Queen Hamey

If you can’t find community - build it yourself. Hamey Hayllor started a gym after moving to Dalby, and found her people. 

Brought to you by The Queensland Writers Centre and supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.

Produced by F&K Media.

Transcript

Telling Our Stories to the World is a series from Queensland Writer Center. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast was made. Welcome to Queens of the Land, a series about women carving out their best life on the land. Brought to you by Queensland Writers Center. I'm Jane Hultgren.

And I'm Helen Roche. And today we are headed to the pool to meet this lady. Where is your farm,  uh, located in Dalby? Mm-hmm. How big is it? Uh, about 8,000 acres. Holy. Yours is actually big, isn't it?  Packign some land there. Hamey Hallor is an incredibly busy lady and the only way we could have our chat was while one of her children did swimming lessons and the other one was at piano practice.

My two children didn't have either of those things on. They just came for a swim in the pool  swim. Like 200 meters and then I'll watch. You know Michelle Bridges? Yes. She's the Michelle Bridges of Dalby. Oh, wow. Wow. She's, she owns her own gym. It's called Physical Fix, and it is the biggest, most community centered has a cult following gyms in Dalby.

So many people have been going there for years and years and years. Who was telling me, and I didn't know this about you, because I just always pictured you as like, you know, the Brisbane or the, you know, the city chick that then fell in love with a farm. I have no idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But she said that you grew up like.

On a farm. Yeah. And you're a horsey chick? Yeah. So a thoroughbred farm. It was thoroughbred and cattle. And then where did you meet dad? Uh, I met him, his ex-girlfriend.  Uh, she was living in Dalby and I knew her from college. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And she's like, you gotta come meet my boyfriend. But he doesn't remember that.

And then three years later we met him at a house warming party in Chinchilla. Oh my goodness. Yeah. And you're like, man, he's like, who you? Yeah, pretty much.  Yeah. Wow. And where were you living at the time? Brisbane. You were? Yeah. Yeah. And then he was out here? Yeah. And then did you date? We dated for, I don't know, about four months.

Mm-hmm. And then he and his brother purchased a block of land and happened to have a house on it. Yeah. So his plan was to move in and he's like, should we just move in together? So I moved out after about six. Months. Oh my goodness. Were we, but what were your mates like when you were like, I'm moving out.

It was not my dad. Yeah. Dad like started doing budgets and he is like, I've been looking at rental prices in Dalby. I was like, why? And he's like, oh, well you're gonna need to do a budget on how you're gonna live and this is the kind of rates. And I was like, no, no, I'm moving in with Dan. He was like, well, that's stupid.

What are you saving for marriage?  It's literally not going to buy the cow.  You showed him. Yeah, exactly. It was a whirlwind romance me, him, and then moved out to Dalby six months, like pretty quick by anyone's standards, I'd say. But. It just all worked out brilliantly because she has this amazing life on this farm with her husband and their kids, and she loves it.

Like the kids, you know, they've just got, I think, different freedoms. Yeah. And a lot of other kids don't get Yeah. You know, they go home, they running around in their undies, straight away stripping clothes at the door. Love that. On the motorbikes, they mow my lawn already. Oh my god.  He's being paid.

Actually the last month he's been doing a full tractor job on his own in the paddock. What? He's this kid. He guy. He's eight. He's eight. Yeah. He drives the excavator. The backhoe, you name it. He can drive it. Eli won't take the recycling out. We bought him little tracker so we can like find out where he is.

'cause he goes between farms. And just we are not big on the phone thing. So he got another phone. Yeah. Yeah. Grandma will call me if he gets there in one piece and she'll text you that he's leaving and they're about eight K from us. Oh wow. That's so good. Lovely. Imagine you watching the  little blue dot. I do love the bit that she has given into modern day by having a tracer on him.

