Dad is local filmmaker Mark Lewis, a 40-year industry veteran who is acclaimed for his witty, off-the-wall documentaries, most famously his 1988 study of cane toads that highlighted the more cuddly qualities of the reviled amphibian.

His daughter is Los Angeles-based Molly Lewis, perhaps the world’s most famous whistler, a winner of international competitions, who has performed alongside musicians from Dr Dre to Jackson Browne, and is a recording artist in her own right. She opened for Beck on his recent American tour, collaborated with Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt on the Barbie soundtrack, whistling Billie Eilish’s What Was I Made For?, and fronts lavish gala dinners for the likes of Hermes, Chanel and Gucci. In 2017, by special request, she whistled Danny Boy and Just a Closer Walk with Thee for Harry Dean Stanton as he lay on his deathbed.

Mark is a member of the judging panel for the festival’s inaugural Green Frame Nature Documentary Award – Australia’s first prize dedicated exclusively to environmentally aware films; Molly will play a more visible part, both onscreen, in the opening night film, Whistle, and in a live demonstration of her spellbinding skills.
Watching, or rather, hearing her perform – evoking the haunting soundtracks in the spaghetti westerns of Ennio Morricone – will alone be worth the price of a ticket.

The presence of the two at the festival was purely coincidental, taking even director Christian Pazzaglia by surprise – and delighting him.

“I’m a big believer in this kind of serendipity,” he says. “I love it when things like this happen. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Mark is a Northern Rivers local of more than 30 years standing, and three-time Emmy winner. Many of his myriad documentary films are about nature: his first, Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Short Film and was for years one of Australia’s top grossing documentaries. It established his international reputation and ushered in a rich and productive career, but its success has also been something of a burden.

Displaying the irony and understatement that characterises his films, Mark says: “Unfortunately, ‘Cane Toads’ is now my middle name.” He has made many films since then, he reports, but it’s the toads everyone remembers.

Despite his output, he is uncomfortable with the description ‘documentary filmmaker’: “You know, my documentaries are fairly different. Nature films have tended to be very conventional, and mine are not conventional in any respect, including the fact that they’re mostly about the human-animal connection.
A few of them are from the point of view of the animal.”

Cane Toads used cameras that were mostly on the ground, looking up at the human interview subjects, and straight on at the toad, giving the species a lot of respect. Yet, despite supposedly being about cane toads, it is really about people, including plenty who admire and even love the animal; their stories are endearing and at times hilarious.

High-brow commentator Elizabeth Farrelly said the film’s approach revealed a filmmaker who loved Australianness “but could also, without slapstick or condescension, take the piss”.

The opening night film, Whistle, made by Aussie Christopher Nelius, shares the same uniquely Australian flavour, both funny and generous spirited.

Christian says when he saw the film last year he thought it would be perfect for opening night at the Bangalow festival, “because I wanted something uplifting, something light.

“I think we’re all quite stressed out these days, and to be honest, people don’t want to see more of it.
“We want to start on a high note, and to close on one,” (with Gaucho Gaucho, a romantic celebration of the cowboys and girls of the pampas).

Whistle is in the vein of Best in Show, documenting an eccentric group of international whistlers, Molly Lewis among them, as they descend on Hollywood to compete in the Masters of Musical Whistling, the world’s most prestigious whistling competition.

Molly is now perhaps the most successful among them. Mark says proudly of his daughter, “she’s a genre of one. Extraordinarily successful. She’s a professional whistler, and maybe the only one”.

Molly’s ability is all her own, Mark says: “I can’t whistle to save myself, I’ve got two left feet, can’t dance, can’t sing, can’t play any instruments. But she was the opposite.” At a very young age she was astonishing dinner guests with her ability. 

Christian has an idea to have a whistling competition during the festival, and have Bangalow residents whistling for days during and after the event. Naturally, Molly would be the judge: a panel of one. 

The Green Frame Award has been a couple of years in the making, Christian says – and was inspired by the fact that Bangalow has proved “a good home” for environmental and nature films over the festival’s history. 

“And we just wanted to go a step further, not only in terms of showing them or giving a bit of money to a winner, but really as a method of getting more people to make these kind of films. Nature docs, environmental films, are really magical in the way that they empower viewers; they bring you closer to nature and you feel emphatically motivated to do something about these issues. The award gives them a spotlight.” 

Next year he wants to double the impact, with a three-day industry forum, where “filmmakers, producers, philanthropists, government bodies, everyone, can come and help grow the genre” and help put Bangalow on the national map. 

“We’re so lucky around here, that in the hills and on the coast there’s so many amazing filmmakers, photographers, producers that are already producing some of the best work we make in Australia, but there’s no connection. We don’t know they’re there. So this is a way also to bring everything together.” 

One of these amazing artists he also learned about serendipitously, through chatting to a friend who happened to mention his brother was Jono Allen. 

“Jono Allen! who just won the biggest prize in the world for nature photography (the 2026 World Nature Photographer of the Year Gold Prize and Grand Jury Prize). I couldn’t believe it. And he lives in Byron!” Jono is now on the Green Frame jury alongside filmmaker Molly Reynolds (My Name is Gulpilil), long-time Sir David Attenborough collaborator Chadden Hunter, and screen academic Anne Chesher. 

In choosing the five nature films, Christian says he wanted to give a sense of how diverse both nature and the style of making nature documentaries can be. 

As a judge, Mark will be looking closely at how the filmmakers use all the different elements at their disposal: the soundtrack, the music, the direction, the camera work. And, of course, an approach that shuns conventionality. 

bangalowfilmfestival.com.au 

Every Tuesday night the Bangalow Hotel rocks to the sound of a bunch of passionate people doing what they love best – playing chess, and watching others play.

Five or six years ago the game broke free of its stereotypes to become one of the world’s most followed spectator activities. The 20 or so regulars at the Bangalow Chess Club are a perfect illustration of this: young, diverse, enthusiastic, and willing to come from afar every week to socialise and compete against each other.

Avalon, currently No. 1 on the leader board, travels from Mullumbimby; and the reputed ‘most improved’ player, Bradley, comes all the way from Nimbin. There’s even an international flavour to the line-up, but 2479 locals also feature among the throng, among them man about town, Lydian Dunbar.

