The stories Alec McDonald can tell, or could be told about him, or those he has played a key role in shaping, could fill these pages ten times over.

He is a legend, his antics are stuff of legend, and his role in one of the town’s great eras legendary.

Alec McDonald epitomises the country Aussie larrikin: footy, a few beers, life on the land, entrepreneurship, a great sense of humour, and a deep-seated pride for his family.

Few men can lay claim to presiding over such a successful era of country football and later lead a golf club to rebuild a clubhouse after fire.

At age 66, a stroke slowed Alec somewhat, but he’s remained part of the fabric of Orbost. Alec, who turns 90 this Friday, can still muster a decent yarn, and, wife of 69 years, Elsie, can still pull him into line.

The story of Alec McDonald is not just his story, it’ s everyone’s story. All true-blue Orbost folk will all have an Alec yarn up their sleeve, and many were shared at his kilt-wearing (to honour his Scottish heritage) 90th birthday bash held at the Orbost Golf Club – the clubhouse over which he led the charge in building in the mid 1980s – last Saturday night.

And for a couple of dairy farmers who milked in a era of consistent flooding, it’s somewhat ironic the Snowy River Mail sat down with the McDonalds at their Duggans Road home, where they have lived since 1978, to pen this story during arguably the district’s toughest drought.

“When was the last time we had five points of rain,” Alec asks, as he and Elsie chat about the feeding program one of their grandsons, Richard, is embarking on at the family dairy farm at the foot of the hill at Jarrahmond.

Orbost born Alec never thought he’d reach the age of 90, suffering a stroke in 1994. He’s not keen on 100, but would be happy for a few more years. His recollections of a full life re- main clear, including back to when he first saw Elsie.

Asked when he first met his future wife, it wasn’t a story about tracking her at a local dance, but when he saw her as a child.

“She (Elsie) was about six-year-old and we were shearing the sheep on their place at Mur- rungowar. She was running about ... I remember her then.

“We started tracking one another when I was about 20 and she was 17,” Alec said.

Elsie, who had Alec’s name etched in her high school ruler some years earlier, had good reason to interject: “Go back a bit earlier than that”.

Married on July 5, 1949, with Alec aged 20 and Elsie (nee Webb) 17, “we’re still together, would you believe”, Elsie says.

The McDonalds had five children by the time Elsie was 24. Their tribe would include Cheryl, Julie, Kevin, Colin, Brian and Graham. The passing of Graham as a boy was one of the family’s toughest times.

“It’s been a bit of a rough road at times, but it’s been alright. We’re going along better now than we ever have,” Alec claims.

“Because you don’t go out all the time,” Elsie interjects.

“It was like old times on Saturday night, I was at home and he was out,” Elsie said, referencing the Snowy Rovers triple premiership reunion of 1976-78 (Alec was president and Kevin, Colin and Brian all played) on August 4.

It’s been a big couple of weeks for the McDonalds. Alec was beaming at the premiership reunion, and was pretty chuffed with the attention leading up to and during his party last weekend.

After living on the Marlo Road when they were first married, it was soon off to Murrungowar, a place close to Alec’s heart.

“Dad had Murrungowar all the time; I was out there before we were married,” he said.

“We built a house (and lived in it for about four years) at Murrungowar, a good house, three bedrooms. We were working on the farm; we had about 50 cows (beef) out there. I used to go falling and working around, you know. We never ever relied on handouts. We made our own way.”

Like most who had farmed out that way of eras past, Alec also took a keen interest in the flow of the Rocky River.

The family, who had their first child (Cheryl) before moving to Murrungowar, would add Julie and Kevin while living at Murrungowar, before moving to Marlo to share-farm on Alistair Cameron’s farm when Cheryl was due to start school.

Colin and Brian were both born while the family farmed for three years at Marlo, moving to Jarrahmond when Brian was a baby – in 1957.

“The Marlo Road, it wasn’t easy farming, it was a tough three years,” he said, recalling at least one flood every year while milking 120 cows.

“We still saved 3500 quid in the three years, enough money to buy the farm at Jarrahmond.”

As for the floods, Alec said “you used to take it in your stride”.

“We had two floods in a month (1978) and I’m not talking about little bloody floods either. They never went right down and came back up again just as big.

“We had five floods one year down here,” Elsie said of dairying at Jarrahmond.

“The floods used to bring the silt down, a layer of silt every flood ... no need for fertiliser,” Alec said.

ANGEL GEAR SPUDS

Murrungowar was also potato growing country for Alec, and it cultivated some good spuds, and better memories.

“We grew a few spuds, not many,” Alec said, downplaying the number of potatoes he had in the ground.

Known for their size and occasional hollowness, Alec said “they were just ordinary spuds, later admitting “we did have some hollow ones”.

Perhaps the dirt was just that good they grew too quick!

“We weren’t growing them commercially, never went into them in a big way.”

“You didn’t?” Elsie asks, suggesting the operation may have been bigger than Alec remembers.

