Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. A rural life looks
Speaker 2: good on Instagram, rolling green hills and shaded verandahs and
Speaker 2: pretty fluffy animals, sunsets and sunrises painted across big skies,
Speaker 2: acquired a pace, a calmer mind, and a rural life
Speaker 2: also looks good in your plan for your post work self.
Speaker 2: And welcome to this bonus episode in our mid mini
Speaker 2: series about that third age, what you might want to
Speaker 2: do when you finish doing what you've been doing for
Speaker 2: money all these years. My name is Holly Wainwright and
Speaker 2: I have an incredible guest to talk about taking an
Speaker 2: unexpected pivot a little later at the most and it's
Speaker 2: Rachel Ward. Yes, you know who Rachel Ward is. She
Speaker 2: is an iconic Australian actress who isn't Australian at all.
Speaker 2: She's actually the quintessential English gentlewoman who met Brian Brown
Speaker 2: on the set of The Thorn Birds in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 2: It doesn't get any more iconic than that, and she
Speaker 2: followed him to Australia, which was a place she says
Speaker 2: she knew nothing about, and they've lived here pretty much
Speaker 2: ever since, raising a family and working. More recently, Rachel
Speaker 2: has directed films like Beautiful Kate and Palm Beach, and
Speaker 2: now a documentary called Rachel's Farm about her rural pivot.
Speaker 2: As you're about to hear in her third act, Rachel
Speaker 2: Ward has become a farmer, and not a hobby farmer
Speaker 2: that just looks pretty on Instagram, but a farmer farmer
Speaker 2: taking on the running of the cattle property that for
Speaker 2: years was a picturesque Northern river's weekender and holiday home
Speaker 2: for her family.
Speaker 1: Not anymore.
Speaker 2: Now it's where Rachel Farm's cattle and her land regeneratively.
Speaker 2: You're going to hear her talking about deciding to become
Speaker 2: a farmer, a hands on one at sixty, and the
Speaker 2: existential crisis that pushed her in to regent farming.
Speaker 1: As it's called.
Speaker 2: You're going to hear her talking about what Brian thinks
Speaker 2: about life on the farm, clue he's not that into it.
Speaker 2: And you're going to hear about Rachel's life from a
Speaker 2: rarefied aristocratic upbringing in the English countryside to feeling pushed
Speaker 2: aside by the film industry, to what motherhood meant to
Speaker 2: her and how it all led her here to looking
Speaker 2: at cowpoo for validation that she's on the right track.
Speaker 2: So come and sit down on the verandah with Rachel
Speaker 2: Ward and I. Rachel, we need to talk about dong
Speaker 2: beetles already, because for all the sort of passions that
Speaker 2: we might come to at different points in our lives,
Speaker 2: a dung beetle obsession is particular specific and it's a
Speaker 2: clumsy way of saying, I guess you've become a farmer
Speaker 2: at a sort of surprising time in your life. Yes,
Speaker 2: and it's an amazing story. And I'd love to start
Speaker 2: with the farm itself, which has been in your life
Speaker 2: for a long time.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: So you bought the farmer initially as a holiday home almost,
Speaker 2: and it's grown in importance. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Spot on.
Speaker 3: We bought it as a sort of lifestyle retreat, and
Speaker 3: we bought one hundred acres and we had about thirty
Speaker 3: cars on there. And there was the guy that we
Speaker 3: bought it from. He continued to manage it. He moved
Speaker 3: to another house nearby and continued to manage it, and
Speaker 3: then it passed to Mick Green senior who managed it
Speaker 3: beautifully for.
Speaker 1: How many years.
Speaker 3: I would think about fifteen years and then young Nick
Speaker 3: took over. And that's where the documentary sort of joins in.
Speaker 2: When you buy a place as a lifestyle retreat, but
Speaker 2: it's being managed, is that then? So you and your family,
Speaker 2: your growing family, you would go up there for summers,
Speaker 2: for holiday weekends, and.
Speaker 1: You loved it right every holiday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you weren't necessarily hands in there, but it was
Speaker 2: your place, your happy place.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: We didn't travel much. We didn't go overseas much. I've
Speaker 3: never been to Bali or places like that, so we
Speaker 3: just always went. Every holiday, we'd get in the car
Speaker 3: and go.
Speaker 1: Up to the farm. So the kids are very country kids.
Speaker 3: They went to school in Sydney, but every holidays we
Speaker 3: went up there and they had their life up there,
Speaker 3: and they had their ponies and you know, learning to drive,
Speaker 3: and we're quite near Scott's Heads, so they all learnt
Speaker 3: to surf and yes, and I was incredibly sort of
Speaker 3: hands off and thought that I had really nothing to
Speaker 3: contribute as far as the farm went. It seemed very much,
Speaker 3: you know, a man's domain.
Speaker 1: And Brian was.
Speaker 3: Very keen that we were participated locally, that we had cattle,
Speaker 3: and that we weren't just there as people who weren't
Speaker 3: part of the community. So we were from the beginning
Speaker 3: very much part of the cam unity. At one point
Speaker 3: we were even showing cattle or even that the Maxville
Speaker 3: Show with our cattle.
Speaker 1: So but you know, but very just enjoying it.
Speaker 3: Lucky to have, you know, to be able to have
Speaker 3: that escape to the country, and that's what we did.
