By Carol Altmann

A child’s boot found during renovations of one of Warrnambool’s oldest commercial buildings has unearthed the remarkable story of a local war hero.

Bluestone Magazine wrote about the shoe being found under the floorboards of 220-222 Timor St in one of our very first editions, way back in November 2013, when we reported on the restoration of the 160-year-old building by owners Luke and Natalie Taylor.

At that time, it was known that one half of the two-storey building had been rented during the 1930s by a bootmaker – a Mr Long – but whether the shoe was connected to him, or any more details about this Mr Long, proved elusive.

Enter Rodney Harris, who recently stumbled across our story and called Bluestone to say that he believed his friend, Helen Thomson, a well-known face in Swinton’s homewares department for many years, could fill in all the gaps.

And she could.

Helen, now aged in her eighties, is the daughter of the late Pearl Long whose father, Robert Long, started the original bootmaker’s business at 220 Timor St early in the 1900s.

In one of those priceless moments that history buffs live for, Helen produced a photograph – the only known copy in existence – of her grandfather standing outside the shop in March 1919.

As was common for the time, the extended Long family all lived upstairs from the business and Helen believes the English-style boot may have belonged to one of Robert’s six children (another three children had died).

“I know Mum used to talk about these little English boots that her father would buy for them for school, because they were good quality,” Helen says.

“But Mum hated wearing them, because of course they were not like what the others kids wore,” she adds.

Helen went on to explain how her grandfather’s bootmaking business was later taken over by her uncle, Roy Long, who everybody knew as “Toy”, and this is where the story took an unexpected and remarkable turn.

When war broke out in 1939, Toy Long left his bootmaking business and joined the AIF as part of the 2/21 Battalion (known as Gull Force) that became prisoners of war on Ambon, Indonesia, following the Japanese invasion of the island in 1942.

Toy, together with other members of his batallion also from Warrnambool, was imprisoned for almost four years in appalling conditions.

During this time, it has now been revealed, Toy risked his life by hiding documents given to him by his commanding officer that would prove crucial in the later trials for war crimes.

Helen has a precious copy of the letter written to Toy by his commanding officer, W.R Scott, after the war.

It reads, in part:

“My Dear Long,

The time has now arrived when we are no longer POWs…in Japanese hands. I may therefore without risk of your being deprived of your life, write and thankyou for the way and the risks of death you knowingly and yet willingly took secreting most important documents, holding them in your care for a long period of time, during which, I may add, there were two searches carried out by Japanese troops…

“You took all the risks, knew it meant death for you if you were discovered, and I now thankyou on behalf of us for the gallant manner in which you completed the task. I wish you all the best of luck for the future.”

After returning from the war, Toy lived with Helen and her parents, and other members of the extended family, in their house in Kruger St.

“My mother was cleaning up one day and found this letter and started to read it, but Toy snatched it out of her hand. He didn’t want anybody to know about it,” Helen says.

Years later, however, one of Helen’s aunts had possession of the letter and typed out a copy for Helen. The original is now in the Canberra National War Memorial.

“He (Toy) never talked about the war, but he had the most horrendous nightmares, yelling out in his sleep,” Helen recalls.

Toy resumed his trade as a bootmaker after the war, opening a shop in the former Market Arcade in Lava St (and, later, opposite the Regal Shoppe in Timor St), and despite his horrific experiences – or perhaps because of them – he embraced life to the full.

“He was always such a kind and generous man and always had something for us kids when he came home from work, sweets or glass beads or something like that,” Helen says, laughing.

Toy later married and had one stepson. He died in 1990.

A humble shoe retrieved from the rubble has revealed the story of a brave and humble man.

Words and photos by Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] T [/dropcap]here is both a solemnity and a fascination about cemeteries, especially one as old and beautiful as the Warrnambool cemetery which houses almost as many dead as are living in the city: around 28,000 people since 1854.

Yet for all of the times I have walked through this calm, historic space, I have never really understood how it operates, in the sense of:

• who owns it;
• who decides what headstones are permissible;
• what happens when an old headstone falls down (as is happening now);
• is there a central database of who is buried there and;
• does anybody live in the heritage-listed house that has the quietest neighbours in Warrnambool?

