Much of the history of the Research Station is available in annual reports and newspaper articles, and on brochures made for special occasions like anniversaries and retirements, but it is scattered. This is an attempt to bring some of it together. Likewise, there are numerous photographs in existence but these are scattered through personal photographic collections, so I have depended upon the helpfulness of many people to illustrate this history.
So much of the flavour and detail of this history depend upon the personal memories of those who worked there. My thanks go to those who have written their personal memoirs and for their enthusiastic support for this project. Where someone has contributed and their name appears in the historical outline that follows, it is marked with an * when it first appears or in photographs; or if a family member has contributed (*). The views expressed in personal contributions are those of the authors. Elsewhere any errors or omissions are mine, and I welcome corrections and additions.
For women at the Station I have used their single name under which they worked, and have put a later married name in parentheses, where appropriate. Personal contributions have been ordered chronologically from starting dates, from 1937 to 1975.
I also acknowledge the information held in the Local Studies Section of the Griffith Library (Western Riverina Libraries), in books and newspapers, and in the archives at CSIRO Griffith. Where a reference is made to a newspaper article it includes the date of issue, for example 1: 30 June 1970 refers to “Riverina Advocate” issued on 30 June 1970.
I have included the members of the Division of Soils (John Loveday, A.V. Blackmore) in the numbers at the laboratory, but not those from the Division of Computing Research (J.A.Shaw, Peter R.A. Rutter, S.R.Gipps, G.N. Cope et al.) who were there from 1968 onwards providing important help with computing; nor has the presence of the Division of Mechanical Engineering (Graeme Flood), carrying out research and development on solar energy, been included, but all contributed to the camaraderie of the Station.
Introduction
Research programs usually consisted of a scientist, or more than one, and a team of technical officers and assistants, all playing their parts. In addition, the field and administration staff kept the outside and inside running smoothly. A timeline has been assembled covering research programs, staff comings & goings, and their activities in the Griffith community. Annual Reports for the Research Station and local newspaper articles, particularly for the first six years of Eric Hoare’s tenure, have been consulted. To these have been added the personal memories of 64 staff. I contacted as many as possible, over 100, and tried to give everybody a chance to make a personal contribution, but inevitably could not find some who, it is widely believed, are still alive. The memories of those working before the 1960s have been particularly valuable because the early Annual Reports contain little information on the support staff, so many of whom started work there straight after they left local schools.
The time between the retirement, or imminent retirement, of one Station leader and the appointment of the next was a time of uncertainty, with staff departures and low morale. Such it was between 1953 and 1958, and although it is outside the scope of this history it was repeated in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as some personal contributions do show. On the whole, though, most people have happy memories of the Station as a friendly and busy workplace with an active social life. This was particularly important for officers and their families moving to Griffith, from other states or from overseas. Housing, though, was always a problem in Griffith.
Although the Irrigation and Extension Committee of 1947, and its predecessors of 1939/40, had offices in the CSIRO building, and staff were seconded from, or were close colleagues of, CSIRO staff, it was a separate organisation and its history requires another project which, I understand, has started.
The Buildings
The new laboratory on right, and house of Officer-in-Charge on left, 1928. The house to the right was the Martins’ home. PhotographcourtesyofDennisDreyer
The completed central offices and laboratories, 1947
The Station buildings and farm after the construction of the 1964 wing, at centre.
PhotographcourtesyofDennisDreyer
PhotographcourtesyofRogerHoare
EarlyDays
EarlyDays
When the laboratory was set-up in 1924, things were difficult on the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Areas. Sustenance payments to farmers had been ended in 1922; and in December 1924 a demonstration by farmers in Griffith demanded something be done to make farms viable. By 1926 less than 30% of original settlers were still on their land [2]. The heading in CSIR Annual Reports which covered the Griffith and Merbein Stations for many years acknowledged the reasons for their establishment: “Irrigation Settlement Problems”.
Eric West came to Griffith in 1923 to work for the Water Conservation and Irrigation Commission (WCIC). When the Citrus Research Station was established on 24 September 1924, jointly by the WCIC and the Commonwealth Institute for Science and Industry (renamed from the Advisory Council on Science in 1920), he became the first Officer-in-Charge. He had 3 colleagues at the beginning: Ben Martin, Phil Coonon and Frank Dufty. Two adjacent farms, numbers 415 and 459 were acquired, and the cottage on the latter became the laboratory, office and living quarters for Eric West and Ben Martin, both unmarried then. The Federal Government established CSIR in 1926 and it took over the Station in March 1927, and the small square laboratory was opened in 1928.
Early work was on the management of irrigated crops, especially citrus; methods of water application; and crop nutrition. Phil Coonon (labourer) continued to work there after WW2, he appears in staff photographs and on the 1947 staff list [11]. He lived in a boarding house in Yambil Street, liked his beer, and was an excellent fencer, using his crowbar to good effect. Phil (18 July 1896 – 25 August 1964) was a volunteer in WW1, in 17th battalion. He is buried in Griffith cemetery.
Francis Herbert Dufty (Camberwell, London, 1881 – Griffith, 1955) (farm worker) left in 1929 when he was granted Farm 1730 at Ballingall. He and his family cleared their Ballingall farm of 19 acres and by 1943 had almonds planted. The farm was sold in 1959 and the family moved to Leeton.
In 1928 West and Martin had been joined by F.K. Watson, there as a liaison officer, and D. Chalmers as a part-time accountant. E.F. MacKenzie was the field assistant, W.B. Tart the general assistant, and H. N. England, B.Sc., was in training to tackle soil problems. H.N. England (representing WCIC) was one of the 19 members of the Station Advisory Committee [11] that was disbanded in 1947 and he became the secretary to the new IREC. From March 1928 to June 1929 W.B. Robson was the general assistant. Miss Edith Alice Elsie Smith joined in 1929, working until 1932 when she left to marry Ben Martin. She was replaced by Miss E. Beck; and MacKenzie by S. Smith-White, B.Sc.Agric. Reg Pennefather started on 15 December 1932. In 1935 Miss Beck was replaced by Miss A. Grafton.
Most of the research farm was planted to citrus, with, later, opium poppies in the field nearest to the main road, the Old Willbriggie Road. Farm 466 was acquired for more citrus planting and became the site of a long-term experiment. The Citrus variety orchard, at the back of the home farm buildings, must have been planted around the same time as 466, because it was there in the early 1950s [Dic Bouma] but it was removed in the late 1970s. A grape farm, number 87 at Bilbul, was cleared and used for vegetable production during World War 2 [3] but was sold afterwards. Because the soils there were heavy it also served for soil reconditioning trials. The CSIR Division of Soils had carried out a soil survey of horticultural soils in the 1930s and this stimulated projects at the Station on soil science [11]. CSIR became CSIRO in 1949.
Outdoor staff, left to right Andy Gardiner, Phil Coonan, Bert Gilliard, Jack Ford, John Ayers, Mick O’Donnell
PhotographcourtesyofRoyStacy
Scientists at Irrigation Research Station, Griffith, 1940 to 1954 from Annual Reports. in addition to Eric West, the Officer-in-Charge.
Hank Greenway* y y = their presence in the staff list for that year; s = seconded to extension organisations
Known Officers from 1939 to 1954 with some, but not all, of their qualifications.
Eric S. West
F.K. Watson
Alfred Howard
B.Sc.Adel, M.S.Berk Officer in Charge
M.A, B.Sc. Liaison officer, part-time
M.Sc. Melb Chemist
Reginald Richard Pennefather
H. S. McKee
Ben Hope Martin
Olaf Perkman
Vernon John Wagner
Emmet Lewis Greacen ♣
Keith Spencer
B.Ag.Sc.Melb. ARO, SRO
B.A., D.Phil. ARO
HAD Hawkesby Orchard supervisor, STO
B.Ag.Sc. Syd ARO, RO, Soil scientist
B.Ag.Sc. ARO, RO
B.Ag.Sc Syd. ARO, RO, Soil scientist
B.Ag.Sc. ARO, agricultural scientist
Thanet John Masters Foreman, TO
David Vogel Walters
John Theodore Fitzpatrick
Lachlan Frank Myers (*)
Nigel George Cassidy
Robert Jardine
Robert Francis Williams
Alban Frederick Gurnett-Smith
Harold James Frith
Clive Thompson Gates
Joan (Hearman) Tully (*)
L. A. Whelan
Dick Bouma*
Hank Greenway*
M. Ag. Sc. RO, SRO, agricultural scientist
B.Ag.Sc. ARO
B.Ag.Sc. ARO, RO
M.Sc. Chemist
B.Ag.Sc. RO, Horticulturist
M.Sc. Plant physiologist, SRO
B.Ag.Sc. ARO
B.Ag.Sc. Syd RO
B.Ag.Sc. WA Asst. Plant Physiologist, RO
B.Sc.WA, Ph.D.Lond RO
M.Sc., Ph.D. Chemist
Ir. P. TO, RO
Ir. H., Ph.D. Adel TO, RO
Zoe Edna Lasscock TO George Sosnovsky
Ph.D. Chemist
Arthur N. Huon Photographer
Jane Connor
Margaret Russell
Ph.D. Chemist
A.L.A.A. Librarian
♣ absent on a Ph.D. studentship in 1947
Scientific and Extension Staff 1950
Front row, left to right: Eric West, Alban Gurnett-Smith, Bill Greacen, Vernon Wagner, u/k, Harry Frith, u/k,u/k,u/k.
Middle row: Bob Williams, u/k, u/k, u/k, u/k, Ben Martin.
Back row, second from right: Reg Pennefather. Others unknown.
On his retirement from the C.S.I.R.O in 1956, Mr. West started a new career as a full-time farmer when he moved to Farm 1985, at Nericon. He had originally taken up the farm in 1929, in partnership with his brother. Before moving to the farm, Mr. West had employed
Mr. Don Johns as manager for many years. They produced fruit, prunes, vegetables and later concentrated on fat lamb production. He was later joined in the partnership by his son-inlaw Mr. Bill Rosenboom. The farm was sold five years ago to Mr. John Irvine of Melbergen, and Mr. and Mrs. West moved into Griffith where they lived in Thorby Crescent.
AlfHoward joined CSIR in 1931, in Griffith. He had been born in Camberwell, Victoria on 30 April 1906 (parents= Alfred Samuel Howard and Amelia Carol Welford), graduated in chemistry from University of Melbourne in 1926 and M.Sc. in 1928. The following year he was in Douglas Mawson’s expeditions to Antarctica [13], as a chemist and hydrologist, recording sea-water temperatures and chemical analyses. It was on their return from Antarctica that he came to the warmer clime of Griffith where he stayed until 1943 when he joined the Division of Food Preservation. While in Griffith he was enrolled at Mirrool House in 1935 then at 118 Binya Street from 1936 to 1941 where he lived with his wife Elizabeth Ann (Beck - they had married in Manly in 1935), after which they do not appear on the Riverina rolls. Roy Stacy remembers that Alf had the tips of some fingers missing, perhaps due to frostbite in Antarctica. Later he was Chief Research Scientist at the CSIRO Meat Research Laboratory. Retiring after 40 years with the organisation he became associated with the University of Queensland, particularly with the Schools of Psychology and Human Movement, from where he retired in 2003 [14]. He died, aged 104, on 6 July 2010; his long and varied career posing a steep challenge to any following scientists.
Reg Pennefather was born in Camberwell, Victoria in 1905, went to the University of Melbourne aged 16 [7], and started as a field research assistant at CSIR Griffith in 1932 [4] . In 1940 he became the foundation secretary of the Irrigation Research & Extension Committee and later was the Officer in Charge of the Soils and Irrigation Extension Service (His secretary was Mrs Mears). He was on part-time duty as a private in the 17th Battalion, Volunteer Defence Force from 5 February 1942 to 30 September 1945. During that time in 1941, 1943 & 1944 he was using a friend’s address for electoral enrolment purposes: the Cohens at “Wentworth”, 2 Carrathool St (they owned the house between 1939 and 1948). He was not known to live with the Cohens [7] and, anyway, the house would have been full with 2 adults and 3 children then). In 1939 Reg had been enrolled at Farm 484, Hanwood. In 1946, 1947 & 1949 he lived at Farm 890 and he was registered there with his wife in 1950 & 1951[6]. Reg and Margo’s only child, Meredith, was stillborn on 7 July 1950 and after a few years of marriage they lived apart. Reg’s mother, Mrs Grace Hilda Whiting was enrolled at Farm 890 in 1946, 1949, 1950 and 1951. When Ian Clunies Ross established the CSIRO Agricultural Research Liaison Section in Melbourne in 1951 Reg became the Officer in Charge there. He killed himself in February 1957 in his Parkville flat and was buried in Melbourne General Cemetery.
Three men married women from the Land Army: Bill Greacen to Helen Cynthia Sullivan a.k.a. Barley (she went to USA and they married there in c1947 while he was doing his Ph.D.), Keith Spencer to Gwendalyn Mavis Smith in Burwood in 1946 and Reg Pennefather to Norma Margaret (Margo) Simms Tracey in Sydney in 1948.
Staff late 1940
Front row, left to right: Alf Howard, Eric West, Nancy Newell,
Middle row: Daisy(?) Hardwick, Helene Lawler, Francess Mann, Kath Mason, Joan Hearman (*), “Wop” (Pennefather’s dog)
Back row: u/k, Reg Pennefather, Avril Borland, Zoe Lasscock, Merv Hamilton (*), Stan Polkinghorne*, u/k.
PhotographcourtesyofGGHS
Margo Tracy came to Griffith in 1942, aged 17.5 years in what was then known as the Women’s Australian National Service (Land Army). In early 1945 she was discharged medically unfit with a bad back [7]. She then nursed in Sydney but returned to Griffith after she had married Reg. Unknown to her before her marriage, he was often in ill-health with nephritis. When Reg was away and the farmhouse water pump would not function Margo would call upon Vern Wagner to fix it. Margo worked for Olaf Perkman. He would say “Fetch me a light shovel” so she would ride her bike to the farm but by the time she got there Olaf was there too and she would have to ride back with his heavy shovel. Margo left Griffith in 1951. Mrs Pennefather and her mother, Mrs Tracy, visited friends in Griffith in 1959 (1: 25 May 1959.
Margo had been born in Orange, then lived in Katoomba and later Fairlight, Manly. Thus, she had some experience of living outside Sydney when she joined
national service in 1942, but the first days of farm work were tough, at the Jones’ farm at Hanwood.
Emmet Lewis (Bill) Greacen was registered at the Research Station in 1946 [6] but had not been on the 1944 roll. In 1950, 1951 & 1953, he and Helen Cynthia Greacen lived at 15 Palla St; she worked as a stenographer. His hometown was Tamworth, NSW where his father had a piggery. He had studied at St John’s College, University of Sydney and went to the Waite Institute, Adelaide after leaving Griffith in 1952/3. In Griffith, in the war years, there were various liaisons. Bill would squire Margo Tracy and would often take her out to eat at the “Garden of Roses” (meals at Mirrool House, the Land Army barracks, were not good). Margo had a room in the barracks, which had an outside door, and her key was much appreciated by many of the girls for late-hour entry. Once upon returning with Bill, Margo was caught by the matron: it was the squeaky door that gave her away [7] .
Gwendoline Mavis Smith was at Mirrool House in the Land Army in 1943, 1944 & 1946 [6] By 1947 she had married Keith Spencer and they lived at 42 Binya St., a house owned by Joan Tully. By 1949 they were in 28 Hyandra St. Gwen Spencer died aged 28 in childbirth and was buried in Griffith on 6 October 1949; their daughter, Wendy survived. Keith continued to live in Hyandra St in 1950, but moved to Armidale in 1951 while his parents looked after Wendy. He later worked in the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry, Canberra for many years.
JoanHearman(*) was born at Mortlake, in the United Kingdom, went to Donnybrook, Western Australia as a young girl with her family, and graduated B.Sc. from the University of W.A. In 1936 she obtained a Ph.D. from the University of London, while working at East Malling Research Station. She joined CSIR Griffith in 1938 to work on citrus rootstock. Her secondment to the Experimental Soils & Irrigation Extension Service in the MIA in 1946 was where she gained her experience in extension work; and a Fulbright Scholarship took her to Cornell University, upper New York State in 1952/53 to study extension education. From this came another secondment from CSIRO, to the Department of Adult Education, University of New England (1: 29 May 1961) where she worked in community development. One year later she joined the University of Queensland, she retired 10 years later. She was also locally notable for having built a pisé house at 29 Binya Street, in part to demonstrate the use of easily-obtained, local materials; and for having married the widowed Archie Tully in March 1944, and then being widowed herself one year later. She then brought up Archy’s four young children [5] .
Robert Jardine was enrolled at 81 Canal St and John Theodore Fitzpatrick at the Research Station in 1946. There were too many voters enrolled [6] at the Research Station for them all to have lived on site. Most must have used their work address for enrolment but lived elsewhere.
David Vogel and Mabel Moorna Walters were registered there in 1946 & 1947 but not afterwards; whereas Vernon John and Eliza Lucinda Ella Wagner were there from 1946 to 1953. Eliza Wagner and Grace Gurnett-Smith were sisters. David Walters had been at Merbein from 1931 to 1945. After his secondment from Griffith for 10 years, he returned to Merbein as Principal Research Officer in 1956, then was Technical Secretary there in 1957 and 1958. Al Grassby wrote in 1974 (9: 25 March 1974) that Dave and Mabel had visited Leeton recently. He had been secretary of IREC, had founded the Yass Valley Authority, and was still pioneering new extension ideas while on loan to Queensland DPI.
