AV0024M - Rob Collier Interview

Tape Name: Interview with ROB COLLIER conducted by VALDA & TED ARROWSMITH



Oral History Interview

This interview is with Rob Collier who is a descendant of Anne and John Collier, early residents in this Municipality. It was recorded on Monday, 22nd of July, 2002.

(VA) Rob, thank you very much for giving us this time to tell us about your early memories of growing up in our Municipality and thank you for the photos you have given to us to copy. We much appreciate that. If you’d like to start with your earliest memories of where your people had their properties and what they worked on them.

(RC) I suppose the places started with both properties because as a kid we would get on the train at Box Hill and we would come up to both Grand Parents places and that sort of thing because my Grand Mother lived with Sam Williams. Sam Williams home was on Victoria Avenue and Peel Street and it ran back to Ormond’s Orchard. It also covered about an acre or so on Victoria Street as well. On the property was a fairly large home plus the wattle and daub house at the back which was used as a kitchen and for storing things. In the Summer it was very, very cool on a hot day and Sam also used to make his own Apple Cider. My good memories really start towards the end of the Second World War and there was an Air Raid Shelter he dug on the grounds and he used to ferment all the apples down in the Air Raid Shelter. As boys we’d go down there and of course it smelt to high heaven but Sam’s brew was pretty good and I’ll give you a bit of a background into Sam’s place. Sam’s place in my memory was the place where the families used to get together, they all loved to play cards. And in the family room at Sam’s there was a, they used to refer to it as a family room, there was the dining room the lounge and there was this reasonably small room off to the side that had mirrors right around the top of the wall. Sam used to sit at the end and he could look in the mirror at everyone else’s cards. They played poker as you would understand. Dad always said that they knew that so all they used to let him see was the ones they wanted him to see. That was his life as I knew Sam, as an older man. He worked for Miller’s Ropes in Footscray and he used to travel from Mitcham to Footscray every day of the week until he retired.

(VA) And they worked the property too?

(PC) They worked the property too, I think, Lotty, my Grand Mother and Rachel predominantly worked the property through the day, they looked after the chooks and all that sort of thing and he looked after the other things on the weekend. It had quite a few rows of trees but it wasn’t that large as I remember it. But at one stage there was a tram card at the side of the house, a cable tram card, because three of the old Aunts used to live in there. Sam was a benevolent sort of a guy. Sam and Lotty had no children but I think he was really benevolent to all the Sisters. And as I explained to you earlier, there were a lot of girls in the family, I think about twelve. Most were born in Hamilton but some were born in Williamstown. And they all seemed to gravitate at some stage to Sam’s because I know that Elsie, Miriam and Ethel worked in the apple factory I think it was here there was a pickle factory, yes, there were two, but there was one of those, there is something in those notes from Mum about that. It burnt down at one stage. But they worked there at one stage but those three used to do a flit every now and again, they’d rent a property, or a house and then nick off without paying the rent. I mean, they were real good. They never married, they were three spinsters and they’d be somewhere and I think every time they shot through they’d come back to Sam’s. So at one stage they were living in this tram car that was parked on the Peel Street side of the house. My Grand Father’s property on my Father’s side, my Grand Father I don’t really remember because he died in 1943 I think it was, and I was a little small. I remember this old guy but not particularly well.

(VA) Is this John Collier is it?

(RC) This is Robert. I’m named after.

(VA) John was your Great Grand Father.

(RC) The property ran from the Railway line at Nunawading on the West side of the railway line …

(VA) It was Tunstall back in those days.

(RC) …we went to Tunny, we didn’t go to Nunawading! Everybody went to Tunny! We’d say to Dad, “where are we going today”, and he’d say “we’re going to Tunny!” Nobody used Nunawading, it was Tunny. The next boundary line was where Winlaton was eventually established. That was the other side of the property.

(VA) So it basically went down to the Winlaton House.

(RC) The fence line. It wasn’t Winlaton then it belonged to somebody else.

(VA) So Laughlin Avenue?

