Stories handed down through history

Gippsland has a far more colourful history than most of us realise. It was different from most other Australian provinces in that it was not settled by people moving out from some central point.

The first white folk coming into Gippsland came down the Tambo Valley from the Omeo area, with very few exceptions. In 1841, when the Port Albert settlement got going that became the capital of Gippsland in a very real sense.

It was two decades more before traffic into Gippsland from Melbourne, and vice-versa, became reasonably regular and reliable, if not comfortable, other than by sea. By then the Gippsland Lakes had its own internal shipping system, with boats built right there.

In telling parts of that story every week for 50 years, the column has become a small part of that history. It has covered history, sociology, economics, geography and all manner of things and it (meaning me) has got quite a few things wrong, and sometimes missed important parts of a story.

The beautiful thing about this, and it really is a beautiful thing, something I have really enjoyed, is that people will write, e-mail (that is not really a verb) or telephone (nor is that) me to put things right. We haven’t always agreed but every such interaction helps sharpen my knowledge and thus the value of the column.

Many people have sent me stories and documents from which I have drawn stories, and I’m immensely grateful, not just for the assistance but because it brings new information to light almost every single time. One great bloke helped me with heaps of information about Tanjil Bren, and the disastrous fire that claimed so many lives at Saxton’s Mill. A lady in a retirement village in Wy Yung told me a huge amount about the ways of life in the South Gippsland hills above Foster and Toora.

This might be a good time to apologise to those people to whom I have never got back. I frequently write contact details down on scraps of paper – which I then misplace. Not so long ago I had a call from a man in, I think, Warragul, who could trace his ancestry back to a village in France when it was established by Vikings.

Those stories, and many others, are still out there and they need to be told before they are lost. In the first two decades of the column we had many autobiographic stories told about what were then ‘the oldies’ most of whom are no longer with us. For various reasons I don’t travel as much as I once did so the stories based on individual interviews have become fewer, sadly. Still this column has managed to preserve much that would have been lost. It has been a way for our past to speak to those of us here now.

Because of the column and its many years of reaching for past truths, and not always finding them, I have been asked to speak to all sorts of community groups from all over Gippsland, but for the very far east. That spreads the stories of our history more widely than just in the print media, and in a very interactive way.

I hasten to add that “the column” does not know everything about Gippsland’s history, so that sometimes I speak to a room full of people who know more than I do about the particular place I am visiting. Imagine firing a shotgun at a map of Gippsland. Each pellet hole might be a place the column has covered – and there will be a lot of untouched Gippsland in between.

If I live to be 200 years old I should be able to fill most of the gaps. Thank Heaven for all the local history groups, and the people who collect and publish the stories of their families. Thank Heaven for those people who write the histories of their schools, or halls, of townships. Thank Heaven for all the little “Back-To” booklets. They are all helping us know who we really are, and you cannot know that without knowing your past. Trust me.

I know I sound a little like a missionary when I talk like that, or a teacher, but that can’t be helped. I really believe it and 50 years of chasing down stories, following up things barely heard or only faintly remembered tells me that I am right.

It has been a rich and exciting tapestry of tales, though far from covering everything it might have. As said this province had a more colourful past than many of us realise. Think of the heroism of clearing the Strzeleckis. Think the ingenuity of building steamships within the Gippsland Lakes system before there was any shipping connection outside.

Think of draining the Great Swamp, and the Moe Swamp, for that matter. Think of the building of the South Gippsland railway, the gold mines of Walhalla. Think of when Port Albert was a Port of Entry for immigrants. Think of Samuel Anderson toiling away quietly on the Bass River while history was watching the Hentys and the Port Phillip Association.

Think Bass, Flinders, Grant. Think William Hovell and while you are doing so think of his role in Victoria’s second settlement, at Corinella, in 1826-28.

Think of the simple, enduring courage of those who came here to settle the land, often in full knowledge that they would not see the full benefits of their work, but their children would.

I have hugely enjoyed ‘touching the past’. I hope that through this somewhat changeable column I have shared some of that enjoyment with you.

It has been a long journey since that day in May 1973 when the first column appeared.

I have been down some hard roads journalistically. I have perhaps 200 stories part-written but needing more facts, some form of proof, someone to talk to, before I can bring them to life and have the column bring them to you.

I thank Warragul Regional Newspapers for their long-term faith in the column, and their long-term faith in you readers. I thank all of you who have helped the column so very much along the way, and there are very many of you. I like to think that is more of a conversation than a lecture. One reason for that gratitude on my part is that pressing ‘send’ does not complete a story – it is only truly complete when someone reads and responds to it.

And now? Well, the column will now take a deep breath, do a few stretches, and head down the road of the next 50 years.