They’re drawn by the chess challenges on offer, but something more as well – an atmosphere of camaraderie and respect. There’s an almost family vibe to the club: indeed, Evan Manttari founded it with his brother Daniel, and former girlfriend Shyla, a bar staffer at the pub. They were looking for something to get them off their screens and out of the house, something which meant the brothers could hang out together regularly. Now Daniel and his girlfriend Teagan – a recent recruit to the game – drive up frequently from their home in Yamba.

Shyla’s mum, Bec, is another who started as a beginner, and says she’s making solid progress. Her main weakness is taking too long to decide on a move, she says, and with each player rationed to 10-minutes for each of the four games played through the night, such hesitancy can mean an automatic loss. The time pressure suits Bec’s other daughter, Amarlie, at 16 the club’s youngest member, who credits her success to a fast, decisive style. It can intimidate opponents, she says, smiling sweetly as she concedes the word ‘aggressive’ might define her style – including in games against her more tentative mum.

But even ruthless Amarlie admits it’s the sense of community that keeps her coming back.

Avalon is one of the more experienced players here: after being taught to play at a young age by his grandfather, he helped set up chess clubs at all the schools he attended while growing up, from Shearwater to Xavier to the Green School. Of the many chess groups and associations he’s been part of, the Bangalow club is the best, he says. The reason? Because the focus is on actual playing. With at least four games guaranteed per player, it’s like a mini tournament. Self-described as “incredibly competitive”, Avalon enjoys the opportunity to play several games, face to face, and with a variety of opponents.

Some of them are, like him, top-notch players and on one rainy Tuesday night in early March, Avalon was slightly startled to find himself suddenly in a trap – the result of a mid-game “fried liver advanced attack variation” – laid, albeit semi-accidentally, by the equally competitive Miela. Checkmate!

At other tables, beginner or intermediate players compete with others at their level – matched appropriately through an algorithm-driven system devised by Evan. While the club offers no formal coaching, there’s plenty of learning ‘on the job’ and during post-game analysis, when the better players offer fruitful feedback.

There are several tiers here; everyone finds their level and they’re all eager to improve. Rob, in his 30s, plays games online. He also follows the games of world No.1, Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, on YouTube and is “working on some new openings”.

At 21, rising star Bradley, meanwhile, feels his strength is in his end game. Having come to the club every Tuesday since it began last September, his game has improved 100%, he says.

Towards the end of the four games an air of collective excitement builds at the prospect of a tie-break. At this point, the four 10-minute per person limit shrinks to three-minutes, demanding a heightened degree of concentration and rapid decision-making. The Velvets and Mazzy Star continue supplying the background music, but as the tension rises, even the drinkers and pool players fall silent to watch. The time pressure means mistakes are made: Black’s excessive focus on a potential checkmate in one corner distracts him from the devious White manoeuvre diagonally opposite and whammo! It’s all over.

Evan, meanwhile, has been scampering around in the background, a gleeful master of ceremonies, firing up the AI generated weighted system that records games, matches players and keeps everything moving. The nights represent a magical triad for him: “It’s an ancient game, aided here by modern technology, bringing people together.”

Time to spin the prize-wheel, on which everyone features, with a ‘slice’ allocated for just turning up, and the awarding of the evening’s $20 voucher.

Chess has exploded in the past half dozen years – partly as a result of the massively popular streaming series The Queen’s Gambit, which coincided with COVID lockdowns. Locked-up people found release and stimulation in “meeting” others over the virtual board. Evan says the fulfilment of that personal need is one of the main reasons for the club’s success. Most of the members still play online, but they all state that it’s the face-to-face interaction that brings them out at night.

Bec enjoys it because “there are so many different types of people’” and the atmosphere is friendly and, while competitive, remains respectful, she says.

Chess is an incredibly valuable activity for young people, Avalon says: “It builds a level of resilience, a determination to persevere, to keep your chin up despite losing 100 times. It also develops the capacity for forethought.”

There’s even a moral, or character-building benefit to it: “It teaches humility and it’s a demonstration that our actions have consequences,” he says.

Mainly, however, at this grass-roots level, it’s the “humanness” of it, says Evan, the craic and the connection, both intellectually sophisticated and innocent.

It’s been a revelation for him: “Daniel and I started the club for ourselves, but it’s become something for others. People have made friends here; it costs nothing, but there’s real joy in that room.”

Bangalow Chess meets every Tuesday, 6-9pm at the Bangalow Hotel.

For details email bangalowchess@gmail.com

Photos Yutaro Fukuhara

It is only natural that someone devoted to supporting the well-being of bees should prove as buzzy and life-affirming as the sight of the industrious insects going about their business in our garden or bushland.

But the warmth and enthusiasm that apiarist and floral alchemist Laodekia brings to the task verges on the preternatural – and indeed, her approach to the crucial undertaking involves a substantial sprinkle of cosmic vision.

Laodekia not only shepherds her own network of hives at Nashua, but she is the visionary behind a project to turn spare ground at the rear of the Coorabell Hall into a wild bee sanctuary – a food garden for them and a meeting and “grounding” place for bee-loving humans.

Her guiding angels in the enterprise are the bees themselves, Laodekia says, as the selection of Coorabell Hall as a location for a pollinator haven demonstrated.

“Coorabell is such a beautiful and significant site,” she says, “looking out over both the hinterland and the ocean.” Her initial intention was to build a garden full of edible medicinal flowers there, “like a living apothecary”, where people could come and pick healing plants for themselves. Then came the idea to bring in bees – natives, and the European variety as well.

But it turned out the bees had got there before her. The same day she received the OK from the hall’s managers to create a garden at the rear, Laodekia learned that a thriving wild hive already existed there.

It seemed magical to her and her fellow apiarists. “The bees welcomed us here, and they kind of confirmed that this is what’s meant to happen,” she says. “It tells you that the place is already perfect, right?”

An opening ceremony for the sanctuary was held a year ago followed by a number of gatherings “where we got to meet the bees, and be around them and their sound, which is super healing”.

There are regular get-togethers at the equinox and solstice dates where, as well as communing with the bees, group members offer something to the community, such as a sound healing or a floral alchemy session.

