Bega Pioneers' Museum has countless files on people and places. This one was written by Len Spindler about his life in the valley.
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I WAS born at the Lodge, Kameruka, on January 10, 1910, the eldest boy in a family of five children. I had two brothers, Frank and Joe, and two sisters, Muriel and Dot. Dot’s twin, Daisy, died at birth. My mother christened me Leonard after Sir Leonard Tooth.
John Scarvell was the manager in my time. Before him, in Dad’s days, were the Wrens and the Champroys. There were about ten dairies on Kameruka and they were all named. A few I can still remember – River View, Jersey Stud.
Many Dutch and German families were brought to Kameruka for their cheese-making expertise. My grandparents came out from Germany and settled at Kanoona, where they raised 19 children. Dad started farm work at Kameruka while still very young and later married Hilda, the adopted daughter of Daddy and Nana James.
Three of Dad’s brothers were cheesemakers and when Kameruka held the world record for Dutch cheese, the cheesemaker was Andrew Godfrey. Dad was a popular man on Kameruka as he was a good farmer and could prune fruit trees. Butter and milk were free and meat was very cheap. As well as its cheese and prize dairy herd, Kameruka was noted for its peaches and the Estate would supply the workers with cartridges to shoot the flying foxes when they attacked the fruit.
In season we would help the head gardener catch the birds in the big grape enclosure and we would eat more grapes than the birds, until he would catch us and hunt us home. They were happy years growing up on Kameruka with the tenants like one big happy family.
When I turned five I started school at Candelo, which meant a three-mile walk with the other kids. On my first day I whacked a kid with a stick, then crawled under the school and wouldn’t come out till it was time to go home. I stayed at that school for about two years. The teacher’s name was Miss Sheath.
Then came Kameruka school and I quite often sat behind a tree till playtime in order to miss maths. The teacher’s name was Miss Morgan and she rode an old horse called Cable. School lunch was mostly bread and jam and two peaches, which we often missed out on as the old horse would eat them while we were in school.
