Celebrating a wonderful century | Photos

An era that’s part of a colourful age, has written a humorous whimsical page,

In the role of the nation’s endeavour.

Remember that school hidden away, deep in a timbered lane.

The winding old track, Oft doubling back,

In the shady and timbered terrain.

And everyone knew each bend and each log, 

And the call of each bird on the wing,

And gidduped along the track with a song, to the jog of the horse and the swing.

Greg Cannon’s own poetry is perhaps the best way to reflect on his life, as the Forbes local celebrates his 100th birthday.

Inspired by his love of the bush, in earlier years he published three books of poetry and yarns.

On Friday, his birthday, he shared some of his favourite yarns and reflected on the many changes he has seen in a century of local life.

Greg Cannon was born on May 13, 1916, to Patrick Kiernan and Mary Francoise (Sicard) Cannon.

Greg and his brothers Jack, Laurie, Paddy, Ginty, Harry and Peter, with their sister Mollie, were brought up on the property ‘Silver Row’ west of Tichbourne.

There was no shower in the farmhouse, the bath was a “great big steel thing, something like one of those old horse feeders”.

The family boiled water in the old wooden copper outside, then added cold water from the tap.

They did have a phone, a precious connection in the days before transport was as easy as it is now.

“It was a wonderful thing - we could ring anywhere and did the ladies have a great time on the phones,” Mr Cannon remembered.

The children attended the one-teacher Warrigal School - about four miles straight west from Tichbourne.

“It was a good two-and-a-half miles (from home) to school,” Greg remembered on Friday.

“We drove by horse and sulky.

“Sometimes we had a bit of a crowd in the sulky - there’d be two little kids in the bottom of it, three on the seat or four, and one standing behind and hanging onto the back of the seat.”

Greg has fond memories of those days …

And sure it was hectic and lively in class, Young Riley was onto a lurk,

With cunning the equal of many a wizard, Quietly would drop a mouse or a lizard, near Teacher’s old-fashioned long skirt.

The culprit was ready with instant concern, to pounce on the horrible thing,

And always got off five minutes to spare, to raid a few lunches, enriching his rare, Ere the dinner time bell would ring.

After completing primary school at Warrigal, Greg attended the Marist Brothers College in Forbes, at the time in Johnson Street.

He graduated from school then returned home to work on the family farm. His father died a short time later, when Greg was about 16.

Greg and his siblings were great tennis players, travelling to Sydney every year to compete in the Country Week tournament.

“We won the doubles - my brother and I - one year,” Mr Cannon said.

In his youth Mr Cannon and his brothers worked their land with a 10-horse team, and he can still describe just how to harness them up in the heavy collar.

He remembers their first tractor, an old steel-wheel International.

“It had big spikey grips on the wheels, before tyres,” he said.

“We sat up in the open - and were they rough!”

While they kept some of their horses for a while, the arrival of the tractor, not to mention the car, was also the end of an era.

“We had a good life,” Mr Cannon said. “We worked hard and we played harder.”

World War II affected the Cannon family as it did so many others.

Greg enlisted and his battalion was stationed in Parkes, building the roads into and out of the army depot in the hills near Bogan Gate.

It was during the war years that he drove the big old Studebaker into Forbes to a dance, where he laid eyes on a “good looking girl”.

“She was a pretty smart girl, in charge of the shoe department at Meaghers,” Mr Cannon said.

“My best mate, when it was getting towards the end of the evening, said ‘I have got the next dance with Audrey and I’m going to see if she’ll let me take her home’.

“Well I hadn’t said a word to her, but I said, ‘you’re too late!’”

Greg made his move in time and it was the right one.

Greg and Audrey Grimshaw were married in November 1942, in St Laurence’s Catholic Church.

Last year they celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary.

When asked about his reflections as he approached his 100th birthday, Mr Cannon just said,

“The best thing in my life was meeting my wife.”

The couple settled on “Binalong”, south of Gunningbland, where they farmed cereal crops and Corriedale sheep for 50 years. They retired into Forbes in 1994.

They raised five children - Peter, Carol, Marion, Robert and Christine.

They now have 14 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

Mr Cannon moved into the Mater Aged Care 18 months ago, where he continues to entertain staff and residents with his wit, dry humour and an occasional recitation of some of his poetry.

His family described his 100 years as “life well-lived, filled with much love, lots of family and friends and many personal achievements.”

Mr Cannon has done a great deal of writing, publishing, Vintage Wheels and the Yarnspinner, The Yarnspinner Listens, The Reluctant Bushranger (the life of Ben Hall) and Under Rural Skies (the story of the Cannon family in NSW).