(RC) Laughlin Avenue was the full length of the property, because the back end of the property is the fence which is now the Seventh Day Adventist School. I don’t know if it’s in there but there was a Deed for some land that was bought for there. That was bought off the Victorian Railways. The bottom section of land was actually owned by the Victorian Railways. I don’t know why but he bought it around about 1900. Some reason XXX but they owned this block of land down the back. Is it ok if I jump around? It stirs things in my memory! What used to happen years ago, my Great Grand Father when the boys all came to what was a reasonable age I think he used to go to the auctions in the city. And he’d buy blocks, not blocks, he bought land, lots of land, and my Grand Father got a block of land out at Scoresby, but it had no water. He had about 90 acres out there, but he said “what use is this to me, it’s got no water on it” so he moved and my only knowledge after that is that he moved to the property in Canterbury Road in Forest Hill which is roughly where Nunawading High School used to be and there is a photo there showing that old home there. And that is that property there, I don’t know much about it because it was long gone before I came on the scene. On that property was a four room house. And it had no kitchen, no bathroom, it had two bedrooms up the front which I suspect was my Grand Parents, my Aunty lived in the other room. The three boys had the big room on the side of the house and the other room which took up about a third of the house was where everybody lived. That was the living area. As you walked out the back door and attached at the back, that covered area at the back, there were a couple of Coolgardie Stoves, there was a Wood Fire Stove and whatever else you needed in the kitchen was all contained in that small area at the back. And at that open area where you see the wash stand, that was the Bathroom. When you wanted a wash, you walked there, you got some water from the XXX there was no water on at the house, there was water on the property but none on the house. They used to take the water out of the well, tip it in the dish and that’s how you washed. The water was always full of wrigglers but nobody worried about wrigglers, they boiled off in the tea. When you XXX. People say “terrible” and you’d say, “so what?” Never bothered anybody! I guess that’s what we grew up with, that’s the difference. That water tank at one stage when there was a drought here and Dad told me once that Grand Pa supplied a lot of people with water from that well. It was very deep. And we were under threat of punishment as kids that if you went near it you were going to get a good hiding. We used to creep up and look down into it because kids are kids. So that was it, there were four children. There was Fred, Cec my Dad, George who never married and there was Blanche who became Mrs Dixon of the Dixon Orchards. One of the groups up in Ringwood. So that is basically where it was. They grew cherries, I know there were cherries out the front because there is the photo there looking over the cherry trees at the railway gates. My Father talks of playing cards down at Jules’ Pottery in the Winter because it was the warmest place to go down to Jules’ Pottery and sit by the kilns and play cards. This would be in the 20’s/30’s I suppose in that area. I remember Dad saying that during the Depression when they were all out of work they used to grow a few flowers on the property there and that kept them in cigarettes and beer. Other than that they weren’t worried. On the other side, the Joiners I believe, they lived off their Father, and it’s probably slightly unrelated but I’ll put this in for what it’s worth. The Joiner boys decided they were going to New Guinea to look for Gold somewhere around about 1934/6, something like that. Apparently in those days you had to get a Taxation Office clearance so they fronted into the Taxation Office to get a tax clearance to go and back then the Tax Office said to them, “but you haven’t paid any taxes for years”, and they said, “well you mightn’t know being in here but there’s a Depression out there we haven’t earned any money for years”. And he said, “well how have you been living?” and they said “off the old man”. Because with the property you could grow enough food to live. I don’t know how big Herb Joiners property was, Herb being my Grand Mother’s Brother, I don’t know how big that area was but I believe it was quite substantial. Everybody had chooks. And they had a bit of bartering as well.

(RA) And they had a bit of bartering as well. When they didn’t have the milk but they had chooks etc.

(RC) On the property, all the buildings, the sheds at the back were all built off gum trees on the property. As he cleared it he built the sheds. Corrigated Iron had come in but all the rest were from the timber that was on the property. There were chooks down the back there as well.

(VA) And then they had fruit trees, that was their main income?

(RC) No, ever so shifty!

(VA) Resourceful I think you’d call it!

(RC) He was a Timber Cutter and I still think he did a bit of that. He worked on what is called the Old Gippsland Road, now Old Gippsland Road originally was to go through to Gippsland, but he did a bit of cutting on that but Dad told me that he gave that away as it was pretty heavy going and he gave that away and he went cutting elsewhere. But the guys who did continue on they got so far with it but they were going so slow and there was that much timber that in the end they just called it off, they said they would never cut their way through to Gippsland the way they were going. And that is why there is an Old Gippsland Road but it doesn’t go anywhere! It finishes up around up Seville somewhere and that’s it.

