Skatey...The life of Les Skate

SKATEY… 

……… 

The Life Of Les Skate 

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Contents 

Early memories .............................................................................................................................. 3 

School Days .................................................................................................................................... 5 

Family chores, family play… and pocket money! ..................................................................... 7 

A new home, and the start of my working life .......................................................................... 9 

The shearing life … and starting to build ................................................................................. 11 

Building a family of my own. ..................................................................................................... 15 

Some early holidays ..................................................................................................................... 16 

Scouts; good times… and some more building!...................................................................... 21 

Apollo Bay .................................................................................................................................... 23 

My working life in The Yarra Valley ......................................................................................... 26 

Family homes ............................................................................................................................... 40 

Coldstream Football Club … a big part of my life. ................................................................ 48 

Holidays in our later years .......................................................................................................... 56 

Helping out … The Victorian floods of 2011 ......................................................................... 62 

Biographer’s Note: As Les was significantly unwell during the process of this 

biography not all the facts (spelling of names and places) were able to be 

confirmed. 

This story is as told by Les Skate using his words while he was a client of 

Eastern Palliative Care. 

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Skatey 

The Life of Les Skate 

Early memories 

Well I am Leslie William Skate and I was born on the 10 th of October, 1928, in Koondrook, 

which is up on the Murray River, on the Victorian side. My mum, Marion May and my Pop, 

William John Clayton Skate lived at Barham on the other side of the river. The only 

maternity hospital was at Koondrook, so everybody who lived on our side of the river was 

born over there. The hospital was just a little old house run by a nurse called Nurse Rosen. 

Her life history has been documented and it’s very interesting. She bought hundreds of 

babies into the world in that little old place. I don’t remember that of course, but my first 

memories are that we lived over at Barham on the New South Wales side. I was third in 

line in the family. There were my two older sisters, Dot and Val, and myself, then Geoff, 

Marjie, Bill, Neil, and Tony. Eight of us. Quite a big family for Mum and Dad to look after. 

We lived in a little old-fashioned house that belonged to my mum’s parents. Pop was at 

that stage a shearing contractor and he had a horse-team pulling logs to the mill. The first 

thing I really remember was when I was probably about two or three-years-old. In those 

days to get a Christmas present was really something. You know, we were not that well off. 

Like a lot of people were out there. These were the Depression years. And I got this little 

three-wheel trike. I remember when I looked at the end of my bed when I first woke up on 

Christmas morning, there were no presents. I just thought, ‘Oh well.’ But then I looked out 

down the lane and there’s my sister going hell-for-leather down the track on my little 

three-wheel trike! So, I got that back … and I had that trike for many years. 

Les, (middle) at two years of age, with his two older sisters Dot, (left) and Val (right) 

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That, I’ve never, ever forgot, I 

can see it quite plainly from 

when I was three years old. 

Another thing that’s pretty vivid in my memory is 

where we lived. It was right on the main channel 

where the water was pumped from the Murray out to 

irrigation areas, to the orange orchards and that sort 

of thing. We lived right on the very bank and to cross 

over to the other side, all we had in those days was a 

plank about a foot wide, with no hand rails. I was forever kneeling on this and floating 

things down the stream when they were pumping. And one day I leaned over too far … and 

I think this happens to other people too … the water moving gets you a bit dizzy, and you 

tend to go with the flow. I ended up in the channel! To make it worse, that day I was all 

dressed up in my best Sunday clothes. I was going to walk down the street with mum to do 

some shopping. She had all her best stockings and everything on. Likely she’d just come 

out to get me and I’m floating off downstream! So, she jumped in clothes and all and 

pulled me out. That, I’ve never, ever forgot, I can see it quite plainly today from when I was 

three years old. 

Nana holding Geoff, and in front Dot, Les and Val 

From there we went out to a twenty-acre block of land a bit further out of Barham. I think 

they called these blocks Common Land. You put in a claim for them like a ballot. You had to 

pay something to go in the ballot and Pop fortunately won the block of land. As he was 

working up at the mill off-seasons, he was able to get hold of one of the old mill houses. He 

shifted it down to the block and being very capable with his hands, he rebuilt it, and we 

had a home of our own. And a little farm, which when he wasn’t away shearing, he’d be 

home fencing and ploughing and sowing down everything We ended up with some milk, 

we had about five or six cows. It was quite a nice little farm. It was enough; it was 

somewhere to live. 

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It was quite a nice little farm. 

It was enough; it was 

somewhere to live. 

We had our own milk, cream and butter. Had a few 

pigs. And Pop would bring home a sheep all cut up 

ready for meat, when he returned of a weekend. So, 

we got by on all that. 

Dot and I, that was the eldest sister, we would milk 

the cows before we went to school. We’d separate the cream from the milk by winding the 

old hand separator. We’d put it into a small can which was carried up to the road. We were 

back about a half a mile off the decent road, and it was a very muddy, and rough lane. 

Once we’d walk that out, we’d go on to school. Then a few days later, the bloke would 

drop the empty cans off for us, and there’d be a pound of butter in it. That’s about what 

we got for our cream. We did have some home-made butter, but it was nice to have some 

dairy butter too. 

My second sister Val, her job at home (between school hours of course,) she sort of looked 

after the kids. By that stage there were probably about five of us. (Ended up with eight.) 

She helped make the beds, help make breakfasts, cut lunches, all that sort of thing. 

Probably changed the nappies on the babies and all that. Everybody had a job to do. 

Anyway, as time went by, I did my schooling. 

School Days 

Now Dot being the eldest, naturally was the first at school. In New South Wales they called 

the years, the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ninth class. And then after that if 

you wanted a higher education you had to go to one of the bigger cities. Dot didn’t get on 

very well with the headmaster. She told him that too one day, and said, ‘I’m not coming 

back,’ and she didn’t. 

Dot didn’t get on very well 

with the headmaster. She told 

him that too one day. 

Val was the student. Very clever that way and a 

gentleman up there had a property that Pop used to 

do all the shearing for and was quite friendly with 

him. A fairly wealthy sort of a bloke. He understood 

the situation that Val couldn’t get a good education 

up there and so he paid for her to be sent to 

Melbourne and paid for her education. She ended up with a good job down there. So that 

was a good start for her and she was pretty secure. 

Myself, next in line, I started off pretty good. In those 

days you started school about seven years old. I 

suppose having the family around me I got a bit of 

self-education. I got first in first grade, and second in 

second grade. And as I got higher my numbers 

dropped back! Very strange … 

So that was a good start for 

her and she was pretty secure. 

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By the time I got to, I think it was eighth grade, Kerang 

I suppose having the family High School in Victoria, (about 20 kms away from 

around me I got a bit of selfeducation. 

Barham) was taking students from the school. They 

had a little bus run out there. I don’t know where 

Mum and Pop got the money from to send me there. 

Not that it was very expensive or anything but you 

had your costs. But I did go there for two years and the first year I was pretty good. 

New South Wales was always a year ahead of Victoria and I went there and I breezed 

through what they called in Victoria, The Merit. The next year, might have been Proficiency 

or something like that, I found that pretty hard. You got Algebra and French and they 

weren’t my thing. Maths and Geography, luckily, I could understand. I’m glad I did because 

in later years I got into the building trade and I could then see where all that sort of stuff 

come from. 

During school years I’d say, I was about nine, I was pottering around with Pop’s tools and 

the saw jumped. Put a little cut in my hand, nothing much. My sister Val and I were always 

wrestling and mucking around. I remember out on the back lawn this day her fingernail got 

in this cut and that’s what caused blood poisoning. The red line started to go up my arm. In 

those days for infection you used what they called hot foments. You got a bread and butter 

poultice … hot! (or there was one for when you had congestion on your chest.) 

But it was probably the bread and butter one, 

straight out of the boiling water. I thought ‘Uh oh 

somethings happening alright!’ And up comes this 

blister. It was like half an egg. We pierced it and that 

didn’t do any good and then the poison got into that. 

And up comes this blister. It 

was like half an egg. 

The red line was creeping up my arm and I got this big lump under my arm. They put me in 

the hospital, more to monitor it really. They didn’t have anything to use. They started 

ringing around and were told there was a serum up at Cohuna, which was fifteen miles 

away on the Victorian side. On an old sandy road. They had to get it quick. 

Well in about fifteen minutes 

he was there and back! 100 

mph up a sandy road. 

Now a relative of Pop’s family had this flash Ford car. 

A ‘38 model. It was a car but you put the hood back 

and it was wide open. He used to do 100 mph out on 

the big plains chasing kangaroos. He had made this 

documentary and it’s been filmed all around the world. Tommy Board was his name. So, 

Pop got straight onto Tommy. Well in about fifteen minutes he was there and back! 100 

mph up a sandy road. Anyway, that saved me. 

But it was a long time before it healed up. The burn had taken the flesh right down to the 

bone. It was all juicy and that. And all they used to do, because they didn’t have the right 

balms and things I suppose, they’d just put the gauze on it and wrapped it up. The next day 

they’d just rip the gauze off and the scab would all come off. This went on for ages and 

ages before it finally healed up. 

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When I was in hospital there was this Miss Martin at the school. She boarded at the hotel. 

She taught the little ones. Stan Brennan was another teacher at the school. Gee those 

names come back to you! He boarded at the hotel too. So, they became a couple, they got 

together. It was very nice. But this Miss Martin and I had something going … I don’t know 

what it was. She was so easy to talk to and I felt she cared for me. Of course, I was going 

fairly well academically at that stage, perhaps she was just giving me good marks! They 

used to come to the hospital at least a couple of times a week to see me and bring me 

chocolate. 

Yeah Miss Martin was the 

number one teacher. 

It was wartime, and everyone was knitting scarves for 

the servicemen. Khaki of course. You knitted them 

with meat skewers. Like your largest size knitting 

needle plus a little bit. They were used in the butcher 

shop. The butcher would have a great big bit of meat, 

like a great big chop. He’d cut all the meat off down to the bone, and then he’d get the first 

bit and turn it all around and then get the other bit and wrap it all around tightly. Then 

he’d get two skewers and stick them through both ways. And they were the knitting 

needles. So, yes, I learnt to knit in hospital I knitted quite a few scarves. I was three months 

off school. 

At school I had a nice little girl friend, Jocelyn Hickey. Her father owned the picture theatre 

and I thought I might get a free picture show now and then. But I never did! Oh well … 

Schooling to me was a bit of a bore. It was just something you had to do. Oh, I tried to 

learn and I wasn’t too bad in my early years, but I think I got distracted … maybe chasing 

the girls! 

Family chores, family play…and pocket money! 

I got along well with all my brothers and sisters. There were never any worries there. You 

just went along and you had your share to do, and you just did it. 

Things like during those years to supplement our 

food program, I would go down to the Murray River 

of an evening, catch a couple of Murray cod, and 

bring them home. We also had a roll down net into 

the river, (this wasn’t legal in those days but 

everyone did it anyway.) You’d have a piece of meat 

in the net and you caught these Murray crays. You’d pull it back up and you might have 

twenty crays. You’d take them home, and in those days, you had the old copper which you 

washed in and you bathed in. You did everything in the old copper. You got it boiling, (you 

won’t like this) but you’d tip all the crays in and you’d cook them. Beautiful they were … 

The other thing I remember from those days, around when I was nine or ten years old, 

happened one Christmas. The infantile paralysis thing was on, what was it? ... the polio. 

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I got along well with all my 

brothers and sisters. There 

were never any worries there.



Everyone was confined to their own home and town. But you wanted to get out a bit, it 

was Christmas. So, I remember old Pop and all his friends loaded all the gear on the truck, 

(Pop had a ’36 model Fargo) and we went way out to a creek in the scrub. We camped 

there and fished and had a good time. They were good times. Pop was a very keen 

fisherman and he’d shoot ducks and so forth and I spent a lot of time with him. Mum was 

always home making clothes for the kids and what-not. 

One gentleman had a little dairy and a chook and duck 

They were good times. farm, just over the other side of the creek. I used to 

walk across a log to get over there. Of an afternoon, 

after school, I’d go and wash the eggs. Nowadays eggs 

are clean, they’re dropped on grates. But back then all the eggs had to be washed; they 

were all dirty. Washing eggs. 

The ducks all lived on the creek, and when they wanted to lay an egg, they’d drop them in 

the creek. So, I had to walk around in the creek and get all the eggs. But this is how I got 

my pocket money, that’s why I did it. I’d get two shillings a week. Now two shillings a week 

was enough for me to go to the pictures, (I think that was about nine pence,) buy a milk 

shake, a threepenny ice cream, and a comic. Everything you wanted. 

That was how I supplemented my income … in fact there was no other income! Yeah 

washing the eggs … and they were nice people to work for. Oh, one Christmas time there 

was an extra present for me. They gave me a ten-shilling note! I thought I was a king! And I 

would have spent it don’t worry! Oh … I might have bought mum something. 

They gave me a ten-shilling note! I thought I 

was a king! 

