Susie Williment, or Susie T, as she is widely known is charisma personified.

Fearless, sharp as a tack, and humorous enough to make anyone’s day, her presence is a ray of sunshine on the Hay landscape.

Many may know her as very adept at sewing, but may not realise how resourceful she actually is. Until you understand that she had barely sewn, except for minor repairs, until she came to Hay and suddenly found herself with nothing to do.

Suzie was born in Charters Towers, a little gold mining and education town in Queensland.

“My father, and his brother, at different times drew cattle blocks. My mother could not teach us, she had a basic education,” Susie said. “When we were not with mum and dad, and in town for school, we were boarding with relatives. We were not well off.

“I was mustering and riding horses from the age of four. I couldn’t reach the stirrups yet, it was difficult.

“If I got off the horse, the stirrups were set for the length of my legs, but if I clambered off, I couldn’t reach the stirrup to climb back on, there had to be the right sized tree stump or rock around. I always rode an old stock horse, not a pony.”

“We had two younger brothers to look after. As a child, I spent all the time I could, including school holidays at the Gidyea Briglow block.”

They would regularly clear the properties, as it was a requirement of the ballot block to clear a certain amount of scrub in a timeframe.

There was a certain amount of land, 33000 acres, and not a lot of fencing.

“We would ride around all day, and come home with 20 head, my dad would say that the scrub was so dense a dog couldn’t bark in it,” Susie said with a laugh.

The family grew up with no electricity.

They lived 120 kilometres out of town.

“The creek flooded every wet season, the summer months,” Susie said.

“It wasn’t quite a river, not quite a creek. When it flooded it was 20 feet deep, and strong flowing.

“We could be trapped for months at a time, sometimes only a fortnight, depending on whether there was follow up rain.

“There was a car parked on the other side of the creek, so sometimes we would walk through waist deep water, or slightly higher sometimes.

“However, there was another smaller creek that had to be traversed, but if the big creek was ok, this one usually was too.

“There was also 20 kilometres of highway to navigate, so any heavy rain meant that that was closed too.”

They had no phone, no electricity, it was a different, interesting life, Susie said, much different from life today.

“I love all of today’s modern amenities, the power, the rubbish man, septic tanks, running down to the store in a flash if you run out of milk.

After completing her education, Susie under took teachers’ training in Townsville, and then taught in smaller schools for eight years.

These included rural schools in Charters Towers, Clermont and a three-teacher school at Eton, with some of these schools being around or smaller than Hay Public School.

She then ventured overseas to travel. When she came back, she was really looking for a purpose, to make a difference.

“Distance Education was starting to become a new, structured thing in Queensland,” she said.

“I taught Year 7 by correspondence. It was on air and also in person, involving papers.

“We would travel vast distances to our various students.

“It was a lot different from the way they do it now, we would travel all over the Charters Towers School of Distance Education region.

"Queensland distance education centres were based at Cairns, Longreach, Charters Towers, Brisbane, Charleville and everywhere in be tween.

They called it outreach travel.

“I had the Clermont group, comprising of middle and lower school students.

Upper school, usually, and areas varied. Hughenden area another year or two, and Greenvale area, we alternated every year or two.”

Once Susie arrived at her destination, she would conduct school for two or three days with the other SDE teachers for that area, and then travel home.

The also conducted in-reach sessions, where the children would travel to a certain destination, usually Charters Towers or Townsville, and have camps.

“It was so rewarding, calling up the children, teaching them, calling them and their home tutor, which was usually their mother or governess. I made a lot of good long-lasting friends, parents of children.

"I was a tough disciplinarian; I would say jump and children would say how high,” she said with a laugh.

“I encouraged them not to strive for perfection but to do their best. It’s not about being first all the time, but to improve upon your own personal abilities.”

After a time, Susie took on a role as Project Officer, for 12 months. It involved setting up Capricornia Distance Education, and dealing with parents.

“After 12 months, I decided to return to distance education teaching, that was truly where my passion was.”

After another 12 months, she took a year off. At the age of 38, she was at an impasse.

She was unsure whether teaching was something that she wanted to spend the rest of her life doing. She decided to return home to help her parents on the farm, their cattle station, while she de cided.

“It was at that time I met Al, and life changed,” she said.

“It went from boring to completely different, I married a share farmer.”

She commenced her life as a cotton picker, and they performed this task from Clermont to Hay.

“Hay was the furthest point we travelled, and I loved Hay from the start,” she recalled.

“Hay meant that the days were short and the men had to do their own washing.”

Susie went from a rather basic cook to a very adept creator. “

Al had one picker, and he picked while I organised the ground crew,” Susie said.

“I ran things, and catered, and was the gopher. When cotton picking in Queensland, you start when the dew dries under a certain per cent, and then finish when the dew comes in. This meant days went from 6am to 11pm.”

They made good money, and Susie ensured that they were constantly abreast of safety issues. Susie has two stepchildren, Alan’s children.

Greg, their oldest, lived with the couple from the time he was 10 years old.

“I taught Greg via distance education.

We took him with us when we were working, and he would complete his schoolwork in the caravan.

“He was always out and about stickybeaking though, he was a very clever child from the get go.

"We would also take him fencing, and would set him up to do schoolwork near the truck. He would always be staring at the sky watching birds.

