YOU have only three options – become a bank teller, a teacher or a nurse.
This was the restrictive reality Clair O’Brien (nee Baulch) faced when she finished high school in the 1960s.
It may seem tough now, but finishing high school was itself an opportunity even Clair’s older sister never got. Clair started high school in its inaugural year – prior to that school studies only went to scholarship, a Grade 8 equivalent today.
Clair’s family had grown up all along the north Queensland cane farming coast from Babinda and Deeral to Cairns and Aloomba. She was born in Babinda in 1949 and was the middle daughter between two sisters.
Education had been a huge part of Clair’s life as the first of her family to go to high school so when she finally graduated and was presented with three options, she chose the second – teacher.
“In that era when high school was new, my older sister only did scholarship then you went to an apprenticeship or business school for so many months and learnt typing, shorthand etc.,” Clair said.
“So doing high school and the sciences and those subjects, there was the opportunity to maybe go onto university,” she said.
“I wasn’t into that.”
Clair enrolled at the Teachers Training College in Brisbane, but when she made it to the big smoke she decided the city life was not for her. But, she still wanted to teach. And, teach she eventually did.
Upon her return to the north, Clair started looking for a job as a governess.
“I went into Dalgety’s Winchcombe in Cairns, but I was told I was too young.
“Then Dad and I were back at Gordonvale at the big store and Mr Bryce directed us to the Lucey family near Mt Garnet.”
Clair spent the next two years working on Marionvale Station and at the end of her stay found herself engaged to the guy next door.
“Everyone thought I would stay on then at either of the neighbouring properties. I decided to go back to the coast for 12 months and test this guy.”
Back on the coast, Clair got a job as a sugar chemist, analysing and assessing the juice content from the sugarcane. She enjoyed the job and stayed on for two seasons.
“We lived in the cane growing area but no one ever told me I could be a sugar chemist. I was able to walk straight in without training because of my senior subjects. I was very fortunate.”
In January 1970, Clair married her “guy next door” Mike O’Brien and moved back to his Mt Garnet property, Craig’s Pocket.
“At Craig’s Pocket, there was no power, no running water, no phones, no two-way radios – maybe that’s why I had four kids under the age of five!” She added “but, it was all good times and ignorance is bliss.”
Clair hoped she would never have to teach her own children – Patrick, Dinah, Felix and Moira – but then the 1974 cattle slump hit, and Clair found her self in and out of the classroom over the years as governesses came and went.
The situation started to improve by 1976. That year, Mike and his brother Rory started Coodardie Brahman Stud, and their youngest child was born.
“We got a generator and then Mike’s telling me when I’m still in hospital (with baby Moira) ‘You are to go and get a dishwasher and a washing machine.’
“Up until now, the washing machines used to be a wringer type with a petrol motor underneath. And, the dishwasher – well I said how am I going to have a dishwasher without running water? (The shop assistants) asked me ‘What tap connection do you have?’ I didn’t even have a tap!”
Clair managed to create her own system with a hose and a pressure pump, but if the hose got knocked down, there was no water supply.”
In 1979, Mike and Rory were looking for about 20,000 acres to fatten their steers. They went to look around Richmond and came home as owners of the 80,000-acre property, Essex Downs.
“With a school bus run, we put the kids in school in Richmond and only saw the property green for three months out of four years, but it still fattened cattle 12 months quicker than in basalt country.”
After four years, three of the four 20,000 acre leases on Essex Downs were sold as interest rates soared to 26 percent. The O’Brien family partnerships were being established with Mike's sister on Sugarbag and other brother Dan at The Brook. Rory later had Glen Dhu.
“We all worked together to get each other set up and then in the 1990s or somewhere there we dissolved all those partnerships and everyone went their own way.”
Clair and Mike were back on Craig’s Pocket. When the Cherokee Brahman Stud dispersed, Mike & Rory bought the largest ever shipment made. They had them loaded on the train at Rockhampton and sent all the way to Greenvale. From there, they walked them up the river to Craig’s Pocket.
“There was 600 head at $3000 per head,” Clair said. “They remain the foundation of our herd – we have always used the old, original bloodlines.”
The year 1983 also heralded the introduction of rural power under Premier Jo Bjelke-Petersen. Six years later, Clair got a phone.
Prior to the phone, Clair relied on the two-way.
“I was sitting on the two-way at my end, and Cairns Base Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) would put you through on the phone. Even today, my Dad still says ‘over’ out of habit.”
The two-way radio was also responsible for kick-starting School of the Air.
“I got very involved with the ICPA (Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association) and was on the Queensland and Federal Council fighting for rights for isolated school children.”
Clair learnt to live with her dislike of the city and worked hard alongside other volunteers to get distance education consolidated.
“There were correspondence lessons from Brisbane, School of the Air in Cairns and parents and teachers would drive around – it was confusing to know who the teacher was.”
When the air strip was put in at Craig’s Pocket, the RFDS held clinics and Clair helped establish fundraisers that still exist today, including the Reedybrook Ashes.
If Clair wasn’t taking on some role to promote the rural and remote way of life and ensure the survival of distance education, she was at bull sales with Mike.
“That was holidays. You never saw us at race meets, always bull sales.”
In 1990, Clair and Mike took a team of bulls over to Katherine for their own sale. They fell in love with the land they saw. They put Craig’s Pocket on the market, but no one thought they were serious and it didn’t sell. Three years later, they went back to the Northern Territory and to Carmor Plains.
A 4am phone call to their agent Kevin Currie and Craig’s Pocket was sold. Clair, Mike and Rory purchased Carmor Plains and started the process of packing up 30 years of their life.
They took 2,500 head of cattle with them, which cost some $300,000 in freight alone. They also had to get their cattle cleared but Clair said “the rest is history.”
“After nine amazing years at Carmor Plains, we had to find drier country to keep the genetics of our cows together,” Clair said.
When they sold in 2001, they leased Numul Numul station and it was the first time Mike and Clair had never owned country. They bought 5,000 acres of freehold land at Mataranka as a safety net. Today, the block is known as Coodardie and is a homestay retreat for travellers.
“My vision was bridging the gap between country and city and I have always had an open home policy.”
Clair’s vision saw her write the Carmor and Numul Numul diaries for the Queensland Country Life for a number of years. It also led her into the Australian Rural Leadership Program, and Australian Women in Agriculture. She was named ABC NT Rural Woman of the Year in 1996 and had received Citizen of the Year in the Dalrymple Shire in 1990.
“It’s all about stamina and resourcefulness. You don’t have that if you don’t have passion.”
