David Berry Hospital, 2008 Berry Hospital, David Courtesy of the Berry and District Historical Society Gerringong to Bomaderry Princes Highway upgrade ORAL HISTORY RECORDING DECEMBER 2009 ISBN 978-1-921692-59-8 RTA/Pub. 09.541 Gerringong to Bomaderry Princes Highway Upgrade Prepared for Roads and Traffic Authority Prepared by Navin Officer Heritage Consultatns Pty Ltd 71 Leichhardt Street, kingston ACT 2604 7 December 2009 DEV06/04-HE-NO Rev-1 © AECOM Australia Pty Ltd 2009 The information contained in this document produced by AECOM Australia Pty Ltd is solely for the use of the Client identified on the cover sheet for the purpose for which it has been prepared and AECOM Australia Pty Ltd undertakes no duty to or accepts any responsibility to any third party who may rely upon this document. All rights reserved. No section or element of this document may be removed from this document, reproduced, electronically stored or transmitted in any form without the written permission of AECOM Australia Pty Ltd. 60021933 – Gerringong to Bomaderry Princes Highway upgrade Oral History Recording Table of Contents Forward 5 1.0 Introduction 6 1.1 The Oral history project 7 2.0 Thematic overview 9 2.1 Dairying 9 2.2 The timber industry 11 2.3 Community 12 2.4 Local Government 13 2.5 Horseracing 14 2.6 Local Aborigines 14 2.7 The Gerringong to Bomaderry upgrade 16 3.0 Interview transcipts 18 4.0 RTA release document 175 List of Tables Table 2-1: List of participants 8 60021933 – Gerringong to Bomaderry Princes Highway upgrade Oral History Recording Forward The Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) has a rich heritage suitable for oral history study. The Oral History Program was initiated in 1996, under the guidance of the RTA Heritage Committee. The first project undertaken was a 1997 study of the Sydney Harbour Bridge Maintenance Cranes, prior to their imminent removal. The Oral History Program is administered by the Environment Branch, and forms part of the RTA’s broad interests and responsibilities in the heritage field. Information obtained in oral history interviews provides a useful background resource and assists in the achievement of the aims of the Heritage Strategic Plan. Oral history has been described as ‘a picture of the past in people's own words’. It is told by the people who are often overlooked in ‘official’ documented history: those who were actually there and involved. Unlike the written word, oral history comes to life in the colour, passion and inflection of the human voice. It tells us about relationships, perceptions and social and political climates of the past. It gives a voice to minority groups and the disadvantaged. In this way, oral history complements the formal written record by giving in addition the personal, intimate, human and social account of events. It revolves around what a person believes to be the real story. Their version of an event may differ from another's, or even from the documented history, but it is no less valid. After all, all historical records, including written words, photographs, paintings and maps, may contain some degree of error and bias. Oral history can also overcome the bias of some traditional history sources towards big events and high-profile participants. 60021933 – Gerringong to Bomaderry Princes Highway upgrade Oral History Recording Page 5 1.0 Introduction Maunsell was engaged by the RTA in December 2006 to carry out an Options and Routes Selection Study, Concept Development and Environmental Assessment for upgrading the Princes Highway between Gerringong to Bomaderry. The northern extremity of the project is in the vicinity of the Mount Pleasant Lookout (north of Gerringong at the termination of the four lane configuration) and the southern extremity of the project is the intersection (roundabout) of the Princes Highway with Cambewarra and Moss Vale roads at Bomaderry. The project will provide a bypass of Berry. The study includes development of route options and identification of a preferred route. A concept design and environment assessment will be carried out for the preferred route. Results of each of the main stages of the study will be put on public display. Community engagement is a key aspect of the project. The broader community has had and will have the opportunity to make a demonstrable input to the process and to ensure that the requirements and aspirations of the community will be adequately and appropriately addressed. Several studies have been undertaken since the early 1990s to identify a preferred route to upgrade sections of the Princes Highway between Kiama and Nowra including a bypass around the town of Berry. Key contributors to the need for the upgrade is the three per cent growth in annual traffic numbers and 10 fatalities occurring