(VA) That was the plan. Because on the old maps even Whitehorse Road here has got the Gippsland Road so it was the plan. And they found all this timber over that way.

(RC) Dad told me that Whitehorse Road was the coach road and Canterbury Road was the works road, and all the timber trucks all went down Canterbury Road. They used to go down to the river at Hawthorn and they sold the timber on this side of the river, the East side of the river, to the merchants who then took it across to the Melbourne side and sold it. So he did a bit of that as well. But I think that was possibly a little XXX, timeframe I don’t know, but I do know that during the 30’s during the Depression when he was running the Orchard he was also working for the Council. He and Uncle Herb, his brother-in-law, both worked for the Council. That’s the comment I found one day and I cut it out and kept it and so he was doing a bit of work for the Council as well. So he was pretty resourceful of what he used to do. He was I understand a bit of a Racketeer and he used to be very much in demand to go to parties and socials and things because he played the Squeeze Box and Dad used to talk about him, he was about my height and my Grand Mother was a very small lady, and Dad used to say he’d dance around the floor and she’d have her arms around his waist and he could play on the Squeeze Box and you could sort of envisage this. I can remember that my Grand Mother was so small and he was a tall man. So he must have been quite good. In the property there, when I was a boy, all the Orchard had been cut out. When he died, and they decided not to work it I think they cut out all the fruit trees. But there was a row of cherry plumbs running the full width of the property and we used to have cherry plumb pies and things like that as a boy. George grew a lot of flowers and exhibited in flower shows in Box Hill and Ringwood and actually won a lot of prizes. He never married and he lived there until the property was cut up.
(VA) And did he sell commercially or was that just his interest?

(RC) No, it was just his hobby. He was a Telephone Technician. I will try and find for you, there is a photo there of gladies, rows and rows of gladioli and you see this little kid sitting there in the middle and that’s me, but he grew rows and rows of gladioli and he picked the best out and he’d exhibit them at the Flower Shows. He actually won quite a lot of prizes for that sort of thing.

(VA) The land then was subdivided when your Grand Father died.

(RC) No, it was subdivided in the early 1960’s. The rates had got to 100 pounds per year and the family decided that it wasn’t worth keeping and of course my Grand Mother was well in her eighties by then and they decided that perhaps it was time to sell it and that sort of thing. And a guy in Ringwood made a lot of money out of that because my Grand Mother would only live in a house that had a wooden stove, she didn’t want anything to do with these new fangled gas or electric stoves, it had to be wooden as she had cooked on wood all her life. So they finally found a house in Ringwood, not far from the shops, that had a wooden stove and that’s where they moved to.

(VA) Did George go with her?

(RC) Yes, George stayed with her all his life. He actually died in that house in Ringwood, actually out the front, he had a heart attack and died. He was about 76 or 77, something like that. He was going to the doctor’s but he never got there. He just went on the footpath outside. Of course Blanche was there when it happened but the point was it was one of those very sudden things. They were all smokers, all the boys smoked, all of them. Not many didn’t in those days. Fred was the youngest who died, he died, they put it down to War Service, he actually lived in Ballarat for many, many years and he died in Ballarat but they put that down to War Service, he was only about 42 or 43. They said it was due to his War Service that it happened.
(VA) A lot of men came back quite wrecked health wise and emotionally.

(RC) Anything you’d like to ask, some questions perhaps? Jog something in my memory.

(VA) You mentioned coming up from Box Hill, where did you live in Box Hill?

(RC) We lived in Station Street on the corner of Clyde and Station Streets Box Hill When I was about 12 we went to live in North Ringwood, Williams Road in North Ringwood. Never went to school here, I used to get off the train at Nunawading, on icy mornings and slide along the platforms on the station and get back on the next train because it was like skating on ice on the wooden boards at the railway station. You’d come down one train, slide all over the place and get on the next one.

(RA) Can I ask you a question now? You came from Clyde and Station Streets in Box Hill. I went to school with a Des Collier who lived nearly opposite the park and shops just down from the state school.

(RC) That was Abbott’s Shop but I didn’t know Des Collier. The nearest relation was John who was down in Surrey Hills.

(RA) I had to find out!

(RC) That’s alright! It’s quite interesting actually because there was a fair span in the family, as my Grand Father was the youngest but the eldest, that Collier Road in Kilsyth is his eldest brother’s property, and his family, I’ve met some of his family over the years, but I got involved in something and this guy turns up and his name is Collier and we started talking and put it all together. But the guy who is my age is equivalent to a generation further back because of the difference in the ages. He’s one generation back, his Father is actually my generation because of the difference.

