Our Neighbours

My neighbour, they’re very welcoming, extremely welcoming. Louise Anderson knew that my wife was away, so she prepared a dinner for me to take home. It’s because she knew my wife wasn’t going to be there.

But our community shares and you know, the importance of family. Importance of trust. It doesn’t bother me what people’s religion is whatever’s been instilled into them is terrific, and that’s how it should be.

Connections are very important and from our community, whereas people in the past have thought we’ve lived in a very exclusive way. You can ask anyone that has to do with us and they’ll tell you otherwise.

When you see it like that, it doesn’t, you know, it’s hard to brand it with the exclusive, isn’t it?

They have been such support to us for no particular reason just because they’re really beautiful people.

They’re good because they’ve got equal values of good people, which makes life a lot easier.

They’re such a huge part of the orange community. I think it’s just who we are as orange, which I think is really lovely. Bernadette would feed our chickens all the time, for us even, you know, if the girls are at home on their own, our three daughters and there’s an issue you know you’ve got Peter and Bernadette behind you know that you can go there and that’s quite a comforting feeling for us, definitely, to know that we’ve got that support behind us.

Lots of mystery and about The Brethren community. I have 30 years or 30 plus years in the state system as a principal and a couple of schools and a director of education. I found a really pleasant surprise. Happy people, good families, outgoing people. You know, the myths that we have of such a closed, secretive community is just not true for this day and age.

One of our values is care and compassion, and that broadens out to not our not only our own, but to everyone.

We had fires on the Blue Mountains 3 or 4 years ago, and The Brethren community had got the rapid relief team they put out thousands and thousands of meals for free to firefighters. That’s another aspect of the community that we probably don’t see much or hear much about.

It doesn’t matter what background anyone comes from If we can build a community together.

A very worthwhile, professional experience for me and just good to get to know The Brethren people, the community, the kids, the philosophy of what The Brethren community is about. Yes, that’s pretty much my view of them.

They’re the perfect neighbours, you sort of, don’t realise what it’s like to have good neighbours until you don’t. We do know they’re here because there are times when you just need a hand. So, if you were to take The Brethren away, it would be a huge loss, huge loss. I’ve always found them to be just, you know, just welcoming and I mean that that is probably a lot to do with the way they are, because they just get on with it. And always up for a chat, you know, recipes, even the men, because they’ve got like, some good chefs in amongst them as well. We’re always talking food, Rach and I, and you get ideas from, from each other. If you know, they take me for who I am well, then I’m going to take them as who they are. We’re blessed that we’ve got such nice neighbours.

100%. We have the same values, yeah, they’re just easy going, I actually come in every Monday or Tuesday and, I have crazy stories to tell them, and they’re so open minded and they actually, like, if something goes wrong, they tell me, oh, but that’s a really good way to look at it in a different aspect. So yeah, it’s good.

Working with Charlie, it’s been unreal since day one he’s on the job every day. He helps me out whenever I need help and he’s just a real good fella unbelievable actually.

Sam’s a character and so Is Nicole, but, yeah, we it’s good to be able to have that that, that link that we can actually have a good chat.

Sometimes I think the way I speak is too abrupt and too forward, and they never judge me on any of that, so really we need to learn from them.

I always say I want Charlie to be me father, so I think that’s a good indication of how much I like Charlie. I haven’t met one bad person from the church, I think it’s like they’re just all well-mannered people who are happy to get along with everyone.

You don’t really have a life without people. So, those relationships are really, really important to us.

We’re Bruce and Janet Goodsell, and we’ve been married for 43 years. We have had 6 children and some of the 19 grandchildren are here with us today, they come on a regular basis. Well, I grew up in Chatswood and went to horticulture course for three years. Then I started of my own business in about 1974, designed and did everything outside the house, including tennis courts, automatic irrigation, everything like a one stop shop.

Then my son-in-law married my third daughter, Roger and he has a very good business and asked “Dad, why don’t you come work for us? We need someone in Sydney”. So in 2007, I started working for Millform Products as a salesman. It was only Roger and myself (building) that business. Millform Products currently employs 78 full time staff, whether that be salesmen, sales managers, directors, the receptionists here and Aubury and then all the men on the floor.

