Gum Family Collection, Mallee Tourist and Heritage Centre: In the Murraylands region of South Australia
Head east from Murray Bridge and you're soon in the very heart of the South Australian Mallee. It's harsh and uncompromising country and like much of the rest of the State it's been through tough times lately with drought and dust storms. But to really appreciate the tenacity of the people who've made a community here you need to dig a bit deeper than the layer of top soil that occasionally heads towards the coast when a hot northerly blows. The people who first came here and established their wheat and barley farms had tremendous willpower. People like Don Gum - an old Pinnaroo cockie.
“I'll start it up for you. And if you listen to it you'll hear it sing a song. Not the words but you'll hear the tune. ‘A pound a week and keep, a pound a week and keep, a pound a week and keep.”
The old winnower was used to separate the wheat from the chaff and the operator could expect to reap and keep a pound in wages.
It's just one piece in Don Gum's collection. These are national treasures and so too is Don, a retired farmer, who's received an Order of Australia for community service. But Don's service to the community really began more than fifty years ago when he served in New Guinea in World War Two. When this soldier returned home he ordered a John Deere tractor. But due to rationing it took two years to arrive from the US. And when it did, it had doubled in price.
We caught up with Don more than five years ago when all of this was stored in a farm shed out the back of Pinnaroo. Now it's part of the Mallee Tourist and Heritage Centre thanks to the generosity of this man.
“I understand a bloke came to you with a cheque book saying he wanted to buy all this - but you wouldn't sell?”
“No.”
“How much did he want to buy it for?”
“Three hundred thousand dollars.”
“Why didn't you sell?”
“I didn't need to sell it and I didn't want to sell it.”
Don was determined to keep much of the Mallee's heritage in the Mallee - as a tribute to the generations of cockies who came before him. His collection pays tribute to blokes like the Smith Brothers and this classic piece of Aussie ingenuity.
“So that would lift up if it hit a Mallee stump?”
“If it hit it and couldn't lift it out of the ground it would jump over the top of it.”
From the Stump Jump Plough invented in 1876 to a replica of the first Ridley Stripper - it's all here. John Ridley entered this type of machine in a competition organised by the Grain Exchange in 1843. At the time there was a drastic shortage of labor as men headed to the Victorian goldfields and the State's harvest looked set to rot in the fields.
“It looked like being a total disaster to the State of South Australia.”
This beast could do the work of fifty farm labourers. So the grain crop was saved and so too was the State thanks to another South Australian first.
“The first mechanical harvesting of a crop in the world. Not just in South Australia - the world.”
It's just one of 1500 exhibits in the Gum Family Collection on show at the Mallee Tourist and Heritage Centre in Railway Tce South, Pinnaroo. If you have any further questions please email info@postcards-sa.com.au