Yes. So she can find him. I do like that. So obviously Hamey’s kids are super independent, but when you know Hamey and you hear a bit about her story, you realize why they are the way they are. So many people in Dalby complain about how it's cliquey, how if you weren't born here, you'll never be a local kind of thing.

Hamey heard that and she decided she would write her own story. I think any town, it's very much what you make it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Like lots of people move to small towns and they go, it's very isolating. Or  you know, you don't meet people. But I think that's a them problem. Yeah. Like I feel like what you are willing to put into a small town, you get back tenfold.

How would you feel about working with your husband?  Well, we actually have worked together years ago. Of course, you and Jim have, years ago we had a wine importing business, and we did that for eight years and we didn't kill each other. We used to store the wine in our garage, and we live in a suburban street, so the trucks would drive up to the end of our cul-de-sac, knock on the door and say, uh, I think I've got the wrong address.

And you've got your two little ones running around. Yeah, two little ones running around. Oh my gosh. This is like the alcohol version of Breaking Bad. Yes. That's great for you, Helen. But that is not what happened to Hamey. I knew no one living here. So for me, the plan was to work on the farm. That one was about two days, and I was like, yeah, no, that's not gonna work.

How come. Just, he's different. I really know nothing about that world. Yeah, I can put a fence back together and he will bulldoze it down. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I'm very peopley. And I've always worked for myself, so I kept taking orders from not only my partner, yes. But that was, it was just never gonna work.

And then just started that boxing class to try and meet people.  Oh wow. So when you started that, did you have a vision of you didn't at all? No. I just wanted to do one or two classes a week to meet people. Literally, you were like, I know how I'm gonna get friends. Yeah, and I was still planning on carrying on my maternity nursing business.

Oh, okay. At the same time. Yeah. Um, but then it just grew. Yeah. Wow. They wanted more, they wanted more fitness classes and Yeah. Vision was never to own a gym. She wanted mates and she wanted to find people who were like-minded. She's always been a fitness chick, so she started her own gym classes in the local rugby union hall.

So she owns a gym. He's a farmer. How do they juggle the kids? Well, they get help. We always just knew that we were gonna have to have a nanny. Or an au pair kind of situation. And how's that experience been? Oh, it's been a rollercoaster. Yeah. Yeah. In what way? Well, we've had all types. You mean you've had the,  what's that show where the dad dresses up as a mum - Doubtfire.

So we've had that Doubtfire type.  Yeah. So the French backpacker who, yeah.  Ends up writing a letter and hates me because she's in love with my husband. Oh my God.  And she's older than me, so therefore Hunter should be her child.  That's quite terrifying. I know. Oh my goodness. That's like some kind of stalker movie, isn't it?

It, yes. It, wow is, and I don't know about you, Helen, but I've always kind of had this dream or fantasy, I suppose, of having an au pair to help me out. Obviously that dream was crushed. The other kind of romantic idea I had of farming life was of course, from the iconic show - Farmer Wants a wife. Yes. Do you like Farmer Wants a Wife?  You know, it looks like it'd be quite idealistic, you know, going and living in the country with this very gorgeous farmer. No dramas are ever shown, and the women are always looking great, but I don't imagine that that's what it's really like.  Yes, correct. When I asked Hamey if there's anything that she thinks that city people get wrong about her life with Dan, she said this: Farmer Wants a Wife is not at all the picture like. 

And we laugh because, you know, in the dating stage you'd go to the football games and you know, I mean, you'd all have a drink on a Saturday night that was very social. You worked to play, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Progress that forward to marrying a farmer. Yeah. And procreating with a farmer.

Yep. One, they're never home. Yeah. So you're doing it all on your own. You are pretty nice. Which I get because the land is very weather dependent. Yeah. You know, when they've gotta do something, they've gotta do something and then you watch these shows and it's like date nights and wine and this, these farmers are all there all the time and everything's like, let's go on a tractor planting together and Yeah, I've done that dating. Yeah. But now reality that is like, oh, I've gotta go and do a quick check of moisture around the paddock. Yes. This is just yesterday. Yeah. Do you wanna come? I was like, how long is it gonna take? He's like, oh, about four hours. I was like, quick, no, thank you.

