Image: Blantyre front gate
15 February 2026
A family pilgrimage to the bush
Janette’s ashes had been sitting expectantly beside the rest of her mother’s ashes (perhaps Blossom’s right arm or left foot – who knows) since late September 2025. With Steve healthy and home, Mum and I got ourselves to Newcastle so the three of us could drive west to scatter Janette and Blossom’s ashes at the family farm to the east of Coonabarabran in Central West NSW.
There were two family farms that we would be visiting on our pilgrimage, neither still in the family and one no longer a farm. Both are located on Brooks Rd which happens to go two ways (or four ways) just to make things a bit confusing. The first farm was Blantyre – established in 1921 by my great grandparents – Robert and Ruby Brooks. They had 7 children, the eldest of which was my grandfather Cecil, who moved with his parents to the farm at the age of 4 and helped clear the land, run the cattle, sheep and crops, and build Blantyre into a viable farming business to support the growing family.
In 1938, my grandmother, Jessie (lovingly known in the family as Blossom), accepted a role teaching rural school students and moved from Newcastle to board with the Brooks family at Blantyre, with the youngest 5 Brooks children still of school age. Cecil was a handsome man of 21yo by this time and Jessie and Cecil were soon going to local dances and church events together. They married locally in 1941 and took on the property next door to Blantyre, naming it Inverness in a nod to Jessie’s family origins.
Jessie was very capable as a farmer’s wife learning to manage life by the seasons, dealing with water as supplied by the rain, driving farm machinery and even riding a horse. One skill she was determined not to learn was how to milk a cow – she wasn’t getting up early every morning in the cold to spend time at the rear end of a beast.
Cecil and Jessie soon welcomed their first born, Janette, and a few years later my Mum came along and the girls grew up on the farm and did school by correspondence. The family sold Inverness in 1956 when life took them to Newcastle for different work, life and educational opportunities. We don’t know much about what happened with the property after that time, however today it is no longer inhabited, with the farmhouse destroyed in a bushfire in the 1980s and the farmland now bush.
The Brooks family continued at Blantyre until the 1970s and Cecil’s 6 siblings relocated over time with their families to Dubbo and Gunnedah. That is how we found ourselves in Dubbo in the middle of February staying with Cecil’s youngest sister Margaret, now 93, and as sprightly and excited by life as she ever was. Margaret still lives in the house she shared with her husband Kevin from 1976 which is decorated in the style of the era. Jessie had been Margaret’s teacher all those years ago at Blantyre and they remained firm friends throughout Jessie’s life. While Jessie’s style did not involve dolls, Royals or clocks like Margaret’s, being in Margaret’s home brought back many fond memories of my childhood and my grandparents which I enjoyed remembering.
My last visit to Dubbo was when I was in high school (!) so we made time to see the highlights of the town including a lovely walk on the footpath that follows the Macquarie River which Dubbo is built around. It was a beautiful summer’s day and totally Oz.
The following day we packed lunch and the ashes of Janette and Blossom and headed northeast to Inverness and Blantyre via Binnaway (out the back of Dunedoo). The general population in the rural areas appeared to have declined a lot and the towns were left looking tired and empty. The landscape reflected the season, with dry paddocks all around and stock squeezing together in any available shade. It was a hot day reaching over 35°, and I felt very sorry for the sheep seeking shade in the shadow of their fellow paddock dwellers as the only shade available to them.
Margaret told us stories from her youth about the families that used to reside on the various properties we passed and amusing tales of mishaps on the way to or from town which in those days took at least an hour and generally took longer because there were errands to be run for the neighbours or someone on the road needed help with a flat tyre or getting unbogged (today the trip takes about 30mins). We found the southern end of Brooks Road, which was a decent dirt road lined with dense dry bush and consisting of many long straight stretches. We saw no sign of other humans, only the occasional wallaby.
The combined memories ensured we found the original entrance to Inverness and the site of the house, garden and shed despite the regrowth on the land and the destruction of the fencing and structures. We found a shady spot to rest, remember and scatter the ashes. Then Mum and I spent some time wandering Inverness with Mum recognising many elements of her childhood as we explored.
Scattering ashes can be an odd human construct. I should say here that my preference is for my body when I die to be used for organ donation and/or research, and what happens after that I don’t mind. I would prefer my dead body to have as little environmental impact as possible, but realistically the environment benefits more by me living an environmentally conscious life than having a once off environmentally conscious burial or burning. Still, I’ll try to do a green life and a green death.
But scattering ashes is an interesting event. It can be emotional or not. It’s obviously very important to those who are living with a hole in their heart. The symbolism brings us together. Forces us to pause and reflect. We focus on why we loved the person who owned the ashes. We think of things we didn’t say to them that maybe we should have. We think of things we did together. We think of their life and how much we know and don’t know about them. We hope their spirit is with us. We hope our efforts in scattering the ashes was the right thing to do. We think about whether the wind will take the ashes away or when rain might come and help the ashes soak into the soil. For Steve, he was farewelling his partner of 63 years. For Margaret, it was another treasured family member she has outlived. For Mum, she is the last remaining of her family unit. For me, it was another special person from my life who no longer answers my calls, although I keep her in my contacts along with all the others.
For me it was also an opportunity to make time for family and to process grief, love, loss and memories in places that I have heard so much about. I asked Mum and Margaret many questions about their childhoods and my grandparents and great grandparents. I saw the church hall where my grandparents danced as a young couple, the street corner where Blossom had her first contractions in the lead up to the arrival of Janette and the remnants of the garden Blossom built next to their home. Such precious stories that I can hold and remember.
The sun was hot and we were melting, so we climbed back into the airconditioned car and drove the length of Brooks Road which eventually led us to Coonabarabran where Janette and Mum were born. We parked by the Castlereagh River and enjoyed our lunch with a bottle of bubbles in a toast to Janette and Blossom – bubbles were Janette’s favourite. The constant thunder of trucks across the bridge on the Newell Highway delivering goods between Queensland and Victoria created a different sort of atmosphere but we had a nice time, nonetheless.
We got an ice cream on the way back to Dubbo to help make the trip go faster and again watched the dry countryside go by as we headed down the highway. We then spent the evening reminiscing through old photos and giving Margaret some lessons in digital technology so she can video call her favourite people. At 93yo, Margaret is an absolute inspiration. Yay for Aunty Marg 🩷.