Laodekia attends the garden at least twice a week, and others pop in to water and mulch. Twenty new flowering seedlings were planted as this article was being prepared, just in

time for the rain mid-month. It has evolved into something of a sanctuary for locals as well. Anyone can come and bring offerings to the bees and many often just sit to enjoy a connection with nature.

“We all need sanctuaries,” says Laodekia, who insists that what the bees provide humanity far exceeds what we do for them.

There are other sanctuaries near Bangalow, including one behind Newrybar Community Hall which the Colony Bees group has serviced since 2022, where a strong population of sugarbag bees (Tetragonula carbonaria) are thriving in a log hive. The area supports many other swarms and wild hives.

Laodekia has her own apiary at her home in Nashua. Its name, Pleiapia, is a blend of the words Pleiades and Apis, because her seven hives are laid out like the Pleiades constellation, the ‘Seven Sisters’ that traditional farming communities consult to plan their planting season.

The hives are home to European bees, but the property, lush with medicinal plants, a hundred bush tucker trees and set amid a rainforest, is like “a big sanctuary planted all around us,” Laodekia says, and the flowers are usually alive with the sugarbag species. “We have blue lotuses in the pond, and the Europeans and the natives are all there together, pollinating, rolling in the flowers.

They all get along, he said. No drama.”

The plants in the garden at Coorabell Hall are all pollinator friendly, and many are also natural insect repellents. There’s Melissa (lemon balm), which she says the bees love: “It’s a plant of joy.” There are also sunflowers, salvia, sage, holy basil (Tulsi), rosemary, hyssop, some calendula, borage, echinacea. Blue and purple colours as much as possible.

Most of the seedlings planted here come from the Byron Bay Herb Nursery. “We work together really well. They love what we do and we love what they do,” Laodekia says.

The goal now is to create sanctuaries all over the Shire – a pollinator corridor with multiple different sites, nourishing biodiversity – and resilience.

Other halls have said yes to the establishment of a pollinator sanctuary, but for now Laodekia is keen to slow down. “The more I do, the less I can actually be present,” she says. And for someone who sees beekeeping as akin to parenting, just being present is the most important thing. “That relates to the health of the hives as well, and the garden. The most beautiful garden is the one where the grandma is there all day.

“I just want to anchor my energy here first, make this the environment that I wanted it to be, and extend from there. It’s also important getting more people involved. Like, we can do it, but everyone needs to be part of it. It’s not a one-person thing, it’s not just me. This is a community thing.”

The tiny stingless sugarbag bees endemic to the north east of Australia are among the most community-minded of all bees, with a highly developed social structure compared with other species.

The loose coalition of sanctuary supporters in the region aim at a similar cohesion and cooperative spirit. Their project has taken on a life of its own, Laodekia says, with members joining forces to grow more pollinator sanctuaries within – and for – our community.

As part of the natural cycle of things, the Coorabell bees have migrated from their tree trunk home behind the hall, so the plan now is to bring in a variety of new hives, in the hope that the bees will settle in. If all goes well, you will see – and hear – both native and European bees at the Coorabell Sanctuary by the end of swarming season.

The Flower Show is on at Coorabell Hall on March 14 and 15; Laodekia will be offering visitors ‘a little floral alchemy session’, outlining the healing power of plants.

The evolution of Pearces Creek Hall into a “must play” venue in recent years is an extraordinary development, a resurrection largely due to the efforts of local resident Simon Winfield. The softly-spokenEnglishman doesn’t stand out as someone who has resolved to “go harder” in life – but that is exactly what he has chosen to do: dedicate himself to turning the tiny heritage hall into a vibrant, and sustainable, cultural hub.

Since 2019, Simon has raised funds, booked performers, MC’d shows and, as café loungers in Bangalow’s high street can testify, posted concert fliers wherever there’s a space.

He’s a ball of calm, can-do energy, committed not only to the hall but also to its natural and social environment. The hall’s presentations come mainly in the form of roots music – folk, country, bluegrass – but it is also building a solid track record as a centre for the dissemination of progressive ideas, everything from regen agriculture to the use of sound as a tool for healing.

An increasing awareness about health and longevity helped to concentrate Simon’s mind further, he says, “because you realise you don’t know what your life expectancy is, right? I’m not saying that negatively; it’s just a reminder that you’re not going to live forever, and a stimulus to live more fully.”

Born in England, Simon lived in Africa and Europe for his first 14 years, then went to boarding school in Britain, followed by a career in finance in London and New York. When he and his wife, Jen, and their three young children travelled the world in 2003 they came across Byron Shire. The memory stayed with them and four years later they came back.

They rented homes in Bexhill, then Clunes and Bangalow before settling in Pearces Creek. The children attended Bangalow PS and Byron High, and both parents got involved – “the usual things, like the P&C, the school canteen stuff,” Simon says.

“What I loved about the schools in this area was that you could get involved; it’s encouraged, and it’s part of your contribution, and a great way to meet people. The volunteer aspect of this country is incredible in whatever form it might take, whether you’re looking after Heritage House or, you know, working on the local paper.”

Volunteering seems part of his DNA: he has also signed up to help at the Writers Festival for the past eight years.

Their Pearces Creek home sits on 30 acres and as the “the house and child person” with a wife busy with full-time studies, Simon was keen to learn about how to best manage the land. “I hadn’t a clue about anything,” he says, so he set about finding out, at numerous field days, agricultural studies at SCU and Wollongbar TAFE and an “absolutely fascinating” trip to (Natural Sequence Farming movement founder) Peter Andrews’ place near Canberra.

Simon credits his commitment to reviving the hall to his interest in land management. He understood that as someone who was “basically an immigrant who’s worked in an office for 25 years” – he couldn’t lean over the fence and say to the third or fifth generation farmer ‘have you thought about doing it this way?’

“So we invited Brian Wehlberg, the holistic management and regenerative ag educator, to the hall to do a talk, and it was very well attended.” Since then, they have hosted 16 talks, with artists, foragers, farmers, nearly all of them connected with the land and environment, attended by about 1000 people altogether.

While his hopes of creating a viable alternative farm have not been realised (“because I haven’t put in the physical labour”) their property has seen a huge increase in biodiversity, and the hall has similarly thrived.

By 2019, the hall was in decline: there was no money in the kitty and the committee was looking for new people and new ideas. Simon felt the community needed a hall and had an obligation to make it viable.

