Pushing the limits - Learning to live again after an unwanted diagnosis
Champion horseman Henry wants people to know there is a way through the dark times of discovering you have an incurable chronic health condition.
Seven years after being told he has Parkinson’s Disease, client Henry and his wife of 55 years, Colleen, want to share their story to help others facing the dread that can come with such a diagnosis. It hasn’t been easy, but a lifetime of working with animals and mastering practical skills has helped Henry to find a path through to greater peace and connection, and a return to challenging himself in new ways.
We can all learn something from Henry’s honest wisdom learnt the hard way.
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Transcript
Liz
Hello and welcome to the Live Well Podcast. I'm Liz Moore, a Communications Partner at integratedliving Australia and I'm speaking to you from Gubbi Gubbi country on the Sunshine Coast. integratedliving Australia acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of this country. We pay our respect to them, their cultures and customs and to elders past, present and emerging.
Today, I'm very pleased to be joined by one of integratedliving's clients in a remote part of Queensland. Welcome, Henry, and thank you so much for joining us. And hello to Colleen, Henry's lovely wife.
Henry
Hello
Yeah, great. Colleen, would you like to join us? That'd be lovely.
Liz
Henry, can you please tell us a bit about your background as someone who grew up in the bush and became a cattleman, a champion horseman, a saddler, and much more?
Henry
Yeah at 14, I did scholarship on Thursday and I was in the bush by Monday. That was my first job.
Liz
What were you doing?
Henry
It was very dry, as it is mostly that time of the year on most properties. We just run brumbies to work, to break into work next year, and just clean up all the brumbies in the paddock because they're just a nuisance.
So we're running those, and the better ones we kept to break in and work. And the other ones we broke in and sold. And we just waited, did all that sort of horse stuff for next year, because it was too hot to work cattle. We just tidied all our horse stuff up, because there was no vehicles at all, it was all done by pack horses.
We never had a car. Oh we had an old Land Rover, and for the whole three months we were away, we didn't use one full tank of fuel. So that's how much we rode our horses.
Liz
Wow. That's a lot.
Henry
We spent three months at a time away from the head station. We stayed there. The manager used to come out weekly and give us our supplies and our mail.
Liz
And you had your father with you, did you?
Henry
Yeah, he was the boss. He was the head stockman. So I was the youngest in the camp and the youngest in the camp got everything. He was the most useless. The learner – he was the apprentice, so we got all the dirty work. And you were hoping next yea, they'd get another young fella, so he’d take your place. And that's how it worked. There was nine men in the camp, plus a cook.
Liz
And how long did it take for a second apprentice to come along? How long did you have as the youngest?
Henry
Yeah, not that long. Maybe mid-year. Some of the boys didn't want to go on to school, so they went bush. And someone asked me just lately, did I do a trade? And I said, yes, and they said, ‘what was that?’ I said, ‘that was ringing’. I don't know if anybody knows what ringin' is, but... that's our life and our lot. I did a trade because I've been doing it for 60 years. It must be a trade.
Liz
Indeed.
Henry
It's totally different these days because mostly they get contractors and they do what we call the round mustering. That means they do the whole property. That's what they call the round. And then they move on to the next property and muster it.
In the old days, the stations had their own plant and men. And we did everything from all the cattle work, all the horse work, all the yard building, all the dips, all the other. There were arsenic dips in those days.
We didn't know how dangerous that was, so we used to clean the dips out, we'd get in the water, in the arsenic water with five-gallon tins and just bale the arsenic water out on the ground beside the dip. Sometimes we thought we might have had fleas, so we washed our hair in it. So I just look back on how dangerous that was these days, whether that affected a lot of people later in life, and also the dust in the cattle yard. You couldn't even see the cattle. So maybe that affected a lot of older fellas’ lungs as they went, as they got older. It hasn't affected me too much.
Except maybe, it may have done something. Yeah, when you look back you wonder what all that stuff that you did, which one may have…and it's highly possible, because Parkinson's in my family is not hereditary. I can go way back to my great grandfather, there was nothing in any of those people like Parkinson's. Yeah, it's all interesting now, we've come 60 years later. I had a look the other day, I've been working since 1960 yeah, I started to add that up, and I'm thinking, oh, okay, and yeah, so when I'm doing something or trying to do something, now I can genuinely say ‘I'm too old for this rubbish’.
Colleen
But he still does it.
Henry
I still, and that's one of the main topics I think, of this interview, to try and tell people that it's not all impossible. You can keep going to the limit, and then going a little further if you can. If you feel you can do it, by all means do it, because you can't do yourself any more harm, I've found anyway.
You can go a little further, a little longer, a little better, but if anything, you'll sleep better that night. I'd like to say there's no boundaries, if there's a boundary, I like to cross it. Just to improve my wellbeing. By doing that it has improved my lifestyle.
I went from bedrock for two years to a fairly dark place where I didn't want to talk to my family. I didn't listen. They'd speak to me and they'd just go over my head. It wouldn't go in. And I just stayed in that dark place for a while. Then I got going a little with the help of family and wife, good wife and family. And they just encouraged me a little more. I reluctantly sold my horse horses kept my favourite one right to the last, but then it got too good, it got that bad.
So I sold her and then I was on foot and that wasn't really nice. But along come integratedliving with their scooter. That helped me immensely. That lifted me so I could get about and do some of my chores on the property. So I started to lift mentally, so then I could do a few things. So I was getting a little more satisfied then with myself, how I was going, and I just got a little better, and a little better, and a little better. So I decided I can do things now, and I can push the boundaries, which I decided to do and it is working mentally for me.
Liz
Yeah, that's great. In terms of your health journey, it was about seven years ago?
Henry
Yes. When you get the first diagnosis, yes, you go rock bottom and then you go. Back to the doctor and you're told that you've got Parkinson's. The next rock bottom is they tell you there's no disease, no cure. That's real hard. That's a big whack in the guts that is. You have to deal with that.
More silence – more dark places for a while. And then slowly climb out of the hole with the help of all your loved ones. And yes, slowly crawl out and just start pushing boundaries and... still pushing boundaries.
Liz
I bet you're very good at it. And a lifetime of learning dealing in risky situations. In the bush, you're always dealing with quite risky situations. So how do you measure that? How do you judge how far to go?
Henry
I think until your body tells you not to. All right, 77 year old, a lot of people say it's your age, but it's only a number. And even with Parkinson's, it's still only a number. I was a farrier, so I was about to give all my gear away. And then I said I'll give this a go.
