ORBOST & DISTRICT HISTORICAL SOCIETY Inc. P.O. BOX 284 ORBOST VIC 3888 President: Heather Terrell Vice President: Noreen Thomson Secretary/Treasurer: May Leatch Collection Management: Marlene Robb, Barry Miller, May Leatch, Marilyn Morgan, Heather Terrell Museum Committee: John Phillips, Noreen Thomson, Eddie Slatter, Geoff Stevenson Research Secretary: Lois Crisp HNEG representative: Audrey Van Den Berg Slab Hut/OVIC reps.: Di Miller, Noreen Thomson Publicity: Heather Terrell, May Leatch Newsletter Production: May Leatch NEWSLETTER 161 February 2020 RECOLLECTIONS OF ORBOST 1939-1942 by Rev. Graeme Bucknall (2/5/1909—6/11/1995) As with many other people who have come to Orbost even for a relatively short time, Rev. Graeme Bucknall has vivid memories. These excerpts were provided by his son Ruary Bucknall. Orbost was Graeme Bucknall’s first appointment as a Presbyterian Minister after completion of his B.A. and B.D. He was born in Portland in 1909 and grew up on the family farm where he gained useful experience in his early years by working on the Pine Plantations that his Grandfather and Father were establishing there and at Hobart. In 1938, he married Jean Williamson, and it was as a young married couple with one child, John, that they entered into the life of Orbost. "I was delighted when I was sent to Orbost and arrived in January 1939 in my brand new 10 hp February I returned to Melbourne to bring Jean Austin. Six days later the Black Friday bush and baby John to their new home. fires happened, though not near us, blacking out Orbost lived up to my expectations of a good Orbost with a dense pall of smoke. By mid- country parish. My Session Clerk was Percy afternoon the fowls, thinking it was nightfall, Boucher a farmer who lived on the rich river went to roost. The ash from the fires carried as flats near the Snowy. He was a very supportive far as New Zealand, and for many days later friend and dedicated office bearer. I also was washed up on the beach at Marlo. In remember him with delight for the way he could recite 'The Man from Snowy River'. Percy lived 1 every moment of the poem with eyes flashing “An old lady in her nineties, the mother of and teeth clicking as the mountain pony's hooves several families in the Combienbar valley, lived struck flint from the stones. Percy was also a there with one of her daughters. It was a good preacher and took my services when I was common tale that, when she was a teenager, her away on a Sunday. father became so angry with her for running away with the Aboriginal teen age girls, he “Before we left Pakenham we were given a pure threatened to shoot her. A local bachelor bred gun-shy young English Setter we named suggested that rather than threaten such drastic Peter. He was a gentle, intelligent dog who action that he ‘give’ her to him. As this event helped us to rear baby John. In addition to Peter took place on the N.S.W. border around 1860, we had ten red hens which also became John's many marriages were never blessed by clergy. pets. He had a small trailer that hooked onto his Whatever the truth, in a drought year, the trike and in it he used to cart chooks around the couple moved south-wards into the Combienbar back yard. His most notable achievement was to valley and reared a large hard-working family. I carry one in his arms into the Women's meeting only had one conversation with this remarkable where they both sat quietly for the duration. old pioneer. 'Did I ever tell you of the time I saw Moses on the top of Mt. Bendoc?’ 'No, but I “The Home Mission Committee paid me 4 pence would like you to tell me', which she did. per mile to make quarterly visits to the small settlements of Combienbar, Mallacoota and “Even in 1939, the country around Mt. Bendoc Wangrabelle in far East Gippsland. was some of the wildest in East Gippsland, so Moses would have found it both colder and “Morning mists swirling around the hills on damper than Sinai and even more remote from either side of the winding track up the valley of Egypt! the Bemm river to Combienbar, and the ferns and rain-forest of the Drummer and the heath “My first visit to Mallacoota remains in my and Callistemons of the coastal plains are memory for two reasons. It was on a frosty lasting memories of unspoiled 'nature'. evening in May 1939 when I came out of the bush to see the evening light reflecting colour “There was a one-teacher State School and from the scattered cloud upon the tranquil about ten families on small farms along the waters of this lovely inlet. This was high-lighted upper reaches of the Bemm River in the by the dark blue of the distant ranges around Mt Combienbar valley, and a lone family, the Carlyle near Cape Howe. Secondly, I had Burtons, on the Errinundra tributary creek. It arranged to stay with my father's cousin Eileen was in the Bemm that I caught my only Dorron who ran the tiny Post Office in this 1939 significant rainbow trout and in the latter a remote inlet. 