Unlocking the Past 2017

Local resident turned historian, Jack Delaney, undertook a remarkable project in the 1970s and 1980s. Realising that so many of our local stories went unrecorded and that when many elderly residents passed away they took not only their stories, but our region’s history with them - he decided to act.

Jack began interviewing as many people as he could, particularly from the coalfields area, deliberately seeking out ordinary people whose lives often went undocumented. The result is an astounding oral history collection containing hundreds of interviews, which he deposited for safe keeping with the Coalfields Heritage Group.

These interviews were recorded on audio cassette tapes, a vulnerable medium as the tape itself deteriorates over time. In a wonderful example of historical organisations working together, the Coalfields Heritage Group gave the University of Newcastle access to Jack’s tapes so they could be saved in a digital format.

Digitisation is essential for oral history projects, as it makes these precious recordings accessible to everyone. But digitisation comes with a sting in the tail, it’s fiendishly expensive. A generous grant from the Coal & Allied Community Development Fund allowed the project to go ahead.

The interviews themselves are pure gold, with my favourite being Jack’s conversation with barber Mick Morris. Jack chats with Mick while having a haircut and the natural informality between them, as Mick snips away while answering Jack’s questions, is utterly delightful. Their discussion ranges across a working life in Bellbird and Aberdare Collieries and his memories of the coalfields’ old barber shops.

Many of Jack Delaney’s interviewees have passed away, as has Jack himself, but because his interviews have been digitised the extraordinary recordings he created are available to everyone.

This Thursday morning Cessnock Library will be welcoming a member of the University team which undertook this project. We’ll be shown how to engage with these oral histories online and best of all we will be playing some of the interviews, hearing Hunter voices again for the first time since they were originally recorded decades ago. 

Hundreds of Jack’s interviews are now available with more being added every week. You can listen to them on SoundCloud, a public audio platform. The University of Newcastle ‘Voices of the Hunter’ project can be found here. 

In the early years of the 20^th century a Russian Jewish immigrant, Jascha Gopinko, arrived in Kurri Kurri. He was seeking work, but despite being fluent in French, Russian and German his English was poor. He eventually found work in the coal mines but struggled financially, describing himself as a ‘terrible miner’.

Jascha may not have been a good miner, but he was an excellent musician and a gifted music teacher. His beautiful violin playing so inspired his fellow miners that when he created the Kurri Kurri Mandolin Orchestra it was composed mainly of his colliery work mates. Jascha also went on to found the Kurri Kurri Symphony Orchestra and became a much-loved member of the community, instructing hundreds of local children in the violin, cello and mandolin.

In a newspaper interview in 1926 Jascha declared “There is an abundance of musical talent in Cessnock” so much so that he went on to form the Cessnock Symphony Orchestra, convinced that it would become one of the best orchestras in the State.

Despite being embraced by the local community he was viewed with suspicion by the Investigation Branch of the Attorney-General’s Department, who for years refused his request for Australian citizenship. Records from the National Archives of Australia document the government’s suspicions that Jascha was a communist sympathiser and noted that his presence on the coalfields was ‘most worrying’. They questioned whether he was here solely to stir up trouble and politicise the miners.

Jascha and his wife Rebecca moved to Sydney in 1936 and he became as a full-time music teacher, but he didn’t ever forget the Hunter. For decades he returned to Maitland and Cessnock on the weekends, teaching music to his enthusiastic local students. While many of his students went on to great acclaim, including Ernest Llewellyn a Cessnock Hall of Fame member, Jascha himself is barely remembered. As he got older he became increasingly deaf, but continued to teach until almost the end of his life. He died in 1980.

Jascha Gopinko’s story has inspired an exhibition ‘Remembering Jascha’ which will be held in the Cessnock Library foyer between 20-28 March. It has been timed to coincide with Harmony Day, a celebration of our cultural diversity and a day of respect for everyone who calls Australia home. 

The compassion and expert medical care given by nurses has made them one of the most respected professions in Australia and at Cessnock we have a hospital with a wonderful nursing history.

