Beryl Lane, teacher, traveller, and grandmother

A little while ago Savva interviewed Ita Buttrose for his 50th birthday. During the conversation, an amazing woman called Beryl Lane came down to chat with her idol, Ita. Beryl had travelled all the way from Macksville to see the chat, and meeting Ita was the icing on the cake. 

In this mini episode of Three Food Memories, Savva interviews Beryl - grandmother, teacher of 40 years, and intrepid traveller - but please don't mention backpacks, she hates them. 

On Beryl's menu is proper icecream, truffles in Provence, and pig at a Sing Sing in Papua New Guinea. 

Sides include: the importance of travel (and how to save for it), reflections on meeting Ita, and whatever "perhapses" are...you'll have to listen to find out. 

Beryl's social cause is Anglicare Australia - check them out here: anglicare.asn.au and check out Beryl at the Macksville opshop where you can pick up pickles, bargain clothes, and a lot of love. 

To find out more about the project and Savva - head to threefoodmemories.com
Insta - @savvasavas @threefoodmemories

Email us at threefoodmemories@plated.com.au, we'd love to hear from you! 

TFM is produced and edited by Lauren McWhirter with original music by Russell Torrance. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the ground we stand on and thank them for allowing Papa to tell stories on these glorious lands we share.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

In this episode of Three Food Memories, we'll relive a glorious moment from my 50th birthday live recording where I interviewed media icon Ida Buttrose. Now, fame, power, and influence may follow Ida, but on this particular night, her legacy arrived in the form of a fabulous, freshly frocked fan who'd flown in from Coff's Harbour to see the woman she'd adored for decades. But before we welcome the lovely lady to share her three food memories, here with a delightful return to one of the evening's sweetest moments, when Beryl Lane met her idol. Now, you have got opportunity to tell Isa why you love her so much. Oh God. What are you doing?

SPEAKER_04 1:10

Well, she's she's very much in my era because I'm easy next month. And well, we grew up reading The Woman's Weekly, and I was a teacher for 40 years, and bringing being in a country town and sometimes feeling not isolated, but in need of information and other information that matters to the people in the country. And the issues you covered in clear one was weakly, and especially ITA. I had every single copy of IT. I do too. You're luckier than me because I had them in a box downstairs, and I had a flood from I can't remember the washing with a dishwasher over the phone and went down through the floorboards and flooded them. And I had to throw them out, which was heartbreaking for me. But yes, I treasured them because I thought here was a woman I had enormous admiration for. Nothing watered you, nothing. I knew you had been through many things in your life, and I thought to myself, this is the woman who should be Prime Minister. Everything to me you said and did made perfect sense. It was just wonderful. And the thing was, I was looking at women who were battered and who were sad and they they they were daunted by everything that happened in their lives. They didn't have that inner strength that you have. And how I used to say, I used to think to myself, how do we give that to women? How do we give them the strength to handle being treated as lesser people? And you never let that happen to you. You never let the Kerry Packers and the people of the world, the men of the world, put you down. And that's a marvelous, to me, you were just the epitome of everything I wanted my children and my granddaughters to be. Wonderful, actually, because I meant every word of it, and it was just such a thrill to be able to convey to Ida what she achieved in life meant to me. Which was a great deal.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

They say you should never meet your idol, but what was it like meeting your idol?

SPEAKER_04 4:00

It was very emotional and a surreal feeling. It was something you never expected would happen. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that opportunity. When it actually happened, I was even afterwards, I'm saying to myself, I've actually done this, I've actually met Ida and spoken to her.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Listening to what you said to Ida, do you think you said everything that you wanted to say?

SPEAKER_04 4:27

Oh, it takes me a year to do that.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Well, let's use that time to hop into your three food memories. Now, in this particular case, you've gave given me three food memories. Yes. I'm gonna choose one that we're gonna focus on and really get into. So your first food memory was life in Australia without electricity, where you the first time you remember buying store-bought peaches and ice cream. The second food memory that you shared with us is trying truffles in Provence in the south of France. Yes. The third food memory, which is the one I'm going to really dig in and have some fun with you, is a pig on the spit in New Guinea. Yes. What year was this barrel?

SPEAKER_04 5:10

Uh 1977.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Tell us about this particular experience.

