>
Island Identities
Barbara Young
                                                                                                                                               March 2009

People live here and go about their daily lives and most of them do so without a great deal of fuss. 

Yet our Island has some wonderful stories to tell, one of those is about Barbara Young.
Barbara and husband George with son Phillip in tow settled here some 26 years ago.
All three had regularly come here for holidays to visit family and George liked the feel of the Island and decided to retire here. That was all right with Barbara and young Phillip.
They bought a block of land in Sixth.

Let Barbara tell the rest of this story :

“   For a number of reasons we decided to get a Sale builder, build the house in Sale, cut it in half and transport it to the Island.
Everything was carefully worked out. The old ferry could just cope with half a house at the time. We explained to the builder exactly where our block was. And in any case if there was any doubt a goat was tethered there…a sure way to identify the block.
Someone moved the goat onto a different block.
The builder put the house on the block where the goat was tethered. And that’s were we stayed put….on the wrong block “
Apart from this very dramatic start to their move (Barbara laughs about it now)    What is so noteworthy about the Youngs?    Or rather Barbara ?

George passed away in 2004. He had a great life here and enjoyed every minute of it.
Barbara had lost not only her husband but also her best friend.
Phillip moved back to the family home.  Barbara settled into her changed life. She is great friends with her neighbours all of whom share Friday night “happy hour” together.
BUT, long before George passed away, Barbara used to get the first ferry in the mornings to pick up the daily newspaper. One day someone told her that she wasn’t feeling too well and would Barbara mind picking up her paper from the newsagent  and she’d meet Barbara on the Island side for her paper.
Barbara didn’t mind, she was going across anyway : “ You don’t have to meet me at the ferry, I’ll drop it into your letter box “

To those of us who know the “Paper Girl “story this was the beginning of a paper round that has been going on for 16 years. Seven days a week on a voluntary basis.

Her first “customers “ were Betty Price and Peg Cosgrove. They still get their deliveries to this day. Barbara has such a sense of duty that if she has to be away from the Island for any reason, she makes sure that other Islanders cover for her (Winnie Scott  mostly )
From delivering those first two papers, Barbara now delivers eight papers a day and walks four km a day doing so. She covers more kilometres on a Wednesday delivering the free Gippsland News to others as well.
On weekends and holidays she gets many requests for “ one-off ”  deliveries. She takes her bike on Saturdays because of the weight of the papers.
Barbara assurers us that what we  see is her very own hair
As most of the Islanders she delivers to are the not so young, Barbara often says that it is a simple way for her to check if “ her customers “ are still well enough to pick up their paper from the letter boxes .

So there you are…40 degree heat, or floods…. Barbara just keeps on delivering.

A feel good story.
Barbara and George having a BBQ in front of their home      in ' 84
   Barbara's parents 50th wedding   anniversary in the early '80's