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Interviewee

Roy Dowling

Place Recorded

Coffs Harbour-NSW

Interviewer

Sheridah Melvin

Collection

Agency

Yarrila Arts & Museum (YAM)

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Roy Dowling Interview

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IntervieweeRoy DowlingInterview Date11 December 1986Place RecordedCoffs Harbour-NSWDuration1h38m04sAccession NumberLS2020.1.13Credit LineCoffs Harbour City Council, 1988.

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Description

Mr Dowling arrived in Coffs in 1926 to buy an established business, delivering ice and butter. He built up the business, then with the advent of refrigerators, sold out in 1952. He was a founding member of the Golf Club and here recounts memories of early days in Coffs and various personalities who played a prominent role in the small community.

InterviewerSheridah MelvinCollectionYAM Museum CollectionVoice of Time oral history projectAgencyYarrila Arts & Museum (YAM)SummaryStandard disclaimer. Visit the 'Voice of Time' web site to read or listen to the disclaimer. Family circumstances at the time of Mr Dowling's birth in 1897 in Petersham, Sydney -- Roy's father was a storeman. His father helped build the Town Hall in Sydney -- Roy spent his youth in Sydney and arrived in Coffs Harbour in 1926, at the age of 29 -- First impression of Coffs; "What time does the next train leave?". Roy had heard of the delivery business while working as a foreman at Nestles Factory at Abbottsford. "I thought this must be strong". He first boarded at Ivy Lodge, at the Jetty, whilst awaiting the arrival of his family -- A working day on the delivery run. The T Model Ford. Roy delivered ice, butter and smallgoods. There was a butter factory, at the Beach House Hotel, where he picked up his supplies -- Roy's ice supplier charged him 4/- per hundredweight. "I had to do my work for nothing", as this is what Roy charged to deliver -- People did not have refrigeration; they used ice chests which took two blocks. Butcher shops took up to half a ton before they equipped their shops with cooling plants -- The smallgoods were from a pork factory in Bellingen. The coach brought them to the Butter Factory for him. There were over a hundred households to which Roy delivered on his round -- He had purchased the business from Frank Nelson, who later began a barbershop at the Jetty -- The business cost 330 pounds, including the car and a butter cutting machine -- Roy worked in this business from 1926 to 1952 -- The eventual business expansion. He started with 9 boxes of butter and built up to over 60 per week. The population was rising and he became well known also -- "You had to give credit". The Depression years meant that some people could not pay their bills. Roy's attitude to their hard times -- The swaggies jumped the rattler -- Roy lived near Moore Street and the present old butter factory -- He had to be on call when the fleet came in with their fish. He would take ice to them -- The fishing fleet was 12-14 boats strong. It cost them 6d a pound to put them on the market. Roy's working hours; 5am to afternoon -- Family entertainments; the beach at the Jetty -- "We could dive off the back of the clubhouse into the water, that's how far it's gone out (now)" -- Roy was a member of the Surf Club -- His memories of the women's lifesaving team. The Shea girls, the Bowles, the Ferns. "Everybody was mates then, it's different to what it is now". The excursion trains at Park Beach; the bandmaster Mr Godwin -- People had picnics on the Reserve -- The tradition of camping at Park Beach at Christmas time in tents -- The milkman and the baker called with supplies -- Roy delivered ice to them at the tents -- Conditions of roads; "You'd get bogged if you weren't careful". The changed condition of the outlet of Coffs Creek -- The nature of community in Coffs in the 1920s to 1940s -- "We had no clubs or nothing, we had to make our own fun". Christmas parties. Dances. The Bachelors and Spinsters Ball; the refreshments were often set up in a nearby shop as there was no extra room in the School of Arts -- Roy had met his wife in 1921 in Sydney. Fatherhood -- Games with his children; football, babysitting while his wife went to the pictures -- Discipline: "I've never touched them" -- Employing his brother-in-law; "I found him a wife ... he got something out of it". The purchase of the other trucks. Roy was able to pay cash for them, except for one he got on hire-purchase. The lack of sales at Sawtell. Local doctors in the 1920s: Hawk and Tunks. The story of Roy's hernia -- His children learned to swim at the Butter Factory swimming hole -- The supervision of children by Jim Smith who taught them diving and swimming -- The overflow of butterfat from the tank into the creek -- Excess butterfat went to the piggery. The Tasma Theatre -- Roy's involvement in golf, from 1927 onwards. "When I started, they played on the Showground" -- The founding of the Golf Club. Norman Hill, owner of the Banana Bowl, put a nine-hole course out there -- "I don't think they paid him anything". The Committee; Captain Cockle, George Miller, Webster, Tommy Gleeson and Roy were some of the ten members. They could buy golfing equipment from shops in Coffs; from Ruthning the jeweller -- The outcome of Norman Hill's golf course. Transport was difficult people rarely had cars -- The Crown land site of the present course. One pound a year was the rent -- The role played by Mr Fogarty, the butcher, gave the committee extra ground from his abattoirs -- The collective effort of building the first Clubhouse. The men put in 5 pounds each for materials. The extent of facilities of the original Clubhouse. The publican -- Memories of Captain Cockle - "he was a character" -- Roy's memories of visiting the Cockle home; "as good as going in your own home". The Makinson family -- "It was only once we got him in to drink with us" -- Flooding in Coffs in 1930 -- The tradition of going down to see the boats come into the Jetty on a Sunday. The Jetty shops and their owners. Anderton's