Never Underestimate a Women

Never Underestimate a Woman, is about life on the land, the history of an outback family and the challenges facing women in rural and remote areas.

It’s the story of Heather Cameron’s life, living on an isolated farm in outback NSW, with a tough upbringing, in a family of seven children. She has undergone many challenges growing up, such as having no electricity, severe droughts, lack of income, even experiencing domestic violence with her mother being beaten up on a regular basis by her extremely violent father. Through these she learnt survival skills, catching wild goats to sell as well as assisting in growing fruit and vegetables to help feed the family. 

At 12 years old, Heather finally saw another way of life, when she and one of her sisters were placed in a school hostel in the outback town of Cobar as their mother moved to Sydney. Heather struggled at school because she had dyslexia that went unnoticed. She loved having school friends and adopted her best friend’s parents, spending all her school holidays at their farm, northwest of Bourke. Heather was a brave kid and would take up any challenge, dangerous or otherwise.

Later Heather adopted an old couple as grandparents from whom she learnt a copious number of skills. They also gave her the opportunity to work with horses. She then moved in with one of her sisters, only to be thrown out by her very drunk brother-in-law, having to find somewhere else to live that night. Thankfully another one of Heather’s sisters took her in. At 16 she finished school, got a job as a check out girl and paid her own way in life. It is then Heather started in a serious relationship.

By the time she was 18, Heather had bought her first little two-bedroom home and learnt about borrowing money. The home was a rundown dump which she renovated and sold a few years later. She spent the next three years working in shearing sheds, getting a bank loan and buying a large rural farm near Bourke with her husband, while becoming shearing contractors and continuing to work in the shearing sheds for further seven years with her very controlling husband.

Heather was a woman who was never afraid to give anything a go. She assisted in creating a large earthmoving business and learnt to operate heavy machinery herself. Unfortunately, that also taught her about bank overdrafts and owing money to finance companies. She begun a lonely life of running the farm alone, most of the time, demonstrating her love and care for animals. Heather’s passion for the land is beyond belief and her list of skills is endless.

And this is only Part 1 of her story.