Stories

Langdon’s Garage

As a boy of sixteen, Max and his mate used to go out all night long spot lighting. Max would drive, unlicensed, as he knew the land, its holes and stumps, and his mate stood up in the back of the ute with a shot gun. They could shoot about 220 rabbits a night. If they ran out of petrol, they could drive into Langdon’s garage at night, where there was a self serve petrol pump which took 2 shilling pieces. They would deliver their bounty to Keith Kane the black smith, the next day. He was located next to Hunt and Lobbs garage on the main road at the back of the tennis courts. He kept a chiller down the back and gave them 5 shillings a pair of rabbits.

HSW Lawson’s

Local solicitors, HSW Lawson on Lyttleton st.:

Jean’s father worked at Thompson’s foundry and her two brothers did their apprenticeships there too. Jean, aged 15, went instead to work for the local solicitors, HSW Lawson on Lyttleton st. ( now the Copy Centre) Sir Harry Lawson lived in Melbourne at the time but came up every Friday and in preparation for his visit they had to go the Vin Whaley’s bike shop ( now antique shop next to National Bank) and make sure his bike was well serviced, for Harry liked to use the bike to go visiting. He visited the Levinny sisters at Buda who made cakes and decorated them with Calendula flowers. He also visited Alice King, a nurse who lived on Myring St whom he helped turn Emma in her bed, who had a hip problem and couldn’t turn herself.

While Jean worked at HSW Lawson, there was a Popular Girl competition in town, set up to raise funds for the new swimming pool. A girl was chosen from different work places in the town and which ever of them raised the most money won. Irene Elliot was the Thompson’s foundry girl, Sylvia Eastman was from the Woolen mill, Jacqueline Dillon was the town girl and Winsome Barlow from the Theatre Royal ( Jacqueline later worked at the photographers (now the chemist on barker St) on Very’s corner, colouring photos) Walter Lyndrom, the billiard player came to town as part of one fund raiser. Sylvia Eastman won it.

Jean lived on Myring St. When she and her sister were young their mother would call out “ Here comes the Desmond boy on the horse,” and they would run out and watch the Desmond boy pass on his black horse which was 17 hands tall and had been ridden all the way from Happy Valley, up the steep hill, across Kalimna park. Some time later and somewhere between HSW Lawson offices and the Post Office, Jean would meet Ray Desmond again. The boy on the black horse. had returned from the war, now a quiet war-wearied man who she would later marry at the Congregational church.

Jean and Ray took 3 years to build their house on north as bricks were scarce and Ray rode his bike over to the place where they were manufactured on ten foot hill and begged for them.

The Foundry

Max remembers Castlemaine as a working town which was run by the Foundry whistle.

7.30 work started, 9.30 was Smoko, 12.05 lunch, knock off at 4.30. At this time the main street was occupied by a cavalcade of young men on bikes cycling home from their apprenticeships at either the Foundry or the Woollen Mill. There were fitters and turners, boilermakers.

Wood powered the boilers at the Foundry and the Woollen Mill, the Bakers Ovens and everyone’s homes, which usually had a wood fire stove and wood heaters. Wood had to be cut into 5 ft lengths. Jo Faletti was apparently so accurate with an axe he could split a match stick in 4, it was claimed. Gordon Barassi, (Uncle of football hero, Ron Barassi ) cut wood in the Guildford Bush. Two Polish blokes on motor bikes did the Muckleford Bush.

Harris’ Corner

The corner of Barkers St and Lyttleton was a popular meeting place as there was a tree there with a circular bench seat beneath it. People would say, “Meet you on Harris’s corner.” Named after the merchandise store on the corner.

Ford’s Dairy

When the milkman comes he delivers milk to over 30 places now – to make coffee. Fords dairy still deliver the milk, they used to have a dairy next to the little IGA”

Milk was delivered by Bob Cross the milk man. You left a billy out and the milk was ladled into it.