(VA) Rob, maybe your memories or Tunstall when you got off the train, the shops that were there. We were told about a Land Sale that says about the Picture Theatre that was on Springvale Road.

(RC) The only Picture Theatre would have been in the old hall. It couldn’t have been anywhere else, there was only the old hall. There was Mrs Orr’s shop opposite my Grand Parent’s property just a bit down from Railway Road going South. She was the first business there. She was an English lady and she sold biscuits, ice-cream. And when I went to Grandma’s she would always take me over and buy an ice-cream at Mrs Orr’s shop so I knew Mrs Orr’s shop pretty well. That was the first place you went, it was always good for an ice-cream. Having no children of his own he spoiled all the Grand children. The whole lot he spoiled. He spoiled everybody so we used to go Mrs Orr’s shop. As I remember, Springvale Road, it was brick bats, there was no bitumen it was just a brick bat road on the South side of the railway line. As was Canterbury Road. However, Canterbury Road was for many, many years it was brick back from Middleborough Road in Box Hill. It was brick back for many years, even when I was old enough to start riding a bike everywhere it was still brick back.

(VA) And so, she was the only shop?

(RC) She was the only shop, all the rest were houses. The house going further down were people like Doc Rowe, he used to be a Market Gardener, he grew mainly flowers. When we’d go up we might go down to Uncle Herb’s for a visit, we might go over to Doc Rowe’s for a visit, whenever Dad came up, because he knew all these people, I mean, the first person he spoke to when he got off the train in those times was a four wheel bus used to run out to Forest Hill and East Burwood. And a bloke whose name escapes me for the moment, Dad’s first conversation was with the bus driver because they’d all played football together. So he never ever made it from the Station down to the house, the first conversation was with the bus driver.

(VA) What’s the football team that he played for?
(RC) Tunstall. He was Secretary at Tunstall Football Club. Mum’s brother played for Tunstall, Harold Stevens. George played for Tunstall, Fred played for Tunstall. I know that Fred, Dad and Harold all played for Tunstall at the same time and their colours were purple and gold. Dad had a photo, no it wasn’t a photo it was a plaque, it had the names of all the members/players in the team and their colours and everything on it, but I don’t know what happened to it, it disappeared. As a kid I can remember it being around.

(VA) We are really pleased to get the photos you had of the gates at that crossing and the gates house.

(RC) That was the other thing, he got down to the gatehouse he used to talk to them as well because he knew everybody that came down.

(VA) Now that gatehouse keeper, was it an actual house?

(RC) Yes, it was a house, a railway house. Adjacent to the gates. As there were in most places.

(VA) He had a little cupboard.

(RC) Yes, he had a little cupboard at the gates, but just behind that was the railway home. Once you got beyond Box Hill most places had them. They were at Ringwood, Mitcham, Nunawading, and the Station Master lived in them and if you had a Gate Keeper they used to have one as well.

(VA) Yes, yes, they were different times weren’t they? You were very lucky seeing all that change.

(RC) Yes, look, I’ve seen the change. There are other things, you just bought something else to mind. When Cliff Dixon was courting Dad’s sister Blanche, the train of course being steam was that slow going up the hill, sometimes Dad said he’d be standing at the gate of the property kissing Blanche and the train would be leaving the station and Cliff used to run up and catch it half way up the hill to Rooks Road. He jumped on the back. He wouldn’t move when it came through the gates he moved later.

(VA) Clay making was a very big industry in this Municipality, when we were one, like the Shire of Nunawading, Box Hill, etc. and I suppose you’d have been well aware of all that, where Daniel Robertson was, etc.

(RC) Yes, Daniel Robertson, some Wunderlinks and also there were two clay holes at Blackburn of course. Blue Moon, just up from Blue Moon there were two holes up there when I was a kid.

(VA) Were they very big ones, do you remember those?

(RC) They were deep enough when you were a boy looking off the train or you’d walk down to the fence and have a look. They’d be about the same size as the clay holes down in Box Hill, I would think. There was one over near the baths in Box Hill, City Brick or whatever it was. The two holes at Mitcham were quite large. The Monics and the Tesselated Coal. They were quite large. George did the original lighting in the Monics when power first came in to Mitcham. He did the first lighting, I’m not sure whether it was the Tesselated Coal Company or Monics that he did. Harold certainly worked at the Monics before the War. Alfred could probably tell you more about that.

