My own experience with TOCAH volunteer oral historians and preservers of both interviews and artefacts reflects the uniquely valuable work they are doing to future-proof the fading history of regional, rural and remote Queenslanders.
For example, TOCAH expertise and application over time has enabled:
- The scanning of a very rare, crumbling book written by my forbear, George Phillips, who both surveyed and engineered the Normanton to Croydon railway in 1867
- The preservation of many aging photographs from my early years, my school life, my dairy farming ventures and others
- The scanning and preserving of over 40 years’ worth of menus and notes from an epicurean club I coordinate in Caloundra
- Interviews about my early life around Stanthorpe where my family were fruit growers who established the first cooperative store and post office around Bapaume
- Further interviews regarding my work as a surveyor working throughout Central and South East Queensland, including 50 plus years around Caloundra, all professionally recorded to international best standards
- Another interview about my community service in the Lions Club and elsewhere
Since my own younger family members have no intention of preserving this history, I am very pleased to be able to have it professionally preserved. So much of one’s identity is tied up in these records, it really does affirm one’s (and one’s forbears’) contributions to Queensland’s development. This is a great boost to a retired person’s sense of worth.