Some people sold their eggs to the egg board, ( now Saffs) for some extra cash

Harry’s Tractor

There was a time when Vincent St was a thin dirt road. At the top of the road, where it turns and follows the railway, there was a line of large cypress trees whose overhanging branches made it hard for the trucks carrying the hay for the dairy farm that lay beyond the railway lines to pass. Eventually council sent men to cut the trees down, one cypress was left standing and this, according to hearsay was left because a local farmer, Harry, used it to park his tractor beneath. The lonely tree is still there.

Midland Hotel

“The Midland used to be a boarding house – there were always odd fellows wandering around. A Mr J and another one, I can’t remember his name. They were the town’s “nuff nuffs”: competent but not quite right. Seems like his rellies put him in the boarding house. He would just turn up at your house at all sorts of hours, with flowers and say “hi.”

Crinoline Bridge

A woman turned up at our house, knocking at our door, saying she had been thrown from the Crinoline Bridge, by policemen. When she had calmed down, she left – and I looked up all the newspaper references I could find about the incident – and never came up with anything.

The crinoline bridge got its name because it was made to be wide enough for ladies in crinoline dresses to pass comfortably through.

Brian Nunan Gallery

“We’d lived in Fern Tree Gully for 30 years, but I knew Castlemaine was the place I wanted to be. I had done a lot of sketches of the old Castlemaine in the past, and I kept returning here. We were looking for a place, I didn’t want a convent or old school – I wanted a warehouse or a pub. But we ended up looking at the old Convent and St Gabriel’s secondary school (built in 1860.) When I walked in I knew I had found my dream, the studio at long last! I didn’t want to but I could feel this place; I just knew it was the place I wanted to be – it has a certain feel. I felt like I had no choice I had to be here (in Castlemaine). People bring something in and leave it behind here. There is something here, unbelievable, a spirit of the place.”

Castlemaine Library

In 1997, a stuffed koala was borrowed from Parks Victoria, and for some reason, never returned. The koala found a home above the reference collection at the back of the Library, and could sometimes be seen wearing different hats, according to the season.

In 2011, the koala mysteriously went missing. It came back in 2013 – at the start of the State Festival. There were all these trees in the foyer, and the koala was found sitting under one of the trees. He had a note on him which read “Please return to Caslemaine Library. A good bear”

Library workers suspected Aaron, who was a long time frequenter of the Library, and who liked to practice his exercise moves and tell stories, as the one who found the koala – and returned him.

The koala’s name is Raphael – after an early Mechanics’ Institute member (Mr R) who used to fall asleep and snore loudly in the reading room.

Camp Reserve

FOOTBALL GRAND FINAL

“I remember very clearly the day Castlemaine Football Club won the Grand Final after I think it was 42 years. The whole town was covered in Black and White, such a proud site to see everyone supporting our boys, and then the party for the whole town at the Old Gaol, and back to Hendo’s. I worked at the Cri then: my, that was a big week, everyone was so happy, and celebrating.

The town was abuzz. I particularly remember the naked run of the footballers through the streets… I think that was about day 3 of celebrating. That got many tongues wagging…funny as…I was loving every minute of it, they were on Cloud 9 and rightly so, those boys were happy as Larry, it was great to be a part of it.”

Max remembers when he was a boy that there was always kids on the camp reserve, kicking the footy, or kids down by the creeks on their way home from school. You could catch trout in the creek

THE CASTLEMAINE SHOW

The Camp Reserve:

Where Jean had to do exercises as a school girl on hessian sacks.

Where boys used to gather after school to kick the footy.

The Show was huge – in primary school we’d all go. I’d go with my two girlfriends. We’d always go on the Ferris Wheel at the end of the night. It seemed so high – and the fireworks always seemed so big and bright then.

Where Keith McShanag met his wife Virginia Faletti on the Ferris wheel at the Castlemaine Fair.

Keith met his wife Virgie at the Castlemaine Fair at Camp Reserve. Virgie’s friend was scared of heights and couldn’t accompany her on the ferris wheel so Keith stepped in and afterwards asked her on a date. Six months later they were engaged.

Railway Hotel

We were walking on the edge of the road, on Gingell St, then for some reason, decided to get back on the path. We heard a crack, and both looked up – and a huge branch from one of the trees, just a few feet to the side of us, dropped – on to the bonnet of a car, going towards the station.” We stood there, stunned, when a man and a woman got out of the car. The man leant on the bonnet, lit a cigarette and said to the woman “It’s lucky there’s a pub there. I think we need a drink.”