The Cessnock District Hospital opened on 14 June 1914, with the staff a modest eight people including the first Matron, Sister E. Rutledge-Newton and three nurses. There were no nurses’ quarters and no kitchen, with meals cooked on an ordinary household stove in a small room near one of the wards. One contemporary account describes the smell from the food ‘permeating the ward’ and ‘not at all advantageous to the health of some of the patients’.

For nurses their shifts were a gruelling 12 hours per day, but Cessnock Hospital was soon to be an innovator, in 1918 becoming the first NSW hospital to introduce straight eight-hour shifts.

The title ‘nurse’ was used for enrolled nurses who were still studying; part of their uniform was a cap used to keep hair neat and tidy. Once qualified these trainees became registered nurses, who had the right to be called ‘sister’ and wear the distinctive large white veil.

From the 1940s onwards worldwide nursing shortages became severe. This global problem was felt here in Cessnock where the nursing situation was described by the Hospital’s Secretary, John Brown, as ‘desperate’. It was so bad that in 1946 the men’s surgical ward and part of the women’s medical ward were closed due to a lack of nursing staff.

The hospital board took action. Meeting the NSW Minister for Health, Gus Kelly, the board strongly expressed its view that the only way to encourage young women to enter the nursing profession was to improve their wages and conditions. Not content with the government’s response they turned to Australian Council of Trade Unions, asking the organisation to use its influence to obtain an increase in nurses’ salaries.

The critical situation continued, with the hospital’s 1950 Annual Report calling for girls to be legally allowed to begin training at 17 years old in order to alleviate the on-going shortage. It also noted that the nurses’ quarters were so inadequate that many had to go home to sleep, rather than live-in as was preferred, because there simply were not enough beds for them.  

Our nurses are the backbone of the health care delivery system – Cessnock nurses we salute you! 

The Hunter Valley has a proud history of retail co-operatives, stores owned and managed by their customers who supply the capital to build the business and then share in its profits. It’s a wonderful consumer model where the customer wins and a business grows.

In Cessnock we had an extraordinarily successful Co-op which ran for 70 years and sold everything. From birth, even to death, there was a service or a product available for its members. Selling groceries, haberdashery, children’s and baby’s needs, footwear, women’s and men’s’ clothing, the Co-op was a true one-stop shop.

It took control of some food production too, having its own in-house bakery a large two-storey building known as the Bread and Pastry Factory. It had multiple butchery departments across its many branches, even owning 200 acres at Nulkaba bought specifically to use as slaughter yards.

The Cessnock and Aberdare Co-operative Society Limited opened its doors 110 years ago in May 1907, operating out of a small rented shop. Despite these humble beginnings the business was an immediate success. By the end of that year the Co-op had bought its first block of land, on the corner of Vincent and Cooper Streets, constructing a large two-storey premises which opened in 1909.

The Co-operative model was so successful that it opened branch stores: Bellbird in 1917, Kearsley in 1918, Aberdare in 1919, West Cessnock and Paxton in 1926. The world was changing and the Co-op changed with it, in 1935 building a large modern petrol station to service the growing private car market.

One of the most intriguing parts of the Co-op business was their move into interments. When an undertaker’s business in Hall Street came up for sale they snapped it up, adding a beautiful chapel and becoming the first Co-operative Society in Australia to establish a funeral department.

The Cessnock District Co-operative Society Limited, as it later became known, began to falter from the late 1960s. Its situation became increasingly critical, eventually forcing the shareholder members to amalgamate with the Newcastle and Suburban Co-Operative Store from August 1977. Three years later the Newcastle Co-op closed its doors. One co-operative store continued and became the last one handing +in the Hunter Valley - Singleton, which closed in 1993.

In 1923 the sport of vigoro arrived in Cessnock and was an instant hit. The Weston Magpies Girls Vigoro Club was formed, along with four other clubs with the lyrical names Sunshine, Bellbird Kia-Ora, Rovers and the Shamrocks.

The Cessnock Vigoro Association was soon set up and a formal competition organised with 11 teams playing. The Magpies had so many women playing that they started a second team with Magpies no. 1 regularly at, or near, the top of the competition ladder.

