IN the 1970s, a phenomenon contemporary media described as a “naked hairy wave” saved the town of Mullumbimby in the state’s north. Some of Australia’s earliest hippies settled in the area, bringing strange new houses, nudity, moon dances and free love.
Many might have been raised in middle-class comfort but they embraced counterculture figures like Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan and John Lennon, pushed the boundaries of conventional spirituality and openly experimented with psychedelic drugs.
In a town of conventional banana and dairy farmers who were struggling, they provoked strong responses.
Still, the residents of Mullumbimby – old and new – forged a generally accepting community. Their diverse stories are told in a documentary commissioned by the Brunswick Valley Historical Society.
Film-maker Sharon Shostak, who arrived with her mother in 1973, said Mullumbimby’s Madness – the Legacy of the Hippies set out to capture the stories of that pioneering generation before they were lost. She has personal recollections of the times, from a child’s perspective. “When I first arrived it felt like the dead end of the world,” she said. “We were living in a close-knit Jewish community in Melbourne fresh from the Holocaust, and my mother’s action of taking us to live in the hills behind Mullum with her new boyfriend was deemed beyond belief.”
Not long after, their Main Arm house burned down. “In the space of six months we went from living in a suburban double-storey house with tennis court and swimming pool, to living in a dome and kitchen with a sawdust floor and pit toilet, no hot running water and no electricity.
“Most of my memories of those initial years involve exciting adventures on horseback and in the creeks.
“We hung out with a bunch of other kids and roamed the hills like wild things.
“Mullumbimby was a town that, if you blinked, you’d miss it, so inconsequential did it seem. It felt like there was a large mix of vibrant adults along with a fair share of loopy misfits.”
Interviewing those characters from her childhood 40 years later has given fresh perspective and provided a steep learning curve.
“I realise that I didn’t actually know their story.”
Sharon found while the original townspeople were divided in their opinions of the new settlers, “there was a consensus that they were vital to the town, and that their cash saved it from the throes of death”.
Much of that cash came from the business of buying and selling the marijuana that became known as Mullumbimby Madness. “Whether it was an old hippie or a farmer, people were consistently open and generous with their stories,” Sharon said.
“A lot of the original settlers are still here, still productive on their land and active in the community as artists, business owners, landlords, politicians etc.
“It has changed, of course, and all those original hippie settlers live more comfortably today than when they first arrived.”
Journalist Kerry O’Brien was among those who covered the change at the time, and is interviewed in Shostak’s film. But as he comments at the end of the film, there is still something different about this region that may well have attracted those people here in the first place.
“Bringing them together in the edit was an absolute joy.
“I use all their different perspectives to create the narrative, and finding interesting or inventive ways to combine them is the peak experience for me.” Local screenings of the film were a huge success and DVDs have also sold quickly.
Phone Brunswick Valley Historical Society on (02) 8884-4367, www.mullumbimbymuseum.org.au
