Mallee history: Aged care residents’ life stories recorded in new book

A fascinating collection of life stories from the Mallee captures a past that otherwise would vanish without trace.

‘WE ARE all storytellers. We all live in a network of stories. There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling.’

That quote is attributed to Jimmy Neil Smith, the founder of the International Storytelling Center in Tennessee.

And it is a sentiment that has been brought to life by a group of residents at Princes Court — an aged care provider in Mildura — who have partnered up with writers to document their life stories.

It was called The Mallee’s Living Histories project, and the final product is a book that is being released on February 10.

“The stories are just captivating, and in the process they capture the history of this part of the world,” says Vernon Knight, one of the writers and book’s publishers, says.

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Over several months, writer and storyteller would meet on a regular basis, with the storyteller gradually revealing their past, their experiences, from 80-plus years of life. The writer would use these interviews as the basis for the stories they would construct.

It seems that some new friendships have formed in that time, and organisers also hope it will have other social and health benefits.

Vernon says he was inspired after hearing about a similar project being run in Melbourne, which was giving patients in palliative care the chance to have their stories recorded for their families. He was involved with an amateur writers group at the time, and raised it with them as a possible project. One member of the group was working with Princes Court, which led to the project being formed.

Stories to be told: Vernon Knight and Sandra Bailey celebrate the completed draft of The Mallee’s Living Histories. They both wrote stories and also oversaw the entire publication.

“We’re hoping that grandchildren in particular will get a good appreciation of some of their forebears,” Vernon says.

“Many of us have been in the situation where our parents have passed on and said ‘I wished I’d asked her about that’ … it starts to fill in some of those gaps.

“There is a lot of fascinating insights into what has happened in the past and the way people lived.”

The story that Vernon was entrusted to write belongs to 87-year-old Enid Borschmann. Originally from Beechworth, she became a teacher and worked across Victoria before landing at Mildura in 1964. She eventually became principal at schools in Mildura (where Vernon’s children attended) and Red Cliffs, and said working in education was “so gratifying”.

She also twice took a leave of absence to go work in the Antarctic region — first at Macquarie Island, and later at Mawson Station.

“I didn’t waste any years,” she says.

“They advertised in the Melbourne papers (about the Macquarie Island role) and it happened to be one of those very rare wet days in Mildura, a Saturday, and I didn’t have to go to work. I was flicking through the ads and thought, oh, there it is, so I filled it out (an application) immediately. No hesitation.”

Enid has lived at Princes Court since last June. Vernon says he wanted to “see another side of this lady. All I’d seen was the school principal and in the process she really opened herself up and I came to appreciate how she broke the glass ceiling (as principal)”.

Princes Court chief executive Jenny Garrone said plenty of care was taken to ensure any resident who took part was comfortable with the process.

But, she says, it gave them an special opportunity.

“There is just so many stories and they are so willing to share their treasured stories with anyone that will listen to them,” she says.

“You can see the depth of the memories and the depth of the things they want to share with others.

“Being the ages they are — we probably have an average age of about 85 in the homes, and 80 in the village — many of them have been involved in the establishment of the Mildura irrigation settlement and the soldier settlement in particular, so the stories they’ve got are stories that need to be captured.

“The diversity is one of the interesting parts, to see the different stories that have come from different people about a range of things.”

Monash University has also been involved in the project, with representatives running a writing workshop with the authors.

Dr Tammy Smith, an education fellow at Monash Rural Health, says they hope to be able to identify any health benefits for participants, educational insights to assist students in working with older people and recommendations for future projects (plans to repeat the project with other residents have been raised).

She says there have been some “really lovely little anecdotes” about how people responded.

“Here was a situation where someone had come in specifically to talk to them and listen to their story,” Tammy says. “That whole action, from what we’ve heard, has made a bit of a difference. There have been some relationships built between the writers and residents that sound like they will be ongoing, they’ve become friendships.”

Enid also believes the project has helped build friendships, eased loneliness for some of the residents, or brought back long-forgotten memories in the storytellers “that gave them joy to think about”.

She says it also gives the writers and anyone who reads the book “food for thought” about both the past and the future.

“It will give possibly an understanding of people in an aged care institution, we’ve got a variety of lives that people have experienced. Maybe things or positions and employment that are no longer with us, sayings that have been forgotten, there are all sorts of things that may have come out.”

Jenny agrees the book carries an important message.

“They are individuals, they’ve led diverse lives, and need to be seen as people with that enriched life,” she says. “We are part of a larger community and we all have a story. You need to be able to have a look behind the person’s features and understand that we all have stories that connect us all really and it is about understanding and taking that time to consider that.”