Barely six months after the vigoro competition began the individual teams had developed their own passionate fan base, games were regularly attracting thousands of spectators and the first reports of poaching of players had emerged. Vigoro was played at local parks, usually on a Saturday afternoon. With no entry charge to get in and the games being fast-moving and entertaining it soon proved to be hugely popular.

But this enthusiasm for vigoro initially alarmed the local newspapers. They labelled it a ‘craze’, a game with a puzzling and ‘extraordinary fascination’ for women and one which might be tempting married women away from their ‘domestic duties’. However they did concede that at least all that running around had a positive aspect – it was an ‘antidote for fatness’.

All sporting teams need to raise funds and vigoro was no different. The Magpies held a social at the Olympia Hall, Weston which attracted almost 200 people who danced until 2.00am. Other popular fundraising strategies were so-called ‘penny raffles’ (because tickets were a penny each) and house parties. A house party was basically a backyard concert with a cover price of six pence. Supper was provided by volunteers and the night’s entertainment consisted of anyone who could sing, or play a musical instrument and was game enough to get up and perform.

On 1 December 1923 the final match of the year was played with two of the original teams in the competition, Magpies no. 1 and the Rovers, facing off against each other. A big crowd watched the Magpies claim victory, beating the Rovers by 104 runs. Go the mighty Magpies! 

Our region’s coal mines and the wealth they produced came at a serious human cost, with the industry studded with tragic deaths which tore families and communities apart. On 19 July this year two women are remembering the day 60 years ago that an extensive coal fall at Pelaw Main Colliery took the life of their father and changed their family forever.

Pelaw Main Colliery opened on 28 December 1900, the first mine to be opened in the area soon to become famous as the resource-rich South Maitland coalfields. The colliery was known for the production of high quality gas coal which was in demand in Newcastle and Sydney. The mine was socially significant too, as it was the major employer of men in the township of Pelaw Main with the local economy almost completely dependent, in one way or another, on mine-related income.

One of those miners was returned serviceman Kenneth Roderick, 39, who walked to his shifts at the colliery from his home in Gillies Street, Kurri Kurri. He must have been looking forward to the weekend as the night before he’d casually remarked to Violet, his wife of 10 years, “thank heavens tomorrow is Friday”.

The morning of Friday, 19 July 1957 started just like every other, but within a couple of hours Kenneth would be killed by a violent explosion which tore through the Pelaw Main Colliery leaving Violet a widow and their two daughters, nine year-old Marilyn and seven year-old Kathryn, without a father.

Kenneth Roderick and workmate James Grainger were working in an old section of the mine at 9.30am when, unknown to them, there was an extensive fall of coal within the mine. This fall caused a massive blast of air, described by miners later as ‘travelling with the force of a cyclone’, whose impact was so great it threw men to the ground and against the tunnel walls. Witnesses said there was no warning, just a great rush of air, with its ferocity so intense that it knocked miners half a mile further down the tunnel off their feet, lifted pit ponies into the air and filled the mine with thick dust.

James and Kenneth had left the coal face where they were working and were walking a horse pulling three full skips of coal. James stopped while Kenneth went on ahead. Suddenly a breeze blew through the mine and James, knowing this indicated a fall in, became alarmed, jumping for cover as the massive blast roared past him. He couldn’t see for the swirling dust, but kept calling out to his friend – there was no reply.

When the dust cleared he went for help, joining a search party who found Kenneth’s body lying among tons of mangled skips and coal. The force of the blast had thrown him against a steel stanchion post, severely fracturing his skull and neck and killing him immediately.

Outside the mine the emergency siren wailed, its dreadful sound heard throughout Pelaw Main. Relatives of miners ran to the colliery, urgently seeking news of their loved ones underground. Doctors and ambulances came from Cessnock and Kurri Kurri, with three ambulances running a shuttle service from the mine to Kurri Kurri hospital. Twenty miners were injured, with nine hospitalised for back injuries and fractures. One of the injured was Kenneth’s older brother, Claude.

An enquiry into the colliery blast by Kurri Kurri Coroner, R. G. Rice, ruled that Kenneth Roderick’s death was an accident and was part of the inherent dangers of the coal mining industry. He concluded “It is disquieting to laymen that miners work under such conditions, but the miners themselves have come to accept accidents such as this as hazards of their calling.”