So I used to be able to shoe about five horses per day, or six. Then I put one shoe on one horse perhaps per day. Per day, perhaps. And then I was talking to my son: ‘I can't hit the nail because of my shaking hand’. And he said, ‘Dad, I've got a…’, because he's a carpenter by trade as well, and he said, ‘we've got a little hammer there that might help.’
So he came home with his hammer. He came home with two hammers. He was sitting at the table and he had two parcels. And he gave me one, and my great grandson one. So that's the level where I was at with hammering, and (my grandson’s) three. So we're both starting again with a new hammer. And now it has improved my horseshoeing.
I can do it. Before the job was pretty ordinary, and being a farrier I wasn't really happy with the job when it was finished. So I’ve got my new hammer now, I've accepted the new hammer, I've accepted where I'm at with the farrying. And now I put shoes on almost as good as I did when I was going well.
Liz
Ah, great.
Henry
I kept at it, I got the right tools that suited me, the hammer that suited me, made a big difference. Because my son's a farrier as well, so he knows what I'm going through. And yeah, I can happily put a shoe on my horse now, but still one a day, one per day, perhaps. And perhaps as if the body feels like it.
But shoeing is a pretty hard job and you sweat and a lot of people don't like it. It's a hard job…
Colleen
On your back.
Henry
On your back, yes. And the 77-year-old back is not real good. And the Parkinson's is mainly in my legs. My grandson’s a good farrier as well, he built me a stand that I could put the horse's foot on and work the foot on the stand.
So yeah, getting all the aids to help you with your chores that you still want to do. It is a big thing. And my son and grandson, they do exactly what I've been doing. They know what I'm trying to achieve, and they just help me along the way. They're all good farriers, they're all good horsemen, so they all just help me along the way.
And I put a saddle on my horse and I don't want them to do it anymore, I want to do it myself. I was having to get someone to put a saddle on my horse, and now I do it myself. I just got a little bit more determined and now I get it myself. And now I just have a tin beside the horse to get on.
In the last couple of weeks I've given the tin away. I don't want a tin anymore. So you just keep pushing that boundary. And now I've got a young horse that knows nothing, and a lot of people, a lot of educated people say I should not be on a young horse, but we can assess the horse. My son, he would say, don't get on that horse if you didn't think it was suitable.
They all think he's now suitable. So they said, ‘what are you going to do with him?’ I said, ‘I'm going to turn him into an old man's horse’. And because I've been down that track for 60 years, I wouldn't tell it to anybody else with no experience to do that sort of thing, because I can expect what they are going to do.
Because we broke in a lot of wild horse early days, so we know what a horse is capable of if he decides to. I've got this young horse, he knows nothing, so he'll only know what I teach him. That's another sort of, what do you call it, challenge that I can take on. The horse is quiet enough for me to do all those things on, and so I can turn him into an old fella's horse now.
Before I got back on my feet I wouldn't even attempt it at all. It was just too low, or not confident enough. Now I'm confident, a lot more confident now. And, yeah, just by pushing my boundaries. If you push a boundary like that, you really got to know what the other end is.
I know what the other end is with this horse because I've broken, we've broken hundreds of horses and we know what that other end is or what this animal is capable of. If you don't, I wouldn't advise anybody to what I'm doing if they know nothing about horses. If they're old stockmen, yeah, definitely do what I'm doing.
It's just an example of pushing boundaries where everybody advises you not to. Because they saw me before, they saw my shaking and they think, oh, should you be doing that?
Colleen
And stumbling.
Henry
And my stumbling as well, but should you be doing this? The door's only open a little bit for you, and what's there to lose?
They say, ‘oh, you might have a fall’. You could have a fall, but I've got half an idea all the time, what the horse is capable of, or I'm ahead of him what he's about to do. I've been around horses all my life, for about 60 odd years, and I know what's coming next, but I wouldn't advise that to a first person about horses. I do it for a profession, and take that on boar.
I wouldn't take on a motor car, driving a fast motor car, or anything like that, but around horses and stock, but I'd be very wary in a cattle yard with cattle now. We’ve got a friend just down the road, he just got trampled. He hasn't got any disease but he's old, and he just got trampled by a cow, three broken knees, broken arm. I just stay away from all that sort of stuff, even though I've had 60 years with stock and you can predict what they're going to do most times, but they're unpredictable. So I just stay around, yeah, stay fairly safe, yeah, but with this horse I've got, I know in their movements, I know what to expect.
Liz
Six decades of training will do that. And very close, daily use. Colleen?
Colleen
I was just going to tell you something that he did yesterday.
Liz
Please.
Colleen
Henry's a saddler as well. And this isn't the actual whip he was given to fix, but this is his own whip that needed a new whip ball put on it or whatever, and he can tell you how he did it .
Henry
It's mainly for an old fella who's got Parkinson's real bad. He needs his whip so he feels at home, so he can come out and crack his whip and it's all wobbly and there's a piece missing and because he shakes too much, he can't do it.
He sent it out to me a couple of days ago and I've fixed it for him, and hopefully it can give him some more happiness using his old whip, because I know what he's going through. I hope he gets, yeah he's a lot worse than I am in the hand. Mine's mainly on the waist down and he, yeah, he shakes pretty badly, so I hope he can get some joy now out of cracking his whip because I know what he's going through and I know what he's missing.
I just hope he can get some joy out of cracking his whip. He's got a bit of acreage out of town, and I think the neighbours dogs come over annoy his horses or whatever, so he cracks his whip and chases them home. I'd imagine that's what he's doing. Yeah.
Liz
When you have so many skills, it's a wonderful thing to be able to still use them.
Henry
Mainly help somebody. My family, they've all got lips and they all use them all and when I go up there, I fix them all for them and keep them all. What do you call it – serviceable.
Just to watch them be able to use the whip I fixed for them is real good satisfaction for mine. And to get away from, not so much to get away from here, just, but just to get up there where they're working stock all the time, which I used to, it was great just to sit it on the rail and just watch them all work stock.
So mentally, I still love home, my home here, because I've got what I like here. I've built it up and I can't use it to the extent I used to anymore. But I just like to go up there and watch my family and my great grandson, just grow up the stock. I've got a grandson now he's managing a property right up near Normanton and that's his first manager's job, so he's the manager and he's only 28, I think, years old, going on 40.
Again, he’s got my two great grandsons and he's just carrying on a tradition we've got of three or four, four generations of stockmen. It makes me feel really good to go and watch them. Yes, they've learned off the older stockmen and just put it into their practice now and now he's a manager, he must have learned fairly well, or we've taught him well. It's a big thing to watch that, see that happening.
