A marriage breakdown brought David Norton to Bass Coast, where the healing power of nature and friendships helped him put his life together again.
By David Norton
I HAPPENED upon this area by accident after my marriage broke up and my best friend put me up in his onsite van at Newhaven. I loved the lights of San Remo from the foreshore with the bridge in all its glory. I would walk for hours up to the end of Cape Woolamai. It was therapeutic being among such beauty. My wicked angry thoughts disappeared as I couldn’t help but be mindful of the beauty and majesty of the wallabies, hawks, seals, penguins and mutton birds. It’s still my favourite place to go when I want to escape the noise and get back in tune with nature.
I found a house to rent in Cape Woolamai and moved in with my daughter. I was now officially a sea changer.
I secured a job with South Gippsland Catering Supplies that was physically demanding but a great way to see the countryside. I went everywhere between the Chelsea bottling plant and Korumburra and back to the Cowes depot. I would try different routes back from Korumburra via Wonthaggi, Archies Creek, Kernot, It beat being inside a warehouse all day picking orders for supermarkets.
I used to chat to the business owners, who all experienced extreme financial swings over the year. One referred to it as the bathtub effect, saying it was very good at the start and end of the year when the locals were around, plus three to four times more tourists, and then miserable in the middle of the year when the locals hitched up their caravans and headed north to follow the sun. Fortunately as an employee, I still had bottled milk to pick up as well as boxes of flake and chips to deliver to the Penguin Parade and fish `n` chip shops.
I managed to patch things up with my wife and she moved in with me on the island. The family was back together. The beach was just around the corner and we enjoyed walks through the foreshore dunes past fox skeletons (my stepson labelled it the animal graveyard) to the pounding breakers or over to the more casual bay beach after buying a minimum chips from the Cape Store both to eat and to feed to the hungry seagulls. It was always a sobering moment walking past the home of a past hero, Shirley Strachan of Skyhooks fame, who died too young in a helicopter crash.
The kids really enjoyed the smaller school at Newhaven and excelled in this environment versus the larger city schools where they were just a number in the crowd.
Through good fortune, there was a lull in work one year so, being the last to be put on, I was first to be put off. Good fortune in that there was an advertisement calling for interest in a new business course at Chisholm TAFE in Wonthaggi. I decided to go for it and set about making a business plan with the help of the instructors who taught me everything from marketing to book work. Marketing was my favourite subject and Liane, the instructor, finally managed to teach me the difference between marketing and advertising.
We had to trial our business in the market so we ran market stalls at Grantville and Cowes to test the market for second-hand goods. It was good but you couldn’t rely on the markets as they were either cancelled because the weather was rotten or the ground was damp and the CFA would be needed to pull the various bogged vehicles out. Or they would go from flat out in summer to dead as a dodo in winter (the bathtub effect).
We considered a shop in Bass. Fortunately we didn’t set up there as we would have failed miserably due to low traffic in the town even though thousands of cars pass through daily. Most people are trying to get to their destination and don’t like to stop along the way.
In March 1995, we secured a shop in the Westend Arcade in Wonthaggi. It had a low lease due to being inside the arcade so was manageable while we established the business. We used an ice cream container for our cash box and our dining table as the cash register. The displays were a motley bunch of card tables and market trestles with old doors on top along with some flimsy metal garage shelves. To attract people to the shop we would tie helium balloons onto our A-Frame sign and also walk the streets handing out flyers as well as informing people about the shop.
We sold old TVs, stereos, fridges, washers, books, VHS tapes and records. We soon realised that it was books our customers wanted so replenished and built up stocks up while reducing the electrical items, which were both expensive to have checked for safety and people usually wanted almost as much for them as you would pay for a new one. We slowly scored cheap shelving from different businesses that were closing down, like a video shelf from a video hire in Cowes and some metal basket trolleys from Speeds shoe store in Wonthaggi. Gradually the business started to resemble a shop rather than a temporary garage sale.
During this time we were making new friends with the locals and people from the surrounding suburbs and farms. With good fortune again, we happened upon a customer who loved buying trivia books and games as he ran trivia nights as fund-raisers for local community groups. He also had a great love of music, especially motown, funk and soul artists as well as rock `n` roll and popular music so he cleaned out most of the CD collection I had used to help get the cash flow happening in the business. This was Denis McRae, with whom I became best friends. Later we managed to get a gig on the local radio station 3MFM where we got to play our music from 8-11pm every Friday night – perfect.
