A new chapter for the ‘Clancys of Conargo’

A farewell for Bernard and Margaret Clancy will be held this Sunday at noon in the Conargo Hall.

The Conargo Hall Committee was one of the first groups in which Bernard became involved after a neighbour dragged him along to a meeting. Before long he was president of the hall committee and was soon on the Conargo Shire Council.

‘‘I spent 32 years on the Conargo Shire until the amalgamation, when I decided I wouldn’t go on any further,” Bernard said.

‘‘I felt at times I have tried to do too much and I have collected too much, and my sins are starting to bite me,” he said jokingly.

Margaret was a pioneer in many well-known volunteer groups that are still running today.

‘‘I was the first president in the women’s auxiliary when the new Navorina Nursing Home was being built,” she said.

‘‘At that time our children — Jason, Paul, Emma, Adrian and Kevin — were getting into secondary school so I was involved in the school too; the parents worked really together. It was a good part of my life.

‘‘There would always be something to do. I also delivered Meals on Wheels and made shirts for my stall at the Conargo market; we were very involved in that. You name it, we were probably involved.

‘‘Bernard had his shire (commitments) and a lot of the time that left me here running the cellar door and organising things, but that was also a wonderful part of our life. I know we both enjoyed it.’’

Bernard also spent time on the Deniliquin Chamber of Commerce, the tourism board, was involved in the Deniliquin Collectors Club, their church, the Edward River Art Society and countless other committees.

‘‘The best thing is to get out of bed early and be active. My mother and father taught me that tradition of being involved in their community and I feel it has rubbed off,’’ he said.

The couple ran the only winery in Conargo and Deniliquin after finding success in grapes following trialling various crops. Bernard grew up farming in Kilmore but with steadily rising populations there, he decided to move to a rural country town and continue his passion.

‘‘We started by learning to grow rice and we had some very good neighbours who would call on us regularly, checked over us and we worked together,’’ he said.

‘‘Then in the early 80s we wondered what else we could do here and considered peanuts before growing wheat, barley, oats, baling hay and sheep.

‘‘In the mid-80s we thought we would try some grapes so we put in about 25 varieties out the front and after a while, even with the lack of good management, we found they were yielding. My son Jason wanted to extend the idea, so we put another 10 hectares out the back.

‘‘While we had the grapes here we thought about doing something with them, so I studied through La Trobe University which gave me a clue to it all. Jason also went on to study at CSU in Wagga.

‘‘We moved on and put a bit of work into building up a winery and we made wine up until about two years ago.’’

Margaret said they have enjoyed all 42 years of living on their property, watching the townships grow and farming develop.

‘‘We have created some wonderful friendships in this area. Our neighbours and other people we have known have been very good to us and very supportive of the things we did.

‘‘We have been very fortunate, we have had good health ... maybe that is thanks to the wine we were able to drink,’’ she added with a laugh.

‘‘We have lived in a great community and we wouldn’t have done anything different.

‘‘We will move on to our new house where we will work on the garden and hopefully it will be a place where our friends will come and visit and we will enjoy some time with them with a lot of our lovely red wine.’’

Bernard added, ‘‘we wouldn’t have achieved any of this if we hadn’t done it together in partnership”.