AV0006M - Margaret Fankhauser - Blackburn Cool Store (Oral History)

History of the Blackburn Cool Store on Cassette - NP 2378

Margaret Fankhauser, wife of Eric Fankhauser - last president of the Blackburn Cool Store.

Bob McCrickard - last secretary of the Blackburn Cool Store from 1981 to its closure.
Interviewed by Valda and Ted Arrowsmith. History of the Blackburn Cool Store on Cassette - NP 2378



Bob - I started in 1961. I took over from the previous secretary who had been there for well over thirty years.
I had just retired and was approached, so I settled in as secretary/treasurer and carried on until the closure of the cool store in about 1970.
The orchards were beginning to be cut up. The business originally catered entirely for orchardists and their produce which they placed in the cool store themselves, and as shareholders they had complete right of usage of the cool store. When I moved in, the orchard produce had started to fall off and the amount of apples and pears that were coming in were slowly being reduced, and other customers were sought to make use of the cool store. On big customer that did come along then were the potato growers, and they made use of some of the chambers.
The cool store itself had six chambers, which would accommodate anything up to 150 pallets in each chamber, but there was never any question of the orchardists not having sufficient space to put their products in, but they weren't allocated any particular area. Their ultimate reason was that any profits that did come, they shared in on there basis of the number of shares they held, but there was really no restriction on any particular orchardist to have a claim on certain areas. They accommodated quite easily all those that wanted it.
We knew who was positioned in the cool store area. They knew exactly which were their apples or pears and there was no problem at all.
We were never involved in any sales. And the other thing was that the shareholders never got charged for whatever produce they put in the store.
For example, more so in the earlier years, it would be almost filled with the shareholders produce, and in that case, there was no income For example, more so in the earlier years, it would be almost filled with the shareholders produce, and in that case there was no income in the sense of renting it out to anyone else. So they would contribute to the running of the cool store - the electricity and energy costs and things of that nature.
The shareholders in the earlier days would contribute. The fact that they could put their produce in there, that it was well looked after and preserved, and they paid the running costs. Ultimately the store began to look for outside customers who paid on the basis on how much space they wanted.
Margaret - I married in 1960, and at Vermont South, which was called East Burwood in those days, my late husband and his brother used the east Burwood Cool Store as well as the Blackburn Cool Store. I don't know what happened to the East Burwood Cool Sore - or its history. I wished that that could have been found. At the time Of 1960 they were still packing into boxes, which you will see in that photo that I have handed you today of Victor Fankhauser, my husband's father, with the fruit boxes.
And so if you could just imagine that those boxes had to be filled. They had to pick into their picking bag, and one of those picking bags would virtually fill one of the boxes. The boxes would be then lifted on to the trailer, they would then go to their shed, they then would get stacked in the shed about ten or twelve high, then they'd get put on to the truck, perhaps after they'd been sorted. I'm just trying to indicate the amount of handling. The boxes would be sorted. Any rubbish would be thrown out.
They didn't need to have cool storage for the rubbish. Then it would get put on to the truck. Then it would come to the cool store and it would be placed on to a pallet, like a moveable trolley truck, and be pushed into the chamber, and then it would be lifted back into a stack in the cool store. And that was pre marketing. That was just for the storage of it.
Then they would probably come to the cool store -there was availability of space for them to pack at the cool store - so they would probably spend a day or two packing at the cool store and put it back in. Sometimes they actually brought the fruit back home again and packed it for the market, then back onto the truck again and then into the market, and then they would finally sell that box of fruit. That amount of handling was enormous. My husband - it would be illegal now - but he built a cab over the top of the truck and even had the fruit in the seat beside him. So he was probably well overloaded when he went into market, but he wanted to get rid of it and rarely brought anything home. The reputation of their fruit was very high. Some growers, because they didn't put all good quality fruit in - I don't say any growers from East Burwood - but some growers would often have to bring fruit home. But we rarely did, because it meant such a lot of handling again.
Soon after 1960, certainly within the next few years, palletisation came in. The pallets would be taken down the orchard, and I think it was something like twenty cases of fruit fitted into a pallet. You just had to climb up on the side of the trailer and empty the picking bag into this pallet and that saved them such a lot of handling.
The early packaging was kerosene cases as in that photo; later it became the cardboard.
We made a video of the whole year on the orchard and it shows the whole process. You may like to get a copy. It is quite explicit and shows the whole process. Both cools stores were on it and also the - what was then - the new Victoria Market in Footscray, just as it opened.