‘They were hard days but they were good days. You knew what you were 

living with, and what was in store for you, and you didn’t try to go outside 

that boundary. You were just happy for what you had.’ 

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A new home, and the start of my working life 

So, I put in two years at Kerang High School and at that stage it was still the Depression, 

the end of the Depression. Before the War. And Pop hadn’t gone all that well; it was very 

tough times with a big family. He mortgaged our little place to keep us in tucker and all the 

rest of it. We weren’t the only ones; there were dozens of families up in that area in the 

same boat. So, he had to sell the farm and most of that went paying off everything, the 

grocer, the butcher, baker and all the rest of it. 

We weren’t the only ones; 

there were dozens of families 

up in that area in the same 

boat. 

We moved into Barham and rented a place there for a 

while. Pop shore sheep for a big pastoralist out of 

Deniliquin who owned a property down here in the 

Yarra Valley, around the Healesville area. And there 

were no shearers down in this area. His name was 

Henry Lindsay-Field. Henry said to Pop, ‘You come 

down and shear my sheep Bill.’ So Pop went down 

there. He took a couple of shearers with him, and he shore Harry’s sheep. 

Soon as the other farmers around here realised there was a shearer in the district, they 

grabbed him and wouldn’t let him go. 

When he went back home, he knew there was more 

opportunity down here for him and his family, so he 

took up that option. He loaded everything on the 

train and had an old Fargo truck which fitted the 

family in the back and the front. With the pets as 

He became the number one 

shearer in the Yarra Valley. 

well. He had no place really to go, but there was a little cottage, Eyton-on-Yarra, which was 

Lindsay-Field’s property at the time. Lindsay-Field just said, ‘If you fix that up a bit Bill, you 

can live there.’ So, we did, until we found another place and we rented that. 

I didn’t go back to school. I was picking up wool. Roustabouting is the word for it. I did that 

for one or two seasons. In the meantime, I was learning shearing. It was a good 

opportunity for me with Pop being a shearer and with the other shearers there. Every now 

and then I could hop in and do one, and I learnt to shear pretty good in that twelve 

months. But Pop was thinking about what he’d gone through … you know all his life, hard 

work shearing. (It is noted as one of the hardest work in the industry.) And I can vouch for 

that! 

The owner of one of the other properties we worked for, Yarra Grange, was Mr Herman. 

He was a director on Australian Estates Wool Store. A wool company. Pop must have had a 

word with him one day and he got me a cadetship; wool classing out at West Footscray. So, 

I went and boarded there for about six months. I rode the two miles to work on my 

pushbike, (which I’d bought on the never-never for five shillings a week.) 

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In the middle of the year the wool stores used to 

close down. By then they would have classed all the 

wool that had come in. The classers all went out to 

sheds and built up the stock again back in the store. 

Well I knew quite a bit about the wool from being in 

the sheds before, but I learnt quite a bit more. I 

actually classed a couple of sheds. I didn’t have a 

I rode the two miles to work 

on my pushbike, (which I’d 

bought on the never-never for 

five shillings a week.) 

certificate to, but it didn’t matter really. The wool was classed temporarily, then it went 

back into the store and was bulk classed. 

While I was employed at the wool store my pay was one pound, nineteen and six a week. 

My board cost me one pound a week. The train from home (on the weekends) was five 

shillings. The payment on my bike was five shillings a week. This put me in arrears. All 

these costs ate my wages, plus I had to supply my own lunch! So, on the weekends, to 

supplement the cost of my lunch I would go rabbiting, and take fresh rabbits to the lady in 

the canteen. She gave me a meat pie each day for my lunch. But I was still in arrears and 

Mum had to find an extra ten shillings a week to keep me solvent! 

I went away each year, classers went away to the sheds and they took a couple of 

apprentices with them. Of course, I jumped at the chance. The first sheds we went to was 

up out of Jerilderie. ‘Wood Park Merino Stud.’ Top class sheep. I spent quite a few weeks 

there. I was picking up wool, sweeping the board and that sort of thing. I remember while I 

was there, I had a very bad in-grown toenail. I was hobbling about with the toe cut out of 

my shoe. The contractor said to me one day, 

‘What’s the trouble?’ 

So I showed him, and he said, 

‘Oh you can’t be walking around on that. You go on the wool table and sort the wool.’ 

Which I knew exactly how to go about because I’d done it in the wool store. And 

immediately my pay went from three pound seven and six a week, to over five pounds! 

Whacko! That was good. 

My pay went from three 

pound seven and six a week, 

to over five pounds! Whacko! 

That was good. 

After that we went working at Mulwala, just over the 

river from Yarrawonga. While I was at that shed, the 

cook, who was very notorious for this sort of thing, 

would get on a bender and clear out. We had about 

eight shearers, four or five shed hands, the boss and 

the wool classer. Mr Jones, Bill Jones, he was the 

contractor, said to me, 

‘Could you, you know, peel the spuds and do a few things?’ 

‘Well I did all that for my Pop from when I was ten years old,’ I said. 

So I ended up the cook. 

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We had big open fires with these great big roast dishes with two legs of lamb in them, and 

the roast potatoes all the way around So we always had a roast for the night. One thing the 

cook did do, he was very good at making steamed ginger puddings. He made them in fivepound 

jam tins and he left about a dozen of them behind. So, all I had to do was seal them 

up, put them in water and heat them up. So, we always had those at night. 

In the daytime, I always had enough roast to have as cold meat. So, we’d have that, mash 

potatoes and perhaps one other vegie, and that was lunch. And then tinned peaches or 

pears or whatever. So, they were quite happy. Of course, I’d have to cut sandwiches for 

the morning teas and take them over and wash up. At least at night time the shearers 

hopped in and peeled the spuds for me … I hated doing that! I would have been fifteen 

that year. 

From there Mr Jones had finished his contracts and I 

was about to come home. I stayed in a boarding 

house in Mulwala for one night. But there were 

other Yarrawonga contractors looking for a 

roustabout. The word gets around among the 

shearers and contractors. 

So one of them called in on the Saturday night and said, 

‘You can start on Monday morning if you want to.’ 

‘Ok.’ I said. 

The shearers hopped in and 

peeled the spuds for me…I 

hated doing that! I would 

have been fifteen that year. 

So I went and did two more sheds with him before I came home. Probably put a few more 

pounds together. 

The shearing life … and starting to build 

When I did come home, I started full-time shearing. I was only sixteen. That first year, I 

shore a hundred in a day … twice! I shouldn’t really brag … but that’s … well, you know I did 

have a bit of experience having had a little go here and there. Pop was a first-class shearer, 

so for me, I had to try hard. Yeah, I’d have hated for him to think that I was just some 

rough neck or something. 

I started full-time shearing. I 

was only sixteen. That first 

year, I shore a hundred in a 

day…twice! 

This was at Coldstream. Where the subdivision is now 

just as you approach Coldstream. Three hundred and 

twenty acres. It was bought by a developer who built 

houses all over it. But the original old hand-made 

brick homestead is still there amongst the houses. 

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We lived there till we moved down to Croydon. Anyway, then the shearing took over and I 

was to go away back up to where Pop used to do his contracts, up around Deniliquin. I 

went up there and shore there for a few years. 

Les and the old T- Model Ford which he found in a creek and rebuilt just enough to get him to his 

shearing jobs 

Once I got married, (I’ll cover that a bit later) I found shearing a bit closer, up around 

Charlton. I used to go up there for a week or two weeks at a time, then come home. Joan, 

my new bride and I, lived at Croydon then. I built our house there. I had never built a house 

in my life. But I’d done odd jobs around the farms for people. What I used to do of an 

evening, after the builders had knocked off, I’d sneak around and see what they’d done 

and how they’d done it. 

After the builders had 

knocked off, I’d sneak 

around and see what they’d 

done and how they’d done it. 

Anyway, we had quite a nice home there eventually. It 

was a struggle. But I was getting better at shearing 

and shearing prices were good. At that time, it was 

the wool boom, the early fifties. That was when we 

were married and built the house. I could earn, 

without any trouble, I could earn four times as much 

as the basic wage. It was hard work but you got paid 

for what you shore. So, I’d bring that money home and we’d invest it in the house. Put a 

floor down in a room instead of walking through the door and falling through! We reared 

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our kids there. We were very lucky there; we had a good position. There was a state school 

just one side of us, and by the time the girls were ready for high school they built one close 

by to our house. 

Les in his early shearing days. 

Up to that stage I just kept on shearing. Eventually, because it’s seasonal, I kept on doing a 

bit more building and I got involved with a good friend of ours who was a very good 

builder. He’d decided he’d like a tree change so he bought a block of land and took his 

family out this way. I needed someone to help me with my building jobs, but before long I 

was working for Ken. I learnt all the finer parts of building from him. That worked out very 

well and then he went his own way and I went mine. We left Croydon in ’81 and we bought 

a 120-acre bush block from my sister, Marjie and her husband Ern, up at Gruyere. We built 

a very nice home and were there for the next nineteen years 

It was our one home in a million that you 

dream about 

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Harvest time at the property in Gruyere 1982. The hay was all fork-pitched. 

The only thing was, we were getting older. We hadn’t really done a lot of things we would 

have liked to have done. My wife was a very keen gardener, and because there were lots 

of acres, I think she just kept spreading the garden more and more! It just got too much. 

An opportunity came up, The Coldstream Hills Winery was on our boundary and it was 

bought by a big company, Rosemount Winery. They wanted to use the land to spray their 

effluent out onto it, to stop the run-off down into the streams. So, I had the chance to sell 

it to them. It wasn’t in a place where it was attractive to people. Very small frontage No 

opportunity to clear, with heavy Council controls over it. So, we got out and we came 

down here. To Lilydale. 

So we got out and we came 

down here. To Lilydale. 

To 28 Mont Vue in Lilydale. We’ve been here nineteen 

years now and we’ve been very happy here. We’ve 

been able to do quite a bit of travelling. I’ve kept on in 

the building trade right up till my eighties. 

14



Building a family of my own. 

When I came back to Coldstream after working in the shearing sheds, my sister Marjie had 

become good friends with another girl from Coldstream. Her name was Joan. Joan spent a 

bit of time up home and that’s how I come to meet up with her. After a couple of years 

later we got engaged and then a year after that we got married. 

There were several things about Joan that stood out to me. She was very independent 

person, very straightforward. I can say that she’d call an apple an apple, there’s no doubt 

about that! And she got that from her father who was much the same sort of person. I 

don’t know, I suppose I just loved her, and that was it. 

4 th October 1952 

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We built our first home from scratch in Croydon. We had the two girls first, Lynne and 

Julie. Then five years later we had the two boys, Roland (Rol,) and Timothy (Tim.) Two 

pigeon pairs. It worked out good. When Julie came along, she was just ideal with Lynne. A 

really good pair. And then we had that lapse of five years, then it was the same with the 

two boys. They became good mates, went through scouts and so forth together and are 

still good mates. 

We had the two girls first, 

then five years later we had 

the two boys. Two pigeon 

pairs. It worked out good. 

Joan has said that we should have spent more time 

together during those years. I was heavily involved 

with the football club for many years. I always felt that 

if you were involved in doing something, you do it 

properly or get out and don’t do it at all. There was 

always so many things to look after, and I felt that I 

just had to be there to do it. I was there for twenty-five years. As a player and a coach and 

a committee man. And building the buildings. It became part of my life … I was deeply 

involved in it. We lived very comfortably and I don’t think my family suffered because of it, 

but as Joan says, perhaps a bit more time together in those years things might have been a 

bit better. I don’t know, they’ve all grown up alright. 

I always felt that if you were involved in doing 

something, you do it properly or get out and 

don’t do it at all. 

Some early holidays 

While the kids were little, we had the chance to take them on some holidays. One time 

was just before Lynny started school. We knew we had to go then or it would be another 

ten years, so I hired a caravan and off we went. 

At about that stage, the main holiday area in Queensland, the Gold Coast, was just getting 

going. They were starting to carve it out of the sand and the bulrushes and stuff. There 

were all these pink, blue and yellow cement sheet buildings all the way along the coast. 

Oh, it was weird! We went up there and stayed at Miami Beach which was nothing, just 

tussocks down to the sand. At that stage the big corporations were just starting to get in. 

They’d built this twenty-storey building right in the middle of the sand and the tussocks! 

You couldn’t believe it! Not too many years after that they opened up all the canals up 

there, inland. They built the area all up around the waterways and the area just boomed. 

We saw it in a very early, raw stage. We had a great time there. 

16



Off to The Gold Coast in the FJ Holden Special and the rented caravan. Joan, Lynne, (left) and Julie. 

The van wasn’t a very big van. The double bed had a curtain across. I remember Lynne and 

Julie would get up on the bed and then open the curtain, (we’d be sitting back the other 

end) and they put on a performance … a concert for us. That was part of the fun. It was 

lovely on the beach too. The girls could play there and sit on the rocks and there was 

hardly anybody there. We had about three weeks there and loved it! 

