THERE are friendships, there are lifelong friendships, then there’s the story of Warwick McEachern and Jack Kerr.

From the Great Depression through a world war, to their working lives in the region and through long retirements, they’ve been there for each other right through.

To give it some context, the pair met while attending Drik Drik School in the middle of the Depression, and 90 years later they’re as strong friends as ever.

These days it’s a bit different to their summer Saturday afternoons back then, going fishing in the creek below Mr Kerr’s home at Winnap – nowadays the pair of 97-year-olds catch up regularly at Harbourside Lodge in Portland, where Mr McEachern is a resident and to where Mr Kerr makes the short ride on a mobility scooter from where he lives for the chat.

Mr Kerr started school at seven where he met Mr McEachern, a distant relation, who you might say was a veteran of the schooling system by then.

“I had an early start, I went to the Nelson school when I was three years old,” he said.

“One of my aunts was the teacher there at the time.

“From there I went to Dartmoor for a short time while we waited for a farm at Drik Drik.”

Mr Kerr’s family farmed at Winnap, and he remembers the time well.

“There were a few people around when we were going to school (Drik Drik School had 40 students in the 1930s) and Drik Drik and Winnap were ideal.

“Everybody milked a few cows, the Depression had lifted and they all bought second-hand cars then bigger ones later on.”

Both remembered the Depression as kids, for the way families made do.

“I remember Mum said money was very tight,” Mr Kerr said.

“Shillings were very valuable.”

Mr McEachern said his family got by without too many worries.

“We made our own butter and our own milk, had our own meat and grew our own potatoes so it didn’t interfere with our living much,” he said.

The pair enjoyed fishing of course.

“Saturday afternoons down at the creek and we were made,” Mr Kerr said of summers, the creek being below his Winnap home.

Life also wouldn’t be life in small communities without sport and it was cricket and football that the pair enjoyed.

“It was a good social outlet,” Mr Kerr said.

Mr McEachern played for Drik Drik and Mr Kerr for Winnap in the old South Glenelg Cricket Association, also featuring teams from the likes of Heywood, Mumbannar and Dartmoor.

“Eighty was my top score,” Mr McEachern said.

“There was plenty of competition.

“We got to Country Week in Melbourne once but it started to rain when we got down there and it never stopped.

“I think I made eight runs in the wet then there was no cricket. I was very disappointed over that.

“Country Week was something to get into – I had an uncle playing at the time and he was a top cricketer.

“We had a McEachern XI at one stage (eldest brother Lyall played in Melbourne for a while).”

Mr McEachern came up to Winnap to play football for many years, and still bears the cracked nose he suffered playing one day – he didn’t bother getting it re-set, Mr Kerr pointing out the nearest doctor was in Heywood and only took patients as they came in to see her, with the roads not too good in those days either.

“Drik Drik was a thriving community in the late 1920s and early 1930s,” Mr McEachern said.

The Presbyterian and Methodist Churches kept the community together too.

“When we’d go to church on Sunday morning all we’d talk about is cricket and football.”

Mr Kerr agreed.

“It was an ideal place to live in those days,” he said.

“Everybody knew everybody else and looked after one another.”

Though the pair scoff at talk about the ‘good old days’.

“There wasn’t any,” Mr Kerr said.

“I don’t think I’d like to go back and start again.

“Young people today don’t know they’re alive with plenty of money, cars and work.”

The pair’s paths drifted slightly apart about 1950, when Mr McEachern got married and moved to Portland, where he worked in a variety of jobs including running his own trucking business, on the railways, co-managing Lewis Court Home for the Aged, at Errey’s hardware store and 10 years as a mail contractor covering Heathmere, Heywood, Milltown and Myamyn, before semi-retiring to a small farm at Heywood.

It was as a mail contractor he caught up with Mr Kerr again, who retired from dairy farming in 1989 and moved to Heathmere, where he stayed 15 years before moving to Portland.

“I come and see Warwick ever since he’s been in here (Harbourside Lodge),” Mr Kerr said.

“It’s not far away and I can get here in 10 minutes on my scooter.”

What do they talk about?

“It’s wonderful, we talk about the same things over and over again of course,” Mr McEachern said.

“If it’s not Drik Drik or Dartmoor, it’s Nelson.

“We both have a great liking for Nelson.”

So what’s the secret to their friendship?

“I can’t ever remember a difference of opinion,” Mr McEachern said.

“I don’t think we ever had an argument about anything.

“It was just one of those things.

“As far as our friendship’s concerned it still exists, it’s still going on, for how much longer who knows but that’s not the point.

“It’s a great thing.”

Mr Kerr pointed out they were the last of their group of school friends still standing.

Both also appreciate their close relationships with their families – Mr McEachern has nine great-grandchildren and Mr Kerr 10 – and they are both regularly visited by family.

“It’s very fortunate, they could have been miles away,” Mr Kerr said.