To find out the answers to all these questions and more, Bluestone spent several hours with the very informative and forthcoming Clive Rayner, secretary of the Warrnambool Cemetery Trust.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] T [/dropcap]he first thing Clive explains is that the cemetery land is owned by the State Government and the seven-member trust is answerable to the Department of Health, which oversees the laws that govern cemeteries in Victoria: the trust ensures these laws are followed.

“We never have any trouble filling vacancies on the trust (which is re-appointed every five years). The cemetery is a very interesting place,” he says.

As can be expected, there are a lot of rules and regulations that govern public cemeteries, from coffin sizes and plot depths to what can and can’t be done in the grounds.

It is, for example, illegal to play sport, fish, bathe, hunt or camp in a public cemetery, just in case you were inclined to play a spot of lawn bowls or set up the Coleman tent for an overnight stay.

More seriously, however, the trust is responsible for ensuring that cemeteries run smoothly, that they are well kept (most of the old Warrnambool cemetery is hand mown) and that it strikes a balance between the sensitivities of the bereaved, public safety and long-term preservation of the grounds.

This brings us to monuments.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] A [/dropcap]s Clive explains, monuments are designed and installed by stonemasons in consultation with the bereaved, but there is no hard and fast rule that all memorials have to be traditional.

“The families or friends work with a stonemason who can advise them on what they can and can’t do, but the trust does have discretion too,” Clive says.

Special requests can be put in writing to the trust which will then make a decision on whether the monument is legal or appropriate, including whether it will last long-term, the size and how it will be installed. There are a few examples of what might be called less traditional monuments around the grounds, such as a rustic wooden cross in the lawn section.

The trust also monitors temporary items placed on a gravesite.

“Some graves can become virtual shrines and so we have to make sure we keep that under control, while also, of course, remaining sensitive,” Clive explains.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] E [/dropcap]recting a monument is one thing, but maintaining it is quite another, as is beginning to show on some of the graves in the old part of the cemetery.

Wrought-iron surrounds are rusting away, slabs have broken up, and about 10 elaborate headstones are threatening to topple over while others have already succumbed.

“Sometimes with the very old graves we are unable to find a family member or, if we do, they are not interested in spending the money needed for the repairs. In that case, if a headstone is going to fall down, we will remove it and lie it down on the grass,” Clive explains.

At the other end of the spectrum, descendants of some long lost souls have sought permission to mark previously unmarked graves in the old cemetery, or replaced simple wooden markers with a more permanent memorial.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] W [/dropcap]hich is a lovely segue into genealogy and whether there is a central database of cemetery records.

“We are working toward that,” Clive says, “it has been 10 years in the making already and we are probably still some months away from being finished”.

At the moment, anyone with a surname between A-S can be located by the cemetery trust using its computers, but S-Z is still in hard-copy ledgers: 28,000 people is a lot of names to transfer.

The trust office is one of the rooms still used in the heritage-listed house on the cemetery grounds. Built around 1878, the house was designed for the sexton – the manager of the cemetery – but is no longer used as a dwelling.

“It has no windows on the north side, so you can imagine how cold and dark it can be in here in winter,” Clive says.

As we talk, a woman from Adelaide pokes her head into the office and asks Clive if he can check the record about her relative, one of Warrnambool’s early settlers. He scratches down the details on a Sticky Note and promises to email her.

“We get a lot of that and I try to help where I can, especially if people have come from a long way,” he says.

For a place that honours the dead, the cemetery is surprisingly full of intriguing life.

[box]A new Warrnambool cemetery east of the city will be announced shortly and will be the first new location in more than 150 years. It is expected to start operating within five to eight years.[/box]

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Analysis – Carol Altmann

How extraordinarily healing and beautiful something like this work by local artist Jenny Altmann would have looked at the Lighthouse Theatre instead of a Rolf Harris mural covered in black Perspex, apparently forever.

Imagine if an artist like Jenny (disclosure: my former sister-in-law), whose art often deals with themes of healing from sexual abuse, had been asked to replace what has become an embarrassment for our city?

