Film - Tony Nott and Jane Downing, 'Nox-All Rabbits', Granya Pioneer Museum and Murray Arts Network

[FILM STRIP HUMMING] - Rabbits these days are nowhere near the problem they used to be.

- Back in '32, they were crawling up that hill out there just like ants. Honestly, if you had only seen it.

[LAUGHS]

MAN 1: Rabbits were pretty rampant. So there was all these ideas of how to get rid of them and poisoning, trapping, shooting.

[FOOTSTEPS]

For many years, nobody knew what this was. And my grandmother-- great-grandmother, Helen, there was a picture of her holding one of these. And we thought it was a gun. And then, one day, a fellow came to the museum, saw the photo, and said, oh, I've got one of those over in the shed. He said, I'll bring it over. So he brought it over and we found out what it was.

Made by WH Hines in Sydney and Melbourne, "Nox All Pollard Distributor." Pollard was put into the tube here and it was mixed with sulfur, which then became a poison and dug a trench, not very deep. And in the end of the Pollard distributor was a valve which let the mixture come out of the bottom. So you push the lever down like that and you pushed it along in the trench. And once that was filled, you then covered it up. And along came the rabbits and they ate that and that eradicated them.

My great-grandmother was brought into rabbiting because rabbiting and catching rabbits was also a source of income. They used to sell the pelts. I know they made felt out of them. They also that they make Akubra hats out of rabbit pelt.

MAN 2: Oh, we lived on damn rabbits, don't talk about it. Well, rabbits were a part of our life. That's-- that's a fact. In my young days, they were. We-- we never had any money. Money was nothing. You hardly had anything. And if not for the rabbits, we wouldn't have had a cent. They kept families alive-- in this world as a society.

[FILM STRIP HUMMING]

Credits

Featuring: Glenn Lukins and Jim Star at Granya

Project Director: Malcolm McKinnon

Project Coordinator: Karlie Hawking

Produced in partnership with Granya Pioneer Museum.

Archival film material reproduced with kind permission of Film World Pty Ltd.

Archival still images reproduced with kind permission of Albury Regional Museum, Granya Pioneer Museum, and Darryl Walsgott.

This video was created as part of the Murray Arts “Stories of the Upper Murray” project, with assistance from the Commonwealth Government’s Regional Arts Fund, Regional Arts Victoria, National Museum of Australia, City of Wodonga, Shire of Towong, and Museums Australia (Victoria).

Film - Malcolm McKinnon, 'Jim Simpson’s Knitted War Trophy', Murray Collections Network

JIM: We went over to Hanover the first trip. We got up to 21,800. And the one got shot down. I reckoned we were next.

I got out at about 6,000 feet. Just as the tail came off about two seconds after. I was-- I landed in Germany by parachute.

The next day I walked onto a fellow sitting in the bush. He put up his gun and yelled out, and I had to stop. And he took me and the Frenchman, said he was an Englander, and that was it. You'll be in prison for the rest of the war, he said, Stalag IV-B.

I said, I come from the mountains, and I'm a farmer, and I run cattle in the mountains. And I didn't think I'd have to come over and sort you blokes out after the first ANZAC's did. Well, they thought I was cheeky, you see.

The Germans used a souvenir woollen wear to send to the Russian front. When I was in a room with all these Yanks, they said, they're going to have a field day with you, with your naval pullover. It was new. And they'll take it to the Russian front.

JIM: And I said, by God, they can't do that. So I went in the toilet, and I was there about 20 minutes, and they wondered where I'd got to. So when I come out, the Yankee says, well, the Jerry's got your jacket. No, no, I said. I've got it. Where is it? I said here. I said, I've pulled it undone, so they can't have it. If they want it, they can make it up again.

That's how my rug got made-- was able to get made. Because I'd pulled it to bits and wouldn't let them have it.

There were 14 of us. Well, they had no socks, and it was cold. And I couldn't knit for the lot of them. I said, well, they might not get to be warm and dry. No, they soon learned they were very good, quick learners.

And the boys that I taught to knit, they were pretty good messengers. They came in with worn out guernseys - the best - the back of a guernsey is the best. The front is generally a bit motley in the arms. Had to boil the darn things before I could pull them to bits, because there were lice on them, you see. But they got enough wool for me to start the rug. After 13 months of gathering the wool, I had all these boxes with wool in them. I started knitting, and it took 6 weeks knitting time to knit that.

