Excursion to Templestowe
For me the most memorable thing for both of us is their neighbour, a farmer, a woman about the same age as our grandparents. Why do we remember this? Because she had a prominent and impossible to ignore moustache!
They bought the Templestowe block, two acres on a hillside above the Yarra, in 1950. It had been part of a dairy farm, and still had on old cow shed or dairy and a dam on site.
We listened to Marge and Alice discussing the Templestowe House:
I looked it up on Google maps and was excited to find that, although the whole hillside is now covered in houses, the creek, which turns out to be Ruffey Creek, now has a walking track along side it.
It was clearly time for an excursion.
On a warm, sunny April afternoon, we set out, with our trusty driver, Jono.
The single lane dirt road, Foote Street, on which our grandparent built, is now a busy highway, so we parked in a side street and set out along the Ruffey Creek walking track. It was weedy and neglected, but pleasant enough.
We realised that were walking where the moustache lady’s farm would have been. The track is not continuous, and we soon found ourselves at an intersection.
Navigation is not our family’s super power.
Eventually we worked out the right way, and soon we were standing looking, across four lanes of traffic at the area where the house would have been. There are a few candidates for the exact spot, but it was more or less here:
Because we are elderly, Susan made us cross at the lights. We set off to work our way round to the bottom of the hill.
There is a new bridge, but we discovered the remnants of the old bridge, which must be one Sue remembers walking across with our Grandfather.
It was tucked in among the weeds.
We retraced our steps and, back home, Sue rummaged through the family photograph box and found a photo of the house:
My new special friend, Claude, from the house of Anthropic, couldn’t find any references to Alfred and Alfreda buying or selling the property, but he did find them “a charmingly matched pair”, and suggested many rabbit holes down which we could search.
There had been early settlers on the rich river flats along the Yarra River since the 1830s. The land was cleared, and large estates established.
By 1920, the first subdivisions were occurring, and more orchards and smaller farms sprang up.
This map of the area shows the early subdivision of the “Carlton Estate, across the road from where Alf and Alfreda bought their land. The red dot is their eventual property:
At the end of the Second World War in 1945, an increase in migration, and the return of servicemen brought about a housing boom. This was most pronounced in suburbs like Doncaster/Templestowe and Box Hill, where our own parents bought land. Council rating systems encouraged the suburbanisation of what had been farming land and orchards. Housing estates and supermarkets took over.
It was in this phase of development that Alf and Alfreda bought their block. They must have watched neighbouring Doncaster’s orchards disappearing, and the new suburb expanding east to their little haven.
From 1950 to 1960, the population of Doncaster/Templestowe increased from 5000 to 15000. By then Alf and Alfreda, spooked by the encroaching suburbia, had sold up and moved.
Journey to Templestowe
We have few memories of the Templestowe house, but, one that looms large, is of one of the journeys there. It seemed a long way. We remember it as a journey on narrow dirt roads that wound their way through orchards and paddocks The area was not easily accessed by public transport, but luckily we had a car.
Our first car was a black Sunbeam with large sweeping mudguards and running boards. It was a soft top with side curtains, a classic vintage car, and a very imposing presence in the garage. Maybe that is why, three or four year old Margaret, at Sunday School, enthusiastically sang the children’s hymn ‘Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam’, never questioning why Jesus may have wanted her for a car.
The cream Talbot replaced the Sunbeam. It was a large, very square, solid car, with wind up and down windows instead of draughty side curtains.
One memorable journey to Templestowe involved the Talbot. The route from Wattle Park to Templestowe was much the same as would be today: down Station Street, through Box Hill shopping centre, across Whitehorse Road to Tram Road, and up the big hill towards Doncaster. The route may be the same, but of course much has changed.
It took a little while to solve the puzzle of “White’s Corner.” Were our memories correct and why was it called Whites Corner? This intersection is now a major residential and shopping precinct. Westfield Shopping centre sprawls across one corner blocking what was once an expansive view of orchards and is now suburban Doncaster. On the other corners are clusters of multi storey apartment blocks and the intersection has been simplified to cope with the traffic and facilitate the growth.
White's corner now:
White's corner then:
We remember it as a straight crossroad but I can find no images that match my memory exactly. Puzzle solved! it was always a three way intersection of three roads: Tram Road, which becomes Williamson Road, Elgar Road and Doncaster road. Memory is not always an entirely reliable source. From our position beside the broken down car, we would not have seen Tram Road.
I remember the lop sided car and a hotel or store where we asked for help on that windy, isolated corner. Margaret on the other hand, remembers the donkey or small horse, an ungulate anyway. No doubt small Margaret was being amused or distracted as we waited for Mr McAlpine, a neighbour, to tow us home. .
Maybe the building at the corner we remember was the store, originally Serpell’s Store, which was, at a later date, rented by a gentleman TM White, hence the name of the corner.
The broken axle at White’s Corner looms large in our childhood memories but all ended well and we presume the Talbot axle was replaced, almost certainly by Jim, and we were mobile once more.
Our Family in Wartime
We are Baby Boomers, the generation conceived and born, as normal life picked up again, after the end of the Second World War.
Although we didn’t directly experience it, that period, 1939 -45, loomed large in our awareness as we were growing up. It was just called “the war”. Our world was “post war”. Our leaders, politicians, journalists, sports heroes, teachers, had been scarred and changed by their experiences of war time.
Adults of our parents’ generation, who had been children during the “Great Depression”, spent their early adulthood in the dominant shadow of world war.
Although our own family’s experience of life during the Second World War is not a story of front line service, guns, shells, bandages and gas masks figured large in their everyday life.
We always had an awareness that our parents had met at Maribyrnong Munitions Factory, where they both did their “war work”, but it is our father’s letters and our mother’s recorded memories that have brought those six years to life for us.
Timeline:
When war appeared on the horizon, in 1933, a major rearmament program for Australian Defence Forces began.
