Participant Interviews / Stories ~ Theme: HOME
Story 01 – Mapleton five one
by Kay Crossno and transcribed by Melinda J Wells
In March 1963, my parents moved us from the family farm at Murgon to forty-three acres here in Mapleton where I still live. The old days were simple and uncomplicated, it was lively and thriving. There were citrus trees growing in the area, lots of guest houses and the sugar cane train would drive through the town,
We would often be found fossicking for treasures at the local tip, smoking passionfruit stems, watching black and white movies or learning to swim at the Blue Pacific Pool.
They fashioned a school bus in the back of the local milk truck, making seats out of timber planks and ferrying us to and from school each day. Occasionally we had a teacher at Mapleton Primary School, and I would help the younger students by reading Golden Books with them and teaching them to use the counters. We loved being harassed by the magpies and would even ask to leave the room so we could go and see if we could get swooped!
We continued to be a farming family, but dad wasn’t the best at managing things, he was a hardworking man and tried his hand at a variety of crops and business ventures including dairy cows, butter churning, growing strawberries, beans and mushrooms. I remember we hated churning the butter and it made us not want to eat it either! We had an old cream can with dad’s name on it. We also had a bee business and part of this was collecting hives from around the place, and somehow, they seemed to escape while we were in the car travelling. Cruising along in the Combi with bees buzzing around our heads and us thinking this was just part of our ordinary life.
Eventually dad took jobs with others, as a sugar cane cutter where he would stay in a work donga through the week then come home black and smelly! Next, he worked for the council doing spraying, this was only for a few years until he became unwell. My father worked hard and played hard, smoked rollies and loved a cold beer.
I took a job on Saturday nights at the Mapleton telephone exchange where I would connect up callers to the local households and our home phone number back then was five one. For some reason we always said the numbers as separate in those days so our number (and the name of the song) was Mapleton Five One.
I had a few jobs in those early years after school, as a clerk typist for a plumbing business then as an assistant secretary at the Nambour hospital. I had to learn what was call the Kalamazoo system which was used in the hospital and it was pretty stressful.
We all were paid in cash back then, I was paid from between $15 and $45 per week, and board was $4 per week. My first car was an FB green station wagon and I have some terrifying travelling stories I could tell you! I moved to the beach with my sister Linda who used to operate the clutch while I drove the car. Living in Mooloolaba, we were pretty wild with lots of weeknight pub visits and seeing live bands all over the place. I eventually returned to Mapleton and returned to work at the hospital after meeting the local radiographer at the pub one night, where he promptly offered me a job.
I also met my future husband at the local after he had moved with his family from Hawaii to our little town! I still live here in the house we built together on the forty-three acres my parents had bought when we first moved here. We all built our own homes on the property, I’m the only one still living here.
My husband and I had two boys before he was tragically killed in a workplace accident in Bli Bli, on the same road where Melinda now lives so we realised during our interview. I realised that I’m a fatalist, believing that everything happens for a reason and although a very sad and difficult thing happened, I decided to live my best life with my boys.
As fate would have it, I was eventually drawn to an Italian jewellery designer who would travel the show and festival circuit selling his wares. He was heading north but his Combi van broke down and he ended up at the Nambour Show and that was that. We had two girls and we are still together, still doing our own things independently and sharing a life together. I’m a happy woman who has been blessed with a great life here in Mapleton.
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