About 15 years ago I was given some negatives of my great grandfather’s dairy farm at Doon Doon in northern NSW. Mick Egan was a WWI returned serviceman and was granted a parcel of ‘unimproved’ land which he first occupied in about 1927. Unimproved meant, “here’s a few hundred acres of dense eucalypt forest, go for your life!”

On a recent visit to my parents I supplemented the file of negatives with scans of about 70 additional original photographs, most of which were small contact prints of other long lost negatives. I hope to create a book of these images in coming months. On this visit I also learnt for the first time that the farm was called ‘The Heights’.

The photos and negatives span the period from about 1927 to 1940 and show the clearing of the farm, construction of the farm house and the arrival of my father and some of his siblings. After his marriage, Mick’s eldest son Jim, my grandfather, worked on another dairy farm nearby and it appears family visits and those of others friends and relatives was often the impetus for bringing out the camera.

To say the creation of this viable farm was hard work is no doubt an understatement when considering the physical effort most ‘work’ requires today. Felling hundreds of gum trees with a hand saw, ploughing with the help of only 2 horsepower and milking cows twice daily by hand, makes accounting seem very attractive in comparison.

After WWII my grandfather took over the farm until around 1957 when it was sold by the family. My father’s generation elected white collar vocations and the supply of labour dissipated as the family aged and economic conditions changed. I visited and photographed the property in 2007 and it has now apparently become a wealthy man’s occasional bucolic retreat with its idyllic setting and commanding views of Mount Warning. May the sweat and toil which once sustained a family and created this gift not be soon forgotten.