In 1933, our father was 12 years old, just settling into life as a boarder at Xavier College in Hawthorn, and our mother, 10, was still enjoying her Primary education in Croydon.
The Defence Explosives factory at Maribyrnong, where our parents eventually met, was a centre of the armaments modernisation drive: more factories, increased self sufficiency, new techniques.
From 1935, anticipating a large expansion in the facility’s workforce, new staff buildings were provided. We can imagine the meetings where the decision to build lots of facilities for women was made. They knew that it would be Victorian women, like our mother and aunt, who would provide a good deal of the labour for the massive increase in supplies, complexity and knowledge. War in Europe began four years later, and they were ready.
As war began, in 1939, Maribyrnong became a centre of research and development, as well as the main training facility for the manufacture of military explosives for Australia. They also manufactured and filled mines, depth charges and shells of all sorts. At this time, Alice was finishing her schooling, in Year 11, Marge was working in a drawing office in Collins St, and Jim was studying Science part time at uni.
By 1942 there were there were five hundred separate buildings on the site, and 8000 workers, 45% of them women.
This included our mother and aunt. The first to work there, in the drawing office, was Marge. Our mother went to work at Maribyrnong straight from year 11 at MacRobinson Girls High School, at the end of 1940. On the strength of her Year 11 Chemistry, she worked with microscopes, at the Munitions Supply lab, counting the number of particles that made their way through the gas masks and investigating captured Japanese materials.
Alice, (foreground) at work at Maribyrnong:
Our father Jim began his war working as a chemist in the lab at Cotton Dressings, an industrial manufacturer based in Port Melbourne, specialising in the production of cotton wool and related surgical supplies. He had been turned down by the Air Force, because of his poor eyesight. In the middle of 1941 he transferred to Maribyrnong Laboratories. We are unsure of his exact role, but it was in the laboratory.
Jim, (left) and coworker at Maribyrnong:
Of interest is the crate beside them . After researching, we it think may have been LOT 232 of a Mark 5 propellant or chemical component thereof, specifically prepared for naval use or long time storage in tropical environments. The NV probably stands for Non Volatile, hence the smoking right next to the crate.
On the twentieth of December 1943 Jim wrote this letter to Alice from the ammunition depot in Albury:
During World War 2 Albury was a military hub and quickly became a garrison town, due its natural advantages and existing rail and road network. Jim had apparently been sent there from Maribyrnong with a work colleague, Flynn, to design and make a number of tools for opening shells. This proved very difficult as metal and tools were in short supply. Jim wrote that they were both very pleased when they had opened “two hundred of one lot and three of another batch”. The tool then broke and they had to make yet another tool. Why was he in the Albury Army Ammunition Depot opening shells and what was inside those shells? We have no idea.We know that Jim did suffer blisters on his forearm after an accident in the laboratory involving mustard gas. So we wondered what was he actually doing in Albury and what type of shell were they trying to open? Why open them? What was inside them? We did some digging.At this stage of the war, late 1943, the Allied forces were concerned that the Japanese, who had used mustard gas in China, would also use it in the Pacific Theatre. We discovered that preparations for both offensive weapons and defensive equipment, were being made in Australia.
During World War II Australia held close to 1 million individual chemical munition weapons, at least 16 different types of mustard gas, some 35 types of chemical weapons at 14 major storage depots. ( mustard gas .org )
Storage of Chemical shells
1st Australian Army Base, Ammunition Depot was one of these storage depots and Maribyrnong, one of the research facilities. In 1943 one of the first large shipments of chemical warfare stocks and weapons arrived in Australia at Williamstown. Some of the men who unloaded the weapons and bulk supplies and then cleaned the hulls of the ships, suffered burns, blisters and other complaints. Many years later they did receive compensation because they were civilians. The stocks and weapons were then sent to Albury, where they were stored in open sided sheds 400 metres apart and set in a line against a hill. Ist Army Base Albury held thousands of shells, among them, 20,268 25 pounder mustard, 272 tons of 3 inch phosgene, 3,500 chemical mines etc. CW (chemical warfare) weapons and supplies were also stored in Sydney in disused railway tunnels and in depots in Queensland.
Photo: National archives of Australia
Australia was engaged in research into, and planning for, offensive and defensive CW usage. Queensland was chosen as the site for the highly secretive trials, as the climate replicated the conditions in which the CW weapons were likely to be used. The trials and the results remained classified for decades.
RAAF men, sitting on shells:
Photo: National archives of Australia
The trials were held on a remote island off the Queensland coast. All personnel were volunteers and included some service women. Wearing full protective gear, they were landed on Brooke Island and shells loaded with various chemical agents were dropped by the Airforce. The volunteers were to sample and assess the gas concentration and effectiveness. This included an assessment of the effectiveness of their protective gear. People experienced various symptoms, including fever, headaches, backaches and, in some cases, severe mustard gas poisoning. Many participants reported not being fully informed about the risks or nature of the experiments. Many received compensation years later.
Defensive equipment:
Photo: National archives of Australia
Our parents were both required to sign the Official Secrets Act, but as far as we can ascertain without any specific information, they were both involved in assessment of defensive equipment and maybe aspects of the chemical warfare shells.Back in Albury, Jim, pleased that he had accomplished what he had been sent to Albury to achieve ,was free to return to Melbourne. He and his friend Flynn left Albury on the train at 6.50 AM and arrived at Mansfield at 3.30 PM, after a very slow journey. Fuelled up with a big steak, they then started the experience about which Jim wrote in his letter to Alice.
