TAROOM TALES ‘Back in the Day’
LEX SMITH 1957
Ipswich Lad to Taroom Local
(Part 1)
January 2024
Click here to play PODCAST
TAROOM 1957
It was an age of ladies and gentlemen.
Hard-working and hard-riding stockmen.
Resilient, courageous and tolerant women.
67 years ago apprentice mechanic Lex Smith, his younger brother Trevor and a handful of mates met in the main street of Ipswich at 6am, their cars bursting with every necessity a young ringer would need in the bush.
Countless flat tyres and lack of fuel did little to dull their enthusiasm. Two days later the young men arrived at their destination and set up camp on the banks of the Dawson River on the edge of town.
The Ipswich lads, seeking a better life in the bush, had made it to Taroom.
My father is Lex Smith. He is the whole reason this history project has come about, so I will begin here, with a collection of some of his earliest memories of life in Taroom and the people he met here.
Archive collection of Lex Smith
Dad grew up in Ipswich, the eldest of 7 children, son of a Timber Cutter and Railway worker.
Long before he was a teenager, Lex and his younger brother Trevor, spent their weekends cutting timber with their father on the end of a cross-cut saw; or building fences – for an easier job – with a crowbar and shovel in the hottest of Ipswich summers. Hard work was never something that bothered him.
At 15, he escaped the confines of studying Scholarship at Ipswich Boys Grammar, pedalling the streets in his lunchbreaks until he secured an apprenticeship at Zupps Motors. Old Percy Zupp was a tough task master, he certainly got his pound of flesh out of Lex, but that was something he was already seasoned for, and he was a keen and able learner. What Lex learnt there stayed with him for the rest of his life.
Archive Collection of Lex Smith; Photographer John Scott (Taroom ringer)
In January 1957, Lex Smith made his way to Taroom where he was to meet the love of his life – a born and bred Taroom girl with the friendliest and most beautiful smile, daughter of the town baker, Lorraine Hay.
67 years and four children later, I think he now qualifies as a local.
Archive collection of Lex Smith
The purpose of this podcast series is to record the stories of the oldest Taroom residents. Tales of their earliest memories and what life looked like back in their day, and some of the colourful characters they have known along the way.
In Episode 1 (Part 1) Lex talks of the time when Dawson Motors was facing East, and of Keith Williams taking a punt on the new Pommy builder in town, Lenny Mizon. One of Lenny’s first jobs was to lift and turn the building in it’s entirety, so that it faced the road, a job nobody thought was possible.
He jokes about his ringer mates coming to town and not making it past the pub. Of the kindly Leichhardt Hotel proprietor Dolly Mohr, taking care of the young men and their pay cheques. And how those men with no money and no bed for the night would find ways to get arrested so they could enjoy the hospitality of the local lockup – bed and breakfast provided by the constables wife, cooking up anything they asked for the next morning.
Archive collection of Allan Swain (date unknown)
The Greek’s Café was popular, their malted milks and frozen orange juice still romanticised about today. Young Johnny the Greek with little English to begin with, befriended the larrikin stockmen when they came to town.
The Saddlers Wife also had a soft spot for the Glenhaughton Ringers, penning a poem about the young men she’d come to know so well before business got too tough and the Saddlers left Taroom forever. (See SHOW NOTES for Poem “Glenhaughton Ringers” by Mrs Andrews, the Saddlers Wife)
Archive collection of Allan Swain
Other local businesses and many town characters are discussed, and one is left feeling a deep affection for the people and those times. Times may have been tough for many, but life was much simpler back then.
Archive collection of Allan Swain
Neighbours of Glenhaughton are mentioned, and stories told of good deeds, kindness and capers with Bill Scantlebury and his family, legends from Mapala. Times spent with the Scotts of Glenleigh, Bob and Annie and children Joan, Kathleen and Paddy, and the ever-entwined Cogill family, are recalled fondly. So too are other neighbours Bill and Vi Hay at Bedourie, and Bill and Joan Copeland of Currajong along with many others.
By the end of Part 1, Lex is just getting warmed up. Part 2 will follow Lex’s journey from 1957 to 2008 (the end of his working life).
Archive collection of Lex Smith
Archive collection of Lex Smith (photographer unknown)
Treat yourself to a cuppa, sit back and follow along for the full story on SPOTIFY or SOUNDCLOUD, and stay tuned for Part 2 – Lex Smith, Taroom Local.
IDENTIFICATION OF PEOPLE AND DATES – please advise author if any people, places or dates can be identified from these archive images.
Email: taroomtales@gmail.com
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