And, to me, to get out of that dark place, to where I am now, I can see them all going. I appreciate them all going, they appreciate us going up there, visiting them, and around the cattle yard and watching them go. No, it's really good.
Liz
That's very special. And tell me, how do you manage your expectation, when you used to be able to shoe, say, six or seven, five or six horses a day, and now it's one. How do you manage that expectation?
Henry
That's only one foot per day.
Liz
Sorry, one foot.
Henry
I wouldn't get to do one horse because what happens is you do one foot really good, you do a good job. You go to the next one and then your knees start to give way and then you start to dislike the job. That if you just do enough, that you're still proud of what you've achieved you've set, as I just said, one foot per day, perhaps.
And that perhaps is a big thing to know where you're at. If you're halfway through that one foot, and you feel like you don't have to doany more, just stop. And just have a spell, and then think, can I, can't go anymore. Yeah, I can a little more, so do a little more, and just keep it at that.
And when your body tells you to stop, just stop. What I do, when the body tells me to stop, then I cool off, then I attempt a little more, before I stop. Even when I want to stop, I just attempt a little more. It just helps. And it might help you sleep at night. Just do a little extra.
Going to bed tired is a great thing. Going to bed wide awake is not a good thing. No. Going to bed tired from what you've achieved through the day is very satisfying mentally. I think that's what slowly lifted me up and I suppose you heard about the heart attack.
Liz
Yes, please tell me how you went with that.
Henry
We're on the property, we go there caretaking. I feed the horses when my son and daughter in law are away, we go up and caretake. So at about 11 o'clock or 10 o'clock, I started to get the pain. I rang the flying doctor and... he said it was reflux, he hadn't had heart attack pain.
Colleen
He didn't say it was reflux till after you put the spray under your tongue and when the spray didn't work he said you've got reflux.
Henry
Yeah, he'd give us a magic spray to spray under my tongue and it didn't work, the pain. So he said, oh you're having reflux, yeah righto, yeah, that pain is something different than reflux. And then he gave us the strongest painkiller that was in the medicine chest and stuff there. And it never worked at all either.
A rushed trip now down towards Cairns. We rang triple O.
Colleen
We'd driven 50k from the station. Well I had, and on the way but he was in massive pain because probably the first 10 k’s or so, it receded a little bit because of the painkillers. And, but by the time we got to the main highway and we still had another 40 k to, to drive. He was talking to his mother. He was hallucinating.
Henry
To my dead mother.
Colleen
Yeah. And I just kept telling him, the different creek crossings and where we were. And when I got to Mount Surprise at midnight, I dialled 000 from there and told him where we were.
And I was clicking her up pretty well, doing about 120 (kms per hour). And we then drove another 40-odd km before we saw the ambulance. Lights coming, disappearing and coming, yeah.
They were good once we met up with them. I was able to tell them where to drive off the road, and yeah, and luckily we had one bar of reception then, and so as they did his ECG and it printed out, they took a photo of it and emailed it straight to Cairns Base Hospital, and they said to give Henry this special injection they've got just to relax all the muscles in his body.
And they worked on him and strapped him down and did lots of things in that time. And I suppose it took about an hour. And we left at three o'clock in the morning and they told me not to go over 100k's anymore. And we still had about an hour's drive to Ravenshoe and they ordered then for the emergency helicopter to take Henry to Cairns then.
Henry was strapped down, but by the time I got there Henry didn't know that I'd climbed in the helicopter with him or anything. But anyhow, all's well.
Liz
Oh, thank goodness for that.
Colleen
Yeah, he had a heart stint the next afternoon and he was then flying again.
Henry
Yeah, I wouldn't have walked 30 or 40 metres before that heart attack and then I had an extended stint put in and then they couldn't stop me. I just kept walking and I felt like a brand new man. I went from about two to about eight, as in energy. I got this brand new energy and I sat up in bed and I said, 'I don't want to pee in that bottle anymore. Can I unhook all these things?' And he said, 'oh yeah, you can unplug them.'
I said 'righto'. So I unplugged them and put them over my shoulder and walked to the toilet. I walked out of the toilet and I was feeling pretty good, so I walked past her five times.
Colleen
The nursing station.
Henry
The nurse's station in the middle of all the wards. Before I wouldn't have walked halfway before the heart attack. I went around five times, and the last five, yeah, half of the last five, I decided to jog, and the nurse said, 'I think you better go back to bed now'.
Liz
You were feeling too good.
Henry
I was feeling really well, and from that high I went right up. Now, I've come back off that a bit, but I'm nowhere like I was before the heart attack.
Liz
And when was that?
Henry
Three months?
Colleen
Beginning of May. 5th of May.
Liz
Not long, yeah. Wow.
Henry
I've just gone from strength to strength up to about now. And it's tapered off now, but I'm way ahead of where I was before that heart attack.
Liz
In terms of energy levels?
Henry
Yes. Yeah. Yes and my shaking in my hands gone. I had stopped signing my name. Now I'm starting to practice it again. I think I'm getting a bit better at signing my name. It's gone to my leg. My leg shakes, but my hand has stopped shaking. So I can hit the nail now on the head. That was my problem before. I couldn't hit the nail.
So I've got a hammer with a bigger head I can hit the nail pretty well now. That has improved. Whether it's got something, must have something to do with the Parkinson's, it has helped, it's helped the Parkinson's a lot. Now I can walk.
As Michael J. Fox said, your body when you get Parkinson's, it divorces that limb. My left leg used to get left behind. If I didn't tell it to pick up and walk, it would just stay behind. So when I made the brain connect with that leg, I just started sweating. There must have been an immense strain on that brain to make it go back and pick up that leg.
And now, it's not a big deal. It is not as big a deal as it was to get that leg going. Whether I've trained the brain to pick up that leg again, I don't know. But I've worked on when that leg got left behind, stop, pick it up, and make it work. But it must be a hell of a strain on your brain to click on back to that limb.
And I didn't realise how important that was. Now we've got a river there. We've got a bit of a bank there. And now I walk up that bank. Because if you don't, if that leg doesn't work, you don't get up the bank. So now it just naturally clicks in and helps me get up the bank. So most afternoons, I'll go down that bank and walk back up.
And if you don't use it going down or up, you fall over, so it has to click in and pull its way, so it's been a lot better. Just by doing that little exercise, and people say, oh, do you walk? To me, walking is like going to the gym, just doing weights, and mentally, it's got nothing to do, it's just, you might be building a big body up, but mentally you're not gaining for mind.
It's those little chores that you've got to keep that brain, using that brain all the time. And using that brain to get that leg going, up that bank, is way better than a couple of k walk, mentally and physically, I would imagine.