Albury Station:
It was quite a journey, as they were intending to ride push bikes, laden with camping gear and other supplies, to Jamieson. According to local reports at the time, the Jamieson Track, a distance of thirty miles, was not well maintained and was a very rough road. Flynn was having trouble with his feet and found his bike difficult and so they swapped bikes. They reached The Gap, a very steep hill “as steep as any I have ever seen”. The letter continues, “Flynn’s bike had no brakes so I could not stop. That suited me fine until the valve blew out of the front tyre. That bike took control from then on and I did everything I knew to stop on and keep the bike up. I stopped on alright and eventually the bike stopped. The front tyre had 5 holes in it and we only had a pump.No puncture outfit or spanners to do anything to it. We were 10 to 12 miles from Jamieson. Well, I set sail on the bike thinking it was only 6 miles. By the way it was raining also and beginning to get dark. I reached Jamieson in an hour by riding like hell while it was still daylight. I had to do the last 2 miles in the dark without a light because the road had shaken my light to bits.”The chapter of disasters continued as the publican at Jamieson would not give them a bed or a meal. Therefore, having picked up a puncture kit, Jim: “set sail again. It was a long way back and was I tired! Well, when I found Flynn, he had walked 3 to 4 miles with the bike and had got an outfit to fix it with. My leather coat was wet through. We reached Jamieson about 10 o’clock and no place to sleep. There was only one light in Jamieson so we went there. The old chap put us up in a shed at the back the house and gave us some supper. I slept like a top that night.“
The adventure appears to have gone more smoothly from then on as Jim and Flynn found a place to camp, did a little shooting and fishing and eventually rode, via Molesworth, to his Uncle’s property Alencon, located between Molesworth and Yea. They stayed there for several days, enjoying Jim’s relative’s hospitality and then returned to Melbourne presumably on the train from Yea.
Young Jim with his gun:
We are none the wiser about the outcome of this adventure and the nature of the task Jim and Flynn were sent to complete, as we have no more letters. Maybe he had already said too much in these letters to Alice as it was wartime and there were many restrictions in place on the freedoms we take for granted today.
Marge and Alice discuss their arduous journey to Maribyrnong from Surrey Hills where they lived at the time.
They speak of traveling on “buses that were like army trucks”.
These were called “austerity buses”. Timber and canvas bodies were built onto second hand truck chassis. The factory that made them was in Preston. Here is a photo of the "austerity buses" at the factory:
Later a tramline was built specifically for the Maribyrnong workers. In 1941 the Commonwealth (under its emergency powers) ordered the State’s Metropolitan Tramways Board to create new tramlines, one of which was put in place from Moonee Ponds to the Ordnance Factory to do away with the austerity bus service.
This article from The Argus from October 1940 discusses this decision:
Eventually, the lines were joined together to create one of the strangest tram routes in Melbourne - the Number 82 from Moonee Ponds to Footscray via the byways around the Maribyrnong site.
After Japan came into the war in late 1941, the threat of attack on the Australian mainland became much more real.
At Maribyrnong, safety was a massive priority. The buildings were well spaced on the site, with earth and concrete blast walls to contain accidental explosions.
Materials had to be transported around the site, in such as way that friction and sparks were avoided. “Clearways” were developed: elevated smooth roads, on which vehicles with rubber tyres drove slowly and carefully.
Footpaths, too, were concrete, containing a lot of gypsum, to minimise sparks.
There were air raid precautions, with bunkers, individual ones, just a pipe vertically buried in the soil, and slit trenches for groups. They must have been well aware that a munitions site was a prime target for enemy attacks.
Like many Australians, our grandfather built a shelter in their Surrey Hills backyard.
Alice and Marge mentioned almost in passing that their parents were in the ARP, and went out after work, Alfreda looking very “elegant” in her “dungarees”.
A Government campaign recruited men who were too old to serve, and also women, to be volunteer air raid wardens (ARP) for Melbourne’s municipalities.
This charming old photo depicts Sydney shop girls preparing for ARP duty:
Photo from the book series "Australians at War"
The Australian system was modelled closely on the English one. ARP wardens carried gas masks, helmets, torches and rattles or whistles. Their main duty was to patrol the black out, that, in Melbourne was really only a "brown out”.
Blacked out Melbourne street:
Blackout masks for cars:
Photos: State Library Victoria.
Our Grandfather, Alf was 49 years old, when war broke out.
Using the British system of rationing as a model, Australia introduced food rationing in June 1942. Customers surrendered coupons to retailers when they took the goods. The retailers passed coupons back to wholesalers, who, in turn passed them back to producers and eventually back to the Rationing Commission.
Photos: Australian War Memorial
During the war, Melbourne was a major base for American servicemen, with more than 30,000 stationed here in 1942. Many were housed at Camp Pell in Royal Park, as well as in requisitioned guest houses and other smaller camps in Melbourne. For instance 200,000 US personal: Army, Airforce and Marine, passed through the MCG ,which was another transit camp.
The Americans had quite an impact in wartime Melbourne. Their smart uniforms were well tailored and they were dressed ‘superbly’, compared to the ‘shabby ‘ uniforms of the Australian personnel. They made quite a spectacle as they marched through Melbourne. The phrase ‘overpaid, over sexed and over here’ was a local sentiment seen in newspaper articles and no doubt in conversation.
American servicemen on the streets of Melbourne:
Photo: State Library Victoria.
The influx of Americans brought immediate cultural changes, as they introduced Melburnians to hamburgers, Coca-Cola, and coffee. They also came with nylon stockings for the girls, and Mars Bars for all and sundry. The American privates often earned more than Australian sergeants and their popularity with local women led to significant friction. The antipathy to the Americans was also fed by the feeling that they took all the credit for turning back the enemy. Marge and Alice comment on the noticeable presence of American Military Police. In fact they say that the streets were ‘swarming’
with Military Police. Street brawls did break out, and in 1943 one such brawl involved 2000 to 3500 soldiers and civilians.
Social life during the war consisted of going to the movies and newsreel cinemas. Jim and Alice did that a lot. There were also local dances at Surrey Hills. Marge loved these, and tripped off in a long evening gown and velvet evening coat, no doubt made by Auntie Bert. She danced with the local men and boys in their bow ties and suits.