“If I ever had to go away for any reason, I would always come home and Greg would have all of his schoolwork done, biscuits baked and set out on the table, washing was on the line, and the house would be spotless.

“I would laugh, and know that he would have been doing his own thing for most of the day, with the work all caught up on in a hurry, in the last hour or two before I came home.

“I was his mentor in a way, and I am forever proud of him, of both the boys. I see Greg and the way he interacts with his children, and I laugh and think that is me to a T.”

It was a different life out on the cotton-picking trail.

“We had a crew of 30, and 30-35 in the last three or four years of contracting, but by then we had refined our set up.

Al was on the ground and was in the office, and the gopher, with one per son, and sometimes two people in the kitchen, and camp.

"When we originally kicked off with two pickers, we had 15 staff. “We would spend a lot of time on the road. We would have enough stored in the caravan to last three days, including refrigeration.

"I would be the one to go and get food, oil for machines, and parts if something broke down. I was not a very mechanical person, and there were no mobile phones to call and check that I was getting the right thing, so I would draw a picture of what was needed and take notes.”

Every trip in and out of town took a big chunk of time out of the day, so the less trips required the better.

“We were in bed by 12 or 1am, and I would prep breakfast for the next morning, and be up and at it at 4 or 5 am to get things going for the day.

“After breakfast was sorted, then Al would branch off with the picking crew while I took the ground crew.

"One time, the convoy were travelling to Wilcannia for picking, with escort for the wide vehicles, and the caravan had its fridge door open accidentally, it was a rough road.

"All of the sugar, butter, flour, all of the cutlery, was tossed around the truck

"“It got all over everything and the driver came to me, complaining that he had three changes of clothes that were now filthy and needed to be washed.

‘I had been on the road for the same amount of time, and then was the one that had to go and clean up the mess in the caravan. Looked at the driver with gritted teeth, smiled and said,

“Well I think you had to go and see Al about that”.

It was difficult to get specialised people to come out to those areas so Susie had to work hard at times to maintain patience.

Susie said the people she worked with and came across for the most part, were wonderful, versatile and generous people. It was like a little family, and that was what they truly tried to foster.

“We liked them to stay in the camps with us.

"We always endeavoured to make a nice environment for the workers, give them things to occupy them so they wouldn’t wander off to the nearest pub or look for entertainment elsewhere.

“We tried to make it a situation for them where they were going home with money.

“We kept videos and DVDs, board games, and a Doberman, who everyone loved, and the workers would cuddle and pat her, and she would go around and see everyone.

“We would be on the road for three of four months, so it was easy for people to get lonely and miss their families.”

After a time, Al and Susie made enough to buy a farm in Theodore, Central Queensland. It was in CQ and directly west of Bundaberg, three hours from Rockhampton and an hour from Biloela.

“I miss Queensland in many ways, but New South Wales has so much to offer,” she said.

They expanded their farm and ended up buying a second farm.

“We lost our entire cotton crop the week be fore picking it in 2011, in Theodore, due to flood,” Susie said.

“It was devastating, we lost money, but at the same time, people in nearby Gatton lost their lives.

“We picked ourselves back up, but we were getting a little worried and apprehensive, wondering whether the business would survive.

“We got another crop, and worked hard, but we lost it again. It was all gone by January 1, 2012.

“We kept on fighting but it could not survive. We sold the farm, and Al found other work. I had to find something to do.”

Susie is the president of the CWA branch in Hay.

“It is different, and fun, I joined the CWA to get out and to get to know people. I do not play sport and that can make it hard to meet people.

"Everyone is so friendly, and the things we do together at the CWA are really fun.

“I took on executive roles at the CWA after a while, first Secretary, and then President/Secretary,” she said.

“I took on the role again in October last year. I don’t want the CWA to fold, it would be great to see it thrive, there are a lot of wonderful women behind it, and it is great for people from Hay, surrounding areas, and out of town to get involved.

“People in Hay are warm and welcoming; it is a great place to live.

“Two neighbours came to my house, after I had lived here for just two weeks.

They brought a chocolate cake and pumpkins, and welcomed me to the community.

“When I first moved to Hay, I suddenly found myself without something to do.

I did regret, in a way, not upgrading my teaching credentials, it would have been good money, and the easy way.

But it all ended up the way it should have.” Susie ended up being the sewing queen of Hay in a roundabout way.

“I saw a wallet on Facebook, I needed a new wallet, and there was a pattern for it also. I had no training in sewing, and I had only previously performed repairs on jeans and shirts. Sewing is an expensive hobby,” Susie laughed.

Larger than life, and incredibly resilient, Susie has sage advice for others.

“It has always been my philosophy to move forward, take each day as it comes, one at a time, and have fun.

“Without failure there is no success, just be brave and have a go.

“People should never have to be frightened to have a go. Just be happy, and if you fail, try again.

“When I started my role, many moons ago as Project Manager, there was no job description. I walked into the Guidance Officer’s office.

There was a saying on the desk, “Don’t look on it as someone pulling the rug out from underneath you, look at it as dancing on a moving floor,” I love that and have never forgotten that saying.”

Susie now conducts sewing classes, and work shops.

“It is hard to achieve a lot in a day, but they are really rewarding, to see people achieve and their delight in that.”

Suzie, where would one even begin to describe you.

You are an amazing breath of fresh air in our town, and we are all the better for having you live here.