They ran a raffle and raised $3000, applied for government grants, held craft markets and, when a speaker dropped out, invited Immortal Soils’ Bob Horan and Selena Murray to stage one of their large-scale botanical art installations, which opened up the possibilities for the space.

Musical events followed, and the confidence felt by the team of enthusiastic volunteers to stage such acts grew – as did the hall’s reputation among performers as a terrific venue. Musicians, it seems, love to play there: it’s intimate, a haven apart from the busy world. “They also love being welcomed; and so does the audience. They love the food, and having a cup of tea and a piece of homemade cake.”

Above all, it’s a true listening space, where the music is the focus, and the audiences are attentive, appreciative. World-class bluegrass band Midnight Chicken declined the offer of moving the benches out for the second half, so people could dance. “They go, ‘no, we don’t want dancing. We want listening audiences’.”

The hall best suits acoustic acts, with complex harmonies and a close connection with the audience: “We ask all our musicians to play at least one song with no electronic sound, and ideally down off the stage,” Simon says.

At the first gig in 2026, bluegrass quartet Charley Castle and the Boys in the Well did just that, closing their show with a four-part a cappella rendition of Goodnight Irene that had some in the audience reaching for their hankies.

Local musicians are encouraged too. Hootenanny Highway, Will Hearn and Tara-Lee Byrne have recently used the hall for rehearsals, recording and performances.

Honey and Silk play on the first Saturday of this month, and another country duo, Wicker Suite, appear the following weekend – part of a tour in which they’re just playing country halls. Interspersed with the music there is a launch of Ian Kirkland’s book Booyong and Pearces Creek District – Part of the Big Scrub and cellist and sonic alchemist Tara-Lee is returning with her CELLOFINITY – a cello sound bath, where participants lie on the floor to soak up the chakra-healing reverberation of the music.

To an audience member, it feels as if the hall’s growing success is not only due to Simon’s enthusiasm as a promoter but also to his passion for such concepts, and for this kind of music.

“There is a selfish side to it,” he admits. “The musicians I book are a reflection of my tastes. But I don’t want it to be just my taste. And the same with the talks. I want to have a product that people can take somewhere else or use. There’s no point in me doing it if it can’t … if it doesn’t have a life after me.”

Those country inclinations, including a robust sense of community, are still very much alive in Anouska, but she has lived up to her exotic name, accumulating decades of experience in Australia and overseas as a dancer, singer, writer, choreographer, theatre director and teacher. Ten years ago, she channelled that experience into co-founding the Bangalow Theatre Company (BTC), and becoming its president and artistic director.

Margaret Curtis, BTC’s musical director during those 10 years, says Anouska’s boundless optimism, paired with her creative brilliance, have made her a true dynamo in the Bangalow community. “I continue to be amazed by her remarkable talent for selecting productions that are not only crowd-pleasers but also thought-provoking and deeply relevant,” Margaret says.

The company’s work has become legendary across the region – and beyond – and it now has a momentum that is both exhilarating and exhausting for Anouska and her team of hardworking volunteers. Even before the curtain had fallen on its last hit, the musical Come From Away, BTC was organising the next – Vivid White, which opens in March at the Brunswick Picture House.

A key factor in deciding upon this stage play was its writer, Eddie Perfect. A few years ago, Anouska directed another of his works, The Beast, and its darkly comedic story of several tree-changing couples’ search for an idyllic rural life going horribly wrong “landed beautifully” with local audiences, she says.

Similar digs at the aspirational class are a feature of Vivid White, a satirical musical about property-owning Australians that’s based on a personal experience Perfect had of house hunting in Melbourne. Among its targets are the national obsession with property, real estate pretension, interior designers, and the trend of knocking down beautiful old homes to build something soulless and, invariably, white.

There’s also a deeper undercurrent – about the growing divide between those who own a home and those who rent. It’s dystopian, and features an oversized octopus, one of an army of cephalopods working in conjunction with realtors to take over the world, a world in which renters are ‘disappeared’. “It’s full on,” Anouska says, slightly concerned it may ruffle some feathers in the local gentry. “Like, it really goes there. But it’s comedy; it’s a musical, after all.”

Anouska will direct, a role she has often filled since she and Adrienne Megan Lester founded BTC in 2015. It started with a huge launch party in the A&I Hall and when some guests offered to sign up “we just went, right, ‘what’s our first production?’,” she says, and decided on The Drowsy Chaperone, a witty musical that parodies the genre.

The immediate challenge was to find male actors, including some with tap dancing, roller-skating and singing skills. The niche casting meant auditions were prolonged and the rehearsal schedule unusually brief.

“It was crazy. The whole production was very quick, but it felt alive. I felt I had found the energy and buzz that, moving back here from Sydney, I was kind of missing,” she says.

It filled a deeper personal need too, one instilled by her dad’s lifetime of community volunteering; the drive to be part of something meaningful and inclusive. Watching “40-year-old men with no experience suddenly singing a solo and tap dancing across the stage” brought her real joy.

Her parents were still living on the farm near Kingscliff at the time. It was the best place to grow up, she says, and she wanted a similar upbringing for her kids.

Her own schooling was at Duranbah Public School, where the community ethos was strong. “If someone had a birthday, the whole school would be there.” She started dance classes and piano at about eight, then acting and drama, then singing, “and it just snowballed”.

At Kingscliff High School, her enchantment with performing deepened: she did well in her HSC dance and music exams, and “lent into” choreography from then on. “I absolutely loved it. You couldn’t get me out of the dance studio. Recess, lunchtime, I was there.”

Afterwards she gained a double degree in dance and drama education, and a diploma at Brent Street Performing Arts, then it was agency work and travel overseas to perform. Back home she sang and recorded with a pop group and learned how to make films. “This is like 25 years ago, in Kings Cross,” she says. “Such a fun time.”

Her work with BTC takes up 70% of her work time, and is unpaid. “This is my love job,” she says, though she never imagined that her life would involve so much volunteering.

Her ‘day jobs’ include teaching at several schools, and privately, as well as choreography workshops up and down the coast, and at state festivals, along with running the BANG! Academy of Performing Arts, and much more. It sounds exhausting, and she admits to feeling the fatigue at times.