Speaker 2: And you grew up in the country, correct, So was
Speaker 2: it something that you were very keen to have that
Speaker 2: part in your child's life, in your life as you were.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think I probably romanticized it, and I did
Speaker 3: grew up in the country. I didn't want to move
Speaker 3: full time to the country. I mean, I was very
Speaker 3: wedded to, you know, my career in entertainment, so I
Speaker 3: didn't see myself being a farmer at that stage. But
Speaker 3: as it went on, I mean, it was really not
Speaker 3: until the bushfires that I had the big switch. And
Speaker 3: it was really not until I read Charles Massey's book
Speaker 3: and understood about call it a read Warbler, that I
Speaker 3: really understood about other forms of farming and that there
Speaker 3: was even other forms of farming and that I went, oh,
Speaker 3: maybe I can do that too.
Speaker 2: So in the documentary, which is beautiful, I think I
Speaker 2: really really loved it. The part that sort of expresses
Speaker 2: this period, your daughter says that she was worried about you.
Speaker 2: You were very distressed. I mean, I can't imagine why
Speaker 2: by the climate crisis, the climate catastrophe, and that was
Speaker 2: it was like you were burning to do something about it,
Speaker 2: to somehow be part of a solution.
Speaker 1: What was that time like hard?
Speaker 3: I mean it was a yeah, it was brought on
Speaker 3: by my fear of I mean I really believe that
Speaker 3: the I would say today the fear mongering actually of carbon,
Speaker 3: the whole carbon issue, and I was, you know, I
Speaker 3: felt terribly impotent because I you know, on the in
Speaker 3: the media obviously we heard how that it was an
Speaker 3: existential problem, and yet sort of governments really didn't seem
Speaker 3: to be acting as if it was an existential problem.
Speaker 3: So it was that that thing of like, well, are
Speaker 3: they going to do something or are they not? And
Speaker 3: who if they're not, what are we going to do
Speaker 3: about this situation? Because I was certainly after I witnessed
Speaker 3: the fires and then went and there was you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of talk about this being beyond just the
Speaker 3: normal bushfire, and that this was you know, as hot
Speaker 3: as we're ever going to get, and and everything went,
Speaker 3: you know, it was obviously going to go up in flames.
Speaker 3: But I think I was a bit ignorant about what
Speaker 3: aspect of climate change was in was inciting those fires
Speaker 3: or was creating those fires? I don't necessarily think. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think we had a big drought, and we were
Speaker 3: and we have forests which are full of uh fuel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it was a.
Speaker 3: It was timely and was it really because we had
Speaker 3: too much carbon in the atmosphere?
Speaker 1: Is it really climate change or is it just a
Speaker 1: very long drought with a heavy load of fuel. So
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 3: Today I'm more circumspect about that and I'm less concerned
Speaker 3: about that aspect of climate. I'm certainly, you know, really
Speaker 3: working hard that we get more biodiversity and we hold
Speaker 3: more water in our.
Speaker 2: Land, because when you are on the land, whether you're
Speaker 2: living there full time or not, you're much closer to
Speaker 2: these disasters, like literally, but also emotionally and in terms
Speaker 2: of your stress levels about them, in terms of fire, flood, drought,
Speaker 2: and all of the rest of those things. You can
Speaker 2: feel it.
Speaker 3: You can almost well you're right in the middle of
Speaker 3: it usually and it has enormous consequences to you as
Speaker 3: a farmer and to the community that you love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so at the time, this the anxiety around climate, which,
Speaker 2: as you say, you've kind of shifted a little on.
Speaker 2: But you say in that you say in the documentary
Speaker 2: that also you've become a grandparent. You're looking at your
Speaker 2: grandkids and thinking what's going to happen for them? What
Speaker 2: kind of world are we giving them?
Speaker 3: That was all part of the sort of you know,
Speaker 3: definitely adding to my fear load of what was the
Speaker 3: future of my grandchildren, because you know, I felt that
Speaker 3: I was okay, I mean, I'm not going to be
Speaker 3: probably around when probably around when everything comes home to roost.
Speaker 3: But I obviously, you know, with having grandchildren, it brings
Speaker 3: that very it brings that into focus, the fact that
Speaker 3: your grandchildren are going to be here, you know, after
Speaker 3: they have prophetically said that the world is nigh so.
Speaker 2: And you One of the things about getting older I
Speaker 2: think sometimes too, is you struggle with the idea that
Speaker 2: not everything's getting better. In fact, quite a few things
Speaker 2: seem to be getting worse and sometimes there's the anxiety
Speaker 2: about what can I do about that? How is it
Speaker 2: too late for me to participate? I guess this is
Speaker 2: a lot of the stuff that was going on that.
Speaker 3: Yes, it sort of trivializes to a lot of the
Speaker 3: things that you're doing. It feels very trivial, like making
Speaker 3: films and making TV shows. And I just felt I
Speaker 3: needed to, you know, push my energies in a different direction.
Speaker 3: The impotence was alleviated by the fact that I realized
Speaker 3: I had three very strong motivating factors in my life,
Speaker 3: which was the fact I had a farm, and after
Speaker 3: reading the Call of the Reed Warbler, I realized I
Speaker 3: could actually change the direction of my farm and the
Speaker 3: way I found And I also understood that farmers, you know,
Speaker 3: had to take a bit of responsibility about where, you know,
Speaker 3: biodiversity was heading and growing monocultures and clearing land and
Speaker 3: pumping out carbon. And then as a consumer, I just
Speaker 3: completely changed the way I understood my food dollar, how
Speaker 3: my food dollar worked, and how I could, you know,
Speaker 3: buy according to my values. And I also kind of went,
Speaker 3: if I'm going to call myself an environmental the first
Speaker 3: thing I've got to look at is how I spend
Speaker 3: my food.