All night I did a pair of socks for a Canadian to get him some new-- He got to some new hockey socks, and I got the colors out of that. It's pretty good red there, too. And that thing is thousands of little bits, only a few feet long, a yard or so long.

I was always pretty good at geography and I drew the map, but I made a bit of a mess there on--  from Byron Bay up near the Queensland border, down to about Newcastle. I should have had it out a little bit wider. But other than that, it's pretty right.

Now you might wonder how I got the knitting needles. Well, they were already cut that length, because they had Italian Dixie panhandles.

JIM: And I had to straighten them out with a stone on the cement, and the cement sharpened them. And that's what the needles are. They were ideal. And the Jerries had a look at them, and I said, well, don't cut-- don't get your paws on them, because they're my knitting needles, you see.

I like to remember that I did something. I got shot down on the first trip. After all the education that I had, I did nothing. But to do a thing like that, I suppose the memorials and mum for teaching me.

And well, it was something I can look back on and think of all the, not the unpleasant days, but the pleasant ones. And I'm surprised, the Jerries allowed me to do what they did. So they weren't as bad as we thought they were.

Credits

Featuring: James O. Simpson at Corryong

Project Director: Malcolm McKinnon

Production and Project Coordinator: Karlie Hawking

Camera Assistant: Simon Goss

Archival still images of Stalag-IVB reproduced with kind permission of Anne Jans and Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Thanks to Nick McKenzie & Edie Kurzer and to Bob Kaighin for assistance at Corryong.

This video was created as part of the Murray Arts “Stories of the Upper Murray” project, with assistance from the Commonwealth Government’s Regional Arts Fund, Regional Arts Victoria, National Museum of Australia, City of Wodonga, Shire of Towong, and Museums Australia (Victoria).

Film - Raymond DeWeerdt, 'Old Time Music in the Blood', Murray Collections Network

(SINGING) Come on my good folk and a tale I will tell of a most recent happening at old Nariel. While travelling through there, I happened to chance on the opening occasion of a grand old bandstand.

- About 1962, there were some folklore people from Melbourne came visited over at Benambra there. And people over there sent them on over to mom and dad. They organized a dance and invited Melbourne people up. Dad organized all the musicians around that he could find. This dance at Nariel Hall. They danced there till about 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, I think.

And then the campers, they invited the musicians and everybody else that was about to come and join them down here on the creek. This became an annual event.

They used to run a lot of dances for the schools, dances at Colac Colac. They had dances at Cudgewa. They have it in Nariel. And they'd have them at Thowgla, down at Towong, up at Towong.

And I'd go with mom and dad. Dad used to do a lot of playing. I'd be put to sleep in the car. And I'd lay there, listening to the music, I could hear the music going all night long. Those tunes. I've got an old mezon accordion at home still that dad used to play then. If I get that out and play a couple of notes on it, it brings back memories of a lot of old tunes that he used to play.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[WHISTLING]

- Well, from what I can gather, nobody read music, it was all by ear. Just pick up an accordion, we'd listen to somebody playing it and work out where the notes were and get into it. I've been told it's a special style in Nariel Creek.

What I can gather, they use all the notes on the accordion there. Use four fingers, play four fingers at once. Like that. Any four notes together you squeeze them and they all chord. The first and the fifth one out, they chord.

Credits

Featuring: Keith Klippel at Nariel and Tallangatta

Project Director: Malcolm McKinnon\

Project Coordinator: Karlie Hawking

Project Assistance: Jenny Herminston and Penny Jeffs

Produced in partnership with the Man From Snowy River Museum, Corryong.

Archival film provided by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC Content Sales. Archival still images kindly provided by Keith Klippel.

This video was created as part of the Murray Arts “Stories of the Upper Murray” project, with assistance from the Commonwealth Government’s Regional Arts Fund, Regional Arts Victoria, National Museum of Australia, City of Wodonga, Shire of Towong, and Museums Australia (Victoria).

Film - Digby Brown and Charlotte Teek, 'A History of Engine Power', Murray Collections Network

- The collection started when I left school when I was about 18. And my father and I did the engines up from day one as I call it. And initially, I started with bringing one particular engine home, and then he became interested also, and the two of us then worked for many years as a spare time job, restoring the engines. We had really the pick of the engines, because we had the petrol agency, and we went around the farms and saw what was being pulled out of the dairies, and so on, because electricity then was coming to the area, and they were no longer used.