A “pumping adrenal gland” helps carry her through – and something less corporeal: “I can see the benefits within the community of what I’m trying to do. I do a lot of improvisation in my classes, and just that playfulness, that spontaneity, I find so magical. Seeing people ignite and laugh is kind of magic.”

The optimism Margaret Curtis notes manifests itself as an irrepressible energy, and a deeply rooted belief in the power of the performing arts to help people, especially the young, to be “grounded”, to boost their capacity for critical thinking, and to develop a sense of self.

“Human to human connection, sensing that realness and witnessing it as an audience member or performing, sharing that moment. There’s nothing better.” She radiates a can-do positivity, even when sharing her concerns that BTC’s volunteer team is smaller than it once was, the mean-spiritedness she has faced from arts bureaucrats (and occasionally fellow theatre groups), and the fact that the company has no real home.

The Gammon’s carport is filled with costumes from previous productions, and the BTC board meets monthly around the family’s dining table, so Anouska and husband Will’s three children, aged 20, 17 and 12, have also been heavily involved in the theatre world. The younger two were rehearsing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Emmanuel Anglican College in Ballina last month, which Anouska, naturally, was directing. It meant more work but she can’t help herself: “Oh, but that’s just fun; it’s really fun.”

The rewards cannot be measured in material terms.

Anouska recalls a moment when she was watching the various BTC teams on Come From Away fine-tune the production after three or four shows: “Everyone was pretty exhausted but on stage, the director was giving feedback; the musical director was giving notes to the band, who were practising with the cast. And we had the set people fixing up sets, the technicians adjusting the sound and light and cues, the costume people sewing things. I’d never seen anything like it, these highly skilled people, that dynamic, and I sat down and I kind of welled up in tears.”

The feeling that overcame her was one of “worth”, she says.

“Just realising that everyone was there because they love it. It’s not about a monetary transaction. It’s higher than that, even though it’s harder to get there. And this is the thing: the grind, the resourcefulness of that grind and the fatigue behind that grind, is worth it in the end.”

Digby Hildreth

Every Saturday morning, rain gods permitting, a flock of khaki-shirted volunteers can be spotted flitting about in the bush around Bangalow, digging, watering, planting seedlings. They appear an extraordinarily vigorous crew – especially given that they quite evidently belong to a more mature demographic.

Among them, but standing out, are two members of an increasingly rare species – the younger volunteer. Oscar McMahon and Ana Assis, both 23, with straight backs and bounteous hair showing no thread of silver, have been volunteers with Bangalow Land and Rivercare for about 20 months. Most Saturdays they turn up and help renovate and restore one of the handful of remnant native forest sites around the town – beside the sports fields, along the banks of Paddy’s Creek at the bottom of Raftons Road, Little Maori Creek to the west of the town, or on the riverside walk from Piccabeen Park to Byron Creek bridge. Bushland near the Men’s Shed and at Sansom Street Reserve also benefits from the group’s loving touches.

Demographically, Oscar and Ana are outliers – and not just in Landcare. People of their age, or indeed anyone under 50, have stopped volunteering, and many organisations that need them in order to thrive have almost given up trying to recruit new members.

The Men’s Shed is maintained entirely by volunteers but is struggling to enrol young men, a problem President David Noakes feels might be because of the belief that such sheds are for oldies only.

Ruth Kirby, Bangalow CWA President, says “we are always looking for ways to entice younger women to join”, and invites anyone with ideas about how CWA could attract a younger cohort to pop in and share them.

Landcare’s recruitment efforts over the years have rarely been successful, says Robert Lotty, a stalwart of the group. He attributes the lack of interest to many young people’s obsession with their screens. As a nation, he says, “we have become more likely to stay inside rather than enjoying being in the outdoors”.

Ana and Oscar are the exception, and Bangalow Landcare President Noelene Plummer says the group is delighted to have them on board. “They bring enthusiasm and knowledge, which help to motivate us older members to keep going.” The couple have created an Instagram account aimed at reaching young followers.

Noelene co-founded the Bangalow group in 1998 and remains as enthusiastic as ever, motivated by the results achieved over the years. “We now have riparian rainforest trees where once there were eroded creek banks full of aquatic weeds. We get to see the wildlife return, the plantings have become a refuge and the banks of the creek have habitat that supports platypus as well as turtles, lizards and fish.

“When I look at the established rainforest along Byron Creek at the sports fields and the creek walk at Piccabeen Park, I realise what a difference we have made to the greening of Bangalow. These areas were once cattle paddocks with only one or two remnant trees.”

The sports field planting now constitutes a significant wildlife corridor connecting to a parcel of remnant rainforest, she says. And the group can take credit for establishing a walking track around the fields that led to today’s popular walking circuit.

“The environmental work is very rewarding,” Noelene says, “but we also enjoy socialising and sharing a lot of laughs.”

Conservation is a big inducement for Oscar and Ana but, perhaps surprisingly given the age gap, so is the social aspect – meeting like-minded people, networking, learning.

For Oscar, coming back from Melbourne, joining Landcare marked a real return to his roots: he grew up here, near his grandmother, attending Bangalow Public School and enjoying a free-range childhood, exploring the riverbanks and bush, unaware that much of it was the product of Landcare’s planting.

“I spent a lot of time down along Paddy’s Creek with a couple of my friends, building stick huts and booby traps and fishing. As a kid, that just seemed like a massive forest. I didn’t know the story,” he says.

Next came Byron High, then Melbourne University, where he and Ana met on a COVID-induced Zoom lecture on Indigenous Knowledge. As a kid he had dreamed of being “a David Attenborough type of naturalist”, and he completed a BSc, with a botany major.

Back in Melbourne following a trip to South America, the couple realised they needed to “get, like, a proper job now” and decided to give it a crack back at “home”. Both environmental scientists, they arrived with no job certainty but were soon snapped up – Oscar by Ballina Shire Council, Ana by Ecoteam in Lismore.

Ana says she didn’t know anyone here before coming north, and she wanted to meet new people in the community, and get some experience with the subtropical flora: “It’s so different to that in Victoria,” she says.

The Landcare group was “just stoked” when they joined, showering them with books, tools and protective clothing. “We instantly felt part of it,” says Ana.

“The Landcarers are just wonderful,” says Oscar. “Everybody’s there because they want to be there. And you can see the effect of what they’ve done. Like, along the All Souls planting. As a kid I remember the trees falling in the water, the bank eroding. Landcare has transformed that little area. The water runs really clear there, and there are bandicoots and emerald doves.”

