Looking back on a life well-lived
• Graham Lester has called Derby home for all of his 84 years.
By Daisy Baker
May 27, 2020
Anyone who has met Graham Lester would know that the third-generation Derby farmer is a storyteller at heart, often sharing jokes and tales from days gone by.
Mr Lester has packed a lot into his 84 years of life, but dairy farming at Derby has been a constant part of his life.
His grandfather, father and uncle moved from Springfield to Derby in August 1918.
Mr Lester remembers his schooling days in Derby, where he learnt alongside around 120 other students.
“Derby was completely different to what it is now,” he said.
Mr Lester grew accustomed to farming life early on, starting to milk cows when he was 14.
“I grew up in a house that was just down the road a bit, that’s where the original farm was,” he said, gesturing up the road.
He and his brothers Trevor and Ronnie farmed in partnership for several years before going their separate ways.
He has lived on his farm for more than 60 years.
In the early days, Mr Lester grew peas for the factory.
Mr Lester also had a three-year stint tin mining while returns were low on the farm.
He and his wife Elaine bought the school bus run off Mr Ray Loone.
“We ran the bus from here of a morning, down to Derby and round, back out to Winnaleah. Then again we took them home of a night,” he said.
Amidst a busy life on the farm, Mr Lester found time to be an active member of several community organisations.
He was a member of the Winnaleah Irrigation Board, which he was the chairman of for a year or so, and he volunteered with St Johns Ambulance for 29 years.
During this time he was a volunteer ambulance attendant and also worked on a roster as an ambulance driver.
While Mr Lester has always called Derby home, he’s done his fair share of travel interstate.
A large map of Australia hangs in his loungeroom, adorned with coloured pins from each town he has visited.
As a member of the Australian Bullock Drivers’ Association, Mr Lester estimates he did 14 trips to parts of the nation for the annual meetings which were held in a different state each year.
“A gentleman by the name of Mick Barrett at who had Rose’s Travel in Scottsdale always did about a fortnight-long tour,” Mr Lester said.
“He used to have his own bus and we used to go to Devonport, across on the boat and have a fortnight over there and come back.
“For the last few years he’s been dry hiring buses on the mainland, where you can drive them yourself or at times he hires the bus and driver.”
Cubbie Station in South-West Queensland was one of the Mr Lester’s favourite spots to visit.
“They trenched it all, laser levelled it and grow cotton there mainly,” he explained.
One year when the annual meeting was to be held in Western Australia, a group of the New South Wales members decided they would drive over.
“I bought a little caravan that went behind a motorbike and met them at Echuca,” he said.
“Every time they’d pull up at a service station to get fuel, I’d pull up alongside them and put in $2 or $3 worth.
“Two of them had Land Cruisers and they’d put in anything from 80 to over 100 litres and I’d still be going on half a tank,” he laughed.
Mr Lester fulfilled a life-long ambition to drive the Nullabor Plain which stretches between South Australia and Western Australia.
He said the 1,200 km long stretch of road was a long solo trip.
“Then we went right down into the south west of Western Australia to the lighthouse on the corner and then back up.”
On one bumper trip, he travelled a total of 12,000km.
“If you ask someone how far something is over there, they don’t ever tell you in kilometres, they only work in time. They’ll say, ‘it’ll take you about 12 hours to get there,’” he laughs.
Mr Lester still lives on his Derby farm, where he spends his days looking out at the region’s lush green paddocks and rolling hills.