Once upon a time in Tasmania's beautiful Huon Valley, people threw mattresses in the backs of their utes and drove around the district taking in the gorgeous sight of the apple blossom. Men skipped church and went to Gus Brown's 'Perch of Fleas and Lice', and girls who could tell a Jubilee from a Geeveston Fanny were in the running to be crowned as the Apple Queen. The 'If These Halls Could Talk' project, part of Tasmania's Ten Days on the Island Festival, challenged ten writers to investigate the secrets of ten community halls, from Liffey to Zeehan, St Helens to New Norfolk. All the stories, including 'Apple Suite', Danielle's exploration of the Glen Huon Hall and surrounds, appeared in Island magazine 161.
'... in 1972 Britain joined the Common Market and started getting fruit from just across the Channel and overnight our apples weren’t worth Jack Shit – the government paid compensation but we never knew when they’d come with their machines and they turned up at our property right on harvest time and I’ll never forget how we ran down the rows of trees ahead of the dozers trying to collect the last of the fruit...'
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