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  • Open 9am-5pm daily, closed Christmas Day
  • Acton Peninsula, Canberra
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exhibitions

Audio and transcript

Max McKimmie

Max and Pam McKimmie

Max: Well I was one when they came here, so they came here in 1940 is that right?

Pam: Aha that was George and Zenda.

Max: They actually bought this farm from not a close relation, but a relation of mums and it was 468 acres at that time and they just milked cows.

Pam: Almost every decade Max bought another piece of land. We've bought out the back, that was in '76, and then we bought the neighbours. So that's the hill and the nice tree flat down there.

Max: We've been in debt all our lives.

Pam: People in the city have said to me 'well it's your choice'. But you really don't have a choice. I mean if you're on the land and you're looking after your animals, there is no choice. You've just got to look after them all the time and you'd rather not but it has to be done doesn't it.

Max: I think the difference is they've got a five-day week, or a four-day week, a lot of them, whereas us as farmers more or less have got a seven-day week.

Pam: You live on the job. We eat in our office.

Max: If the cows are calving and it's Sunday, you can't just take Sundays off, you've got to look after them. So that's something that would be hard for them to understand, I think.

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Listen to Max and Pam's story (MP3 file 760kb)
Duration: 1 minute, 36 seconds

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