Jane Stanley
Jane Stanley has been a Hinterland resident for only five months. A country girl at heart, it didn’t take long for this professional podiatrist to settle in Maleny. What surprised her was the strong, caring community in which she found herself.
Why did you come here?
I grew up in a country town in NSW. My father was a shearer so I spent my early life around sheep and horses. So I like small communities, and I like being in a country environment. I had basically finished raising five kids as a single parent for 15 years and I wanted to be where I wanted to be. And that was somewhere small – a country area but not too far from Brisbane. I still wanted that accessibility to the children. I came up here about two years ago and spent a few days. We were walking around the town and I thought this is where I want to be. Wouldn’t this be a fantastic place to establish a practice here. So I did. I started coming up once a fortnight to build the practice very slowly, establishing links with the medical practitioners. Once my last child finished school, I sold my house at Tennyson in Brisbane and moved here. So it’s just been this dream of living in a small community. I have found the people are so friendly and there is a real sense of community and caring for each other. I have made more friends here in the few months since I arrived in July than I did in the 15 years I was in Brisbane. I still have to go down to Brisbane to do some work. But it’s a small price to drive up that mountain and come over that rise, the air is clear and I feel energised again. When you walk down the street or you sit in the coffee shops, you can see that connection between people. You can see who is a local, who lives here and who is visiting, because their behaviours are very different. Just reading the billboards and the noticeboards around the community centre and seeing what is actually going on tells you that this place has a simplicity about it that is very precious.
Jane Stanley
What have you had to change in coming here?
I really haven’t had to change much at all. I feel like I’ve come home. I’m a Catholic so the parish has been very welcoming. I love parking in the main street and going to the IGA. I like walking through the Showgrounds and along the boardwalk with my dog and buying the newspaper on Saturday morning. I bought chooks. These are all the things that I love. I have a deck that looks out onto the Obi Obi Creek, and sitting there and watching the sun go down and looking at that beautiful landscape, I think I am one of the most blessed people on this earth. I do a lot of podiatry work for the Blackall Range Care Cottage, and I see the care that is shown to all of those people. I have also joined the Maleny Players. I have been able to join a book club at the library. When you come from Brisbane nobody knows who you are. It’s busier and it’s so impersonal, while here I have neighbours who feed my chooks. You don’t find that in cities. One of the greatest things about this community is the variety in the demographic . You can go from one end of the continuum to the other. People have come from such a wide background and that’s what gives this fabric such colour. And such an interesting place to be.
Why would you stay here?
Well, my youngest daughter is living with me. Lauren is studying nursing. I want to concentrate on doing volunteer work as I get more time. I would like to be involved in some social justice cause, maybe get involved in the Neighbourhood Centre, contributing to development of better services for say, homeless people. That’s more of my social justice background. But I would stay here because I feel welcome, because I feel safe. I feel like I can be who I am. I feel I can contribute, and that it will be welcomed.
Leave a Reply