Warrnambool City Council, on our behalf, would have made headlines around Australia for its courage in grasping a rare opportunity to send a symbolic message to all survivors of sexual assault that we, as a community, will stand with you over and above any cult of personality.

Such a message would be particularly powerful given Warrnambool has more than double the state average rate of child abuse: 16.5/1000 compared to 7/1000.

But last Monday night we blew it and we deserve headlines like this one.

For all of the bluster about censorship, separating the art from the artist, and fears of replacing the mural being the “the thin-edge-of-the-wedge”, the decision really boiled down to one of celebrity.

The only reason the mural is remaining is because it was painted by Rolf Harris – who is actually better known for his entertainment than his art – but nobody has had the courage to say it.

This was not about preserving all art at all costs.

In fact, less than two hours after deciding to keep the mural, the council was praising its spectacular upgrade of the Lake Pertobe maze, where old murals (painted by children?) were replaced by the works of street artists.

Unfortunately these children were not as famous as Rolf Harris.

And, as I have already written, local indigenous artist Fiona Clarke saw her mural at the Ozone carpark removed to make way for apartments, and nobody blinked an eye.

Unfortunately Fiona is not as famous as Rolf Harris.

In the art world and beyond, murals come and murals go and the Sheffield Council in the UK had no qualms – after Harris’s conviction on 12 counts of sexual assault – about painting over one of his murals on the side of the Sheffield Archives building.

An even earlier Harris mural, at the Sheffield swimming pool, had already been lost when the pool was demolished.

Removing a mural does not erase Harris’s crimes or stop sexual assault, but it is a symbolic gesture that sexual predators deserve nothing more than our disgust for the ruin they can inflict on their innocent victims.

Many of the people who wanted to see the Harris mural replaced are survivors, but to “out” yourself as a survivor in a regional city is enormously difficult because, often, the shame is still there and, in many cases, the perpetrator (even the dead ones) still garners respect.

I thought that the majority of our councillors absolutely understood this and, indeed, Cr Jacinta Ermacora (who earlier worked as a social worker at the South West Centre Against Sexual Assault) lifted my spirits when she told the council meeting that:

“One of the hardest things for survivors is to see their abusers continue their life in the community, unaffected, still respected in their community and sometimes even community leaders, while they, and their children, suffer and survive in confidential silence.”

I felt like leaping out of my chair and applauding.

But just as it appeared as if Cr Ermacora was about to crush the reputation of people like Harris hard under her heel, she went on to argue for all the reasons that the mural should remain, including that its future was irrelevant to the bigger picture of preventing sexual assault.

And then this:

“I don’t believe we should indulge in an angry, lynching squad armed with paint rollers, because that says more about ourselves than it does to our sensitivity and acknowledgement toward local survivors,” she said.

I have always admired Cr Ermacora as a strong woman who has achieved great heights in local government, but I still cannot understand where this attack was coming from, particularly when many members of of this metaphorical “lynching squad” were survivors.

Crs Sycopoulis, Gaston and Neoh have been equally as disappointing, falling somewhere between respecting survivors, not wanting to “destroy” art and finding a compromise that appears to have cheered no-one.

Only Crs Peter Hulin and Brian Kelson argued for removal and so the mural will remain, under black Perspex, for time immemorial, although I doubt anybody really believes that.

If this was really a victory for art, why is nobody celebrating?

Analysis: Carol Altmann

Why is Sovereign Hill in Ballarat still booming after 45 years and Flagstaff Hill in Warrnambool is struggling to survive?

Both are in regional Victoria, both opened in the early 70s and both rely on a mix of reality and fiction to capture our colonial past – yet their individual fortunes could not be more different.

The numbers for Sovereign Hill are simply staggering: in 2013-14 it recorded 731,000 visitors of which more than 100,000 came from overseas.

Flagstaff Hill recorded less than 60,000.

In 2013-14, Sovereign Hill turned over $24 million in revenue and recorded an operating profit of $775,000. It employs 360 staff and has 250 volunteers.