I have to stand on that leg now to get on my horse. It has to take all my weight to get on that horse. I'm training it now, and it's got to take that weight. It's nearly pulling its weight now, only it shakes. I think at this stage, I've trained that leg to come back into use. I may not have had as bad as a lot of people but I'm pretty sure I've trained that brain to take that leg back so far because to get up that bank. If you don't put in the right spot, you'll slip over.
So that brain has to tell that leg to put that foot there, otherwise if it's in the wrong spot, you won't make it up the bank. It's just a little exercise I've got for myself and it gets the leg working. It's pretty simple. I think that has helped.
I think just pushing those boundaries a little all the time. And I hope to run up the bank shortly. That's my aim. That’s my goal.
Liz
And how long have you been walk, doing the walk up the bank?
Henry
Oh, since not long after my heart attack. Before my heart attack, I wouldn't even walk to the bank. But the bike helps me get there. I get off the bike, I can go down the bank and off the bank. If I don't feel like I, if I’ve done too much, I can get on the bike and come.
So I can just do a little more. Before I used to call it laziness, but it's just the disease wouldn't let me go. But since the heart attack and the new stint and the more blood going through, I would imagine the better blood flow. Whatever it is, it's made a lot better since the heart attack.
Liz
And tell me how you use the scooter? How long have you had Crystal, the scooter (that you were able to purchase as part of the home care package. That you started with integratedliving in 2022.)
Colleen
We got it last year before Christmas. Or earlier this year, didn't we?
Henry
Yeah. Before the heart attack, I used it all the time. I couldn't go anywhere. Couldn't do any job. I thought I was getting lazier and lazier, but I just had some bad blood flow, from what I can see now.
I use it less now after the heart attack cos I don't really want to rely on it, otherwise you get back to where you started again. But I still use it to help. I can go further now with my expectations of what I can do. I can jump on the bike and, oh yeah, I can't walk that far. I jump on the scooter and go and get that job done and come back and it's way better than just watching it needing to be done and it's not getting done.
Now you get on the scooter, all right, I'll go and do it and get that done. Before I relied 100 per cent, now I'm about 70 per cent on it now. I still use it. And, yeah, just to get that little extra again out of myself I'll use it, I'll incorporate that with the chores I do. I can do a lot more chores now, it's made it a lot better yeah.
Liz
Oh, that's great. And when I spoke to you earlier, you were talking about the white line, staying on the white line, staying mentally right. Can you tell our listeners who might be struggling with similar challenges how you do that?
Henry
Yeah, I just give myself chores like that, walking up the bank. That's one of your white lines. You're getting that leg going and if you're feeling okay, keep going. That's your white line. If you stop, you've bumped the white line. If you keep going, straight ahead again, fix yourself. It doesn't matter how long it takes. I'm on my own most of the time. Well, I've got Colleen close most of the time. If I'm on my own now, I can stop, I can relax for a while and then start again, and start again the next day. Where you were probably before, you'll probably find you've got a little better because you're out of yourself and you're going to bump the other white line.
Getting going. I'm pretty early. Get a reason to get out of bed. That's the main thing. You've got to have a reason to get out of bed. I was up with my son and he said, ‘Dad, you need a dog.’ ‘Oh, do I? Okay.’ So I bought a pup home. Something to get out of bed for, to let it out for a run. You're not laying in bed, that dog needs to get let out for a little run so he can have a pee.
And oh, I've got to get out of bed. Okay, get out of bed, do your dog, fix your dog up, because we're into working dogs as well. All our dogs, they're locked up most of the time, but they get two fully supervised runs per day.
Liz
So it's important to have things to get us out of bed?
Henry
Yeah, I think you can, with this disease bad enough, it’s not hard to stay in bed. Yeah. And feel a bit sorry for yourself. So I think you need an excuse to get out of bed. So I went back up to the property and I said to my son, ‘do I still have a young horse here?’
He said yes. So I got my grandson to give it a ride. I didn't want to buck or do anything silly, so he helped me put some shoes on it, and I've been riding him steadily ever since, um, pushing boundaries. My family probably, if they had a drone on me when I'm out of sight, they'd probably scold me, but I'm just pushing boundaries, and yeah, I'm just happy doing it. I get on him for the morning, and my, well, my grandson's got a few old cows here, and I just take them out on the road and, um, talk to everybody that goes past.
They probably say ‘Who's that old fella out on the road?’ ‘Oh, well, you know, he's some silly old fella’ because there's not too many stockmen around in this country. So, they wonder what I'm doing, but I'm stealing a bit of grass out on the main road. So, they want to yarn while I have a talk. So, that's pretty encouraging because I don't have to use my legs. It's like the scooter, I don't have to use my legs, I can just steer it.
So the difference between if I want to go somewhere on a horse, I've got to go and catch my horse, find my saddle, saddle him up, and then go. If I want to go on the scooter, I just jump on the scooter and go.
Colleen
You've just got to remember to recharge it. Yeah, I've just got to remember to charge it.
Henry
I sometimes forget to. So I use them both pretty well. Um, but the horse is a great exercise as well. It gives you a lot of, you move every muscle in your body. You're a bit sore over the next few hours, but it's a good sore. A lot of people might, don't want to do it because it gets a bit sore, but I use it as a good sore. And, um, it'll be gone by next morning, so, another excuse to get up and do something with an animal.
I've done that all my life, so, I think just do that, something mentally all the time. You have to think ahead, make sure you get the feed for that animal, make sure that animal's fed. So it's just something to occupy that mind so it's working all the time.
And you need a plan B. I If you've got Plan A all the time, I don't think it would work for me mentally. If I'd done the same old thing, like in exercise, in a gym or something, that wouldn't work for me mentally. But doing chores, like even feeding the chooks, you still have to think. So, it does not just continue the same old thing every day all day.
A lot of people may not have that, but if you can sort of have a Plan A, B, C, D, I think mentally for me, that's the best thing for my mind.
Liz
Yeah, tell us about that, Colleen?
Colleen
So there's Crystal.
Liz
You can see the original Crystal.
Henry
Yeah, that's her. And that's pretty fast speed, that is.
Liz
Yeah, what were you winning there?
Colleen
A campdraft. That was at Mareeba, at Mareeba Rodeo Campdraft. Her daughter.
Liz
Oh, that was Crystal's daughter. Oh, wonderful.
Henry
And that's Crystal's father. This mare’s slipper. That's Crystal's daughter, Slipper. So we put, uh, Crystal to this stallion and got Slipper. Gotcha. Ah, so tell us... And that's our son. Ah, that's him riding. So I tell everybody, we bred the mare and we bred the boy.