Jim Comerford, Northern President of the Miners Federation, hit back “The experiences of miners has taught them that it is not the men themselves, but the [mine] owners who regard such accidents as hazards of the miners’ calling. The miners, by many industrial struggles on safety issues have shown their belief that such accidents are certainly not inevitable, but could be avoided by proper care.”

Three and a half years later, in early 1961, the Pelaw Main Colliery closed. Just as it has been the first mine opened on the coalfields, it became the last operating contract mine, with only Richmond Main colliery left on the Kurri Kurri field. In its lifetime the industry would claim many lives, including Kenneth Roderick’s.

1880 was a watershed year for school education in NSW. The Public Instruction Act was passed, making it compulsory for all children aged between six and 14 years to attend school regularly.

The philosophy which lay behind these reforms was sound. Schooling was central in creating a well-balanced, literate child one who had basic numeracy skills. As these children would form the backbone of the next generation of adults, giving them a good education would bring great benefit to Australian society as a whole.  

The children helped greatest by the Act were the most vulnerable. Large families, particularly rural ones, often could not afford to educate all their children, or required them to be working on the family farm, not sitting in a school room. The reforms had a gender benefit too. As education at government schools was free, families no longer had to make a financial choice about whether or not they could afford to educate their daughters.

In the years following these educational reforms Vara Selina King, daughter of renowned Mount Pleasant vigneron Charles King and his wife Elizabeth, attended a one-room school at Pokolbin. As the middle child in a family of 11 her school education may not have been guaranteed and she was just the kind of young person protected by the provisions of the new Public Instruction Act.

Remarkably one of Vara’s homework books has survived. Covering the year 1890-1891 it was passed down through her family and has now been generously donated by Marcia and Colin Maybury and Helen Cade to the Local Studies collection, Cessnock Library.

This delightful school book showcases 12 year old Vara’s natural intelligence, with astute essays on English history, Australian geography, anatomy and even metallurgy. Her mathematical prowess is impressive with page after page showing complex equations, including the use of practical Hunter Valley examples in her formulas. In one multiplication exercise Vara calculates the cost of 12 gallons of wine at 13 shillings, nine and a half pence per gallon.

This school book is full of Vara’s neat copper plate hand writing, accidental ink blots and even homework corrections from her teacher. It is now on display at Cessnock Library providing a unique opportunity to have a glimpse into this bright girl’s life; by reading her words we hear her own voice.

Our sprawling Local Government Area is full of hidden gems, tucked away off the beaten track and often carrying their own fascinating history. One of these is Wollombi Common, which sits just outside the beautiful village of the same name. It has been a public recreation ground for over 150 years and in 1886 it even had five trustees elected to look after its grounds, legally appointed under the Commons Regulation Act (1873).

It seems fitting then that this school picnic on the Wollombi Common, in the early years of the 20^th century, sees its participants stylishly decked out in outfits as elaborate, detailed and impressive as those at any grand high society event.

There are so many wonderful things about this photograph, but it perfectly conceals as much as it reveals, like so many mysteries from history. We know that this is a picnic group, but where are the baskets and rugs? We know this is a school picnic, but why are there so many adults and so few children? In 1900 Wollombi Public School was booming with 71 children enrolled, two teachers employed and operating out of a solid building constructed only nine years earlier.

It is a glorious turn-of-the-century photograph, with its participants resplendent in dazzling Edwardian fashion. For the women this meant serious corsetry, while the men display heavy fob watch chains and don smart head wear. The women’s clothing is restrained, with long dresses, covered arms and high collars ensuring that as much flesh as possible is concealed.

But there is nothing restrained about their stunning hats, which are enormous, flamboyant confections of ruched fabric, ribbons and artificial flowers. The head wear is simply magnificent and of an astounding size, including one small girl whose oversize hat is threatening to cover her face and a baby sporting a splendidly large bonnet.