By contrast, Flagstaff Hill has gone from making a profit to running at loss of around $500,000 a year, it employs only 13.5 staff and has 135 volunteers.

The first response might be, oh, Sovereign Hill must receive more government funding. No, it relies on generating its own income to survive.

Oh, but it is only 90 mins from Melbourne! Yes, but Flagstaff Hill is only an hour from the 12 Apostles, one of the top tourist attractions in Australia.

Perhaps the entry fees are cheaper at Sovereign Hill? No, in fact they are more than double the entry fees to Flagstaff Hill at $49.50 adult/$22 child/$122 family.

To my mind, the difference comes down to two critical things: i) Sovereign Hill has aggressively and successfully gone after the lucrative Asian tourist market and ii) Sovereign Hill itself is full of life, characters and things to do.

In his submission to a recent state parliamentary inquiry into heritage and eco tourism, Sovereign Hill Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Johnson laid out some startling facts.

Having sniffed the wind early on the growing Asian tourism market, Sovereign Hill now employs four staff in China to sell itself as a destination direct to the Chinese. (In January it hosted a hugely successful 1850 fashion show and competition in Shanghai. See here.)

It also hires 17 Mandarin and Cantonese speaking tour guides on site – and has used such guides for 20 years.

Incredibly, one in three Chinese tourists to Victoria now visit Sovereign Hill.

Of course Flagstaff Hill has known about the burgeoning Asian market too, but only now is it lumbering into life to do anything about it, with an upgrade of its sound and light show that will be multi-lingual.

When I visited Flagstaff Hill a few weeks ago, there were no multi-lingual maps or signage, and the introductory film shown to all visitors is in muffled and difficult “olde” English (being extracts from a colonial diary).

There were certainly no Mandarin-speaking guides about, in fact there were very few people (visitors or volunteers) about at all, despite it being the height of the school holidays.

Which brings me to the second point. Flagstaff Hill is more static now than it was 30 years ago.

Tourists love things to see, do, touch and listen to, and this is where Sovereign Hill leaves Flagstaff Hill in the shade.

It Sovereign Hill, visitors can pan for gold, have their name printed on a “Wanted” poster, buy some Raspberry drops from the boiled sweet shop, or watch a building “burn” down, and on it goes…

At Flagstaff Hill, the visitors walk into the re-created shops, bar and blacksmiths etc expecting to see someone doing something and – apart from one or two exceptions such as the boatbuilders – there is nobody doing anything.

One more example: Ballarat is freezing in winter, even colder than Warrnambool. But Sovereign Hill turned this down-time into an up-time by launching a two-week Christmas in July event across the school holidays.

Among other things, they light up buildings, create fake snow, run plays by the local theatre group and, last year, the crowds reached a record 42,000. In other words, almost as many people visited Sovereign Hill in those two weeks than for two-thirds of the year at Flagstaff Hill.

So what is Flagstaff Hill doing in response to its troubles?

Well, it is about to spend another $3 million (on top of the $5.7m spent in 2003) “refreshing” the sound and light show ($2m), adding a handful of holograms rather than real people to its buildings – which sounds like a maintenance nightmare – and upgrading the wharf and main entrance.

According to its own masterplan, a full makeover of the village will cost up to $15 million, so rather than throw $3 million into it for little impact, we could try to do more with what we already have.

For example, if the council is persisting with the Fun4Kids Festival, why not hold it at Flagstaff Hill, refocus it with a strong maritime theme (pirates, stowaways, shipwrecks…) move it to the early January school holidays when – compared to events in Port Fairy, Warrnambool is dead – and run special trains from Melbourne (The Shipwreck Express?) that deliver visitors virtually to the door.

And why not offer studio space at Flagstaff Hill to the many artists and crafts folk around the area who do metal work, wood work, glass work, textiles and so forth, so that they get exposure (and sales) and visitors can see people in action?

And why not consolidate all of our historical artefacts in one place, rather than have them spread between Flagstaff Hill and History House (that few visitors even know exists), so that people can see, touch and learn about them?

Lastly, and most importantly, why not make more of the treasures at Flagstaff Hill, such as the Loch Ard ingots which, according to a report in the local paper, Flagstaff Hill founding member John Lindsay thinks are no longer that important at all.