Liz
Yeah, well done. What would be the most satisfying, you know, win you've had on a horse over your time?
Henry
Oh, it's very hard. Like most campdrafts, there's two to three hundred horses in each camp. And I won two on the one day, in the one weekend, yeah. It's pretty hard to win, to win one, but to win two is good.
Liz
Yeah. Wow. Very satisfying.
Henry
Now I've just got to watch.
Liz
And what's that like?
Henry
Yeah, you don't mind that? I don't mind. One sad thing, one of the old maids we did breed that our family had done very well on, she died foaling a week ago. Oh, she was 23-years-old but yeah, it was a bit of a disappointment for us. But anyway, that's, that's animals.
Colleen
Can you see that? That's a first and a second on the one day in the same campdraft.
Henry
That's Crystal, yeah.
Liz
Oh, that's Crystal too, yeah, I can see that. It’s a lot of competitors.
Henry
And because we've been working stock all our life, it's just a second nature to us to, to campdraft. To show off our horses and, um, see who's got the best.
No, it's a good sport. My son was, oh, well, he grew up campdrafting. Now he's got friends who grew up with him campdrafting. So now we see his children playing with the children and they will be campdrafters later on. So they will be friends together.
Campdrafting is totally different to rodeo. Campdrafting is mainly a family sport, because we’ve got from seven year old to 70 year old, all riding, females and males, so it's more of a family sport. There's campdrafting families, we all just know each other, so it's a, it's a pretty good family to be in. If you have a campdraft, and if you run a campdraft now, you need about, well some campdrafts need 3000 cattle.
Liz
Oh, that's a lot.
Henry
That's a lot of cattle. So we're fairly lucky, a lot of the people who campdraft are cattle owners. They donate their cattle for the campdraft. It's a big, big effort to run a campdraft with 3000 cattle. It’s a big job, big donation, big, big everything. A lot of people aren't paid for it. They're just going to do it for the fun of it. And just to meet other families and all the kids play together.
When you go there's a little area where the kids are put. Where they're out of danger, but they can play with each other. Um, and they're all safe. And, um, if there's one little fella running away, or, oh, that belongs to so and so, better go and get him.
You know, it's a sort of a family, look after everybody. Um, that, that's why we like it. And, in the past, we have run campdrafts. Our son and daughter-in-law, they run campdrafts. Um, it's just a, a big family outing for people with horses. All speaking the same language – the weather, cattle prices, and horses.
Liz
Yeah, that's right. The three majors.
Henry
If you don’t love any of those, don't go to a campdraft.
Liz
Henry, you talked about the social connection, you know, ensuring you're not isolated. You know, living in remote parts, it's not easy necessarily to ensure you're not isolated and you're connecting with people. How did you really focus on that for a while, you know, to bring you out of the slump? Could you tell us a bit about that?
Henry
Yeah, well, I stayed away for a long, for a long time. I didn't want to go. Well, the big thing is you don't want people to see how you are. They know how you work, but the people are amazing. They accept you. Firstly, the campdrafting family are very accepting. Um, everyone says, how are you? How are you going?
Colleen
And don't worry, when we get there, we've got some young people. They all come over and help. Everybody calls us Nan and Grandy. You know, ‘can we help you unload Nan and Grandy?’ ‘Can we help you load up? Can we do this for you? Can you do something else for you?’ So, we're looked after really well.
Henry
And that's what brought us out of all that dark bit. You know, people accept you. You look around and there are other people in the same boat. And they're all getting looked after, you know, so I think you need that support. I just feel sorry for people who haven't got a lot of good support.
Because we're all in the same business, we know what we need or don't need, you know, or, um, yeah, we don't need a lot of pity. We just need a lot of company, you know. As you get older, city wise I found, I go the city and that's the loneliest place for me in the city.
But I'll go to a little country town where I nearly know everyone. Or if I go to a cattle sale, I know nearly everyone. So I go to the places, I like to go to the places where I know a lot of people. And they're all very accepting, you know. ‘How are you going?’ All that sort of stuff.
So, that will help immensely to bring you out of that sort of dull world. And you'll go there, that's for sure, for a little while. Your support, it's amazing. There’s a lot of good people in this world. And they'll help you, and that's how we got through all that, and are still getting through it. We've still got people, still got people calling us Nan, and I'm Grandy to everybody. Most people don't know my name. That's who I am.
Yeah, and I think have time for the younger people. We have time for young people, to listen to younger people, speak to them, you know, have a talk with them. Yeah, I think they're happy to talk to us. A lot of young people come and have a talk with us around campdrafts, you know, waiting for their turn, or it's not their event, so they're waiting. So they come and have a talk with us. We're never lonely. We've all got someone. ‘Oh, can I get you a drink? Can I get you something to eat?’
You know, so, no, that's, that helps immensely, and once you get out there and accept all of it, you know, who I am and what I am. They all accept you, and they all come and stop and speak, so that gets you out of a lot of dark places.
Colleen
Or it's ‘Grandy, can you come and have a look at my saddle?’ Yeah, come and have a look. ‘Do I need something?’ Or, ‘Grandy, my horse broke my bridle. Might you be able to fix it for me please?’
Henry
Yeah, I do those sort of things, and that gets us out and about. Don't worry about your disability, people are fairly accepting, especially in our areas, and that encourages you to go to those sort of events, and socialise.
And usually when you run into somebody you know, they've got somebody with them that you don't know, so they introduce you straight away, so you get to know somebody else, you know. Then if they're into horses, you get into a conversation with horses, so then it goes on and on, so um, or cattle. The three. We got the three.
Liz
And what about you Colleen, how do you that in your partnership?
Colleen
My last book, Unearthing Einasleigh, The Bygone Days, and all our travels and my lunches, donating it to different charities. I've gone to schools and read stories out of my book. We both go and there's always somebody that you meet or you know.
Henry
Or who knew their grandfather or their great grandfather.
Colleen
Yeah, and now I'm organising a Pink Ribbon breast cancer awareness morning tea for next Friday. So I've just been in and put raffles together and auctions and yeah, we've been all in.
Henry
We can't get accused of hiding out.
Liz
What advice would you have, Colleen, for people supporting loved ones through hard times?
Colleen
Well, I've been doing that all my life and I think because my parents, you know, did the same. There was always a tragedy in the area. Like just yesterday, not far from us, there were massive bushfires and my sister-in-law was in amongst that. They'd lost all their grass off their property. And so I said to Henry, ‘well, I'm going to cook supper for them tonight and take supper out for them tonight’. And she doesn't know, because I can't get her on the phone, she had an eye specialist appointment in Cairns today. But we'll just land up there with supper. If they don't eat it tonight, they'll eat it tomorrow night, it's just a gesture.