Old Market Building

The market building was a thriving market. Jo Russo came form Melbourne with vegetables, next to him were flowers, further along, rabbits. Everyone kept ferrets to get the rabbits. It was wartime and food was scarce. But people would put on their best for Friday night shopping. Jean remembers a woman who came in from a farm , wearing her kid gloves and furs. Farmers all came in for provisions on a Friday and to meet up with each other. Jean would buy large slabs of Adams cakes at Carols on Mostyn street that would last for them for the week. There were horse troughs outside the market building. When the war ended they closed the street, erected a maypole and everyone danced

“One bloke, who every one knew, parked in front of the Old Market building. Somehow, he started going backwards, and backed into the fountain with the birds on it which is in front of the building – he collected that, and then ran into the Taxi rank. You didn’t hear about it, he was so embarrassed, he just said I’ll pay for everything.”

A woman had bought herself a new car. She was an older woman, and didn’t know how to drive an auto; it was all new to her. She had parked in the middle parking bays in Mostyn St East. She must have thought she was going forward – freaked out and instead of putting her foot on the brake, she accelerated. She decided to turn the wheel – which sent her backwards, towards the verandah at Saffs. People outside the café on the table and chairs ran for their lives, and with her foot firmly planted, she turned the wheel again, and took out the verandah post, and then stopped as she ran into an oncoming car. No one was hurt. The woman got out of her car, and a bystander said to her “you were so lucky” and all she could say was “My car, my car.”

The Cri

“Di used to drink at the Cri, she would get around in a horse and cart. The cri was the longest continually licenced hotel IN AUSTRALIA no less until it was closed for renovations.”

“Loved the Cri days and I met my wife there and ended up buying it in 2009. Ash Grumwald played there and now he is an international star!”

“Things of Stone And Wood wrote a song called The ghost of Castlemaine which was written after playing a gig at The Cri and then staying upstairs for The night And being subject to The paranormal.”

Victory Park

We would drink in Victory Park, in the concrete tunnel in the playground. Sometimes we’d drink in the Forest Creek ditch behind Western Reserve. The cops would check up on us and depending who was there, if they were the “naughty kids” we’d run”.

I remember a local lady who used to go there each night and ride the gun cannons in the nude…………… about the mid 90s

Memories of School

There was an Aboriginal girl at my school. We became friends, but she was mercilessly teased. One day when she was walking home from school, a gang of boys threw rocks at her, and one hurt her head. The family packed up that evening, that’s what it felt like to me, at that age. They were here, and then they were gone. I never found out what happened to her, though I tried.

Schools

At Winter’s Flat School, there was an annual fundraising event. One year, you paid $5 or something like that, and were handed a cricket bat, and you could smash in the windscreen, or windows, or a panel of an old car – one person at a time. It only happened once!

Jean’s neighbour Frankie famously got the strap at the North school for having not done his homework and as a result never went back to school. He was witnessed by his brother who accompanied him for moral support, while he took “ten of the best cuts.” Afterwards he told the headmaster that he would never do that to him again as he was never coming back to school and, true to his word, he went north, lived off the land, ate wild barramundi, shot and sold wild pig and kangaroos, stored them in the Chiller. At their house they had had an ingot of gold wrapped in newspaper and used as a doorstop. Who would ever have known to steal it like that?

When she started school (current IGA) Jean was brought a second hand “superior” bike from Vin Whaley’s. Jean went to the school. At that time Jean remembers having to do exercises on hessian sacks at camp reserve and feeling humiliated at having to do these exercises in her skirt. Her favourite teacher, Miss Mosley, a large lady with white wavy hair, walked up and down between their desks knitting socks for the soldiers at war and teaching them Strauss Waltzes. They sang The Blue Danube and Shubert’s The Trout.

Buda House

The lovely Leviny sisters (and their dogs Taffy and Raffy) told me when I was four that they would be giving Buda to the town. They would wait at the gate of Buda everyday to say hello and tell stories to the school kids walking home. The sisters would talk to all my friends and were stone deaf, and adorable. We all knew of her plan to pass it on to the town.