Denis proved an invaluable source of local information and has become an integral part of the business as people come to see him for his knowledge and helpfulness in finding the books they are after. Being a semi-retired farmer, his time was shared between running his farm and family commitments. Customers found it hard to believe that Denis wasn’t the owner or that he was a farmer and had to go to cattle markets and maintain his fences. He sources books for us whenever he is out and about. Even on holiday in Perth, he managed to find treasures to fill his suitcase with.
The funniest episode of our friendship was on a trip to the Parramatta record fair when we had trouble filling the van gas bottle in Goulburn. Maybe the giant merino was laughing at us that day. After trying three service stations in the town, we took the van to a garage to check out why the bottle wouldn’t fill. When we returned from lunch, the mechanic told us our bottle was in fact so full of gas that it was going from our bottle into their test bottle. He then informed us that we had been driving with petrol, not gas. That’s when the aha! moment came and lots of laughs when I remembered that I had to switch to petrol prior to refilling in Gundagai only I had forgotten to switch it back to gas on departure. To this day, Denis and I are still jibed with taunts like “Has the gas run out yet?”.
David Norton runs the Wonthaggi Book Exchange (Ramalama).
COMMENTS
June 11, 2016
There I was reading the Post - not even noting the name of the author - and then saw my name referred in it as the teacher who showed the writer the difference between marketing and advertising. David Norton was quite a remarkable student - and was bound to succeed. It only goes to show what a wonderful integrated community that we live in where we can all help each other. David is of course now next to ArtSpace Wonthaggi and has helped us to do short video. What goes around - comes around.
Liane Arno, Wonthaggi
Great BCP issue especially Natasha's cartoon.
Bob Middleton, Jeetho West
June 4, 2016
I remember all of this as a friend of David and his family ... inbetween all of what has been written, David also used to work for me delivering catalogues for customers to their letterbox in San Remo for many years.
I love David’s business and have bought many good DVDs and history books from him.
Meet him leaving a garage sale with boxes of great books and dvd’s ... saying to me “I have all the good ones”.
When I found out he has put his business up for sale, I said to him “Why now? I would have loved to buy it 15 years earlier, but I don’t have that time in my life left.” What a great buy for the book lover. I understand life must move on, but David is an icon of our book store.
Noelene Lyons
I HAPPENED upon this area by accident after my marriage broke up and my best friend put me up in his onsite van at Newhaven. I loved the lights of San Remo from the foreshore with the bridge in all its glory. I would walk for hours up to the end of Cape Woolamai. It was therapeutic being among such beauty. My wicked angry thoughts disappeared as I couldn’t help but be mindful of the beauty and majesty of the wallabies, hawks, seals, penguins and mutton birds. It’s still my favourite place to go when I want to escape the noise and get back in tune with nature.
I found a house to rent in Cape Woolamai and moved in with my daughter. I was now officially a sea changer.
I secured a job with South Gippsland Catering Supplies that was physically demanding but a great way to see the countryside. I went everywhere between the Chelsea bottling plant and Korumburra and back to the Cowes depot. I would try different routes back from Korumburra via Wonthaggi, Archies Creek, Kernot, It beat being inside a warehouse all day picking orders for supermarkets.
I used to chat to the business owners, who all experienced extreme financial swings over the year. One referred to it as the bathtub effect, saying it was very good at the start and end of the year when the locals were around, plus three to four times more tourists, and then miserable in the middle of the year when the locals hitched up their caravans and headed north to follow the sun. Fortunately as an employee, I still had bottled milk to pick up as well as boxes of flake and chips to deliver to the Penguin Parade and fish `n` chip shops.
I managed to patch things up with my wife and she moved in with me on the island. The family was back together. The beach was just around the corner and we enjoyed walks through the foreshore dunes past fox skeletons (my stepson labelled it the animal graveyard) to the pounding breakers or over to the more casual bay beach after buying a minimum chips from the Cape Store both to eat and to feed to the hungry seagulls. It was always a sobering moment walking past the home of a past hero, Shirley Strachan of Skyhooks fame, who died too young in a helicopter crash.
The kids really enjoyed the smaller school at Newhaven and excelled in this environment versus the larger city schools where they were just a number in the crowd.
Through good fortune, there was a lull in work one year so, being the last to be put on, I was first to be put off. Good fortune in that there was an advertisement calling for interest in a new business course at Chisholm TAFE in Wonthaggi. I decided to go for it and set about making a business plan with the help of the instructors who taught me everything from marketing to book work. Marketing was my favourite subject and Liane, the instructor, finally managed to teach me the difference between marketing and advertising.