Speaker 1: Dollar and the power of your person.
Speaker 3: That's right, because that has an enormous effect on the
Speaker 3: way farmers farm.
Speaker 2: So in the film, this begins in a way. It's
Speaker 2: a beautiful film because your property is beautiful, your enthusiasm
Speaker 2: and commitment to this project is beautiful. Your farm manager
Speaker 2: is such a great foil because he's kind of like
Speaker 2: steady on Rachel. I go all the time at the
Speaker 2: beginning of that, because obviously you've got a great narrative
Speaker 2: arc in the film in that you know, you get
Speaker 2: your soils tested, you work out what you're doing, you
Speaker 2: work out what you're aiming for. This is a massive
Speaker 2: learning curve. One of the things I was watching thinking
Speaker 2: when I was watching it is it's very exciting and
Speaker 2: energizing to learn new things, right, especially if you're a
Speaker 2: bit of a point in your life where you're feeling
Speaker 2: a bit lost or I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 2: put work in your mouth, but feeling a bit lost,
Speaker 2: or what's my role now or my career I'm not
Speaker 2: sure where.
Speaker 3: Careers basically winding up kids have gone, you know. And
Speaker 3: I still felt credibly energetic and like I had something
Speaker 3: to offer, but trying to find where that how you
Speaker 3: are going to contribute is a horrible moment. It's a
Speaker 3: very sort of until you also knowing that you're going
Speaker 3: to have to go on a big learning curve. That
Speaker 3: first step is it's hard to make, isn't it When
Speaker 3: you change your life, change careers, whatever, you get divorced
Speaker 3: or you know, those huge life changes and you know
Speaker 3: that you've got a massive hill to climb before it
Speaker 3: gets easy again. And it's yeah, and I was very
Speaker 3: resistant to putting those that first foot out. And I
Speaker 3: knew that if I I'd never made a documentary before, to.
Speaker 2: Make dramas directing actors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so it was a totally different entertainment form
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 1: And I didn't want to be in it. I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring attention to all.
Speaker 3: The wonderful farmers, these early adopters of this type of farming.
Speaker 3: And there's after reading the book, I was just suddenly
Speaker 3: made so aware of how heroic some of these early
Speaker 3: adopters have been and how they were still you know,
Speaker 3: going forward and doing it without really very little recognition.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so I didn't want to be in it.
Speaker 3: And then my producer, Beteina Dalton, said, oh, well, you
Speaker 3: have to be in it has to be your journey.
Speaker 3: And I said, well, it's going to be about a
Speaker 3: minute and a half long because I haven't you know, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know anything about this.
Speaker 3: And I think she knew somehow that that was going
Speaker 3: to be Obviously the entertaining bit the fact that I
Speaker 3: knew nothing about it, but I still had to talk
Speaker 3: about it, and I still and you're not really when
Speaker 3: you're in the middle of your journey, you're very often
Speaker 3: not aware of what your journey is, what the you know, beginning, middle,
Speaker 3: and end is. And you know, we're all very used
Speaker 3: to the structures of a heroic journe and I certainly
Speaker 3: didn't have an end to the to the story. I
Speaker 3: had the person going on the journey myself, but and
Speaker 3: I had it to a certain point, and I had
Speaker 3: the amassing the knowledge and the wisdom and all of that.
Speaker 2: But then what and luck nature hands you a few
Speaker 2: good plots.
Speaker 3: Nature definitely hands me some good two good chapters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, after the break, Rachel tells me what life on
Speaker 2: the farm is really like.
Speaker 1: Stay with us.
Speaker 2: One of the things that is really interesting about the
Speaker 2: story is that you it's it's very hands on work,
Speaker 2: and at one point you decide that you need to
Speaker 2: move to the farm permanently to do this properly. And
Speaker 2: you're learning everything that the that the farm managers were
Speaker 2: doing before, which you I've heard you say, which looks
Speaker 2: like very hard work to me, But I've heard you
Speaker 2: say that it was fun, like it's fun that you
Speaker 2: love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a bit physical.
Speaker 3: It's a bit physical, but it's not that ba I
Speaker 3: mean a lot of you know, farmers, they definitely need strengths,
Speaker 3: particularly strength in their hands. I find that that's you know,
Speaker 3: I talk a lot about this being female friendly, and
Speaker 3: it is in a way, because you're those things that
Speaker 3: you bring as a woman into the cattle yards. You know,
Speaker 3: we are more gentle. We're gentler with the animals, I think.
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of things I can't do. They
Speaker 3: have something called an onto tractor called a PTO. Any
Speaker 3: implements that you're using, you have to put the PTO
Speaker 3: into the tractor. And I still can't do that, and
Speaker 3: it's just because I don't have the strength in my
Speaker 3: fingers to do it. And there are a couple of
Speaker 3: things that you just it's not so much strength it's
Speaker 3: the mechanical know how and that comes from sort of
Speaker 3: growing up beside your father, your your farmer father, who's
Speaker 3: just over the years has shown you a bit. I
Speaker 3: mean like Mick just has you know anything on the farm,
Speaker 3: any implement on the farm. He just has a knowledge
Speaker 3: about how to fix or how to oil or how to.
