We are faced with changes that are perhaps right throughout Australia. The whole problem we are faced with now is the fast means of travel because when people were confined with their horse and cart and buggy. Kids walked to school or if you wanted something down the town, if it wasn’t heavy, you just headed off and you walked down and got it and you walked home again and of course that kept the population here. Coleraine and the surrounding area was very large at that time because there were dairy farms everywhere. The ‘in’ thing was the big family – you know perhaps 12 or 13 kids. 5 or 6 was quite common. Everyone then depended on their local town.
We were well provided for in our town and like many others we had our own rail. It may have taken a bit longer to be delivered when things were sent from Melbourne but you were always assured of delivery, whether it was big machinery or just a box of ordinary things you required.
The mail came on the train and the mailman would have to pick the mail up and take it to the post office. Then the post office would open up at about half past seven for the townspeople to pick up their mail.
There was no such thing then as road side deliveries. If you wanted to post a letter or pick up your mail, you walked down or went down in the buggy to collect papers and groceries. It wasn’t a big hassle because most of the people would come in once a week, Tuesday was generally the day in country towns. There was nearly always a sale on – general sale of pigs, sheep and cattle. While the husbands were up at the sale the wives would do their shopping.
On these Tuesdays when Coleraine was at its peak, you could hardly walk up the street. All the businesses were there, 3 or 4 hotels, all the necessary shops like bakers, chemists and hairdressers as well as doctors and dentists.
The biggest store was Trangmars, it still holds a record in history because they went back into the early 1800’s. Fred Speak was there for almost a lifetime. Dad and Mum dealt nowhere else as far as the groceries went. Back in those days, Fred Speak would only send in one account and that would be in November because he knew the people were getting a few factory cheques and when you paid he would give you a great big box of lollies and God knows what else. He knew quite well that the’d definitely get paid. They were so understanding.
Now, everybody’s got their hand out for money. Money has taken over the whole thing and altered the whole lifestyle of people.
Back in those days, there was good value in the money. The town had its own lighting and electricity from the butter factory. There was no SEC. They made their own power, their own ice and they were doing thousands of tons of butter and that was one of the biggest industries.
The railway line ran right to the door where they would put their butter boxes onto it and send it down to Melbourne or Overseas wherever their contracts were. The butter factory would have employed twenty or thirty people.
Then we had Wishart's who came up from Wonthaggi and they bought their whole family up. They were very young fellas. Bob, Charlie and their sisters, took over from Hindisonda, an Indian who was there for a long time and they really lifted the town. Coming from that area, they knew what type of stock to carry and it was a big general store. They carried an enormous range of hardware, machinery, groceries and what you would always needed on the farm. That really made the town. They did more for the town that anyone to keep the people here and the people supported local businesses.
Then there was TK Brown who he was a general garage and SEC representative.
At his peak, he had a complement of staff around 32. Tippets weren’t in there then but Osborne from Casterton was and he employed about another 15 or 20. Then you had your 3 or 4 butcher shops, 2 or 3 boot makers, 2 or 3 hairdressers. They all did well and they were flat out all the time.
Sadly, now its all gone – its all gone!. Once you lose a population, well the business people can’t survive. A lot of them at the present times are just closing their doors, and it is becoming a ghost town and a retirement village. Ninety per cent of the people here are living in Government provided havens, and those who can look after themselves are in their self contained units. Then as they get older they are verywell catered for here, but it has become an old people’s town.
One thing I realize is the people have got to eat. And if you’re providing food, they talk about planting these millions of acres of blue gums but I’ve never seen anyone survive by just eating a bluegum. So these things may sound alright as projects, but I think if you are going to get back to the basis of survival if you can produce something that people depend on to stay alive, even if its vegetables, or meat although wool has gone out of prominence now because of the artificial synthetics and all that. But still and all if they like to blend it in and do a bit of a compromise, I still think there is a future for it.
I’ve seen all this before; these darn slumps, booms and busts. People seem to panic and they all think with the same mind and this creates a lot of the problems because they all seem to run. Before they know where they are, if they would have stayed where they were and rode out the weak times they would find that what they were running away from comes back into value and then they try to get back into it again. By the time they try to get back in, its come back in so much value, it breaks them.
I’m a great believer in sticking to what you know, because history repeats itself.
John “Looking ahead, you had the big station owners and the closer settlement after the War spitting them into smaller parcels of land. Can you see now that the smaller farmer with his 3 ot 400 acres is selling out and that the big landholders are getting big again. Can you see that happening again with history repeating itself?”
Of course it will. For the simple reason they’ll get to the stage where they will have to import that much tucker from overseas countries that the whole thing will not be viable and somebody with a bit of brains or forced into it because of costs of importing the food they should be growing, it will all turn around. Once that happens, you will find that it will get back to the stage where most of these places will be made smaller, and the whole thing will repeat itself.
There is no way that these big stations that are going back to what they were when Dad was a young person, could get the true value out of them because of the vastness. They were more or less negative because they were too big and you would need an enormous workforce and equipment.
I would say in less than 20 years you are going to see a big turnaround. This is a marvellous country to produce food and it has only got to be brought back into a viable position where people are not forced out because of the importing.
All these big supermarkets are some of the biggest culprits because they are all based upon the multi-nationals and they’re bringing in things because of the cheapness. All those oranges juices, fruits, raisons, carrots and all those type of things, the supermarkets are being flooded by imports. Once they find out that they have this full control well that’s when they want to put the prices up and the people won’t even have a choice. At the present time they’re putting in a lot of grapes and everything but that’s mainly for wine. The big potato growers and onion growers, down through Koroit, they are turning a lot of that country into blasted blue gums.