“Not really,” was his response.

However, while the enterprising spud growing may not have been “too big”, it did make for some interesting days. They included Sunday morning post-football celebration hang- overs picking potatoes, or riding home to Orbost on top of full bags of spuds on the back of the Landrover or old green Bedford truck.

The Bedford truck would go out empty and be loaded with big bags of potatoes. With not enough room in the cab for everyone to sit, the boys, well into their teenage years by this stage, would often ride atop the spud bags, sometimes throwing potatoes out onto the road in front of oncoming traffic, or lobbing them over the top of the truck cab.

With Alec behind the wheel, the Bedford would thunder down Mount Raymond and past the mill picking up speed in ‘angel gear’.

“You used angel gear as much as you could to save fuel,” Alec said.

Imagine flying down there now in similar circumstances.

“I wouldn’t do it now.”

ON THE BALL

“We fitted in what we could,” Alec said of his footballing days.

Alec played every year, pulling on the boots for Cabbage Tree, Marlo and Orbost.

“I won five club best and fairests and three league best and fairests.”

On one occasion, Elsie recalled, Alec and neighbour and fellow dairy farmer, Lenny Robinson, on opposing sides for Orbost and Newmerella playing at Newmerella, kicked it to one another all afternoon from half back to half back.

“Go home and milk your bloody cows, Robinson,” Alec bellowed across the field to his neighbour. Robinson had a reply to equal his mate.

“It was very funny, because everybody laughed,” Elsie said.

Alec said everyone went to the football ... “everybody”.

Alec was part of the triple premiership years of 1948-50 (Snowy Valley league), but it was the three flags Orbost won from 1967-69 (Gippsland Football League, six premier- ships in nine years) that was the catalyst for the biggest shake up of local football in the town’s history – the formation of Snowy

Rovers in 1970. “I went into the town to get the mail and I walked out of the post office with the mail and there was a bloke over the other side of the road at the Bottom Pub and he yelled out come over here we’re talking to these Orbost bastards here about another footy club.

“I’m not coming over there, if you want to talk to me you come over here,” Alec bellowed across the street.

“Des Humphreys was postmaster at the time and I was talking to Lenny Healey and Ken Edlington at the post office and he walked out onto the footpath and said ‘what are you fellas on about’.

“I said these silly bastards here are talking about wanting to form a new footy club, what do you reckon? He said it should have been done years ago, and I said, yes, it should have.”

Alec was put up as the president, but it was an offer he declined, suggesting postmaster Humpreys as the right man for the job.

“Des Humphreys, he had everything at his fingernails and I said he’d be the best president,” Alec said.

Humphreys declined, and as it turned out Ray Vaux was elected president and Alec deputy.

Alec was happy to fill the void when needed. “The next year I was nominated for president and I was president for the next 10 years.”

Alec would serve as president from 1971-80 and another year in ’83. Under his presidency, the Rovers won five premierships.

The town was humming, the timber industry was thriving, and the town still had its own SEC, PMG, shire council, butter factory etc., and boasted a population of more than 3000 people.

“It was fantastic,” Alec said of the football.

“That was the best football there has ever been in Orbost.”

“It created a lot of interest,” Elsie recalled.

Was playing hard off the field as important as playing hard on it?

“If you get involved with a footy team, you’ve got a committee, supporters, it’s all be- hind you and everyone mixes in together. You get on the turps,” Alec said.

“There was quite a bit of alcohol.”

“Some people used to forget where they lived,” Elsie chimed in.

Alec, not one to suffer a hangover or get sick, vividly recalls (in reverse order) his week when president of the Rovers.

“Sunday - Sunday barrel down here at the Roadhouse paddock (foot of the hill at Jarrahmond), and other places. The barrel went from about 10 o’clock in the morning until 2 in the afternoon ... a niner.

“Saturday was the football.

“Friday night was raffle night and making money for the club. You’d sell them any- where,” he said.

“You had to do the pub crawl,” Elsie said.

Thursday night was training and team selection, Wednesday night ”he had a bloke to see”, Tuesday was training and Monday he had an- other bloke to see or a pig sale to attend.

Thursday night was a big occasion, with lots of home-cooked stew and mashed spuds in big boilers, all washed down with an ale.

And Alec was only too happy to be involved in team selection when president.

“I had a fair idea. As I said I got five club and three league best and fairests so I was in it, I was well in it.”

Were your sons better footballers than you?

“I’d say they were all as good or better, all good footballers.

“Kevin was the best full back in league, Brian was the best full forward and Colin was a rover.”

His other sporting passion was golf, and his contribution as president of Orbost Golf Club in rebuilding the clubrooms in the mid 1980s was a major achievement.

“That was a disaster ... the bloody golf club getting burnt down,” he said.

“Some stupid young bastard lit it ... I don’t know what you call proof, but it was common knowledge anyway,” he said of the circumstances.

“Two bloody years I put into that, Johnno Roach and I were the main two there,” he said of the new build.