Speaker 1: Keep up with those things.
Speaker 3: That's my been my biggest learning curve is I'm not
Speaker 3: very far, but it's just and everything breaks all the time.
Speaker 3: You know, you're constantly getting people into fix the tractors well.
Speaker 2: And also and I know that obviously the documentary consolidates
Speaker 2: these events, but anyone who lives on the land would
Speaker 2: know it's true. There's always a thing. So there's a drought,
Speaker 2: or there's a fire, or there's the muffler fires or
Speaker 2: there's whatever. Yeah, and it is hard work has discussed.
Speaker 2: But did you is it harder? I guess did you
Speaker 2: love it as much as it appears that you did it?
Speaker 2: Did it give you the kind of meaning that you
Speaker 2: were looking for in it?
Speaker 3: Yes, in many ways it did. I certainly love being
Speaker 3: on I love a rural lifestyle, and I didn't realize
Speaker 3: how much I would enjoy it, and I think maybe
Speaker 3: it was the time of life. You know, I was
Speaker 3: not really interested in, you know, a social life anymore,
Speaker 3: or you know, in the entertainment industry was getting harder
Speaker 3: and harder, and you know, obviously the gender and age
Speaker 3: issues come into that.
Speaker 2: Did you feel that keenly as part of why you
Speaker 2: were pulling away from from that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of brick walls in the entertainment
Speaker 3: industry and there's a lot of frustration, and as there
Speaker 3: is in farming. I've probably chosen.
Speaker 1: Gone from farming is like, oh, I thought.
Speaker 3: You know, I came up against nature, but we're up
Speaker 3: against so much more than nature. But the supply chains
Speaker 3: are really only geared to the big business and to
Speaker 3: sort of corporate farming and industrial farming, and that's really
Speaker 3: not what we want always. You know, it certainly fills
Speaker 3: a place, but it's certainly for anybody who wants to
Speaker 3: live a rural lifestyle. It's very difficult to maintain a
Speaker 3: life on the land.
Speaker 2: So any idyllic vision of like this is going to
Speaker 2: be lovely. I'm going to be sitting on my veranda
Speaker 2: and the cows are we moving in the pastures, And
Speaker 2: it'll be is that.
Speaker 1: It's not that I wish it was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, if you want to lose a lot of money,
Speaker 3: you know every year. Yeah, but every every farmer has
Speaker 3: somebody's got a second job in town. It's not possible
Speaker 3: really to make a living on farm.
Speaker 1: And that's and that means.
Speaker 3: That no young people are attracted to it. So the
Speaker 3: average age of the farmer is about sixty five. And
Speaker 3: I don't know who's coming up. My son actually has
Speaker 3: moved to the country, but he wants to try and
Speaker 3: grow hemp. So you know, he looks at mine and goes, well,
Speaker 3: that's not a career for me. I can't make money
Speaker 3: on what you've got set up. So I find very
Speaker 3: much now that I'm in a position of or that
Speaker 3: I'm involved much more in advocacy than.
Speaker 1: I am in the farming farm.
Speaker 3: I see, you know, I just think the government and
Speaker 3: the farming bodies are not paying enough attention to what's
Speaker 3: going on with small farms and rural lives.
Speaker 2: And what they need, what they really need.
Speaker 3: Or what those wholes the whole, the whole hint to
Speaker 3: land really from the coast three hundred kilometers towards the
Speaker 3: Great Dividing Range or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's all small farms.
Speaker 2: It sounds like the sort of to use a clumsy word,
Speaker 2: the sort of mission or purpose that brought you into
Speaker 2: this has morphed, right, and it keeps morphing, it keeps
Speaker 2: And there's a bit in the documentary where Brian, you know,
Speaker 2: your husband of forty years, is talking about you becoming
Speaker 2: a farmer, and he says she's always been searching for things.
Speaker 2: She always throws herself into stuff. He says, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: want to be a farmer. I don't want to work
Speaker 2: that hard. But is that true that you think you've
Speaker 2: or you know, you've always looked for I don't want
Speaker 2: to say causes, that's the wrong word, but like, no,
Speaker 2: you want.
Speaker 3: To us, you want to throw Really I'd like to have,
Speaker 3: you know, just stuck at what I started with, which
Speaker 3: was like Brian as a as an actor, and you know,
Speaker 3: men don't necessarily have to change their careers.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, right, you know, Brand.
Speaker 3: Stayed as an actor and it's all you know, and
Speaker 3: he's produced and now he's writing books and stuff.
Speaker 1: But he wasn't forced to move on. A lot of.
Speaker 3: Women, you know, are used by dates come much sooner
Speaker 3: and then we have families and that gets them the
Speaker 3: way changing.
Speaker 2: No, you don't think that's changing. You think that we're
Speaker 2: still like women are still very.
Speaker 1: Much like oh, in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's also true. You think as much behind
Speaker 2: the cameras in front of it, like filmmakers.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think then there's many more jobs for women
Speaker 3: behind behind the camera. I think there are more not necessarily,
Speaker 3: not necessarily as directors or people in in ch you know,
Speaker 3: who get an opportunity to tell their stories.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's there's a bit more women doing that.
Speaker 2: I heard you telling a story about as young as
Speaker 2: in your words, like beautiful young women that you were
Speaker 2: growing up at these posh English tables and they're pretty
Speaker 2: young women's always sitting next to the most important person
Speaker 2: at the table. And then if the women get older,
Speaker 2: they're like move further down the table.