Meanwhile, Lynn Smith, a member of the team that maintains Piccabeen Park, is struggling to attract new people to take on the work. “We have just four active members, all in their 70s and 80s, and we ain’t gettin’ any younger. We all love the Park and enjoy our working bee days. We are friends and are there for one another when times are tough. We have lots of laughs together. The work keeps us fit and active.” But they’re fresh out of ideas for attracting volunteers.

It’s possibly a global challenge, and a complex one, fuelled, among other things, by rising economic pressures making people time-poor. But in an age of artificial everything, individualism and disconnection, contributing some time to the community and to the environment is possibly one of the healthiest things anyone can do. As Oscar says: “It’s meditative, it’s getting your hands in the dirt, which has got to be good for your microbiome.” And we could all do with a bit more of that.

Feature image by Olivia Katz

The name of the breed, British Whites, contains two fundamental strands of their story: a Northern Hemisphere heritage, and white hair, which makes them very well suited to the harsh Australian climate. Currently there are about 800 British White stud cattle registered across the country and the breed remains on the Rare Breed Trust ‘At Risk’ list in Australia.

Heritage is the key word: British Whites are one of the oldest breeds of cattle native to the United Kingdom, meaning they have a broader range of genetic characteristics than most of the varieties commonly farmed in Australia. As a consequence, they are robust and resilient, non-selective grazers that produce marbled beef on pasture alone. They were traditionally a dual-purpose breed, good for both milk and beef, and high-quality milk means healthy, well-grown calves.

There are about 55 farmers registered in Australia to help to conserve them. They range from devoted stud breeders to hobbyists, and their enchantment with the breed is remarkable.

Among them is director and company secretary of the British White Cattle Society of Australia, Dierdre Mikkelson. Following a successful corporate career and early retirement, Dierdre’s youthful hankering for a career in agriculture was re-ignited when she and her husband Earle bought a small block 10 years ago at Eltham. Her new life as a farmer launched her onto a steep learning curve: animal husbandry, pasture Cattle and a rare breed of farmer development, soil science, biology, botany, entomology and chemistry.

Wanting to put their land to meaningful use, Dierdre set her sights on establishing a stud herd of heritage cattle to be raised within a regenerative farming model. British Whites’ rarity, attractive appearance and docile temperament were the deciding factors for her when choosing the breed. “They are the most amazingly calm, lovely cattle and yes, we get emotionally attached to them,” she says.

She admits that as a hobbyist she is “by no means a proper farmer”,and hates it when she has to part with an animal. She is, however, hard-nosed when it comes to breeding quality stud stock and promoting British Whites as a viable commercial breed – most likely in niche markets such as paddock to plate, regenerative and hobby farms, or bulls for northern Australian breeding programs.

Dierdre’s introduction to British Whites was through Society president Lindsay Murray, of Dingo Lane Farms, and she bought her first three “girls” from him – Josie, Carmen and Ettie.

Farming got real when the three were old enough to ‘join’ with a bull and nine months later she and Earle had their first experience of calving; it was challenging, as she failed to heed the vet’s warnings to not let the heifers get too fat. Even tougher land-care lessons followed, with additional acreage the couple bought near Lismore going under water in the 2022 floods, and twice after, resulting in water-logged soil, followed by pasture dieback at their Eltham property. The experience strengthened Dierdre’s interest in regenerative agriculture – with its focus on soil health, energy, water cycles and species diversity.

“The more I learn about commercial agriculture, the more it worries me,” she says. “The genetic concentration in crops and livestock brings a massive risk. Nature thrives on diversity.”

A side-effect of “retiring” early was the desire to keep her brain active, and, although she loves being out on the land, she admits to a need for people – through various volunteer activities and, for three years now, part-time work at the Bangalow Post Office. “I need interaction with others,” she says. “It’s a small community, and I can get to know people. It’s a terrific place to work and so different from my old corporate life.”

The land – and community – are also in Lindsay Murray’s blood. He grew up on a mixed farming operation in the Riverina, but left home at 17 to study medicine, which he practised full time until recently in senior roles at Lismore Base Hospital. His childhood experience made farming “very attractive”, he says, “but we were also very aware of how destructive agriculture was becoming in the 60s and 70s” and he dreamt of doing things differently.

In 2010, he bought 130 acres in Myocum. Cleared for dairy 100 years before, and neglected for the previous half a century, it was infested with lantana, camphor laurel and privet. Lindsay says he knew that he couldn’t restore it all to original forest in his lifetime, and also that he wanted to produce food in a sustainable way, so he and his partner developed a plan that would see 15% of the farm restored to native rainforest, with the remainder allocated to grazing cattle to produce beef within a regenerative system. “And British Whites ticked all the boxes,” he says.

Lindsay now runs about 55 to 60 stud breeding cows and grows out their offspring for sale as breeding animals or for slaughter. A similar number of steers brings the total herd up to 120. The purchase of a neighbouring farm took the farm to 100 hectares, 20-25% of it under environmental restoration.

A key role of the Society is to maintain a herd book of pedigreed animals. It’s a meaningful responsibility. “In the last 70 or 80 years there’s been highly selective breeding to meet criteria set by industrial farming, and the genetics of certain breeds have narrowed,” Lindsay says. “However, the genetics required now may not be those we need in 50 years, or even sooner. It may be that having a cattle breed that can do quite well purely on grass and produce good food with minimal inputs is exactly what we need in the future. And if we lose those genetics, we can’t recreate them.”

Maintaining these rare breed genetics is a primary concern of the Society’s treasurer, Wayne Cross, and his partner and former treasurer, Chris Malden, who together work 120 acres at Vale Hill Farm at Knockrow, primarily a stud operation, with 40 breeders and a dozen bulls.

They came to the Northern Rivers six years ago from Victoria, where they ran British Whites and Hampshire Down sheep. They also owned a hotel and restaurant, where their produce was on the menu – a real hands-on paddock to plate operation. Once here they cleared the land of camphor laurel and other weeds, replaced all the fencing, installed new irrigation and concentrated on pasture improvement, including planting about 20 acres in rye grass to keep the weeds down. They have also worked with Bangalow Koalas to plant thousands of food trees along their boundaries.

