ESSAYS ON BASS COAST LOCAL HISTORY

Tales from the Underground 3

30/6/2022

In the third and final part of John Bordignon’s memoir of working life of a coal miner, as told to him by Wonthaggi miners, he relates the accidents, near misses and bloody silly pranks that were part of working life underground.

Rescue workers at the Number 20 shaft after an explosion killed 13 miners in 1937.
Photo: Age archives

DURING the entire operation of the mines, over 58 years, about 80 men were killed – a shocking number, but when compared to coal mining throughout the world, Wonthaggi coal Mine was considered one of the safest. Nevertheless, there were thousands of accidents from cut fingers and toes to rocks coming down on you, and there were some amazing, amazing escapes.

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Tales of the underground

16/6/2022

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Part 2 of John Bordignon’s memoir of the working life of a coal miner, as told to him by Wonthaggi miners, including his own father.

Many of the mines were much shallower - the miners couldn't stand upright.

WESTERN Area was a very wet mine, not far from the ocean. The miners could work with water dripping on top of them all day long.

The opposite extreme was Kirrak Area where they had some of the deepest tunnels and they worked in heat about 35° to 40° with 80% humidity. It was murder.

At Kirrak, Dad and his mate, Blueboy, were putting a connection between two main tunnels that they called a ‘cut-through’. It was in an area they called Siberia. There they were working in a cut through about a metre high and the heat was so intense that they were getting hives all over themselves. You could go in there and work for half an hour/three-quarters of an hour and then get out in better air to recuperate for a while before they had to go back in again. The backs of their knees would just split open from all the sweat as they were kneeling while working. They had to take salt tablets while they worked in that section. Well, that’s the way it was.

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In search of Bridget

21/4/2022

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Bridget Wilson pictured with three of her four surviving children and their children. Jenny believes this was taken on Bridget’s 80th birthday when she went to live with The Little Sisters of the Poor.

CAPE Paterson resident Jenny Osler knew little of her great-grandmother, Bridget Wilson, other than that she was Irish and married a Norwegian sailor. All she had was a few family stories and three family photos, taken on Bridget’s 80th birthday.

Her mother had begun the research in pre-computer days. With the help of the Wonthaggi Genealogical Society, Jenny set out to fill in the gaps.

She says her interest in family history research is not in creating a never-ending family tree. but writing the story of her own ancestors within the social and political context of the time.

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The kiosk on the hill

8/4/2022

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Running the Cape Paterson kiosk in the 1960s was no easy task without electricity, a phone line or toilet, but for newlyweds Wazza and Janice Coldebella that was all part of the adventure.

THE foreshore kiosk at Cape Paterson served bathers, campers and Cape residents from the mid-1950s until shortly before it was demolished by the council of the day late in 1966. It was built by Bruno Storti to replace the first kiosk which had also been a popular spot but, sadly, had burnt down several years earlier. Bruno with his wife, Mary, ran the kiosk until the late 1950s when Attilio and Irma Storti, together with Irma’s brother Livio (Wazza) Coldebella took over the business.

It was about then that a beautiful young woman, Janice, one of the Milkins sisters, returned to Wonthaggi after four years of travelling adventures in Europe. She was only 21 years old. She had grown up in Wonthaggi, was an intelligent and precocious student at Wonthaggi Primary School and then the Tech; she was an avid reader, as well as a forward thinker and impatient for life and adventure. She insisted on leaving school after Form 2 [year 8], determined to find a way out of Wonthaggi to travel the world. Through her local doctor, she landed a job in Malvern as an au pair or nanny for the two children – twins – of a university professor on Sabbatical from England.

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Where are the women?

25/3/2022