Quick thing if anything works. And we have two children, so sitting in a car for four hours with no point, like just a round trip. No, four. Yeah. It’s a no from me. Yeah.  Or do you wanna come and check a ditch that it, you know, might pop? I'm like, no. Dark, mosquitoes and there's two, two children at home asleep in bed.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. No, not conducive to, uh, hangout time. His picnic down.  And don't get me wrong, there are some perks like Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of times when the kids were little, if I didn't make the effort to go and see Dan and take your dinner on a tractor with the kids, he wouldn't see them. 

Wow. So you could classify that as a day night, I guess, of like romantic.  Ah, sure. The pajamas, the wife there. There's four of us in a tractor. Cows. You fed them, bath them, and now you are Uber eats-ing it. Yes. On a tractor. It's definitely. Not as pretty as it seems. No.  Do farming wives, do you guys bond over being like single mums?

A hundred percent. Yeah.  Ah, yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That, yeah. That would be, I think that's one of the biggest bonding aspects is ‘Oh, we're so blessed to be married to farmers.’ Yeah.  Yeah. So much time. Yeah. So relaxing. So relaxing. Yeah. And nobody would quite get it, like other people, especially like. I imagine if I was in your situation and somebody was like, oh, my husband's working all the time, he'd be like, oh darling, you don't know.

Yeah. Like you don't, yeah, you don't know.  Is there a a level of like anxiety as well? What's always gotten me like the fact that you can put in those months and months and that money, and then in an afternoon what. Like how do you come, so that happened at Christmas this year? Yeah. Dan was on a planter doing something scuffling and then within three hours it was all gone to hail. Like just sticks to off the whole crop and he missed Christmas 'cause he was doing that. 

I reckon that's why they have a cotton conference at casino because farming is gambling.  I couldn't get that image out of my head when I heard that in three hours. It's just sticks. Your heart must just sink, you know, all of that planting and that watering and that turning over the soil and it's nothing.

And, and then the panic. Yeah. How are we gonna feed the fa? How are we gonna get the money? Mm. Well, Hamey’s off doing her gym thing, you know? And that's helping bring the money in, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. But still not compensating for those massive cotton crops that are the backbone of their business. I imagine.

So the other thing that I found really interesting about Hamey is her get up and go spirit. And she just went out there and found her own community. A hundred percent. I think that takes a lot of courage. Absolutely, I think Hamey is just one of those chicks where she, holy dearly, I want some of her thinking, her mindset in my life.

'cause she's just like, you want it? Get it. You want it to change, change it. She's very black and white in that way, and I find that so inspiring. I don't know about you, but the older I get, the more I crave friendship and the harder I find making friends. Like, it's one of those sort of things and it's, it's very easy, I think to fall into a, oh, like tell yourself a story.

Like, oh, I don't have many friends. And just hearing how Hamey just goes out there and makes our own reality, like, you've gotta put yourself out there. If you want to create that community, you just do. And.  She did and I find that, yeah, I find that really inspiring and lead by example. Yeah. Like she's doing it and other people see her doing it and go, I just want some of that as well.

Yeah, absolutely.  You are listening to Queens of the Land, a season of the Telling Our Stories to the World podcast, brought to you by the Queensland Writers Center and supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. Produced by F and K Media. Stick around to hear what we've got planned for next season of telling our stories to the world. 

Stick around to hear what we've got planned for next season of telling our stories to the world.  Hi, Lori-Jay, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Helen. Thanks for having me. You are the CEO for the Queensland Writers Center.

Can you tell us what's in the works for next season of telling our stories to the world? Well, it's fingers crossed at the moment. We are desperately looking for that kind of funding for it, but we are very excited by this one. It's Mornington Island. We are looking up in the Torres Strait. We are looking at Indigenous and First Nations writers, capturing their stories, how they wanna capture them.