Goldsmiths Crescent

“The first sitting of the Supreme Court of Victoria on the Goldfields was right across from the ‘chain’ tree in Goldsmith Crescent with Judge Redmond Barry (the judge who later hanged Ned Kelly) presiding”

“We would leave school, and hang out at what is now the historical society and smoke.”

Max, whose great grandmother, Jessie Kennedy, was the first white baby born in Castlemaine, remembers the Grey box tree outside the old Court house on Goldsmith Cresent as still having the chains around the trunk which had been used to detain those awaiting trial at the court. As he got older and the tree grew, it grew over the chains, but he is convinced if the tree were to be cut down those chains would still be there.

The Old Target

When we first came here I watched a little dog jump up at a man and tear his trousers. The dog’s owner didn’t say a thing – didn’t apologise, just took the dog away. The man, perhaps in shock, wandered in what used to be Target, and came out a few minutes later wearing a new pair of trousers, then rambled off in a daze down the street. I remember thinking, what kind of town is this?!

Burke and Wills Monument

“Photographic evidence suggests that hoons (or lairs, at least) hung out at the monument from pretty much the word go. In those days, Mostyn Street ran all the way to the monument, and that steep, steep hill was effectively a drag strip. (Up until recent decades, the hill hosted an annual billy cart race – later relocated to Lyttleton Street.) And yes, hoons still hang out there, revving engines, smashing bottles against the monument.

Among the town’s present-day youth, urban legend holds that there’s a nightclub underneath the monument. No one’s saying how you get inside. I like to imagine that touching the right spot on its base will cause the monument to tilt up, revealing stairs that plunge to a strobe-lit cavern. (I have yet to discover the spot.)

We (family and neighbours) regularly clean up broken glass from around the monument. Doing so recently, I noticed that somebody (or, more likely, somebody’s dog) had been scratching at the grassy surface around the monument and had partially uncovered a service hatch. My first thought was: the nightclub! Probably though it relates to the floodlighting.”

“I think of it as a monument to futility and folly – in particular, the folly of men – making it the ideal spot for contemplating life’s disappointments.”

Theatre Royal

In the early days the Theatre Royal was accessed by the lane down the side as there was a hotel at the front of it. It is claimed that in early times a philandering man famously tried to escape out an upstairs window to avoid a returning husband, but fell and broke his leg.

During the war, Archbishop Mannicks who was the Catholic Arch Bishop from Melbourne was refused a booking at the town hall because he was arguing against conscription on the grounds that he objected to Irish Catholic boys being conscripted to fight for the English. Instead he addressed the crowd from the balcony at the front of the Theatre. To get to the balcony he had to pass through the bedrooms. In one bedroom was a sickly young girl whom he blessed as he passed through. That young girl recovered and went on to live a long life. She attributed her recovery and subsequent good health to the Arch Bishop’s blessing. In 1918 St Mary’s hall was built so that the Archbishop would not have to suffer the indignity of being refused a booking again.

THE PIT

I met Kylie and Jason at a Blue Light in the day. I vomited from eating too many lollies and listening to loud music.

The pleasure of seeing John Paul Young yesterdays hero at The Pit when i was 5! What a blast!

If you wanted to go to the theatre you could go book your ticket at Macafies milk bar on Barker St where there was a plan of the Theatre Royal pinned to the cupboard so you could mark off your chosen seat. Sometime you went twice in one week as the movie was often to be continued.

Sat arvo at the pictures at the Theatre Royal, 50’s maybe? sixpence to get in, threepence for lollies, National Anthem, newsreel, 2 cartoons, one serial, one short movie, intermission, shorts for next movies, main feature. 1.30 to 5.15pm.

Lots of cheering for the goodies and booing for the baddies in the serials, then main picture might be Shirley Temple or even better a Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy. Everyone stood up for the National Anthem!!

A long time ago when the Theatre Royal used to be a pub, the publican’s had a daughter named Annie. She was considered simple, so they used to keep her locked up in the room upstairs, “for her own good.” This room, named Annie’s Room, is now haunted by her ghost.

