BERT AND MERNA BROOKSBY
Written by Pat Brooksby
Bert Brooksby grew up in the Penola area of the South East and enlisted in 1943. Whilst based at Hamilton Airbase in Victoria he met and married Merna. After the war he returned to the Penola area and farmed a small property, then worked for the timber mills in Mt Burr. In 1956 he shifted his family of 6 children to the Parndana East Camp. He was assigned work as a welder in the camp. John Noble bent the steel and Bert welded the safety cages for the field tractors. As he was usually working in the Camp area , and owned a car, he was sometimes called on to drive women and children into the hospital – one such sad case was when a small child was run over.