When it was time to head south for home, we thought that as we had seen all the coast 

going up, (and very enjoyable those places were too) that we’d head west and come down 

on the inland side of The Great Dividing Range. So, we got over to Toowoomba and headed 

off from there. It was very steep country in that area. The FJ Holden was pulling the van 

alright but it was a very heavy van. The car kept boiling like mad and I had to keep stopping 

and waiting for it to cool down. 

Eventually I got over the top of this ridge and we got down to whatever the next town was. 

I pulled in to get fuel and I told the bloke about the car boiling. He said, ‘I know what’s 

wrong, I’ll fix that.’ He lifted the bonnet up and got the hose and hosed it from the inside, 

and blew all these grasshoppers out of it! We’d driven into a grasshopper plague and 

they’d filled all the core up, stopping the air from getting through. So simple when you 

know. 

17



From there we drove down to Glen Innes and the landscape became more and more like 

bush and forest and I thought, ‘I’ve had enough of the forest, we’ll whip back over to the 

coast’ The nearest road on the map was the Gwydir Highway. It was about a hundred miles 

long and came out at Grafton. We’d stayed at Grafton on the way up, in the one caravan 

park that was there. So off we head off along this Gwydir Highway. There was a bit of 

sealed road, then you got sandy road, then it ran into a dirt road! Then there was nowhere 

to turn except right … and that became very steep! I thought, ‘Oh well, it will only be a 

hundred yards or so to get down the bottom .…’ It went for a couple of miles! 

There was a bit of sealed 

road, then you got sandy road, 

then it ran into a dirt road! 

Admittedly down the bottom it was beautiful, there 

was the Gwydir River trickling over the rocks. And 

beautiful green flat land beside it. But, going down 

that hill…! There was only one cut into the mountain. 

You couldn’t have passed a car coming the other way and I wouldn’t have been able to 

back up. Whoever was coming the other way would have had to go a mile backwards! 

Anyway I held her going down the hills and got to the bottom, and Joan said, 

‘Would you have been able to stop?’ 

‘No!’ I laughed. 

I was in first gear with my foot on the brake. I had to keep easing off, otherwise I would 

have burned the brakes out. But I just had enough control. And when I hit the bottom … 

phew! 

At that point there were these streams coming down into the Gwydir River. No bridges. It 

was only shallow and I was about to drive through when we saw a couple of young blokes 

in an old green Land Rover on the other side of this little stream. One of them called out, 

‘What are you going to do?’ 

‘I’m going to drive over!’ I yelled. 

‘Don’t do that yet mate, you’ll crack your brake drums, because they’re red hot! Wait for 

them to cool down!’ 

Well I would have been in real trouble if that had happened. 

We were lucky they had been 

there. 

When we got going we wanted to get back to Grafton 

because we were out of gas. Gas was our only cooking 

facility. It was a very slow track. Once we went over 

the flats of the river the mountain went almost straight up. The road was cut in the side 

with the river below. It was beautiful really. And we followed that around and around. 

You’re going slow … time’s against you … you never going to get there … and then we came 

to this great big wire gate and I thought, ‘Oh this will be lovely if this is locked.’ 

18



But it wasn’t. I think it was a dog proof fence or something. We got through that and got 

going again and we finally arrived at Grafton and pulled into the caravan park. I said to the 

bloke, 

‘Yeah, we’re back again.’ 

(I think he remembered me; they didn’t get a lot of travellers in those days.) 

‘Which way did you come?’ he asked. 

‘Oh, we’ve come from Glen Innes.’ 

‘Gawd!’ he said. ‘Nobody ever goes on that road!’ 

From then on we followed the coast down till we got somewhere near Sydney and scooted 

around that. Probably came down through Goulburn, which was a good drive. We finally 

got back home. Yes, it was a real adventure. 

We were able to go back north a couple of times with the boys when they were very 

young. We rented a house in Sydney once. Another time we stayed in a unit in Narooma I 

remember. We went out on the putt-putt boat and caught a lot of fish. 

One time we went over to South Australia, around Victor Harbour. Tim would have been 

about three then. We had always wanted to see that area. So, we head off. It was a very 

hot time of year and we stayed in Mt Gambier on the first night. (That’s a funny little old 

joint.) The next day was going to be a hundred degrees, so we got up about 2 am, and 

head off. There were rabbit plagues at the time and being dark still, we had the lights on. 

Well we still couldn’t see the bitumen because it was covered in rabbits! We got through 

all that eventually. 

We’d booked ahead at a place already. The people 

had just moved down from the Gold Coast and I 

remember they had a photo of there on the wall … it 

was just as I described it, yellow and pink cement 

sheeting! And in the glass cabinet alongside, there 

was this enormous great ornate cup with handles on 

it. The daughter had won Miss Gold Coast or something! As soon as we had paid, we head 

for our room. All we wanted was a cup of tea at that stage. Well the room was filthy. Lifted 

up a cup and out shot a cockroach! 

Well the room was filthy! 

Lifted up a cup, and out shot 

a cockroach! 

Well we still couldn’t see the 

bitumen because it was 

covered in rabbits 

When we looked out the window at the ocean, we 

could see they’d built a retaining wall, about three 

foot high out of Besser blocks, on the beach. What we 

didn’t know was that they’d never bricked it together. 

It was just sitting there. After we had rested a bit we 

walked down to the beach. Julie picked Tim up and set 

him on the top of the wall … and what happened? It collapsed and Tim was on the bottom! 

One of the blocks jammed and smashed his arm. Well that was the end of it! I went and 

told the bloke … and he accused us of knocking over the wall! I said, ‘Right, we’re out of 

here.’ I don’t even remember whether we got our money back. 

19



Well that was the end of it! I 

went and told the 

bloke…and he accused us of 

knocking over the wall! I 

said, ‘Right, we’re out of 

here.’ 

Of course, it was holiday time and the whole place 

was booked out. So, I ended up going to the Police 

Station. One of them organised a room in an old guest 

house for us. They were full but they made room for 

us. They saw the problems we had had. Tim was in 

hospital for the night. From then on it was alright and 

we enjoyed Victor Harbour after all. We did a bit there 

and had a good time. 

Another memorable trip I had was with the boys, when Rol was in the scouts. He would 

have been about ten or eleven. They had a trip away to Ayers Rock. There weren’t enough 

boys from one scout group for the coach so we made it out of three groups. Myself and 

another father were in charge of our lot. I knew the coach driver from the local bus 

company fairly well. So that worked well and we had a good drive up there. We climbed 

Ayers Rock and they all enjoyed it. 

My boys weren’t too bad but there were a couple of devils in the Croydon Scouts. (We 

were the West Croydon scouts.) One particular devil in the Croydon group went on to be a 

leading footballer for the Essendon Football Club. But back then, oh, he was a devil! He 

climbed everywhere where he shouldn’t have, and my blokes were following, and I was 

trying to get them back. Oh Gawd, that was an experience. But it was good. 

My boys weren’t too bad but 

there were a couple of devils in 

the Croydon Scouts. 

In those days there were no facilities. There were 

these sheds like old horse stalls, all open, with a 

few showers. You put two shillings in and you had 

to go like mad before the water ran out. We 

catered for ourselves because we had a good cook 

on board. Each night one group or the other had 

to help out. That worked out alright. 

20



Scouts; good times…and some more building! 

Originally Rol went down to Kent Ave, to the Croydon Scouts. But we wanted to form our 

own group. There was this little bit of land called Ainslie Park, just back behind us in 

Croydon. After a bit of wheeling and dealing with the council they finally gave us the land. I 

told them what I was going to do and they poo-hooed it. ‘No, we don’t want any halfbaked 

buildings left lying around …’ That really got me going! 

‘No, we don’t want any halfbaked 

buildings left lying 

around…’ That really got me 

going! 

Anyway, I knew the bloke who was the Building 

Inspector down there pretty well. After a while, I think 

because he really knew that I did know what I was 

doing, we finally got the go-ahead. With another 

father who knew his way around a bit business-wise, 

we had a lot of companies help out. We scrounged up 

all the roofing material for nothing. It had been 

discarded for slight imperfections. That saved thousands of dollars. I got the steel frame for 

cost, less my discount, because I was doing steel buildings at the time. I bought the bricks 

through brick traveller. They were seconds and I got them for half price. There was nothing 

wrong with them! The flooring … it was beautiful, big thick flooring that came out of a big 

cool store at Wonga Park. It went back together beautifully. I sanded it up and it was great. 

So, we had a roof, a frame, bricked in, and the 

flooring. We did buy windows. So, we had our 

building. I was on the inaugural committee, and had 

a lot of help from other fathers in those days. This 

became the West Croydon Scout Group. We had 

bottle drives and collected bottles which we stacked 

along the fence at our place in Croydon, till the 

bottle’o came. We collected newspapers and they 

were all stored in our double garage in Croydon until they were collected. That was our 

main source of revenue. We had a few little family gatherings to fundraise but basically, 

that was it. 

So we had our building. 

The flooring…it was 

beautiful, big thick flooring 

that came out of a big cool 

store at Wonga Park. It went 

back together beautifully. I 

sanded it up and it was great. 

21



The Scout building 

that Les built in 

Croydon with 

materials he 

‘scrounged up’ 

Scouts provided the boys with some great times and I enjoyed my time helping out. Once 

we up the Goulburn River with them. We helped them build canoes out of fibreglass. We 

got sticky stuff all over us. But they built them, then off we went. They canoed themselves 

down from Alexandra way down to Seymour. We had to camp overnight on the bank of 

the river. They had their gear in plastic bags and they took plastic rubbish bins and all that. 

They had to have a buddy, because they were two-man canoes and Rol and Tim always 

worked together. It was good and they enjoyed it all. I’m sure they still have good 

memories of it. As well as all the friends they made. It’s a great thing the Scouts. 

Rol and Tim always worked 

together. It was good and they 

enjoyed it all. I’m sure they 

still have good memories of it. 

The Guide group had come into existence. They had 

been meeting in somebody’s house in West Croydon. 

Then it must have got too much for them so we 

decided they could use our garage. I had facilities and 

everything there. They used that and then when the 

main scout building was finished, they were 

incorporated into that. Lynne and Julie were Guides, but not for very long. I think it was 

too slow for them! 

22



Apollo Bay 

But our favourite holiday place was Apollo Bay. We bought this little block of land 

reasonably cheaply. That was all we had though, we just scratched up enough for it. Then I 

started to get some second-hand timber,and I was also able to get I’d what I had left over 

from jobs. I began to build a little holiday house. I built it all in the backyard in Croydon. 

Then I took it to bits again and we carted it all down to Apollo Bay on my brother Neil’s 

semi-trailer. Over a period of a couple of weeks I put it all up. The family came down and 

we would camp there. It was like indoor camping. That was the start. 

Our favourite holiday place was Apollo Bay. 

The much-loved holiday house at Apollo Bay 

23



I enjoyed it a lot. It was like another world down there for me. We used to go down about 

every two weeks. As soon as we arrived, I’d say, ‘Get out the fishing rods!’ All the family’s 

unloading the car and I’d be down there fishing with the boys. 

Rol, (left) Les and Tim 

The day’s catch 

‘It was like another world down there for me.’ 

24



And then I’d do some more building. Until I got it pretty comfortable. We holidayed in it for 

forty years. When I’d built the bottom section, I’d built it in such a way with heavy timbers, 

that I knew that I could put another storey on top. Which I did and that gave us another six 

squares of living area. And a beautiful view. We were happy there for many years. A lot of 

people, family and friends, had a wonderful time down there. Yeah, it was great! 

A lot of people, family and 

friends, had a wonderful time 

down there. Yeah, it was 

great! 

Then in later years we moved from Croydon up to Gruyere. We started to travel a bit which 

we hadn’t done before. We’d had lots of little trips with the children, but nothing big. We’d 

got to a stage where we seemed to have other interests, and we wanted to do other 

things, so we didn’t go to Apollo Bay as much. We thought about selling it. But Tim and the 

kids enjoyed it a lot, they were into surfing and everything. So, we offered it to him and he 

took it over and modernised it a bit. 

Eventually the travelling became a bit much for him and his family. He could see the kids 

driving down there, a four-hour drive, decided it was time for a change. He had somehow 

started surfing at Cape Patterson and he ended up purchasing a block there and sold 

Apollo Bay. He built a beautiful home down there. It’s a bit more than a holiday home … 

it’s like a castle! He loves it and they can just hop in the car after work at night and head 

down there. All that’s turned out for the best and I’m very pleased they’ve got that. He 

deserves it. 

The rest of my life is really this modern time now. 

We’ve taken bigger holidays like two or three weeks 

away, touring in coaches around Australia, to all 

sorts of places. We’ve been to most places in 

Australia. We’ve looked through a lot of our photos 

and they always bring back the memories. 

All that’s turned out for 

the best and I’m very 

pleased they’ve got that. 

He deserves it. 