The Wollombi Common is still a picnic area, now known officially as the Wollombi Recreation Ground, and it remains much as it looked over a century ago. The Wollombi Public School is still a place of learning, it has been re-born as the Wollombi School Community Education Trust, which runs the site as a not-for-profit educational resource for the whole community. A visit to this beautiful place is recommended - just remember to get into the spirit and bring a particularly fabulous hat!

It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time not so long ago that the humble post office was the information centre of every local community.

When there was no internet, no television, no radio, no telegraph or telephones of any kind, the post office was a vital information hub. Here letters, newspapers, parcels and postcards – both official and personal – arrived, all carrying vital news of the outside world.

For rural and regional communities post offices were perhaps even more important than those in major cities. In metropolitan centres other sources of information were easily available, such as those found in and at retail, commercial and transport hubs. This was not the case in regional Australia, where distances between neighbours could be vast, so the post office became central to those living in rural towns and villages.

Australia’s first postmen (they were always men) were appointed in 1828 and were known as ‘letter carriers’, a title aptly describing their role. These mailmen were themselves an important source of informal news about ‘who was doing what’ and as they moved along their postal route they also passed stories and gossip from property to property along with the mail.

The first post office in the Cessnock Local Government Area was at Wollombi, where the Postmaster, John McDougall, opened his doors on 1 January 1839. Adjoining areas followed with post offices opening in Mount Vincent in 1859, Ellalong in 1862 and Cessnock in 1864.

The late historian Jack Delaney spent many years researching the post offices of the Cessnock Local Government Area. In that time he amassed an extraordinary amount of research, which has now been edited and is a book of over 1,000 pages called ‘Our letters, the mail goes through’.

Just as Jack was focused on making his research as widely available as possible, so does the Local Studies collection at Cessnock Library. For that reason we have a digitised copy of his book ready as a free download from the Library catalogue, making it available for anyone to access at any time. The book is a wonderful tribute to Jack’s original research and his passion for Cessnock’s history and we are thrilled to be able to share it with the whole community.

With a dramatic start to the bushfire season already confronting us, it is ironic that this month we commemorate the 15^th anniversary of one of our worst local fires.

Saturday 19 October 2002 was described by the Advertiser as ‘a day from hell’, one which left senior firefighters calling the fire the most ferocious they had ever encountered.  It was, in Australian parlance, ‘a stinker of a day’ with temperatures nudging 40 degrees.

In the early hours of the morning a fire was deliberately lit behind Cessnock racecourse. It accelerated quickly, splitting and becoming two major fire fronts with enormous flames shooting into the air and moving with great speed, ravaging communities at Abernethy, Kearsley and Kitchener.

Thirteen homes were destroyed in its path and tragically Ronald Gillett, a visitor from Sydney, was incinerated when his car was engulfed by flames on Kearsley Road. Long-time local residents called the bushfire the area’s worst disaster in more than 80 years.

As news of the devastating fires spread Darren Pateman, a photographer from the Newcastle Herald, was dispatched to cover the story. On his way to Abernethy he passed a cricket match in progress, its players so intent on their game in Baddeley Park that they seemed oblivious to the encroaching flames.

Recognising that this extraordinary sight was quintessentially Australian in so many ways he snapped a spontaneous photo. It captured the bewilderment of the cricketers, who seem to have only just looked up and noticed that they were about to be overtaken by fire.

The teams on that day were the Station Hotel Kurri Kurri Stallions 3^rd grade side and the Cessnock Supporters. Darren’s photo went on to become famous, reprinted in newspapers across Australia and then the world, even making the front page of The Times in London.

Today the Station Hotel at Kurri Kurri has a permanent reminder of this tragic October fire and the extraordinary cricketers who kept on playing throughout disaster. A huge mural on the side of their building, painted by Grant Franklin, dramatically re-creates Darren Pateman’s photo.

Driving into Kurri Kurri from the east this is the first of the town’s wonderful murals which comes into view, making an eye-catching entry and giving us an enduring community memory of that extraordinary day. 

There is nothing like a community celebration to bring people together and in the late 1940s Cessnock really put one on. Back-to-Cessnock Week was a festival held 29 October-6 November 1949 with a program crowded with events for everyone.