Henry
Meaning we don't highlight my problems. I don't. I find the main thing is I don't want to highlight my problem. I'm just one of the mob and we're going on together.
Whatever your problem is, you're all accepted. Everyone's got a little something, so we're just all accepted and we don't highlight it. Any problem, and that's who we are, we are how we are, who we are.
Colleen
Like on the weekend, because we've had trouble with our water in the rivers dropped, we’re out pumping and that sort of thing. A young next door neighbour who'd gone to school with our grandchildren and we helped his family during, they lost his dad with leukemia.
Clay came down with his, whatever you call it, digger, and dug out in the river so we could get our pump lower into water. So I've already made him a plum pudding because he loves fruit cake like that. You can get up at four o'clock in the morning and start cooking. I've made him a plum pudding to deliver down there. He said he didn't want anything, but I know he loves plum pudding, so that's one way we can just say, ‘well, thanks, Clay’.
Liz
Yeah, it's a wonderful thing having such a supportive community around, isn't it?
Henry
Yeah, it's pretty good, and it probably speaks to who you are, when people come and help you like that. So, it's fairly rewarding for us, like, as I say, we don't highlight my problem. We don't even speak about it to anybody. They just accept me how I am and uh, conversations go on. There's nothing, nothing about what's my problem. We just talk normally.
Liz
And Henry, I know you were keen to highlight those things that people can look out for in terms of the potential of heart attacks. Could you tell me a few of those signs that you were keen to highlight?
Henry
Well, tiredness is one of them, and you just don't want to walk anywhere. Um, I got soreness under the arms, and I had that for a couple of weeks. But we did ring a doctor about it. Yeah, we rang a doctor about it. Yeah, a few of those times.
Colleen
But the pins and needles on the arm started to start.
Henry
Yeah, then it got really sore. Yeah. And that's probably the blood not pumping, not going anywhere.
Colleen
And that night the pain started across your back. And then... While we were talking to the flying doctor, the doctor over the phone and so forth, and the spray under the tongue didn't work, then that's when it started spreading across and that's when I said ‘I'm out of here.’ So I loaded this man into the car.
Henry
We just went to the Triple A and headed straight to Cairns. Otherwise they might have been digging a hole for me up there.
AAA organised everything straight away, and they were on the ball, and everything went smoothly. And they said to me, ‘what do you think about your heart, you know, why have you got all this energy?’ I said, ‘well, if you're an old mechanic, you had an old tractor, you'd have a dirty filter where the fuel's not getting through, you put a new one in, it's going like new again.’
I said, that must be what he's done. , . And I said this to the cardiac doctor. He's one of the brightest young heart doctors in Australia now. And he's up, not far from here. He's in Cairns. And we know him personally.
He just laughed. I said, ‘put a new filter in there, got the blood flow, that that's really what he done.’ He's cleaned out those, put a stint in there and the difference is amazing. If someone asked me, and they had Parkinson's, and they were slowing down, I would tell them to have a look at those arteries.
Definitely look at those arteries, because what it's done for me, I still don't believe how much better I feel in myself, and wanting to get more energy, I've got more energy. I just had no energy at all, didn't want to go anywhere, well not didn't want to, couldn't. Couldn't go there, you'd go a small distance, and you just couldn't go any further, you would just, nothing, nothing left, no energy, nothing.
I came out of the hospital a new man, and I left the old one behind.
And the main thing is, if you get that feeling, go with it, because you know, I said my window's not open very much, and I'm going to take full advantage of this new life, but I'm not stopping, I'm going to keep going. And more challenges yet, there's more to come, and um, I intend to, yeah, I intend to go a little further.
Just keep going, keep going. Till I can’t, or till my body says that's far enough.
Colleen
I think though, Elizabeth, one of the other thing is, Henry must take his Parkinson's tablets at the same time and regularly. I was sitting under the tree and he was riding his crystal and being interviewed. As I walked across, I know the signs and I could see his left foot really shaking, and he was straight back, got his tablet gave to him because he'd had a lot of pressure on him that day.
Henry
I enjoyed it.
Colleen
He did enjoy it. But when he's under the pressure like that, he doesn't always notice it, but his carer, who's been with this for quite a few years, you know, I could see his left foot was just sitting on the scooter, and it was really starting to shake.
Henry
Well what, about 54 years tomorrow?
Colleen
55.
Henry
55 years tomorrow.
Liz
You've been married 55 years tomorrow. Happy anniversary. That's wonderful. Oh, that's so good.
Henry
The same as that filming, it was challenging. Another challenge. A big day. Yeah. ‘Do it again, do it again, do it again, do it again, do it again, do it again.’ That wasn't annoying, it was challenging.
Liz
Oh good.
Henry
I call that a challenge, I don't call it annoying, or nothing. It didn't worry me. ‘All right, back up. I don't go for it. Back up, back up.’ And that's a challenge, I'll call that. And even when we were all finished, (photographer and videographer) Andrew was looking over the creek and I was walking up the bank. I said, ‘there's my challenge for the day. I'm walking up that bank.’ And he saw me walking up the bank.
Liz
That's fantastic. And where do you get your patience from? Is it a life lived in the bush? You learn patience over time?
Henry
Ah, my grandfather was half Chinese. I think they're patient people. I find Chinese very patient people. And my old grandfather was a very patient man. Hmm. He had a very, very tough wife, and he used to take her a cup of tea every morning. She didn't deserve it, but he took her a cup of tea. She was a cranky old thing, because they reared me, and I knew, you know, I knew them well. Because when my mum and dad went bush, I had to stay home to get educated, so I lived with my grandparents. That old half Chinese grandfather was a great old man, everyone loved him. He was just a great old patient man.
But I think being around stock, if you're training stock, you have to be patient. Yeah, if you gonna get any dogs, horses, cattle, you have to be patient with them. If you're hard on them, they're not going to respond. They only respond to, yeah, good firm training but not cruelty. Got to be firm but not cruel. There's such a balance to it. You can't spoil them, and you can't let them get away with too much, bit like kids.
Liz
Like kids.
Henry
Just like kids. Just be firm and patient, and it'll come. It'll work out. We've broken some of the toughest horses, and some of the softest horses. Just to know the difference. And, uh, yeah. And you get a fair bit of patience over it, otherwise nothing gets done, and you don't get paid. You only get paid on results. We only used to get paid on results those days, so. Um, we had to get this up, but not cruelly, not impatience. Be patient.