The Colour Patch and other cafe’s

THE COLOUR PATCH

“Who can forget the Colour Patch? You could also get a lovely hot milkshake at Harry and George’s. Woiwood’s next door did a nice cheese roll. Over the road was a Chinese cafe for a while. 1959?”

“The Colour Patch, every Sat night after going to the Theatre Royal my beloved and I would go there and have a cheeseburger and a Schweppes Orange soft drink!”

“I still remember my mum buying what was probably her first cappuccino at Harry ‘n George’s Cafe (now Dot’s) in Barker Street.”

“Hot milkshakes were a Winter delicacy. Icecream whizzed around in hot milk with lashings of caramel flavour. “

“Hot milkshakes were a thing to have in the late 50’s. Especially on a cold Castlemaine winter’s night. I remember my dad buying them on the way home after carpet bowls at the town hall.”

“Nana and Pop would go to the Colour Patch every week”

After dances at St Mary’s hall, we’d go to the Colour Patch for food – it was open until late. Then we’d watch the cars drag race down Barker St.

THE AUSTRAL

“We’d skip school and go to the Austral and play Daytona.”

“When I was pregnant with my first child, in 1986, I’d drive 10 k’s into town for those chips! Never really a fish and chips kind of girl but needs must! In that altered sense, they were amazing! Haven’t had them since!”

Tilly’s Tea Room’s

There have been reports of ghostly goings-on in this arcade: rooms have been flooded when there are no pipes or water connections; banging on window but no one’s there; music turned on over weekends when no one is there; doors opening by themselves – even when they are locked,; and the sound of someone sitting on a chair.

Castlemaine High School (now IGA)

When she started school Jean was brought a second hand “superior” bike from Vin Whaley’s. Her favourite teacher, Miss Mosley, a large lady with white wavy hair, walked up and down between their desks knitting socks for the soldiers at war while teaching them Strauss Waltzes. They sang The Blue Danube and Shubert’s The Trout.

Jean’s Memories

Jean’s father worked at Thompson’s foundry and her two brothers did their apprenticeships there too. Jean, aged 15, went instead to work for the local solicitors, HSW Lawson on Lyttleton St. (now the Copy Centre). Sir Harry Lawson lived in Melbourne at the time but came up every Friday and in preparation for his visit they had to go the Vin Whaley’s bike shop ( now antique shop next to National Bank) and make sure his bike was well serviced, for Harry liked to use the bike to go visiting. He visited the Levinny sisters at Buda who made cakes and decorated them with Calendula flowers. He also visited Alice King, a nurse who lived on Myring St. He helped turn Emma in her bed; she had a hip problem and couldn’t turn herself.

Jean lived on Myring St. When she and her sister were young their mother would call out “Here comes the Desmond boy on the horse,” and they would run out and watch the Desmond boy pass on his black horse which was 17 hands tall and had been ridden all the way from Happy Valley, up the steep hill, across Kalimna Park. Sometime later and somewhere between HSW Lawson offices and the Post Office, Jean would meet Ray Desmond again. The boy on the black horse had returned from the war, now a quiet war-wearied man whom she would later marry at the Congregational church. At that time the corner of Barkers St and Lyttleton was a popular meeting place as there was a tree there with a circular bench seat beneath it. People would say, “Meet you on Harris’s corner”, named after the merchandise store on the corner. Jean and Ray took 3 years to build their house on north as bricks were scarce and Ray rode his bike over to the place where they were manufactured on ten foot hill and begged for them.

Listen to Jean’s telling of this story

While Jean worked, the market building was a thriving market. Jo Russo came form Melbourne with vegetables, next to him were flowers, further along, rabbits. Everyone kept ferrets to get the rabbits. It was wartime and food was scarce. But people would put on their best for Friday night shopping. Jean remembers a woman who came in from a farm , wearing her kid gloves and furs. Farmers all came in for provisions on a Friday and to meet up with each other.