Really excited. This is, uh, a long way away. So we've gotta get our bums up there, get our writers up there, put the tools up in place for those people to be able to capture their stories and then to disseminate them and share it with people. Wow, that sounds so exciting and hot. Exciting. And hot and hot.

Yes. I'm very excited to be part of that.  Now, what's the idea behind Telling Our Stories to the World and how long have you been doing it for? So this cycle is number three. Mornington will be number four. We started off with Telling Our Stories to the World as social prescription with Department of Health in Queensland.

So we went out into Longreach and Barcaldine and we were looking for people who were struggling with mental health and using the small act of writing to be able to get them talking about their stories. We quickly understood that there's gonna be people who can write a postcard for us or tell us a story.

And then we found a couple of people who are writers and that was very exciting. We've got a couple of people now, or published authors from that first wave, and that's from finding them, giving them the tools, like I said, and then they're just off and running with their own stories. Uh, so with the postcards, I did this first session myself, and we took a book about the lost crayons, and when the crayons got lost, they sent a postcard back home.

So I had all the little kids. And in these towns you've got children from like four years old up to 14, 15 in the same classroom. So you need something that everyone's gonna be able to do. So we had them just write one or two sentences about, I love living in Longreach because, and this is what I do with my family.

Then we told them we were gonna share this postcards we're gonna post them, uh, around the world. And the first year we went to Germany and Japan and we sent them to classrooms over there and they wrote stories back as well that we then sent back to those schools. So it really was like a postcard exchange, uh, between two different very different groups of children across the world. This allows us to talk to the children and the children. Go, mum, I really liked this. Take me to the library this afternoon where those trainers are gonna be. Then we get to speak to the parents. So it's really a double kind of you know, it's a folded environment where we start off here with the aim of like, let's speak to the parents about what their worlds are like out here, and do they have any in this particular instant mental health issues that we needed to tackle.

Second Wave was working with climate deniers, so the Department of Science and Environment. Really exciting. You're talking to kids in schools. Trying to beat their parents so that we can have that really deep conversation about what does it look like when we tackle climate, when we have to endure it, when we are living with it, it's not going anywhere.

So what are those changes? Using the kids to get their mums and dads down to the libraries. And again, the small acts of writing. And we found some great stories that we shared through anthologies and things like that.  And then last yeah? Well last year was Helen's year.  We met with camels. We met with women on their farms, women in rural and regional Queensland, in that southeast region.

And I think what's really important here was these stories need to be told in their voices, we haven't homogenised these stories. They are very clearly coming from the land of those, um, people and sharing it with, uh, the rest of the state, the rest of the country. And now on our podcast.  We're very excited.

What a wonderful project, Lori-Jay, and I think everyone should get on board with it. Now, if people do have an idea for any seasons, would you like to hear from them? We would love to. In particular, if you know something about your region that the rest of us think we know. But we probably have the wrong end of the stick.

'cause you know, we are from the city or we're from, you know, the coast or something like that. We really wanna find, did you know that this is what happens out here? One of the things that was very exciting with the first telling our stories to the world was we asked kids, what's it like to live in Barcaldine?

And they'd be like, I go pigging with dad and we have meat and three veg. And we, we were like, from the city, we were like, oh really? And is that the same when we send those postcards to the children in Japan? And the kids were like, yes. I'm like, do you think they've got guns?  Oh, wouldn't they? Do you think they go pigging?

Do you think? And it was very much this broadening of their world as well as they come in. And that's something we wanna keep their stories, but share them with, uh, the rest of the world. And then vice versa. So I think that's one of the most powerful things that this project does is share those stories.

Thanks so much for that, Lori-Jay It's a really exciting project and I'm very, um, interested in seeing where it goes to next. Well, if anyone calls from Hamilton Island, we are free to also help with those stories. Definitely.