Speaker 1: That's funny. I did say that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true, And that's kind of like a metaphor
Speaker 2: for of this, Like it's not just about that table,
Speaker 2: it's it says you go along.
Speaker 3: It certainly feels well, that's why your power is in
Speaker 3: youth and beauty. That's if your power is in youth
Speaker 3: and beauty, and that that diminishes very quickly, so obviously
Speaker 3: one has to move on from that, and it's a
Speaker 3: free ride for a little while, a free ride with.
Speaker 2: A cost though too right, it's that sort of people
Speaker 2: do you feel people really see?
Speaker 3: I think I got a lot of opportunities for being
Speaker 3: a pretty girl. No, definitely, I mean I think that
Speaker 3: you know, just ah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean doors do open.
Speaker 3: I think you know if you're yeah, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to diminish that, it means that you actually don't. It's
Speaker 3: not very satisfying for yourself because actually you can never
Speaker 3: take credit for it, I mean, because it's not it's
Speaker 3: just God given. Yeah, you know, you've got a good
Speaker 3: looking mum or whatever, and you know you can take
Speaker 3: advantage of that for a few years.
Speaker 1: But it's very.
Speaker 3: Unsatisfying because you kind of know, as my mother would
Speaker 3: say to me, don't take yourself so seriously, darling. You'd
Speaker 3: hardly be ware you were if you didn't look the
Speaker 3: way you lived, so she was, and.
Speaker 2: A bet at the time that went down really well,
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 1: Was denying it to the hilt.
Speaker 3: But of course, you know, you know, really that until
Speaker 3: you actually develop a few skills or you know, actually
Speaker 3: a challenged by something and have to develop other skills
Speaker 3: than the way you look.
Speaker 1: Well there's no skills in that, but yeah, we.
Speaker 3: Just do it later, so you're always a little bit behind.
Speaker 1: And then I didn't go to you.
Speaker 3: I didn't go to university until I was When did
Speaker 3: I go thirty seven?
Speaker 2: And was that you had your kids by then?
Speaker 1: And yeah too uni.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I had all the you know, as an actress,
Speaker 3: I had my life and then I had kids, and
Speaker 3: then when I turned when my kids went to school,
Speaker 3: that as she When my son was born, I went,
Speaker 3: I've got to get my I got to get my
Speaker 3: skills up now because in a minute he'll be off
Speaker 3: at school and then what So, yeah.
Speaker 2: It doesn't sound like you're ever someone who is happy
Speaker 2: to just.
Speaker 3: I was quite good at recognizing that used by dates
Speaker 3: were coming up.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I knew that as an actress I had a
Speaker 3: certain amount of time. I was very difficult, difficult for
Speaker 3: me moving here too as an actor because it was
Speaker 3: at a time where Australia was very much sort of
Speaker 3: forging its own identity and I was infinitely as a
Speaker 3: as a throwback. You know as an actress, I was
Speaker 3: a sounded look to everything as another era and I
Speaker 3: didn't have that Australian quintessential thing that was going to anyway,
Speaker 3: so it was difficult for me to get work.
Speaker 2: It's very often and somewhere in midlife that women might
Speaker 2: choose to get more connected to nature. And I'm not
Speaker 2: obviously by owning a farm necessarily, but I'm very into
Speaker 2: my gardening. For example, I know plenty of women who
Speaker 2: discover that they love to walk in nature, love to hire,
Speaker 2: call those things. Do you think there is like almost
Speaker 2: a call in us to that as we get older,
Speaker 2: that it sort of settles us, helps us.
Speaker 1: I think it's so individual.
Speaker 3: I imagine there's a lot of that online where people
Speaker 3: can see other people's lives and they look very much
Speaker 3: less stress in them. Great for the kids, I mean,
Speaker 3: I think it's a wonderful way to live if you
Speaker 3: can live without, you know, the culture that a city
Speaker 3: gives you and the rets, the friends I suppose if
Speaker 3: you if you, I mean obviously in places like the
Speaker 3: Northern Rivers, there's so many young people up there, and
Speaker 3: of course there's massive of friendship groups and all that.
Speaker 3: I think that's that's probably the best option where you
Speaker 3: can have a bit of both when there is a
Speaker 3: town that is vibrant and can offer things, but then
Speaker 3: you can retreat into the beauty and the peace of
Speaker 3: the country. And I think that's what's threatened by not
Speaker 3: supporting small farms being really we really need a Minister
Speaker 3: for small farms because it's represent a very, very big
Speaker 3: chunk and it's going to really change the you know,
Speaker 3: the whole choice that we have.
Speaker 1: Do we want to be urban or urban or do
Speaker 1: we want to have an opportunity to have a rural
Speaker 1: life as well.
Speaker 3: So I think that we have to be careful we
Speaker 3: don't lose that choice.
Speaker 2: More of my conversation with Rachel Ward after this break.
Speaker 2: You've made some beautiful Australian films, though.
Speaker 3: Behind the camera as an actress it dried up very
Speaker 3: quickly for me, which which is always good because it
Speaker 3: forces you in another direction. I didn't have any choice
Speaker 3: but to get behind the camera you as I.
Speaker 2: Am originally from England too, as you can probably tell,
Speaker 2: I've been here for thirty years, so a long time.
Speaker 2: One of the things that struck me so much in
Speaker 2: the documentary though, is that you clearly have a very
Speaker 2: deep connection out of that land. You've learned a lot
Speaker 2: about it now, as you say towards the end of
Speaker 2: the film, you do feel like you have deep roots.