A Grand Athletic Carnival was on at the Sportsground and advertised as ‘open to all comers, both men and women’ with events including: basketball, archery, hurdle races, shot putt, relay, novelty races and, intriguingly, ‘footrunning’.

Other sporting competitions were on offer as well: tennis, swimming, bowling, golf and motor cycling. If you liked your festival to really go off with a bang an all-day shooting event was organised at Cessnock Rifle Range.

Over at the Racecourse horses were competing for the Cessnock Cup and the Coalfields Cup, while the Sensational Boxing Carnival lived up to its name with an eye-watering 44 rounds of boxing. Not your thing? A more gentle evening could be spent at the Lyceum Hall gliding along the floor at an Old Time Dance.

A Sacred Concert was held at the Sportsground where a rich range of vocal and musical performances ended with a dramatic grand finale of massed bands and choirs singing the Welsh hymns ‘Cwm Rhondda’ and ‘Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah’.

If you preferred a quieter festival experience the West End Congregational Church held an exhibition of needlework, cookery and dressed dolls and the Young Women’s Christian Association hosted a garden party. Rover Motors took tours to ‘spots of scenic beauty’ such as Quorrobolong Lookout and Mount View, promising that ‘this wonderful panoramic view will delight you’.

But looking at the week’s packed program what stands out is the number of marches. There were four down Vincent Street, two from the Northern District Associated Bands, one combined schools march with 2,500 children and the week’s highlight an evening Mardi Gras which paraded from the former Cessnock Railway Station all the way to the School of Arts and back again.

Prizes were awarded for the best entry in the categories of: sports float, most attractive costume (male and female), most humorous costume (male and female) and best decorated motor cycle, bicycle and billy cart. To fund the Mardi Gras souvenir badges were created and these were sold for two weeks before the event. One of these rare badges has survived and due to a generous donation is now part of the Local Studies collection, Cessnock Library.

To get into the mood the Mardi Gras organisers asked the public to attend in fancy dress costume, particularly extending an invitation to ‘New Australians’ to come along ‘preferably in national costume’. Local buses provided transport from outlying areas into Cessnock, allowing all local residents to get to their Mardi Gras. In true community spirit the organisers announced that all the profits they made from the Mardi Gras would be donated to charity. 

One hundred years ago the local Cessnock community faced a Christmas overshadowed by World War I. It was the fourth year of the war and for Australia it proved to be the costliest in terms of human lives lost. On the Western Front military gains were small, losses were heavy and the Allies’ constant hope all year that victory was near had been continuously dashed.

The public enthusiasm which greeted the outbreak of war had waned, as the grim reality of rising casualties and deaths hit home. Everyone, it seemed, had a family member, friend or neighbour affected by the mounting toll, bringing Australians face-to-face with the seriousness of the conflict.

In this environment From the Australian Front Christmas 1917 was published for a home-front audience, partially to reassure the public that ‘the boys were ok’. It is an upbeat book of cartoons, illustrations and photographs created by the soldiers themselves and put together in the style of an annual. In the introduction General Birdwood, Commander of the ANZACS, explained it was for ‘…those whom we left behind in Australia, and who we know are thinking of us, some idea of our surroundings on the battle fronts…’. 

But 1917 also saw two crucial military events which profoundly affected the course of the war and so began its end - America joined the Allied cause and Russia’s involvement in the war declined. Sunnier days were ahead, even if this was unknown at the time, and this would, in fact, be the last year that Cessnock’s Christmas celebrations were held under the grim cloud of World War 1.

Maybe this uniquely Australian Christmas slice was on the table one hundred years ago? It’s lovely and cool, perfect for a hot Chrissie day. It comes from the Kurri Kurri 75^th Anniversary 1904-1979 Cook Book and it’s called ‘Lizzie’s White Christmas’.

1 cup of icing sugar

1 cup of coconut

2 cups Kellogg’s Rice Bubbles

1 cup Sunshine powdered milk

1 cup sultanas

1 packet salted peanuts

125 grams of glacé cherries cut into pieces

250 grams of melted copha

Mix all dry ingredients. Stir in melted copha and mix well. Place in shallow tin lined with foil and leave in the fridge to set.