NONEGENARIAN Alan Addlem has memories of boarding as a student at Inglewood’s historic Nimmatabel rekindled.
Alan stayed with his uncle and aunt. the stately home’s owners Jim and Maude Secombe, for five years while he finished study at Inglewood Higher Elementary School from 1941.
The retired Serpentine farmer known simply as Cockie and now enjoying retirement in Bendigo, was among keen television watchers when Nimmatabel was featured on a television restoration show this month.
“I came in from the farm at Powlett where we lived in a weatherboard house ... my brother and sister had boarded with uncle and auntie before me ... it was a lovely cool house in summer although not as much after a hot spell,” Alan said.
“It was a big house for us, there was a full-size billiard table upstairs ... how they got it up their I don’t know. And uncle didn’t play billiard either.”
Alan said Uncle Jim was like most builders, often doing jobs for other people “while things were lacking at home,” he said. Although Alan remembers a new sink and cupboard being built at Nimmatabel during his time as a boarder in the house powered by locally-generated electricity.
“It was a hell of a surprise when I went to live there in this lovely old house that was still in fairly good condition,” he said. “Entirely different kettle of fish to what I was used to at home in Powlett.
“The tiles in the front entrance, the arch with its stained glass window. It was a real eye-opener.
“At my age back then, I probably didn’t appreciate the house as I do now,” Alan said pointing to a painting of Nimmatabel on his lounge room wall.
“Aunt kept me busy after school. She had a very good vegetable garden and there was grass to cut that would be fed to the chooks.”
Alan said he remembered a local wanting to buy the large pine tree in the backyard for its timber. “That didn’t happen.”
And there were the week day meals. “Aunt was a good cook  as long as you didn’t see what she put into (the recipe). You ate what was put in front of you.”
According to Alan, Uncle Jim was “a likeable and loveable old boy”.
Alan had hoped to follow in his uncle’s footsteps as a builder and carpenter.
Some school holidays were spent on the job with his uncle before the family farm at Powlett  beckoned.
The youngest of a family of seven, Alan is the last of his generation.
His sister Elsie was the last of the family to live in Nimmatabel, moving in to support her aunt after Jim died.
Alan said he had been pleased to watch the television show charting the home’s restoration since its sale after Elsie’s passing.
“They’ve done well with the grand house that was my home in those days of World War Two when I was at school in Inglewood,” he said.
“Those years certainly were good ... then I went back to Pow-lett and then my farm at Serpentine until I retired almost six years ago,” Alan said.