In 1939 Olaf Perkman had married Winifred Maud Kentwell at Wagga (21119 / 1939). From 1943 to 1949 Olaf Perkman and his wife, Winifred Maud, lived above La Vogue dress-shop, Banna Avenue (owned by Myrtle (Crockford) Worfolk and near the now-Gannons Butchery). Olaf had immigrated with his parents from Vladivostok in 1925, graduated B.Sc. from the University of Sydney and had worked in agricultural science for 12 years in Griffith as a respected soil scientist. Then the sad event of 20 February 1954 [1] when Olaf was murdered on the South-West Mail Train, en route to Sydney. Every weekend he travelled on the South-West Mail to visit his wife and 9-year-old daughter, who had moved to Thornleigh to support his wife’s widowed mother
(Louise Olwyn Perkman married Hans-Dieter Werner in Sydney, 2463 / 1964; this is possibly the daughter).
Olaf’s body was found at Central on a seat under his blanket; he had been shot through the head. The police interviewed other passengers and it was determined that Olaf had been alive at Goulburn and a suspect had alighted at Liverpool. Within a few days they talked to Ronald Vincent Holl, aged 24 of Belmore Road, Herne Bay, and found a rifle in a nearby swamp. Holl was unemployed, and had a wife and 3 children. He had shot Olaf near Picton and taken £10 from his wallet. Holl confessed, pleaded insanity but psychiatrists could not find any psychiatric disturbance. In early June Holl was sentenced to death for the murder [SMH, Sun-Herald]. The last execution in NSW was in 1939. (Holl’s death is not on NSW-BDM from 1954 to 1987).
Arthur West remembers being happy to escape the numerous telephone calls to his father’s house after the murder, by going for a ride on his motor-bike.
Cedric Jones was Perkman’s assistant in 1954 (Harold Cedric Selwyn Jones: 15 April 1919 to 23 August 2001 [5]). Clive Polkinghorne remembers his coming to their family farm in 1951 on research duties. Later he worked in a number of organisations in the MIA, ending as Geoff Sainty’s assistant in the WCIC.
During his 3 years in Griffith, Harry Frith (1921, Kyogle – 1982, Lismore) worked on citrus and was one of many to oversee the farm 466 long-term citrus experiment (see the contribution by Peter Cary). In a report (1: 4 May 1961) of his appointment as Officer in Charge of the CSIRO Wildlife Section in Canberra, it states that he graduated in Agricultural Science from the University of Sydney in 1941, then joined the AIF, serving in the middleeast and New Guinea, and came to Griffith after demobilisation. In 1947 Harry had lived at 28 Boonah St and was enrolled in 1949, 1951 & 1953 with his wife, Dorothy Marion, in 17 Yoolooma St [6]. In Griffith he mixed his citrus research with his interest in wildlife research, until he transferred to Canberra in July 1951. The Pulletop Reserve (off the Rankins Springs Road) for Mallee Fowl is an abiding living memorial to his extensive interest and research on birds. A meeting was held in 1961 to discuss the establishment of the reserve (1: 6 November 1961); Harry Frith and Ronald Strahan were expected to attend.
In 1947 Robert Francis Williams had joined the team. He, with his wife Ethel, lived at 19 Hyandra St. from 1947 to 1953[6]. Bob was 2nd Officer in Charge to Eric West for some time, and after 1953 moved to Canberra. Bob was a physiologist who studied leaf growth and development particularly in tomatoes for which he provided templates for the quick estimation of their complex leaf area. He later published a monograph of leaf growth and development.
Alban Frederick and Grace Lavinia Gurnett-Smith were enrolled [6] at the Research Station from 1949 to 1951. He went on to senior positions in the administration of CSIRO.
Lachie Myers was enrolled at the Research Station in 1946, and in 1947 to 1951 was with his wife, Winifred Mary Page Myers (known as Molly*). They transferred to Canberra and then Deniliquin, where he was Officer-in-Charge.
From 1946 to 1951 Neville Cassidy, chemist, and his wife, Marie Evelyn, were enrolled at the Research Station but had moved by 1953. In 1958 Clive Gates visited Neville Cassidy who was then the Chief Agricultural Chemist for Fiji. Marie Cassidy was cousin to Al Grassby, who was, for many years, secretary of the IREC, before entering State and Federal Parliaments.
Zoe Lasscock, daughter of Charles and May (Pascoe) Lasscock, was born in Loretto Hospital, Griffith on 25 February 1922; the first baby, with Ken Davidge, to be born at Loretto. She married Charles Storey and they later lived at Kempsey [5]. She was in a photographic section at the Station.
Clive Gates came from Sydney where his father had a plant nursery but Clive graduated from the other side of the country, from The University of Western Australia. Clive and Vera Joan Gates were enrolled at the Research Station from 1949 to 1954[6]. In 1958 and 1959 they lived on the western corner of Ortella and Nyora Streets in a house that they had built. Of all the cyclists to the Station, Clive was the only one to have a motorised bicycle.
Jane Connor was a local woman; her father Charlie had a vineyard along Research Station Road from CSIRO; and her brother Andrew worked at the laboratory for a while. She went to USA on a scholarship, perhaps to Rutgers University in New Jersey, gained a Ph.D., returned to Griffith and then went back to USA to marry Neville. On the staff lists she was abroad in 1955, had a Ph.D. by 1957, but was gone by 1958.
Front row, left to right: Margaret Russell, Ben Martin, Bill Greacen, Lachie Myers (*), Vern Wagner, Olaf Perkman, Bob Williams, Eric West, Reg Pennefather, Keith Spencer, Harry Frith, Clive Gates, Joan Tully (*), Alban Gurnett-Smith, George Sosnovsky.
Second row: Phil Coonon, Jack O’Keefe, Bert Gilliard, Shirley Gleave, Margaret Broome, Miss R. Tange, Jean Murray, Nan Chauncy*, Joan Jacka*, Nereda Findley, Pat Martin*, E.V. Mears, Una Biggert, Eileen Hillam, Ursula Carroll*, Al Grassby, Alec Wlasow, William .J. Brown.
Third row: Jack Davidson, E. Moretto, A. Kent, Linus Cook, J. Cunial, Cedric Jones, L. Scott, G. Kevan, Andrew Connor, Robert Pickersgill, G. Maynard, Val Valentini*, Bruce Bowden.
Back row: Jack Potts, Arnold Dreyer, Andy May, J. Andrew, A. McKay, Aub Bennett, F. Champion, Cliff Brace, K. Richards, Hugh Wilson, Ray Worthington, George Richards, H. Williams, W. Wilkins, T. Heaslip, L. Chapman. PhotographcourtesyofGGHSInc.
Total staff numbers are not provided in the CSIRO Annual Reports before 1961: only Research Officers, Technical Officers and Librarians are listed. In 1939 there were 4 research officers and 6 office and laboratory assistants in a total of 19; and in 1947[11] there were 56 (Nine research and 5 extension officers, together with 15 office and laboratory assistants and 27 field staff). In the staff photograph for 1940 there are 15 people and 62 in 1950. What is noticeable is the absence of Dr Hearman’s name (Mrs Tully) from 1938 when she joined CSIR Griffith until 1947 when she was first listed, as Mrs Joan Tully. Was this some kind of gender discrimination on the part of CSIR? (yet, a female secretary to the IREC was listed in 1945, and Margaret Russell as librarian in 1949). Joan married in March 1944 and she resigned in February 1945 but returned in 1946 after she was widowed. From 1946 Joan was on secondment to extension organisations.
Dr George Sosnovsky from the Department of Chemistry, the University of Chicago wrote to the “Riverina Advocate” (1: 7 Sept 1959) that he had attended the International Congress of Pure & Applied Chemistry in Munich. While he was in Europe he had visited Emelio
CSIR Griffith Staff 1950
Levi in his home, and he expected to meet Dr Jane Connor when he returned to the USA. There had been much talk about Griffith and George sent his greetings to the Griffith Soccer Club of which he was one of the founders.
The following numbers of scientific staff, comparing Griffith with Merbein (where available), must be treated with some caution.
♦ excludes one on service leave, in RAAF; ♪ excludes 2 on secondment to extension organisations
However, by following the scientific staff numbers it is apparent that a severe decline took place in the early 1950s in Griffith. Thus, from a peak in 1947 it had declined to 4 when Dic Bouma* & Hank Greenway* joined (they were first appointed as Technical Officers because of their Dutch degrees). So together with Eric West and Clive Gates, they were the scientific staff in 1954, but how large the support staff was then is not known. This decline has been attributed to the Executive’s desire (with the encouragement of Frank Penman at Merbein?) to close the station down, but in that case why did they change their minds and appoint Eric Hoare in 1957? Ian Clunies Ross was chairman of CSIRO from 1949 until his death in 1959 and his biography says “he was an extension worker as much as he was a scientist and built a reputation [in animal production] for the organisation in pastoral NSW”. Perhaps his attitude to CSIRO Griffith gradually came to bear within the executive ending in Eric Hoare’s appointment. In 1952, 1953 and 1954 the research programs were aimed at developing a more efficient use of irrigation water, and understanding waterlogging and salting of the soil.
Hank Greenway wrote:
Clive Gates was one of the two remaining staff, from an earlier good group. Clive was an inspiration in more than one way. He did foster us with a wish to understand the system rather than seek immediate practical solutions. He worked on drought in tomatoes. Under pressure he enacted a big field experiment, then the rains came!
The other memorable characteristic was his dogged persistence. He and I travelled to Adelaide to the first Australian Plant Physiology Conference in August 1958. Heavy rain, so the unsealed road to Mildura was closed. We travelled south and the Murray was flooding over the highway along the river. Clive took a road south and after 5 km it became a dirt track. Valiantly Clive plodded on through mud and flooded creek beds, all under the slogan "Once you start something you have to finish the job".
I was most impressed till we, together with Dick Bouma, did a foolish experiment using mannitol in drained sand culture. After 23 days, close to harvest, the glasshouse reeked like a brewery and the leaves were dropping from the orange cuttings. Yet Clive insisted to go ahead with the same slogan as the Adelaide trip, separating petioles from laminae in the Petrie-Williams tradition. Since then, I have lived with the dictum of General Slim "when in doubt throw it out". Should be used more, and then we would get rid of the weight of bureaucrats.
Rumours about Olaf Perkman’s murder flew around because he was a New Australian, or more exciting still, it was the long arm of Stalin. The police quickly established the affair was a sordid murder during an attempt to steal money. Did the rumours fade quickly? Of course not! The police were claimed to be in cahoots with the Reds!
Then for the first few months of my time in Griffith, there was Jane Connor. She was down to earth, loved her drink, and was a nice counterweight to the somewhat weighty abstainer, Clive. She soon took up a scholarship to the USA where she later married. When she asked for a reference from Eric West, he said really these things are not worth the paper they are written on. But in these horse and buggy days Jane felt she needed some reference in the USA. She read upon collection "Jane Connor is a nice lass and plays a good hand of golf".
CourtesyRoyStacy
Arthur West [3] remembers 3 houses at the Research Station: the biggest one always occupied by the Officer-in-Charge and his family (until it was turned into the Divisional library in the late 1970s); the smaller across the drive, occupied by the Martins (and after 1960 by the Muirheads for many years) with an attached small flat where Vic Edwards and his wife lived in the 1970s; and the third, along Research Station Road nearer to the corner with the Old Wilbriggie Road, was occupied by Thanet Masters (“a delightful man”[7]) until he was transferred to Deniliquin after 1945. He had 3 sons, twins who joined the army, and younger Gordon (later, a teacher) who travelled, as a 12year-old, on a lounge chair piled atop their furniture on the back of a truck all the way to Deniliquin. Thanet was a Station Manager, enrolled at 116 Harfleur St, Deniliquin in 1946[6]. Arnold and Dot Dreyer then lived in the third house from 1945 for many years, until it was demolished sometime after Arnold’s retirement on 24 May 1974. Arnie was assistant farm manager to Ben Martin, and was manager after Ben retired. He also did carpentry work for the station and from 1962 onwards was in the staff lists as a Senior Laboratory Craftsman. Dot was the Divisional tealady and a crucial centre of information; she died suddenly on 6 March 1976. Arnold Stewart Dreyer had married Dorothy Grace Clark at Griffith in 1937 (19412 / 1937). Arnold, born 16 April 1909, had enrolled at Hanwood School on 16 April 1919.
EarlyResearchProgramsandWorldWar2
About 25 acres of citrus were planted in 1924 and the original experiments were on soil and fertiliser treatments, green manuring and bud selection. In 1928 WCIC contributed ₤1500
Phil Thanet Masters & Arnold Dreyer
p.a and free water to the Station. Tenders had been received for a laboratory and residence. By 1930 Mrs West was enrolled at the Research Station residence although Eric’s enrolment continued to be at Mirrool House (until 1932 his occupation was “WCIC employee”). In 1933 a project on alternate bearing in Valencia Oranges was added to the projects, together with cool storage of Citrus (using cool storage facilities at the Griffith Producers Cooperative). In 1935 frost damage was added to the mix. With food production being very important during the war, investigations into vegetable production were started in 1942 (irrigation, germination, weed control, fertiliser, seed and crop nutrition). It was said that the bulk of vegetables supplied to Allied troops in the Pacific theatre came from the MIA [11]
A wet autumn in 1939 was followed by a wet winter so that by the time of the declaration of war many horticultural plantings had died. Those losses and the demands of the war provoked the establishment of an Extension Committee, and surveys were started to identify the breadth of the problem; peaches followed by apricots were the most affected (1942 was another wet year). The Station was headquarters to the survey. Responding to a request of the NSW Department of Agriculture, the Station provided an advisory service to horticulturalists after 1943, dealing with soils and irrigation. This continued until 1947 when a new extension service was established. The 1939/40 Extension Committee and the Advisory Committee to the Research Station were disbanded and in their place the Irrigation Research and Extension Committee (IREC) was established with Reg Pennefather in charge. Joan Tully, Dave Walters and Alban Gurnett-Smith were seconded from CSIR, to join 6 members of the NSW Department of Agriculture [10] .
In 1939 the Station became the Irrigation Research Station and there had been many new additions to the research programs: plant nutrition, improving irrigation techniques, soil salinity and temperature, river water analysis, and stock selection, root studies and in-arching grafting on citrus; pasture for livestock production. Mr. H.K. Nock, M.P. opened the new laboratory extension on 3 October 1939.
After the war many of these projects continued and in 1947 Rice Field Investigations were added, and Plant Physiology when Williams and Gates arrived. The staff list in June 1947 [11] was:
Officer in Charge: Eric West
Agricultural Chemistry: Nigel Cassidy
Vegetable Agronomy: Keith Spencer
Horticulture: Harry Frith
Plant Physiology: Bob Williams & Clive Gates
Irrigation: Reg Pennefather, Olaf Perkman, Bill Greacen
Drainage & Reclamation: Vern Wagner
Library: Margaret Russell
Statistical Records: Pat Martin*
Extension Service: Reg Pennefather, Dave Walters, Joan Tully, A. Gurnett-Smith, Lachy
Phil Coonan, Bert Gilliard, H.C. Russell, J. Andrew, Aubrey Bennett, Bruce Bowden,
R. Broadfield, Jack Brown, Linus Cook, Jack Davidson, A. Kent, R.O. Lynas
G.T. Maynard, F. O’Meara, Rob Pickersgill Jack Potts (*), G.M. Varcoe, Ray Worthington Cleaners: L.H. Bridgewater, J.C. Saunders
By 1952 work on Red Scale on peaches and apricots had been started. In 1955 Jane Connor was abroad, gaining a Ph.D., and Tjeerd Talsma had joined as a Research Officer, but probably always on the staff of the Division of Soils.
Eric West retired in June 1956. A celebratory dinner was held at the Hotel Griffith (1: 24 May 1956). He “retired” to farming, on Farm 1985, Nericon, which he had acquired in 1929. In particular he became known for his fat lamb production.
FieldStaff
Front left – right:PhilCoonon,BertGilliard,ArnoldDreyer,BenMartin,JackThebridge,u/k, HughJamesWilson. Middle left-right: u/k, G.T. Marnard(?), RaymondWorthington,u/k,J.Andrew,John(Jack) Davidson,AubreyJohnBennett,KevinPola.
Back left-right: A. Kent (?), JackPotts (*),CedricJones,RobertRichmondPickersgill,LinusArthur Cook,u/k,u/k,JohnJoseph(Jack)O'Keefe,JackBrown(?) PhotographcourtesyofDennisDreyer
The 5 unknowns could be H.C. Russell, R. Broadfield, , R.O. Lynas, F. O’Meara, G.M. Varcoe
In the 1956/7 Report there are no staff lists (but personal contributions from some support staff have filled part of this gap), and the two Irrigation Research Stations are given jointly as they always had been, with Merbein the headquarters and Frank Penman, there, the Senior Officer-in-Charge. Emilio Levi was appointed Acting Officer-in-Charge at Griffith with, in 1957, Clive Gates as Senior Research Officer and 5 Research Officers (Roger F. Black, B.Sc. (Hons); Talsma, Bouma*, Greenway*; and Jane Connor, B.Sc., Ph.D. had returned from America).
Emilio Levi was probably 34 at his birthday, 28 September 1957. There is a report under his name in CSIRO Division of Plant Industry in 1954: “Recently developed Herbicides”. Little is known about his later career but he was working at Wageningen, The Netherlands on 5 September 1963.