Marge, like many Melbourne girls, found the presence of the Americans exciting, and she particularly enjoyed going out dancing with them.
Photo: State Library Victoria.
It may have been at one such venue that she met Captain Bill Jones, an American Marine. He was stationed in Ballarat. As there was an understanding between them that they would marry after the war, Marge was allowed to visit him in Ballarat. Marge and the family expected that she would become one of the 15,000 war brides who moved to the USA after the war. This was not to be, as George Rostos, a Hungarian refugee, began courting Marge, once he knew that her Bill Jones was not an Australian serviceman, but an American. George won out, and they were married at the end of the war.
News of the war was from the newspapers and radio but also from newsreel cinemas.
Marge ‘haunted' these in an attempt to get news, while Bill was away. She comments that the war reporting on films was not only heavily censored, but that the fighting was always filmed at a distance and never at close quarters.
During the last year of the war both Marge and Alice married. The war ended in Europe in May 1945 and in the Pacific Theatre in September. Marge married George Rostos a Jewish Hungarian refugee and Alice married Jim, a Roman Catholic. Both these romances were a product of the war. George escaped the rise of the Nazis in Europe and came to Australia, and Alice and Jim met at the defence facility at Maribyrnong. According to Marge, their parents coped well with their unusual choices, as they all negotiated the mostly welcome changes brought by the end of the war.
All The Posts - an annotated list
The annotated list of all the posts we have done, since we began, chronologically organised.
September.2015
Our Little Allie - our great aunt Alice, who died at Chiltern aged 11.
Lunchtime at Primary School - the games and fashions we remember
Wednesdays at Number 10 - an initial overview of the task we set ourselves.
Jim’s Schooling - our father’s primary schooling at Koroit and boarding at Xavier College,Kew.
October 2015
First Year Teaching - our individual recollections
Twelfth Birthday Letter to Alice - our mother’s parents wrote to her for her birthday. We publish the letters.
November 2015
Great Great Grandparents - on our maternal side.
Sue, Margaret, Rikki and Fred - we write individually about this four way friendship that was so formative for us both.
First Year Teaching 1909 - extracts from our grandfather’s “pupil teacher’ book.
December 2015
How to Rescue the World - the long family tradition of political discussion and protest.
March 2016
Alfreda Maria Holm, our maternal grandmother: the first seventeen years. - a formidable young woman.
April 2016
Alf and Alfreda: The Early Year - the first few years of our maternal grandparents’ life together.
May 2016
Grace McCormack, Our Other Grandmother. - initial research findings into her origins and early life.
June 2016
Cut out of the Will. - our parents’ “mixed marriage”. - the protestant/catholic divide.
The Poor Little Thing - our research into the real story of Martha Rye, our maternal grandfather’s grandmother.
July 2016
28 Moore St - the building of our childhood home, and our memories of living there.
August 2016
War Service - the researched story of our four great uncles’ wars - the Dau/Dow brothers.
September 2016
Family Camping. - three generations of camping experiences: those of our grandparents, parents and us, as kids.
October 2016
“Are you up to it?” - we do our actual walk to school and report on the experience.
November 2016
The Demon Drink - the family attitude to alcohol.
December 2016
Primary School Teachers 1950s - our individual memories.
February 2017
A Great Sorrow - the story of our aunt’s move to Sydney in 1945.
April 2017
The Pakenham Bourkes 1839 - 2017 Part One. - report of our research into our father’s family.
June 2017
Pakenham, the Visit. - the day of discovery we spent in Pakenham.
July 2017
The Pakenham Bourkes 1839 - 2017 Part Two - a continuation from April’s post.
September 2017
Meat and Three Vegs. - what we ate as kids.
November 2017
The Farm. - childhood memories of our great aunt and uncles’ farm at Cockatoo
December 2017
I Can Hear Sleigh Bells - memories of childhood Christmas.
April 2018
Decade by Decade - a summary of our mother’s overview from 1850 - 1950, followed by our own overview of the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
June 2018
The Croydon Years - our mother’s memories of Croydon from 1930 to 1936
July 2018
Fred’s Films - a taste of the amazing visual record Fred has give us of our early adult years
August 2018
Poowong Footage. - Fred’s film of our father with his second wife in 1976 is shared with her family.
October 2018
Drouin Christmas 1975. - the story of an extended family Christmas at Sue and Jono’s Drouin farm house.
November 2018
Stella Park. - the story of Polly and Guelda, important members of Jono’s family.
March 2019
Auntie Bert, a “sterling character” - the story of our great aunt Berta Holm
July 2019
The Built Environment - Hawthorn. - landmarks in Hawthorn and how they relate to our family story
November 2019
The Built Environment - Box Hill. - landmarks in Box Hill and how they relate to our family story
February 2020
Tuesdays at Number Ten - Appraisal and Reflection. - after five years on this blog project
March 2021
The Year of Covid. - our experience of the first year of the pandemic
April 2022
Corona Virus - an Annotated Vocabulary. - an A-Z of the language that became all too familiar in Melbourne during 2020 and 2021.
October 2022
Women’s Work - the jobs that the women in our family have done over the generation.
February 2023
Hair - hairstyles over the generations, as evidenced by our family photo collections.
July 2023
Families Along the Goulburn. - the results of further research into our father’s maternal relatives.
November 2023
“Are you Related to the McCormacks” - the report of a two days spent visiting the graves and homes of our father’s maternal relatives.
May 2024
Pins and Needles. - Sewing in our family, across the generations.
September 2024
Books of Our Childhood. - the favourites remembered
November 2024
Infant Jesus Catholic Church, Koroit. - Sue’s visit to our father’s childhood church and school.
February 2025
Fire and Storm - our family’s brush with fire and storm across the generations.
Fire and Storm
MY COUNTRY By Dorothy MacKellar
‘I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea.