56cm. blackfish big enough to feed half a dozen people. “Eileen was the eldest daughter of my Grandfather Bucknall's brother Henry who “Most Combienbar families came to my married Emily Fannin in Natal in 1868. In 1876, quarterly week-night service in the school, but when Eileen was a baby, they returned to not so one old bachelor who lived where no car Rodborough in Victoria. About ten years later could reach. There came the day when I walked Henry mortgaged his Rodborough land and across the river to visit him. A pack of dogs purchased a small boat at Lakes Entrance with came yapping around me while I continued on the idea of setting up a business at Mallacoota. my way, with a bush conviction that if you His small shipping venture was disastrous with showed no fear you were safe. I was painfully one small boat and a crew of two lost at sea. disillusioned, when, from behind me a jaw Henry then established a store upstream at clamped on the calf of my leg. For obvious Gipsy Point where he finished his days. reasons it was a painful visit for me, although my host did later turn up at Church. “Daughter Eileen came to live with him, and eventually she married Tom Dorron who in my 2 time, was the local Fisheries Inspector. covered by a cowl. This made my night driving “On one of my trips Jean and baby John came on gravel tracks in the mountains hair-raising. with me on the whole patrol. We spent three days camping at Mallacoota. The Dorrons were “It was also at Wroxham that three specialist able to show me where to fish - with such axe-men were hewing great beams with the success that I spent most of the time baiting broad-axe from the most magnificent Grey Box Jean's hooks while she hauled in the whiting. trees I have ever seen. They were 10 metres long and 75cms by 30cm thickness for a war- “From Genoa on the Highway, we turned north time extension to the Port Kembla jetty. on the east side of the Genoa river to Wangrabelle and, finally to Wroxham where the “I drove my car down into the valley where they Murray family always provided hospitality. were working and paid them a visit. At smoko we got yarning about timber cutting and I asked “There was an old timer living with his them if they ever used a 'bastard' file in a daughter, Mrs McLeod, on the neighbouring particular way to take the shoulder off an axe. farm who was delighted to meet me believing I Well, it was the ex-forester parson who was the grandson of his old mate Henry demonstrated how to drive the back of the axe Bucknall. I never managed to convince him that head into a narrow scarf and with the handle of Henry was my great Uncle. However I was the file bedded in the tree trunk, drag the file rewarded for he told me that Henry was the first face over the shoulder of the axe until it cut into person to drive a dray along the pack horse the steel with the filings coming away in minute track from Orbost to Mallacoota. strips. The next morning, shortly after leaving for home, I met them down the road with a “Every river had to be crossed by a ford so that, broken axle on the timber jinker. I took the three even in summer, Henry's feat was remarkable. men to Genoa and they shouted me lunch at the No one knows how long it took him, late last pub. century, with shovel and axe to construct a 180km. cart track from a pack-horse trail. Even “Quite early in my ministry I had extended my in 1939, this road was a winding narrow gravel patrol to include Buchan and Gelantipy. track that followed the contours of the ranges. “My first visit to Buchan was in response to an “The only considerable road construction was invitation to take the Anzac Service in April the magnificent descent along the rain forest 1940. My father and my sister Lorna McDonald, side of Mt.