The following year, 1957, Eric Hoare (*) was Officer-in-Charge, Black had a Ph.D,. but Connor had gone, and Margaret Russell was on leave from the library, Miss T. Schmitz, Ph.D. was relieving librarian. Eric Hoare had previously visited irrigation areas in Australia in March 1957 accompanied by Frank Penman, Senior Officer in Charge of the two Irrigation Research Stations.
NationalResearch
There was an important change in CSIRO in the late 1950s, with a requirement to change from regional to national research programs [4]. This would have been particularly important for the long-established stations at Merbein and Griffith both in irrigation areas which of necessity had given a strong local flavour to their work. The visit of Clive Gates to other Australian irrigation areas (1959), and Eric Hoare’s frequent comments in Reports on national irrigated agriculture should be seen in the context of this change. Also important for the future development of the Griffith station was Frank Penman’s resistance to the change so that he did not allow research at Merbein to change from a regional to a national focus. This resulted in a deterioration of his relations with his staff to the extent that he was transferred to Head Office, Melbourne on 14 April 1961[4]. Thereafter Griffith, as the Irrigation Research Laboratory, became independent of Merbein and later became the Division of Irrigation Research, while Merbein became part of the Division of Horticultural Research with headquarters in Adelaide.
Families, 1955- Clive Gates’ Farewell. John Miller remembered this as one of his first photographs.
Front row, left to right: Jennifer North, Maureen Taysom, Pat O’Brien, Leah Solomon, Mrs. Gates with baby, some of the Gates children (?), Mrs. Edith Martin, Una Biggert, u/k, Jane Connor, Mrs. West, u/k.
Families photo
Middle row: u/k, Barbara Delves*, u/k, Eileen Hillam, Elsie Nairne, Shirley Byford*, Clive Gates with daughter, Wendy Newman, Eric West, u/k hidden, Dot Dreyer, u/k, u/k, Roger Black.
Back row: Margaret Russell, Pieter & Tommy with Tjeerd Talsma, u/k, u/k half hidden, Ben Martin, u/k, Miss Tange, u/k, Hank Greenway*, u/k, Dic Bouma* with daughter, Bert Gilliard, u/k, u/k, u/k.
Thenewregime:EricHoare’sarrivalin1958
On 27 February 1958 the “Riverina Advocate” reported that Eric Ronald Hoare (*) had been appointed as Officer-in-Chief of the CSIRO Research Station at Griffith. He was from the United Kingdom Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Silsoe, Bedfordshire where he had been in charge of the Horticultural Engineering Department. Eric, with his wife and 4 children, had left the United Kingdom on 14 January 1958 on “SS Arcadia”.
He was born on 18 January 1914 and had graduated from Battersea College, University of London in mechanical & electrical engineering in 1934. For 11 years he was a research engineer & physicist at the United Kingdom General Post Office (Dollis Hill). During World War 2 he had had assignments for the armed forces which included the synchronisation of all radar stations on the east coast of the United Kingdom, and installations for cross-channel communications on D-day. His team at Silsoe had developed electronic instrumentation to measure the respiration of plants, their sensitivity to light and heat, and water uptake in glasshouse and field crops, as well as engineering for tractor use and crop spraying.
The research programs at Griffith in 1957/8 were Soil Chemistry, Horticulture, Plant Physiology, Entomology and Land Drainage. Roger Black worked on saltbush, but soon after July 1958 he left for the Department of Agriculture & Stock, Nambour, Qld. He had come from Adelaide where he had attended St. Peter’s College and did a Ph.D. at Sydney during his time in Griffith. He only went away occasionally to consult his supervisor, Professor Bob Robertson who was then associated with the CSIRO Fruit Preservation Laboratory in Sydney. On the 1958 electoral roll [6] Roger Foster & Ivy Ada Black were at 13 Almoola St. (which was a CSIRO house then); I did not find them enrolled in 1954, 1955 or 1959.
The first physicist to arrive was Edward S. Trickett (appointed 24 July, reported 25 September 1958). He had been a colleague of Eric Hoare at Silsoe where he had worked on solar radiation and the response of plants to the solar spectrum (Teddy died in Bright, Victoria, aged 90, on 14 November 2011). So, in the 1958/59 report the research programs were Soil Chemistry; Soil Physics (Talsma); Plant Physiology: plant-water relations (Gates), salinity on plant growth (Greenway), and plant nutrition (Bouma); physics & engineering (Trickett); and Entomology (red scale infestations- Martin & Black).
Four migrant research workers at the CSIR Station, Griffith, in the MIA.
Left to right: Edward Spencer Trickett, 36, from Flitton, Bedfordshire; Tjeerd Talsma, 30, from Wanswerd, Friesland, Holland; Dirk Bouma, 33, from 5 Ryksstraatweg, Wageningen, Holland; and Eric Hoare, from Holcot, Bedfordshire, who is in charge of the research station. Many post-war migrants are among 30,000 people who live in the MIA, regarded as the richest 600 square miles of country in Australia. It has more than 2000 farms producing annually 10,000,000 worth of fat lambs, rice, beef, wheat, fruit and vegetables. Water comes along a 100-mile main canal from the Murrumbidgee River, flowing through 2000 miles of channels. Expansion now underway will double the productive area within 10 years, adding some 1400 new farms.
Australian Official Photograph by Don Edwards, Feb. 1959. Photograph courtesy of Dic Bouma
Eric Hoare (1: 16 June 1958) had made a presentation from the laboratory staff at Griffith, together with thanks from the CSIRO Executive, to Senior Research Officer Emilio C. Levi who was moving to Rome. Levi had spent 7 years in Griffith after graduating from the University of California, working on weed control. His name never appeared on the Griffith staff lists during that time, however, because he was a member of the Division of Plant Industry. After Eric West retired, and while Clive Gates was overseas for 18 months, Levi was acting Officer-in-Charge for Griffith. On special leave in 1956 he had been a consultant in Paris for the Organisation of European Economic Cooperation. The Irrigation Research & Extension Committee (V.C. Williams and Al Grassby) and the NSW Department of Agriculture were also represented at the farewell. Levi had grown up in Egypt and Barbara Morel says he fondly remembered walking to school there and enjoying the aroma of flowers on the way. In his later working life, he was at EURATOM in Ispra, Italy and lived in an apartment overlooking Lake Maggiore, at Laveno [Dic Bouma]/
Ten days later (1: 26 June 1958) it was reported that Clive Gates had returned to Griffith after 18 months working in Europe and America (with Robert Brown at the Agricultural Research Council, Oxford; and at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena with James Bonner and Fritz Went). Gates was to continue working in Griffith on the physiology of water in plant growth. He had 5 children & their safety on these sea voyages to Europe & USA had concerned him.
In the following month (1: 10 July 1958) speaking to the MIA Council of Extension groups, Eric Hoare said that research would concentrate on drainage, plant nutrition and plant–water relations. A month later (after he had returned from a Horticultural Conference at Roseworthy, accompanied by Dr Roger Black) he suggested that once phosphorus nutrition had been sorted out then perhaps potassium and magnesium might be studied. The permeability of MIA soils and the flow of sub-soil water would be studied, adding that, in time, furrow irrigation could give way to overhead sprinklers. Workshops at CSIRO Griffith were being built to enable physicists and engineers to join the plant physiologists. The procurement of staff was his first priority, he was having to look at home and overseas. Eric Hoare was probably very focussed when he arrived in order to build up the laboratory from its doldrums.
Eric had welcomed 100 growers to Farm 466 Hanwood (1: 30 October 1958), the first demonstration for 10 years, where Dic Bouma had explained 4 cultural trials with citrus, 4 ammonium sulphate and 2 lime trials, and 4 variety trials. Definite progress was made over the following year on nitrogen and phosphate interaction (1: 9 July 1959). This experiment on Farm 466 laid the ground-work for the citrus leaf-testing service (1: 27 July 1961).
The pace at the laboratory increased in the following year (1959): John Palmer* (Senior Research Officer), I.D.P. Philips (Research Officer) (both plant physiologists), David. W. Russell (soil scientist) and Horst Doelle (microbiologist) (both Experimental Officers) had joined the staff. John Palmer (1: 27 June 1960) formerly a lecturer in plant physiology at the University College of the West Indies in Jamaica arrived in Fremantle on the “Oronsay” and then flew from there to Griffith. He would be working on the water balance of plants.
John Loveday (1: 25 May 1959) arrived back in Australia from overseas where he had completed a Ph.D. He had been a member of the Division of Soils since 1951 in Hobart, and would continue with that Division while working in Griffith studying soil characteristics. From 1959 to 1961 John was assisted by Alan Smith; their work then was at Coleambally studying clover pastures [12]. They carted water for the experimental plots in a Furphey water carrier. Plant material harvested from their plots was taken to Deniliquin for drying. John was subsequently, after his transfer to Canberra in 1966, in charge of the famous “Benerambah Hole” which was used to study the deep stratigraphy of transitional red-brown earths and their hydraulic conductivity. He and Don McIntyre visited Griffith periodically from Canberra.
In June (1: 29 June 1959) a new administrator was appointed: James F. Donovan, B.Ec., to oversee the increasing complexity of the laboratory and to take an interest in economic problems in the area. He had served in the RAAF, and worked for the Department of Transport and Ampol Petroleum Ltd. He was soon active in the Good Neighbour Council (Al Grassby was secretary for many years) and was guest speaker at the 1961 naturalization ceremony. He left Griffith for Norfolk Island at the beginning of 1962 (1: 21 December 1961). A few months later the arrival of the new administrative officer, Rob Whittle, was reported (1: 2 July 1962). He was Welsh-born of a Scots family and was a Master Mariner who had seen action in the northern and Pacific convoys in the war, had widespread other
sea-going experience and had served for a time in the RAF. Now with his Australian wife and 4 children he had moved to an inland interest, farming. He was soon co-opted by Al Grassby to the Good Neighbour Council and was secretary by June 1962. He had been replaced as Divisional Administrative Officer by Ron Purchase by the time of the June 1964 CSIRO staff list.
Within Soil Physics, the peak flow for drainage design, salt movement in tile drains, and salinity in the groundwater were studied. In Plant Physiology, it was plant-water relations, saltbush studies, the apical development of lupin; salinity effects on plant growth; flood injury to Prunus, sunflower, tobacco and Salix. The factorial field experiment on citrus at Farm 466 continued. A spectrometer had been acquired, and thermopiles made.
The first of the meetings of CSIRO Griffith and the Snowy Mountains Authority took place during the latter’s weekend visit to the MIA (1: 30 October 1958). On the Sunday Eric Hoare and S. Flint (WCIC) accompanied the Authority officers on their visit to Coleambally (the first 26 blocks became available there in 1959 (1: 19 October 1959)); and the Hoares entertained them to dinner in the evening. So, exchange visits between Snowy Mountains Authority (Sir William Hudson) and CSIRO Griffith (Eric Hoare) started. Following the visit to Griffith by officers of the Authority (1:17 Nov 1960), 3 people from Griffith visited the Snowys viz. Dr John Palmer, Dr Horst W. Doelle & Dr David Phillips, accompanied by Mr. Alan Stubbs (who was visiting CSIRO-Griffith, where he was working on soil problems, from the British Colonial Service in Africa). Eric & Isabel Hoare attended the official opening by Dame Pattie Menzies of the Tumut Number 1 Power Station (1: 2 November 1959).
During 1959 Clive Gates made a tour of research facilities in central and northern Australia, at a time when the Ord River scheme was being planned. The chairman of CSIRO, Dr Frederick White, visited Griffith for a few days in August 1959, during which he opened new workshops, which would be used as a physics laboratory and workshop until other new buildings became available (1: 20 August 1959).
The scientific staff list for June 1960 was:
Eric Hoare Officer-in-Charge
John H. Palmer* Senior RO
E.S. Trickett SRO
Dic Bouma* Research Officer
Henk Greenway* RO
I.D.J. Phillips RO
Tjeerd Talsma RO
W. Horst Doelle Experimental O
David W. Russell EO
J.F. Donovan Administrative Officer
Margaret Russell Librarian
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Then, during the second half of 1960 and the first 6 months of 1961, came a surge to 15 scientific staff with Eddie Linacre*, Frank Cope, Dick Lang, Fritz Lenz, Mick Fleming* , Warren Muirhead* (17 Oct 1960) and Jim Saunt (*) joining. However, Bouma and Gates had moved, to CSIRO Canberra and Brisbane, respectively. These moves were probably due to the perceived engineering focus of Eric Hoare which did not suit some plant scientists. By
the following year David Russell (perhaps to a position in New Zealand) and Phillips (to Exeter, Devon) had moved, too. Research programs in 1960/61 remained with the watertable and salinity; the effects of salinity and flooding on plant growth; and on the agronomy of citrus, cotton, grape-vines and oil-poppy.
The Linacres’ arrival on the “Oriana”, with 3 sons, was reported in the newspaper (1: 23 January 1961). Mr Linacre, a physicist with extensive experience of research in British industry, was to study water loss from plants. Mick Fleming, an engineer and former Officer in Charge of the Burdekin Irrigation Area, Qld., arrived with his wife and 4 children in March 1961 (1: 20 March 1961). He would be investigating the characteristics of spray irrigation equipment particularly for the new irrigation areas. In July 1961 (1: 27 July 1961) the arrivals of both Dick Lang and Fritz Lenz were recorded. Dick moved, with his wife and daughter, from Quebec Province, Canada, to study the movement of nutrients and water from soil particles into roots. He was a graduate of Melbourne University but had gained his Ph.D. from McGill University, Montreal. He was happy to leave the extreme Canadian winters behind. Fritz Lenz was to take over the citrus work of Dic Bouma. He was born in Pomerania but grew up in West Germany and had studied at the University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim. He found the extensive nature of Australian farming a contrast to his family farm in Germany.
It is interesting to record the wage levels offered in advertisements during 1960/1. Young technical assistants (1: 23 June 1960) with a leaving certificate could expect between ₤436 & 1053 p.a. if male, and ₤436 & 878 if female. With an intermediate certificate the rates were ₤374 & 900 p.a. and ₤354 & 720, respectively. For general office work (1: 25 September 1961) young women could earn ₤389 p.a. if less than 17, up to ₤654 at 21 years of age. There were additions for proficiency in shorthand of ₤39 for 80 wpm, ₤76 for 100 wpm or ₤115 p.a. for 120 wpm. For a photographer with wide experience (1: 2 October 1961) a permanent position offered ₤1288 to 1365 p.a.
Fred Whitford hedging grapes.
PhotographcourtesyofRogerHoare
The research program for the new NSW Viticultural Research Station (succeeding the viticultural nursery) was announced (1: 25 May 1961). Eric Hoare offered laboratory facilities to the NSW station. Dr Doelle reported to the MIA Winemakers’ Association on his work on Griffith grapes (1: 3 July 1961). He had found remarkable differences in vines to those from other grape-growing areas. Six months later it was reiterated that NSW Viticultural Research and CSIRO Griffith would continue to collaborate on grape research. Nevertheless, the establishment of the state viticultural station would have led to the end of grape research at CSIRO to test fruit quality with respect to irrigation practices. This contributed, perhaps, to Horst Doelle’s leaving Griffith in December 1963. Although Peter Cary continued with the grape work for about 2 years after his appointment in 1964, it did end some 5 years after the experimental vineyard of “Black Shiraz’ was established in 1961.
Frank Penman had left Merbein in April 1961 and for the first time the Annual Report for Griffith, dated July 1962, was separate to that of Merbein. This separation was probably always a priority for Eric Hoare. The new building extension had been finished, providing new labs for physics and plant physiology, a conference room and new library upstairs. Construction had started in 1960 (1: 30 May 1960) at an estimated cost of ₤58,000. In addition, workshops, a store and a steam boiler had been commissioned. In the introduction to the Annual report Eric Hoare suggested that there were two factors to the productivity of irrigated lands: limiting the degradation of land due to irrigation; and the improvement in the quality and range of irrigated crops. For 25 years productivity of the MIA had decreased, then recent heavy rains, which appeared to be particularly heavy over the MIA, demonstrated that tile-drainage was needed. Experiments on soil permeability had given the optimum spacing for the installation of tile drains. He listed the other CSIRO stations working on irrigation and pointed to cooperation with WCIC and the NSW Department of Agriculture. During the year he had spent 12 weeks overseas, visiting Southern Rhodesia, Sudan, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and USA.
Tjeerd Talsma had been awarded a CSIRO overseas post-graduate studentship to study in Wageningen, and Greenway had a senior post-graduate studentship at the University of Adelaide. Up to 1962 the station had employed its own cleaning staff but by the following year cleaners no longer appeared on the staff list. The task was contracted out after that, and as a precursor, a tender for the cleaning of 16,000 feet2 of windows was advertised (1: 14 May 1962).
The agronomy of ricelands was a project linked to salinity studies. A collaboration between CSIRO and the NSW Water Conservation & Irrigation Commission started in 1960 when ₤12,000 p.a. for 5 years came from the NSW Treasury to be shared for this work (1: 19 May 1960). Dr Frank Cope arrived from the United Kingdom (1: 25 Sept 1961) to work on the project. He thought that Australian agriculture was developing fast and therefore the scientific climate was better than in the United Kingdom. In January 1962 (1: 8 January 1962) Cope and Muirhead had started the project on ricelands salinity and drainage.
Bob Dalgleish posing in the Rose Garden
PhotographcourtesyofRogerHoare
Frank Cope was the foundation secretary of the Riverina Branch of the Soil Science Society in 1961.
