2017 Vol 2 No 2 ISSN 2207-1350 Issue 006 TORQUAY MUSEUM WITHOUT WALLS QUARTERLY MAGAZINE HISTORY MATTERS RAY WILSON STORY JAROSITE paint MINE Torquay football club Page 1 | Torquay MUSEUM CONTENTS Without Walls www.torquayhistory.com ISSUE 6, JUNE 2017 COVER: Ray Wilson 1962 with his Vic Tantau board 4 Ray Wilson Story OPPOSITE: Ray Wilson News of the Week 8 ‘Cooee’ - the house State Library Victoria 10 Jarosite Mining DESIGN & LAYOUT: 14 Early Jan Juc - the 1950s Cheryl Baulch 18 Pursuit to the Hindenburg Line EDITOR: Lulu Beel 20 Torquay Football - The Early Years CONTRIBUTORS: Col Hutchinson Torquay Museum Without Walls is 22 Flashback - Peter Burns Gwen Threlfall a proud volunteer-run organization. In publishing History Matters 24 Mt. Duneed - Jane Walker PHOTOGRAPHY: our volunteers do everything Butch Barr Louise Leighton Collection from research, writing, editing, photography, page layouts. Each 26 Town Talk Ray Wilson Collection Andy Berry edition also includes contributions Mt. Duneed History Group of writing and photography from 27 Every Picture Lindsay Braydon / Anglesea Historical Society supporters of our work. RESEARCH: We are very grateful for the Cheryl Baulch & Chris Barr support of our and sponsors identified opposite and those who contribute photos and information. Supporting local history: Volunteers play an important role in The material in this magazine is copyright, apart from any fair the operation of our history group dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act 1958 and subsequent working in a variety of areas including amendments, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored research, filing, data entry, collections in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, management, photography and electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise ABOUT US..... working with community groups. without prior written permission. Every attempt has been made to Proudly supported by: contact copyright holders for permission to reproduce their work in VOLUNTEER WITH US: We this magazine. Enquiries should be made to tmuseumwithoutwalls@ welcome new people and you don’t gmail.com have to be an expert in history. A ABN: 76 748 251 593 friendly attitude and willingness to Inc. No.: A0092421C join in are all you need. Printed by Coast Print, Torquay Page 2 | Page 3 | RAY PHOTOS COURTESY RAY WILSON COLLECTION. WILSON JCHRIS BARRI home called they called Cooee on the corner of Bell street and The Esplanade. They brought their two little daughters with them. ay was born in Geelong the day after Australia day in 1946. Ida and Herb Rbrought him home to Torquay. Ray spent much of his young days playing LOCAL SURFING in the Marram grass and Moonah trees and collecting shells in the rock pools. LEGEND With the beach just across the road, his childhood was always associated with the ocean. Ida would tell the children to play in the corner below the trees and GROWING UP IN cliff where it was “nice and cosy”. Cooee was on just less than 5 acres so there was room for ponies and a tennis court. Ray and the girls would ride their TORQUAY horses over the track and along the foreshore, and down on the beach. Ida Wilson was a beach lover and swam at the front beach all her life. She liked to surf on a rubber mat and as soon as he was old enough, she started giving Ray surf lessons at Point Danger. Even in the cold during winter months, the two Photo courtesy Andy Berry of them would be out in the waves. Ida was thrilled when Ray was old enough to join her out the back. t was a very idyllic time to grow up in Torquay with a population of about I500. Ray knew almost everyone in town and when he started his paper run as a boy he got to know all the streets and houses as well. When he was not or many years Ray Wilson was a familiar sight around at the beach he was riding his bike through Taylor Park to collect yabbies and town always ready for a chat and a reminisce about F tadpoles in the old dam, and later went rabbiting in the hills over the creek in “the old days”. Ray now lives down in Anglesea but is still Jan Juc. a regular visitor and always a great port of call to answer questions about life in Torquay in the 50’s and 60’s, and round about the time Ray had his tenth birthday the 1956 Olympic carnival the early days of surfing. Acame to Torquay and this event had a lasting and dramatic impact on Ray. He was able to catch all the action of the