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Mack Brown's family ran sheep. Life on the land means battles. With rabbits, rabbit inspectors, and government officials who threaten to compulsorily acquire it.

Mack Brown’s great-grandfather arrived in Australia in the 1830s, and took up land in the Wallerawang district. Before long the Browns had a reputation for successfully managing properties. In January 1836, Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist visited the Brown’s property where he strolled the grounds and hunted kangaroos, immortalising it in his journal The Voyage of the Beagle.

Mack grew up on the family sheep property Rosewood, and attended the King’s School in Parramatta. Bullied by a teacher who ran the cadet corp, Mack escaped by joining the band. He wasn’t given an audition which was just as well as he knew nothing about music. Mack pretended to play a tenor horn and bluffed his way through for a year. Remarkably, nobody noticed until the bandmaster wanted some solo performances.

He toured the United Kingdom with his rugby team and on the voyage back bumped into Margot Spicer, a young woman from a property at Boorowa, who was to become his wife. War erupted not long after their marriage and Mack enlisted in the 2/1st Anti-Aircraft Regiment. He served in the Middle East and later Darwin, New Guinea and the Philippines.

After the war, Mack and Margot settled on the land where they continued the family tradition of being good property managers. Over the years they somehow thrived and raised a family after battling everything from rabbits to rabbit inspectors to government officials who tried to compulsorily acquire their land.