Alan Gunn* was appointed on 29 Sep 1961 and arrived in January 1962 with his wife (1: 15 January 1962). Eric Hoare said Alan had had extensive experience as an analyst and with the analytical instrumentation, of food, drugs, raw materials and pharmaceuticals. Alan was struck by the greenness of Griffith compared with Hyderabad, India where he had been stationed for 4 years with the British Army.
During January there were a number of family events for CSIRO staff: the Lovedays had a daughter; Robyn Ellen Condon of Benerembah (library assistant to Margaret Russell) became engaged to Barry Swann of Kendall; Al Grassby and Ellinor Louez were married in February; Elsie Nairne, after 8 years employment with CSIRO, went overseas in March; by July she was working in London.
Robyn Condon probably resigned soon after her engagement because an advert for a library assistant appeared in August (1: 2 August 1962). Jill Ford started on 20 August 1962. Just
before that Bob Dalgleish, gardener, started on 2 July 1962 in response to an advert in June (1: 18 June 1962).
The research programs in 1962 were Soil Water & Drainage (Talsma, Fleming, Cope, Lang, Muirhead); Plant Water relations (Greenway, Lang, Palmer, Trickett, Linacre); Climate and water use (Fleming, Trickett, Linacre); particular crops (Saunt, Lenz, Doelle); Meteorological observations; and analytical chemistry (Alan Gunn*).
The Gates family visited Griffith from their new Brisbane home in 1962 (1: 11 January 1962). They commented on the number of new buildings in the town since their departure, especially in Banna Avenue.
By 1962/3 the planning of the Coleambally Irrigation Area had finished, and the Burdekin Scheme in Queensland was launched, while in northern Western Australia the Ord River Scheme had started. The problems of rising water-tables and salinity in some irrigation areas required proper drainage, suitable crops and rotations. So, rainfall patterns, water-use efficiency and crop quality
A celebration in the garden in early 1960s (1962?)
On ground: u/k
Front row, left to right: Bob Dalgleish, Bert Gilliard, A.J. Smith (?), u/k-workshop(?), Angelo Zaccaria, Frank Cope.
Back row: Jack Manera, Les Bromfield*, Tony Masciocchi, u/k, Fred Whitford, Ben Bruemmer, Wal Armstrong, Jim Saunt (*), u/k, Eric Brennan, u/k
PhotographcourtesyofDennisDreyer
were the pointers for research around the country. Cotton had been grown successfully for 3 seasons on the MIA so it was seen now as an economic alternative to rice for farmers seeking a new crop. Moreover, the consequent reduced demand for water could ease drainage problems. Sowing was complete of the first cotton crop on the MIA, at Brian Parle’s property.
A team of Griffith scientists led by Eric Hoare had attended conferences: Alan Gunn to ANZAAS conference in Sydney; Lenz, Palmer, and Doelle to a plant physiology symposium at Sydney University; Lang, Saunt, Trickett, Linacre, Fleming & Hoare to an International Conference on Soil & Plant Problems in Canberra (the final meeting in the series was to be in Melbourne in September when Hoare, Muirhead, Fleming, Linacre, Trickett, Lang & Palmer would attend). Eric Hoare described these meetings as valuable opportunities to exchange ideas and real information on subjects vital to Australia’s continued agricultural expansion. (1: 5 Sep 1962). He had shown another side to his interests when he addressed a Rotary meeting in Griffith on the Freedom from Hunger campaign (1: 23 August 1962).
There was a new social committee at the Station in 1962. One of their first activities was to arrange a successful Cabaret Evening. Jack Bleijie was the chairman, Robyn Twigg the secretary and the committee comprised Jan Bell, Margaret Russell, Bob Trewin, Arthur Riddle and Rob Whittle. The report gives a long list of the women attending and their attire.
Invitation to another social night in the 1960s CourtesyofNoelDewar
Frank M. Melhuish (*) and his family arrived on 1 Oct 1962 from Britain. He was to do research on drowning of plants by excessive water (1:16 Jan 1963). Shortly afterwards Henry D. Barrs (*) was appointed a research officer in plant physiology to help in cotton experiments. Among his first activities was to work with Dr John Palmer in some of the cotton experiments on the MIA. He was married with a year-old son (1:12 Dec 1962).
The research groups at the Irrigation Research Laboratory then were:
Soil Water & Drainage
including ground-water in the MIA, & saline ground-water; rice growing on saline areas; ions in soil; soil moisture measurement (Cope, Fleming, Talsma, Muirhead, Lang).
Plant – Water Relations
Measuring the water potentials of plant tissue & the soil-root system, flood injury, salt tolerance, leaf temperature (Barrs, Lang, Melhuish, Palmer, Greenway, Linacre)
Climate and Water Use
Evapotranspiration, (a lysimeter, & pan evaporimeters were available), solar radiation measurement (Fleming, Linacre, Palmer, Trickett)
General included Meteorology, Data Collection and Analytical Chemistry. (Fleming, Trickett, Gunn)
Talsma and Greenway were still absent from Griffith on Ph.D. studentships in 1963, but both had completed them and were back in Griffith by July 1964.
At an Area Growers meeting it was decided to invite Mr. P.R. Cary* (Fruit Quality Citrus Chemist, Yanco Agricultural Research Station) to address the November meeting on plant nutrition. 1: 1 Oct 1962).
The following year (1963/64) the groups were the same as before but Horst Doelle had left CSIRO for the University of Queensland (1: Dec 1963) and his place was taken by Peter Cary* on 29 May 1964, from Yanco (1: 22 July 1964). Cary continued the grape-vine studies for about 2 years but later concentrated on citrus. The factorial field experiment on citrus nutrition and quality was 16 years-old in 1963. Results led to glasshouse studies on soil temperature effects. Citrus research was expanded in 1966 by studies of the physiology of flowering with the appointment of Gerald Moss* on 31 August 1966; and Peter Weerts on 26 April 1966 to assist Cary. Keith Garzoli (*) had joined the laboratory on 17 June 1963 to oversee the engineering needs of the laboratory.
By the middle of 1964 studies of the water balance of the MIA and water use by crops had started. With the addition of 4 units during the year, the total number of controlled environment cabinets became five. A detailed study of water balances in the MIA started with Geoff Evans’ arrival in 1966. Instrumentation was installed to measure run-on and runoff of horticultural or arable areas. By 1967 the quality (measuring 8 ions) of run-off water was being measured (Evans* & Gunn). This study continued until Evans left for Canberra in 1972. By July 1964 Fritz Lenz had moved to Institut für Obstbau, Berlin-Dahlem.
The new wing was officially opened on 19 November 1964 by the Governor-general, the Viscount d’Lisle and Dudley. He made a 3-day tour of the shires of Narrandera, Leeton, Wade and Carrathool. On a rainy, Thursday morning, after talking to local schoolchildren, he spent 45 minutes at CSIRO opening the new wing, inspecting some activities and taking morning coffee, before touring the Griffith area.
Two weeks before this event John Palmer had talked to the Soroptimists’ Club Dinner on physiological aspects of botany (1: 4 November 1964). By the end of the month his move to the University of NSW (1: 30 Nov 1964) was reported; he had been in Griffith for 4 years. By July 1965 Tjeerd Talsma had moved to Canberra. After a number of studies on cotton
growing in the MIA (Saunt) the focus in 1964 moved to breeding more suitable varieties for southern irrigation areas.
Governor-general being shown around the laboratory
Left to right: G-G, Fritz Lenz, John Palmer, Eric Hoare, Mrs Hoare PhotographcourtesyofJohnPalmer
Alistair Low* joined the laboratory on 1 August 1965, and a collection of cotton varieties from USA and Russia were made. Both Cope, at the end of a three-year contract, and Saunt left during the next year. Mrs Saunt (*) had resigned from her teaching position at Griffith High School in July 1962 (1: 5 July 1962), her first child was born in August.
In the years between 1962 and 1967 the development of instrumentation for the measurement of plant water potential led to studies of cyclic oscillation of water potential (Barrs). Work on the metabolism of roots in flooded conditions continued throughout these years and led to studies of root distribution in soils (Lang & Melhuish). A visiting scientist, Bill Fischer, made studies on weed control in 1964/65. Salt tolerance and response to water stress were continued, the latter at a metabolic level particularly with regard to P metabolism (Greenway). Studies on plant response to temperature involved cotton. The detailed approach to a research project would depend upon a scientist’s experience. If that person left the Irrigation Research Laboratory a particular approach could end. For example, with staff changes the interaction of plant growth regulators with flooding injury ended during this period.
Meteorological studies in the Coleambally region started in 1963. Studies of evapotranspiration continued through these years, and lysimeters were installed (Linacre). Analyses were made of the rainfall data for the MIA (Fleming), and the study of climatology of glasshouses started in 1964, as instrumentation became available (Garzoli). In 1966, with the advent of plastic sprinkler systems, the engineers began to study their use for crops in
the MIA. A simple data recorder for the meteorological site was installed in 1962, with the later addition of a paper-tape collector.
The eagerly anticipated installation of a small computer in Griffith, in 1968, would obviate the transfer of some data-collections to the Canberra computer for processing. However, high level statistical analyses still needed to be done in Canberra. Other developments included low-level scanners and a pressure bomb for the measurement of plant water potential. The analysis of large numbers of soil and plant samples in the service-chemistry laboratory was speeded up with the installation of an atomic absorption spectrometer and an auto-analyser.
DivisionofIrrigationResearch
The Irrigation Research Laboratory, Griffith became the Division of Irrigation Research in August 1967. In the Annual Report published in July 1967 Eric Hoare concentrated on the yield of food crops per unit of water used, and the calorific values of crops per unit of solar radiation. For the latter, rice and potatoes stood above other crops in the fruit, grain and vegetable categories. He also pointed out the perceived trends in irrigated cropping, moving from rice, fat lambs & wool into high value arable crops like potatoes, carrots, onions and cotton.
In the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere projects, studies on root distribution, flooding injury, the metabolic effects of water stress and plant water potential continued. In the Climatology section the measurement and estimation of radiation, and glasshouse climatology were studied (John Blackwell* had joined Keith Garzoli on 15 January 1968). Agronomic studies included techniques and timing of irrigation, the water requirement of maize, cotton agronomy & breeding, the use of gypsum on heavy clay soils, and the water balance and water quality of the MIA. Studies on Citrus physiology, quality & yield continued.
Tony Ceresa with field data logger. PhotographcourtesyofRogerHoare
This was a big year in Data Measurement & Processing, with the installation of the PDP9 computer in January 1968 and its commissioning in May. Along with the computer came staff from the Division of Computing Research, a valuable partnership that continued for many years. Amongst the instruments developed were a grain counter, a pyranometer, flux plates and an aspirated psychrometer. These would play important roles in research programs over the following years. In addition, the development of methods of chemical analyses needed for local soils was continued in the Analytical Chemistry facility.
Fleming had left Griffith on 4 August 1967 for the Division of Land Research, Canberra. Greenway left for the School of Agriculture, The University of Western Australia on 26 January 1968, and Linacre moved to Macquarie University at the end of 1968. Just before Hank Greenway left, Ben Darbyshire* was appointed on 20 December 1967. Under Commonwealth Extension Grants for members of the NSW Department of Agriculture, Lloyd Downey and Wal Anderson had left and Brian Freeman was into his second year.
In 1969, summarising the previous years, Eric Hoare wrote that the emphasis had been on teams across disciplines, and this had given many research benefits. Micro-meteorology and plant biophysics had been subjects of study but with some staff resignations or transfers new directions were possible, both for field crops and glasshouses. The siting of a PDP9 computer at Griffith had provoked the automatic capture of data and the development of front-end sensors. The “old” crop of citrus and the “new” one of cotton gave a species focus to many projects.
The major experimental groups in the 1968 / 9 research report were:
Relationships between soil, plant & atmosphere included cyclic oscillations of transpiration; water-use efficiency of citrus (Barrs); Root distribution in soils (Melhuish & Lang); Flooding injury (Melhuish); Metabolic effects of water stress (Darbyshire).
Irrigation Agronomy included Trickle Irrigation systems (Garzoli & Blackwell), Water balance of MIA (Evans), Irrigation Scheduling (Downey), Cotton Agronomy (Muirhead), Cotton breeding (Low & MacMahon), Citrus Nutrition (Cary) and Physiology (Moss).Soil Physics was mainly Blackmore (Division of Soils) and chloride in soils (Ho & Evans).Digital Control, Data Capture & Processing Systems reported
An experiment in the Growth Cabinets
PhotographcourtesyofRogerHoare
the development of a range of sensors for use in experiments (Trickett, Ceresa & Somerville).Measurements and Ancillary Facilities were mainly the provision of Chemical Analysis for experimentalists (Gunn).
1969 saw a number of new appointments: Rod Speed to assist Geoff Evans on 24 March; John Sale* on 1 May; Barrie Steer* on 10 September; Kath Bowmer* on 1 December; and Helena Hicks* to fill Margaret Russell’s position in the library on 17 December. In the new year Emmett O’Loughlin* arrived.
Margaret Russell’s retirement.
Left to right: Nan Simpson*, Rosemary Wren, Barbara Johnston, Margaret Russell, Helen Brayne, Jill Ford, Shirley Calabria*.
PhotographcourtesyofRogerHoare
Margaret Russell retired from CSIRO in June 1969 after 23 years at Griffith. She had enlisted in the WAAF in 1941 and had had postings at a number of Australian bases. After the war she studied library services then accepted a position at CSIRO Griffith but also actively oversaw the CSIRO libraries at Deniliquin and Merbein. She played an important role in the establishment of the public libraries in the Riverina. In retirement Margaret had an active life in Griffith, continued as a friend of CSIRO Griffith, and died, aged 91, on 11 September 2000 [15]
In the next Annual Report (1969-70) it was explained that a number of universities had formed groups on crop-water-use and evaporation, so the previous emphasis at the Division on the microclimate around the plant had been replaced by studies on the plant’s responses to the changing environment. Barrs continued to work on plant water use efficiency, Darbyshire on metabolic aspects of water stress, and Melhuish on root growth. Sale had started work on vegetable crop productivity and Steer on photosynthetic products. Cary continued working on Citrus nutritional problems and Moss had programs on Citrus physiology, particularly biennial bearing. The other new endeavours were work on herbicide residues by Bowmer; and O’Loughlin’s start on the fluid dynamics of the water distribution
systems in irrigated farming. The other programs like cotton breeding and agronomy, the engineering development of sensors, trickle irrigation and soil physics continued apace. This was the time when a Chair of Horticulture was about to be established in the University of Sydney. Eric Hoare had been a founding member of the Council working for the creation of this chair.
One year later (1970-71) the Soil Physics section had gone; in the previous report this section had contained the work of Bill Blackmore (Division of Soils) who had been transferred to Canberra. The long-term study on citrus management was now reported under Agronomy. The research programs of staff that had arrived in 1969 had gathered pace.
By 1971-72 the reporting sections were:
Relationships between soil, plant & atmosphere; Climate and weather; Hydroscience and Irrigation; Crop Growth and Management; Crop Yield and Quality; Plant Biochemistry; Data Capture & Processing Systems; Measurements and Ancillary Facilities.
These groups reflected, in part, the progress of the newer research projects. Barrs, Lang and Melhuish worked in the first group. O’Loughlin, Bowmer, Blackwell & Garzoli in Irrigation Science. Sale, Muirhead & Bowmer in Crop Growth. The continuing cotton breeding (Low) and citrus studies (Cary and Moss) were in Crop Yield, while Plant Biochemistry contained the work of Darbyshire and Steer. What is noticeable is the degree of interaction among staff evidenced by the multiple authors of many research reports at that time. Interest in mechanical harvesting was growing and links with the CSIRO Division of Mechanical Engineering for cotton and tomato harvesting had been established.
Some cotton cultivars were released during the year, and other summer crops (maize, sorghum and sunflower) were becoming the focus of research. Geoff Evans resigned to join the Federal Secretariat in Canberra, and Vic Edwards* (Divisional Administrative Officer) to become a lecturer in economics. He had been making an economic survey of MIA horticultural farms.
One year later (1972-73) the interest of farmers in the growing of row crops on heavytextured soils had been anticipated and studies on vegetables, sunflower, lupins and beans were reported side-by-side with Citrus. While research projects evolved all the time, this was a year when major changes in programs in the Division could be detected. Directions for future large research programs were anticipated such as feed crops for the production of poly-unsaturated meat and dairy products; greenhouse technology; and irrigation water quality and aquatic-weed management.
The Soil-Plant-Atmosphere group continued, and measurements on glasshouse climatology were reported. Water quality (including the persistence of herbicide residues in irrigation water), the dispersion of herbicides in channels and the control of waterweeds were reported in Hydroscience & Irrigation. The “new” crops under research included the productivity of vegetable crops, irrigated sunflower, lupin, snap bean and lintless cotton (this was the only report on cotton: Alistair Low had been transferred, nominally, to the Division of Plant Industry which now dealt with all cotton research in CSIRO, but he did not leave Griffith).
Work on the “old” citrus continued under management and flower physiology. Plant Biochemistry included the dehydration of macromolecules, leaf growth and diurnal variations in photosynthetic products particularly in relation to N metabolism. N fertilisers were a major input cost in irrigated cropping.