25



My working life in The Yarra Valley 

The Dairy Industry 

During my life I’ve had various types of work. Always needed to put bread and butter on 

the table I suppose. Wherever there was a job, if I was asked to do it, I’d go and do it. It 

kept me in pretty good stead in later years, as I gradually acquired a lot of experience. 

Wherever there was a job, if I 

was asked to do it I’d go and 

do it. 

I had the shearing and the building but I also did quite 

a bit of agricultural contracting. Ploughing, discing, 

and sowing. It come about that we had a little 

property at Coldstream that we were share farming. 

We needed a tractor, so we bought one and my job 

was to go out and earn enough money to pay it off. 

At that stage, up around the Woori Yallock, Yellingbo area, a lot of properties were being 

bought up by lawyers and doctors and such who were given quite a concession by the 

Government, tax wise. They bought all this cheap land and I had the opportunity to go and 

help clear it, plough it and so forth for them. That was quite an experience. 

In those early days, the main industry in the Yarra 

Valley was the dairy industry. At that time the 

government had become a bit alarmed about some 

of the very old dairies that had been operating for 

two or three generations. In those days the milk was 

pumped from the cows through brass pipes. These 

We needed a tractor, so we 

bought one, and my job was 

to go out and earn enough 

money to pay it off. 

pipes picked up the calcium out of the milk and left a build-up inside the pipes. So, they 

changed that to stainless steel. These were much easier to keep clean. The Dairy 

Department said, ‘You’ve got to put in stainless steel, you’ve got to upgrade your dairy and 

if you don’t, we won’t renew your licence.’ 

So, through people I knew on the land, I started to do up the dairies and that was really 

where I got into a bit more of the technical side of building. I got to know the Dairy 

Inspector in this area pretty well and he more or less just directed me from one dairy to 

another. I ended up renovating or building quite a lot of dairies in the Yarra Valley. 

I started to do up the dairies, 

and that was really where I 

got into a bit more of the 

technical side of building. 

I think there would have been more than a hundred 

dairies in the area. Nowadays we’re down to about 

two or three. Milk comes from other areas now, 

around Gippsland and up north in the irrigation areas. 

Yes, building those dairies was quite an experience. 

26



I ended up renovating or building quite a lot of 

dairies in the Yarra Valley. 

This upgrading of the dairies made a big difference. They all had needed new machinery 

and pipes and so forth. They had old wooden bales and the concrete was all cracked and 

grazed. I was supplying metal pipe bails and salt feeders to make it a lot easier for them. 

Some of the properties I could just go in with my pocket knife and cut the green string, 

that’s all that was holding the rails up. 

Yet the people were quite clean, they just didn’t realise … it just went on, one generation 

after the other. I remember one family in particular, dairying down Tarrawarra Lane. There 

was the man, his wife, the mum and someone else. There were about four of them 

anyway. After I’d finished, it only took two to do the same work that four people had been 

doing. That was a big asset to them. 

From then on, I put in steel bails, self-feeders and overhead tubing carrying feed to the 

bales. It was a good era. Once the dairies had all come up to scratch for the Dairying 

Department, the industry went full steam ahead. I went on from there to build all sorts of 

farm buildings. Steel sheds, hay sheds, machinery sheds and that kept me going in 

between my shearing commitments. 

I went on from there to build 

all sorts of farm buildings. 

Steel sheds, hay sheds 

machinery sheds, 

these nice brick dairies are still standing. 

After a while I saw a big change in the dairying 

industry in the area. I don’t know why the 

government saw fit to do what they did. They 

reckoned there was too much milk being produced 

and they started paying the dairy farmers out. So 

much a cow. Of course, a lot of them had been there a 

long time, so they took their money and went. And all 

I remember thinking to myself at that stage, ‘Goodness me, what’s going to happen to the 

Yarra Valley?’ They tried beef but the properties weren’t big enough to run beef. And then 

fortunately, as I mentioned before, there came these rebates to wealthy people. They 

came out to the Yarra Valley and bought up the properties that had been dairy farms. They 

put up their wineries and a whole new industry was born. 

I remember thinking to myself at that stage, 

‘Goodness me, what’s going to happen to the 

Yarra Valley?’ 

27



The Wine Industry 

Eventually I had the opportunity to build a winery. The Yarra Yering Winery on Briarty 

Road. The owner, Dr Bailey Carrodus, wanted something to start off with, a big steel shed. 

So, I built it. Then he got me to enclose it all with bricks and he used that as his temporary 

winery. He had big ideas for the future. I had subcontractors to help me with the building. I 

had every tradie needed to build the construction, and most of them were my mates. 

(They weren’t when we started, but they were afterwards.) 

He had big ideas for the 

future. 

That Yarra Yering winery started off with the very 

basic things, four walls and a concrete floor. His 

grapes were starting to come through, so he used that 

shed until such time that we built a big cellar out from 

it at ground level. We dug down three to four metres 

and put a big retaining wall against the footings of the building. We put big concrete walls 

around this great big hole in the ground and poured a big thick slab on top of it which we 

had to form up to hold the concrete. That was my first experience with forming concrete. I 

knew the concreter, and he said to me, 

‘I’ll supply all the stuff, you can put it together Les.’ 

‘Ok.’ I said 

‘I’ll shout you to dinner.’ … he promised. 

He never did! 

If you can imagine an area as big as a house, with beams and pillars holding everything up. 

Then we had to put in all these metal sections, each about a metre square. They all 

interlocked and sat on top of the beams. Dr Carrodus had an engineer/architect design it 

all. When I stripped it, he said to the Doc, ‘That’s the best strip I’ve ever seen.’ I think I put 

so much work into it and perhaps worried about it more so, than someone who could get it 

done quickly. 

I think I put so much work into it, and 

perhaps worried about it more so, than 

someone who could get it done quickly. 

That worked out so well. He had a beautiful cellar. He went on and filled it up, and I said to 

him, 

‘You must have a million bottles of wine here, why don’t you sell some?’ 

‘Nope! Not ready yet.’ was his reply. 

I knew they were having a bit of a battle with money, but he said he would not sell. He had 

his mind set on something and he stuck to it. 

On top of the slab, which was the floor of the original steel building that I’d put up, we 

built about a fifteen square home. All built out of Besser blocks. All the boys called it 

Pentridge! 

28



An early photo of Yarra Yering. Clearly showing the Besser blocks! 

But he knew what he was doing. He’d been all around the world and had collected things. 

He had a lot of beautiful Persian carpets and runners and stuff. When he ran them out 

down these big passages, they brought the place alive. He also had lot of very valuable 

paintings and up on the stark grey walls they looked beautiful. He knew exactly what he 

wanted. 

He knew exactly what he wanted. 

A tasting room at Yarra Yering. The austere 

quality that Bailey Carrodus created can still be 

seen 

It took me a long time to call him Bailey. He used to call me Mr Skate! I said to him one 

day, ‘I’m a bit sick of this Mr Skate business. Could you call me Les? And could I call you 

Bailey?’ And so it was. 

He stuck out for his wine. He made a very good wine. I always reckoned he was the best 

wine maker in the Yarra Valley. The way they make it now, adding all the ingredients into 

tanks and making it bubble and all that sort of thing. But his grapes were picked off the 

vine, the juice was squeezed and was put into barrels to ferment. That was the way wine 

had been made for the last thousand years. In the end he won an export award to Britain, 

and almost overnight, he sold his wine. He could demand about seventeen dollars a bottle, 

(which is a fair bit of money if you’ve got a million bottles!) His top wine demanded eighty 

dollars a bottle, even on the local market. It was a beautiful wine. 

29



I always reckoned he was the best wine maker 

in the Yarra Valley. 

Dr Bailey Carrodus. Described as a visionary who re-started the wine industry in the Yarra Valley and also 

gave Les his first chance to build a winery. 

He always had a plan in mind. In later years other wineries, when they got such a stock 

they wouldn’t stick to their prices, they wanted the cash. So, they would sell it off at lesser 

prices which horrified some of the original owners. They had built it up to about seventeen 

to twenty dollars a bottle, then it was being flogged off at five dollars! Once you go down 

to that you can’t go back again. 

But Dr Carrodus was different. When he was financially stable, we built another big store 

shed, all done with the grey Besser blocks and then we did another one for him, which 

soon outgrew its use. He was still making his wine up in the first shed that I’d built. Then he 

decided was going to build a proper winery down the hill a bit. 

30



So that was another big excavation. We excavated down six metres deep, about thirty 

metres long, and about twenty metres across. Imagine the amount of earth that came out 

of that! Luckily, we had big trucks carting it, and he had plenty of room way up on the bank 

to place it. 

Another early photo showing the development of the winery. 

We built one big cellar storage under the ground. The concrete floor in it was all layered 

with slots and grates. He wanted to get the dampness of the earth coming through. That 

was the way it had to be made. That bought us up to the next level, which was more barrel 

storage, at ground level. On top of that was his winery with his press and great big boxes 

all lined with enamel that you put the grapes in and pressed them. There were stairs from 

the bottom to the second storey. My son Tim designed a lift so he could get the barrels up 

to the ground level. 

He wanted to get the 

dampness of the earth coming 

through. That was the way it 

had to be made. 

It was a very wet area. He was right on the side of a 

mountain. He picked that for the soil. But an 

avalanche of water used to come down that 

mountain. And I had this great big hole in the ground. 

It was one of the wettest seasons; we had six inches of 

rain. I had to keep the water out and stop the sides 

from falling in which would have been a disaster. I was a bit lucky but I knew if the water 

got near the edge, say about a couple of feet from it, it would sink in and then it would fall 

in. 

So, I bought lots of big rolls of black polythene. I took it back about a couple metres and 

pegged it all down and draped it over. So, when the rain came down it went over the edge 

and down to the bottom. I had good drainage at the bottom. We were down, remember, 

six metres. So, I had to put big pits in and dig a big drain six metres deep to get the water 

down to the bottom where it gradually ran out. We only had one little earth fall. That was 

after the mesh had been put in. We had to dig it all out with a shovel. If that had happened 

all the way around it would have been a disaster. 

31



On the east side was the second building that we’d built for him away from the main 

buildings. Storage. And a big concrete apron. When you dig down every two to three 

metres, you’re supposed to put a lay back the same size. But on the other side he had his 

grapes growing. He wouldn’t part with his grapes. I said, 

‘Doc you know we could have a real disaster here.’ 

‘What would be the worst scenario?’ he asked. 

‘Could cost you a hundred thousand at least to clean it all out, then you’ve got all that 

extra back filling.’ 

But he wouldn’t budge. He wouldn’t part with his grapes. But when the council came to 

inspect pre-building, they went back and told the powers-to-be what I was doing. Hadn’t 

done the laybacks. So they sent two engineers out and I said to them, 

‘Well, that’s what I think I’ve got to do, you tell me what you’d do.’ 

They went away and they never came back. 

Then finally his winery was to be built. The big hole 

in the ground. We couldn’t start till late October 

because it was so wet. And he wanted it finished for 

vintage by about Anzac Day, so boy did we have to 

go! But we got it ready for him for when the first 

But he wouldn’t budge. He 

wouldn’t part with his grapes. 

vintage grapes came in. The Yarra Yering winery was the first real job where I became quite 

educated about building. And I think I got through it quite alright. 

Dr Carrodus’ first vintage wines. 1973 

The Yarra Yering winery was the first real job 

where I became quite educated about building. 

And I think I got through it quite alright. 

32



James Halliday was the head honcho in the wine industry. He’d bought the property right 

next door to where we lived. He and Dr Carrodus were quite friendly and they used to look 

after the wineries. He was the next one to come and ask me to build his winery. It was to 

become Coldstream Hills Winery. He and his wife Suzanne worked extremely hard on that 

winery with minimal resources. It was a very hard place to do anything as it was just a 

rocky hill. They had picked that because over in Italy and Spain and even parts of France 

probably, the vines are grown in rocks. He got a machine in with big rippers which just 

opened up trenches about six hundred mm deep and whatever the intervals were. First of 

all, they dropped chook manure along the trenches from little trucks. They’d go right up 

the top of the hill and come down (it was about forty-five degrees). Then they filled in the 

trenches. The fencer then came in and drove his pine posts into the trenches at the 

interval points, and the grape vines were soon growing along them. 

James Halliday gave Les his next opportunity. This photo shows the slope of the land that Les talks about. 

The construction of Coldstream Hills at the very top of the hill was another challenge for Les 

That was their part of growing the vineyard. Then my job came along. We only had a little 

bit levelled at the top of the hill that the previous owner had taken off. We had to take 

more off. The top of that hill was some of the hardest rock you can imagine. We also had 

to make the road which was just outside their boundary. A friend of mine had done a lot of 

work for me ripped fifteen foot off the top of the hill and put it down the bottom. He said, 

33



‘I wouldn’t do that for anyone else!’ Then we levelled an area big enough for the winery 

and proceeded to build it. We had to jack hammer out the trenches for the drains. We 

eventually got there. 