(RA) My Dad worked at the Monics.

(RC) Harold worked at the Monics.

(VA) They must have employed a lot of people in this Municipality.

(RC) Yes, they definitely did. Everybody was mostly locally employed. Not that many people went away from home. My Dad was a Brass Finisher and he did an apprenticeship at John Danks in South Melbourne. He used to have to travel by Steam Train to Box Hill, change trains and then Steam Train again down into the city to get to and from work.

(VA) What year would that be?

(RC) He left school in 1918, so that would have been in the 1920’s. I know that the Head Master at Mitcham State School in 1918 was Nathan Spielogel as he presented Dad with a book of poems. He wrote them. Most of the poems are about the Wimmera or the Mallee. He obviously spent a lot of time working in the Mallee. The poems are terrific.

(VA) I think if we could have a copy because it was from a Head Master and they were very important people in towns back then. The Doctor, the Post Master and the Head Master were the ones that sort of knew everything and kept the town going didn’t they? Making sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing.

(RC) Mum when she first left school went to work at the Post Office delivering telegrams. She knows a lot about what happened from that point of view. She could tell you who lived here and who lived there and that sort of thing. Her claim to fame at school was that she punched Bob Pratt on the nose.

(VA) Really! He’s one of the famous sons that came out of Mitcham.

(RC) They all went to school together. They all went to Mitcham School. Mitcham School of course was not where it is today, it was between the lane and Victoria Avenue.

(VA) Actually, my children started at that little school. That’s what they used to call it! In your mother’s day it was “the” school.

(RC) Mum at one stage, they lived very close towards the Chinese place that is on the corner of Victoria Avenue. They lived sometimes with Sam and then they lived there and then they moved somewhere else, but they always lived in the area of Mitcham. She tells little things like the fight that started at Mitcham Football Ground when one of the women hit one of the blokes. Actually, Tunstall played Mitcham and Tunstall won. Tunstall had never beaten Mitcham but this day they won and I think it was Mrs Page belted this guy over the head with her umbrella because he said “Tunstall should not have won”. There was a fight. She knew who started it, Dad and Mum’s Brother was talking about it at home, but they didn’t know who started it, but Mum did. They only knew that there had been a hell of a fight because Harold turned up and he said to Mum, “Jean, get home”. She was only sixteen or seventeen. But yeah, she knew who started it.

(VA) Gosh, things haven’t changed. I believe there was a big fight down at Vermont last Saturday.

(RC) Yes, they started a blue down at East Ringwood last Saturday as well. After the game, they stood on the ground.

(VA) Do you follow the local football?

(RC) A bit of both actually. I’m a former President of Box Hill Football Club and I’m still on the board at Box Hill Hawks and I’m a member of the Easterns of East Ringwood and divide my time a little bit between both.

(VA) You’re well into all that!

(RC) If Box Hill is not playing on a Saturday you will find me up at East Ringwood because I just know there are a lot of people there I grew up with and to me it’s a nice place to go and talk to people.

(VA) Have you done a history of the Box Hill Football Club?

(RC) We have one. I haven’t done it, John Muir has done it. It isn’t published yet, I’m not sure what stage its at. But it’s all ready to go, if you’re looking for information on that I can get it.

(VA) Oh no, well certainly when it’s printed we’d love to have a copy.

(RC) John lives at Riddell’s Creek but he is also on the board like I am and John actually owns Deer Park Engineering in Deer Park.

(VA) Only yesterday I gave a talk at the Warrandyte Historical Society and at question time one of the men had done something about football clubs and he said to me did I know that the Box Hill Football Club was started as the Nunawading Football Club.

(RC) I don’t know about that. It was the Box Hill Stars who played where the cemetery is now. And the council sold that land to he Cemetery Trust the back half of Box Hill Cemetery was sold to the Cemetery Trust and then they established that ground there on the corner of Whitehorse Road and Middleborough Road. Dad said that was originally the tip, and it was all back-filled with land. No wonder when I was a boy playing on it it smelt like sewage. It was awful wet at some stages!

(VA) He’s a man who does a lot of researching and I think it was the maps that he was going back into and because people get intrigued about the Tunstall / Nunawading name change.