Liz
Any last thoughts you'd like to share with listeners from either, either of you?
Henry
Well, you can tell people that there is a dark place. There is a way out. You've got to work at it, it's up to you to work on it. Don't just give in. Um, and just keep working at it. That's all I can say. Keep challenging yourself. Don't overdo it, but keep challenging yourself. I'm still doing it, I've been doing it a little while now. Since I've come out of hospital with my heart attack, I've been doing that ever since.
And I've been given this second go, and I'm going to take it with both hands, and if it gets me into trouble, it will. But, that's 77. What have we got to lose?
Liz
Good advice.
Henry
Yeah, just keep challenging yourself and don't overdo it. Let your body tell you when you've had enough, but try to keep your head up and keep going.
Liz
Thank you, Henry. Wonderful wisdom. You too, Colleen.
Henry
Yeah, that was great. We enjoyed it. If it can help somebody.
Liz
Exactly. That's the thing. These stories, they help others who are going through the same thing, and often in that dark place. When you're stuck in that dark place, you need the help the most.
Henry
No, it's not a nice place. I wasn't going to be talking to anyone. I wouldn't even be listening. Whether it's the brain just shutting it all out, I don't know. It'd just go over my head. I wouldn't even answer it. I'd just keep staring ahead. And I think it's just that place you don't want to be. No, there is a way out. There is a door there, if you want to open it up.
Mine's been open with this heart attack. And, I've got this new lease. I'm going to take it with both hands. And if anybody gets a little open door, don't shut it. Yeah. Don't leave it shut. I shut a few doors, unfortunately. When they opened up this time, I went through it. Now I'm going through many as I can, as they open up, I'll go through it.
They can talk to that old bloke on a horse now out feeding cows. They all wave and some don't. You can tell the ones from the city. They don't wave. Yeah. The local ones wave, but the city ones don't they, they don't. But no, it's all good just to see different people. I study everybody, and how they are, how they talk, if they want to talk, if they smile, if they're cranky because I've held them up for a few secs, you know. Everyone’s in a hurry on the road these days.
If they complain, I just say ‘get up a bit earlier’. So it's all good. A good place to be at 77.
Liz
On the eve of his 55th wedding anniversary. How wonderful. Thank you. What will you do tomorrow?
Henry
We're both smiling. We've got two great grandsons.
Liz
Yes, two sons, five grandchildren and two great grandchildren?
Colleen
A son and a daughter.
Liz
Sorry, a son and a daughter, yes. Sorry.
Henry
Five grandkids and two great grandkids. Yeah, we're proud of them,
Liz
Very, and they call you a lot, don't they? You have long yarns with them? Pass on the wisdom?
Henry
Yeah, I hope so. I've got a fairly wise son as well, and he's pretty, he's done everything the hard way and he's got there, which a lot of hard work and um, lot of heartaches. Yeah, but they made it. They've got what they want, they're going along nicely, so yes, now they're grandparents.
Liz
Was it your son who said ‘whatever you're doing Dad, keep doing it’?
Henry
He gives me no advice at all, he just says ‘whatever you're doing Dad, keep doing it.’
Liz
When did he say that to you last? When was its really noticeable for him?
Henry
Yeah, doing something that he encouraged me to keep, he encourages me to keep going too, to keep pushing boundaries. I think he likes to see me go push boundaries. But when he bought that hammer each for my great grandson and myself, yeah, that put me on the great grandson's level.
Liz
Life's weird like that, isn't it? Sometimes that happens.
Henry
But the good thing is that all the family can get together. We all get on pretty well. And my grandsons respect me. It’s really, really good, and my son, you know, there's no laughing at old Grandy, he's the old timer, you know, the wise old fella. And that's how we usually have it in our family. So we're proud of them, we're proud of them, and what they've done and how they look after us.
Liz
Yeah, that's wonderful. And what will you both do tomorrow to celebrate your 55th wedding anniversary?
Colleen
Well, Henry goes for a massage in the morning, and I've got a date in Atherton, so we've got to be there early. But, after that we've got Junie Taylor, who was the cook at Carpentaria. No relation. No, she was the cook at Carpentaria when Henry went there at
Henry
She nursed me as a baby.
Colleen
Because she's a widow now. She's had a couple of falls and she's 90. So we're going to take lunch to her tomorrow to her house because that's easier than us trying to get her in a car.
Henry
So we will do that tomorrow. Her and her husband raced horses and I was their jockey.
Liz
Oh, really? Fantastic. You've done it all on a horse, haven't you?
Henry
Yes. We know a little bit about horses, so I'm fairly confident on the new one, I can do what I wanna do and more and a bit more. I do a little bit more.
Liz
And you picked it because it's just the right temperament? This latest horse?
Henry
Yeah. I wouldn't have taken on if he wasn't. No I wouldn't.
Liz
What's his name?
Henry
Pistol. He's by what? What's his Australian name? Rimfire, no? Rimfire, that's how he got the name Pistol. And his breeding goes right back to, well, we bred him. I give him to my grandson to start, and he started him, but he's up managing the property now, and it was too wet to take him up there, so he got left behind, and now I've got him home. So, I'm training to be an old fella’s horse.
Another challenge, yes. He’s got shoes on now, and I put his shoes on with my new hammer. But my thing is, the accepting, that's the main thing. Accepting, doing to this horse, to what I used to do, accepting what I can do now. And be happy with the job finished, with what I can do now. And try and improve just a little all the time, without trying to do the big job and you get frustrated if you can't do that big job that you used to do. Accept what you can do now. And if you can improve a little on that, try that, so.
Accept where you're at, that's about the main bit of advice.
Liz
Any tricks on how to do that when you really aren't feeling like you can do it, anyway?
Henry
You know the job, we know the whole job, but you've got to accept about how much you can do of it. So, I know the whole job. Yeah, I've been having handicaps and we accept that. And, do with what you've got. Do the job with the tools you've got.
And so the tools I've been left with is one per day, perhaps. And if you're feeling okay, do it. If you don't, call it perhaps. But don't use it as an excuse not to do it.
Liz
The mind can be tricky like that.
Henry
It'll play on you. You'll lay down and don't want to get up and you'll get fat and won't be able to get up. Got to keep a little, if you don't use it, you'll lose it. That's probably not a bad saying. That's about what we try and work on.
Going to bed tired is a good thing too. You'll sleep better, you won't be waking up all night. If you're a bit tired and you're a bit crook in the back. It's a good one. A lot of people don't like that saying, but to me it's a good one.