Store -- Delivery was by horse and cart. The extent of his stock -- Some staff recalled: the Lovett girl, Jack Robinson, O'Grady, Joe Anderton -- Billy Anderton: "he was a nice old fella". The importance of neighbours and friends; get togethers, singalongs -- Mates: "I've had plenty of gooduns" -- Roy does not recognise people today sometimes. The changes in Coffs since 1926. Roy's opinion of shopping facilities -- The Cow and Gate Company from England bought Roy's business in 1950 -- The widening ownership of fridges; people were sad to tell Roy not to bring the ice any more, around 1951. He had cut out smallgoods in the face of the closure of the Bellingen factory and the increasing availability of these products at butcher shops -- Ice and butter carried him through till he sold out in 1952 -- He took up banana growing in Shephards Lane with his son -- Roy's opinion of the two jobs - bananas "it's still got a lot of trying to satisfy the public". In 1914 Roy was 17 years old, and working on a milk cart in Five Dock -- Roy joined up in 1915 with a dozen of his mates at Victoria Barracks -- His parents did not want him to go, however, he passed his medical. Soon after he camped on the Warwick Farm racecourse with thousands of men -- The voyage to Egypt. First impressions; the truck ride to Heliopolis -- The main base was here. Roy was only there for a short time, then was taken to Mahdi with the Light Horse. He waited there to be posted to a company. The soldiers consisted of mostly Light Horsemen. There were a lot of survivors of Gallipoli -- They did not talk about their experience -- "If we get together we never talk about the war ... it is too bad to talk about" -- The move to a new camp in the desert near Cairo; conditions were terrible. Description of these -- The call for volunteers for France; "we'll die here, we may as well go over to France and get killed" -- The trip to England; the camp at Salisbury Plains while they waited to embark for France -- Calais - the disembarkation point. Roy's duties; to walk to The Somme with George Christie and join the battery. It was two days walk in bad conditions -- The search to find the location. They only saw their own troops on this journey, not any French villagers. As they approached the front line there were duckboards everywhere over the shell holes -- The ground was all muddy with traffic; the villages were all knocked down. Reporting to the Front Line; it was snowing. They were meant to leave at 5am for another war front but overslept as they were so exhausted -- "The Sergeant - he was goin' crook". They did not have any breakfast -- Meeting up with their mates - "a million to one chance" -- The new front was called Hellfire Corner, they took their guns in -- Only officers had reconnaissance maps; ordinary soldiers did not know where they were. The officers gave the range for the artillery fire. Relations between men and officers. "They were the boss, we were the troops" -- Roy did not go into the trenches; he was on flat ground with camouflage over the guns. He was firing 18 pounders. There were much larger guns but Roy did not use them -- Roy's duty in battle conditions. It was all indirect firing; they were up to 1700 yards from the enemy and could not see them. The infantry saw the enemy -- A particularly fierce battle; the day after there were "thousands, from both sides, heaped up there dead". They fired all night. All vehicles and guns were horse drawn. Roy was injured - "It knocked me flat". He was sent to England to recover -- The medical orderlies work -- He was in hospital for 16 weeks in Liverpool -- The gassing with "pineapple gas" -- The symptoms of shell shock; "you lose all your nerves". Men went into shock with any loud noise. The roster in artillery; catching sleep -- The danger of the infantry being attacked at night in the trenches. "We had a better job than what they had" -- No-man's land. Going over the top; "they'd lose a lot of lives by doin it". Artillery would cover the charge -- "They were on The Somme as long as the war was on" -- Meeting some French people; billeting with a family -- Bully beef and biscuits; no beer. The vast improvement in communications today in the Army -- The delay in news of the Armistice. The events of that night; they ran out of ammunition. Roy walked towards the enemy lines, through barbed wire, with his mate to find all the plates and campfires of the Germans lying deserted -- "I walked back and I said 'Well I don't know what's cooking here - there's nobody up there". Horses pulled the guns out -- Roy was detailed to go into the village with the officers to see information. Bells were ringing, and at first the men thought it was for church. "These two old women were running down singing out Armistice, Armistice, and that's the first we knew of it" -- Celebrating the end of hostilities; "we got as full as a boot". Roy did not like French wine but that was all there was -- Drinking cognac on an empty stomach - "I was alright in the mind, my head was as good as gold, but I had no legs". Riding the battle horse home to camp. The soldiers had to clean up -- Roy sailed into Woolloomooloo, Sydney. The remainder of his family were there to meet him. His brother had been killed on The Somme -- "I seen him go in, I was on the artillery" -- "He could have been killed the same day, I should have found out' -- Roy's brother went out to No-man's land to get his mate; there was talk of recommending him for the V.C., but the Captain said he had acted against orders -- The tremendous casualties of The Somme. Roy's awareness of the causes of this war; the acceptance of things on face value -- The idea of "King and Country". Roy felt he was fighting for his King and still feels the English monarch is his -- The sense of England as "The Mother". Roy's reasons for feeling this way -- Australia today; "they're trying to twist away from England". Roy's feelings about England's treatment of Australians during the war; both the English forces and civilians -- The hardship suffered by England during the bombing in WW2 -- The importance of allies.