Measurements and Support Services contained the work of the previous groups: Data Capture & Processing Systems and Measurements & Ancillary Facilities. Something needs to be said about the production of data capture and processing systems at the Division. The need was for reliable sensors and recorders that could be left unattended for some weeks. In addition, some large, integrated systems were built such as the Field Assimilation Chamber (used in vegetable studies) and the Experimental Channel used in Irrigation Studies; both with their range of transducers. This was the time of data collection on paper-tape and the use of such systems in the field and laboratory was widespread in the Division. Among many other developments may be mentioned: Deplot (to measure 2 dimensional objects like leaf areas), a Vibration Attenuation Table (used in electrophysiology of leaf cells) and a Pressure Chamber (for use in dehydration studies on macromolecules). These were designed and built in the Division.
Atimeofchange
By 1973-1974 the first of the many reviews in CSIRO had recommended the end of fruit research (citrus after 50 years) to be replaced with irrigated vegetable research. Food processing companies were showing interest in the irrigation areas of SE Australia, for example, e.g. sweet corn and beans for deep freezing. The research needs were physiology, breeding, pathology, agronomy and engineering. This switch could be detected in some programs. The Soil-Plant-Atmosphere group now comprised Barrs and Lang, the latter now working on leaf orientation and light interception. The Water Management Group demonstrated the continued work of O’Loughlin and Bowmer, while Garzoli and Blackwell concentrated on trickle irrigation techniques and glasshouse climatology. A new endeavour, but adding to spasmodic surveys in past decades (Cassidy in 1949 & Evans in 1967), was the measurement of nutrient levels and algal populations in MIA supply and drainage water (Steer, Higgins & Maier*). This was provoked by a recent series of algal blooms in the Murray-Darling Basin. In Crop Growth and Management all sections had started on vegetable projects. Sale continued with his work with potatoes, beans and cabbage while Cary and Moss were finishing their citrus projects, at the same time starting on vegetables. Rice Stubble Disorder was a major focus of fieldwork along with sunflower and bean agronomy (Muirhead). The plant breeder (Low) had now switched from cotton to oilseed crops (sunflower and safflower), starting programs and interests that would stretch well into the future. In Environmental Plant Physiology & Biochemistry the water stress work of Darbyshire and the control of photosynthetic products (Steer) continued, while Melhuish was investigating the effects of soil conditions on the growth of summer crops. Gunn now measured the quality of sunflower seeds, while Higgins ran the analytical chemistry laboratory.
Not many CSIRO employees died “in harness” but September 1974 brought a tragic event to the Division. William John Smith had been working in the garage as a mechanic, and driving the Divisional bus for some months, after Stan Barrett retired. On 14 September Bill was driving his wife Margaret Joan (a nurse at Griffith Base Hospital), daughter Joanne, and sister-in-law Dorothy Miller along Jondaryan Avenue when the car was hit by a motor-bike at the intersection with Banna Avenue. Bill and the motor-cycle rider (Reginald Roffe, aged 22) were killed immediately, Margaret died 4 hours later in hospital. The pillion passenger and Mrs Miller spent time in hospital. Joanne was treated and allowed to leave hospital. Bill, 46, and Margaret are buried in Griffith Lawn cemetery “In memory of Our Beloved Parents, Joanne and Greg, RIP”.
Another officer who died suddenly was Jim Sommerville, the stalwart of the Data Capture & Electronics group, and ready helpmate to all with electronic problems. He died suddenly at home in Groongal Avenue on 27 May 1977 and was long mourned by his colleagues.
In July 1975, the previous program groups were still in existence except that, for the first time for many years, the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere program had gone, subsumed by Environmental Physiology & Biochemistry. Dick Lang had moved to the CSIRO Division of Environmental Mechanics in Canberra. There was a new member in this program: Alan Heritage*, a microbiologist, who was to study micro-organisms in the root-zone; and the oilseeds breeding program had been strengthened by the move from CSIRO Mareeba of Ken Harrigan (*) who later concentrated on the safflower breeding program. Investigations of the carbon physiology of onions had started (Darbyshire and Steer).
In 1975 / 1976 vegetable research was well established. Under Crop Growth and Management, the photosynthesis and productivity of winter crops of cauliflower, cabbage and broad bean were measured and, in the summer, potatoes. The investigation of Rice Stubble Disorder continued and the ecology of micro-organisms in recently drained rice soils
Stan Barratt with the Station bus which brought staff from Griffith town. When there were people living in Yenda a Commonwealth car was used for a similar service. PhotographcourtesyRogerHoare.
supplemented this work. Citrus physiology continued though, along with the management of snap beans and sweet corn.
Water management and Engineering in Irrigation continued work on aquatic plant management, the use of acrolein herbicide in channels, residual herbicides in irrigation water (Bowmer); and a comparison of furrow and trickle irrigation on tomato yields (Garzoli, Blackwell & Freeman). Emmett O’Loughlin had moved to the CSIRO Division of Forest Research in Canberra during the previous year.
Environmental Plant Physiology and Biochemistry now concentrated on the onion crop, measuring carbohydrates in leaves and bulbs (Darbyshire), and measuring the bulbing response to daylength and temperature of some Australian varieties (Steer). The effect of temperature on wine storage was an example of interaction with local industry (Darbyshire). The work on photosynthetic products had moved on to nitrogen metabolism and protein synthesis in the daily light / dark cycle (Steer).
Oilseeds breeding (sunflower & safflower) and the measurement of sunflower oil quality were major projects in the Division, while the analysis of the thermal behaviour of plastic greenhouses heralded major programs that developed in the late 1970s and 1980s (Garzoli and Blackwell).
With the imminent retirement of Eric Hoare in April 1977 came some more reviews. In November 1976 the Fowden Committee reviewed both the Divisions of Plant Industry and Irrigation Research whose Chiefs were retiring. Later, in March 1977 the Birch Committee enquired into CSIRO in general. As a result of these deliberations the Division of Irrigation Research was to strengthen its work on soil and water management. This was for the new regime, and for the moment the previous year’s projects continued.
The CSIRO Griffith Station celebrated its Golden Jubilee in October 1976 with an evening gathering [9] of IREC and industry representatives, friends & neighbours, former residents and staff, and current staff. Some former staff were photographed:
Sitting, left to right: Pat O’Brien, Nan Simpson*, Mrs West, Margaret Russell, Eric West, John Miller*.
Standing: u/k, u/k, Harry Frith, Bob Sidlow, Joan Ross*, u/k, u/k, Cliff Brace, Fred Whitford.
Back: Bob Williams, Roy Stacy*, u/k, George Richards, Barbara Morel*, Clive Gates, Dic Bouma*, u/k, Cedric Jones, Bruce Bowden, u/k. PhotographcourtesyofJoanRoss
There was a photograph in the newspaper [9] of the three people still working at the Station who were there in Eric West’s days: Fred Whitford, Pat O’Brien (Pat died in Canowindra, NSW on 15 July 2012) and George Richards.
General.
The establishment of Cocoparra National Park was acknowledged in the 1965/66 report. Eric Hoare played a part in the lobbying for that park. The first permanent ranger in Griffith, of NSW National Parks, Geoff Moore, was appointed in 1969 to oversee a large area of western NSW.
Another activity for Eric Hoare was as a member of the Riverine University League, a body lobbying for the establishment of a university in southern rural NSW. Its chairman, Dr. Merrylees, was often reported in the “Riverina Advocate”. Eric Hoare (1: 17 July 1961) argued that if a new university should be established in NSW and Victoria it should be in the Riverina and not in a city. Later, however, the Riverina was disturbed by the government’s decision to establish a third university in Sydney (Macquarie University), and moreover to recommend land be acquired for two more universities in the city. Eric Hoare became a member of the Wade Shire local committee working for a Riverine University (1: 26 February 1962).
Eric Hoare was the guest speaker at a Naturalization Ceremony on 27 Oct 1960. He noted also that he was a New Australian and urged people to enter the life of the community (1: 31
Staff from Eric West’s Days
October 1960). This was a frequent plea from Eric Hoare, for people to play a part in the community. Every year he usually thanked his staff for their community involvement and it was true that CSIRO staff did join and form community organisations: Rotary; Rostrum; holding office in Parents and Citizens Associations at school, regional and state levels (George Richards was on the State Council for many years, and Barrie Steer for 2 years); George was also a Wade Shire councillor; The Good Neighbour Council; The Griffith Aboriginal Advancement Association; Arts Council; Conservation Society; Music Club; the Camera Club etc. Ben Darbyshire organised a CSIRO working bee to construct the rock walls on either side of the main gates to the Pioneer Park Museum in 1970. He was called away in the middle of the work to see his newborn son, Tom.
While Mount Bingar, in the Cocoparras, was being assessed as a possible site for a telescope, CSIRO Griffith became a staging post for work at the Mount Bingar Field Station of ANU where a 26-inch reflector was tested for 28 months. The decision was taken early in 1962 that the new telescope should be sited at Sidings Springs Mountain (3320 feet above sealevel) in the Warrumbungles. When the Bingar Field Station was closed the Vice-chancellor of ANU thanked Eric Hoare (1: 17 May 1962) for his help in general and for gathering cloudiness data which led to the Mount Bingar site (1494 feet) being considered in the first place. There was snow on Mount Bingar that winter (1: 23 August 1962).
For another important example of community involvement, a number of CSIRO staff were in the Griffith Aboriginal Advancement Organisation. The Notice of Quarterly Meeting of GAAO to be held at Three-Ways Bridge on 4 Oct (1: 28 Sep 1962) stated that John Loveday will lead a discussion on future activities, especially those related to educational progress. A child reading class which started on 18 Sept at Three-ways was conducted by John Loveday and Mrs Simpson; it was held on each Tuesday and Thursday between 7 and 8 pm. (1: 28 Sep 1962)
At a meeting (1: 22 Nov 1963) it was proposed a concert be held to equip the 3-Ways Community Hall with a piano. A persistent plea was for a telephone booth at Three-ways. There was collaboration between Save the Children Fund and GAAO resulting in Mrs Downing’s visit and the stated need for a Griffith branch of the Save the Children Fund. Later, the SCF Griffith Branch sought a “Teacher at the Pre-school at Three-Ways; 3 hours per week + a helper; send applications to Mrs D. MacPherson, c/ CSIRO Griffith” (1: 2 March 1964). It was hoped that the Pre-school would open in the third term and it did, in October. Mrs Helen Linacre was the teacher (1: 18 Sept 1964). Dr. J. Loveday was unanimously re-elected president then. Mr E. Linacre did not seek re-election as secretary and was succeeded by Mrs L. Gibson, with Dr. Lang as assistant secretary. Also, Les Bromfield* and Gerald Moss were involved in the Association.
Eddie Linacre remembers:
“The back fence in Wood Road separated our garden from Scenic Hill. On the other side of the firebreak, a family of Aborigines lived without water supply or sanitation in a construction of old corrugated iron on a framework of poles dug into the earth. Eddie’s parents-in-law, Eric & Laura Savage, befriended them.
Helen & I were involved in trying to help improve the appalling situation of the Aborigines living on the fringes of Griffith. I joined the Griffith Aborigine Assimilation Association, which we soon changed to Griffith Aborigine Advancement Organisation, and after a couple of years I became its secretary. Our aim was to encourage the Aborigines to take over the Association, but in the meantime to act as their advocates in the face of police harassment, bureaucratic
indifference, general racism, educational disadvantage and so on (The Welfare Board said police could enter homes at 3-Ways reserve whenever they wished. Why were Aboriginal homes singled out? 1:22 July 1964). In 1964 two carloads of us, white and black, went to Canberra to a large and importantly successful national gathering to set up a national body run by Aborigines alone.
Our major accomplishments in Griffith were in getting the Save the Children Fund to finance modifying the hall, and then employing a trained teacher to start and run a pre-school for the Aborigine children. At the end of an open formal process (to prevent any perception of a biased choice), Helen Linacre was selected as that teacher. She did a wonderful job over three-and-a-half stressful years, until we left Griffith”.
Staff Photograph, 1977
Front row, left to right: Tony Ceresa, Helena Hicks*, Kath Bowmer*, Cheryl Robertson*, Rhonda Barzan, Hank Muskens, Jill Ford, Irene Jones (IREC), Warren Muirhead*, Henry Barrs, Eric Hoare, Teddy Trickett, John Sale*, Robyn Mackay, Keith Garzoli, Liz Ellis*, Pat O’Brien, Jan McCallum, Arthur Riddle, Audrey Haas, Len Gallagher; Second row: Bill O’Brien, Bob Hewett, Ken Harrigan, Bobby Dalgleish, Graeme Flood (Div. Mech. Eng.) Glen Pope (Div Comp. Res.), John Adeney*, G. Amato, Jim Byrne, John Maclulich, Alan Gunn*, Ben Bruemmer, R. McRae, Peter Rangott*, Rob Henry, Ron Locke;
Back two rows: Stuart Patterson*, Ian Willett (Div. Soils), David Erskine*, Alan Heritage, Peter Cary*, Leith Higgins, Frank Melhuish, David Short, George Chapman, Ron Gray, John Blackwell*, Ben Darbyshire*, Andy Bellato, Jack Bleijie, M. Mackay, Fred Whitford, Wal Armstrong, Pino Pistillo, Alistair Low*.
ABSENT: A.B. Chapple, Alan Chick, D.K. Lucas, Jilma Maier*, Bronwen. Mallaby, A. Marangon, Gerald Moss*, George Richards, Fred Roberts, Graeme Shell, Jim Somerville, Rod Speed, Barrie Steer*, Peter Weerts, Bob White, V. Zuccolotto.
Finally, John Blackwell remembers:
One of my last memories of Eric Hoare was at his farewell barbeque in the grounds of the laboratory which he had so lovingly created and cherished. We had presented Eric and Isobel with a set of stainless-steel gardening tools and a stainless-steel wheelbarrow created in the workshop and engraved with all our names and well-wishes. Eric immediately dumped the representative member of the CSIRO executive, Michael Tracey, into the barrow and raced around the gardens at great speed amidst much laughter. This act was somewhat overshadowed later in the evening by Keith Garzoli who karate chopped a large ripe watermelon on the top table, smothering the VIPs with juice and sticky watermelon flesh.
Publications
Newsletters
Conferences
Journals
In the three years 1978 to 1980 there were 49 journal papers, 88 conference papers and 12 contributions to newsletters, i.e. 16, 29 & 4 per annum, respectively.
Conclusions
Eric Hoare died while visiting the Top End on 14 July 1996, aged 82 years. His wife, Isobel, died in Dalmeny on 19 September 2007.
At the Station, the 1928 and 1939 wings were demolished and replaced by new laboratories which were opened on 5 April 2004. The whole CSIRO site, however, is now owned by Murrumbidgee Irrigation (successors to WCIC). The 1964 wing is used as their offices while CSIRO Land & Water leases the 1947 2-storey central block and the new laboratory (2004) wing. Most of the glasshouses have been removed but the remaining small ones, and the shadehouse, are leased by the privately-owned “sppsWetlandconsultants-Constructed Wetland Technology” for their aquatic plant propagation (Pino & Anna Pistillo). In 2016 CSIRO ended the lease in Griffith but Deakin University now use the facilities.
After the move to national research in CSIRO in the late 1950s it seems that some projects at Griffith tended towards basic research whereas before that, applied projects formed the majority. Several contributors have wondered why some projects in which they were involved were not carried out by WCIC or the NSW Department of Agriculture. Perhaps these fuzzy boundaries between organisations contributed to the later reduction in size of CSIRO in Griffith.
When asked to nominate the significant research results during the Station’s history it becomes quite subjective. For example, a biologist might nominate one, an engineer another. The many years of Citrus research contributed significantly to the Australian industry, and the work on drainage helped to alleviate the effects of heavy rainfall. Germlines from breeding programs have been absorbed by the relevant cropping industries, like cotton, sunflower & safflower. In a similar fashion the results of more basic research have been absorbed into the body of knowledge which we call scientific knowledge or understanding, and have been used in university lecture courses.
PERSONAL MEMOIRS
Roy Stacy
Herbert Fitzroy Stacy died in Griffith, at home with his wife Nancy and daughters, on 15 September 2018, aged 97. He had been a very active member of many community organisations until well into his 90s.
I was the eldest of 11 children so after I left school in 1935, I first worked on the prune harvest at Griffith Producers then for Eric West on his Nericon farm. During that time, he mentioned a job opportunity at CSIR so I applied along with 8 others; Ben Martin interviewed us, and I had a reference from Hedley Mallaby, senr. I started as a junior labourer in early 1936. My tasks then were to mow the station lawns with a push lawn mower (not so easy on the spongy lawns), milking, and pumping water into the header tanks. The next year, 1937, I was promoted to a tractor driver. On the Fordson tractor I helped clear Farm 466, and Phil Coonon and I fenced the Bagtown cemetery on the site in 1940.
In the orange orchard on the CSIR home farm there were test rows for the yield trials. We picked each tree and Arnold Dreyer would label each set for further yield analyses. Some of the treatments were lucerne ground-cover versus ploughed to 2-, 4- or 6-inches depth. Irrigation was by furrow or spray. In 1938 the Station hired an autogiro to make an aerial survey of citrus orchards.
Ron Prunster & Roy Stacy sampling Typha from a drainage channel. PhotographcourtesyofRoyStacy
My other job was to help Ron Prunster with a Typha (Cumbungi) study near Yenda to where I would ride on his motor-bike. In a drainage channel we would drive a 12-inch square steel frame into the soil and remove the plant material. Some samples were used to measure the plant mass, and others were transplanted to different depths in an experimental dam to study their further growth. I bought his motor-bike from him when he left Griffith but told my father to sell it while I was in the RAAF. I visited Ron in Sydney once when I was on leave from the RAAF.