There are about 150 engines all together in our collection that are restored and to the running stage. The uses for the engines are very varied. Anything from driving the cream separator, to milking machines to drive the vacuum pumps, to sawing the wood, to shearing sheep, to virtually anything that you need power for on a farm to do the normal day to day jobs. There were just hundreds and hundreds of manufacturers in the old days. Everyone has a go at manufacturing some of these engines. But of course, not a lot of them were very successful.

If an engine has some faults and is very difficult to start, or something like that, well, then it becomes more of a challenge to try and beat the engine. You don't like anything to beat you. There's this one behind me here. This is perhaps the favorite one. This is certainly the oldest one we've got. It was made in 1866 in Ipswich, in England, and it is Ransomes Sims.

We found it at Lockard's Gap. When we first looked at it, we thought, that's not recoverable. Everything was missing. It was rusted out, and so on. But then thinking about it, we thought, well, it's so old that we perhaps should do something with it. The boiler and the smoke box were buried in the ground, and of course, all rusted away. It's had a complete new bottom put in the boiler, all new tubes, new smoke box, new chimney.

Most things are new, I'm afraid. And there was only five of this particular model made, two came to Australia. But of the five, this is the only one that has remained. One of those things you get addicted to, I don't suppose it's as bad as smoking or alcohol. But nevertheless, it's something we've enjoyed doing. So when you're doing something you enjoy, you tend to keep doing it, even though it's costing you money.

I think for the future of my collection, I would like to see them housed somewhere where they'd be looked after better than what they at the moment, really. It would be good to see them go to a good home, after all these years of work and collecting. They're just the fore runners of any modern engine, really. It's just the history of engine power.

Credits

Featuring: Bernard Smith and the late Arthur Smith at Tallangatta

Project Director: Malcolm McKinnon

Project Coordinator: Karlie Hawking

Produced in partnership with Tallangatta & District Heritage Group Inc.

Archival footage and stills reproduced with kind permission of Bernard Smith.

This video was created as part of the Murray Arts “Stories of the Upper Murray” project, with assistance from the Commonwealth Government’s Regional Arts Fund, Regional Arts Victoria, National Museum of Australia, City of Wodonga, Shire of Towong, and Museums Australia (Victoria).

Film - Chris Pidd and Jenni Munday, 'The Icon of Wodonga', Murray Collections Network

- Just the thought to make the water tower a water fountain. An aesthetic as a water fountain. And the bottom part made of pebbles in sections so children or adults, whoever, interested to put a stone.

You feel a connection later on to this monumental water tower, water fountain. I feel that it's a metaphysical positive for Albury-Wodonga.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[WATER SPLASHING]

- We had to cart our water from over at the sale yards. And in those days, kerosene tins were your main things. You didn't worry about watering cans.

And I used to drag those tins. Every now and again they'd drag on the ground. And we'd bring the water from over at the sale yards. They had very large tanks over at Campbell's. And we got permission to use the water from those tanks.

And when we'd come home, we'd have a wee little tin. And we'd only have one tin on each plant to keep it alive.

It was a big deal, that water tower going up. Oh my word, we appreciated it. We did. Absolutely.

Whether the water, the power. As I always say, I saw all those luxuries come to Wodonga.

MARGARET BENNETTS: Eric Fulford, who was the turncock for the Wodonga Water Trust, his main job was pumping into the water tower and to tap into the water mains for the plumbers. We had a good view of the water tower. There was a mark up on the outside of the tower painted white. This was on a float connected to the inside of the water. It was very hard to gauge the amount of water the residents used.

- Some of the old timers told me that when they were children coming to school-- and mostly in the days when the water tower was filled because they had to walk to school-- that they would look on a hot summer day to see if the tank was overflowing. And if it was overflowing, they'd go and stand under the overflow of the water and get themselves saturated. And then, oh we've got to get to school! We'll get into trouble!

The water tower's always been under threat since it was decommissioned in 1960. We decided as an organization, as an arts council, to protest the latest move to demolish the water tower. And so the council said, well, you tell us why we should keep it. And we decided to draw up plans.

So we had two teachers who were artists amongst our group. One a sculptor, and the other a teacher of painting. And they decided that they would talk to us, get our ideas on what we could do with the area and what we could do with the water tower.