We had to trial our business in the market so we ran market stalls at Grantville and Cowes to test the market for second-hand goods. It was good but you couldn’t rely on the markets as they were either cancelled because the weather was rotten or the ground was damp and the CFA would be needed to pull the various bogged vehicles out. Or they would go from flat out in summer to dead as a dodo in winter (the bathtub effect).
We considered a shop in Bass. Fortunately we didn’t set up there as we would have failed miserably due to low traffic in the town even though thousands of cars pass through daily. Most people are trying to get to their destination and don’t like to stop along the way.
In March 1995, we secured a shop in the Westend Arcade in Wonthaggi. It had a low lease due to being inside the arcade so was manageable while we established the business. We used an ice cream container for our cash box and our dining table as the cash register. The displays were a motley bunch of card tables and market trestles with old doors on top along with some flimsy metal garage shelves. To attract people to the shop we would tie helium balloons onto our A-Frame sign and also walk the streets handing out flyers as well as informing people about the shop.
We sold old TVs, stereos, fridges, washers, books, VHS tapes and records. We soon realised that it was books our customers wanted so replenished and built up stocks up while reducing the electrical items, which were both expensive to have checked for safety and people usually wanted almost as much for them as you would pay for a new one. We slowly scored cheap shelving from different businesses that were closing down, like a video shelf from a video hire in Cowes and some metal basket trolleys from Speeds shoe store in Wonthaggi. Gradually the business started to resemble a shop rather than a temporary garage sale.
During this time we were making new friends with the locals and people from the surrounding suburbs and farms. With good fortune again, we happened upon a customer who loved buying trivia books and games as he ran trivia nights as fund-raisers for local community groups. He also had a great love of music, especially motown, funk and soul artists as well as rock `n` roll and popular music so he cleaned out most of the CD collection I had used to help get the cash flow happening in the business. This was Denis McRae, with whom I became best friends. Later we managed to get a gig on the local radio station 3MFM where we got to play our music from 8-11pm every Friday night – perfect.
Denis proved an invaluable source of local information and has become an integral part of the business as people come to see him for his knowledge and helpfulness in finding the books they are after. Being a semi-retired farmer, his time was shared between running his farm and family commitments. Customers found it hard to believe that Denis wasn’t the owner or that he was a farmer and had to go to cattle markets and maintain his fences. He sources books for us whenever he is out and about. Even on holiday in Perth, he managed to find treasures to fill his suitcase with.
The funniest episode of our friendship was on a trip to the Parramatta record fair when we had trouble filling the van gas bottle in Goulburn. Maybe the giant merino was laughing at us that day. After trying three service stations in the town, we took the van to a garage to check out why the bottle wouldn’t fill. When we returned from lunch, the mechanic told us our bottle was in fact so full of gas that it was going from our bottle into their test bottle. He then informed us that we had been driving with petrol, not gas. That’s when the aha! moment came and lots of laughs when I remembered that I had to switch to petrol prior to refilling in Gundagai only I had forgotten to switch it back to gas on departure. To this day, Denis and I are still jibed with taunts like “Has the gas run out yet?”.
David Norton runs the Wonthaggi Book Exchange (Ramalama).
COMMENTS
June 11, 2016
There I was reading the Post - not even noting the name of the author - and then saw my name referred in it as the teacher who showed the writer the difference between marketing and advertising. David Norton was quite a remarkable student - and was bound to succeed. It only goes to show what a wonderful integrated community that we live in where we can all help each other. David is of course now next to ArtSpace Wonthaggi and has helped us to do short video. What goes around - comes around.
Liane Arno, Wonthaggi
Great BCP issue especially Natasha's cartoon.
Bob Middleton, Jeetho West
June 4, 2016
I remember all of this as a friend of David and his family ... inbetween all of what has been written, David also used to work for me delivering catalogues for customers to their letterbox in San Remo for many years.
I love David’s business and have bought many good DVDs and history books from him.
Meet him leaving a garage sale with boxes of great books and dvd’s ... saying to me “I have all the good ones”.
When I found out he has put his business up for sale, I said to him “Why now? I would have loved to buy it 15 years earlier, but I don’t have that time in my life left.” What a great buy for the book lover. I understand life must move on, but David is an icon of our book store.
Noelene Lyons