It wasn’t a real big project in those days but the firms that bought it later on (it’s owned by 

Treasury Wines now) between them and Rosemount and the others, they built onto it and 

made it bigger. While it was Coldstream Hills, James and Suzanne were a bit like Dr 

Carrodus. They wanted to make a name for themselves in the wine industry. And they did. 

They were getting that seventeen to twenty dollars a bottle. Eventually James, who was 

quite a clever bloke, (he’d been a solicitor and worked for big firms in the city) took 

shareholders in and he eventually sold to Rosemount. 

James (Halliday) and 

Suzanne were a bit like Dr 

Carrodus. They wanted to 

make a name for themselves 

in the wine industry. And 

they did. 

The new owners then did just the same as the others 

had done … they wanted to see the money, so they 

dropped the price down. That would have broken 

James’ and Suzanne’s hearts. But it has worked its 

way back up to a good level again now, with 

competition and a big demand for wine. 

Coldstream Hills Cellar Door 

34



So that was Coldstream Hills. Now one of the top directors of that company was a fellow 

named Tony Jordan. He was a world-wide acclaimed wine maker. He was given the job by 

a French crowd, Domaine-Chandon, to find a property, to put in a vineyard and start a 

winery. He found a property called Green Point, on the Maroondah Hwy between the 

highway and the Yarra river. He proceeded to put in the vineyard. 

Because Tony was connected to James and had seen what I’d done there, he asked if I was 

interested in doing it. So, I looked at the plans and oh boy, it was a whopper! They got 

architects from Sydney, Allan, Jack and Collier, who were world-renowned architects. I 

thought it would be pretty good working for them! 

So I looked at the plans and 

oh boy, it was a whopper! 

They sent a trouble-shooter down from Sydney and 

they had a meeting up at the house at Coldstream 

Hills, not far from where we lived. There were two 

other big city companies bidding (probably never built 

a winery in their lives). They interviewed them first 

and I was the last one. I think the bloke had already made up his mind, he knew that I was 

a one-man band. He was firing all these questions at me and I couldn’t take it anymore, so I 

said, ‘Sorry I’m not interested.’ So, I went home (a few hundred yards up the road). 

About half an hour later a knock came on the door. It was Tony Jordan. 

‘Come in.’ I said. 

‘Look Les, do you want to do it and how do you want to do it?’ he asked. 

‘Well I’ll do the building, and you pay all the bills!’ 

We shook hands on it and that was that! 

I went on to build it over four years. It was built in four separate sections. It’s one of the 

most beautiful and best wineries in the Yarra Valley. 

I received an accolade when I finished building 

Domaine-Chandon that I have always been 

very proud of. Those architects, who as I said, 

were known world-wide … they’d done some 

fantastic work in other countries. They said 

my eye for detail was as good as they’d seen 

anywhere in the world. I think I was very, 

very, fussy! 

35



These photos all show Les’ work at Domaine-Chandon. When asked to name his greatest 

achievements, Les replied, ‘My family … shearing 200 sheep in a day … and building 

Domaine-Chandon.’ 

Entrance 

Homestead 

36



Riddling Hall 

Domaine-Chandon Winery 

37



I went on from there to Eyton on Yarra. That winery had been started by a chap who had 

big visions of doing this and doing that and the poor man ended up going under. The fellow 

who bought it owned the Eyton on Yarra property on Dalry Rd out of Healesville. So, this 

winery was to be called Eyton on Yarra. Anyway, I got that job and the architect sort of 

hashed out what was there, I pulled a lot of it down, but in the finish, we made a very nice 

winery. The crowd that own it now, is Rochford. Tim did all the steel on Eyton on Yarra and 

he helped me with pretty much everything on that winery. He was getting his education 

into the building game. 

I pulled a lot of it down, but 

in the finish we made a very 

nice winery. The crowd that 

own it now, is Rochford. 

After that I did the last stage for Dr Carrodus. His 

own winery. And while we were just finishing it off, 

an architect and one of the owner’s sons from Yering 

Station called in one day to see what was going on 

there. They were keen to buy out Dr Carrodus at that 

Tim was getting his education 

into the building game. 

stage. They had a snoop around and it wasn’t long before they came back and asked if I 

was interested in building a winery for them. (Yering Station) By then I was getting on, so I 

said to my son Tim, ‘Do you want to do it?’ He jumped at the chance. That’s where the 

changeover happened. 

I said to my son Tim, ‘Do 

you want to do it?’ He 

jumped at the chance. 

Tim had done his apprenticeship with the Board of 

Works as a welder. He was a top welder there. He 

didn’t like the way they worked so he had come and 

worked for me doing all the steelwork. Plus doing 

other things. I don’t know how many wineries we’d done, but there’d been a lot. Tim had 

an engineering brain as good as anyone in the world. He built the whole thing from 

scratch. So, he took over the business and I worked for him for another ten years until I 

was eighty-one. 

So he took over the business and I worked for 

him for another ten years until I was eighty-one. 

38



Yering Station Winery became quite a fabulous winery. It’s very nice to walk around and 

have a look at. We’ve been there for a few meals but I find they give you a big plate with 

very little on it! And then they charge you the world for it! I’d prefer to go for a pub meal … 

No, really, we’ve been invited back and it’s very nice. They’ve treated me very well … the 

name sticks there. 

Yarra Yering Winery today 

After that, Tim more or less went his own way. We built a couple of houses and renovated 

the Yeringberg winery, which is probably the oldest winery in the district, it dates way 

back. I finished up on that one, building a house on the property for one of the daughters. 

Tim just kept on going, and the wineries just kept on flowing. He did a few houses, but the 

wineries were always coming up. 

So, all these wineries were in Skate Construction’s name and when Tim took over, he just 

followed on. I doubt he’s ever had to put in a price for a winery. He gives them an estimate 

and that’s it. I never really understood the business side of it, but I can see it now, because 

I’ve seen the way Tim runs the business. But when I look back … for example, I look at the 

Domaine Chandon Winery, because it was something first up. I made a living, but that’s 

about all. My tradies were getting more than me in the finish. Then if there was anything 

left over I would have it. But I was happy. 

Something that I want to say, something that I 

feel good about, is that it was a very good start 

for Tim. My work stayed in very good stead 

for him, and he’s gone on and made a very 

good success of it 

39



Family homes 

I’d like to talk about our two daughters and their first two houses, which they bought 

opposite each other in East St Kilda. Lynne had spent a bit of time boarding in this area. 

This particular spot was one of the oldest areas, the streets were very narrow. They were 

all mostly little single frontage villas lining the street on both sides. They were mostly in 

very dilapidated conditions. I dare to say they had never been renovated in their early 

lives. 

At that stage things were starting to move, lifestyles were changing. At that point those 

houses were selling for around $25,000 – $27,000. If you’d had a bit of money behind you, 

you could have bought the whole street. Anyway, Lynne managed to save up enough and 

she bought this place in very poor condition. But that didn’t throw out too much of a 

challenge to me. I was able to jack it up, straighten it up, and add a bit on to it. It ended up 

quite a comfortable two-bedroom home, with a nice kitchen, bathroom and so forth. 

But that didn’t throw out too 

much of a challenge to me. I 

was able to jack it up, 

straiten it up, and add a bit 

on to it. It ended up quite a 

comfortable two bedroom 

home, 

She lived there for three or four years or thereabouts, until she was able to get a block of 

land up here in Lilydale. She borrowed the money and I built her a nice home there and 

that’s where she has settled for the last thirty years. Which is very handy for us as she’s 

just around the corner. 

Les at work on Lynne’s house in East St Kilda 

40



Over the years the building of houses became a family affair. Les here supervising work on Lynne’s shed. 

In the meantime, whilst we were renovating Lynne’s little house, Julie had got to the stage 

where she was looking for somewhere to buy. A house directly opposite Lynne’s house in 

East St Kilda came on the market, and she was able to buy it. The houses there were 

almost touching. On one side you could squeeze down, but on the other side you couldn’t. 

There was virtually about six inches between the houses. So, everything had to be done 

from inside. That meant I had to support the frames and pull up all the floors so I could 

work underneath. 

Lynne and Julie kept Les busy on their 

first houses. 

The land here would have been 

pretty much undersea a few 

million years ago, and now it is 

all black sand. You can never 

find a bottom to it to put a 

stump in. The houses were all 

higgeldy-piggeldy. So, I had to 

dig out all the trenches by hand, 

and I got loads of railway 

sleepers and I laid them as base 

logs in the bottom of the trench, 

so the weight was spread out. 

41



Then I put my stumps on top of the sleepers. I jacked the walls up straight. Where they 

were rotten, I had to replace the wall plates. I had to do that right through. There was a lot 

of manual work … carting dirt out and carting timber in through a narrow passage. I did a 

lot of this on my own, but I did have some help from Rol, because by this stage he was 

working with me. 

That house worked out very nicely. Julie being a 

designer, knew what she wanted. We were able to 

change a few little things to suit her and made it 

Julie being a designer, knew 

what she wanted. 

more convenient and comfortable for her. She ended up with a nice little house there. She 

stayed there for few years too. Those houses, after three or four years, had jumped up to 

$75,000! Julie then bought an original house up at Mt Dandenong. More work! But not to 

such an extent as the first houses. 

Julie went on from there down to Fairfield. She bought another old villa which needed a bit 

of work done on it, but basically it was alright. It was a very handy block. She stayed there 

for a while. So, after doing that up a bit it was also a very nice little place. She designed a 

few things herself, lovely lead-light doors and things like that. The market was on the upand-up 

in those days which helped Julie a lot. She went from Fairfield to Bulleen, where I 

also did a lot of work on the house. It was on a slope and a lot of water was coming from 

the back, so I did a lot of landscaping and work on drainage. That worked out well too. 

So after doing that up a bit it 

was also a very nice little 

place. 

She designed a few things 

herself … lovely lead-light 

doors and things like that. 

From Bulleen she went down to Chelsea. She bought 

a nice little unit there and I did a few little things to 

improve it. It was right on the beach. It’s become a 

very valuable site and she still owns it. She’s been 

away on various jobs, to Mackay and now in Canberra. She rented there for a while and 

now she’s bought her own unit, so she’ll retire there, in Canberra and she’ll have the nice 

place to come back to in Chelsea, when she comes down for a stay. 

42



Lynne’s very happy where she is now. She worked for Caladenia, the Alzheimer’s place in 

Mooroolbark for a good many years as a coordinator. She retired from that, if you could 

call it a retirement. She still gets involved there for various things. (Joan’s also been very 

involved there as a volunteer. I did a few bits and pieces there too.) 

Les giving a demonstration of shearing to a group 

from Caladenia, where Lynne worked as 

co-ordinator 

More family assistance 

with Lynne’s shed. 

43



Lynne’s got a lot of things going on that she does for herself … language classes, and 

dancing classes. She has a busy life. (Looking after me too!) It’s very good for us that Lynne 

is still here in Lilydale. At the moment with the condition I’m in, she is here every day to 

see me. Being the nurse. She fusses around me, makes sure I take this pill or that pill (or 

that I don’t take that pill!). She’s very good. 

It’s very good for us that Lynne is still here in 

Lilydale. 

When Tim met Ros, she had a little place up here in Lilydale. He moved in there for a while 

and I helped him put on a little landing, and another bedroom on that too. Then they 

bought a block in Berkley Place in Chirnside Park. It had quite a view. It was a steep block, 

but with Tim’s engineering brain we dug it out, put rooms underneath, put big concrete 

walls up, then built the house up on top of that. They had a nice home there. 

Master at work 

Les teaching grandson Timothy how to use the 

‘whacker packer’ 

44



But Tim always wants to move on and test his skills. They ended up buying a five-acre block 

in another part of Chirnside Park in a more rural area, on the north side of Switchback 

Road and proceeded to build a state-of-the-art home. Which it is! I’m not game to touch 

anything there. It’s all touch button. You talk in your phone and the blinds go up. All that 

sort of thing. 

But Tim always wants to 

move on and test his skills 

The first thing he built there was quite a big workshop 

which he’s added on to now. Because of the business 

he can get all the steel he needs. He has a full-time 

welder work there and he does all the steel. The rest 

of it is storage … for his boats and our old vintage 

car…the Chevy. Plus, all his workshop equipment that he needs for jobs. 

Les with his 1928 

Chevy, that is stored in 

Tim’s shed where the 

restoration took place. 

It took Les and Tim 

only 12 months to do 

the restoration over 

2012-2013. Word has it 

that Les had to be 

banned from going on 

weekends so he didn’t 

drive everyone mad! 

The second photo was 

taken on Les’ 90 th 

birthday. He and the 

Chevy were the same 

age. 

45



Tim’s pretty well organised. They have a very good setup there. Lovely home, lovely big 

garden. Everything you could want. But he is talking now about looking for something else. 

Not in the area they’re in now, over in the built-up area. On the highest peak he can find. If 

he has to buy the house, he’ll just knock it down and build the castle on the hill. 

Rol bought his first house in Loughnan Rd, in Ringwood. I spent a fair bit of time on that. 

