Sowing seed at Nirvana

When seven-year-old Bessie looked into the distance and saw her 15-year-old brother arriving on horseback, she had mixed feelings.

It was 1929 and her parents had moved the five youngest members of the family from Grenfell to their newly-purchased farm near Narrabri in the family Essex car. Her oldest brother Jim (17) had driven their Model T Ford while Fred and a mate had the responsibility of riding their horses the 470 kilometres to this new property.

Bessie was glad they had arrived safely at “Nirvana” but what Fred didn’t know was that, on their way through Boggabri, his parents, George and Daisy Brown, had invited the Methodist minister to begin conducting a monthly church service in their temporary home.

Bessie was despatched to tell her grubby and no doubt smelly brother and his mate to come and get cleaned up, quickly, because the neighbours from miles around had arrived and church was about to begin.

The depression and drought meant that the monthly church service was held in the family’s tin shed home for the next six years. Divided into three “rooms” by hessian pulled tight on wires, it had a lino-covered dirt floor.

As well as eradicating rabbits, the family worked on sowing wheat in the paddocks, flowers and vegetables in the garden, and God’s love in their hospitality and in their church services.

Eighteen-year-old Phil Hayward moved to the district and became a regular at the services, arriving by pushbike, on horse back or on foot.* Apparently, he was attracted not only to the fellowship and the food, but to young Bessie who by this time had reached the ripe old age of 13.

Eventually, in 1935, the homestead was built and the first of many services was held there. Features already established, and which continue to this day, included fresh flowers, embroidered tablecloths, rousing singing and generous afternoon teas.

To the children, made to sit very quietly in the front row, the sermons often seemed like they would never end. They recall watching the pages of the sermon as the minister turned them over and their enormous relief when the last page was turned.

One time, a fat man arrived late and since there were no other empty seats, the kids shuffled along on their bench and he sat on the end. When, at one point, all the children were asked to stand up, he fell flat on the floor. No-one dared to make a sound.

When, however, a little boy asked Phil Hayward whether Grandpa Putland (who had a bushy, flowing beard) slept with his whiskers under or over the sheet, Phil was in trouble. He thought the question so funny that he had laughed out loud in church.

On another occasion, the service had only just begun when a clap of lightning and a roll of thunder heralded oncoming rain. It was promptly terminated as the farming families rushed to their vehicles and attempted to get home without getting bogged.

World War II arrived and, in a letter to his fiancée, the Rev. Jock Steele wrote that so many husbands and sons had left to fight that the district was a colony of grass widows. Much of the farm work was left to the women and young children.

One of those who left was Phil Hayward who was by this time engaged to Bessie Brown. Never had the prayers of those in the “Nirvana” monthly church services been so fervent.

When Jock Steele himself left for war duty, he left his trusty horse “Whiskers”, on whom he had loved to visit parishioners, at “Nirvana”.

The war ended after six long years and many men didn’t return. But the services continued at “Nirvana”. When Bessie’s brother, Fred Brown, married Phil’s sister, Doris Hayward, and they moved into a second home which had been built on the property “Beringa”, the services moved down there. In 1945, they held the first Boggabri Methodist Fellowship camp in their woolshed.

As they continued sowing good seeds of all sorts on that farm, in the 1950s and ’60s Fred and Doris held a Sunday school on the side verandah of “Beringa”. They also began holding Christian Endeavour camps on the October long weekend.

Fred died suddenly from a brain tumour when he was only in his 50s but his two sons and their families have continued to host the monthly church services.

In September this year, 130 people attended the 80th anniversary celebration of the monthly services. Held at “Beringa”, it included a threesome who had been at the original service in 1929: Bessie, her younger sister Nellie and a neighbour Daisy Bartusch.

Along with neighbouring farmers and other relatives, they celebrated the tradition of sowing the good seed — and of good afternoon teas.

Patricia Hayward is the fifth child of Phil and Bess Hayward (pictured top left).

Three women present at the 2009 service who were little girls at the 1929 service: Bess Hayward (nee Brown), Daisy Bartusch (nee Smith) and Nell Thorpe (nee Brown).