History of Wodonga continues to unfold

Recording the history of Wodonga is like a never ending jigsaw puzzle, just when you think you have completed one corner, someone comes up with another piece, and the picture is enlarged.

With the statistics available on Facebook I am able to see how many people see posts and pictures on the Wodonga Historical Society page. By far the most popular are those you have lived through and experienced yourself.

An earlier post on Facebook was a picture of Ollies Trolley, on the corner north of St Augustine’s.  A take-away chicken and ice-cream shop in a static tramcar. Someone recalled the radio jingle, “All the chickens walk down High Street straight to Ollies, Ollies Trolley, yes they do”.  Someone else recalled the best fluffy duck sundae and licorice icecream.  Jayne remembers it was the best job she ever had, after school and weekends.  Butternut crunch icecream was her favourite.

A more recent post was of the water tower overflowing.  Our member Margaret Bennetts who used to be married to the turncock, Eric Fulford, whose job it was to keep the water tower full, tells some most interesting stories.   They lived in a house on the northern side of Wodonga Creek.

Margaret told us: “It was hard to gauge the amount of water to be pumped, but from our front gate we could see the water tower. Eric had a piece of timber nailed to the gate post with a V-shape cut out of the top. Into the V he placed a telescope through which he would focus on a painted white marker on the outside of the tower, which was connected to the inside water level.

Many times the water ran over the top of the tank and Mr. Roy Benson, who had a shop opposite the tower in High Street, would telephone to say the tank was overflowing. During the summer the children walking to school were delighted if the tank was overflowing for they’d run under the water to cool off.”

Make sure your memories are recorded, they might just be that small part of the history puzzle which makes the picture complete.