Verna seeks out opportunity

Nestled in between a bike shop and Goody Food Bar on Station Street, the Pakenham Opportunity Shop – formerly the local TAB – has been around as long as Verna Thewlis can remember.
Upon entering the shop, a sign behind the counter reads: “No $50 notes. No refunds.”
Verna spends almost every day at the op shop and has been treasurer for the past 40 years. On this frosty Thursday morning, she is buzzing around moving uncollected bags and arranging the next bank drop-off. She heads out to the back part of the shop, where she spends most of her time. She points to two orange covered stools and we sit down for a chat while she sips her tea.
An array of various objects are scattered around us, as you’d expect from an op shop; a collection of green rubbish bins, gaffer-taped boxes; pristine-looking jam jars; old clothes; discarded hessian bags; and a handful of abandoned Safeway trolleys.
As Verna starts unveiling a list of the countless volunteer projects she’s involved in, a weak frigid breeze works its way to where we sit, but then fades briefly. The door that leads to the shopfront is slightly ajar, and for a moment Verna looks around to see interested buyers pick and prod at the peculiar items for sale – a 1980s joystick, fancy hats, and a collection of leather belt buckles.
Her attention then returns to our conversation.
“Not sure why I do all this,” Verna said. “I guess I’ve always just done it.”
For a 77-year-old, Verna is one busy bee.
Consider this: on top of her op shop duties she has also been the treasurer for the Berwick Senior Citizens for 14 years; is part of the Berwick-Pakenham Historical Society (30 years); has been involved with the Pakenham Show Committee (40 years); and does line dancing for an hour, four times a week.
In 1992 she won Citizen of the Year for her accumulated voluntary community work and dedication and is a life member of the show society. She’s unassuming, humble and a workhorse. Much like the clothes from the op shop that sit on the rack, with Verna, what you see is what you get.
Born in Berwick, Verna has spent all her life in Pakenham, leaving only once to visit Sydney for a five-day holiday. She spent most of her life on the family farm, a 110-acre parcel on Thewlis Road, on the hill – formerly Cemetery Road. The road was eventually named after her dad, Syd, who was a local councillor. He passed away at the age of 65, in 1960, when Verna was 27. Driving along Thewlis Road today, the family property is now engulfed by a housing community, part of the region’s urban sprawl.
“On the farm I did anything that needed to be done,” Verna said. “Sometimes I was up early, but it just depended on what Mum and Dad wanted me to do.”
Verna learned to drive on the family tractor while harrowing the grassy paddocks. As she explains, there was a method behind cutting the grass. First she would cut two paddocks, then wait for it to rain, then cut another two paddocks. The slower she went, the better the cut. When she wasn’t manicuring the grass, she was milking her two favourite cows – Molly and Iris – and helping pluck plums to turn them into jam.
“It was a good life, a nice clean life on the farm with the fresh air and no smog around,” she said. “Another 20 years I reckon from here to Officer, it will be covered with houses along the highway.”
Verna went to Pakenham State School and used to ride her bike two miles each day to school with her younger brother Leonard and two sisters Betty and Dorothy, but soon left at the age of 14 to work on the farm permanently.
“After school we’d ride back home and milk the cows,” she said. “It just became part of my life.”
Verna left the farm in 1970 and moved to Anderson Street, up by the bowling club. She spent 10 years there before shifting to James Street because the house was too “bloody big”.
She’s been at James Street ever since.
Sifting through albums at her James Street unit, Verna is searching for a photograph of her farm. She flips the pages like a slide show and brief glimpses of her past, in shades of black and white, come flooding back. “We rarely took photos,” she said. As she stares intently at a picture of her and Iris the cow which is no bigger than a postage stamp, she says with a hint of happiness and pride, “Yep, that’s me and Iris.”
Piles of discarded goods from the op shop are stored in boxes on her living room floor and her couch. Her life has been anchored to her community, to her town. The evidence is sitting all around her home.
Her father Syd was a big influence. Aside from being a councillor he too also served on the show society board for 15 odd years. Her mother, Ella was also the Country Women’s Association president. It was genetic that she became who she is today.
She is now in charge of the volunteer roster at the op shop. On staff, they have 35 people and it’s divided into two half-day shifts – morning and afternoon. “This takes up a lot of my time, I’d love to have a day off sometimes,” she said with a grin and a chuckle. “If people didn’t donate their time, we wouldn’t have the shop.”
From dusty dirt roads to an urban district, Verna has seen it all. Her community spirit and her dogged work ethic have kept her busy in her home town all her life and she is showing no signs of ever letting up.
“Would I ever stop volunteering? I’d doubt it. Not unless I got sick,” she said. “I’ve enjoyed my life, so it never crosses my mind, it keeps me well and truly busy – someone has to do it.”