“It took a lot of work over the bar to work it out,” Elsie said.

Alec hasn’t had a round for about 15 years.

“I was a better footballer than golfer I think,” he said.

“I started playing golf and I’d had a few rounds and I started to hit the ball alright, I got better and better and I got down to 10 (handicap). I was on 10 when I had the stroke. I thought well I’ll get to single figures, but I never made it.

“I finished footy when I was about 30, and started golf when I was about 35 I suppose.”

“You’d play golf every day of the week, every week of the year Alec,” Elsie said.

Rocking back in his chair, Alec, not wanting to totally agree, responded with a quiet “Mmm”.

PIGGING OUT

The fortnightly Monday pig and calf sales were a “big day”.

“I saw the Bottom Pub with 18 sharefarmers off Alistair Cameron’s farms in there, 18 of them,” said Alec, recalling the men hanging out the local watering hole.

There may have even been an occasion when the kids had to sit in the car and wait for the sale debrief to conclude.

“And who was milking the cows then?” Elsie asked with a laugh, knowing full well what the answer should be!

“I might have got home to feed the calves,” Alec said.

“Yeah, you might have!” Elsie said.

The small farms, milking about 100-120 cows, were potentially more rounded enterprises than the large farms seen today, a point the McDonalds quickly pick up on.

Cows were milked, the milk separated for the butter factory. The pigs did well on the milk and you grew maize.

“When bulk milk started (and the butter factory closed) that’s when the pig sales finished, there was no milk to feed them. All pig stys have fallen down now, there’s no such thing,” Alec said.

FAMILY IS BIG

Alec was one of eight children born to Jim and Jessie (nee Hossack) McDonald - Jimmy, Flora, Neil, Donny, Alec, Joannie, Herbie (Lindsay) and Dorothy – and grew up on the Marlo Road, just past Gilbert’s Gulch.

Continuing the tradition of big families, Alec and Elsie married in 1949 and had six children - Cheryl, Julie, Kevin, Colin, Brian and Graham.

They now have 21 grandchildren, 42 great grandchildren and another on the way, and three great great grandchildren and another on the way.

And Alec is happy when they call in, and very happy the family continues to farm.

“I like it, yeah. I’m very proud of the family.” But what’s he been like, Elsie?

“I didn’t see him that much ... he was busy,” Elsie said of her husband prior to his stroke.

Maybe he got looked after a bit too well, with Elsie known to throw a hessian bag over him as she went to milk after Alec had flaked it on the lawn on the way home from a night out.

After his stroke, Alec maintained his interest in Murrungowar and would often be taken for a drive out there. He loves Murrungowar.

He still gets around with the Orbost Regional Health planned activity groups and their outings on Mondays and Fridays sharing stories with old friends and educating a few newcomers.

“He’s had his ups and downs,” Elsie said. “I’ve been alright,” Alec says.

Those ups and downs included a couple of instances were he suffered serious injuries. He was gored by a cow up the Rabbit Run.

“A bloody cow got me. I made a big mistake then, I got in the bath with boilin’ hot water and it was the worst bloody thing I could have done. I should have got under the cold shower.”

On warfarin, his leg blew up and it had to be opened up.

On another occasion, in the early ‘60s, Alec and neighbour Lenny Robinson had been away buying horses, including one for daughter Julie.

“The next bloody morning, Lenny said get on that bloke (horse). I only half got on him and he spun around and the bastard threw me off.

“Busted my pelvis and I had a hole in my bladder.”

Alec was plastered from his torso down to his upper leg and was hospitalised in Melbourne.

Horses were always a part of their lives, including droving cattle once a year from Murrungowar into Orbost to wean calves.

“Half the town used to want to come. We’d get out there early and do it in one day, in daylight, on the horses.”

One of his more exhilarating experiences, fortunately without injury, was when he was falling in the bush with a swing saw on spring- boards some 15 feet off the ground.

“You were pretty high up when you finished. You had to go so high up so the tree was small enough to fit the saw through,” Alec recalled.

“They (trees) were that big at the bottom the saw wouldn’t go through them. You’d finish up with a stump about 15-foot high.”

And what did it feel when the tree fell and you were standing 15 feet off the ground on just a board?

Alec, speechless, just re-enacted a violent shaking motion.

“The squeaking and grinding of it when it was going,” he said.

“The ticklish part was putting the mortise in with an axe. You went in, you had a piece of 4x2 and stuck that in where you’d chipped out with the axe. Two of you on these two planks across it and two of you up there prancing around with an axe and these boards only stuck in about that far (holding his hands a couple of inches apart).”

Anyone who has been part of this town across the generations knows Alec and Elsie McDonald or a member of their family.

Alec and Elsie have played a significant part in the sporting and social life of the village, and with the ensuing generations upholding many of the family traditions, there is no question the genes are good ones.

However, characters like Alec McDonald don’t come along every day ... maybe only once every 90 years.