SPEAKER_04 5:15

Douglas had a friend in New Guinea, my husband, and he also had a cousin at Mount Hagen, which is right up in the Highlands of New Guinea. We flew into Port Moresby. We had a week there. The second week we flew to Mount Hagen, where Lex owned a garage. And at the time there was a sing scene taking place, and all the tribes from around the surrounding highlands were getting together. When we arrived, the streets were filled with Highlanders all in their magnificent garb. They were dressed up, their faces were painted, they had things through their nose, and um my my son when we at the markets was amazed because he was a six-year-old boy with his wide open mouth and eyes looking at these ladies, their breasted ladies with a pig on one breast and a baby on the other. One breast much larger than longer than the other. But it was quite a wonderful experience. We were went to the end of the Kakota Trail. I always forget the sign. There's a sign beside this water, the creek. We called it a creek. Um, but it was the beginning of the Kokoda Trail, and it had crocodiles, bigons. Swimming, not recommended. But yes, and then because it was a sing sing, they put on this big moo-moo and they had the suckling pig and they put it in hot rocks. The rocks were heated up for two days. So by the time they wrapped the pig with yam and vegetables inside it in banana leaves and put it in the ground, it stayed there for I know it was overnight and probably a whole day because it was late in the evening when they took the pig out of the spit and of course the meat just fell off it, and they served it to us on banana leaves. And it tasted amazing. And it was so sweet. I don't know whether it was yam in it or what they they didn't use any of seasoning much other than all I could see was salt. I don't think I've ever tasted pig quite as good since.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

And what about the children? How did they embrace it must have been a very exciting experience for them to eat off banana leaves?

SPEAKER_04 7:41

Yes, that was wonderful for them. They just ah mummy, it tastes good. What is it? And I said, It's pork. Ah. Like a pig. And I said, Yeah, well, you saw the pig. Oh, well, that's good. They thought it was delicious, but they were too fascinated too with everything else going around them. I remember taking a photo, it was the first day we were there, of one of the Highlanders in his car. And the next I turned around, I nodded at him and thanked him, and I turned around to walk away. And he chased me up the street, brandishing his sword. Kina, keener, keener. I hadn't paid him to take his photos. And at that stage I didn't have any keena, old me. Anyway, someone came to the rescue and paid him. We went to a tea and a coffee plantation, and um it was quite funny because tea bags had just come into fashion. And uh, when we went through the uh plantation, they had this pile of dust, and they said, Oh, that's what goes into the tea bags. It was the dust.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Really?

SPEAKER_04 8:48

I think they've improved a lot since then. Because I think everyone uses tea bags now.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Now there's Dora the Explorer and Beryl the backpacker. You have traveled. Let's look at it.

SPEAKER_04 9:00

Don't ask me, don't come to that backpack. I do not like backpacks. Do you know when you when you're this height and you get in a line in a queue behind someone with a backpack and they swing around and they lock you over with it? No thank you.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

No backpacks. So no to barrel the backpack up.

SPEAKER_04 9:20

No backpacks.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

But but you are an intrepid traveller. Let's have a look at the statistics here because I've done my research. The statistics tell me you've travelled around 30 countries. No, 44. Um, you've travelled most of Europe and big chunks of Asia. Now that's not very common for Australians around that time to do that amount of travel. What inspired you? What got you out on the road to see other cultures?

SPEAKER_04 9:48

When I was a kid, I wanted to be missionary. I was always interested in other cultures. And I just thought I would like to go to another country. By the time I finished college, I thought I want to go to Canada on exchange. Of course I got married instead. But when my first paycheck came for teaching, I started an account and I said, that's my holiday account. And a certain number of every check I ever get is going into that account. And I'm going to have a holiday every year. And as when I can, my first trip overseas, we went on the SS Arcadia around the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji. I was sick before I left the harbour.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

That was nervous. I didn't get seasick at all. Beryl, do you still get the opportunity to travel these days?

SPEAKER_04 10:48

Yes, yes. Well, my daughter and I have planned a trip to Iceland next year. I don't know what the world is going to be like by next year, whether it's going to be safe or not, but let's be hopeful.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

So all this travel that you've done, what from those experiences have you taken to the classroom and passed on to your students?