Speaker 2: Does it feel like that? Does it feel like home?
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely feels like home. I love it there, and
Speaker 3: I love it even more now that my boy is there.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely great and he loves it and he's just
Speaker 3: completely sort of switched on, turned on by the beauty
Speaker 3: of it as I am. And yeah, I think it's
Speaker 3: that thing as you get older, that you just you're
Speaker 3: less distracted by the great things that nature and beauty
Speaker 3: can offer. I think we're just too busy chasing our tails.
Speaker 1: Certainly I was.
Speaker 3: And it's really only when I was sort of forced
Speaker 3: to be there over COVID that I.
Speaker 1: Sort of breathed into it.
Speaker 3: And sort of let it come to me and was
Speaker 3: surprised by how much I could be there alone and
Speaker 3: be completely Yeah, I felt very comfortable in the country,
Speaker 3: and I guess growing up in the country definitely makes you.
Speaker 3: I can see the difference between me and Brian. He's
Speaker 3: a little bit he's not He's just a little bit uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: little bit nervous, you know, he's always worried about gates
Speaker 3: and you know, and going through into places he maybe
Speaker 3: shouldn't and we should go back now because it's going
Speaker 3: to get dark, and and I was, no, this.
Speaker 1: Is when it's the best. Let's go. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about on horses and things.
Speaker 2: Clearly you've been married for, as we said before, forty years.
Speaker 2: Obviously your differences in those ways and your different passions
Speaker 2: and things obviously works right. Like it's not it's not
Speaker 2: like she's going off to the farm. Well that's it, you.
Speaker 3: Know, Well it is a little bit, a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that's healthy. You know. Brian is much more
Speaker 3: rooted in Sydney and that's his you know, it comes
Speaker 3: from the western suburbs.
Speaker 1: His comfort zone is the city.
Speaker 3: He's got friends from years back, you know, who are
Speaker 3: in the city. And I think being an expert to
Speaker 3: someone who's not from here, I'm not so tied to
Speaker 3: places of you know, I don't have that investment in
Speaker 3: those early years.
Speaker 1: You probably feel the same. You know.
Speaker 3: It's interesting how you are romanced and it's also sentimental
Speaker 3: where you grow up and all of those thing triggers
Speaker 3: that you have as a child growing up, and you
Speaker 3: look back on those aspects in a very sort of
Speaker 3: tender sentimental way. So I didn't have that here. So
Speaker 3: that's grown for me in the country, and it's all
Speaker 3: of that sort of you know, comfort and sentimentality about it.
Speaker 3: I would miss it deeply if I moved away from it.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I heard you talk about this actually where you said
Speaker 2: that bits of England like, because you can live somewhere
Speaker 2: else for almost your entire adult life, bits of your
Speaker 2: DNA away you grew up. I grew up in the
Speaker 2: North of England, in Manchester, and I left when I
Speaker 2: was twenty one. But when I go back, the red brick,
Speaker 2: the chimneys, the buildings, I don't know. There's just something.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is because I haven't even
Speaker 2: you know, I've had my children here, I've lived my.
Speaker 1: I think it's your DNA. I think when you say
Speaker 1: your DNA, I don't think it's your experience.
Speaker 3: I think it is your DNA because your English has
Speaker 3: comes through your mother, your grandmother, your grandfather, your great grandfather.
Speaker 3: I mean, all of those things that are in your cells,
Speaker 3: that experience has come through. I believe it's greater than
Speaker 3: that to just being in the experience of you. I
Speaker 3: just I still am English to the core, but I
Speaker 3: have I have fallen in love finally with Australia. I
Speaker 3: mean it took me a long time, and it did
Speaker 3: take me until I moved to the country because the
Speaker 3: only way sort of in a way, urban lives are.
Speaker 3: You can be an urban life. You can be anywhere.
Speaker 3: You know, it's the same sort of thing. I don't
Speaker 3: think that you know, being in Sydney is such a
Speaker 3: different experience than being in single or London or whatever.
Speaker 3: But when you go to the country and you just
Speaker 3: experienced the smells and the wind and the sounds and
Speaker 3: the light of places, that's when it seeps into you.
Speaker 3: And my children definitely have that.
Speaker 2: Your children, as you say, have grown up going to
Speaker 2: the farm. I also heard you say once that you
Speaker 2: wanted to make sure your children had a different kind
Speaker 2: of childhood in terms of their connection to both you
Speaker 2: and to being together and all those things. Do you
Speaker 2: think when your kids are now proper adults and they've
Speaker 2: got children of their own, do you feel a level
Speaker 2: of pride that you achieved that that they've You've given
Speaker 2: them that different kind of life.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, I don't know about pride, but I
Speaker 3: recognized that it was.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: It was a strange life childhood that I had, you know,
Speaker 3: very separated from parents and very much brought up with
Speaker 3: paid care, paid help. So I didn't I didn't live
Speaker 3: with my mother and father, and they boarding school and
Speaker 3: also you know, completely looked after buying nanny's and whatever.
Speaker 3: So I didn't see my mother during the week at all.
