Clifford and Jean Osborne on their wedding day. Fascinated by the refusal of Aussie servicemen to salute, Clifford Osborne decided to emigrate to Australia after the war. By a stroke of luck, he and his young bride came to Wonthaggi.
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Clifford and Jean Osborne on their wedding day.
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 By Carolyn Landon
I LOVE to quote from an article published in The Powlett Express in 1909. It is without a byline but is probably written by the first editor,Mr Cranage: “Last spring, the Powlett plains were a wilderness. Scarcely a fence was seen and the lonely horseman might gallop for miles across the sword grass seeing no life but the flocks of plover rising and circling over the solitary marshes.”  By Carolyn Landon
IT’S winter, the wettest and coldest of winters, it seems to me. I know two people who have or have had pneumonia this year and many people with colds or some kind of neuralgia. I thought it might be interesting to see what made Wonthaggians infirm in the very early years. Here are some popular remedies for what seemed to ail us. ONLY A COLD, YOU SAY… Dr Sheldon’s New Discovery for Coughs and Colds: Safeguard the children, take care of their little colds. It is only a little cold, you say; still it often means a lot of suffering for the little folk and worry for mother, so be wise and get the best that can be had. Dr Sheldon’s New Discovery is a wonderful remedy for all Coughs and colds, precenting influenza, Pneumonia, and Bronchitis.  Five feet nothing, the diminutive Ruby Connelly and her band were the most sought-after dance musicians in South Gippsland.
 In the wake of this week's demolition of Wonthaggi's old co-op bakery, CAROLYN LANDON reflects on the role of the co-operative movement - and the bakery - in the former coal mining town.
 The Land Beyond the Sunset, 1912. Starring Martin Fuller. Produced by the Fresh Air Fund. By Carolyn Landon
IN 1910, Wonthaggi miners without their families were hungry for entertainment. They had their football, boxing, foot races and cricket among other things. They also had their band, but, as their wives and children began to join them on the coalfield, they needed more. The women wanted something social and something to dress up for. They began holding dances for any reason any night of the week. Consequently, Wonthaggi was filled with halls of varying types and sizes to hold dances in, among them Henry’s Hall, White’s Hall, the Lyceum Hall, Smiths’ Hall.  By Carolyn Landon
“WHEN, in 1934, the wives of striking Wonthaggi Miners formed their own broad committee to support the strike, Australian history was made,” wrote Noel Maud in the Sentinel Times in April 1988. During the five-month strike in 1934, the militant miners at the Wonthaggi State Coal Mine took over control of the strike organisation and formed, for the first time in Australian union history, a broad committee (comprising all sections of the union) for relief funds, entertainment and propaganda. Under the direction of Arthur Asquith and Tom Currie, 60 volunteers formed into sub-committees operating from the Miners’ Union Theatre. After the June elections, the women were asked to help. So they formed a women’s broad committee and co-operated with the men in relief, especially for children and mothers.  One competitor broke his ankle, another had to be rushed to hospital and Texas Lil’s horse fell on her. The 1952 Lance Creek rodeo had plenty of excitement.
 Powlett Express editor Tom Gannon was loved and hated in equal measure, but nobody wanted to miss what he was writing about. By Carolyn Landon
Tom Gannon became a newspaperman at a young age, when, during WWII his father took him out of St Patrick’s College in Sale to work for him at the family newspaper in Wonthaggi. When he entered the newsroom to work alongside his father, Tom Senior, he represented the third generation of Gannon newspapermen in Gippsland. His grandfather, Malachy, established the Korumburra Advocate in 1899, and his father took over the Powlett Express in 1912. If you’ve ever been dubious about safety air bags, Carolyn Landon's experience might change your mind. Without them, she wouldn't be alive to tell this tale, which she wrote to her family in the US after a high-speed crash on Monday.
 Funeral procession for a miner, Wonthaggi, 1922. Photo: Joseph Hunter Hyslop, courtesy of Museum Victoria In the early 1990s, Nell Sleeman wrote down her memories of life in Wonthaggi in the 1920s and 1930s. Twenty years later, her words have the authentic flavour of another world.
 Wonthaggi’s original bakehouse is under threat, and not for the first time. In 2007, when the following essay was published, the council was considering an application for demolition. On that occasion, it was refused.
 The Wonthaggi mine whistle BY Carolyn Landon
AS THE headline in this week’s (09/04/2013) Star says, “Whistle is Back!” It had been off-line for a few months while the fellows at the State Coal Mine figured out what was wrong with it and, once they did that, scrounged up the small part needed to fix the valve, and then located someone brave enough to climb up the nine-metre-high tower and fix it.  Lyn Chambers, 1918-2013 A mother, teacher, librarian, historian, author and activist, Lyn Chambers believed everything we do is ultimately a political decision. Carolyn Landon recalls a modest woman who made a big impact on Wonthaggi.
 First passenger train arrives in Wonthaggi, May 1912 This month marks the centenary of the Wonthaggi Railway Station building, now the home of the Wonthaggi Historical Society.
As a two-mile fire front races from Wonthaggi towards Cape Paterson, a constable gallops across town taking a four-year-old boy to safety ... Carolyn Landon reports on the great fire of February 14, 1944 when eight houses were razed and many more were saved by the efforts of some 700 volunteers.
 Coffee pots, polenta pans, musical instruments and tools of trade were in the luggage of Italian migrants who arrived in Wonthaggi in the 1950s. For tailor Sam Scimonello, life was unthinkable without his sewing machine.
Whale watching in Wonthaggi, by Carolyn Landon  The 22-metre whale that washed ashore at Wreck Beach (Harmers Haven) in 1923 |