SPEAKER_04 11:07

I was very much into music and quiets. I went to the Olympic Games with a selection of children that were chosen for the North Coast and s and I was their manager. Sydney Olympic Games, the Paralympics, and the Pan Pacific Games. We did all three of those in 2000. And that was the year I retired. But I I think I I loved to read to the children about places they could go. And I would introduce sort of a French word to a story, and that's French and you know I do. It's French and that just give them. Even now I meet children who'll say to me, Oh, you gave me a a really desire to travel. You would tell your stories when you came back from holidays and I always wanted you to go to the places you went to because you made it sound so exciting. So there you go.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Now, Beryl, you've chosen Anglicare as your social cause. Now you've been a longtime volunteer at Anglicare at the op shop in Ma Maxville. Yes. Ever since I retired.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

Tell us about this experience. Well, it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. Um a very good well, former student of mine, isn't she set up this um hub first in a home, and um through the money we raised the op shop and that we do packages for women's refugees from Coughs Harbour, right down the coast to Port Macquarie. We supply them with packages for children and families, food packages and clothing packages for the homeless, and we also send packages to the hospitals. People are getting to hospital, they've got nothing, they've got no toiletries and that sort of thing. So it covers a wide range and um helps a lot of people. It's amazing how many people on the North Coast are homeless. It shouldn't be happening in this day and age, but it is. It's a tragedy. You know, people that shouldn't be homeless living in tents or in their cars. They're professional people, some of them. They're nurses and that, and they can't get anywhere to live. Because rents and that are too high. It's too expensive.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

So uh separate to the care packages and and the f of food and and clothing, why are uh are organizations like Anglicare, these op shops great for communities?

SPEAKER_04 13:31

They are somewhere people can come to find companionship, not just physical help, but emotional support, which is very, very important. But it's also buying good things they could not afford otherwise. I mean, at the moment we are selling all our lady's clothing for to three dollars a piece. And it's all good stuff, it's all clean, it's all got all its buttons on and all that seams sewn up and it's in perfect condition. And I am always overwhelmed by the amount of donations we receive. People are incredibly generous.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Next stop, everyone travelling up the North Coast is Maxville Anglicare. And look at the barrel and see what little bit of.

SPEAKER_04 14:18

We do get that, Mail. We used to have a wonderful lady made all these jams and pickles and things that people would come as well as far as Victoria and stock up on jams and pickles and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Well, I'm gonna send them to you, and I'm gonna send them to you for travel advice for jams for pickles and upcycled clothing. Sounds exciting. Now, Beryl, in the spirit of Martha Stewart and her kitchen meets life wisdom, we have a tradition here at Three Food Memories where our previous guest passes their kitchen life guidance to you. Our previous guest was comedian and author Bron Lewis, and she would like to pass on to you. There's always a second chance with food as well. If you just stuff it up, just order something in, nothing is at the end of the road. How agreeable are you with that statement?

SPEAKER_04 15:08

Well, I grew up with a mother who could make something out of nothing. And what I learned from her was when you had leftovers, you could do something with them. You would make something. You would make some little patties and fry them up or mix them with something and bit of onion or tomato or something and fry them up. And I would say to mum, Mum, what are we having? And she said, We're having perhaps. And I said, Perhaps. She said, I said, Oh, what are perhaps? She said, Perhaps they'll be good and perhaps they won't. And I've I've tried I've tried to keep that going.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Is there anything you remember from those lost magazines of Ida's Kitchen Wisdom that you'd like to pass on to our next guest?

SPEAKER_04 15:58

Oh, she had such good cookery editors. I loved Margaret Fulton's stuff. I've got some of her books, many women's weekly cookbooks, many. But Ida was just an exceptional editor in the way she the people she got around her that comparted so much wisdom in so many fields. She covered so much, you know, the fashions, the cooking and everything. But as far as a food memory particular to Ida, that escapes me.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Beryl, I'm so thrilled we could catch up again and relive your excitement. Before we go, I did ask you earlier, did you say everything that you could to Ida? And you said, Oh, I'd need a good hour. I'm gonna give you an opportunity to ask Ida a question that you didn't ask her or say to her before, and I'll pass it on to her for you.

SPEAKER_04 16:54

Ida, my dear lovely lady, is there still something in this life that you want to achieve? Because I get the feeling you're not done yet. I think there's many, many miles of wisdom in you that you can pass on to others. Love you dearly, and what a thrill it was to meet you.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Dear Beryl, thank you for being on Three Food Memories. Thank you, Sava.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

Love you.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Oh, I love you too, and we look forward to bumping into you at Anglicare Maxville.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

I'll hold you to that.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

I'm going for the pickle. That's it for this episode of Three Food Memories. Be sure to spread the plated love and check out our hundred-plus back episodes. You can catch them on YouTube as well. Just search for Three Food Memories. For all things TFM, head to the socials at Three Food Memories and at Savasavas. For more info, send us a message, head to threefoodmemories.com. Three Food Memories is produced and edited by Lauren McQuerta with original music by Russell Torrance. Nastika La Philly and bye for now.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Thank you for listening to Papa's podcast. Don't forget to like and subscribe and join your friends. Bye! Bye.