Jean would buy large slabs of Adams cakes at Carols on Mostyn street that would last for them for the week. There were horse troughs outside the market building. When the war ended they closed the street, erected a maypole and everyone danced. When she started school (current IGA) Jean was brought a second hand “superior” bike from Vin Whaley’s. At that time Jean remembers having to do exercises on hessian sacks at camp reserve and feeling humiliated at having to do these exercises in her skirt. Her favourite teacher, Miss Mosley, a large lady with white wavy hair, walked up and down between their desks knitting socks for the soldiers at war and teaching them Strauss Waltzes. They sang The Blue Danube and Shubert’s The Trout.

While Jean worked at HSW Lawson, there was a Popular Girl competition in town, set up to raise funds for the new swimming pool. A girl was chosen from different work places in the town and which ever of them raised the most money won. Irene Elliot was the Thompson’s foundry girl, Sylvia Eastman was from the Woollen Mill, Jacqueline Dillon was the town girl and Winsome Barlow from the Theatre Royal (Jacqueline later worked at the photographers (now the chemist on Barker St.) on Very’s corner, colouring photos). Walter Lindrum, the billiard player came to town as part of one fundraiser, but that one didn’t win. The Popular Girl competition was won by Sylvia Eastman.

Listen to audio of Jean and others here

Beck’s Imperial Hotel

Beck’s was owned by Alec Beck whose daughter Mabel was married to Alf Rasmussin. Together they ran Rasmussin’s Bakery.

Alec Beck was famous for his gun collection, some of which he would take out to the bush and shoot galahs.

Hilary Chapman (a former POW who ran the bakery for a while) used to sell Alec Beck white newspaper from the bakery for a penny that Alec Beck would shoot to check the gun pattern and then Hilary Chapman took the paper back again and reused it. At the top of Beck’s Imperial Hotel is a widow’s walk, a railed rooftop platform, often with a small enclosed cupola frequently found on 19th-century North American coastal houses. A popular romantic myth holds that the platform was used to observe vessels at sea.

Anticline

A million years out of the sun,

they found it when the road went through

and recognised the find for what it was

and commemorated with a plaque

to educate the masses on

a minor point of geological truth.

Behold! The anticlinal fold!

A bell curve carved into the earth:

evidence that even rock is never truly still.

Move with the anticlinal fold.

Dance to the anticlinal fold.

Put your hand on it – you can feel it in your bones.

For while the ground beneath our feet

may seem to be a stable thing,

it’s only that our speeds are poles apart.

The question becomes a matter of scale.

How fast is a year? A thousand? Two?

What happens in the time those timespans span?

Forests grow and oceans fade.

Mountains rise and wear away.

Animals and cultures both appear and disappear.

They move with the anticlinal fold.

They dance to the anticlinal fold.

Put your hand on it – you can feel it in your bones.

Inside the earth the pressure bends

and twists the rocks, and sometimes shows

their ever-present, patient geometry.

And as we walk across it all

the planet stretches, shudders, shrugs,

sometimes fast enough to feel – and then

we move with the anticlinal fold.

We dance to the anticlinal fold.

Put your hand on it – you can feel it in your bones

The Castlemaine Woollen Mills

– Retold by Jean Penrose

Jean tells us that she was in her early 20’s when the Second World War began. She and other girls found work at the Castlemaine Woolen Mill making blankets for army horses. There was a certain amount of secrecy about what they were making and they weren’t allowed to talk about their work. She remembers there was an air of excitement about working for the war effort. Sometimes they would have to work late shifts and bring something to eat for tea. When she arrived home late at night her Mum would have soup waiting for her. It was a very noisy and busy place to work recalled Jean. At lunchtime the girls would wonder over to the Botanical Garden for some fresh air and quiet.

St. Mary’s Hall Story

Keith Kane was on the ticket box at the 50/50 dances on Saturday night at St Mary’s Hall. They were called 50/50 because half of the music was old time, and half new. The old time music was supplied by The Melody Makers Dance band which featured Lester Taylor (from Taylor brothers produce) on saxophone, a brilliant musician who learned from the Americans during the war, Gavin Franklin on piano (when Don Burrows, the jazz musician, came to town he was “blown away,” when he heard Gavin Franklin on the keys) and Frankie Langdon on drums (his family had the garage opposite Victory Park, just down from Public Inn).