(RC) People say to me Tunstall Square and I say no, in your dreams.
(VA) Isn’t it sad that you know in another municipality we have to have that name of Tunstall. And he was saying that it was the Nunawading Football Club were playing (he had them a little bit South of where you are at the moment) anyway, and then there was the Tunstall Football Club which was playing. And their grounds were marked and he said that was the Box Hill Football Club.

(RC) Box Hill were on that ground where the cemetery is.

(VA) No the name, we just took the name.

(RC) They were the Box Hill Stars before they became Box Hill.

(VA) I’m wondering if even before that, how old was the club Rob?

(RC) Box Hill Football Club as it stands today was formed in ’36 when they bought the new pavilion. Blackburn is 100 years old.

(VA) What we were getting at was it was named after the Shire. Maybe you should have gone back further.

(RC) We have photos taken of the Box Hill Stars when they were playing on that ground where the cemetery is. But I don’t know how many years that went back. I think it was the 30’s.

(VA) He was going back further, we were talking about the 1880’s and 90’s and that which was very interesting.

(RC) Unfortunately the guy you could have spoken to about that was Ronnie Gibson he died a fortnight ago. He had been on the committee at Box Hill since it was established in 1936. He and his wife are the only family, if you like, that are life members of the VFA/VFL and between them they put in over 100 years into football.
(VA) Well you know there was this separation between the Shire of Nunawading and Box Hill and Blackburn and Mitcham came about, so prior to that of course, a few of the other clubs we have got a record of they all had that Nunawading name because they were covering that whole of that Shire of Nunawading. So for some people it gets very confusing, you know, then there was the City of Nunawading. I found that interesting about that football club.

(RC) The first block of land I bought in Box Hill, built my first house on, was on Ormond’s Orchard, and the papers in fact referred to the Parish of Nunawading.

(VA) It’s still part of the Parish.

(RC) That hasn’t changed. It went all the way down to Camberwell or Kew or something like that. But it was on the actual documents that I had it said Parish of Nunawading.

(VA) It’s interesting isn’t it? Maybe we’ll just stop for a minute let’s have a little recap.

(RA) Actually, what I was interested in Rob was you mentioned Jill’s Pottery, and of course, there is Robertson’s up further, the tile works there. What can you remember of Jill’s? Do you remember anything about Jill’s at all.

(RC) No, only the pottery being there. I never actually went in there except that Dad used to talk about the bee-hive kilns and I spent about 23 years in the furnace industry so I know exactly what bee-hive kilns are.

(RA) That would be the same at Robertson’s I guess?

(RC) Robertson’s actually had tunnel kilns I would think.

(RA) They had bee-hive kilns up here at the Tesselated. I’m pretty sure they were bee-hive.
(RC) Bee-hive were very common because they were easy to build. Brick in the circle, brick them in.

(RA) They were doing that up at Tesselated.

(RC) We are in the pottery area, but no, I never went in any unfortunately. Having gotten involved in the furnace industry when I was about 25 years of age I wished I would have taken a bit of notice when I was younger about furnaces!

(RA) Industrial furnaces?

(RC) Aluminium, steel, that sort of thing. I did the original instrumentational electronics on the water furnace down at Hastings. The ??? That was a long time ago, probably 1974/75. But I’ve been involved with Aluminium plants at Currie and Newcastle long ago. Comalco in Tasmania. In 1989, everything fell in a heap. There was no industry, no nothing. We put in a bit to BHP and they bought off-shore and they shut the company down. So in ’89, and not being very young anymore, you say “what am I going to do?” So the opportunity came to get involved in this company and it was only a three person business and years down the track the guy that owned it his marriage broke up and he decided he wasn’t interested in working anymore so I bought him out. So that has kept my interest for about the last eight years. It keeps me fit! It gives me an interest, I’ll never be rich but at least I’ve got work which I wouldn’t have if I was trying to get a job at my age. Within that I do a bit of contract work.

(VA) Rob has told us about being President of the Box Hill Football Club, we didn’t get it on tape. So, I think we should! Yes, of course if you could go back, you’ve told us that your Father/Uncle played with Tunstall. And then you played in the under 16’s and under 19’s at Box Hill.