Speaker 3: She would come down on the weekend. It was a
Speaker 3: very sort of Victorian old and you know in some
Speaker 3: in some places it still exists. It was very much
Speaker 3: like Ladied Eyes upbringing, and it was and it was
Speaker 3: not good for self confidence.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: I mean, I look at Brian's life beside mine, and
Speaker 3: he had a mother only but who was completely devoted
Speaker 3: to him, and everything in her life was about her
Speaker 3: two children, and she didn't really have any life other
Speaker 3: than her two children. And I've never known anybody more
Speaker 3: confident than Brian and his sister. And I think that
Speaker 3: comes from the commitment of parents. And I think if
Speaker 3: parents aren't there, the commitment isn't there, you know, I
Speaker 3: mean they never came to you know, school things or anything.
Speaker 3: So they were very absent. And you know, I look
Speaker 3: back on that and I look at my children with
Speaker 3: their children, and I see the commitment, and I see
Speaker 3: the work and the effort and the relentlessness and the
Speaker 3: bonds that happened as a result. Well, I didn't have that,
Speaker 3: and I don't know what that meant to the shaping
Speaker 3: of my character. And it probably made me quite resilient
Speaker 3: and quite independent. And I'm probably here where I am
Speaker 3: because I've got that sort of independence. I'm certainly not coddled,
Speaker 3: but it's sort of Yeah. I certainly didn't want it
Speaker 3: for my kid.
Speaker 2: You obviously wanted something different, and it feels like that
Speaker 2: in a way, it was a long shot, like coming
Speaker 2: to Australia with this man who was so different, to
Speaker 2: build this different life.
Speaker 1: But it crazy, it stuck. When you look at that, like.
Speaker 2: That young woman madly in love with this man so different.
Speaker 3: Do you think what was I think, yes, sometimes, look.
Speaker 2: At the decisions you made when you were young, and
Speaker 2: you were like, I was crazy, brave, Like is that
Speaker 2: what you think I do?
Speaker 3: Actually I do look back and think, yeah, I know,
Speaker 3: because I see how hard it is with my kids
Speaker 3: looking after their kids, and I go. Yeah, but I
Speaker 3: was here and I didn't have mom or dad, or
Speaker 3: girlfriends or anything. I was so isolated. And I also
Speaker 3: did have I had no work, I had no career,
Speaker 3: I had no It was starting all over again, and
Speaker 3: like it is for any migrant.
Speaker 1: It's quite a hard road.
Speaker 3: It's very sort of it's not really you know, it's
Speaker 3: always about how lucky migrants are to reach the country
Speaker 3: that they want to be in.
Speaker 1: It's interesting.
Speaker 3: I was talking to a taxi my taxi driver last night,
Speaker 3: who was a Pakistani and he said, it's we don't
Speaker 3: do it for us. A lot of us are very
Speaker 3: homesick and want to go home. We do it for
Speaker 3: our children, to give our children an opportunity so that
Speaker 3: they can be bussy kids, and particularly the girls, so
Speaker 3: that the.
Speaker 1: Girls can have opportunity and choice.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, not growing up in those patriarchic article societies,
Speaker 3: which I definitely grew up in a very patriarchal society,
Speaker 3: and that was that was one of the things I
Speaker 3: wanted to get out, get away from.
Speaker 2: Did you feel even then that Australia was a different,
Speaker 2: freer place.
Speaker 3: Now I didn't know anything about it at all. Brian
Speaker 3: could have been taking me to Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 2: It was just about going with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean I arrived on ash Friday, which
Speaker 3: was forty years ago in Melbourne, where at noon we
Speaker 3: were in blackness and it.
Speaker 1: Was and it was sing spires on the.
Speaker 3: And we were literally scuffing through black ash on the
Speaker 3: pavement and I remember looking at and thinking, you want
Speaker 3: me to live here? This is apocalyptic this place and
Speaker 3: it was and also again and we were sort of
Speaker 3: in It was in drag at the time. And I
Speaker 3: arrived in Melbourne and then drove out to Ballarat and
Speaker 3: I just could not believe the devastation of the country
Speaker 3: and the trees, with the you know, the dead trees everywhere,
Speaker 3: and the and the and the straw like grass. You know,
Speaker 3: when you're used to that richness of color. So it
Speaker 3: definitely took accommodating. And then I came to Sydney and
Speaker 3: was blown away by Sydney and the birds and you know,
Speaker 3: obviously I knew it was it was.
Speaker 1: I was pretty lucky to be here, really, but it
Speaker 1: does take.
Speaker 3: It does take a long time to belong, to deeply
Speaker 3: belong somewhere.
Speaker 2: And you feel now that you when you said in
Speaker 2: the in the documentary, I feel like I was a
Speaker 2: shallow rooted person and I'm a deep rooted person on
Speaker 2: the farm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, on the farm I belong. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't feel it anywhere else, but I do feel
Speaker 3: it on the farm.
Speaker 2: Tell me, now, after all we've discussed about and your journey.
Speaker 2: I hate that word, but with Regen, what do you
Speaker 2: want people to know about that now? Because at the
Speaker 2: end of the documentary it very much said you very
Speaker 2: much encouraging people to shop small, to you know, buy
Speaker 2: from local farms, buy from region farms. Understand what it
Speaker 2: is is that very much what your average person can
Speaker 2: do to.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I think it's that sort of
Speaker 3: understanding that if you are an environmentalists, if you are
Speaker 3: concerned about the way we're headed climate wise and diversity wise,
Speaker 3: and just the way our souls are blowing away, I
Speaker 3: think you have to make the connect between the food
Speaker 3: you're eating and the way you want people to farm
Speaker 3: and region farmers are on fire. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: people turning, and there's you know a lot of farmers
Speaker 3: really care for their land and do the best they
Speaker 3: can and use minimum, you know, cutting back on the chemicals.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people are sort of beginning
Speaker 3: to understand that. But unless we can reach the consumer,
Speaker 3: and unless the consumer can go, Okay, you are farming,
Speaker 3: you are putting. You can't carry it alone, you know.