There was no exporting from the cool store, but it did from The Blue Moon, and it also was done privately. There were carriers who, because it became too uneconomical for orchardists to be all the time driving between Blackburn and home - some orchardists had their own cool store. When I married in 1961, Eric's father died shortly after that and the boys had asked their father whether he would be prepared to put a cool store on, but at that stage Vermont South, or East Burwood, was still under what was known as the green belt and there was always the suspicion that development was getting closer and closer, so Eric's father said "No. I don't think orcharding will last much longer here." So it was not worthwhile putting a cool Store on. However you can imagine the time it took them getting backwards and forwards. Well then there started to become carriers who were prepared to come to the orchard and load their truck. It meant once you had pallets, you had to have a fork lift, so we had a fork lift and the boys had to get permits to drive them - you couldn't just drive a fork lift. He (the driver) would come and load the fruit on to his truck and either take it to the cool store, Or sometimes he would take it straight to the docks. Bob McLellan his name was. He worked for various orchards in the area, and he would take it down to the docks, and we would export ourselves for a while. So it did happen but it wasn't with our involvement so much.
Bob on the closing of the cool store - The shareholders didn't vary very much. Not being a listed company there was no sale price of shares you could settle on. Any enquiries we got we directed to the shareholders themselves if they were interested, but there was very little transfer of shares unless, unfortunately, a shareholder may have passed away. The estate, almost in all cases, took over the running of the shares. So the shareholders virtually just stayed to the end. In my ten years or so there was really no transfer of shares apart from the estates.
Margaret - I think shares were often willed to certain members ofthe family. They then became the owners of the shares.
Eric was chairman when Bob came in 1961 and he remained chairman right through until the end.
Bob - It closed because it wasn't a profitable undertaking. It was self sufficient in the sense that it was able to at least keep its head above water, but one of the things that brought it on a little earlier was that there would have been extensive repair work necessary. Some of the chambers, particularly the walls which were deteriorating after seventy years. So faced with a certain amount of heavy capital expenditure the share holders decided that the time had come for it to be sold.
At the final meeting there were no 'No's. There would have been twenty or more shareholders there, but the others all had proxies. The chairman had proxies.
Everybody responded with either a personal appearance or a proxy. There was no opposition at all. All that did was bring forward the decision to sell and from there on the board had to take up the necessary arrangements to get the best price and the best way to go about it. It wouldn't have been sold as an ongoing cool store because it would have cost too much to update it.
There is a lot of confusion between the Blackburn Cool Store and the Blue Moon, and they were apart The Blue Moon is now a series of little factoryettes, but the Blackburn cool store has gone. There are new buildings on it, but of the cool store itself, there is no part of it left. Ultimately demolished!
There's an office block, and on one boundary is a Chinese restaurant. All that area from the old Blue Moon down to the level crossing, the bulk of the area is now car park. Margaret - There was an entrance off Cottage Street, and it was like one roadway wide, and you turned into that and then you came to a piece that was parallel with the railway line, that actually was bound by the back of shops and buildings all the way round. You couldn't see the cool store from the railway line.
There were two or three shops back from the corner and then there was a little roadway that went into the cool store.
There was an incredible change of use of the cool store that you haven't touched on. Remember? There was no fruit at one stage.
Bob - Potatoes?
Margaret - We went into very diverse things at One stage. We had dried storage in there !
Bob - Particularly coming on to Christmas time, one or two entire chambers would be taken over by beer. Coming on to Christmas or holiday periods, some of the local hotels in the area would rent out almost entire chambers for liquor supplies. The big trucks would come in and unload them into the cool store. When they came to want some out they were partly chilled anyway, so it's not a bad arrangement.
There was also dried fruit and what they called seed potatoes. Some of the local vegetable shop people would leave produce there.
Margaret - I had the fortunate opportunity to learn a little bit about the cool store and learn another trade in my life, because Bob is a very experienced bookkeeper or accountant. "I'm an accountant" When he retired and took over the job he had the opportunity to go overseas and he need someone to do all the books for the cool store, and my husband put my hand up and I had to be trained. I consider it a great gif that I had that opportunity because I would never have been able to do the things I've done, had I not had this excellent training from Bob. He taught me to do spread sheets and all sorts of things. So I had the job while he was in Samoa trying to get their electricity commission up and running. I had the opportunity to do the invoices that had to go out to the people who were using the chambers, so that's how I got to know about that side of it.
Margaret - I think it (cool store) was the hub of the community. I can't think of any other building that would have had, especially in the pre sixty days -maybe not so much after the sixties, and maybe not so much after some orchardists put their own cool stores in - but before that, that was their common meeting ground. There would have been no other central place that they got to meet.
Blackburn was extensively orchards, and right out to East Bur,vood, as we were called, and right over to Doncaster. This cool store covered all of that area as the names and addresses will indicate to you. Unfortunately there was also that one at East Burwood and it would wonderful if that one could be traced.
Bob (having looked up records) - At the time when the cool store wound up its operations in October 1986 there were 36 shareholders, and following a special meeting of the shareholders, the company, land and buildings were sold by auction.
Final settlement date was 17th September 1986, and the company ceased ope