Laurie's part of Cranbourne family legacy

Lifelong Cranbourne local Laurie has more reason than most to feel at home during a visit to Bolton Clarke’s Casey Grange retirement living community.

The village is built on a site farmed by Laurie’s family for the past 100 years, and he has stories for every inch of the land.

Laurie’s grandfather William McNab bought 245 acres on both sides of Hall Rd in 1918 and the connection with the history of the site was further strengthened when William’s son Charles married Mabel McLellan, the great granddaughter of the Hill family who had farmed in the area since the 1860s.

The pair built Strathlea (now Lochaven) and raised Laurie and his sisters, Val and Isobel, on the farm.

 “Dad built a lovely home on the 160 acres on the north side of the property,” he says.

“They built a hay shed and a machinery shed and established a dairy farm with around 70 cows.

“They had some setbacks - in 1942 the Germans bombed the ship that was bringing the engine out from England, so they had to get a petrol engine to run the machines.

“They milked cows here right through to the 1960s when my mother suggested we go into beef.”

The McNabs’ Guernsey cows were successful at shows including the Melbourne Show and they later ran prime Angus cattle for about 20 years before selling the property in 2016.

“There was always something to do. There were over 100 gates throughout the property, wooden ones – my dad and I made those. When we first got the stud, I painted every one of them white.”

Later, he bought a welder and replaced the ageing wooden gates with steel.

While farming was a passion and photography a lifelong hobby, a childhood visit to the Berry regional show also kindled an enduring love for Scottish country dancing.

“I went to the Berry show with the Sunday school and we went missing for half the day because we were sitting watching the dancing competition, held on the back of a semi-trailer,” he recalls.

“Twenty years later I came across a girl who’d been dancing at Moorabbin town hall, and she took me over to the other side of town to see a dance group.

“From then on I danced for 40 years!”

These days Laurie is a long-term donor to Bolton Clarke after nurses helped his sister after the birth of her twins.

He still lives in the area with support from Bolton Clarke Home and Community Services.