He bought this little old place. It was a house that when you saw it, you knew you could do 

something with it. It was on a very steep block up Loughnan Road, looking down over 

Ringwood. We dug out and built underneath. 

Then we built on top which gave them a new big 

bedroom, an en suite, a dressing-room, a new big 

living area, and a kitchen. Underneath they had their 

double garage. It worked quite well; it was a good 

start for him. 

It was a house that when you 

saw it, you knew you could do 

something with it. 

It worked quite well, it was a 

good start for him. 

From there Rol and Tim went into this joint venture of 

a ski-water-jump park. Rol sold the house at Loughnan 

Road and they both put money into the new venture. 

They bought land out at Gruyere and that’s where Rol 

still lives now. After the completion of the 

construction of the water-jump, (that is a story in itself!) they had great success, it was 

fantastic. Australia wouldn’t have had our world champion ski jumpers, including Kirstie 

Marshall, if it hadn’t been there for them to train on. 

Australia wouldn’t have had our world 

champion ski jumpers, including Kirstie 

Marshall, if it hadn’t been there for them to 

train on. 

The long-term idea was that the general public would also come and pay and have a bit of 

fun. But it fizzled out after a while. There’s only a limited number of people who do that 

sort of thing and in the end, they couldn’t keep it going. I was warned about it by Tony 

Jordan. He was the man who controlled Domaine Chandon. He said to me one day, ‘I don’t 

think this will work Les, it’s a limited market.’ He knew you had to have clients. And so, it 

didn’t go on. 

So Rol made his home up there. He was still working in the carpentry business up until he 

had a fall and damaged his shoulder. He had always been a motorbike enthusiast, because 

Karen’s, (his wife) father was called ‘Mr Honda,’ because he imported all the Honda stuff 

from Japan. So, Karen was deeply into motorbikes too. The big building there that they had 

for the ski people, became Rol’s motor bike repair shop and that has become his business. 

46



I think they love it so much they will stay there 

forever. 

The property had a very old home on it that had been moved there. I have just finished 

renovating and adding to it and it’s come up very nicely I think they love it so much they 

will stay there forever. I’ve never stopped going up there for the past three years, since 

Tim’s house at Cape Patterson was finished. There’s always something for me to do around 

the property and I love going there and helping out. 

Les working around Rol’s property at Gruyere. 2019 

47



Coldstream Football Club…a big part of my life. 

My experience in football at Coldstream started back in 1952, when we started our club. 

We had a cricket club that had been going for a couple of years, so we were able to draw 

on the cricketers to help build up a football team. We chased around and a lot of the 

farmer boys came to play. They turned up in their hob-nailed boots to play! One of my jobs 

was to drive in these leather nailed stops on the Saturday. Then knock them out on Sunday 

so they go home and work! I used bags and bags of stops. Eventually they could afford a 

pair of footy boots. But that’s how we started. 

A lot of the farmer boys came 

to play. They turned up in 

their hob-nailed boots to play! 

The 1949 Coldstream Cricket Club that provided some players to start the football club. Les is in the 

back row, second from left. His brother Geoff is in the front row, first left. 

48



We were able to have an agreement with a very large farming family in the community 

that owned this big block of land in Coldstream. We were able to get ten or twelve acres 

fenced off, from a big hundred-acre block, so they really didn’t miss it. There wouldn’t be 

many people who would allow that sort of interference with their property. But they were 

happy to give to us on a ninety-nine-year lease, for ten shillings a year or thereabouts. Just 

to make it legal. 

There wouldn’t be many 

people who would allow that 

sort of interference with their 

property. 

So, we renovated the ground. I rotary hoed it, sowed 

it down, put up goal posts and ran a fence around it. I 

went up the bush and felled trees. My brother-in-law 

and sister had a farm at Gruyere. (Which was the one 

we bought part of eventually.) He’d set himself up 

with a little sawmill. It was pretty rugged, but good 

enough to saw our slabs and timber. If it was a bit cockeyed it didn’t matter. We nailed it 

all together and made a great long shed with a division in the middle for the umpires. 

Because it was all green timber, after a couple of summers, the boards all shrunk and half 

your stuff would fall down through the cracks! If you dropped a sixpence down, you had to 

crawl underneath to get it back. 

But it gave us a start. We put up with it for quite a 

few years, until ‘64 or ‘65. Then we moved over to 

our new ground which was on a subdivision. When 

they subdivided in those days, they had to allow so 

much for recreational areas. So, we were guaranteed 

at some time, to get a new ground. But that depended on how much work we did, and 

how much we got out of the council. 

After I chased and chased, we finally got it. 

While we were at the old Coldstream ground, hardly any of us had any football experience. 

Four or five of us had been at Yarra Glen for a couple of years before that. Jack Campbell, 

Des Goodwin, Kevin Sheehan, Stan Rowan, and myself. But when I say experience, we 

really just went out there, ran around and chased the ball! 

I did have one claim-to-fame there though, at Yarra Glen. A gentleman had bought a farm 

out at Dixons Creek. He wanted some hay carted and I had an old truck. I carted his hay for 

so much a bale, (Joan came and helped me) and I got know him. He happened to be Colin 

Watson, Brownlow Medalist who played for St Kilda. I had a little bit of input into him 

coming to help us at Yarra Glen. 

Of course, being an elite footballer, he could see what he was facing … he just came at sat 

on the fence really. Anyway, that year, we were playing in the seconds and we got to play 

in the Grand Final. It was played up at Yarra Junction. Well I was a poor footballer (but I 

was the youngest there too). I was the nineteenth man and I remember Colin saying to me, 

just to boost me up, ‘We always like to keep a good nineteenth man handy!’ 

49 

If it was a bit cockeyed it 

didn’t matter.



I was jumping out of my skin. We didn’t win. We had beaten them through the year but 

they put in a player that had played seconds for Richmond and he just killed us. It only 

takes one good footballer in a weak side … but that was my claim to fame. I was coached 

by a Brownlow Medalist. But it never rubbed off on me! 

But that was my claim to 

fame. I was coached by a 

Brownlow Medalist 

Those early years at Coldstream … because we were 

one of the lesser sides, we got terrible hidings. But still 

everyone turned up. By the time we got to move over 

to the new oval, we’d picked up a few new boys that 

had moved into the area. There was one family, the Wines family, who were very natural 

athletes and they stood out at our club. One descendant of them is Ollie Wines. He now 

plays for Port Adelaide. 

The Yarra Glen Football team in its earliest years, circa 1950-52. Les is in back row, third from right 

So, we kicked on a bit. Our first coach was just a local bloke who had played a bit of footy, 

so we didn’t learn much. The following year we got a paid coach who had played for 

Croydon. He’d gone to Richmond for a bit but he didn’t click, or he didn’t like it. After him 

we had a series of different coaches who were past their time. They were playing coaches 

and you hoped they’d give you a lift, but they were only there to get their money. Anyway, 

we did learn a bit. 

50



We had done a lot of work at the other ground getting it ready. We had basically just been 

left with a great big cut in the ground with yellow clay. We had to put topsoil on that and 

hope we’d get good grass. But when you put topsoil on top of clay, the top soil gets full of 

water and the clay just takes over. Our boots just sank in the clay. So, we started to drain 

it, we put all sorts of drains through, but it was very difficult to drain. 

We put up the posts. We did have some old lights that had been given to us. We’d put 

them up at the old ground, but unless you were right under the lights you couldn’t see 

what you were doing. But we put them up on higher poles over the new ground for a little 

while and it did help. 

In the long run though, in these later years, the Coldstream Football Club has one of the 

best grounds and facilities in the whole competition. I’m proud to know that. That our hard 

work paid off. A lot of things went into it, sowing the right grass, the drainage … it just all 

got better as we went on and it has turned out very well. As a cricket ground and as a 

football ground. 

It just all got better as we 

went on and it has turned out 

very well. 

At that stage I was still putting up steel buildings. So, I 

was able to get one through the firm I dealt with. It 

was like a big tin shed. We whacked that up, divided it 

up, and that was our change rooms for quite a while. 

Then we realised that we needed something better. So, on the north end of it we built the 

big clubroom. Pretty much all clubrooms were just a room at each end and a division in the 

middle. We wanted to upgrade ours. Put in showers, a proper runway where they ran out 

on to the ground, and stuff like that. So, then we went a bit further. 

The steel building was pulled down. (That went up to my brother Neil’s place. Neil at that 

stage was getting quite involved with the football team.) We built the next section. All this 

was done in brick. We did our foundations and bricked them up. All this was done to carry 

another storey on top which was done out of steel. This accommodated the rooms for the 

timekeepers, and a balcony for viewing. Then they needed facilities for making money, and 

for having meetings and parties and such. So, we built another big section. Each addition 

was done much in alignment, with a little curve, to match the fence. That was quite a big 

job. 

That was quite a big job. 

We needed a lot of concrete to pour the footings. 

We ran the brick work up a little bit. Then we had to 

do the concrete floors before the brickwork went up any higher. So, the concrete trucks 

could pour the concrete directly from the trucks. Otherwise we would have had the cost of 

the pumps and hoses that would have been needed. As well as the cost of the blokes 

dragging them in. 

51



I was pretty busy with my own job at the time. I’d order concrete for seven in the morning 

at the footy club. I’d be up there and I’d pour a load of concrete, screed it off, and trowel it 

up. I’d have another load delivered to my other job at nine, so then I’d go and do that. 

Once I had screed that off, at about eleven or twelve, the footy club one would be dry 

enough for me to polish up. So, I’d go and do that, then I’d go back and polish the other 

one. All in a day’s work! That was alright. I could do it. 

All in a day’s work! That was alright. I could 

do it. 

Then we built that up and made it into a great big reception area. They had big overhead 

glass cabinets for all the memorabilia, the trophies and the photos and stuff. And big 

viewing windows looking out over the ground. We built the kitchen so they had a servery. 

And that had lift-up doors so the people outside could be served there, the canteen and 

get their pie and sauce. 

The Coldstream football team circa 1967-70. Les is second row, far left (kneeling.) Rol is in the front left, 

and Tim is in the middle. 

52



Then they wanted to go bigger. We couldn’t go any further around without blocking off the 

driveway, but by coming back we had enough room. So, we built another big area that was 

probably the size of a ten square house. I organised all of that. We did the footings and 

bricked it all up, (but that was done by my bricklayers). To get the idea of how many bricks 

… it’s 100 feet long, in three sections. Probably thirty-feet deep. My nephew, John 

Mitchell, was a bricklayer. He worked all during the week. And then weekends he’d be 

laying bricks for us. He laid thousands of bricks on that place and it was all voluntary work. 

He received an award from the club in recognition of his efforts. 

My nephew, John Mitchell, 

was a bricklayer … He laid 

thousands of bricks on that 

place, and it was all voluntary 

work. 

I was always at training on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I 

was always on the committee as well, as President or 

Secretary or Treasurer or whatever, so there was 

always a meeting every couple of weeks. Meetings, 

they were a bore to me, and they were always at night 

time. So, all that kept me pretty busy. 

The Coldstream Football Club 2019 

The Coldstream Football Club has one of the 

best grounds and facilities in the whole 

competition. I’m proud to know that. That 

our hard work paid off. 

53



A good friend of mine was Des Goodwin. He was the first life member of the footy club. He 

ran a Boys’ Club, which was run as a subsidiary of the State Police Boys’ Club. He wasn’t 

connected to Coldstream at the time. He used to go around of a weekend and pick up all 

these boys, from all over the place. Very few from Coldstream (three or four at the most). 

He took them all around the Yarra Valley to their football games. 

A time came when Des got too busy and I also think he could see that Coldstream was 

ready for a junior football club. I had a pretty close relationship with him and he asked if I 

would take them on. I doubt if he would have conned anyone else! He had a philosophy … 

He always said, ‘If you need to get anything done, ask the busiest person.’ Anyway, I took 

them on. 

He always said, ‘If you need to get anything 

done, ask the busiest person.’ Anyway, I took 

them on. 

I had much the same pattern to cover. I had to go around and pick up boys from Mt Evelyn, 

Ringwood, Lilydale, wherever. At that stage the Under 16s hadn’t really been formed much 

in the Eastern District Football League. So, it was reasonably easy for me to sign up boys 

from other places. Which, about a year later, became much more difficult as these kids 

ended up going back to the clubs where their parents were. So, we didn’t get much 

parental support either. With me going around and picking their boys up, meant that they 

weren’t getting involved. This made it very tough. 

We needed two cars for the pick up on the 

Saturday I had a ute; Joan had the FJ. We 

filled them up with kids, with our own four 

sitting on someone’s knee! But we had a team. 

In the first year we went alright. Ended up about in the middle of the ladder. The second 

year, we were even better. There was only one team who beat us each time we played. 

They were a very good team, Surrey Hills. They were in very good position because there’d 

been a boy’s home down on Warrigal Rd, which had closed. They had a pretty wild and 

strong football team. Well Surrey Hills picked the eyes out of them and ended up with all 

these big strong boys. Anyway, that was alright. That was the second season. All my boys 

were in the year that they turned sixteen. Well, we won our way right through to the 

Grand Final, beaten along the way only by Surrey Hills. 