Her beauty and her terror,
The wide brown land for me.
Margaret and I learnt this iconic poem during our respective Grade 6 years and many of its lines are still etched in memory. In fact we can still recite much of it with exactly the same intonation and expression. This poem, written in 1904, captures the tenor of our post, Fire and Storm.
Fire, still very much part of our lives, has also been part of our family history.
BLACK THURSDAY 1851
The first reference to fire was in1851 with the fire known as ‘Black Thursday’.
Painting by William Strutt
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This was the first catastrophic bushfire faced by white settlers in Victoria. The lead up to the fire followed what is now a familiar pattern of events. Reports at the time said that there had been wet years of lush growth followed by severe drought, leaving the bush and long grass tinder dry. Thursday the 6th of February dawned hot and windy, and the fires took off, leaving one quarter of the state black and smouldering. Our antecedents, the Bourke’s of Pakenham, were caught up in the fires in a dramatic way. Shortly before Black Thursday the Bourke’s had taken possession of Bourke’s Hotel in Pakenham. Michael Bourke remained at their selection, while Mrs Bourke was to run the hotel and Post Office.
‘On Black Thursday the whole district was ablaze. Mr Bourke was trying hard to save the station property. Water having been exhausted, milk was brought into play and ultimately the run was saved. Word was brought to him that the hotel property at Pakenham was surrounded by fire. Galloping down there, he found his wife and her children had saved themselves by crouching in the water in the bed of the creek.’
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We took this photo of the exact spot, during our visit to Pakenham.
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BACCHUS MARSH FIRE 1928
From an article in ‘The Argus' Thurs 12th July 1928
"FIRE AT BACCHUS MARSH.THREE SHOPS DESTROYED"
This was a report on the fire suffered by our grand parents, Alf and Alfreda, in which they lost almost everything, but escaped with their lives. We heard dramatic stories of this fire in childhood and is told below by Marge and Alice on the tape they made in 1990.
The hardware shop was their business, and they had gone out on their own, in an already a difficult time of their lives. Aunty Bert was staying with them to help out, as was her role in the family, as the unmarried sister. Auntie Bert, Alf and Alfreda would have been in their early thirties,Alice was five and Marge three years older. Thank goodness Bert was there as she seems to have had a cool head and took action to get everyone out as the fire took hold.
Marge and Alice’s recollection is fairly accurate, as the newspaper report comments on the strong North wind and the poor water pressure that hampered the fire fighting.
The Argus reports that at one stage,
…. the premises of Mr. G. H. Anderson were threatened , but this danger passed, with a change in the direction of the wind, A good portion of the stocks of Messrs. McLaren and Coates was saved, but considerable damage was done to Mr. Phillip’s stock. It is understood that all buildings and stock, except that of Mr. McLaren, were insured.
At half-past 7 o'clock, in the morning the fire was under control, and all that was left of three of the shops were the walls.’
Mr McLaren may have been uninsured but Alf was definitely not, as he had been unable to pay the insurance. They lost nearly everything.
We had wondered about Alice’s comment about Auntie Bert’s friend Nell Pearce, whose family took them all in after the fire, and yes it was a large and impressive brick house, still standing today:)
As Alice states the Pearces were an influential family in the town. They had been an early pioneering family in the area. They built and established the General Store that presumably was very profitable, supplying the miners on the way to the Goldfields as well as the local community. The family then went into farming and other small businesses, and were influential in civic affairs.
Auntie Bert maintained a lifelong friendship with Nell, and neither of them married. I remember Nell Pearce being a name mentioned in conversation and I have a vague recollection of her as an imposing figure. I also remember her at Auntie Bert’ s sewing rooms in Camberwell. She was probably there for a fitting. Little did we know the history behind that friendship.
After cleaning up and sorting our their affairs Alf and Alfreda, the girls and presumably Auntie Bert left Bacchus Marsh and stayed with Grandpa and Grandma Holm in Surrey Hills. Alf then got a job in Croydon as manager of the hardware shop, where they spent many happy years.
BLACK FRIDAY 1939
After the 1851 fires, bush fires occurred in many parts of the State with predictable monotony. The next major statewide fire was in 1939, once again after a prolonged drought. High temperatures and strong northerly winds fanned separate fires that eventually combined and created a massive fire front that swept mainly over the mountain country in the northeast of Victoria, and along the coast in the southwest.
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Lilydale Brigade 1939.
Source - CFA Website
More than two million hectares were burnt in the 1939 fires.They lasted for a week. Many, unable to be controlled, were left to burn out.
Yellands Mill, where 15 men died:
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The extensive damage to over two million hectares of farmland and forest, not to mention the loss of livestock and lives, prompted a Royal Commission. They were tasked with examining the causes of the fire and making recommendations for future management.
The Royal Commission’s specific recommendation was that the various Bush Brigades, and Country Fire Brigades be amalgamated to form a single organisation to fight fire on private land outside the Metropolitan Area. The Forest Commission was responsible for fire on public land and the Metropolitan Fire Brigade was responsible for fire in the Metropolitan Area. Instead of a myriad of uncoordinated small brigades these three organisations were responsible for fighting fires in Victoria.
EARLY BUSHFIRE EXPERIENCE - MARGARET
My first memory of wildfire is of a fire on the empty block next door. The vegetation was sparse: weeds and gorse, with patches of bare clay.
We think it was around 1955. Sue doesn’t remember it, and was probably at school. But I have a clear memory and so I was probably at least four. The image in my mind is of mum, armed with a hessian bag, beating flames. Hessian is a coarse, rough brown fabric made from jute, widely used for packaging. We had a supply of hessian bags, saved from buying bulk chook food. Mum was not a “bush woman” in the Henry Lawson image, but she would have seen this form of fire fighting, and she apparently felt able to take it on. )
Fire fighting with a hessian bag.