in nine traffic accidents between 2001 and 2005. The RTA has set out several objectives for the Princes Highway. Generically these include: • Provide a flowing highway alignment that is responsive and integrated with the landscape; • Protect the natural systems and ecology of the corridor; • Protect and enhance the heritage and cultural values of the corridor; • Respect the communities and towns along the road; and • Provide an enjoyable, interesting highway with strong visual connections to the Pacific Ocean, immediate hinterland and the mountains to the west. Objectives for the project have been determined as follows: • Improving road safety by improving alignment, controlled access and standards in new road design and construction; • Improve efficiency of the Princes Highway between Gerringong and Bomaderry; • Support regional and local economic development; • Provide value for money; • Enhance potential beneficial environmental effects and manage potential adverse environmental impacts; and • Optimise the benefits and minimise adverse impacts on the local social environment. The existing highway will be upgraded to include: • A high standard highway with two lanes in both directions with median separation; • Controlled access; and • A bypass of Berry. 60021933 – Gerringong to Bomaderry Princes Highway upgrade Oral History Recording Page 6 The preferred route will be selected based on balancing impacts on social and community interests, the environment, economics, and engineering requirements. 1.1 The Oral history project While oral history recordings are undertaken to obtain information that is otherwise unavailable from any other source and have a specific target topic in mind (in this case the Gerringong to Bomaderry Princes Highway upgrade), they invariably elicit broader local, regional and often geographically wider information. Indeed, such information is the core reason for undertaking oral history recordings – to place the interviewee in context and to obtain their personal memories relevant to a particular area and topic. In order to provide such memories, the interviewee must be confident in the knowledge that the information imparted will be used towards an understood identified aim. The interviewer should be equally confident that such information will be similarly used. That aim always being to further historical knowledge of a combination of past activities, lifeways, persons, and/or places – and not restricted to a single subject, such as the Princes Highway itself. The RTA undertook this project as part of an integrated community approach to the Gerringong to Bomaderry upgrade. Specifically, the project sought to: • Obtain information that is otherwise unavailable from any other source, with an explicit target topic of the Gerringong to Bomaderry Princes Highway; • Elicit broader local, regional and possibly geographically wider information in relation to the Highway; and • Obtain individuals’ personal memories on other topics. Following discussions between representatives from the RTA, Maunsell, Navin Officer Heritage Consultants and a cross-section of local residents, interviewees were selected in order to provide a: • Wide geographical range across the area; • Characteristic sample of the history of industry, places and activities within the area; and • Diversity of responses to possible impacts of the upgrade throughout the area. Twelve interviews were conducted involving 15 interviewees. The first interview was undertaken in late January 2008 with subsequent interviews being carried out from mid August to late September 2008. The majority of interviews was held in interviewees’ homes with two being conducted at interviewees’ workplaces. The following section, Section 2, provides a thematic overview of the predominant subjects arising from the interviews. It draws together and touches on participants’ views regarding: • Dairying; • The timber industry; • Community; • Local Government; • Horse racing; • Local Aborigines; and, of course, • The G2B Princes Highway upgrade. 60021933 – Gerringong to Bomaderry Princes Highway upgrade Oral History Recording Page 7 Section 3 gives a transcript of each interview, and the final section, Section 4, provides an RTA release document completed by each of the interviewees. The table below provides a list of those people who were interviewed as part of the project. It also shows their locations and particular areas of interest. Table 1-1: List of participants Interviewee Location Area of interest Mrs Margaret Binks Broughton Village Broughton Village and historic house ‘Sedgeford’. Mrs Helen Chittick Gerringong Local history. Mr Bill Jorgenson North Nowra Timber and dairy industry, and local history Mr & Mrs Bruce & Berry Dairy industry, local government, and