Episode 231. Jane & Lochy McTaggart – A big life at Bidgemia [Voices of the Gascoyne]
Welcome to Voices of the Gascoyne, the podcast series where we delve into the remarkable stories of the pastoralists who came before us. These men and women faced their fair share of challenges, from day-to-day aspects of communication, transport, and electricity, to natural disasters, market collapses, and the impacts of government policy.
In this series, we reflect on their journeys and capture insights that can only be gained from having made it to the other side. You’ll hear stories of their unacknowledged resilience—for them, it was simply life, but for us, it serves as both inspiration and a chance to learn for the future.
In this episode, we speak to Lochy and Jane McTaggart, who called Bidgemia Station home for over four decades.
They say they’ve lived a big life — and they mean it.
Together they endured the challenges of life in the bush – the ones that were part and parcel of working in agriculture, like drought and death, and those they could never have seen coming – a catastrophic flood which almost destroyed everything they spent their lives working for.
Throughout it all, Lochy and Jane have raised a family, built a community, and created a legacy that runs strong today.
To start our conversation, I asked Lochy to take me back to where it all began.
Voices of the Gascoyne is a Gascoyne Catchments Group project, made possible through support from FRRR’s Helping Regional Communities Prepare for Drought Initiative, funded by the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.