We treat our members whether they are members of the community or non-members the same. Go and talk to them, see how they’re getting on. Offer them advice. Treat them as equals and I’m happily working there and when the going gets tough, I go and prune the roses. Yes, I enjoy working with my son in law. He and I, we think the same. And if we don’t, if we do disagree, we tell each other. And we’re upfront.

Nearly every lunchtime we walk, we walk for exercise. Didn’t see me doing anything. But it is for exercise. When the children come by, often, we’ll get the table tennis table out. Or they might play balls down the hallway. They like to fiddle around on the pianos and guitars. And they’ve even been known to wash grandpa’s car.

Our life is really being together and with the community members as well as our family, and we like to help each other out (in) any way we can. Faith is the most important thing in our lives. Yeah, it’s a huge thing. We wouldn’t have got through, you know, without with our love for God and actually being totally dependent on God for everything. That is our stability really, and our joy and hope.

We see each other quite a bit. The New South Wales ones especially, they come from south and north and meet halfway often and have the day together. And it’s a very nice time. We all just sit down, talk to each other, say anything at dawn and we talk to them about the kids and the children could be off having a game. If it’s in Victoria, it’ll have to be AFL, and if it’s Sydney, it’ll be NRL.

All the men are out here cooking up the barbecue mostly, and they all seem to be all helping each other as far as cooking the meat. They just are always just telling stories and laughing and yeah, having a good time while all the girls are chit chatting and all the cousins are playing together somewhere. The cousins love to be together and that’s always a happy time.

It’s really wonderful.

Hi, I’m Frank Inzitari I’ve been a local at Lithgow my whole life and I’m just here to have a quick discussion today about the Plymouth Brethren, who I’ve known for over 20 years. I’ve found them to be very hospitable, very kind people from back then and throughout the years they became neighbours of mine all around our area, and I can’t speak highly enough of them I think they’re a great asset to our Lithgow community. And also, the fact that we deal with businesses they support our local community great for businesses and charitable events, really needs to be noted I have nothing but good things to say about them I think they’re an asset to our local community and I think they’ve invested heavily in the town, which everyone, all locals, can obviously see what they’ve done to buildings that were derelict or no longer in use. They’ve created a massive enterprise that benefits not only the locals, but also certainly the greater regions. I’ve got nothing but respect, admiration, and I think they’re easy to deal with. I think they’re easy to talk to. They’re always open-minded and I think that, yeah, it’s Lithgow’s greatest asset, and I have no problem in supporting them now and into the future.

Yes. I’m Richard and this is my wife, Tanya. Yeah, we’ve lived here for nearly 18 years, and we lived next door to the Plymouth Brethren families for the last 18 years. Tim and Gill, and then Richard and Brenda, and they have been fantastic neighbours.

What would we do anything different?

No no no, the families we’ve lived next door to have been nothing but great neighbours. Good people great morals, great ethics, good family people. Lovely kids and just nice, friendly neighbourhood people and I couldn’t think of better neighbours to live next door to.

I agree, we hold the same values we work really hard we’re family orientated, and we’ve just love seeing all the kids grow up. Some of them have visited us, when they’ve had babies or they’ve moved away, or something exciting has happened in their life. So we feel a little bit a part of the family as well. Both families.

How are you Russell?

I’m good thanks Kevin I’m very well actually.

Tell us about your relationship with the Plymouth Brethren over the years.

Oh, well, it’s been a really good relationship. I’ve, I clean the cars, trucks, I have done for about 27 years. They always pay, which is good that’s always an advantage, and they’re really great people to deal with, with community minded people, and, yeah, I’m really happy to deal with them. Yeah. Great people.

So how long have you had Brethren as neighbours for?

Well, for myself, I’ve been back at home family home plus five years but my mum and dad, they’ve had Brethren neighbours for at least I’m going to say 20 or 30 years. They’ve always been very hospitable very kind help us out with taking bins in when we haven’t asked them to just really looking out for us and especially after my dad died, I think mum found it very comforting knowing that Libby was next door. And, you know, they’ve really looked out for her during that time she was by herself. Just recently, having you and your family moving It’s been lovely, so it’s nice having very friendly family. Good values and again, from the from the instant we met you guys, it was, you know, I feel very much like I’d known you by for a long time and the kids were also really sweet.