Joan Guppy
Joan Guppy
It all started when Joan, at the tender age of 18, married Bert Guppy and moved from Winton to his Goomalibee property. Since then, Joan has enjoyed the best part of 58 years on the Broken River - and she’s got the memories to prove it.
Joan remembers the days before Nilahcootie when floods were a regular thing. “Before Nilahcootie we used to get a lot of floods here,” said Joan. They used to get near the house, but they only got into the house in ’93.” She remembers the time when the Guppy family had to share two acres with the pigs because the shed was flooded. Because of the lake, there aren’t as many floods now.
Joan remembers the days when her children and her grandchildren would swim and fish in the river. They would catch “a few”, and her grandson even caught a couple of cod. She laments that there’s now more carp than before, but she still sees plenty of wildlife along the river.
She remembers when the river was untidy with snags, and then the authorities came in to clean it up. “It’s quite tidy now,” Joan said.
Bert used to irrigate off the river to support crops and the dairy, and Joan still uses the river’s water for her washing. “My washing still comes out white,” said Joan, referring to the river’s murky-brown colour.
