Noradjuha had a fair number of Lights living in the area, including George and Minnie, who were born there. Noradjuha is about 25 dry kilometres from Horsham and 10 even drier kilometres from Natimuk.
Two of the Lights decided to move from Victoria's driest region to one of its wettest. In the early years of last century George and Minnie Light came down to Yallock to dairy-farm and grow a few spuds. They also produced three children down there, Nancy, Alan and Geoff, in that order.
Now, my wife has a number of cousins, second cousins and so on and they all meet once a month or so for a meal and a yarn.
That is where I met up again with Alan Light. He married Beth Purvis, and she is Val's second cousin. The first time, and some of you will remember the column, is when I went to a clan 'lunch' at their Yallock farm. The column was in about 1980, I think, and was called "A shed full of tucker". Beth and Alan are traditional country people and they do hospitality generously and with charm.
Among other things, Beth makes Lamingtons the way they were intended to be made.
Anyway, I got talking to Alan and I realised he had a memorable tale to tell.
His parents bought up land round Yallock when they could, usually small holdings. Perhaps strangely, the population of Yallock was in a gentle decline through the first half of the 20th century, probably because the small blocks originally surveyed, some as small as 20 acres, were steadily amalgamated into more viable properties. When Alan was born in 1934 Yallock had 120 residents, give or take a couple.
Yallock began as one of the small settlements that were home to the drainage workers, as the swamp was tamed. When it was time, the area was opened up for selection and the rich soils of the Great Swamp were soon taken up, but often on blocks that were too small to make a living.
Alan was born at home on 24 May 1934.
Alan Light went to Yallock State School, more or less just across the road, opened in 1902 and closed in 1985. He loved his time there and remembers his teachers fondly. It was a one-teacher, one-room school. He remembered Mr Romanis, Tom Dunn and Mr Message. He remembered them coming to the Light farm for their daily billy of milk,
The school was just across the road, so Alan was able to go home for lunch. In winter he was one of the few who could get home easily on the muddy roads. When he finished grade six he left school, as most of the locals did. Dandenong High School was far too far away and the Koo wee rup High School was a long way in the future. Koo wee rup became a higher elementary in 1952 (when Alan would have been 18) and became a high school in 1957.
There was plenty of work to do at home, for all of them.
We talked about that work and Alan remembered bagging potatoes at the age of sixteen. He was quite openly proud of his ability to do a good day's work but his boast was that on one occasion he had filled and loaded 75 bags, a record. There were 15 bags to a ton so he picked up, bagged, then loaded, five tons for the day, and he was a teenager.
He remembers, too, grubbing tussocks and being paid two shillings an hour and told me it felt really good to have money to actually jingle in his pockets, and I felt a little jealous. I've grubbed a few tussocks in my time and Dad never paid me a brass razoo.
When I asked him about the work of the dairy farm, the training of horses, picking up spuds, the grubbing of tussocks and so on he just said "That was our job. We just got on with things."
Saturday nights have nearly always provided a break in the work of farmers all over this country.
Alan was great mates with Reg Purvis and the two went to the dances at Catani and at Longwarry, as part of a group of locals. Alan smiled gently to himself as he told me what a great dancer Reg's sister was. "One night she wanted a lift home to Yannathan and I offered to drive her. It all sort off started there." The boys normally had a few beers after the dances, but that night Reg didn't stay for that.
The "it" was a lifelong love affair. They married on 18 April 1959, have raised three children, have provided well for them, are in retirement in Warragul, and are still a loving couple.
The wedding was in Bunyip's St Thomas Church. It was opened in 1902 with 406 adults present at two services on the day and 14 baptisms, perhaps the sign of a big backlog, or perhaps because Bishop Pain presided.
The reception was in the Modella Hall, the old one that burned down, and Beth and Alan went on a motoring honeymoon.
One of the relaxations was playing football for Catani. "I wasn't too good and played in the seconds." He rode his bike to the ground for home games and it was well dark when he got home.
Reg Purvis and Alan Light then built a house on "Gudgin's", an 80-acres farm the family had bought. Gudgin was the third owner, and his son, William, and then his grandson, Harold, farmed the land and eventually it became the property of George Light, though it had been owned by the Noradjuha Lights before that. Another property brought into the Light holdings was the block first owned by Robert Fountain.
I didn't ask Alan much about his siblings but he told me that Nancy, now "95 or 96" was in care at the Koo wee rup Hospital but was "still pretty fit". Geoff had the General Motors dealership in Koo wee rup for a long time as "G. and J. Light's", next to the Post Office. It was previously Burton's.
They had two children. Jeanette was born in July 1960 and grows beef out past Drouin South, perhaps far enough out to really be in Hallora. Daryl was born in June of 1964 and he, too, farms at Drouin South, where he has a large herd and a large computer driven milking machine. Alan talked about that machine with a reverence that could only be felt by someone who'd milked by hand for years.
It would be really interesting to be able to calculate how much a farmer produces in a lifetime, and it might help us realise their importance. Alan told me about only three generations of Lights, but they were all hard working people, and needed to be.
I'll come back to this bloke next week, There is more to tell.