54



All my boys were in the year 

that they turned sixteen. 

Well, we won our way right 

through to the Grand Final 

The game was played over at Boronia. We didn’t have 

a big gathering of people there to watch it, 

unfortunately. We were going along alright because 

we were kicking straight and they were kicking 

crooked! As someone said, ‘That means you had a 

good backline.’ And we did. We had some kids there 

who would not give up and they were able to hold them out. And there were a couple of 

changes I made … one was right at the start. I changed the kid we had playing in the 

centre. He reckoned he was crash hot as a centreman. Well he was too, he was clever, but 

he could never have beaten their centreman. So, I put him out on the wing and oh, he 

hated me! But as the game went on, he played his game and he did his bit. 

I took a boy named Johnny May away from centre 

half-forward and put him in the centre, on this good 

bloke, and he got on top of him! Each time it was 

kicked out, (and it was kicked out a few times 

because they were kicking behinds) Johnny would 

get in front and he’d mark it. (He went on down to 

Footscray, he didn’t play Firsts, but he did play some of the top games here. Nice bloke 

Johnny.) 

Anyway, just a little bit more 

on that game…My nephew 

Gary… (I could talk about 

them all!) 

We were going along alright 

because we were kicking 

straight and they were 

kicking crooked! 

Anyway, just a little bit more on that game…My 

nephew Gary, (I could talk about them all!) he was 

one of those kids…just so determined and no matter 

how good the bloke was that he was on, he would 

never let him go. Everybody lifted! It came right down 

to the last minutes and we were two behinds in front. 

They were getting the ball around the bottom flank. 

All they had to do was kick it out into the ground, one of their blokes get it, kick a goal and 

it would have been all over. 

Now one of the boys that I had playing, was Ian 

Mays. He was playing full forward. The Mays family Everybody lifted! 

were always top footballers at Lilydale. So, a bit of 

that had rubbed off on Ian. He only played that one 

year. He was a mate of some of my boys from Ringwood. He hadn’t been allowed to play 

football because as a kid, he’d been a bit of a dare-devil. Someone dared him to jump off 

his own roof, so he jumped off and broke both his ankles! And then he got a disease in his 

bones, osteomyelitis I think it was. He used to come out and have a run, but there wasn’t 

much he could do. Oh, but he was a beautiful high mark. 

55



Well he was playing full forward and he’d done his bit. I was thinking, ‘We’re going to get 

beaten here.’ The next thing, on no advice from me, I saw Ian running from the goals, way 

I was thinking, ‘We’re going 

to get beaten here.’ 

down to where the ball was, and every time the ball 

was thrown in, up he went and Bang! Thumped it 

away! And then the time ran out and we won by two 

points! Oh, it was drama after drama. Yeah it was. I 

remember, I ran out on to the oval, and… 

Johnny May, who was quite a big boy, came 

running at me and I jumped into his arms! … 

I’ll never forget that match. 

Holidays in our later years 

In more recent years Joan and I have taken many organised tours to many different places 

around Australia. Often, we went with a group of friends. Once, we went to Cairns on a 

train that was called Holiday Train. We stayed on the train during the day and at midday 

we would stop somewhere along the way for a meal. We’d jump back on again, and by 

night we’d be at another city or town where we were accommodated for the evening. 

Eventually we got to Townsville. 

Then our destination was Thursday Island. We flew out of Townsville with a company that 

had two old war time DC3 twin-engine aeroplanes that had been mainly used for carting 

troops and stores around during the war. They’d done them up and they used them for 

tours that started at Townsville. They were called Gooney Birds. We flew firstly out to 

Weipa, on the gulf. We stayed there overnight then we headed for Thursday Island. But 

there was no airport there so we landed at Herron Island. 

We were taken from there on a fishing boat across the strait. Now it was a very hot day, 

that day, and I got a bit squeamish. When we arrived at Thursday Island there were these 

beds out on the veranda. The two pilots had to go and have a sleep, so I had a lay down 

too. In our group on this trip, there were eight of us, including Joan’s sister Pat and her 

husband, Ted. The others went off and enjoyed their visit to the church and so forth, which 

was all part of the tour. I came good, and I remember going up and looking at the 

cemetery up on the hill. 

56



In our group on this trip, 

there were eight of us, 

including Joan’s sister Pat 

and her husband Ted. 

They put on a big meal. There was a beautiful 

assortment of fruit, which you’d expect up in the 

Islands I suppose. When that part of the trip was over, 

we went back across the strait on a ferry. 

It was pretty rough going across … we were out on the 

ocean then. We came back into the Gulf and we unloaded at a small port there. We were 

driven by coach out to the airport and loaded onto the plane and eventually took off. As 

part of the flight, the plane had some mail and other things to drop off at the mission 

station up there, which was Edward River Mission Station, so we landed there. 

It happened that during the war Ted had flown these DC3s. He had been a wireless 

operator and had also trained trainees, flying in these planes all over Australia. Whilst we 

were waiting to take off again, we received word to say that the plane had blown a piston, 

and we wouldn’t be able to take off. Ted, my brother-in-law … I suppose with hours of 

flying he could hear every sound, said, ‘I knew there was something wrong. I thought we’d 

done a piston!’ He hadn’t wanted to alarm us! 

The second one of their planes was out on a flight 

delivering food to other missions. So, they radioed 

him and he called back in. It was a very hot day, not a 

good day for motors to be running. He looked at us 

all and said, 

‘There’s no way I can take off with all of you.’ So we thought, 

‘Oh well we will be drawing straws to see who camps with the dogs tonight!’ 

But they served us a meal, a great big barbeque with fish and chops and steak thrown on 

it. 

And there was Jackie with the cigarette butt hanging out of his mouth and all the ash 

dropping on the barbeque! I thought, ‘This mightn’t go down too good!’ We started to get 

a little bit worried about what we were going to have to put up with, there being no proper 

accommodation at all really. Eventually the bloke took all the details, and weighed 

everything. It was well over weight. But he said ‘I’ll be right once I get up there, I can go 

right up to the lighter air.’ And he did. We got up there and he got us back to Cairns. 

I was very happy to get back on land again! 

That was quite an experience 

‘I knew there was something 

wrong. I thought we’d done a 

piston! 

57



From there we hired an eight-seater van and decided we’d go inland, down through all the 

good food growing country. The Atherton Tablelands. We visited quite a few interesting 

little towns along the way. One in particular that springs to mind, I don’t remember the 

name…but there was this lady. 

She kept a terrific dining 

room. 

It was only a little town and she’d been there a long, 

long time. She was the Mayor and she pretty much 

ran the town. She ran the motel which was just men’s 

huts that had been moved from the mining towns. But 

she kept a terrific dining room. People came from 

everywhere! I had thought, ‘How is she ever going to fill that dining room?’ Well, that night 

it was filled up! 

It happened to be Ted’s birthday, so I went to her, and I bought a bottle of whisky. Well 

maybe I shouldn’t talk about people like this, she really was a lovely lady, but she was 

already half tipsy by then. She had a couple of very good lasses looking after the dining 

room. There was no doubt we had a beautiful spread. She sort of took a bit of a liking to us 

because we were the new ones in town. She liked to put her arm around me!... 

Anyway, the night went alright. Then in the morning 

of course, being called a motel, we expected some 

sort of a meal. But there didn’t seem to be anything 

happening, so in the finish I had to go and knock on 

her door. I knew she lived adjacent to the dining area. So, I knocked on her door, and the 

poor old dear came out, with the long hair and the false teeth out, looking like she really 

needed some repairs done! I think she was quite embarrassed and, in the end, we went 

into the kitchen and got our own breakfast. It was a bit funny. I don’t know how many 

times she had told us the night before that Joh and Flo always dined there. And I wouldn’t 

really have been surprised! 

The poor old dear came out, with the long 

hair, and the false teeth out, and looking like 

she really needed some repairs done! 

Well maybe I shouldn’t talk 

about people like this, she 

really was a lovely lady, 

Another quite laughable thing that happened there … it was Show Day. They had quite a 

reasonable museum there, old wooden stables built a hundred years ago, that sort of 

thing. Ted and I were looking around and we saw this nice big piston from an aeroplane. 

And the caption underneath said, ‘This is the last piston from the working DC3s.’ Well we 

knew first hand that it wasn’t! It just shows you what they can get away with! We had a 

laugh about that too. 

58



We kept travelling and the next place we came to had a ‘Big Bullock’. Like the ‘Big Banana’, 

that sort of thing. We arrived and of course the first thing we needed to do … well, it was a 

nice little toilet block. I hopped out and went over and Bet, Joan’s sister, who was a bit of a 

character, came too. On the door, you know how sometimes you see different captions, 

like ‘Guys’ and ‘Gals’ and such …well on these doors, it said, ‘Flip dry,’ and ‘Drip dry.’ Poor 

Bet didn’t know which one to go in! But we helped her out there. 

That was fun and all part of 

the journey. 

It was good coming down through that area and we had seen a lot of the inland country. 

That journey ended back in Brisbane, where we had left our vehicles, and we headed 

home. 

I still say though, that our first trip to The 

Kimberley in 1985 was the best trip we did. 

We did do really good things on the other trips, but this trip to the Kimberley really 

enlightening me. I had really wanted to see it. For more than just the scenery too. I had 

always believed that the colours in all those painting by Albert Namatjira and other artists, 

could not really be like that. But they were! 

It was just beautiful. 

That was on a trip that took us from Katherine, to the Kimberley, and on to the big Lake 

Argyle Dam, which I also had very much wanted to see. Believe it or not, I might not have 

been here today, I could have been buried up at Kununurra ... 

Back when they were developing Kununurra as an irrigation scheme, a very good friend of 

mine was connected to the Lands Department. He was a cow-cockie. He knew what I could 

do, so he said to me, ‘You should be going up there Les.’ He even had all the papers for me 

to fill in to select a block. I was even working out in my head how to get a tractor, and a 

couple of trailers and load everything on. 

‘You should be going up there 

Les.’ 

but I didn’t in the end. 

I’d worked out that it would take about a month to 

drive all the way up there. But the thing that held me 

back at that stage was the family. We were married 

and we had the two girls and it just didn’t seem right 

at the time. I probably would have gone otherwise, 

59



So, I had good reason to go and have a look to at what was there and how it had 

developed. It was fascinating for me. In the early stages, as soon as the water was used for 

irrigation, everything grew quickly. It was all fresh land of course. Then came all the wild 

geese and the ducks and all the insects, and those first farmers simply couldn’t stay on top 

of it. They eventually went broke trying to grow and harvest the crops, vegetables and 

such. Apart from the destruction of a lot of the crop by the pests, to market the produce, 

it all had to be carted down to Perth, and of course in those days they didn’t have 

adequate transport facilities. But in time all of that was overcome and everything started 

to fire up. Yes, I loved seeing the Kimberley. We ended up heading down the west coast. 

It was a good coach tour, and we enjoyed it 

with Pat and Ted again. 

The second time we went to that area, we came out from Broome. We went with The 

Outback Spirit company. We went to The Bungle Bungles, where the camps were all selfcontained. 

The tents were very comfortable and really, you wouldn’t have known you were 

in the outback. We took a helicopter trip over the Bungle Bungles and a walking trip 

through them. I remember when we were walking back through the big gorge all the tracks 

started looked the same. Instead of turning right I kept walking. The guide had to yell at 

me, ‘Where are you going mate?’ 

We’d been to Broome twice, but we still wanted to do the Gibb River Road. The company 

Outback Spirit were kicking off at that stage and they had good equipment, so we went 

with them. We travelled along the Gibb River Road and at one point we went out to a 

station and stayed there and got the dope on how they ran it and all that sort of thing. To 

go and buy a loaf of bread was 200 kms down the road. But the people who lived there 

seemed quite happy with it. They’d turned their properties into tourism places. They had 

satellites and such and were pretty well self-sufficient. It was all very interesting. We went 

to El Questro. Not the real up-market one, the low-key one. It was still good. You could 

walk around there and have a good look. 

Yes our trips to the Kimberley were my 

favourites. 

What other bus tours did we do? We did some inland trips. We went to Lightning Ridge. 

We went to Ayers Rock, Alice Springs and the Flinders Ranges. We went to Kakadu and 

Litchfield National Park. We saw a lot of the interior of the country. We also went up the 

east coast, across the top and down the west coast. But we haven’t really done the desert 

places. I never really had a feeling for those areas. When we did the west coast, we went 

right down to the very bottom, and then headed east. We went across the Nullarbor Plain. 

So we have really circumnavigated Australia, 

and seen plenty of the inland too. 

60



There were other good things that came about as a result of our travels. To go back to my 

very early days … some friends from those years up on The Murray, were the Millers. Butch 

Miller was my mate. They lived just over the channel, just across the bridge. Charlie Miller 

and Pop were shearing contractors: ‘Miller and Skate.’ So that family and our family were 

close. Yeah Butch was a good friend at school. But as time passed, they moved away and 

then we moved away. I did go back and shear with them sometimes. 

