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was cheap, because of fears of a Japanese invasion. Len said at the time: 'Well, we're not going
anywhere. We're staying here - we can't leave.' His thinking was: If the Japanese come they'll
take everything and shoot everyone, and if they don't come we'll be on a winner.
So he bought the farm, which was managed by a tenant farmer. It was a farseeing action, as
cane farms would prosper in future years, while family businesses were supplanted by chain
stores and supermarkets. In 1954 he would buy the adjoining cane farm for £9,000, and own
285 acres in all. By that time he also owned 15 acres of land in Rossiter's Hill, where he and
Ethel lived, and rented 103 acres of land near Home Hill and the Burdekin River from the
Drysdale Estate, at an annual rent of £181.10.0. This was Kastners Farm on the Klondyke
Road. It was leased, in Mrs IME Honeycombe's name in April 1944, and the lease was
renewed the following year. The farm was fairly dilapidated and run down: the house, and all the
animals, machinery, etc, were bought for £2,497.10.0. When the lease ran out, it was renewed
from Mr JW Board in July 1954 for £9,500. The freehold was bought by Len from Pioneer
Sugar Mills in March 1967 for over £14,000 (£6,000 for the sugarcane crop). It consisted of
154 acres then.
After the war, realising that the proposed new bridge across the Burdekin River would see an
increase in traffic, Len bought a piece of land at Home Hill in November 1946 for £185. A
branch of the farm machinery business was set up there. The land was sold in 1965 for
£15,000, and the machinery shop was sold in 1971 to Len Ashworth, who when a teenager
had travelled to Europe with the Honeycombes. He converted the building into a souvenir shop,
selling rocks and gems.
Back in 1940, after their marriage, Len and Ethel lived for the next few years in Ayr, in a flat in
Drysdale Street, which intersected Munro Street where the rest of the Honeycombes lived.
Next they lived in a house around the corner in Railway Street.
Then Len bought the land at Rossiter's Hill, for £240, part of which had once been the cricket
pitch at Rossiter's Hill, a low rise in the ground just south of Ayr. Their house was relocated and
moved on a truck to its new site; it was erected over a long weekend.
Said Ethel: 'The reason why we shifted was that Len wanted to expand the shop and he also
wanted to run some horses, so we needed more land. We used to come out to Rossiter's - they
owned all the land there - and he'd ask if they'd sell him some. He kept calling on them Sunday
by Sunday, and eventually the mother said: "Oh, why don't you let Lennie have some land?"
They always called him Lennie from when he was a boy in the grocery days. And eventually he
got what he wanted. Of course / didn't want to go out there, into the bush. There weren't any
other houses about and no electric light. There was only the bus - no car for me - and I didn't
like it at all, for a long time.
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But we planted some palms, and other things - there were no trees to clear - and the bedroom
and kitchen were eventually extended. And Len had his racehorses, brood mares. He used to
send them over to New Zealand to be mated, or served... Later, when Len wanted to shift back
into town, when he wasn't so well - we thought we'd build a block of flats opposite the church,
live on top and rent underneath -1 said: "Oh look - let's stay put." And we did.'
In addition to horses (Len bought yearlings in New Zealand and raced them in Townsville and
Ayr) he reared prize chickens and bred pedigree dogs, Alsatians.
The war years were very difficult,' continued Ethel. 'All the senior staff we employed went off to
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