(RC) That was about the end of my good ability and I went and played local football around Box Hill in the churches competition and stuff like that. And a few years later I gave it up and the family grew up and then around about 20 years ago I went back to Box Hill. My Father used to get very upset because he always went to VFA football, that was his notch. Well, he followed Box Hill once we moved to Box Hill. And we used to come up and down the railway line from Mitcham and Ringwood and Blackburn to go to the football when I was a boy. And then when Box Hill entered the VFA he followed the VFA football and when he got too old to go to the football himself he used to get very irate about the fact that they didn’t give any scores on the radio for VFA football. So I would call in there on my way home from where I’d been and he would say “did you get the scores, who won?” It used to annoy him that it wasn’t broadcast. So about 20 years ago I went back to the club and I walked in the place and the person on the gate knew me and I walked into the club rooms and John Segouris who always played football with me in the under 16’s and 19’s was the President. And they welcomed you and then the next week he said “well, will you come back next week, we’ve got another home game”. And I said “alright, I will come down for a look”. I just started getting involved from then on. About 15 years ago I got involved in the committees and I then did it from 1997 through to 2000 I was President and I was involved with negotiations with negotiating with Hawthorn into the VFL into the alignment. I was President all that time. Tony ??? was the President once the alignment started which was fine by me as there was too much time. I’m still on the board, I’ve got a board meeting on Monday morning at 7:30am in the city.

(VA) It’s very demanding.

(RC) I mean, I would say Tony’s down at Hawthorn once a week and he’s down there three times a week, it’s a bit more demanding than what I’m interested in putting in at that level.

(VA) You have been then very heavily involved with the City of Whitehorse when you were having all the improvements done, and you’ve been doing a lot of work and negotiating.

(RC) Yes, most of the improvements were done during the City of Whitehorse time.

(VA) Yes, and during your Presidency I imagine.

(RC) Some of it was during my Presidency. The biggest has been done since the alignment but certainly quite a lot to start with.

(VA) It was good to hear you say how much support you’ve had from the City.

(RC) It’s very much appreciated, and it has made a lot of difference because Box Hill had, as I’ve explained to you before, there was only really ??? ???, he calls himself the Town Clerk because there are a lot of Chief Executives but there is only one Town Clerk. And one of the other councillors and the rest were very much into the Arts Groups and they told us they were going to send $60,000 and we thought, “gee this is terrific, we know we’re going to get some drains fixed, or maybe they are going to do something about the old showers or something like that”, and anyway, it finally came out that they were going to spend $60,000 on the toilet block. So they built a toilet block. It’s quite a nice toilet block, it’s got a baby change room and everything for $60,000. And the ground stayed the same, the building stayed the same. I think that a lot of the changes that have been forced since the last few years had to happen because of the health regulations. We had the old showers, the old toilets and everything. And the current health regulations won’t allow it. So they had to turn around and make decision, and as far as the new building down there is concerned half of the cost of that has been borne by the VFL. Half by the council and half by the VFL. Because this is to get the ground, they’re spending it everywhere, the councils, Preston, Moorabbin to bring them up to standard. About the last year at Box Hill Council we actually did get some draining but its been improved since the City of Whitehorse came into being. They’ve re-done a lot of the drainage, especially around the edge where it used to bank up and flood. Also, I think some of the work down there has been a bit of a necessity to the Municipality to, because until they did the work I don’t think, at the football club they say this, when they had heavy rains the drains used to bank up and flood in those streets around the football ground right back into the houses. So part of that levelling and bitumen around the ground, they’ve dug a big drain in there and they’ve got a series of drains running through there so if there is flooding it’s gone on for years.

(RA) We had about three of them over about eighteen months/two years. There was quite a lot of flooding from the drains.

(RC) I suspect all of a sudden things hit home and they said now what can we do to help it. If we can build all this piping system into a football ground at the same time we can fix all that up and put a bit of bitumen around here and we’ll get access to it if we’ve got to get access to it.

(VA) So that all came out to your benefit. And the gates are very imposing.

(RC) We had nothing to do with the gates, they came along and said they were going to do that. We eventually got a proposition into the council which costs the council nothing it seems that this going to and fro, we’re having trouble finding out where we’re sitting at the moment, but we have a project to put a set of entry gates in where the existing gates are coming in off Whitehorse Road for people. We don’t use that exit. Except we used it when there were six thousand at the game against Essendon, but otherwise we don’t usually open them, and they had to be something like a federation match. We said “that’s fine” so we were going to design something like that but we haven’t got an answer yet. We’re not sure who is pushing where or what at the moment. You talk to some of the ones I know down there on the Council and they say “that’s been through the system, that’s supposed to go ahead” we say “well, we haven’t got the piece of paper”. If we put them up without the piece of paper there will be hell to pay.

