General News
6 May, 2026
From stocking shelves to saving lives
MOST in Simpson will recognise Paul and Cheryl Parsell from the Settlement Goodfellows supermarket, but they’re also working behind the scenes day-to-day to help the community thrive.
The dedicated pair have run the supermarket, which also operates as a newsagent, post office and takeaway, for 12 years and counting.
Mr Parsell said their daily operations ran like a well-oiled machine after so many years of working together.
“We come in the morning and set up what we’re going to do – Cheryl mostly runs the post office side of things and I run the supermarket and together we do the takeaway,” he said.
“When we come in we do the papers, then we open at 8.30am so we make sure we have everything ready for then.
“From then on, we just see what happens.
“We do a lot – we do orders through the week so that’s got to be done through the day and we do the school lunches so the collection is about 9.30am.
“Then we get ready for the lunch rush, then we get ready for the tea rush and then in between we try and do whatever else we can do.”
The supermarket is open every day and Mr and Mrs Parsell have a steady stream of customers despite the small population of Simpson.
On top of their work, they also volunteer for the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), keeping them on call for emergencies in the area.
“We’re volunteers trained by Ambulance Victoria (AV) as first responders,” Mr Parsell said.
“If there’s a car accident, cardiac arrest or someone’s had an accident and is feeling sick and needs an ambulance called then we’ll respond with the ambulance.
“Generally, because our closest ambulance is Timboon, we will respond first and do an assessment and start treatment if it’s required.
“It’s something I’ve done for nearly nine years, Cheryl’s done it for five, and it’s something that we do because it’s so rewarding.
“We go to people’s houses when they’re lying on the floor and assist them as best as our training goes and 99 per cent of the time it’s a good outcome.”
Mr Parsell said it could be jarring going from a life-changing emergency back to the supermarket serving customers, but the support they received from AV and the community was heart-warming.
“There’s nothing better than having someone come in six weeks later after you’ve treated them and going, ‘Thank you so much for helping me’ because obviously for some people it’s the worst day of their lives,” he said.
“They’ve been in an accident or god forbid, they’re having a heart attack, and you can help them through it, and the support we get makes it all worth it.
“It’s a surreal feeling – we’ve just been to someone who’s lying on the ground in cardiac arrest and we’ve done the best we can and then the ambulance comes, then we walk back into the supermarket and take our CERT shirt off and put our work jumper on.
“It’s like, 20 minutes ago we were trying to save someone’s life and now we’re burning a hamburger.”
It’s no argument Simpson has faced some tough times recently, with two fatal road accidents laying heavy on the hearts of everyone in town.
Mr Parsell said Simpson’s resilience as a small town was what made the community truly great.
“Every person, every country town, has hard times, but we get through them,” he said.
“You know, we’ve had some awful tragedies, for the 20-odd years I’ve been here, but people still smile.
“When times are tough you don’t give up, you find a way.
“If country people gave up when times got tough there’d be no country people
“We have good times and when we have hard times it’s because we have that resilience that makes this such a good little community - it’s never easy but we certainly smile a lot in Simpson.”
On their off days, Mr and Mrs Parsell said they liked to spend their time with grandkids or spend a day in Colac without being on-call for CERT emergencies.
Mr Parsell said their volunteer work with CERT was no different to the Country Fire Authority (CFA), State Emergency Service (SES) or Lions Club – they worked to give back to their community.
“In a small town you’ll find a lot of people will volunteer for the CFA, Lions Club, SES, and we were just fortunate enough to be able to do ambulance work here,” he said.
“It gives you this feeling of wow, we just helped someone.
“We’re just normal people doing what we do.
“It’s no different to being in the Lions Club – they help a lot of people a lot of the time – we just do it a different way.”
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