From shunned to a desirable place – Goulburn’s redemption

Never afraid to take the road less travelled, Steve Baulman began planning a major shift 40 years ago after seeing a list of new opportunities on a noticeboard inside Sydney’s Long Bay Jail.

It was 2 am. He was working the night shift as a correctional officer when transfers were advertised at other jails, including Grafton, Bathurst and Goulburn.

Grafton attracted the longest list of applicants, followed by Bathurst. Noticing not one name was written under Goulburn, Steve asked the gatekeeper why there was no interest.

“Oh mate, no-one goes to Goulburn. You just don’t,” the gatekeeper said to him.

Raised in Parramatta and working as a welder for an air-conditioning company, he switched to the jail when his employer’s business suddenly closed. In his new role at the jail, no-one could tell him what the problem was with Goulburn, aside from advising him not to go there.

“I had to find out for myself,” Steve said. “I was 23, still living at home with my parents.”

His commute to work from Parramatta to Long Bay Jail was horrendous, taking one hour and 20 minutes, except for working the night shift, which reduced his journey to half an hour each way.

So he didn’t hesitate in applying for Goulburn, and the response from the department was swift. He was off to his new job and rented a flat in Bourke Street for $50 a week.

“I finished work at Long Bay on Friday afternoon and started here [in Goulburn] on Monday morning,” he said.

“Lunch time came and everyone is walking out, getting in their cars. I asked this bloke what was going on. ‘We’re going home for lunch, that’s what we do here’. I couldn’t believe that, it just blew me away. I remember saying to myself, I’m never going to leave this place.

“The conversation here at the jail is all about what are you doing this afternoon? Everyone seemed to be taking their kids to sport and this and that.”

Steve never got to the bottom of why Goulburn had such a poor reputation, and was surprised local people held a similar view.

”I was a bit disappointed, people here [in Goulburn] could not understand why I came here,” he said. “It’s not like that now, but I thought it was pretty negative. Human nature is a funny thing, one person says it’s bad, it seems to snowball a bit.”

He believes Goulburn has gradually shaken off that negative assessment.

Within a year of arriving, he had bought a home on Taralga Road, Goulburn, close enough for him to walk to and from work. He later met his future wife, Sharynne, at a church group. She was building a new home on a block of land subdivided from the former St Michael’s novitiate in Kenmore Street.

In an often-overlooked pocket of Goulburn, their home faces a broad silver-blue ribbon of water in the Wollondilly River. When they first arrived, gracefully weeping willows framed the river, but have since been taken out.

“I built the meals room facing straight down the river,” Sharynne said, looking outside, down to the water. Their backyard birth bath entices cockatoos, galahs and parrots down from the trees for a drink. She feeds lorikeets and bold brushtail possums who come inside of a night time for a handout before returning to the darkness outside.

After his older brother John endured the rigmarole of awaiting cataract surgery at Liverpool Hospital, Steve suggested he come to Goulburn should the need arise for more medical treatment. Sharynne had the same procedure in Goulburn, which was a much easier, more social exercise.

“If I had my time over again I would have come down here three years earlier, so I suppose that tells you something,” Steve said before sharing their view from their upstairs deck, which offers an even more panoramic outlook of the river, rooftops and blue ranges on the horizon.