September 15th, 2025The Local shortlisted for VCPA awards

The Local has been shortlisted for two awards in the 2025 Victorian Country Press Awards.

Photographer Kyle Barnes has been shortlisted for Best News Story for his photo of The Barefoot Barber.

Jobbo, formerly Neil Jobson but now mostly answering to just the nickname, has been known in the region for a long time as an artisan builder who sought out recycled products for his work.

But like many people, he wanted a change. One where he still worked for himself but out of the construction game. And it happened like magic.

Jobbo popped into a barber in Daylesford for a haircut one day a few years back and was offered a job by the owner, Lesley.

“I’d never cut hair before but I like doing new things. I just said, ‘yeah I’ll cut  people’s hair’, and then I realised I really liked it.”

Jobbo kept working and then went to barber college, as he called it, for one year  and then opened up his own barber shop. At home. The Barefoot Barber.  (Although he did briefly have to return to building, to create his own very  “recycled and rustic yet warm and inviting” studio in Coomoora.)

“I love it. I genuinely love it,” he says.  “I like the creativity. I like the connection. I like the conversation.”

Meanwhile, editor Donna Kelly has been shortlisted for Best Editorial/Opinion. One of her submitted pieces was about the importance of breast checks. See below.

The awards will be announced at the VCPA Conference in Yarrawonga on Friday, October 24.

“Hello ladies, it’s time to talk about the ladies.

Are you up to date with your breast checks? I am. Just now. What a journey – and  I hate that word.

Started quite a few years back. I had a bit of a lump and had a mammogram done at St John of God. And then an ultrasound and then a biopsy. Waited for the news and all clear. Just something fibrous. Happy days.

But the surgeon said I had dense breasts, like my mind most days now, and I should have a check every year. Which meant I had to keep going back to St John of  God and paying the big bucks. But all good for health.

Anyway, last year I got caught up with life and missed my annual check. So this year I take my referral to St John of God and the receptionist asks me if I have any  symptoms.

No, I say. So she says I should go to BreastScreen Victoria because it will be free and otherwise I am out of pocket about $500.  Hmmm.

So I made an appointment in Ballarat for the following week but then I saw a post somewhere that the mobile bus was in Daylesford and had some spare spots. So I booked for the next day – just popped up to Vic Park. Easy peasy.

All very professional. Nice staff and nurse.

Three weeks later the email arrived saying I had to go back – to Ballarat this time – for follow-up testing. Bring a book, they said. So I made a booking for the following  Wednesday, their follow-up day, and that was an eye-opener.

I was one of the first to arrive and the second last to leave so I saw a lot. Once you are checked in you go into a main waiting room and then into an adjoining dressing room and change into a gown for the top part. Then you go back into the waiting  room and wait.

The lucky ones go off for another mammogram and come back, get changed, and head off to enjoy their day. Follow up done. All clear.

Others, like me, get that bit done and then are told they need a follow-up ultrasound. So you wait.

Meanwhile, the room is filling up, with one chatty volunteer, and women in different stages of distress, all cracking hardy. One woman showed off a bruised breast from biopsies from the previous week.

Anyway, a nurse arrives and it’s my turn for the ultrasound. Ultrasounds are easy compared to mammograms. I don’t know who invented mammograms but I am betting it was a bloke. If it was the same test for balls I reckon the death rate from testicular cancer would skyrocket.

You undress, step forward to the bottom plate, put your boob on it, with a helping hand from the radiologist, then it is smoothed out. Your right arm goes above the machine, your feet face the other way, your bum needs to stick out the back a bit and your face needs to be clear of the machine.

And then they lower the top plate  and squash your boob flat. Trapped.

Sometimes they head off to hit the switch with a cheery “don’t move” as if you could.  So, ultrasound done and the staffer says she will just find a doctor to check the results. He comes back with her and says he is pretty positive it is nothing. But pretty  positive is not good enough.

So it’s time for a biopsy. Well, that afternoon. I arrived  at 11am and it’s now about 12.30pm. Biopsies start at 2.30. I am told I can go get lunch but I am not hungry now. I wish I had brought that book.

At one stage I get dressed and go and sit in the car and play solitaire for a bit.  Then I go back and it’s time for the biopsy. Not much fun there. But oddly the only painful thing is the anaesthetic, whose only purpose is to stop pain.

I am back in the mammogram room where I get settled in a wheelchair and pushed to the machine. Breast in, plate down, then anaesthetic, I might have sworn a bit, then a sound like a sewing machine and six samples are taken.

I get given some ice, in the finger of a blue glove, to stop the bruising, but have to break the news that I didn’t bother with a bra – not really since 2020.

The nurse  decides to use a body bandage to pop it in place and we are done. A week later, I have  a phone chat, because I have the flu, and all is clear. Benign. Calcifications all gone.  See you in two years. Happy sounding surgeon. All good. Yay.

But the main part is that these calcifications, which can indicate cancer, cannot  be felt. They are tiny. Only a mammogram would pick them up. So that is why self  checks are not enough.

Every two years, get your breasts checked. And if they had found cancer, it would have been so early all would have been well. I hope.

Also, I would like to give a big thumbs up to BreastScreen Victoria. They are  totally professional but also everyone was so very kind. I felt like I was being held in a  big warm hug all the way through. Supported and cared for from the first visit at Vic Park right through that day and then the results.

I hope all the other women got good results like me but you know someone from that day is probably reeling now. I am thinking about you and the journey (that word) you are about to go on. Hope you are OK and have friends and family to lean on. Take care of you. Hugs. Just sayin’… ”