have a great GM who is very focused.

I’m really loving the role and enjoying the social interaction with people. I’m going to Rotary and Lions, seeing people in the community with their problems. I love Lismore. This is the first place I felt like… I belong to this place, a feeling of family and a feeling of a role to play here like planting the trees. I love the river, the art, the theatre, the hills, the farms and the community. I really feel our future is the farmlands.

We’ve got the water, we’ve got the soil and we just need to stop our soil washing down the river to Ballina. We need to finish planting out the river banks. I love the markets and how you go and chat to the people with all the fresh produce. I also love Bats. I had a Mango tree outside my window in Brisbane and I've always loved them.

The thing I loved about the Lantern Parade is they gave us a boat to decorate for our Landcare group and we decided that we would do bats. They are the major pollinators for rainforest species. A lot of the rainforest trees flower at night when the bats are out. If it wasn't for the bats, rainforests wouldn't be pollinated. That's how important they are. They are our totem for our Landcare group.

I’ve been doing radio at River FM now for 15 years. I do it because I have all this vinyl. I’ve always loved radio and here I am still dragging 20 kilos of records into the studio. Farming and food is one of the things I love about this area. I like the idea of small farming. It’s so fertile and rich, we have our big scrub remnants, our waterfalls and the beach is not too far at all and beautiful people. I love that wherever I go here it’s a totally different scene.”