Roebourne Town mid 80s

This is a painting of Roebourne from my memory of it when I was young. We used to always be down at the river. It used to be flowing all the time, a much bigger river back in the old days. We would fish, swim and wash our clothes down at the river.

The town hall is the building that is across the road from the art centre building. We used to have all sorts of events like roller skating and discos. A lot of fun. It was the main attraction of Roebourne and old Slim Dusty played there. There also used to be a garage across the
road from the Ganalili centre. There was a fuel station and a shop there. It was my favourite place to buy lollies before I would go down to the river and spend the day down there. I used to swim and catch my feed there.

We also had a butcher. We used to be able to get five dollars worth of chops you could cook in the ashes. Roebourne used to have everything. The NYFL building used to be the Chinese shop.

We had a lot of mixed culture around. We used to be friends with the kids from the Chinese shop and they used to send us home with Chinese food. It was good. Nice people.

The river was our main base to get together all us young people. It used to be the best place to get away. It was really good back then to get away from the street and the traffic.

Before they built the dam up, there was constant water running. It was clean and fresh all the time. Good for swimming and fishing. Now the water is sittng too long and families are a bit frightened to send their kids down there because it’s not flowing.

Lots of changes since that dam was made to help the towns with water. Roebourne back in that time was a very beautiful place. A lovely place to bring up your family. We would sit down at the river and help the old people wash their clothes and at the same time enjoying the
water.

Lot of young people don’t really know about that river life. The river used to be right up alongside that road. I’m lucky I can paint it on my canvas and tell the young ones about the old time.