The modern music was a rock band from Bendigo called The Emeralds. The MC for the dance was Des Dougald, a boxing champion, who went on to win a gold medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Desie Dougald was also a dapper dresser and a great vocalist. If a fight broke out, out back, where there was a bit of grogging on in cars, Des Dougald went and broke it up without having to take off his suit coat. Inside the hall, girls lined up on one side of the room waiting to be asked to dance while the boys congregated in the corner. The old time dances they did were Pride of Erin, Evening three step, Foxtrot. Since not all the blokes danced (they just stood in the corner and hoped they would meet a girl ), sometimes the girls had to dance with each other.

Vaughn Springs was a big drinking place. Those guys who went out there drinking, would arrive late and cause a bit of trouble but Desie Dougald would sort them out. There was a bit of kissing going on in the cars outside.

Early Days at Castlemaine Train Station

As told by Robyn Spicer

In the early 1900s my grandmother Willa Curzon (nee Keck) lived with her parents and nine brothers and sisters and a lodger in a small terrace house in Burnley, an inner suburb of Melbourne. Her first job, at the age of eleven was at Dimmeys haberdashery in Richmond. In her later life she lived with us and would tell us of her trips to Castlemaine to visit her grandmother, “Granny McCann”. She said that when the tinkers came to the door in Castlemaine Granny would pay them with gold from the mantelpiece.

Granny McCann was my great great grandmother; she arrived in Australia from Ireland in 1852 and immediately traveled to the Victorian goldfields. She was a strong family-minded woman who delivered many babies in the area. In her later days Granny McCann regularly sent cases of preserves to her children in Melbourne. Grandma would recall what a thrill it was when she and her mother Harriet took the old perambulator to Burnley station to pick up Granny’s preserves. I like to imagine my great great grandmother down at the Castlemaine Station lovingly sending off jams and chutneys and bottles of apples and pears to her grandchildren in Melbourme. Mind you, she apparently told her daughter not to have any more children when she got to number 10. Granny McCann was a practical pioneer woman.

The Pie Shop

The pie shop was started by Keith Mcshanag. Keith was the oldest of five boys. He went to St Mary’s school on Hargraves st. He had to do his merit at the age of 14. He credits his gaining of the merit certificate, that allowed his to go on to the Convent school, to Sister Ama, who gathered a group of boys and gave them extra classes so that they would all pass. These boys went on to the Convent school in Bendigo almost entirely made up of girls, but Keith’s father could only afford for him to go for one year and at the age of 15, Keith left school to get a trade.

Hear more from Keith

One of his first jobs was taking over the bread cart delivery on Saturday from Bill Cole who paid him five bob on the side so that he could take off to the footy on Saturday afternoon. He did his baking apprenticeship at Alf Rasmussin’s on Johnston St, the outlet for which was a small shop on Moystn St where all the school children from the North and South school would come to buy their lunch. Thruppence for a pastie and a Boston bun. Alf Rasmussin had a wife Mabel, two daughters June and Alba, and a kelpie called Merver who he once kicked away form his preferred place by the warmth of the ovens, much to Merver’s confusion, when the health inspector arrived. This was to make out that Merver was just a stray dog.

Mabel’s father was Alec Bec who owned Bec’s Imperial Hotel and was famous for his gun collection, some of which he would take out to the bush and shoot galahs. Keith and his mates established a boys club where they could buy barrels of beer and install them out the back of Mrs Cartwright’s bottle shop. On Saturday nights, after passing some time at Mrs Cartwrights, they went to the town hall dances where one member of their club, Brian Bow, a handsome ladie’s man, played the trumpet in the Langdon’s band, along with Max Langdon and Frank Langdon on drums. After the dances they all went to the Colour Patch Café, (now the art supplies shop)

On New Year’s Eve, everyone held hands and circled around the post office tower with the clock. Keith met his wife Virgie at the Castlemaine Fair at Camp Reserve. Virgie’s friend was scared of heights and couldn’t accompany her on the ferris wheel so Keith stepped in and afterwards asked her on a date. Six months later they were engaged.