ABC Capricornia Radio interview today with Jacquie Mackay in Rockhampton for Around the Kitchen Table: A Reid Family History. I shared with her the folklore handed down from one generation to the next of Laurie’s grandfather James Reid who, as a boy in Ireland, held the parson’s horse when it wouldn’t settle. James was given a handful of cabbage seeds as a reward for his good deed, he planted the seeds, they grew large, he sold them, bought a three-legged ewe with twin lambs, sold those and with the money, in 1883 bought his passage to Australia. Over the course of his lifetime he acquired sixteen properties: enough to set each of his children up. When his grandson Laurie choose to leave the district, “due to the fear of inbreeding”, some said he wouldn’t amount to much. But his family now has six properties and, as a major beef supplier to Coles, is currently featured in their TV promotions.

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