I don’t remember bush fires being a big part of my life as a child, until I was eleven, in 1962. That year was a big bushfire year in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs: 32 people died and 450 houses were lost. Areas affected included Mitcham, less than ten kilometres away from our place. We were never in danger in suburban Box Hill South, but there would have been a red glow in the sky, and the vivid memory I have of burning gum leaves falling in the back yard, is probably from this fire.
In 1979, I moved to the Dandenong Ranges, where the CFA had much more of a presence, and bushfire awareness was part of everyday life over Summer.
In those first few years, there was still on old dugout just over the road in the forest. It had a wooden sign “Dugout” and what looked like a large wombat hole. A closer look revealed a heavy grey army blanket hanging over the entrance. During a fire, this would be kept wet. Inside was a rounded cave, with earthen floor, ceiling and walls. It would have held a maximum of six adults. There was a metal bucket and a pile of musty grey wooden blankets. I guess it might keep you safe while a canopy fire raced overhead, but I wouldn’t want to rely on it.)
The CFA were, and still are, omnipresent. On weekends they collect donations at major intersections. On Good Friday, and in the week before Christmas, they drive through the streets, playing piped music and rattling collection tins. Their sirens regularly echo through the Hills. We can hear the Belgrave, Upwey and Kallista sirens from our place, and sometimes all three will go off. In the past, the siren was used to call in the volunteers, and on a set night of the week, on CFA practice night, they would test the siren at a set time. We like that the sirens are still used, not so much as a specific warning, but as part of our aural landscape.
Nowadays, when we hear a siren, we go straight to the Victorian Emergency app, to check what has happened. Often it’s a house fire, a car accident, a small bush fire. During the Summer months we are more attuned to the sound. Our practice has long been to evacuate on days of dangerous fire weather.
BLAIRGOWRIE FIRE 1980 - SUE
My only experience of fire first hand, was in 1980 at Janey’s house at Blairgowrie. We had all just sat down to lunch. Anna was nearly three and I was pregnant with Thomas. Everything was tinder dry, as it was January and we were in the middle of the 1979-1983 Eastern Australian Drought.
Halfway through lunch there were loud knocks at the door, and a panicking young man asked us for a hose, as he has seen a small fire beginning to build on the Spray Point Road, just fifty metres from the house. Jono and Janey raced down to investigate, but realised that they had not a chance of stopping the fire. It was spreading quickly, fanned by a strong north wind. This was a stroke of luck as this meant it was spreading away from us and towards the beach. We called the CFA who responded promptly, parking several fire trucks at the hydrant on the nature strip.)
We were told to block the downpipes with oranges, fill the gutters with water, and shelter inside. The fire was brought under control fairly quickly but not before six hectares of the National Park was burnt.
It would have been a different story if the wind had changed and pushed the fire towards Janey’s house and of course all the other houses.
Local newspapers at the time reported on the fire and issued warnings and advice to residents and holiday makers for the rest of the holiday season that was only just beginning.)
ASH WEDNESDAY
SUE
On Ash Wednesday I was at home with Thomas, as Anna had just started school. Thomas was happily playing with water in the shade of our pergola, as it was a very hot day. A nasty north wind intensified as the day wore on and many fires started across Victoria. I was listening to the ABC afternoon show hosted by Tony Delroy, who, as fires broke out, was reporting the outbreaks in real time. He also took many calls from people desperate for information. There were no centralised communications hub, warning system, or, of course, mobile phones. As the fires continued to burn during the evening and that night, the radio was the only source of state wide information. The 3LO radio hosts worked on a roster system to get the information out.
Since its inception the ABC had been responsible for emergency broadcasting, but only on the news bulletins.. In 1997 Ian Mannix was appointed as Program Director for Local Radio Victoria. He changed the nature of emergency broadcasting during the 1997 bush fire in the Dandenong Ranges. The fires burnt for days, three people died and forty homes were destroyed. Mannix asked the CFA for advice on what to say to to listeners ‘who were confronted with flames.’…Interestingly, the CFA had no experience of giving warnings and had never written a warning for people at risk.
Mannix went ahead and took the lead in creating the ABC’s approach to emergency broadcasting. He developed guidelines that included warnings at set intervals, including bush fire alerts for low level fires and urgent threat warnings for more serious fires. The system used in Victoria was expanded nationally after Black Saturday in 2009. Further recommendations were made by the Black Saturday Royal Commission that future refined and expanded the warning systems to television and commercial radio.
From this pioneering work by Ian Mannix, we now have an Australia wide warning system, and broadcasting training and guidelines in each state.
Ian Mannix oversaw the development and implementation of these systems and deservedly received the Australian Public Service Medal in 2012.
MARGARET
The first actual fire we had to deal with in Belgrave was the 1983 Ash Wednesday.
The name “Ash Wednesday” is nothing to do with ash from bushfires. It’s a historical/religious reference. It happens every year, and it marks the beginning of Lent, leading up to Easter, in lots of Christian denominations. It follows Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras … the last day of feasting before the deprivations of Lent. The ‘ash’ is sprinkled onto heads or swiped across foreheads as part of the Ash Wednesday service.
1982 had had a very droughty Winter, Spring and Summer. The little creek that runs through the forest over the road had almost stopped, and underfoot the leaves crackled.
The 1983 Melbourne dust storm, when 50,000 tonnes of Mallee topsoil turned the sky dark brown across the city, happened in early February. For me, it hit as I was crossing Burwood Highway on my way to the Ferntree Gully hotel, for an after school cool drink. The dust cloud was over 300 metres high and 500 kilometres long, and darkened the sky for an hour. It’s one of those iconic events where everyone can tell you where they were when it hit.)
Image credit: Katsuhiro Abe/BOM
There were many fires that Summer. The CFA across Victoria attended nearly 3,200 fires. Wednesday February 16th was particularly hot and windy.