Between 1938 and 1940 technical education in Griffith was in the travelling rail-college. Mr Norman Brooks ran the courses in 2 carriages that were at the railway station every 4th week for a week (on the other weeks it was at Leeton, Coolamon or Narrandera). The tractor maintenance course ran on Wednesday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. and in the evenings. Bill Collier and I were the first students taking 3 subjects: auto-engineering, diesel engineering and fitting & machining. One useful practical test for me was when the CSIR tractor needed repair and the Ford mechanic, who came out to the station, let me help him with the repair.
In August 1940 I joined the RAAF. After the war ended, I was in Japan for 18 months in the occupation forces. I was demobbed in September 1947 and returned to CSIR. One task I remember then was pulling out the orange orchard with Mick O’Meara. My father died in 1948 so I left to tend the family farm.
I remember Kath Mason’s parents had a fruit and vegetable shop in Banna Avenue. Wally Bishop carted the oranges from the Station to the Griffith Producers. Mick O’Donnell was the tractor driver before me; he had been a bullock driver and swore at the tractor as if it were a bullock. I also remember the huge dust storm of 1938. It took 4 days to shovel all the dust out of the Station buildings.
Stan Polkinghorne
Stan wrote this just before he died on 19 May 2012
I left school in 1937 when I was 14. For a year I helped my father on the family farm, but it was still the Depression and times were hard. He suggested I look for a job, and I found one, at CSIR Griffith. I was a junior assistant to Dr Joan Hearman from 1938 to 1941. She had joined CSIR in 1938.
We propagated citrus seedlings in a raised bed: Trifoliata, Sweet Orange, Norfolk Island Rough Lemon. These were used as rootstock for plantings on Farm 466 and elsewhere like the Mallaby farm at Lake Wyangan. Mr Baldon budded onto these stocks and Joan Hearman tried “in-arching” grafts so that two rootstocks supported one scion. There was a simple rhizotron, a glass wall with grid markings, sunk into the ground, so that we could measure root growth., and the percolation of water into the soil. On the bike ride to work there were particular trees along the roadside marked so that we could readily note the timing of flowering and fruiting stages throughout the year. Many of the female staff rode their bikes, like Kath Mason and Helene Lawler. There were about 4 other male junior assistants. Those I remember were Merv Hamilton, Jack Jenkins and Jeff McKern. Jack was an old friend; we had sat together at school. The Jenkins farm was near the now Pioneer Lodge but the family moved to Lithgow at some time. One job that Merv and I had was to walk the citrus orchards to assess the health of the trees so as to help interpret the results of the aerial photographic survey. A job we all had was to clean up the newly-built 2-storey administrative block prior to its official opening on 3 October 1939. It was a long job and went on into the evening so Merv went to buy some beer; I was not a drinker but had one. As the clean-up was ending, I crashed into the front door and broke the window. It stayed with the crack through the opening ceremony – Mr. H.K. Nock, M.P. did the opening honours. Olaf Perkman (The “White Russian”) arrived at CSIR before I left (he was on the 1940/41 staff list).
Jack Jenkins
PhotographcourtesyofJoanRoss
Merv Hamilton often drove the Station ute, I got a licence when I was 17 but rarely drove. On one occasion Merv drove his own car, the Studebaker, and I followed in the ute. On the bends on Research Station Road I almost turned the ute over, much to Merv’s consternation. He was a few years older than me, and a more experienced driver.
Eric West wanted me to enrol at university but I had not matriculated and did not have a foreign language (a requirement then for entering a science course). I started to learn French under the guidance of the High School teacher but I turned 18 in April 1941 and was called up for the RAAF in September. Eric was sorry to see me go. Between April and September Billy Rafael and I had completed, by
correspondence, 21 lessons on airframes and Morse. Mr MacFarlane at the Griffith Producers Co-op taught the Morse. His suggestion was to have a few beers to relax before tackling it – it worked I got to 32 wpm, but never achieved that speed again. Actually, the beer caused too many toilet breaks so we substituted gin & peppermint – that did the trick. In the RAAF I flew Beaufort Bombers – 114 sorties (on 94 different planes; one of the last is in the Australian War Memorial collection, but rarely on show) over the Islands. For the last 6 months of the war, I was an instructor on Beauforts at Sale. Jeff McKern also flew bombers, one sortie over Dresden – that blighted the rest of his life.
for Farm 466
Eric West wanted me back at CSIR after I was demobilised but my brother Cec and I were keen to go farming. Ben Martin’s farm was on the market but we bought Farm 20 instead, with figs, prunes and table grapes, from Pride Brothers. While in the RAAF I had spent 3 months in hospital with rheumatic fever, and after 8 years on the farm it recurred, so Cec bought my share from me. I became a Field Officer with Griffith Producers. During that time, I was friendly with Dic Bouma who had joined CSIRO in 1953. He pointed out that they had a lot of information on citrus nutrition that needed to get out into the farming community. Dic taught me leaf analysis and the Prods set up a laboratory for leaf and soil testing. At the Producers I moved onto Production Manager then Sales Manager. I farmed at Coleambally for 5 years then moved back to town to manage the Co-op (Edgells) Cannery. Before I retired in 1990, I had worked for Nugans for 12 years.
Mervyn Hamilton
By Pam Kensett-Smith - daughter
Mervyn Hamilton’s parents came from Lightning Ridge to Hanwood, to Farm 132. He was born at the farm in 1917. Merv went to Hanwood Public School then Griffith Intermediate High School. He was working as a junior assistant at CSIR Griffith in 1937. Probably because of scarlet fever earlier in his life he was adjudged unfit for the military so while others went to war, he was transferred to CSIR Food Preservation in Sydney and it was there that he met his wife, Yvonne. They were married in 1942 and he returned to CSIR Griffith later.
Mervyn Hamilton, Lindsey Brown (office), Roy Stacy PhotographcourtesyofRoyStacy
Later still, he worked the family farm at Hanwood. But it was sold in 1958, after the “Big Wet” in 1956 had ruined many orchards. He drew Farm 1990 at Kooba, Wilbriggie and started to clear the vegetation for rice production.
He was a sociable man and Merv & Yvonne were amongst the founders in 1949 of the Kiama Ski Lodge. He also had some connection with the Mount Buller Ski Lodge with the Delves (see addendum on the
Citrus seed-beds
two ski-clubs). He rode motor-bikes and had the Studebaker car which Stan Polkinghorne remembers. In June 1967 he was involved in a car accident in Hanwood from which he sustained a fractured skull. Although he ostensibly recovered from that, he was limited in the work he could do on the farm, and was often depressed. He died in June 1971.
Joan Hearman, Mrs Joan Tully
By Elaine Einspinner (née Tully) and Alan Tully
Joan Tully was forced to resign from CSIR because of her marriage in 1944, and then had to fight to get a job back after her husband died in 1945. I seem to remember a question was asked in Parliament by local member, Mr. Enticknap, about her situation.
She was interested in improving relationships between the Italian and the Anglo communities, and once organized a display of the Italian women’s handcrafts, to foster closer appreciation and interest. She was also interested in improving the conditions of farm-women generally. She encouraged farmers to install septic tanks (most only had basic cans). She organized a kitchen exhibition, to encourage improved conditions for wives, and made a film to be shown to farmers’ groups. On the farm side, tile drains were a big issue at the time.
PhotographcourtesyofGGHS
The wedding of Joan Hearman & Archie Tully on 2 March 1944. The 3 Tully children sitting at lower left are Ruth, Alan and Elaine. Taken in the CSIRO grounds with Station staff among the guests.
The pisé house was an attempt to get farmers to improve their housing, with materials locally available. Unfortunately, the only experienced builder came from Corowa, and was not particularly reliable. She developed an association with G.F. Middleton from the Commonwealth Experimental Building Station, North Ryde, who published a book titled “Build Your House of Earth” (1953).
When she left Griffith, she was given a dinner attended by many of the Italian community, in appreciation of her efforts on their behalf. She was presented with a traymobile suitably inscribed by local artist Harold Thornton (now in the Pioneer Park Museum in Griffith).
On the home front, we had a succession of housekeepers, usually live-in, sometimes post-war refugees and migrants, until we were old enough to manage ourselves. Our sister, Alison (Allan’s twin), was developmentally disabled. There was no suitable placement for her in NSW, and after Archie’s death, she was found a place in an institution in Adelaide (Minda Home), thanks to a connection with someone Archie had worked with. She lived there till her death in 1986. Joan continued to take an interest in her and her welfare.
Other interests for Joan in Griffith included a Sydney University-based Discussion Group, membership of the local dramatic society, member of the Library Committee, member of the Hospital Board. At the time of her death, Joan was about to have to retire from Queensland University, because she had reached the age of 65. In teaching in the Extension course there she had a lot of contacts in the Pacific. Not long before her death, she was awarded a shark‘s tooth (a considerable honour) by the government of Fiji. On the night of her death, a number of her ex-students were organizing a dinner in her honour (in New Guinea?). She was a forward thinker, and before her time in many ways. I don’t think she felt held back by being a woman, and would not have called herself a feminist. Allan joined the Rural Bank as a Cadet Valuer in November 1956, and assisted with the Orchard Census and spent time at the Research Station using the aerial photographs to count trees and measure vine areas. He still remembers that 525 was the number for Valencia Oranges!!
MikeStannard
Michael Charles Stannard 29 Aug 1929 - 18 Dec 2020 Eastwood
My association with CSIR Griffith occurred during two distinct periods during the 1940s and 1950s.
In the 1950s I was a student doing Agriculture at Sydney University. I had to accumulate six months practical work during vacations. I was working there in early 1952, maybe also including some of December 1951, working in the analytical laboratory under Dr. L. A. Whelan. Exactly what I analysed I cannot fully recall except that in many cases it was the salt content of deciduous fruit trees. I would have ceased working there no later than the end of the summer vacation.
In earlier years, while a student at Griffith High School I was a member of Lake Wyangan Junior Farmers Club and some of us had an arrangement with officers of CSIR to cycle out there every second Saturday and be given sessions on irrigated horticultural farming. They also took us on trips (petrol rationing and worn tyres permitting, in those early post war years) to various parts of the MIA to give us a closer look at things.
We even got to the stage where we each had to study an individual farm, its plantings, farm design and cultural methods, and write a critique of it. I did Bartter's farm next to McWilliam's winery (before the chooks). He had 19 chain rows of Shiraz grapevines on a very critical minimum gradient for furrow irrigation and, if I recall correctly, some apricots.
The CSIR Officers who gave us all this valued attention included Lachie Myers, Dave Walters, Joan Tully, Reg Pennefather, Clive Gates, Vern Wagner, Harry Frith, John Fitzpatrick and Alban GurnettSmith.
I graduated B. Agr. Sci. in 1953 and worked at the Department of Agriculture at Yanco and Dareton, where I became manager in 1967, then Head Office in Sydney.
ElaineMarchinton(Mrs.McDonald)
Going to Kath Mason’s wedding Back left to right; Elaine Marchinton; Beverley Barber; Zoe Lasscock; Elaine Irwin; June Pearce (Tutty); Eileen Hillam; Doreen Parker. Front;Pat Martin; Ursula Carroll
PhotographcourtesyofMrsUrsulaWood
My father Syd came to Australia with his parents from Yorkshire before World War 1. After he returned from the war, he obtained Farm 344 at Yenda in 1924, where he was one of the first 8 rice-growers in the 1924/5 season. I was born in Griffith. From 1945 I worked at CSIR for 4 years in Vern Wagner’s section with Kevin Pola, the other assistant, and Jack O’Keefe, labourer. We were testing salinity levels in soils and water. I remember the soil extractor / shaker and the large number of glass bottles that had to be cleaned thoroughly after extraction was complete.
In those days many university students came to the station as part of their agricultural studies. One day I was standing at the laboratory window when one drove in from Melbourne. I said aloud “Students are coming in cars now!”. Bill Greacen who was standing behind me made a witty remark, but I married that student about 5 years later. After Bob graduated he worked in the Victorian Department of Agriculture; for Potash Australasia; and then was agricultural officer for the zinc works in Tasmania. I have lived on the island since 1969.
I remember the active social life at the station: lunchtime tennis and socials; our dances at the C.W.A. Hall or the Myall Park Hall. Kath Mason was in charge of the office then, with Doreen Parker and Nancy Rawle as clerks and Ursula Carroll the telephonist; Elaine Irwin worked in the draughting office. Aston Kingham stayed in Mrs. Probert’s boarding house. Judy Prosser, Linton Tucker, Corrin (whose husband was a mechanic in a Griffith garage), “Aunty Ett” Mears, and Leo Andreatta (laboratory) all worked at the Station. Before I had my car named “Dew Drop”, Fitzy (John Fitzpatrick) used to drive the old exarmy jeep to the lab and would pick-up Harry Frith, Ursula Carroll, Bill Greacen and me from town.
I left CSIR to go travelling. Joyce Whiting and I went to Perth where she met her husband. Another trip was on motor-bikes into Queensland. I rode one with Pat Martin on pillion, and Merle Fallon on the other with a New Zealand lass we had met, on her pillion.
MollyMyers
Courtesy of her daughter, Anne.
I was married on 9th March 1946, just a few months after the end of the war. We went to Griffith after I had been to Melbourne, and Lachie to Bacchus Marsh, to see our parents. We travelled by train - it was a long and tedious journey. Steam train to Tocumwal then a motorised “Tin Hare” to Griffith stopping at every station on the way. I seem to remember it took from about 10a.m. until about 8 p.m. It was possible to travel from Melbourne by the Sydney Express to Junee and then pick up the South West Mail which came from Sydney, but that was even longer.
Lachie’s friend and our Best Man, Jack Fitzpatrick, met us at Griffith Station and took us out to Farm 7 on the Old Wilbriggie Rd near the village of Hanwood. Lachie had rented the house early so we would have somewhere to live, as accommodation was very difficult at that time. Bob and Ethel Williams had recently come from Adelaide and were desperate for a place to live so Lachie lent them the house, and boarded with them. I had spent the Christmas before I was married with Bob and Ethel Williams on Farm 7 so I had some idea of what the place was like. For me it was a totally different life to anything I had ever experienced.
Farm 7 was 6 miles from Griffith and 3 miles from the Research Station on a corrugated, mainly dirt road. All our immediate neighbours were Italian families who had been in the area since 1928 and most were from the same area of Italy. Many of the farms were still owned by Australian men who had returned from World War 1. They were now retiring and often selling or renting their farms to the Italians who had helped them. Mr Starke owned farm 7. He had retired to Manly and left Mr Savarise (Savi) to manage the farm, and had rented his house to Lachie at 30/- per week. He did keep a room for his use on his occasional visits to Griffith. Accommodation was very hard to get at that time and we thought ourselves lucky. After 2 or 3 years Savi bought the farm but still wanted us to stay on - I guess the rent was handy.
My first introduction to the social life of CSIRO staff was when two typists asked if they could come and visit on a particular evening. We thought this was very nice of them. They arrived as expected, then 10 minutes later a great noise and clatter started. Lachie went to see the cause and found the whole long drive filled with car lights and people banging cans, throwing stones on the roof and shouting. We were being given a “tin-kettling party”. This is to wish a newly married couple good luck and to scare away bad spirits. The party-givers also hope to find the couple in bed and embarrassed! All the staff from the Research Station was there and came in with food, drink and everything needed for a party. They lit the fuel stove and heated up things, handed round drinks etc. I was so taken aback that I cannot remember too many details now. It was a wonderful welcome to start life in this town.
The weather was hot in summer and cold and frosty in winter. We would often have weeks in January and February when the day temperatures would be over the century and the nights often 80o F. This made sleeping difficult. A favourite trick was to sprinkle a sheet with water and go to sleep under that. Summer dust storms were frequent and we could see them coming by the red cloud on the horizon. We would rush out and bring in any washing then close all windows and doors but the dust seeped in and all floors had to be washed next day. My veranda was a good dust catcher and was almost impossible to clean because there was no outlet to get rid of the water if it was hosed. I knew women who weighed the amount of dust they collected after a dust storm and would tell you how much they had had. The one good thing was that with the dust there was usually a cool change.
There was always plenty of water for household use. Compared with irrigation, domestic use was tiny and not worth worrying about. We had cold running water in the kitchen and hot and cold in the bathroom but the drainage was very primitive - open drains under the house which had to be cleaned out from time to time. Toilet facilities were of the farm variety - a “dunny” situated about 30 yards from the back door, a wooden seat and a tin can. The can had to be emptied and contents buried every week. This was a job Lachie took very seriously and carefully and I shall always associate the smell of phenyl with
this. Spiders, especially Redbacks, were a constant fear and it was always worth taking a torch at night. We had a tank for drinking water but life became exciting when a swarm of bees decided to nest in the wall right next to the tank. We did everything we could find out about how to get rid of them like smoking them out, catching the queen when they swarmed, but nothing worked. Lachie did manage to catch the queen once when they were swarming. He had her and the surrounding bees on a shovel and was walking carefully into the orchard to put her on a tree when he tripped and fell. Bees went everywhere and he ended up with a bee-sting in his hair. In the end we learned to live with one another and they were still there when we left, as was the smell of fermenting honey.
To a girl from the city this was all rather a shock. Firstly, I had to get used to cooking on a fuel stove. Fortunately, I was young and enthusiastic and it was a very good stove but incredibly hot in the summer. Wood had to be kept chopped and kindling split and collected to be available at all times. I could split kindling but refused to chop wood even though Lachie offered to buy me a lightweight axe. Temperatures of 110oF were frequent in summer so any cooking had to be done early in the day. We had a little electric gadget we could use to reheat food, then later we bought a stovette. The kitchen sink was porcelain and on each side was a long wooden draining board. This got marked with any cooking so had to be scrubbed with a scrubbing brush and sandsoap every week. The fuel stove top had to be cleaned and polished with Blacking ever few weeks and from time to time the flue of the stove had to be cleaned out - how I hated that. Black and dust got up the nose and into the skin.
