An early memory as a three-year-old is of the record 1954 flood. Unsurprising for one growing up on the flat. This is the flood-prone area of Kyogle bounded by the Richmond River, Fawcett Creek and the railway track. An area that is frequently inundated with filthy brown water and debris.
I was there, growing up at the intersection of the four blocks opposite ‘The Swings’ in the ‘Lagoon Paddock’.
Here, the rough and tumble local kids were never deterred from playing red rover, rounders, or tricks on the monkey bar, and climbing the enormous silky oaks to steal bird eggs. Or fishing from a canoe fashioned from a sheet of tin or a raft built from timber cores from the nearby veneer factory.