This is Geoff’s story, in his own words:
Our family moved to Robinvale in the middle of 1954 when we were allocated a block in Section C, 10th Allocation. I went to Robinvale Consolidated School at the Bromley Road site. I was in Grade 2, and my teacher was Mrs Olive Fleming whom I already knew, as Olive’s brother was married to my mum’s sister.
SCHOOLS: In 1956 the new Robinvale Consolidated School was completed along George St so we all left Bromley Rd to go into the brand new buildings.
I was in Grade 4 and my teacher was Mrs Tinney who was the wife of the Headmaster. This was the year of the Melbourne Olympic Games and also the huge Murray River flood. The flood waters cut through the Sturt Highway between Euston and Buronga, so anyone travelling to Mildura had to take a long detour around the floodwaters.
The next year (1957) saw the beginning of Robinvale High School on the Bromley Road site with John Fyfield as Headmaster. I started high school at Bromley Rd in 1959 and during that year the new High School was completed next to the Consolidated School and we all moved out of the old buildings for the last time.
When we arrived in Robinvale in 1954, there was a rudimentary road (now New Guinea Road) leading off Happy Valley Road and a track leading off to a bulldozed clearing where we pitched a tent and installed a transportable bungalow. These served as our living quarters and kitchen. The 10th allocation blocks were located south of Happy Valley Road and were still covered in trees. We caught Peter Ryan’s bus at George Williams’ gate on Happy Valley Road after making our way there on tracks through the bush. Later blocks that were further south towards Bannerton were developed on already cleared wheat paddocks.
CLEARING THE BLOCKS: Our block was cleared by bulldozer. On difficult trees, the dozer driver would build an earth ramp so he could get above ground level to get better leverage and push the trees over. Most of the trees were pushed into piles and burnt. The dozer driver would ‘stoke the fires’ with the dozer. Blockies were allocated a wood stack and a pile of Mallee stumps for future firewood.
Geoff Gleeson’s, Alf Guest’s and Bill Goldsworthy’s blocks over the hill towards Happy Valley Road had lighter Mallee so they used a large ball on heavy chain between two dozers to knock over the trees. At the back of our block, the soil tested as unsuitable for vine growing and so was left uncleared. This was our playground when we were kids. This is the same patch of trees that was home to the Robinvale Drive-In theatre. Rabbit-proof fences were erected around sections to protect growing vines. There were no internal fences between neighbouring blocks e.g. Henderson, Smythe, McCrie, Barnes, Jury, Adcock and Davy were encircled along roadsides but unfenced internally.
Blocks had to be pegged out for vine planting. After surveying, they used a long length of number 8 wire along which were blobs of solder at correct spacing. The wire had a car tyre attached at each end for a person to get in and lean back to tension the wire. A wooden peg was placed in the cultivated ground at each ‘blob’ to mark positions of sultana vines for subsequent planting. A different wire with different spacing of blobs was used to peg out where the gordo vines were to be planted. For the 10th allocation, we had 13 acres of sultanas and 2 acres of Gordoes. Some earlier allocations had fewer sultanas and more Gordoes.
PICKERS HUTS: Pickers’ huts had to be built for temporary accommodation for blockies and future use by pickers during harvest.
The huts were 20 feet x 20 feet (6m x 6m) built on a light metal framework and clad with galvanised iron sheets. They had a concrete floor and large double wooden doors for eventual car access. Earlier allocation blockies formed work crews to build huts for our allocation. Dad helped build huts for later allocations. Blockies lived in the huts for a period until their house was built. Unfortunately the builder for our allocation went bust and we went 18 months with only the house stumps in the ground before the Soldier Settlement Commission appointed a new builder so we spent a year and a half longer in the pickers’ hut than planned. Around the settlement there were only four house plans, depending which direction the house faced, so our house and Goldsworthy’s were identical floor plans. Henderson’s across the road was different from ours but the same as Davy’s house.
The Soldier Settlement Commission had a compound of equipment at Cloverdale. Blockies used this equipment on rosters before they were required to purchase their own. I recall the largest tractor was a Lanz Bulldog with a 1-cylinder motor. It was possible during the starting process for the motor to run backwards and still sound normal. This was only detected when taking off in a forward gear and having the tractor travel backwards.
ANZAC commemorations were naturally important in a Soldier Settlement area such as Robinvale, and the High School always had a formal ceremony complete with bugler. At home we knew when Anzac Day was approaching because our near neighbour Eddy Davy would be practising the Last Post on his bugle in his pickers’ hut.
I also recall that during vine pruning in winter we could often hear a radio broadcast. Jack Vandenberg who lived on the north side of Happy Valley Road, at least 1km away, would have a large battery-operated radio, installed in a tank for amplification, on his trailer in the vines while he was pruning.
PICKERS TRAINS: Prior to the start of the picking season they would run ‘pickers trains’ from Melbourne to Robinvale.
Blockies would meet the train when it arrived and ‘select’ their pickers. Many of the pickers were European migrants or refugees. A relation in the police force indicated that some of the less desirable elements of Melbourne humanity were ‘pushed’ onto the trains to also make the journey to Robinvale.
GEOFF & WENDY’S PHOTOS
Geoff married Wendy Hocking, also from Robinvale, and they have had many travels together, now happily retired in Victoria. Thanks to them both for sharing great photos and memories of Robinvale.