Nick Jones grew up around animals as the Jones family, directly and indirectly, were veterinarians. After school, Nick was a jackeroo, travelled around Europe, went to university and took over the family business. Nick sat down with Lilly Harmon to expand on his life story.

I was born in 1966 at Lismore Base Hospital. Born and bred here.

I was at Lismore Heights Primary School, ended up at Lismore High for a couple of years and then went to Sydney for four years to boarding school which was definitely a lot of fun. I probably didn't work as much as I should have on my actual work at school, but it was a very good time there.

My father, David Jones, had the practice here in Lismore for 45 years. His father, my grandfather, also worked with the Pastures Protection Board. His eldest brother was a vet as well.

In its current form, obviously we're opposite the Lismore Square at 79 Urbalba Street, but before that, Dad had some rooms beneath the house much further up on Uralba Street, number 79, opposite the Lismore Base Hospital. So that was the family home and dad was actually practising with rooms under the house. Eventually, he built this practice back in 1966 down the other end of the street at 20-22 Uralba Street. 

When that happened we moved to a new family home out on Invercauld Road in Goonellabah. At that stage, there were no other homes where they are now. There was a dairy farm on either side of the street and a beef farm. I eventually got back here and I’ve been here ever since 1999 around the time my father retired.

Growing up we were able to get the train and go to the beach on the weekends from Lismore to Byron. Sadly you can't do that now. But when I was a teenager most of my focus was in Sydney, as I only had primary school and two years of high school in Lismore. 

Boarding school was a lot of fun. It was all boys, but it allowed you to just mix with all these other guys from different country areas. We had some from far out west and north and it was certainly a different type of group and cohort of people and friends. So I still maintain friendships with a lot of those people.

The first thing I did after school in 1985 was get into real estate and property management in Sydney, which I didn’t enjoy. It wasn’t the type of career I was interested in. After school, I wanted to stay in Sydney because of the lifestyle there but was unsure as to where my career would lead me. 

Eventually, I ended up leaving there and went Jackarooing for about 16 months around Quirindi just southwest of Tamworth. That was good. We mustered sheep and cattle doing lots of work down there. 

That was basically just getting back to basics and enjoying farm work. Dad had a property in Leeville, so we would go there on weekends, mostly cattle. So it was always enjoyable to do that. You were given a house and food because he'd been supplied with land. It turned out to be a good lifestyle. I always knew I had to get my act together and get into vet science. 

I then went overseas for probably eight months, and had a lot of fun around Europe. It was the typical countries you would expect of a traveller. It was a Contiki tour, Italy, France, England and other countries like that. Both my sisters were living in England at that stage, so it was also a great way to be able to visit them over there. Once I got back, I thought I definitely needed to get on with my life. 

I started a rural science degree, ended up in science finishing in 1994 and then did honours at Armidale University the following year. Because of that honours degree, I was able to get into veterinary science at Queensland University, graduating in 1999. I’ve been here at the Lismore Vet Clinic ever since.

That was where I met my wife Tanya, at a 21st Birthday party. By the end of that degree, I had four kids. So it was a busy time. We both had part-time jobs and were just getting on with life, trying to get through and get back here. 

Ashley is the oldest at 35, William is 30, Oscar is 27 and Hugo is 24. They all went their own separate ways, unfortunately, none becoming vets. William is in Melbourne, Oscar is in Sydney and the other two are still in town here.

Both family and the practice brought me back here to Lismore. It would have been nice to have perhaps travelled around a bit like when I was off in Europe. However, with the four kids, it was time to get back in and get busy.

Growing up, it wasn’t that I didn't show interest in being a veterinarian, but I guess I always knew it was going to be a possibility. I'm the youngest of the four kids of my dad, and none of the others wanted to take it on. But eventually, I sort of got my act together and ended up getting the degree to take over from my dad. As well as my dad, my uncle was a vet, so it was an occupation running in the family. 

When I was in Sydney I probably never thought I would be back here in Lismore, but it's an amazing town and an amazing community. So very eclectic, but has a lot to offer. It's interesting. We can't get young vets to come to the area and work in rural areas, especially like us in Lismore. They do seem to want to stay in the cities. There is a lot to offer in the regional areas, especially here.

The practice has certainly changed a lot. Originally when dad was here it was all dairy farms in the area. They've all either been sold off to become other businesses such as macadamia farms. So there is certainly a lot less large animal and cattle work in this area than there used to be.

It's becoming less of a large general practice, compared to dad’s day, when he was in his prime, it was generally mostly beef and dairy. So probably 90% large animals, maybe 10% small. It's probably going the other way for us now.



Currently, we are a mixed practice so we do everything. Mostly small animals like dogs and cats, but we still do cattle and horses and goats. We even have alpacas come in. You never know what comes in the door but it’s always a big surprise. But, mostly over the years, the actual clinic has been pretty much the same.

Looking at the changes in the practice definitely includes the flood, where we had a huge impact. The 2017 flood inundated the clinic to a depth of approximately 2.6 metres and did significant damage to the fixtures and fittings. But in 2022, our two storey building probably had 40 centimetres off of the roof.

We had put everything upstairs and on the bench thinking we'd be safe but of course, like everybody else, it wasn't high enough. So, we pretty much lost everything. We managed to save just one computer with our clinic database on it. That's probably worth everything. Through donations, we just gradually built up again.

We're back in full swing, but we were probably back in about three weeks after the first flood and then we had the second flood but that only took a week to get back in after that. It's been going strong ever since. 

There aren’t that many new vets coming into the area to keep the industry alive in rural communities. Like other industries, it's very difficult to get vets to come to regional areas. I mean especially now in Lismore, but floods aren’t going to affect everybody. So as catastrophic as it was last year, I think we're getting back on our feet as compared to other businesses. 

Even as a kid, I remember coming down and helping pick up the clinic for floods and then back down after. Certainly, the levees made a difference. But you know, there's no way we could have expected such a devastating flood as it was last year. 

There’s two of us now at the clinic. So, myself and Richard own the business and we just hired another young guy from the Casino area. 

There’s only three clinics here in Lismore as Conway Street Vet closed recently. Us, Vetlove and Keen Street are the only remaining veterinary clinics.

However, we’re back on our feet and having business flowing like before. We welcome pets of any size at 20-22 Uralba Street and hope to be running for years to come.