But I always felt that I would have liked to 

stay close to them, and eventually I did. 

After a while they bought their properties down Hamilton way. We heard about Butch’s 

seventieth birthday through a friend and that’s how we met up again. Then he came up for 

my seventieth. I knew Butch was one for not going anywhere. But they’d started to get on 

top of everything; they were doing quite well. We were about to go on a trip on the Ghan. I 

said to him, ‘What about going on a trip on the Ghan?’ They did, and from then on, we’ve 

kept in touch. 

61



Helping out…The Victorian floods of 2011 

In 2011 there were catastrophic floods up in the Loddon area. Water came down from the 

Campaspe and because the Murray was already flooded, it couldn’t take the water. So, it 

spread out across the land and stayed inland and ended up getting into the Loddon River. 

This river and its tributaries then ran back into the Murray a long way further down, 

(perhaps two to three hundred kilometres further down) towards Swan Hill. 

They didn’t want Swan Hill getting flooded so in order to avoid this they more or less 

sacrificed the farming area of Benjeroop. All the water was directed down into an area that 

had periodic floods, but nothing like this. It became like a delta to several smaller rivers 

and was left to take its own course. So, it backed up, and backed up, till it flooded the 

Benjeroop and Murrabit West areas. 

The floods at Benjeroop February 2011 

After a couple of months of the area being inundated, the water receded. It had been well 

up over the tops of the fences, the boats had been sliding across the tops of them. 

When it dried out enough they started looking 

for volunteers. 

62



I hadn’t heard that much about that particular area, but I knew Charlton very well. It had 

been badly flooded too by the Avoca River. I was more or less set to go there when I saw 

an article in The Weekly Times. It was written by the daughter of a gentleman named 

Lindsay Schultz. He was a farmer and a feed merchant. He was also the chief flood warden 

of Benjeroop. Luckily for him, his bit of land was on high ground. But he was right in the 

middle of it. 

His daughter Kelly wrote about how much 

Lindsay had put his heart and soul into 

rescuing people and trying keeping the place 

viable. 

I had been up in that area in my younger days and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll give him a ring.’ In the 

meantime, my brother Geoff, who had done a lot of work with fire and rescue groups, was 

preparing to go to Charlton. When he heard I was thinking of going to Benjeroop, he said, 

‘Well, I’ll come with you, but I’ve only got a couple of weeks.’ So off we went. We joke a bit 

about this now … we could just hear Lindsay and his helper Billy thinking, ‘What have we 

got here?’ when they saw these two old fellows turn up. I was eighty-two and Geoff was 

not much younger. Anyway, we proved that wrong. Geoff had his caravan and I stayed in 

an hotel on the first night, but I knew I couldn’t keep paying for that. Lindsay was right on 

the Murray and he had a fully equipped big houseboat and he offered it to us to use. That 

was good. 

It became my accommodation for the time I 

was there, off and on for about five months. 

As soon as we’d got there, I’d asked, 

‘Have you got anything for us?’ 

‘You can start tomorrow,’ he said. 

He drove us all around the place and showed us four or five houses. We started the next 

morning. The first was the house of a chap called Jack Challis. Jack was a shearer-come 

farmer. So, we got stuck into it, started wrecking and pulling it down. In one day, we had 

all the dirty stuff out … oh it was a terrible, shocking job to do. When the water and mud, 

and the dead frogs and God-knows-what, got down behind the plaster, it was just putrid. 

Anyway, we got it all shovelled out and got it dried. About a week later we had all the new 

plaster back in. 

So we got stuck into it, started wrecking and 

pulling it down. In one day we had all the 

dirty stuff out…oh it was a terrible, shocking 

job to do. 

63



Now the money for the equipment and the material was supposed to be supplied be the 

Red Cross. They had raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. We never saw one penny of 

it. I was very crook on that. But the locals had banded together. They had turn-outs in the 

local hall and all sorts of things to raise money. And that was the money that Lindsay 

Schultz administered and we were able to buy the plaster and materials that we needed. 

So, we got that house right. It had been moved there and it was on blocks about a foot off 

the ground (which was the minimum). The new law said that you had to be 600mm above 

the ground. (500mm, and then another 100mm above the flood level.) So, we fixed that 

up. 

They had raised hundreds of 

thousands of dollars. We 

never saw one penny of it. I 

was very crook on that. 

So, I went on … there were another couple of little 

houses. Geoff had gone home by this stage. I had a 

couple of helpers, good fellows, retired farmers. And 

they were also great company. The first was a nice 

brick home right in the middle of the farm. It was on 

floorboards but they were virtually right on the 

ground. So, I started on that and fixed it up. I just cut the plaster around and got rid of that 

and cleaned it out and put the new plaster sheets on. Hung they doors because they were 

all swelled up. 

They were nice people there too. They’d lost 

their tractors and everything…it had all gone 

underwater. 

The next one was a lady who had about six kids. I don’t remember who they all belonged 

to! But she did look after them. She was pretty cluey too; she knew what she could get 

from the government. This was way down in the bend of the river. It was the original, 

beautiful old homestead … but it was wrecked. At that stage the government was shifting 

houses around from other places and this lady was able to get one. There was the old 

shearing quarters and I did that up. I put new floors and new doors in it. It was a twostorey 

shed. Oh, the kids loved climbing up and down in there! 

In between that there were another two houses. 

One was pretty well wrecked and the other was in 

pretty good order. The one that was a wreck we had 

to debate whether to knock it down or try to fix it. It was owned by a young bloke and it 

was on his father’s property. He had two boys but he was divorced. He badly wanted to fix 

it up so he could bring his boys home. So, we got stuck into it. Any other builder who might 

have come along and looked at it, would have said we were mad. I’d taken a lot of stuff up 

from here too. From Tim’s … trailer loads of materials. I put it all together and we got it 

nice and got it painted. 

64 

Oh, the kids loved climbing 

up and down in there!



He badly wanted to fix it up 

so he could bring his boys 

home. So, we got stuck into 

it. 

His brother lived in the other house on the property… 

it was a dairy farm. It was a better-looking house, but 

when it had been built … well I don’t know what the 

bloke was thinking … he obviously had absolutely no 

idea. He just carved out a trench about a foot deep 

around the perimeter of the house, chucked a bit of 

rough concrete in it, whacked his wall plates on and built his house on top of it. And then 

poured concrete (which he mixed himself) inside each room. So, there was no waterproofing 

… nothing! 

Being on the ground I had to jack that up 600mm. I only had about three jacks and that 

clearly wouldn’t do the job. I rang up a bloke who was advertising as a house lifter in 

Bendigo and he loaned me about forty jacks! That was pretty unique. When you are 

jacking you must have equal jacks. If there was the slightest tilt, it would all just fall down. I 

took on a lot of risks. 

In fact the Bendigo bloke did say to me, 

‘You’re taking a hell of a risk…’ 

So, I had to find a way to make it more stable out on the farmland. Lindsay, the feedmerchant, 

had plenty of wooden pellets which I could use. So, we got underway. I’d jack it 

up two inches and drive in a wedge. In between each stump I’d put a pallet and then move 

on and jack it up another two inches and in would go another wedge and then another 

pellet. That’s the way we went around the house. Day after day after day. 

Eventually it was all sitting on the big pallet and I could get under to dig the hole. Took us 

about a month to get that up. Boy was I glad when I got up to 600mm. It slipped once! I 

had a Trewhella jack on each corner, and I had string lines pulled all the way around. Every 

time I moved it, I measured along the string. One day I actually felt it slide and I raced to 

the corner and gave a couple of ‘ups ‘on the jack and got it stable again. There were a lot 

of people working inside too … oh we took some risks! 

But it was the only way to get it done, and we 

did it. 

There was a group of young people who all got together to help in cases like this. (I can’t 

remember the name of the group.) They would paint or clean up or whatever. In this case 

there were about twenty of them and the community housed them up there in the local 

hall. They painted the house and it didn’t take them long! They came on the Friday and by 

the Sunday night it was done. It wasn’t a perfect paint job, but it was good to get it done. 

65



Les receiving recognition from the local community for his efforts in Benjeroop. Lindsay Schultz is 

making the presentation, and Joan is on the left. 

66



Les is very humble about his life’s achievements. However, it would be remiss 

to fail to mention them. He has contributed enormously to his local community 

as well as travelling to north-western Victoria in his eighties, to assist the 

community of Benjeroop. His accomplishments include: 

A Foundation member and a Life Member of the Coldstream Football Club. 

An Honorary Member of the Lilydale Agricultural and Horticultural Society. 

An Honorary Member of the Lilydale & District Historical Society 

An Honorary member of the Scout and Guides Associations 

As well as his tireless efforts in the construction of the Coldstream Football 

Club and the West Croydon Scout Building, which have been documented 

here, he has been actively involved in the building of the Coldstream War 

Memorial, as well as the Men’s Shed in Mooroolbark. 

In 2012 he was awarded the Mayor’s 

Lifetime Achievement Award at the Yarra 

Ranges Council’s Australia Day Awards. 

67



Recipient 2012, Leslie Skate 

In 1998 Les gave a demonstration of 

shearing at the official closure of the Yarra 

Grange Woolshed 

68



The Yarra Ranges Council have plans afoot to ‘resurrect’ Les’ old T-Model 

Ford, (featured on the front cover) and to give it a permanent place in the 

community space. In keeping with his characteristic humility, Les is quite 

embarrassed by this. He reveals… 

Out at Coldstream they’re trying to build the area up. They have a committee there coming 

up with ideas of what they can do. So, they’re going to build a footpath from Coldstream, 

down to the footy ground, along the side of the highway, and all the way up to Dame 

Melba’s gates. On her front veranda, she had these two big peacock chairs. They are being 

reproduced out of steel, and they’re going to be put outside the gates. 

Now all the way up this path they are going to put some sort of statue or a plaque that 

commemorate significant things of the area. A year or two ago they called meetings to get 

people interested. Myself and two other older fellows were interviewed. 

I told them a few of my different stories. About the subdivision that originally had our little 

farm on. I told the story about the old T-Model Ford that I had gotten around in. It ended 

up being buried under the footy ground. (Like all farmers did in those days we tossed a lot 

of our old junk into the creeks.) This ended up being where the footy ground was 

eventually built. Well, everybody made a hell of a story of it and it’s still going. They are 

going to make a model of the old car coming up out of the ground along this footpath! 

69



The final pages of this biography are intended to highlight the three elements of 

Les’ life which he has expressed as being the dearest to him. His holidays at 

Apollo Bay and travels around Australia; his work; and his family 

Cleaning fish at Apollo Bay 

When asked how he relaxed, Les replied… 

I sleep! Or … when I was at Apollo Bay. That was a different world for me. 

Of his many and varied travels around Australia… 

If I was asked which trip was the best it would be hard to answer as each trip 

had different things to see and individual characteristics. Years ago, trips like 

these were a pipe dream. Thank God Joan and I were able to do and see all 

these places together, it has been the happiest time of our lives. 

70



Gruyere, circa 1982. A 

man happy in his work. 

Gruyere (Rol’s 

property) 2019 

71



Les with brothers Neil (left) and Geoff 

Back row, from left; Margaret, Geoff, Bill, Neil, Les, Lorna, Murison 

Front, from left; Kath, Dot, and Joan 

72



Les and Joan’s family at Rol and Karen’s wedding 

Back row from left; Tim, (holding Ally,) Ros, (holding Nicholas,) Lynne, Rol, Karen, Les, Joan, and Julie. 

Front, from left; Jake, Thomas, and Timothy 

Now you hear of a lot of families 

having squabbles amongst themselves. 

But we have been very fortunate. We 

are a very close family. We are always 

out to help each other. We are so lucky 

to have such a close family, especially 

after all these years. 

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Les and Joan at Joan’s parents’ farm at Coldstream before their marriage. 

74



‘I don’t know, I suppose I just loved her, and that was it’ 

75



Les, ‘tidying up’ at Rol’s property. June 2019 

I’ve never really had a lax day. There was always something to do. I think 

people thought, ‘Oh Les, he’s semi-retired, he’s not doing much, we’ll get him 

to come and do it!’ It’s progressed from there. Anyway, I enjoyed those years 

right up till I was eighty-one and I’m still doing a bit, even though I’ve got this 

chronic complaint. But that’s not worrying me. I go off to my son Rol’s place, 

he’s got thirty acres of bush. I go up there and keep that clean and tidy for 

him. Plus, I’ve renovated and extended his house. I enjoy what I’m doing. If I 

want to stay home, I stay home. If my wife wants me stay home, I stay home! 

We get by. 

76



The content of this story remains the property of the author 

Les Skate 

Edited and prepared for publication by volunteer biographer 

Lorraine Blythe 

on behalf of 

Phone: 1300 130 813 

www.eastpallcare.asn.au 

October 2019 

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Skatey...The life of Les Skate

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