Highlights In The Shadows: 53 - Banana Jam
...To supplement our income Jan and I made banana jam and Indian pickles as a sideline business and sold our products through tourist outlets like the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour...
Owen Clement and his wife Jan worked hard to make a sucess of their shop in Queensland.
For earlier chapters of Owen's life story please click on Highlights In The Shadows in the menu on this page.
Mr. Waterhouse, who had built the shop in the 1950's, lived with his wife in a fibro and timber cottage on the adjacent block to the store.
In the first year of our operation, Mr. Waterhouse often came and sat on the bench outside the shop obviously very pleased to see our custom grow and he was able to keep up with the local gossip. He was so pleased with the progress of the business that late in 1972 he offered to sell us his house for the same price ($12,000) that he and his elderly wife had paid for one they had purchased in South Grafton where they could be near their daughter and her family.
I approached my brother-in-law Grahame, who was now our accountant, for his guidance. He advised us against buying the house and land. "You can't afford it," he said. I said, "Grahame, we can't afford not to buy it.'' Grahame did have a point, as we just did not have the money required. After an exceptionally profitable Christmas the prospect of us buying our own home for the first time looked promising. Jan and I decided that somehow we would find a way.
Not long after we started our business on one of our walks through the nearby-proposed housing development at Safety Beach, Eric Nicholson, the on-site estate agent, approached us. He convinced us to put down a holding fee of $100 on one of the blocks pegged out for future development costing $3.750. As the newly pegged sections had not as yet been registered with the local authorities, we would not need to raise the rest of the down payment for at least another year. We were very taken with Safety Beach’s allotments as they were near the beach with abundance of wild life about. It was not uncommon to see wallabies wandering through resident's gardens. What did we have to lose?
In May 1973 we were given notice that the full deposit for our block was now due. We immediately put the block in Safety Beach up for sale, and fortunately, Mr. Kismet was on my side once again, we were able to sell the lot for $5,275, making a very good profit on our one hundred-dollar investment. We used this money to pay off a large portion of our down payment on the house in November that year. Mr. Waterhouse allowed us to use our rent money to pay off the balance of our deposit. Our capital of five thousand one hundred dollars plus the cost of the additional equipment we had acquired was now proving a very profitable investment for our future.
In December 1974, I went on my own to Vancouver for four weeks to spend Christmas with my parents. They were now in a new home in Tsawassen designed by my father. He had also overseen it being built.
It was a very emotional trip for me, as I had not seen my family and friends in Vancouver for fourteen years. During my visit I called on my friends David and Pat Watson and their three children one evening. As I was leaving their house that night after a very laughter-filled call, David said that it only seemed like yesterday since the last time we had been together. We seemed to take up exactly where we had left off.
On the 17th of November of that year Jan's father, Cyril Norman Easy, had died of cancer in Brisbane.
In 1975 the last link of the highway between the towns of Woolgoolga and Coffs Harbour was finally opened. The four years since we started in business had allowed us enough time to build up the business with an established clientele before the attractions the city of Coffs Harbour only twenty minutes drive away changed people shopping habits. It also considerably raised the value of properties in Woolgoolga. Both the business and the house were proving to be very important assets for our future. Mr. Kismet was now well on side.
We operated week by week financially with Jan pulling one way to keep the expenses down and me pulling the other to keep the range of goods high enough to keep our customers in Woolgoolga happy. The shop was paying its way, we were able to feed, clothe and educate our children and we started to enjoy the benefits of living in a small established town.
When in that same year the Australian Labour party came into power with Mr. Whitlam as Prime Minister, the profitability of our business slowed down. The new government had introduced The Trade Practices Bill in an act of parliament that I believe had a serious effect on our business. Instead of helping small business, as it was supposed to have done, it made matters much more difficult. What it did was to forbid any wholesaler or supplier offering special deals to any group without making it available to all the others. Whereas before, companies who did not deal with the major chains and groups could offer alternative products to their smaller customers, this was now not possible.
To supplement our income Jan and I made banana jam and Indian pickles as a sideline business and sold our products through tourist outlets like the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour. It was only the good customer relations started by Irene and her crew and carried on by us that kept the store going for the next few years. We had to dispense with Pat’s services but were still able to keep Irene on the payroll as, despite health problems, she had proved a valuable member of our small staff. Woolgoolga was growing and competition was getting keener.
© Clement 2006
