Show goes on for blueribbon couple
In the game of life and love, Bob and Robyn Johnson are a matching pair. Their long and happy marriage, career success and shared passions and pastimes have welded them together in such a way — it would be no surprise if the Kooweerup couple’s hearts beat as one.
Bob and Robyn are perhaps best known for their commitment to agricultural life, most notably their involvement with the Berwick and Pakenham show societies.
They give the same response when asked to explain how local shows became such a big part of their lives.
“It gets in the blood, unfortunately,” Bob said with a laugh.
“It’s in the blood of the whole family,” said Robyn.
They have been married for almost 40 years, their life’s journey has mostly had a rural theme but taken some very unusual diversions along the way.
Bob’s work as a customs officer took him around the world and Robyn joined him in such farflung, disparate countries as Uganda, Fiji and China.
The pace of life in Beijing is a long way from Narre Warren North, where Bob and Robyn settled soon after their marriage. It was a different place to the fastgrowing suburb of today.
“It was just paddocks then, you’d come over the hill away from the last houses and you’d feel the temperature drop,” Robyn said.
Bob, who grew up in Melbourne, said friends thought they were mad moving so far out of the city.
“I used to think I was mad too,” he said of his daily commuting to work.
Bob’s greatgreatgrandfather drove a bullock team and his grandfather was a butcher so there was beef cattle in his background.
Living next to Berwick Show icon Jack Rae helped strengthen those ties.
Robyn and Bob said that from the time he was old enough to walk across by himself, son Colin spent every spare waking moment at Jack’s farm.
“He was mad keen on farming, there was never any doubt what he was going to do,” Robyn said.
“Jack’s farm was over the road and Colin went there every night after school.”
Jack and brother Bert quickly enlisted the Johnsons in the Berwick Agricultural and Pastoral Society.
It was a family affair. Colin became the society’s youngest ever committee member when he joined up at 16 and, together with Bob and Robyn’s daughter Fiona, ran errands for their parents on show days.
Bob was show secretary from 1981 to 1985 then worked his way up the hierarchy to become president in 1988. Robyn followed in his footsteps to become president in 2003.
Who was what was more or less irrelevant, they said. It was always a team effort.
“Robyn would take the phone calls during the day and I would type up the letters in the evenings,” Bob said.
“We saw it as an opportunity for the whole family to do something together.
“It is a huge effort, at Berwick you’re looking at 300400 volunteers working over the two days of the show,” Robyn said.
“The shows really are a big deal for the town and for the community.”
Colin made headlines one year when a cow escaped from the Akoonah Park showgrounds and ran across the Princes Highway.
“The highway was the highway then, it was the main thoroughfare for traffic. Colin helped David Robinson catch the cow. It had run over into what is now Haileybury College,” Bob said.
Lifelong friends were made in the show community. Robyn has fond memories of the days when farmers drove their cattle and sheep down Swanston Street to promote the show while she and other ladies cooked more than 1500 sausages to feed hungry hordes.
Typical of the way things work in closeknit communities, belonging to one organisation quickly means invitations to join others.
“Being involved in one got you involved in something else,” Robyn said.
“You only have to look around Pakenham now, it’s generally the same little group of people doing the work.”
The housing boom around Narre Warren North prompted Bob and Robyn to move to Kooweerup late in the 1980s.
They wanted to have more space around them to raise their beef cattle.
While they maintained their involvement in Berwick Show Society, Pakenham also beckoned, as did Dandenong.
It was while she was secretary at Pakenham that Robyn was asked to chair the art and craft committee of the Royal Melbourne Show.
Meanwhile, Bob is in his second year as chairman of the Victorian Agricultural Shows.
“We’re gluttons for punishment,” he said.
Retirement gave Bob a bit of breathing space but not before he spent a few years as a consultant helping to improve customs departments in developing countries.
He spent 12 months in Uganda and Robyn joined him there. “It was a real reality check,” Bob said.
Seeing the plight of refugees from wartorn Sudan made the Australian visitors realise how lucky they had it at home.
“You see children existing on one tiny bowl of porridge per day. It makes you think about what we have here and how much it means to have good health.
“Over there, a child dies every 30 seconds, their life expectancy is about 40 years and 80 per cent of the population lives on $1 per day. There is a desperation that puts our lives in perspective,” Bob said.
Soon, the Johnsons’ journey will take another turn.
They are leaving this area to move to Echuca to be closer to family.
Son Colin has farmed up there for several years but tragedy struck recently when he broke his neck in a car accident.
“He’s a dairy farmer and he’d been doing long hours, it was calving time and he had gone to play golf. He fell asleep at the wheel on the way home,” Bob said.
Daughter Fiona has also recently moved to the area from Western Australia.
She gave birth to Bob and Robyn’s first granddaughter only hours after inspecting the property that was to be the Johnsons’ new home.
For such a popular and wellknown couple, leaving was never going to be easy. Bob and Robyn have been feted at recent social gatherings, including the Berwick Show Society’s annual general meeting earlier this month.
Jack Rae, a society life member who helped draft them into the show, paid tribute to the Johnsons, saying their absence would be keenly felt.
“They have made an enormous contribution to this great gamily we have in show biz,” Mr Rae said.
For their part, Bob and Robyn were looking forward to returning for the show each year and enjoying the event at their own pace, rather than “running around all over the place”.
Robyn was looking forward to having more time to pursue her passion for arts and crafts while Bob will keep himself busy on the land.
One also suspects that their reputation may have preceded them as they settle into their new home.
“Jack’s daughter is the Echuca show secretary and his soninlaw is president,” Robyn said with a somewhat rueful smile.
“There’s no doubt we’ll get roped into it.”
