A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

The Country Style team have spent days going through our old issues and filing cupboards filled with images in preparation for this special issue to celebrate our 30th birthday. Lots of memories came flooding back as we looked through the pages. Utes getting bogged while trying to shoot covers, worrying about photographers travelling in remote areas beyond mobile telephone reception and how one of them, Sharyn Cairns, would occasionally text us a beautiful picture with the words ‘in the line of fire’ — that’s a memory which made me run one of those images on page 96. It was shot in 2011 and I think it is just as powerful today as it was then.

People often ask me how we find all the stories that fill our pages and my answer is that it’s actually the easiest part of our job. We are so lucky that there are so many amazing people out in regional Australia who have wonderful stories. Which is why we decided that the best way to celebrate our 30th birthday was to feature a list of the 30 people who have made a difference to regional Australia in some way. Turn to page 101 for our Top 30 and the chance to vote for who you think is the most deserving — a big thank you to our partner Fisher & Paykel plus the category sponsors.

I saved the house on page 64 for this issue, because for me it represented so many of the things I look for in our stories. It’s a beautiful home, filled with art by friends and family and slowly turned from a shed in a paddock to what it is today. As its owner, Sus Bush, explains, “it was built on the smell of an oily rag” — a bit like my own home! — and it just goes to show what can be done with a bit of ingenuity.

Rob Ingram has been an important part of Country Style since the very beginning. This morning I read his Country Squire column from the February/ March issue of 1991 about where to put a vegetable patch and it did make me smile, nearly 20 years later.

And finally, I would love you to celebrate our birthday with us at Carriageworks in Sydney on May 30 — see page 26 for the event details.

Enjoy the issue,