carnival first hand. He was already he Wilson family like many others had their first one of the “young Groms” hanging about at the Surf Club where some of the experience in Torquay as visitors to the Torquay T older boys took him under their wing. Ray recalls with great fondness Vic Caravan Park, camping in a tent for weeks in the summer Tantau, Al Reid and Owen Yateman who were like father figures to him. months and enjoying the beach. They soon realised that they would like to move down permanently. ay watched in awe as the beach was transformed for the carnival with the dunes being smoothed over and stands being built. He remembers erbert Wilson owned a big garage and petrol station R hundreds of cars parking on the beach. But his most lasting memory is watching on the corner of Latrobe Street and Queens St in H the Hawaiians and Californians, who brought shorter more maneuverable Melbourne. Business boomed during the war years and, boards and showed their talent on them at Torquay point. in 1945 Herbert and Ida Wilson bought the imposing old Page 4 | Page 5 | nd Ray was on hand too, when Vic started making s soon as he was old enough, Ray left school and Aboards in his garage at the back of where Growlers is Astarted learning how to make surfboards. This was now. He was the first kid in town to have his own custom not an easy task as the only place he could do this was Vic Tantau board and would hitch a ride out to Bells with with John Saffron Surfboards in Whittington. He would Peter Troy to try it out. hitch hike into Geelong to Faggs store where he kept his y the early 1960’s the winds of change were blowing bike. He would then ride to Whittington where he worked Bthrough the Torquay Surf Club as the divisions making boards, repeating the journey on the way home. between the “clubbies“ and the “boardriders“ grew. Ray Shortly after, he got a job making boards for Fred Pyke in teamed up with a breakaway group and formed the Torquay, eventually making his own surfboards. very first boardriders club in Torquay, the Point Danger fter Ida’s death Ray decided to turn the gracious old Danglers. Ahome into a restaurant and named it after his Mum, calling it “Ida’s by the Sea“. To this day the house is still referred to as “Ida’s”. Ray added the title of wine waiter to his resume. Many of the restaurant patrons unaware that the waiter who had been off to the market at dawn to buy fish and vegetables, was in fact the owner! n his seventies now, Ray still rides his bike to check the Isurf daily. His love of the ocean has not dwindled. his story is part of a filmed interview TMWW did with TRay for our Collecting Memories Project. ay is a gentle and charming fellow and was a delight to Rspend an afternoon with. ays mother Ida, was also a keen home movie Rmaker and we were able to incorporate the home movie home movie footage into the story we filmed o f R a y . P a r t 1 o f t h i s fi l m c a n b e v i e w e d o n o u r w e b s i t e H https://torquayhistory.com/oral-history/ Photo courtesy Andy Berry n 1964 when the first Victorian Surf Titles were held Ithe record books show Ray Wilson as the winner of the Open Men’s title. He went on to represent Victoria at the Australian titles at Manly, in a field that included overseas surfers Micky Dora, Mike Doyle, and Joey Cabell. Ray was on the Victorian State Team for 6 years and also competed in the 1970 World Titles at Bells. hen his sisters left Torquay to work, Ray and his Wmother moved into the beautiful house at 28 The Esplanade. Photo courtesy Louise Leighton Page 6 | Page 7 | Cooee, one of the early houses of Torquay Photo courtesy Louise Leighton ithin eighteen months Lillian had built a house on WLot 2, later to be known as ‘Cooee’, and sold it to Andrew Stewart for £1100. The vacant block was also sold to a Geelong solicitor for £110, earning a nice profit. During 1922 Andrew purchased the blocks either side of the house and promptly built a tennis court on the Bell Street block. ust after the end of the war in 1945 Herbert Wilson ‘COOEE’ THE HOUSE Jpurchased the three Bell street / Esplanade corner JCHERYL BAULCHI blocks and called the house “Cooee”. uring 1916 the Lands Department were planning to subdivide DTaylor Park. John William Taylor led the Torquay Improvement Association along with the South Barwon Shire, to strongly object to this proposal, preferring to leave the park as a place for community Once located at recreation.