Despite having several hundred of these lead ingots on site, there is not one explanatory sign telling visitors what they are or where they came from.

During my last visit to Flagstaff Hill I was in the Reginald M, that houses some of these ingots, and a young boy asked his mother what they were. She didn’t know, so I said that they had come off the Loch Ard shipwreck and he should try and lift one to see how heavy it was.

His eyes opened wider and he tried to lift one end.

“Orrrrrr.”

History comes alive in those moments – and, as Sovereign Hill well knows, they don’t cost a fortune, but they are pure gold.

Words and photos by Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] I [/dropcap]f next year’s Warrnambool City Council election wasn’t already shaping up as intriguing battle, it has got a whole lot more fascinating with law graduate Ed Mahony stepping into local politics.

He joins Warrnambool businesswoman Raelene Ponting as two fresh faces who have declared they will be among the 2016 candidates, giving Warrnambool ratepayers plenty of time to find out who they are, what they are about and what ideas they might bring to the table. (Former councillor Jennifer Lowe has also confirmed she will run again.)

Ed, 25, has already established himself as what media commentators call “someone to watch” with his political savviness and dynamic approach to getting things done, rather than just talking about it.

A case in point was his setting up a popular pop-up Laneway Bar in Liebig Street over the 2013-14 summer.

It was, unofficially, the first of the laneway events that rolled out in 2014 and created a buzz around what might be possible with Warrnambool’s untapped alleyways.

“A lot of people said to me at the time, ‘this is what you see in Europe’, but I said, ‘it’s also what you see in Melbourne’, so why can’t we do it here?,” Ed said.

Ed was also integral to setting up a Young Professionals Network in Warrnambool – he couldn’t believe there wasn’t already one in place – to encourage young people to stay in the area as they built their careers.

“There is this whole untapped market of young professionals who move to Warrnambool but don’t stay, or who commute back to Melbourne for their social life because they feel isolated here,” Ed explains.

“We started YPN (the other founders are Jayson Ward and Angie Paspaliaris) to address this, to offer a social network for newcomers so that they could get a sense of community here.”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] E [/dropcap]d was involved in both Young Professionals Warrnambool and the pop-up Laneway Bar while still living and studying law in Melbourne.

He grew up on dairy farm in Allansford, but moved away as a teenager to boarding school and has only returned home permanently last December after being offered a job at Dwyer Robinson law firm.

“It was the job that brought me back, but I love Warrnambool. It is a great place to live, an easy place to live and I see so much potential in this city,” Ed said.

Talking to Ed, his energy levels – even at the end of a working day – spark out of him: fingers tapping, eyes bright and a nimbleness in conversation that comes from travelling widely and, along the way, being mentored by some of the best in the business.

He explains how his winning a young entrepreneurs scholarship included the chance to work with two mentors and he already had his two in mind: Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle and Geelong Mayor Darryn Lyons.

These two men, together with National’s MLC (Western Victoria) David O’Brien, have been a guiding force as Ed works out how to best utilise business and politics to build a better community.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] L [/dropcap]ike Doyle and Lyons, Ed is a member of the Liberal Party but more of the ‘wet’ Malcolm Turnbull variety – whom he often quotes – than the ‘dry’ Tony Abbott variety.

“I see myself as someone who likes to questions people’s beliefs,” he said.

“But within that you need to be open to talking, to having an informed discussion and finding the middle ground.”

There are many things a potential councillor needs to care about, but one high on Ed’s list is planning: a dry word, but one that ultimately determines the shape and feel of a city.

We talk about the urban creep of Warrnambool into the farming areas on its fringe, while the city heart beats ever more slowly and empty shops remain empty.

He has plenty of ideas on how to address this – “I am someone who always looks for opportunities rather than pessimism” – and these will no doubt form part of his election campaign.

Ironically, a few days after this conversation, Ed is in Geelong on one of the balmiest evenings in the south-west all summer. He is running a pop-up Laneway Bar (Darryn Lyons is licensee) and the place is jumping.

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