(VA) Well, it looks as though a bit of lobbying for council needs to happen. I mean for a councillor to find out in the system where it is.

(RC) We tend not to do that because we don’t, I mean we have talked to the council in order to get the ground improvements done, but this is something that should just take its course. It will cost them nothing.

(VA) It’s got caught up in the system somewhere!

(RC) It’s probably on somebody’s signed off on it and they thought it was all going to happen but the piece of paper hasn’t got out the system. John’s got these things half built out at Deer Park Engineering.

(RA) In Rob’s photos there were a number of the Reservoir.

(VA) We’re now looking at the photos that Rob has let us copy. Most of these would have been taken by…..

(RC) Dad or George. He was Cecil.

(VA) It’s interesting, I often ask people that have lived here a long time about photos and so many respond to me, “oh, we couldn’t have afforded a camera”. So you were very fortunate to have the camera.

(RC) I suspect the camera was Georges by the way. George never married, so he had money! Because he was single. He used to spoil us. Take us to shows in the city and all sorts of things when we were kids.

(VA) You were lucky to have a bachelor Uncle. We were very intrigued with this photo of Whitehorse Road and the space that was allocated for the War Memorial. They must have planted those trees in anticipation because the next ones, when the Memorial photos that we’ve got, it’s standing on its own with just a small garden around it. So your Mother might be able to shed some light on that. That’s the Orchard?

(RC) Yes, that’s the orchard. That’s the shed at the back of the house. There’s the house, now the shed was through this gate. You came down through the gate and you had the cow bales and the sheep and the toilet was just around the corner. If you got caught short it was a long run! The old thunderbox was tucked around the corner.

(VA) This one of Mitcham is very interesting. That’s that snooker hall.

(RC) Yes, the Billiard Hall. Dad was pretty big into Billiards at one stage, he played a bit of it. Mum’s Sister married a guy from Vermont who was a very good Billiards player. John Morrison, he was a very good player and so I think they spent a bit of time playing Billiards as they all knew one another when they were younger. That’s the hall taken from the property. On the angle I would say they were roughly level with the shed because the house would have been almost in line with the hall. That’s my Grandfather in the orchard.

(VA) We’ve taken notes of everything you put on the back.

(RC) That’s Dad or Frank milking a cow, I don’t know which one.

(VA) It’s interesting how open that is.

(RC) That’s the railway line there. That’s where we went down because there was a water hole down here, there was a dam down here so the land drained and it drained both ways to a dam. It was actually quite low, about half way down that second peak at one stage my Grandfather had every type of flowering gum along that fence there. All different colours and different species were along there. When the land got chopped up they obviously also got chopped up and down.

(VA) I think I heard Ted say to you we had some confusion about this being Whitehorse Road, because they were so different that you couldn’t tell us how that happened.

(RC) When we had to walk down to Blackburn it was virtually just a little strip of bitchumen. We used to go and sit on the corner.

(VA) This is the one I don’t know whether we noted that is the hall in the distance, I wanted us to try to pick that one up but I can’t really.

(RC) You can see the white of the railway gates, at the end is the hall.

(VA) Now that’s the oval isn’t it?

(RC) No, that’s the South side of the railway station. This is all shops around here, however, I think there was a house in there when I was a kid. That’s the railway station. It’s the old Nunawading Railway Station. It was just opened. That’s the same shot as that, there’s the same building, in the same open area up there.

(VA) So it was just opened? It sort of had that rounded look.

(RC) Well, look it might have been but the oval had always been where it used to be and Dad never ever said it was any place else so I just think it was that one.

(RC) They dug it out and this is watching it fill up. This is Nunawading Football Club and Blackburn Lake. Mitcham Football ground.

(VA) It’s interesting to see how treed it was isn’t it?

(I didn’t type a lot of what was happening here as it seemed Valda and Ron were talking with Rob about some photos he had given them.)

(VA) We’d love to do an interview with your Mother.

(Rob’s mother is 91 years old! Her twin Sister died six years ago. She lived on her own at that stage. After that she lived with Rob.)