During the summer and autumn there was plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. The farm provided oranges all the year around. There were also peaches, pears, apricots, prunes, apples and almonds. Savi was very happy for me to use any of these. The Research Station was doing quite a lot of experiments into vegetables for the American Army at that time. When the plots had been harvested the staff could have the vegetables. This meant that at various times there would be a truckload of peas or sweet corn or rockmelon or tomatoes - far more than we could use. I bottled everything that could be put into Vacuola bottles and a few things that were not usually done. If I wanted to bottle a lot I would use the copper as a boiler. In the springtime I used to go along the irrigation channel banks and pick asparagus. It was delicious and very good bottled. From May to December was another story. No fruit could be bought into the area because of the possible introduction of fruit fly and very few vegetables seemed to come in so the preserved food was very useful. Bananas were never seen and were considered a great luxury when people went away on holiday.
All other food had to be bought in Griffith. The only big store was the Co-op and everyone was a member. We paid 5/- for a share and they provided everything we needed. As our house was 6 miles from the town it would have been extremely difficult for me to carry everything on my bike. The Co-op man came out every Friday afternoon with my order. Finally, after a year or so I met the Jack McWilliam family. They were our closest Australian neighbours and lived on the winery estate. They were a large family with 8 children, all grown up. The sons worked in the vineyard and winery. They provided us with milk almost continuously until we left Griffith. They became my firm friends and still remain so. I would ride my bike the mile or so every morning with my billy on the handlebars, sit with daughter Win in the garden for half an hour or so and then ride back. It was wonderful company for me and I hope it was for her to. We were both about the same age.
Keeping food fresh in summer was a real problem. There was a Coolgardie safe of great age - the hessian on the sides was worn out and the water container at the top leaked a bit so we gave that up. Then Lachie used to bring home large [112 lbs] blocks of ice, wrapped up in a hessian bag, on the handlebars of his bike. It was very heavy and on very hot days quite a lot melted before he arrived. We used to keep it in the laundry tub and put the food around and on top of it. As the ice melted, food moved around - some got damp, milk often spilled and it always melted away far too quickly.
All our neighbours were Italian families and were wonderfully friendly people. About 2 a.m. one summer night, in about 1949, a truck drew up in our driveway and there was a lot of happy noise, singing, and very excited Italian voices. Lachie went outside to find the cause. The first boatload of Italian immigrants had arrived and was being dropped off to the families who had sponsored them. They had arrived by ship that day and had been driven up from Melbourne in an open truck. Some were going
further on that night to Hay. The keg of wine was being passed around and we were invited to join and welcome “our Italian cousins” but wine at that time of the morning did not appeal to us.
I would have liked to work at CSIRO because they were always short of skilled laboratory people. Although I was married, I could have been employed in a temporary capacity but Eric West would not employ women unless he was forced to. It was said that he never promoted anyone either male or female. A few times I worked for some weeks when they desperately needed a qualified person and enjoyed that. There were almost no other opportunities for employment. The war had only been over for a short time and many returned men were looking for jobs and given priority. I did pick peaches for friends occasionally but the peach bloom made my skin very itchy and sore. I cannot remember any married woman who worked for money although we all did some voluntary work such as hospital auxiliary.
Lachie had a little kind of station wagon he used at work and very occasionally I was allowed to travel in that. We call it a Jeep but it was a cheap underpowered Standard. About a year before we left Griffith, CSIRO financed officers to buy their own cars and use them for official duties. I cannot now remember the deal but it was the big break for us. We bought a Ford Prefect truck, a very small vehicle with the acceleration and power of a dead wombat but we thought it wonderful. We picked it up at the Ford works in Geelong then went for a holiday with the Fitzpatricks to the Golf House in Mt. Macedon. Lachie developed meningeal flu whilst there and was pretty sick so we had to go back to his parents at Bacchus Marsh. After he recovered, we drove it to Griffith. It took us about two days because the cars at that time had to be run in quite slowly but we were finally mobile with a, mostly, reliable car. Lachie had bought himself a tin whistle and learnt to play it when I was driving. This was meant to relieve the monotony whilst I was driving but it was not my most pleasant musical experience. Late in its life this car did develop a nasty habit of falling out of 2nd gear which was disconcerting. On one occasion as we drove back from Melbourne, we were stopped by floods on the road so we turned back and went to Deniliquin. It was flooded there but Ron Prunster (Officer in Charge of CSIRO) said that we could get through at Hay so he provided us with some food and water and attached a length of hose to our exhaust to act as a snorkel and off we went. When we got to Hay the water was just lapping the bridge so Lachie got me to take off my shoes and paddle ahead across the bridge so he would know where the edge was. We got across safely but I was very glad to get back to Griffith.
Our social life became quite busy after a couple of years. There were the CSIRO activities like afternoon Saturday tennis. I sometimes wonder why I made so much effort to go to these. I was an awful player and people only played with me out of kindness, I am sure. I think I must have been so desperately lonely that I jumped at any chance to be with people. The only other player in my class was Al Grassby Mr West was a mad keen player and very competitive and I hated playing with him as much as he hated playing with me. Lachie sometimes played competition night tennis but transport was a problem. After Saturday tennis often about 6 of the players would come back to Farm 7 and I would cook a hot dinner. These were great fun. As we lived next to McWilliams it was easy to get cheap drinks. The usual tipple was Brown Muscat (nicknamed Red Ned) at 7s.6d a gallon. We collected it in our bamboo covered glass flagon from the winery. In the summer sometimes it was broken down with soda water, ice, lemonade or water, but usually drunk neat. Bottles of wine were too expensive for us and so was beer. Most of the Italians drank Brown Muscat or their own wine, diluting it liberally with water all day. Even the children would be given some using it like a cordial. I remember Ethel Williams was horrified when her 3-yearold son came back from Savi’s saying he had been drinking “black milk”.
The Wests and the Martins asked us to dinner from time to time. Both these families lived on the Research Station and had 4 children each so it was a slice of family life. They lived very frugally and everything was always home-made, sometimes home-killed beef or lamb. Mrs West was incredibly vague and sometimes one wondered if she knew what day it was. On the other hand, she had a small chicken farm near the house and the Research Officers used to try and get past her door because she always wanted them to take boxes of eggs to the Co-op store. They never managed to avoid her and it was a great nuisance for them and certainly no part of the job. On the other hand, they didn’t dare refuse.
Both Eric West and Ben Martin had private farms. Ben’s was just near where we lived and he drove the most wonderful black T-model Ford. He also wore a bowler hat and as he went past me, he would raise his hat and bow. T-Fords are very high from the ground and the effect was very funny. He was a rather
big, plump man and he appeared to be bowing to the populace. He was a well-known character on that road.
One of the early social activities for me was to go with Lachie to “Extension Group” meetings held at a different village one night each week. He was part of a group who were employed to carry the research results and advice to the farmers in the area. He would load a 16mm projector on to the little “jeep” and we would set off. Usually about 15 or 20 farmers used to attend and there was plenty of talk and lively discussion about methods of irrigation, fruit trees, crops, even salting of farms [in 1946!] was discussed. The evening usually ended with the showing of the Tennessee Valley Authority film on irrigation. I was always the only woman present and never known as anything except Mrs Lachie. After months of these meetings, I felt I could have set up an irrigation farm! The Extension Group was an interesting collection of people in those days. There were only 4 or 5 originally, I think. It was headed by Reg Pennefather who was about 45 and lived in a small cottage on the Old Wilbriggie Road by himself most of the time, although his mother occasionally came on long visits. He always had a fascinating collection of books and was a most hospitable, intelligent person. When he wanted to relax or read, he would take a bath for hours on end. Sadly, many years after we left Griffith he committed suicide.
David Walters was the next most senior officer and he had a wealth of agricultural experience and his early background had been on a farm. He was married to Mabel and they had 3 children. They lived in town and their home was open to us all at any time. When they went on leave, they would allow any young bachelor on the staff to live there. Before we were married Lachie and 3 others boarded in a house but all had to live in the garage because that was the only accommodation available so Dave and Mabel lent them their house whilst they were away. Lachie had some amusing stories to tell of their adventures in first time housekeeping. Lachie and Jack Fitzpatrick were both raw agriculture graduates from Melbourne University and I think Alban Gurnett-Smith may have been part of that group for a time. Reg made them into an enthusiastic, hard-working group who became highly regarded in the community. Esther Eagle who went through university with Lachie and Fitz was appointed at the same time but by the time I went there she had married Fitz and gone back to her family home at Barham. Fitz went to join her sometime later.
A big part of the social life of the older women was the afternoon teas and for a while I was caught up in these. On the farms the main meal was always in the middle of the day. The winery whistle went at 12 noon and everyone went home to lunch, including the children who lived close enough to the school, then it went again at 1 pm and everyone went back to work. It went again at 5 pm and the women all knew it was time to go home. The social time for the women was the afternoon. Very few had cars so most arrived by bike or their husbands bought them on their way back to work and called for them after 5 pm. The cooking was all home made, very delicious and often elaborate. I learnt to make afternoon teas with the best of them but I have always found a lot of food very off-putting so I seldom ate anything.
After the first year or two the Hanwood “mob” became a big part of our social life. Many of the men from this area had just returned from the war and were taking over their father’s farms. Most had just married and were around about our age. They lived within a kilometre or two of us and many had young children. We had no children at that stage and so were able to visit them. They were used to companynot the isolated farm life their parents had accepted and so we had dinners, parties etc. Anything for an excuse! I remember one friend ringing Lachie up and saying “Can you think of any reason for a party tonight” Lachie’s answer “Well, I’ve just registered my dog, would that do?” “Yes, that’s good enough” was the answer. They were very simple evenings. Whatever the family would have been having, was extended a bit and bottles of McWilliams wine were opened. In fact, quite often Glenn and Alice McWilliam were among the guests. Most of us had very little money and the most important thing was the company.
Mervyn Hamilton, a farmer close by, had taken over his father’s impoverished farm. It was in a messthe farm itself had deteriorated and was badly in debt. The house had very few facilities - a fuel stove but very little else. He married Von who was a statuesque blonde said to have been a Tivoli chorus girl. She certainly had lived in the city all her life. He turned the farm around by sheer hard work, determination and enthusiasm. He worked hard and played hard. Sometimes we drove home from the Jondaryan Club in Merv’s Rugby tourer probably having drunk more than we should, but there was no
breath analysis then. Lachie found Merv one day in the big barn. He said “Don’t come in Lach. I have the tractor laid out on the floor and if I lose a nut, I’ll never get it together again” Two days later it was fixed and running smoothly. According to Lachie every time he asked him what he was doing the answer was always “spraying “. At that time sprays were considered the only way of controlling pests and some very potent mixtures were used. He was also very accident-prone. One day when he was cutting the wire which was round a peach tree to stop the weight of the fruit damaging the tree the wire sprang back and hit him in the chest and blood spurted out. He walked back to the house and rang the doctor. The doctor said very quietly “Now Merv just sit down very quietly on the chair by the phone. Do Not Move and we will get an ambulance.” He had pierced the pericardium of the heart. He recovered. He loved parties and would be the last to leave and then go home and change over the water for the irrigation, a job, which had to be done, but which took 2 to 3 hours. Von must have found life hard but was very hospitable and always beautifully made up. She bottled and preserved and did her very best to help make a profit. She was also a very good cook and the meals in the early days were often cooked in a camp oven. The farm was next to McWilliams Winery and there was a big paddock between the farm and the winery. During the brandy-making season after the harvest the lees from the brandy still were run out onto this paddock and the smell was appalling for some days. I don’t know how they lived with that. Many years after we left Griffith, Mervyn had a very bad car accident on what was known as the Co-op corner. He had massive head injuries and mainly recovered, but felt he had lost his grip on life.
Another interesting man was Emilio Levi who was came to CSIRO just before we left Griffith. He had Jewish - Italian parents but was born in Cairo and lived there as a child. He used to say he could speak Arabic like a street urchin. His family moved to Paris, I think, then he graduated from an American university and was appointed by Dr Milton Moore to Griffith. It was thought that as he was Italian speaking he would fit in well with the local community. What a mistake that was! All the Italian families in Griffith were peasant farmers and had all come from villages mostly in Calabria. They spoke dialects specific to their region, had very little education and many could not read or write. He could not understand a word they said nor they understand him. In addition, they were only interested in farming and trying to make a living. Emilio had been brought up in a privileged, educated society. He loved music, literature and the arts and Griffith was his idea of living hell. He could not understand how a place could be so rough, brash and uncouth. For years he bemoaned that there were no sidewalk cafes and not even a decent cup of coffee. He lived in the Griffith Hotel and this was a really bad pub. He came to see us frequently and enjoyed the food, coffee and music at our place. I felt so sorry for him when he first came that I cooked spaghetti with a meat sauce. I don’t think I had ever made it before and it was a pretty unusual dish in homes in Australia in those days. It was probably awful but he seemed to enjoy it. He was still in the M.I.A. when we left and seemed happier. I guess he had organised his life, as he liked it by that time. I think he became friendly with Al Grassby and they probably made their cups of coffee.
Al was a colourful person in our midst. He was appointed to the extension group to run a newsletter and a weekly radio program for farmers, a year or so after our arrival. One reason he had come to Griffith was because his cousin was married to the research chemist [Neville Cassidy]. At first, he lived with them. Al and I had one thing in common - we were both appalling tennis players. He, of course, went on in Griffith to make a name for himself long after we left.
Among the other people who were important in my life were the CSIRO families. Dorothy and Harry Frith were about our age and were both Sydney agriculture graduates. Harry originally went to Griffith as a control chemist working for the Griffith Cannery but shortly after we went there, he joined CSIR and was appointed to work on oranges but Frances Radcliffe was setting up a wildlife division and found Harry, who was a mad wildlife man and also a very good shot, and asked him to join wildlife and study wild ducks. Harry was absolutely delighted that he could make his hobby his job. In later years he became head of wildlife at Gunghalin in the ACT. His films on the birth of the red kangaroo and the mallee fowl are still classics. Dorothy was always my friend and like myself she could not get a job but she had children, which I had not.
I had a few places I used to visit on my way home on my bike. There was old Mrs Whiting (Reg Pennefather’s mother). She was about 80 but one of the most intelligent and widely read people I have ever met and I found her very stimulating to be with. The poor woman suffered from trigeminal neuralgia
from time to time and suffered intense pain. Reg’s house was about 3 miles out of town so an ideal place to stop for a chat and a cool drink. Almost opposite lived the Wagners and Gurnett-Smiths. These two women (Lyn and Grace) were sisters and their husbands worked for CSIR. They had young children or were pregnant and in summer could always be found sitting under a large tree in the garden with a piece of sewing in one hand and a cool drink close by, and children playing around. I would arrive very hot and red from my bike ride to visit this relaxed group. I often wished I did not live so far out of town.
In the spring of 1948, there was an international conference of scientists visiting Griffith and Mr West decided they should be entertained at a picnic in the Binya Hills (the only bit of elevated land in the whole area), and that Lachie should do the organising. Mr West was notoriously mean and said Lachie could have ₤6 to cater for the lunch. There would probably be about 60 people there so even for those days that was impossible. Thanks to Lachie’s contacts with the local community and the work and assistance of the staff and their wives, donations were made of all kinds of food and the picnic was a great success. As I recall even the water had to be carried out there as there was no other water in the Hills. I saw cling-film there for the first time. Mrs West had bought some back from the USA and we wrapped sliced turkey in it and thought it was magic.
We had known for some years that we would eventually be living in Canberra and in 1951 we made the big move. I had been to Canberra in 1948 with Lachie when he attended an agrostology conference and was appalled at the coldness of mid-winter but delighted at the friendliness and warmth of the CSIR wives. Then we came again in 1950 to look at houses. We had been on the housing list for years and so were near the top of the list and could choose any new house in O’Connor - then the newest suburb. Lachie’s salary was very low [about ₤350 p.a.] and so we felt we could only afford the rent on a very small two-bedroom weatherboard house. We moved to Canberra in May 1951. I had some regrets at leaving Griffith but it had been a pretty hard life for me and very lonely at times and I looked forward to being somewhere I could get a job and where there would be made roads and not dust and mud.
The removalists came from Canberra (Wilson’s) - father and son. It took them half a day to pack my Fowler bottles! I remember the last afternoon I just could not find anything to do. Bike was packed, everything packed - so I took myself off for a very long bath. Next morning we set out for a new life in Canberra.
Molly, in late retirement, lived next door to the Boumas in Canberra. She had forever the active, inquiring mind until she died [Dic Bouma].
PatMartin(Mrs.Ingram)
My family came to Griffith when I was 4 years-of-age and farmed at Tharbogang. When I finished the Leaving Certificate at Griffith High School all I really wanted was to study architecture. A six-year course, however, was a very expensive choice, and I am not sure my marks would have been enough. Moreover, relatives in Sydney advised my parents that for a female it would be hard to be accepted. Like a lot of others in my class I applied for a Teachers College Scholarship and was offered one but decided I was not suited to be a teacher.