Their aim is to spread the British White breed around the country, and they have been selling their females and quality bulls to new and established British White studs for many years.

Farming is more challenging in the Northern Rivers than in Victoria, Wayne says, what with a greater incidence of diseases, ticks and flies, more noxious weeds, the rain, and tropical grasses with their undesirable high moisture content.

But the challenges are worth it and Wayne and Chris say they still prefer to farm up here. “It’s nice to have green grass all year round”.

They add that they have met so many lovely people here too, both within the dedicated British White community and outside it. Considering Bangalow’s commitment to heritage values and the region’s support for farmers markets, humane farm practices and regenerative agriculture, it’s only natural that they and their fellow visionary caretakers of the land – and the rare breed they champion – would be warmly welcomed.

Despite his comparatively late start, once the passion for the instrument was ignited, Malik began to practise with a “ferocious enthusiasm” says his mother, Ambyr, and in a very short time he has come a long way, creating a serious future for himself.

Malik Traki Johnston (or Malik Sofian, his middle name and Insta identity) is not a typical 17-year-old, and his development as a pianist has not been conventional. For a start, growing up, he didn’t have much interest in music, and was even confused about why other kids liked it at all: “I’d see them listening to various genres like metal or rock or rap music, and I just never liked it to any degree. And I thought myself rather strange for that.”

The only music he could relate to was in films, such as ‘The Imperial March’ in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, “so I guess that was a sign I’m more aligned to dramatic classical music”, he says.

He listens to more music now and has multiple playlists featuring many different genres. Classical is the foundation, then jazz, from early 20th century through to Charlie Parker.

His favourite jazz pianist is Oscar Peterson, for his virtuosity. “He’s incredible. His fingers are just so nimble and he can create a thunderstorm of sound.” That word again.

Another unusual feature of Malik’s development was how his ability to play outstripped his theoretical understanding, as Ambyr explains: “Many gifted kids learn from when they’re two or three or four; they learn to play and learn music at the same time. But Malik became quite advanced in his playing before he ever learned how to read music.”

When Malik met his first teacher, Bangalow’s Linda Armstrong, a little over four years ago, “he didn’t even want to look at the music”, she says. “We were starting from scratch, the very basics.”

But Malik knew what he wanted to play, and he has a “fantastic ear”, she says. “He can listen to the music and then hear if he’s doing it right. He picked it up so quickly. And he has an amazing memory.”

“The hardest piece I’ve ever played, I learned by ear,” Malik says. The piece, Liszt’s ‘La Campanella’, requires an astoundingly brisk allegretto tempo and is famously difficult.

But when he knew that he wanted music to be his life, he caught up with the theory, and in 2023 learnt to read music in nine months; in 2024 he was awarded the Licentiate Diploma of Music Performance (LMus) with honours from St Cecilia – signifying a high level of musical performance, achieved through rigorous practical and theoretical assessments.

Some of this commitment was due to the influence of his second teacher, Mark Hooper, in Brisbane, who insists his students study the sheet music: “What is the music telling you?” he asks them. “That’s the best connection you have to what was in the composer’s mind.”

Malik says: “It’s a privilege to be able to be in a position where you can express the music, absolutely. That makes you a real musician, in a way. As Mark says: ‘An amateur uses the music to express their feelings, and a professional uses their feelings to express the music’.”

To pursue his interest in jazz, Malik studies with Nick Campbell at the Lismore Conservatorium, where he had a scholarship for two years, the first through the Con itself, the second through the Harmony Fund, established by local identity (and music lover) Vicky Brooke.

Along with determination and a phenomenal memory, Malik possesses another distinctive quality, Linda says. “If he loves a piece of music and wants to learn it, he researches it – learns how old the composer was when they wrote it, and if they’d had their heart broken, and so on, and he wants to play with the same feeling the composer had when it was written, which I see as a very adult concept.”

Malik began homeschooling with Ambyr in 2022, after a few unsettled years of high school. He attended several over the years but, as he told The Piano presenter, Amanda Keller, “I did not fit in at school. A lot of people probably thought I was weird, but I see myself as a very shy kid, and self-critical”.

Homeschooling allowed him to prioritise the piano over other studies but he has returned to high school, at Cape Byron Steiner, to do his HSC. He plans on enrolling for a Bachelor of Music Performance next year, ideally in Melbourne, and is looking forward to the cold and the grey: it’s that romantic temperament emerging again – the drama of stormy skies.

But there is another side to this tendency too: “With Liszt, like the other Romantics, there’s the very virtuosic thing, all the drama and the showmanship, which I’ve always loved, and then the contrast – a very delicate, gentle side, which a lot of people maybe didn’t see in him when he was alive. There’s an emotional quality about it, reflective,” he says.

It could almost be a description of himself: with his wild hair and velvet jackets he looks, and plays, like a romantic hero, blowing listeners away with his bravura performances. But behind this is a sensitive and vulnerable young man, someone for whom, as he revealed in The Piano, music signifies hope. Succeeding with the piano has taught him that he can tackle difficulties in other areas of his life, he said.

Malik says The Piano was a great experience, especially meeting other pianists and piano enthusiasts, and it was likely a big confidence booster too, judging by the reception he received: the Beethoven piece is “one of the most deceptively difficult pieces in the repertoire and especially for someone with three-and-a-half years of piano playing”, said international star Andrea Lam.

“Unbelievably impressive”, was Harry Connick Jnr’s verdict of the performance.

The experience also proved cathartic: “Before the piano I was very angry,” he tells Amanda Keller. “Now I can channel my emotions through the music, the good and the bad. The piano is joy, kindness, struggle, hope, strength and despair. You can really tell a story through the music, and make people understand.”

The Brunswick Heads concert was just the latest in a series of successful appearances: At the invitation of White Rabbit Gallery owner Judith Neilson, he performed an hour-long recital at a venue called The Church, in Alexandria, eight pieces altogether.

He also played at the Bangalow Chamber Music Festival, and had lessons with one of the Festival’s stars – the terrifyingly gifted Konstantin Shamray at a piano intensive in Armidale.

“Last year Konstantin played, out of the blue, ‘La Valse’ by Ravel, and almost blew the ceiling off,” Malik recalls. “It was insane. The sound he creates is just like what I said about Oscar Petersen in the thunderstorm. Just like that, but on drugs.