That morning I had woken feeling nauseous and weak. I rang in sick, and went back to bed. Within a few weeks, I would find out that this had been the beginning of morning sickness. Michael was born that October.
Later in the day I had a phone call from a friend who lived locally, suggesting I might consider leaving, as he had heard there was a fire in Belgrave Heights. Outside was stifling. My neighbour was packing her car but she was expecting to wait and see. I don’t remember having any sense of danger, though, later, we learnt that it was only the late afternoon wind change that stopped the fire from sweeping through Belgrave township and on to our place.)
Photo: Tonia Van der Dungen. Christmas Hills CFA
Wind changes during bush fires dramatically widen the fire front, and this one swept through Belgrave South and on to Cockatoo and Upper Beaconsfield.
I don’t remember this, but apparently Ian and Lois were visiting me that day. Lois was pregnant with Sam who was born that winter. Ian speaks of driving home in the afternoon, and taking the sudden decision to drive straight on through Belgrave, rather than the more logical route through to Belgrave South. This would have been exactly the time of day when the fire swept through across the road they would have been on.
Later there were many stories, horrifying and heroic. In Cockatoo, 300 people sheltered during the night in the kindergarten, as a handful of local men kept the flames and embers at bay, saving many lives.
Across Victoria, 75 people died, more than 200,00 hectares were burnt and 2000 homes and buildings were damaged.
Friends from the suburbs rang to check that I was ok. Our little patch of the Dandenongs was untouched, but one didn’t have to drive very far to see the black horror.)
Photo: Critchley Parker Junior Reserve. Upper Beaconsfield CFA
Ten years later, I began teaching at Monbulk College, and some of our students were still affected by their experiences in 1983. My friend and colleague Sarah had her Year 8 English class make a booklet marking the ten year anniversary. Everyone had stories, which the students typed up and put together. It remains an important part of the history of Dandenong Ranges, and other affected parts of Victoria.
The tragic Ash Wednesday fires were like those of 1939 Black Friday in intensity, if not in range. They confronted the modern firefighting community with the limits of its capacity and technology. Among the 75 dead, 17 firefighters died that day, some of them next to their well equipped tankers on a forest road in Upper Beaconsfield, when the wind changed and the firestorm swept over them. Changes in firefighting strategies and philosophies were inevitable. The community needed to be better informed and more involved. This is certainly my experience. I was so naive and ignorant, compared to what we expect from Hills people nowadays! There was a huge Royal Commission.
It seemed, as the Commission heard people’s Ash Wednesday stories, that the most dangerous situations people faced were from hurried departures. People died in their cars, not their homes. But the CFA could not guarantee to be there during huge bush fires, protecting every home.
And then there were stories of people actively defending their homes from ember attacks, and saving them. “People save houses. Houses save people.” was the mantra.
The “stay or go” policy began to be developed. As the professionalisation of firefighting, and the ‘Science’ of fire behaviour developed, ordinary people’s anecdotes were often disregarded as over hyped and hysterical.
There was a huge campaign to teach the population about how to prepare their homes, and defend them. Because it was so centralised, the people who lived on the edges of grasslands and those, like us, in what nowadays we call the “flame zone”, were given the same advice. The “go” part of “stay or go” felt like an afterthought for people who were not able bodied. I remember some of our neighbours’ plans were that the men and older boys would “stay” and the women and little children would “go”.
In 1987 the very first General Achievement Test had as one of its tasks information about how to prepare a home for bushfire. It was clearly in the zeitgeist.
My personal experience of this policy is encapsulated by a CFA Fireguard group meeting, in the years leading up to 2010, that we attended on our neighbour’s verandah. The CFA man explained patiently about how bushfires behave, and how we should be preparing our houses, so that we could defend them. The expectation was clearly that we and our neighbours would stay, in the case of a bushfire, and, with mops and buckets of water, we would put out any embers that threatened out house. We pointed to the towering ash forest, metres from our house, and told him we didn’t think our house would be defendable. He was not impressed.
Throughout the Millennial drought, from 1997 to 2009, during the most severe summers, we kept a trailer full of things at Chris’s parents’ place, and had a very clear plan. We evacuated quite a number of times, staying in their spare room. The plan was to insure fully, and simply not to be there during dangerous times. The local schools built fire refuges, and the CFA kept on with its “stay and defend” message. Water saving advice was everywhere. Like many others, we set up a grey water system to water our garden.
BLACK SATURDAY - MARGARET
And then came the summer of 2008-9. It had been particularly dry and hot. This was the summer when tree fern fronds were scorched, lawns died and record high temperatures were broken day after day. The forecast for the first week of February looked horrendous in advance, with temperatures of 48 degrees forecast, and Chris and I decided to take ourselves camping by the Thurra river, and wait it out. I was glad to be retired by then!
We followed the news of Black Saturday, on the radio, and, once the cool change hit, we packed up and drove out along the Thurra Road, as news of the death toll mounted. Along the Princes Highway, we saw fire fighters’ camp sites with row after row of little tents. The air was smokey, and through the Latrobe Valley we drove through a blackened landscape. At home, the garden was scorched and everything still crackled underfoot.
Back with television coverage, we watched interviews with people who had miraculously survived, saw footage of people’s fire refuges that had been easily breached, and heard the stories of person after person, traumatised by their unsuccessful attempts to defend their homes. 173 people had died, 120 of them in the Kinglake area. More than 450 hectares had burned and 3500 buildings, 200 of them houses, had been destroyed.)
Herald-Sun
That cool change was not the end of the 2009 fire season. We evacuated a number of times that February. One day, a fire bug lit a fire just up the hill from us. I was sitting outside, and heard the crackle as flames licked up a nearby gum tree. Chris was walking in the forest. As I drove down to the Belgrave carpark, he was walking quickly back down through the forest, having seen the smoke. When he met a wall of flames, he backtracked hastily, headed toward the road, and hitched a ride with a stranger to near home. The wind was blowing the danger away from our place. I have been mocked mercilessly for my paper post it note on the door telling him I’d gone to the Belgrave car park, but at least he knew that I was out of danger.
