UNCONVENTIONAL to a tee and genuine to the core, Ivan Lister returns to Euroa for one day per week in his perennial role as a lifeline to farmers doing it tough.
Lister is widely known for his history of knowing how to meet, greet, and subtly treat farmers who need something as simple as plonking down on a wood heap and having a good natter.
Which is exactly where this correspondent found Mr Lister after the good fortune of informing him that some backroom efforts between Euroa Rotary Club and MP Annabelle Cleeland had secured funds for his services in Euroa and surrounds for three months, starting this week.
“Oh, that’s some news, good to hear,” Mr Lister said over the phone.
“Yes, of course, come on round.”
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Known for his knack of blending his own farming experience with turning up and yarning on-farm with anyone who needs help, Lister needs little introduction in these parts, having slowly and gently built his style during and since his days of working in a similar support role in Benalla with local council.
The Euroa Gazette found him filling a barrow with firewood on his own property, which has not been spared the ravages of drought that have plagued the state.
His dam is empty for the first time in the eighteen years he and wife Jenny have lived there, the pasture hasn’t a hint of green from the recent rain and the filly who comes over to the gate for a pat looks good because Ivan is prepared to spend on hay.
He gets to the point, picking over the historical case of Violet Town holding off the installation of a toxic waste dump in 2003.
The dump never went ahead, but the imposing fallout from locals who were either opposed to or sold to the plan still needed his help until the proposal was scrapped the next year.
“The state government put some funding through then - at the request of the farmers - to get me to be around,” Lister said.
“Then the state government said ‘send us a monthly report’.
“And I said ‘I don't report to you; I'm representing the farmers, that's who I report to’.
“So we got away with it, they went for it.”
Such a casual yet direct approach is Lister’s style, where his help comes usually by referral, typically a spouse contacting him to come and check in on someone.
“During the drought or whatever, it is quite often the woman on the farm who will give me a phone call, worried about her husband.”
Lister says he knows how to ‘get in through the door’ if the farmer in need is unaware they have been referred to him.
“I’ve come up with a few street skills, which I use," he said.
“Or let’s say if the wife has told him that I’m coming, I am straight there.”
Having stepped away from the role for a few years, he is not changing his style on his return.
“It’s the same game plan – if it’s not broken, don't fix it.”
It is a game plan that he knows how to unfold gently over a fence gate, a cuppa, down at the sale yards or in Binney Street, and it is all about early intervention.
“The question I ask really is, with any disaster, bushfire, floods, or any disaster in your family, there will be all sorts of issues; but how was your mental health before that?
“That's the part I'm interested in – when the going's good, what was it like then?
“We’ve all hit a few potholes along the journey – how did they get them resolved back then and did they get resolved to your satisfaction?”
One of his key messages to the community is to not see mental health issues as only a personal challenge; the onus on awareness belongs to everyone.
“In my talks, I say ‘take care of yourself, take care of your partner, take care of your neighbour’.
“Then I say: ‘take care of your neighbourhood, and if you think there's an issue, don't sit on your hands – do something about it’.”
He also believes the popular campaign of R U OK? needs that extra step.
“The question that comes back to me is: if you say to somebody ‘are you okay?’, they're probably going to say, ‘yes, I am’.
“You've got to go a bit further, if they come back with ‘yes, I am’, you say ‘well, I've just noticed lately you haven't been to the CFA meeting, or you haven't been to the bowls, or at football or whatever, you've just been a bit unusual lately, and I am concerned about you’.
“You have to go that extra step to express that, in these times you must, because we don't really know how fragile everybody is.”
It does not stop there.
“The next step, if that doesn't work, is to make sure you go to the wife or the husband or a relative or someone else who knows them."
Lister’s objective is to link a farmer with their own doctor.
“That's my next step, I've got to get them to the GP, and if they haven't been diagnosed with something, then let’s get them back to the GP.”
It is difficult to pinpoint what lays at heart within Ivan Lister to give him the drive for what he does, and all he can come up with is his competitive spirit.
Having played more than 400 local football games, starting at Mansfield, with a stellar coaching career added, and spending his summers as a long-distance cyclist, even competing in the Melbourne to Warrnambool event, the only secret he recognises is his personal discipline to want to do his best.
“I'm very competitive, and I know the need is there; I know people need someone to talk on their level.”
His help is not limited to just farmers on farms, and he is available to talk to any demographic in town or at work.
“Don't just assume you've got to be some old fart on a tractor who's down,” he said.
“You can put anything on the table from any age group, people are comfortable in sitting down, talking with me anyway, and discussing what their situation is.
“What I am giving people - even though they don't realise - is I am giving them mental health first aid.
“If your tractor tyre's going flat and you don't fix it, guess what's going to happen? You're going to get up in the morning and the tractor ain't going to go.
“If you don't service your car, if you don't fix up the leaky roof, it’s all first aid, I put it all under the first aid banner.
“So now, what about you? You've got a headache, even physical, you bang your leg on the tractor, take a bit of skin off, she'll be right.
“We say 'she'll be right', but you know, I've never been able to work out who she is.
“She's lucky – whoever she is – because everything's right for her.
“She'll be right.”
Ivan Lister will be visiting Euroa on Mondays and can be contacted on 0474 501 406.
