Email Article Mr. Scribbles
An Interview with a Very Small Bear
What do you do for a living?
I suppose you could call me a professional companion. I travel the world with Yvonne, making sure she’s OK and also checking up on her work. Really she’s nothing without me, but very few people know that. I’m the bear behind the woman!
Yvonne Briggs
The Life Behind the Glamour
Yvonne Briggs makes it plain from the outset that she wants to be seen as something more than her job. “A lot of people see this glamorous lifestyle of World Cups and Olympics, but what is more important to me is my life, my family and friends, and my personal history,” Yvonne writes in an email from Switzerland. Home for the holidays and sitting comfortably in the sunny Sawtell home she had shared with her partner Andrew, Yvonne launches into the story of her 45 years thus far. And despite her earlier admonitions we begin with her job.
It is a position with UEFA, the governing body of European football (aka soccer) that has lured Yvonne away from the beaches of Sawtell to the mountains of Switzerland. She is the Host Broadcast Projects Manager for the TV Production department, working on the global television coverage for all UEFA events, including the European Championships and the Champions League. It’s a big job, but she comes very well qualified.
Sally Townley
Breathing Fire
Did you ever dream of running off with the circus when you were a child? Well, Sally Townley didn’t. “Circus really did come from left field,” Sally tells me. “It just kind of happened to me late in life.” Yet here she sits, owner of the Coffs Coast Community Circus, fire breather, stilt walker, trapeze artist.
Sally looks the part: the lithe, muscular physique of a gymnast; hair pulled tightly back; her face unadorned with make up and looking younger than her 46 years. But as she sips her coffee and talks about her 8-year study of the Hastings River Mouse I am reminded that the fire breather beside me is also Dr. Sally Townley, scientist and environmentalist and I spend the rest of the conversation trying to understand this dichotomy.
Tyson Ferguson
Tyson Ferguson ambles into the Saltwater Freshwater office; casually dressed and sucking on a straw planted firmly into a large Gloria Jeans iced coffee. “I’m not a morning person,” he admits as we head to a table and chairs outside the office where we will conduct our interview.
At 22 years of age, Tyson is a broad man with a ring in his nose and a stud in his lip. On someone else the image could be a bit intimidating, but Tyson’s easy smile when we meet and his nervous laugh when we start to speak suggest he is anything but menacing. We talk about Tyson’s life as a young Aboriginal growing up in Coffs Harbour, about his job with the Saltwater Freshwater Arts Council and about lemon myrtle cheesecake. But Tyson really comes into his own when he talks about Indigenous language: its importance to him personally and the role it can play in healing a broken people.
Tyson has a lot to teach. He is teaching his own people to rediscover their language. But he also has much to teach non-Aboriginal peoples about why an almost forgotten language is important.
Jan Strom
Unstoppable
“I’m exhausted!” So begins the conversation with Jan Strom and as her story unfolds I can certainly understand why she might be tired. But she looks youthful and vital, snappily dressed for the Coffs Coast Digital Strategy launch function from which she has just departed. Despite a touch of grey in her short-cropped hair she certainly doesn’t look her 57 years of age.
She was only 27 when she first arrived in Coffs Harbour in 1981. “I came up in a VW named Biggles, with a sound system and a bag of leotards,” says Jan. An actor by training, Jan had long before worked out that actors need other skills to pay the bills. After several years working in aerobics training in Adelaide and Sydney, she had acquired a Jazz Fitness franchise for the entire north coast of NSW. “I started my classes at the Catholic Club and the Sawtell RSL in the Princess Room,” Jan recalls. Her timing was perfect, the aerobics phenomena was about to take off and Jan was able to ride the wave.
Mark Graham
It Isn't Easy Being Green
By the time I meet Mark Graham in the Coffs Harbour Botanical Gardens I have googled him and discovered that he is indeed an ecologist, and his "Green" platform has made him a very controversial member of the Coffs Harbour City Council. I've prepared myself for a tree-hugging extremist complete with soapbox. But it is a cheerful young man dressed casually in an open collar shirt that waves to me from the gates and ambles over to shake my hand. As we wander amongst the tropical trees Mark talks about his love of the Gardens and his attachment to the Coffs region. "My parents gave me a sense of the land. They would often take my sister and I off into the bush. It's an amazing landscape to be brought up in because there's so much of interest and inspiration.
Santa Clause
A Visitor Comes to Town
He lives at the North Pole most of the time, but this weekend Santa will be right here in Coffs, so it seemed appropriate to honour him as one of the most interesting people on the Coast. He runs a very large toy manufacturing facility, flies all over the world and is good with animals. Despite his frantically busy, high-stress life he always has time for a laugh. Ho Ho Ho!
Wishing everyone a joyous Christmas, a relaxing break and an interesting new year!!