Lex and the land he loves
LEX Gugger was eight when his parents bought the Barrabool property he so loves.
Moving down from Mt Moriac in 1939, Alex and Kate Gugger defied the closing years of the Great Depression and all that they did — and did not — bring, and established a place for generations.
Lex had a little brother Daryl. Now with one at 85 and the other 80 on October 20, they’re still out fencing together.
Lex remembers the Depression years, but without too many specifics.
“You probably feel it by listening to your parents,” he said.
“You weren’t active in that much and then you were going to school.”
He started behind the school desk at Mt Moriac and then finished up at Barrabool, the roll call of a dozen or so kids dwindling during World War II years.
“I think we had about eight school teachers in one year, a lot went to war and we had a lot of junior teachers,” he said.
His parents didn’t run a lot of stock, and lived mainly off 16 cows, their milk going to fatten the pigs and the cream going for sale in Geelong.
They sold hay for the delivery horses that trotted faithful courses around the town.
Lex remembers well the drought of 1944-45.
“I can only remember about three droughts that really hit, that was 1944-45 and then 1967 and 1982. Others, they’ve been droughts but they were the ones that hit hardest,” he said.
“We shot 400 sheep in the ’67 drought I think it was. They dug a big hole over at the limestone quarries.”
Lex went to Geelong Tech on Moorabool St and then worked at home for a while with his parents.
“Then a chap by the name of Clive McAdam — he shore in front of the Queen and he always called himself the regal shearer — he called one night and said ‘Would you like to go