“That is my ultimate mood. I want to replicate that. I want to give my audience that kind of transcendent experience.”

Sonya Voumard

As a young journalist I read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, a powerfully descriptive telling of the 1959 brutal murders of a farming family in Kansas. The book was regarded by many as the first non-fiction novel, a concept I found fascinating and inspiring. While I now see that In Cold Blood was deeply flawed, it sparked my interest in the idea of long-form literary journalism’s possibilities. This inspiration was further fuelled by the writings of Helen Garner, initially Monkey Grip, which, while fiction, was transparently written based on true events. Exploring and testing the intersection of life-writing and journalism would become and remain my passion and purpose as a writer.

Sonya will talk about her latest book, Tremor, on Saturday afternoon on the Coolamon stage.

Naima Brown

I’ve always found this to be one of the most difficult questions to answer…it’s like choosing a favourite child. I think I’ve been
just as impacted by the books that were read to me as a child (Goodnight Moon, Where the Wild Things Are) as I’ve been by the literature I’ve read as an adult. Ultimately it comes down to a writer’s ability to transport the reader somewhere that changes them emotionally, that leaves a mark. If I had to highlight one author it would be Barbara Kingsolver. I’ve grown up alongside her work. I remember reading Poisonwood Bible as a teenager, and Demon Copperhead just last year in my 40s: to have an author whose work has been a constant presence in my own life, and where I can track her own evolution as a writer, has been deeply inspiring and reassuring.

Naima appears three times during the festival, interviewing other novelists, and also presenting her own latest novel, Mother Tongue.

Kayte Nunn

The book that lives in my memory, resurfacing at regular intervals, is Joyce’s Dubliners. Its interconnected stories and deft characterisation have continued to resonate with me over the years since I first read it. Its exploration of inner lives and social tensions, its circular themes of isolation, paralysis and the desire to escape to a better reality have so much to offer the reader and thinker. But above all, it is Joyce’s purposeful, layered approach to the narrative that resonates with me as a writer. I love that the stories may be interpreted in a multiplicity of ways and remain intriguing decades later.

Kayte will discuss her most recent novel, The Palazzo, on Friday afternoon’s Murder Mysteries session on the Coolamon stage.

Which is why the 82-year-old has devoted the past third of his life to ensuring money is spread around where it’s needed, an undertaking that earned him the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for services to the community of the Northern Rivers in the June 2025 King’s Birthday Honours list.

Following a successful business career, John retired early and very soon began concentrating his skills and experience on helping others. “I found community service – working with people – more satisfying than playing golf,” he says. At least 14 community groups have benefited from his energetic input – and many continue to do so.

“I don’t believe I can do anything on a national scale but I can make a contribution at the community level, and I feel very proud to have done so,” he says. “Being put forward for the award by my peers in the community is a great honour.”

John came to Australia from South Africa at the age of 18, keen for adventure. After a spell running a market research company in Singapore he returned to Sydney and set up his own company, Bennett Research, in 1975. He fell in love with the Northern Rivers and in 1980 bought a farm just outside the town; 150 acres, which he planted with macadamias, peaches and guavas.

From there it was to a farmhouse in Friday Hut Road, and then onto an empty block off Possum Creek Road, which he has transformed into a gorgeous country estate, running beef cattle, like his grandfather did.

He met his wife Jen at the Rails hotel in the early 90s and they’ve been together ever since. A 45-year Bangalow resident, he says he has found his “perfect place”.

One of John’s earliest philanthropic roles was as an adviser to the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme, supporting youth employment, but he has also contributed time and fundraising, networking and marketing know-how to the Byron Community Centre, the Byron Writers Festival, Liberation Larder, Enova Energy, Byron Youth Service and many more. Particularly satisfying was the work he did as president of the Uncle Project, and he remains in contact with the young man he mentored through the scheme.

John’s wide-ranging altruism gained a sharper focus 22 years ago when he helped found the Northern Rivers Community Foundation (NRCF), a registered charity and “giving” organisation designed to last forever.

The Foundation is based on an “in-perpetuity” model, whereby donations are pooled and ethically invested in a perpetual fund, whose income is strategically distributed to local community organisations.

The now renowned organisation has provided more than $10 million to groups working to empower girls and women, boost disaster resilience, ease access to education, reduce homelessness and conserve the environment, among many other areas of need. The selection of grant recipients is very well controlled, John says, and money goes only to worthy causes in the Northern Rivers.

Every donation is tax-deductible and becomes, quite literally, the gift that keeps on giving.

Seven years ago, John further refined his work within the NRCF, taking on the role of Bequest Ambassador – encouraging people to pledge donations in their wills – a contribution that will continue to work and support the community long after the donor has passed.

John has put his money where his mouth is, pledging $1 million to the Foundation upon his death; his friend and fellow Foundation stalwart, Paul Jameson, has left his entire estate to it. There is no requirement to give such high amounts, John says. “Any contribution is welcome – and it is vital that it is undertaken with the knowledge and agreement of any other would-be beneficiaries.”

John made a point of discussing his bequest with his three adult children, who all readily agreed to sharing the wealth with the community.

He is a believer in people helping their own family first, with a proviso: “Give your kids enough so they have a bed to sleep in, but not so much that they won’t get out of it,” he says, only half-jokingly.

Several Bangalow residents are among the 40 or so community members who have pledged bequests, although no-one in the NRCF has any idea how much it might add up to: such details are private – between an individual and their solicitor, John says. “We don’t get involved in that at all. We don’t push or ask for details.”

The sense of purpose he has received from giving his time and talents to enterprises such as the NRCF is deeply fulfilling, John says.

“I have got enormous rewards out of it and I would recommend it to anyone to try volunteering and community work. There’s a great need for it and it’s very satisfying.”

Paul Jameson says John has not only made a substantial bequest and serious donations to the NRCF, but “he has also been inspirational to others to become involved, to join us to help raise money and support the organisation”.

People new to the area have found the Foundation’s information nights a great way to connect with the community, John says, and anyone wanting to learn more about making a bequest are welcome to attend one of the morning teas that are held periodically, by contacting Sandra at the NRCF office at engagement@nrcf.org.au

Digby Hildreth