MAVIS CHAPPLE: Well, I think it's a great old landmark in Wodonga. I really do. And I hope they leave it there.

JEAN WHITLA: Every time the council has told me that I wonder why we still keep the water tower, I say, you have to keep it because you couldn't find your way around Wodonga.

[TRAFFIC]

Credits

Featuring: Dennis Kovacs, Ian Cramer, Mavis Chapple, Margaret Bennetts, and Jean Whila

Project Director: Malcolm McKinnon

Project Coordinator: Karlie Hawking

Produced in partnership with National Museum of Australia.

2001: A Space Odysey performed by New World Orchestra (P) 2003 EMI Records Ltd. Licensed courtesy of EMI Music Australia Pty Ltd.

Tower replica by Dennis Kovacs.

Archival still images reproduced with kind permission of Wodonga Historical Society.

This video was created as part of the Murray Arts “Stories of the Upper Murray” project, with assistance from the Commonwealth Government’s Regional Arts Fund, Regional Arts Victoria, National Museum of Australia, City of Wodonga, Shire of Towong, and Museums Australia (Victoria).

Film - Raimond DeWeerdt, Karlie Hawking, Chris Pidd, and Jenni Munday, 'The Saw Doctor’s Wagon', Murray Collections Network

DENNIS SHEPARD: The saw doctor's wagon were the home and the workplace for the Wright family for about-- from the 19-- the mid 1930s up until 1969, when Harold Wright died. The wagon was decorated with a lot of family photographs capturing that-- that interest in just this unusual wagon, because the photographs on the outside certainly reflect the evolution of the wagon from when it was horse-drawn through to when it was fitted on the back of a Chev truck and through to it being pulled by-- by-- by the David Ram tractor. The wagon's been described as looking a bit like a circus tent at night, with all the lights that were around it.

A dog kennel on the right, in the middle, chicken coop with decoration here.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

OVERLAPPING VOICES: So that's just to make it look nicer, Give it a bit of sparkle-- for the eggs-- was-- is the catbox-- and right underneath-- bits of brass, bits of copper, bits of bronze. Two axles-- that looks like a-- here's the other dog kennel-- that's a land that would have had-- it's an example of-- I mean, it's the ultimate example of--

NEIL RAMSEY: Jean, which is Harold's wife-- she'd always make a cup of tea and she would always like to sit down and have a talk. And if a customer paid Harold, he would automatically just go over and give it to Jean and Jean would drop it-- Jean never counted. She just grabbed it and just dropped it in her little tin.

But he used to say if he was going anywhere and it gets middle of the day-- it was a bit hot-- he would pull in under a tree on the side of the road. And the farmers would be a bit of sticky beak. They'd be wanting to know what's going on. And they'll usually come across the paddock and they'll have a talk to him. And they'll come back in 10 or 15 minutes later with their knives and a kitchen scissors and a couple of hand tools. And he'd be there sharpening them. And if it's a big job, he would stay the night. Occasionally, a farmer would pick him up and take him back to their place for tea and they would have a shower. That's how they just sort of plugged around.

- I was fortunately the one who collected it. So my first sighting of it was in a shed, dusty old shed outside of Wangaratta. As part of the decoration on the wagon, we've got a number of different names. Harold's called himself the "Sharpening King." He's called himself the "Saw Doctor." He calls himself the "Battler from the Bush." The wagon itself has been variously called the "Road Urchin," sort of reflects that life of moving around.

And when Harold died, there was a map on the inside of the wagon which had a path traced out on it. Unfortunately, that's-- that's gone. So we just have to make assumptions about where he went. So they traveled the extent of eastern Victoria-- eastern Australia from at least southern Queensland, possibly further north in Queensland, right out to Western Victoria.

Credits

Featuring: Dennis Shephard, Ian Cramer, Neil Ramsay

Project Director: Malcolm McKinnon

Project Coordinator: Karlie Hawking

Project Assistance from National Museum Australia: Adam Blackshaw

Produced in partnership with National Museum Australia.

Archival video reproduced with kind permission of the National Museum Australia.

Archival still images reproduced with kind permission of Peter and Wyn Herry, and the National Museum Australia.

This video was created as part of the Murray Arts “Stories of the Upper Murray” project, with assistance from the Commonwealth Government’s Regional Arts Fund, Regional Arts Victoria, National Museum of Australia, City of Wodonga, Shire of Towong, and Museums Australia (Victoria).