It will help you sleep at night and you'll feel better in yourself if you continue to suffer. I feel a bit sorry for people who are stuck in a city somewhere that can't get out or can't do anything like that. It's a bit hard, but I'm going to take my situation as it is and run with it. Use it or lose it.
Liz
Some very wise words. Thank you so much for sharing your story, and wisdom.
Henry
It's great if it can help somebody. I don't care who you play it to, if somebody can get a little out of it, that's great. They might want to ring me and say, ‘how do you what do you do?’ ‘Well mate, this is what I do. I don't know what your situation is, but this is what I do.’
When I used to get younger people working for me, I'd say to them, ‘when you're working for me, you do it this way, it's not the only way, but it's my way, and it works for me. When you go somewhere else, you might learn something different, but when you're here, this is how we do it here. It's my way, but it's not the only way.’ That's a big thing to remember. It's your way, but it's not the only way. There are other ways.
Someone else can tell you something different, may, may work for you the other way. But this way works for me, and that's it. When you're working for me, because I've had a lot of people working for me, and this is how we do it here, because it works for me. This is my way, but it's not the only way. Not one bloke knows everything. So yeah.
Liz
That’s a very powerful thing, isn't it? Not to think that your way is the only way. Just because it works well, it doesn't mean it is the only way.
Henry
Yeah, that's exactly right. Same as young people wanting to be fair, you know. That's my way, but it's not the only way. But it works for me. So I'm short, this fella might be long, you know, tall. So it's a different way again. Handling horses. I'm short. So that's all those words work for, for a short person and a lefthander, probably trying to teach people things about those whips, right? And plaiting long lefthand. Righthanded is different, but I'm fairly lucky. The ones that want to plait, my two granddaughters, are left-handed.
Liz
What about your son? So he's a farrier, but you taught him on the left, but he learned on the right?
Henry
Yes. There's that to think of as well. When you're teaching people something that's something to think of as well. When you're teaching people manually about left and right-handed, there’s a few things to remember and think of. When you've got a lot of people, especially young people working for you, you're trying to teach them something, and you're left handed, they're right handed.
It's a different ballgame, you know. They’ll work it out themselves as they go along. So, as I said, it's not the only way. They might be right-handed, and if they're right-handed, they'll do it a different way. And hopefully they'll learn to use that right hand as good as I can use my left hand. But that has been interesting.
Liz
Oh, you've had a fascinating life. Thank you so much for sharing some of it with us and, um, hope to stay in touch. Much appreciated.
Henry
Oh, that's great. Yeah, if we can help somebody. Yeah. And thanks for giving us the time.
Liz
Oh, thank you. And thank you, Colleen. Um, look forward to learning more about the family with the Kooi Kooi. You're a very multi-skilled family. Wonderful way to be.
Henry
I didn't get a lot of schooling. I didn't want it.
Liz
Yeah, you're a practical man.
Henry
I hated it. Well, I hated school. I didn't like school. They reckon, oh, they're the best days of your life, but I, they didn't think so. They weren't the worst, but they weren't the best. Yeah. That's when someone said, I never wore boots to school. They said, ‘oh, didn't you like boots?’ I said, ‘we couldn't afford them’. There was no choice. We wore no boots because we couldn't afford them, you know.
The young ones sort of can't comprehend that. Couldn't afford shoes, you know. I had one book, and one pencil. Now I see the kids going to school, they need a car to take all the gear they need to school. I had one book and one pencil. I never even had a bag before, I put it in my shirt.
Liz
I love it. So much simpler, isn't it?
Henry
And it never hurt me. No. The girls at the bank still can't understand why I can't get money out of that wall.
Colleen
I have tried to teach you, well show you how.
Henry
I said I couldn't, I don't want to know that. I know I've got money in that bank, but I can't get it out, so I don't care. If I can't get it out, I can't spend it. And I've got a card I don't even use, so I still want my cash.
Well I think a lot of people should have cash because when they go to the store and they look at their money in their hand, they look at what that costs, instead of leaving it there, they put out another card. If they've got cash and they can't afford it, well you leave it there and go home.
And you get what you need, not what you want. Yeah. That's what a lot of people do, they get what they want. Not what they need. That's why they're always broke. They got three or four cards that are all empty. I can't understand it. If they had cash in their hand, well, that's not going to buy that, so we'll leave it there and go home with the cash back in the pocket.
So, yeah, take what you need, not take what you want. I don't understand a lot of it, you know, it's just, and they're always broke. When we were always broke and couldn't afford shoes, we were the happiest. Now people have got money and they're all fighting.
When we were all broke and all road push bikes, not motor cars, we were all happier, you know. So anyway, we lived when it was good and we were all broke.. We never had any money. Going to the movies was a big deal.
Liz
Well, not even using a tank of fuel over a, over a summer, that's hard to fathom.
Henry
Well, we rode, we rode horses all the time.
Liz
Yes, much healthier.
Henry
That was our transport. It was a good life. We'd come to town. Yeah. Once or twice a year. Didn't need money much. I started work at 14, I come home at 15. I had too much money. I never spent any of it and I was getting 10 pounds a week, so that's $20 a week. For six or six and a half days a week.
Liz
But back then, that sounds like a lot, doesn't it, for a 15-year-old?
Henry
If you’re a bit handier than the normal 14 year old, you got a bit better pay. So I was always a bit handier than my age group. So I got a little bit more pay all the time. I think they jumped me up to 12 a week, so that's 24. We always had plenty of money. We were never, yeah, twice a year in town, that would give us a lot of money to go to town.
Six months wages to get it down, you know.
Liz
You have to trust yourself to be sensible with it, not blow it all at once?
Henry
Well, we were broke for a long time, so we knew how to say hang on to it. We've done a lot of counting and putting it back. Yeah. We've done a lot of that. Come back next week when you've got a bit more. Yeah. We're taught to save, so. We carried that on a bit, for a lot.
No, it was good schooling, good grounding. I got my driver's licence and I was sitting at the pub with the policeman and I told him I wanted a driver's licence. So he said, ‘you'd better drive me around to the pub, around to the police station to show me you can drive’. He wrote it out to come back and give him my licence at the pub.
He gave it to the boss. I was 17. Now you've got to go through all this, so many hours driving, and tea plates, and yellow plates, and green plates, and I was jeez.
Liz
I know, it's hard to, hard to keep up with. I'm still not sure what colours are what.
Henry
No, I don't know how they work, but anyway.
Liz
Well, thank you so, so much. Much appreciated.
Henry
To think, we're just watching technology.
Liz
It's a good thing sometimes. Well, thank you so much and happy anniversary to you both.