Valda Unthank and Hubert Opperman enjoy "the health food of a nation". By Catherine Watson
Wonthaggi Historical Society’s mini history talks have become an unlikely highlight of summer.
The talks, which started in the summer of 2022, explore the highways and the byways of Wonthaggi’s rich history, not just the big events – the unions, the mine, the social history – but the sports clubs, the characters, the mishaps, the pubs, the myths and legends.
The title says it all. 15 Minutes of History. Every day at 11.30am, someone gives a talk about an aspect of Wonthaggi’s history. Then the audience responds. It is citizen history at its best.
More than 700 people attended last summer’s talks. Faye Quilford, who organises the talks with Irene Williams, says the popularity has grown by word of mouth.
“I think it’s because they’re quirky. Our presenters are passionate about their topic and that makes them eloquent. And it’s short and sharp. Start at 11.30am, finish at noon.”
Wonthaggi Historical Society’s mini history talks have become an unlikely highlight of summer.
The talks, which started in the summer of 2022, explore the highways and the byways of Wonthaggi’s rich history, not just the big events – the unions, the mine, the social history – but the sports clubs, the characters, the mishaps, the pubs, the myths and legends.
The title says it all. 15 Minutes of History. Every day at 11.30am, someone gives a talk about an aspect of Wonthaggi’s history. Then the audience responds. It is citizen history at its best.
More than 700 people attended last summer’s talks. Faye Quilford, who organises the talks with Irene Williams, says the popularity has grown by word of mouth.
“I think it’s because they’re quirky. Our presenters are passionate about their topic and that makes them eloquent. And it’s short and sharp. Start at 11.30am, finish at noon.”
They advertise the topics but not the speakers and that’s deliberate. The prosaic titles give no hint of the riches within. Last summer I debated with myself whether to attend “Wonthaggi State School Pool”. It sounded dreary but I went because I felt no one else would go. How wrong I was. There was standing room only and what a tale Wonthaggi historian and author Sam Gatto spun.
Don’t quote me on the details but the gist of it was that in the 1920s or 30s an ageing teacher came from the city to fill in as headmaster at Wonthaggi State School. Rather than marking time until his retirement, he got it into his head that Wonthaggi kids should learn to swim so they wouldn’t drown at the beach.
He fired up the town, which raised the money and built a swimming pool. Well, they were miners and good at digging! So humble old Wonthaggi State School became one of the first schools in Australia to get a pool.
It was a great story, complete with an unlikely hero in that old teacher who dreamed big.
The charm of 15 Minutes of History is that once the presenter is finished, the audience has their go. Former pupils who had swum in that pool in the 50s, 60s and 70s filled in the missing bits and added the colour.
All of it is recorded and some of the sessions end up as stories in the society’s newsletter, The Plod, courtesy of essayist Carolyn Landon. I like to think that centuries hence, serious students of history will be enjoying these stories.
The summer 2025 series is a great mix of the popular and the obscure: The Wonthaggi Monster, Crays and gars with tails like axe handles: Fishing yarns of the Bunurong Coast; Establishment of licensed premises in Wonthaggi 1909 to 1915; and Wonthaggi’s Champion Cyclist Valda Unthank.
I would try any of them but Valda sounds particularly intriguing. During her short-lived racing career in the 1930s, she smashed record after record on her marathon rides. She rode from Adelaide to Melbourne, a distance of 475 miles (760kms) in 33 hours and 43 minutes, breaking the previous women’s record by 37 hours and the men’s record by over 13 hours.
She was so famous that she appeared alongside Hubert Opperman in Peters Ice Cream advertisements. After the war she returned to Wonthaggi to rejoin her family.
Faye has taken on the telling of Valda’s incredible story and she has a personal connection. “When I was teaching at Wonthaggi High School we used to do community service on Friday afternoons. I’d take a small gardening group and we’d do Valda’s garden about once a month. She lived where the Alex Scott office is now, on the corner of Billson and Murray streets.
“She never mentioned what she’d accomplished. I didn’t realise how successful she’d been until her trophies came to the historical society.”
Another promising topic for the coming summer season is Wonthaggi Women’s Football. Fifty years before the AFL made a big deal about women playing football, there was a women’s team playing in Wonthaggi.
As Faye points out, it’s hard to find the evidence in the local newspapers since women’s sport of any kind was never mentioned in any newspaper until a decade ago, but the historical society has a photo of the team.
Fittingly Frank Angrane – father of Ella and Tess, two stars in the local Bass Coast Breakers team – has taken on the topic. He is researching it at this very moment, including interviews with local players. I can’t wait to see what he’s discovered.
Don’t quote me on the details but the gist of it was that in the 1920s or 30s an ageing teacher came from the city to fill in as headmaster at Wonthaggi State School. Rather than marking time until his retirement, he got it into his head that Wonthaggi kids should learn to swim so they wouldn’t drown at the beach.
He fired up the town, which raised the money and built a swimming pool. Well, they were miners and good at digging! So humble old Wonthaggi State School became one of the first schools in Australia to get a pool.
It was a great story, complete with an unlikely hero in that old teacher who dreamed big.
The charm of 15 Minutes of History is that once the presenter is finished, the audience has their go. Former pupils who had swum in that pool in the 50s, 60s and 70s filled in the missing bits and added the colour.
All of it is recorded and some of the sessions end up as stories in the society’s newsletter, The Plod, courtesy of essayist Carolyn Landon. I like to think that centuries hence, serious students of history will be enjoying these stories.
The summer 2025 series is a great mix of the popular and the obscure: The Wonthaggi Monster, Crays and gars with tails like axe handles: Fishing yarns of the Bunurong Coast; Establishment of licensed premises in Wonthaggi 1909 to 1915; and Wonthaggi’s Champion Cyclist Valda Unthank.
I would try any of them but Valda sounds particularly intriguing. During her short-lived racing career in the 1930s, she smashed record after record on her marathon rides. She rode from Adelaide to Melbourne, a distance of 475 miles (760kms) in 33 hours and 43 minutes, breaking the previous women’s record by 37 hours and the men’s record by over 13 hours.
She was so famous that she appeared alongside Hubert Opperman in Peters Ice Cream advertisements. After the war she returned to Wonthaggi to rejoin her family.
Faye has taken on the telling of Valda’s incredible story and she has a personal connection. “When I was teaching at Wonthaggi High School we used to do community service on Friday afternoons. I’d take a small gardening group and we’d do Valda’s garden about once a month. She lived where the Alex Scott office is now, on the corner of Billson and Murray streets.
“She never mentioned what she’d accomplished. I didn’t realise how successful she’d been until her trophies came to the historical society.”
Another promising topic for the coming summer season is Wonthaggi Women’s Football. Fifty years before the AFL made a big deal about women playing football, there was a women’s team playing in Wonthaggi.
As Faye points out, it’s hard to find the evidence in the local newspapers since women’s sport of any kind was never mentioned in any newspaper until a decade ago, but the historical society has a photo of the team.
Fittingly Frank Angrane – father of Ella and Tess, two stars in the local Bass Coast Breakers team – has taken on the topic. He is researching it at this very moment, including interviews with local players. I can’t wait to see what he’s discovered.