Speaker 3: We have to be with the consumer because it's much
Speaker 3: easier to do it the other way. It's much easier
Speaker 3: to spread out a field and whack in some seeds
Speaker 3: for winter.
Speaker 2: So care about where your food rong shop small if
Speaker 2: you can.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just go and always ask, you know, where is
Speaker 3: this food from? I mean the moment is a little
Speaker 3: bit inconvenient because you have to make a bit more
Speaker 3: of an effort to find where who's farmed this?
Speaker 1: Is there chemicals in it?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Is this from a person who's really trying to do
Speaker 3: the best by their land? And if we don't get
Speaker 3: that response, they'll go. And not only will they go,
Speaker 3: you know, it will become this.
Speaker 1: I just think, you know, we only.
Speaker 3: Have to look at Europe and look at America the
Speaker 3: disappearing small family farms.
Speaker 1: They're all going.
Speaker 3: So the whole structures of you know, of rural life
Speaker 3: will go. And I don't think that that people are
Speaker 3: making those connects, you know, and I think there's a
Speaker 3: huge movement with the with the World Economic Forum and
Speaker 3: all of those sort of bodies that people are try.
Speaker 3: It's all about scale and efficiency, and people want to
Speaker 3: get rid of the small farms. They want big industrial
Speaker 3: size farms that are that are that are basically run
Speaker 3: by corporations.
Speaker 1: That maybe that's what we want.
Speaker 3: Maybe the next generation just goes, just give me efficiency
Speaker 3: and give me the cheapest meat you can. I don't care,
Speaker 3: but there is definitely a section of our society that
Speaker 3: doesn't want that and at the moment we can't really
Speaker 3: get it because of the food chains, and particularly when
Speaker 3: you understand at what cost. I think that's the thing
Speaker 3: is it's easy to comby the meat from you know,
Speaker 3: the cheapest source, but once you begin to understand the cost.
Speaker 3: I need to bring it back to dung beetles before
Speaker 3: we finish Rachel where I started, which is in their documentary.
Speaker 2: If you don't understand the jaw, how happy somebody can
Speaker 2: be to see some insects crawling around in a cow
Speaker 2: pat as we used to call them in England cow pats, Yeah,
Speaker 2: then they need to watch this documentary. But it's a
Speaker 2: sign that what you're doing is working.
Speaker 1: Of the health of your land. Yes, So if.
Speaker 2: Your soil is dead and it's been blasted by chemicals
Speaker 2: and over farmed, then it's dry, lifeless.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the.
Speaker 2: Dung beetle was a sign of joint You call me
Speaker 2: and you're like.
Speaker 1: There's a family of It's actually I'm almost more excited
Speaker 1: by the worms. The worms are you.
Speaker 3: Know, when you've got dry, when you've got dirt, not soil,
Speaker 3: there's no worms in there. And you know, and I
Speaker 3: think really what's made the difference with my land and
Speaker 3: most regenerative farmers is the coverage on our soil we've
Speaker 3: all got.
Speaker 1: That's the main thing you have.
Speaker 3: You do not want bear soil because then the sun
Speaker 3: just bakes it and dries it out and everything goes,
Speaker 3: all the micro or all the microbes, everything just goes.
Speaker 3: So you need to keep it as moist as you can.
Speaker 3: It's like putting compost on your on your gardens. Obviously
Speaker 3: it makes absolute sense. But obviously in places it is
Speaker 3: it is hard to keep coverage on your grass. But
Speaker 3: that is our number one priority, really is getting coverage
Speaker 3: on our soil.
Speaker 1: So that means no tilling, so you're not churning underground
Speaker 1: you're keeping.
Speaker 3: You're keeping this, You're keeping the roots in the soil,
Speaker 3: long healthy roots that dig down for the for the
Speaker 3: micro for the nutrients. And the more you use the chemicals,
Speaker 3: the shorter the roots become. And it's only really with
Speaker 3: that long growth and not tilling and.
Speaker 1: Not you know, using too much chemical. You need you
Speaker 1: need to make the grass work.
Speaker 2: And there we leave Rachel Ward with worms and dung
Speaker 2: beetles and the challenges and joys of life.
Speaker 1: On the land.
Speaker 2: I hope you've enjoyed the special bonus episode of Mid
Speaker 2: with Rachel Ward, who became a farmer when most people
Speaker 2: are retiring. Actually becoming a farmer is a dream retirement
Speaker 2: for some, although I think Rachel's story tells us why
Speaker 2: it's certainly not the cruisy option. In these special bonus
Speaker 2: episodes of Mid, we're talking about that next phase of life,
Speaker 2: that post work era, and about how whether you're thinking
Speaker 2: about dung or literal cruises, being prepared gives you choices.
Speaker 2: Follow the link in our show notes about Aware Super
Speaker 2: for more about that. The executive producer of this episode
Speaker 2: is named Brown. The senior producer is Grace Rufrey. The
Speaker 2: producer is Charlie Blackman, and there's been audio production by
Speaker 2: Jacob Brown. I'll see you next week.