In the car park, a gaggle of us watched the Elvis fire bombing helicopters head up the hill, and cheered, and very soon the whole drama was over.)
2009 marked the end of the Millennial drought years. Summers since then have been cooler and wetter. But the legacy has been an obsession with rainfall figures, forecasts and climate outlooks.
Our local community facebook page has a member who is a forecaster with the Bureau of Meteorology, who posts every time there is a weather anomaly. It is clear from the responses to him, that we are not alone in our anxiety about rainfall.
THE BIG STORM - MARGARET
It was winter, 2021. There had been yet another Covid lockdown, this one lasting two weeks, finishing on June 10th. Life quickly went back to normal for most people in Melbourne.
But for us in the Dandenongs, the evening of June 9th, and the next morning, brought a massive windstorm which brought down huge swathes of trees, many across roads and onto 112 houses. The wind came at 120kph, but it came from an unusual direction, and our shallow rooted mountain trees were largely untested from that direction. They fell, roots and all, in their hundreds.
Even though the power went off immediately, and all the mobile towers were out, there were 9,500 calls for help logged by the SES. People were trapped in their houses, and many streets, including Michael and Katherine’s were blocked off. There was no way of communicating, in or out, for many days.
My most vivid memory of the storm comes from early on the morning of the tenth. Chris was standing with a view to the north of the forest out the window. His eyes widened, and yet another a great crash came from the forest. He had watched a two hundred foot tall mountain ash eucalypt gracefully fall sideways, taking down another tree of similar size, which in turn took out another one. Like enormous dominos, the three of them had joined the huge pile of previous victims on the forest floor. Later on we stood on the road, looking down where they had fallen and counted thirteen giant trees lying in a messy tangle.)
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Elsewhere in the Hills, this carnage had been repeated in town after town. We lucky ones who still had homes, watched with dismay as the power company’s estimates of power restoration stretched out beyond a week. Eventually we were able to drive out. It was a weird feeling to drive down onto the flat and find life going on as normal. For us the feeling was very much as if we were still in lockdown. On the Monday evening, I went to choir rehearsal in Ferntree Gully, blinking in the unaccustomed bright lights. Many of us Hills residents had brought items to be recharged during the evening. At end of the night we drove back up into the darkened Hills.
At home, we went into camping mode. There was no hot water, but we had plenty of fire wood, and our very effective wood heater. We cooked with gas and our little portable gas fridge kept our essentials cold. I took to having my bucket bath in the afternoon, when it wasn’t quite so cold in the bathroom. It was ten days before our power came back on, on June 20th.
The reprieve from lockdown lasted only a month. By July 16, Melbourne was back into working from home, home schooling, and leaving home only for essential purposes.
Infant Jesus Catholic Church, Koroit
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We began with the limestone stacks around Port Campbell and then into the primeval rainforest to Cape Otway lighthouse station.
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We were on our way to Penola in the Coonawarra wine region. Google maps devised a very interesting route that took us on minor roads cross country… so interesting, varying from poor dairy, in marginal swampy land, to the red gum studded grassy plains of the western district squatters.
We passed the remnants of the volcanic eruptions; the swamps and billabongs, once much more extensive; and wide river valleys, carved out over the millennia. We marvelled at the extent of the Phragmites australis. (wetland grasses) We wondered what this entire landscape was like, prior to white settlement.
Thinking of the past and the history of the area, I was quite in the mood to reminisce about Dad as a boy, travelling to Warrnambool, especially as Google maps was taking us through Koroit where he was born. “I’ll take a photo for Margaret, let’s find the Catholic Church.” I thought.
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The Catholic real estate occupies a large area of high ground in Koroit. The substantial bluestone church is typical of the area. As we drove up, we noticed the nearly rebuilt St Patrick’s Primary School directly opposite. Dad went there.
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We turned and went through the church gates to the front door, and I imagined Dad and his family walking up the worn bluestone steps to Mass on Sundays. Very substantial grounds with beautiful large trees surround the church, and behind it is a large gracious building, also set in a large garden. This was the presbytery where the priests lived. It had a separate impressive driveway, flanked by large gates, and a long tree lined drive.
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While I was wandering around here, Jono had chatted to the young couple painting the fence. He told her our story and she immediately offered to get the key so that we could go inside.
The door she unlocked was at the back of the church, and was where the priests would have entered the church to robe up. It sent a bit of a shiver down my spine as I thought of the stories of abuse etc. We entered the church, and, immediately in front of us, was the baptismal font where Dad would have been baptised.
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Quite amazing! It is a beautiful interior, especially the wooden ceiling and the stained glass windows.
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The Catholic iconography was very present in the small side chapels, and the stations of the cross.
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I sat in the pews and thought about our family sitting there: a respectable and important family. As the young doctor in the town, Hugh and Grace were building their family and their life here, in this very Catholic and Irish community.
As I was walking down the aisle, I thought of Dad as a small impressionable boy, drinking in all that gruesome imagery of Catholicism, made all the more fearsome in this somber shadowed interior.
We thanked Nicky for opening the church, and discovered that she was a Protestant girl who, as she said, was so in love that she converted, and was baptised and married in that church. Different times and a different story. She also told us that people said that in the past, there were so many priests and nuns here. This is also evident in the large presbytery and convent. The convent is a beautiful, gracious building, also set in a very large garden. It even has a separate chapel.
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The convent would have supplied the teachers for St Patrick’s where Dad attended primary school. The school has been rebuilt and still has a thriving enrolment.
As I was looking through our photographs, I came across the one of me in the pews looking very comfortable. The thought flicked through my mind that, in another era, the title of “President of the Catholic Women’s Guild” would have been a definite option.
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