When positions of Laboratory Assistant were advertised, that seemed a good choice, to have work with some associated training. I started in 1946. As it turned out I was unable to become a permanent member of the Public Service because of earlier health problems. So, unlike some others who were temporarily transferred to Melbourne or Sydney for training, I was not eligible.
For a lot of the time, I was engaged in statistical analyses and for this I did go to Canberra for a few weeks, but did not get a lot of instruction. However, I worked with various members of the research staff filing their figures through the “Brunswiga Machinwerk”, and doing the morning weather readings. This entailed climbing the great pole every morning to read the anemometer, change the card on the sunlight hours recorder, and record temperatures, and assess the quantity and type of clouds. Then
sending a telegram to the Bureau of Meteorology. There was some other outdoor work e.g. early morning collection of citrus leaves, or tomato samples to measure the ascorbic acid content. Assessing the “sticky point” of a soil sample required some practice.
There was quite a large staff of scientists, assistants, clerical staff and a librarian, also several members of the Department of Agriculture’s Extension Service. We sometimes worked with the extension workers when they gave talks to farmers. There were some interesting characters among the staff, some good, some not so good.
My family had an orchard so during the week I boarded with an aunt in town. At first, we were picked up by a man who took a work vehicle home each night but that was stopped so we rode our bicycles the 3 miles to the Station. One popular staff member who boarded with my aunt was Mrs. Mears, a stenographer, known to everyone as “Aunty Ett”.
With a large number of young people, some newly married, we had a pleasant social life, going on picnics to Yanco Weir and beaches at Darlington Point; and occasionally running our own dances at the C.W.A. Hall. There was a tennis court in the grounds, and after a water storage dam was built, swimming at lunchtime on hot days – girls only! I had my first feminist moment when we were told that the girls had to arrange the tea-making. I asked why Linton Tucker, who had started there at the same time as Eileen Hillam and I, was not required to take his turn at the tea-urn. He had the same qualifications and had the same duties. The only reason I was given was that he was a male. I still think that that was most unjust. He worked at CSIR for several years then moved, I believe, to Wakool. Eileen Hillam lived with us on the farm after her parents had died. She had been at high school with Elaine Marchinton and myself.
Although the war was over there were still shortages in the UK. The general staff at Griffith contributed to a fund to send food parcels to the staff at East Malling Research Station in Kent (Joan Hearman / Tully had worked there). When the UK recovered somewhat, the staff at East Malling expressed their thanks by buying us a water-cooler.
In the end I left CSIRO in 1951 because there was a limited future for me as a temporary officer, and I planned to travel. Elaine Marchinton, Merle Fallon and I planned to ride our motor-bikes to Queensland; they went but I did not because I had appendicitis. In 1956 I went to Papua-New Guinea and was accepted as a permanent officer in the Public Service of PNG, where I spent 19 happy and interesting years, after which we moved to Adelaide.
My home was in Hay. I came to stay with my sister in Griffith (her husband, Jack Thebridge worked at CSIR then) to recuperate from an illness, and whilst there I replied to an advert for a telephonist and
CSIR Staff Picnic @ Narrandera Baths; 26 Jan 1948 PhotographcourtesyofUrsulaWood
Left to right: Beverley Barber; Nan Chauncy; Pat Martin; June Pearce; Nerida Findlay
UrsulaCarroll(MrsWood)
started work at the Station in 1946. Kath Mason was in charge of the administrative office then. By the time I left in 1952, to get married, I was in charge of the office. There were 3 stenographers. Had I wanted to continue to work after I had married it would have had to have been as a casual. Many people rode to the laboratory from town on their bikes. It was a very social place, with tennis being particularly important. We played at lunchtime, or had lunch on the lawns. The drying ovens, for plant and soil samples, were also used to heat up our lunchtime soup. Smithy, Wagner and Myers had a team in the town night-time tennis competition. I was godmother to the first child of Bill & Barley Greacen.
On steps
Other names I remember, and some are in photographs, are Eileen Hillam (Mrs Belford); Nerida Andrea (Mrs Findlay); Jack O’Keefe; Joyce Whiting, a stenographer; Jean Murray, who entered the church – this was a surprise for some, but of her family of 8 siblings, 5 entered the church; Elaine Marchinton, Pat Martin and Doreen Parker who all worked in the laboratory; and then “Tutty” who worked in administration – June Pearce. Doreen married and moved to Harbord.
Front left – right; Elaine Irwin; Ursula Carroll; Eileen Hillam; Pat Martin Back: Zoe Lasscock; Margaret Russell; u/k; Mrs Mears; Elaine Marchinton
PhotographcourtesyMrsWood
AstonKingham(Mrs.Combe)
To much water has flowed under the bridge since I joined CSIR in 1947. I had passed my Leaving Certificate in 1946. It was my mother who encouraged me to apply for a job as a laboratory assistant. I was aware of one other applicant but I was selected. I was the only employee in the drawing office, so in charge of it. Because my mother lived in Murrami, I needed to be nearer the Research Station so boarded with Mrs. Probert who wanted some female company in her home with 2 sons.
Names I recall: Eric West, of course; Harry Frith, Reg Pennefather, Allan Murray (Department of Agriculture), Margaret Russell and Joan Tully. Margaret remained a friend until she died.
Joan Tully was advocating pisé houses with a north facing aspect ideal for our climate. I did some design drawings for her. She used a cigarette-rolling machine, the first I had seen. As soon as she sat down she would roll a cigarette and smoke it.
One of my first duties as a junior was to collect a jug of milk from Mrs. West at her house, for morning tea. Cycling to the Station was our mode of transport. We would pass the West children riding the other way to school. In later years I often joked about it with Arthur West.
Al Grassby was appointed to edit the “Farmers’ Newsletter” and he planted himself in my office and was often an annoyance to me with his constant typing. Many was the time when the Department of Agriculture men would castigate him for embellishing their ideas and not keeping to the facts. Going to various Field Days was something I enjoyed, giving out the schedule for the day.
I left CSIRO in 1950. I married Peter Combe, a local man, and we lived in the Griffith-Leeton area. It was not until 2010 that I moved away from the MIA having been there since 1947.
NanChauncy(MrsSimpson)
I left school after completing the Leaving Certificate at Griffith High School (born1931). Because I was young, I spent the next year at home, often riding horses, then with my father’s blessing applied for a job at CSIR Griffith, starting in January 1948. A job there could have been in a laboratory or administration but I was to be the first assistant for Margaret Russell the librarian. During 1950 I commenced my library studies and with that feather in my cap I wanted to move to another job. In June 1951 I transferred to CSIRO Animal Health in Armidale (at that time on the university campus). I stayed there for a year and then returned to Griffith to get married, but worked in administration at the hospital for a while before our marriage.
Keith Spencer had moved to Armidale just before I did and he helped me settle into the new job. I remember he took me to Guyra in his Ford Prefect to see snow. I lived at the CWA hostel during that year.
CSIRO Griffith was a happy place and I enjoyed the journal delivery run around the labs, and researching journal citations. I was less happy when Margaret Russell went away to deal with the Merbein library, and I had to answer library administration questions. One time I happily accepted a set of NSW Agriculture journals but on her return, Margaret was less pleased: “Where will we put them?” What the final outcome was I do not remember. Mr. Bridgewater would deliver the wood for the stove in the library & conference room and Margaret and I would keep the fire well stocked during winter days. Once Eric West was dismayed to find the conference room too hot for an imminent meeting and requested less stoking of the stove.
Many of the staff would ride their bikes from town (I think we “clocked on” at 09.07 in the morning). Some of the riders would merge and ride out together. I always wanted to ride no-hands all the way from town to the lab, and did so once. There were often oranges to eat after our ride out, and sweet corn. Lunch times were fairly active and we often played tennis on Mrs Wright’s courts across the road. Many of the younger women baby-sat for families. I remember doing so for Harry and Dorothy Frith. Bilbul was quite a long ride to the Research Station so for 2 years I boarded with the family of my friend Anne Pope at 12 Illiliwa Street. She married my cousin George Macfarlane just after I moved to Armidale.
CSIR Staff Picnic @ Narrandera Baths; 26 Jan 1948 from left:Beverley Barber; Linton Tucker: June Pearce; Pat Martin; Nerida Findley; John Beattie, (visiting student)
PhotographcourtesyofMrsNanSimpson
Linton Tucker left CSIR and farmed at Wakool. I remember that agricultural students from Sydney University used to spend some months on the MIA as part of their studies. Barrie Latter worked on a Bilbul farm and we became friends as 18-year-olds. We still greet each other as “Kiddo”. I do not remember Mick Stannard doing his student stint, but we were cousins, his mother, my Aunty Bea, was sister to my father. Bob and Elizabeth Stannard had one of the first septic tanks installed on their farm, under the encouragement of Joan Tully.
AnnePope(Mrs.Macfarlane)
Lunchtime tennis on Mrs Wright’s court.
CourtesyMrsJoanRoss
My recollections of the Research Station at Hanwood begin in about 1948 when I started at what sounded like very exciting work as a Laboratory Assistant to Olaf (Oc) Perkman, a soil physicist.
Oc was a strange man, what was called a New Australian in those days. He was tall and withdrawn and seemed to have a strange family life. He lived in Griffith during the week, but commuted to Sydney at weekends to visit his wife and daughter. One Saturday morning when the train arrived at Central Station he was found dead in the railway carriage, covered with a rug. I don’t know whether the mystery of his death was ever solved, but of course, so soon after the War, it was assumed that there was a political motive, probably involving the Russians
My dreams of taking part in important research were shattered on the first day of the job, as my duties seemed to consist solely of ruling endless sheets of foolscap into columns. Today he would simply have created a spreadsheet for his records and saved me from a lot of ribbing from my family about my tasks Eventually I transferred to the Chemistry Laboratory and worked for Mr. Cassidy.
Besides the research officers there was quite a large support staff at the Station – lab assistants, typists, librarians. There was also the farm manager, Ben Martin, and his assistant Cedric Jones.
The Department of Agriculture also had space at the Station from where it ran its Extension Service, headed by the legendary Al Grassby. One of his roles was as presenter of a radio programme on 2RG, which broadcast information on farming methods and even domestic hints for rural wives. He sometimes co-opted us to take part in these broadcasts in a “housewife” role.
1949 Group
Back: Anne Pope; Eileen Hillam; Aston Kingham
Front: Pat Martin; Elaine Marchinton; Molly Myers; Joyce Whiting; Corrin; Mrs Mears; Nan Chauncy
Most of us lived in Griffith and rode our bikes the 4 miles to work, but we were always happy to see one of the men going our way. No seat belts in those days, and the bikes were put in the back of the ute and we piled into the front! Al was a mixed blessing in this regard, because whilst he was great fun to be with, he was a terrifying driver and you felt you were taking your life in your hands if you rode with him.
There were no shops anywhere near the Station, so a cut lunch was a necessity, and for entertainment we often played tennis on Stan Wright’s court opposite the Station.
One colourful character was a Research Officer – Harry Frith – who originally did research into citrus but later moved into wild life research and did some interesting work on the Mallee Fowl. I still have a copy of a film he made about the nesting habits of this fascinating bird. Harry had a constant difference of opinion with rice growers about the depredations of wild ducks – the farmers declared that ducks ate the grain once it formed and Harry maintained that he had opened up hundreds of ducks and never found a grain! He came from the North Cost originally and the flat country of the Riverina was new to him. When first directed to the Station he was told to turn left off the Darlington Point Road and then left again when he came to a hill. He drove for miles looking for the hill and eventually turned back and turned at a slight rise in the road!
Bevan Brown was Harry Frith 's assistant, and also a member of Griffith Apex, as was my husband, George Macfarlane (Nan Chauncy’s cousin). George and I were involved with the local branch of the Grazier's Association, and we asked Bevan to show the film at a meeting, when he explained that the land on which the mallee fowl were nesting was shortly to be rolled for wheat growing. This caused a stir amongst the graziers, as it meant the extinction of one of the few known habitats. The local president of the Association managed to persuade Parks and Wildlife to have the small block of land dedicated, and the Apex Club fenced it so as to prevent foxes and sheep getting in.
I also remember Keith Spencer, whose wife died in childbirth, leaving him with a baby daughter. Other names come to mind – Clive Gates, Bob Williams and Margaret Russell the librarian. My special friend was Nan Simpson (Chauncy). We had been friends since we were 8 years old and are still so to-day. Nan lived at Bilbul and boarded with my family during the week. Nan and Aston Kingham (later Combe) and I were a trio. Dave Walters was our next-door neighbour in Illilliwa Street.
A few more names - Barbara Macfarlane (my husband was her brother and they lived at 1 Carrathool Street) and also Margaret Broome (my cousin), then there was Elaine Marchinton and Ursula Carroll
who worked in the office. Pat Canty was the office manager and I seem to recollect that he left under a cloud.
JoanJacka(MrsRoss)
My grandparents were early settlers in Bagtown. I always wanted to leave Griffith and live in Sydney. It took some time to persuade my father to let me go but he eventually agreed. My mother and I travelled by train to a pre-arranged place for me to live, but the landlady suggested I would be better back in the country. While this discussion was taking place my father telephoned with the news that Eric West had a job for me, and if I would take it my father (he was a car dealer) would give me a Ford Anglia. My mother and I returned to Griffith on the next train. What happened to that car I cannot remember but it served me well while I was working. So, in 1949 I started in the drawing office at CSIRO Griffith, taking the position that Ashton Kingham (Mrs Coombe) had occupied. Like many others on the staff I helped with the citrus tree surveys.
This was the time when Nan Chauncy assisted Margaret Russell in the library, and Nerida Findlay worked in the laboratory for Harry Frith, and, I believe Ron Bosanquet for Olaf Perkman. Alwyn Edwards and Judy Prosser worked in administration; Bob Sidlow and Graham Kevin were on the outdoor staff.
I continued to work in the drawing office, drawing plans and diagrams for publication, even after I had married George Ross, and did not resign until I was pregnant with our first son; I left in early 1953. After I had left, Mrs West would sometimes come to our house saying “Eric had driven her to town but had forgotten to collect her”. We telephoned the Research Station from our house.
George, in Radiography at the Hospital, remembers John Palmer bringing X-ray films from his experiments for development. That was before John Miller obtained large tanks so that the development could be made at the Research Station.
Left to right: Alwyn Edwards, Nerida Findlay, Nan Chauncy
MrsDotPotts
Front: Nerida Findlay, Joan Jacka; Back: Judy Prosser
PhotographscourtesyofJoanRoss
My father had a market garden on Mirrool Creek near Beckom. I met Jack Potts in a Beckom shop. He had come to Australia from Cockermouth, Cumbria, UK in 1927. We came to Griffith in the late 1930s. Jack was in the army during WW2, serving in the middle-east and New Guinea. In 1947 he started at CSIR as a gardener but after 3-4 years he moved into the citrus field group.
When they tried to water Farm 466 in one day, instead of two, they would start at 04.00 hours and not finish until 21.00 hours. In school holidays our son, Cecil, would help his father and usually ending up riding the horse that was used to drag the irrigation pipes around. Perhaps the worse aspect of watering was the continual need to keep the water filter at the irrigation off-take clean of algae during those 17 hours. On watering days, I would ride my bike out with Jack’s lunch; he rode his bike to work everyday - we did not own a car until just before Jack’s retirement. He retired in May 1971, did not enjoy good health in retirement and died, aged 76, in 1981.
Jack Potts 2 April 1906 - 16 August 1981; Dot Potts 19 January 1919 - 25 January 2017 at Bupa
F.J.(Jim)McGrath
In the1920's my father and his friend Ernie Blair migrated to Australia. During the Depression in 1930 my father returned to Belfast on the offer of a job. Ernie stayed and eventually opened a successful mercery in Griffith. He stayed in touch and invited me to come to Australia as a ₤10 Pom, and I did so in 1949, at the age of 18.
I worked at the Research Station for 6 months as a Laboratory Assistant. My work was mainly on a plot of 512 Orange trees, measuring girth, etc., and conducting titrations in the lab. Also recording temperatures on needle thermometers in oranges while sitting in a shed at 0o C to test the effect of horizontal fans to combat freezing.
I became friendly with Al Grassby who gave me lifts to work sometimes. The only other names that I remember are Harry Frith and Margaret Broome, in the citrus section. In December I went to Melbourne to enrol in 1st year engineering.
At Jack Potts retirement, May 1971: Left to right – Mrs Isobel Hoare, Jack Potts, Peter Cary
PhotographcourtesyMrsDotPotts
ValValentini
30 Nov 1931 – 19 March 2019
My father was from Austria and fought in the Austro-Hungarian Army in World War I, fighting on the Italian and Russian fronts. After the Treaty of Versailles his home, near Bolzano, was no longer in Austria but in Italy. After his war service he was a miner, working in Silesia, Belgium and eventually, Broken Hill. After mining he came to the MIA with his Austrian wife.
After gaining my Leaving Certificate in 1949, I wanted to study science but my family could not support me through university; I did study through correspondence for a while. So, the next best thing was to reply to an advertisement for a position at CSIRO. I started early in 1950. My job was in chemistry, to
analyse tile-drainage water, and, of course, samples of citrus leaves. The tile-drainage trial was at McCarthy’s at Lakeview. My boss was Vern Wagner. At one stage we both spent a week at Melbourne University designing an experiment using radioisotopes to follow the movement of drainage water. We collected the samples but sent them to Melbourne for measurement.
I stayed until 1953 but never found it a pleasant place to work: Non-Anglo-Celtic Australians did not seem to be accepted readily then. I was not included socially in the life of the Station, not invited to social events or tennis. The final straw was when I contributed to a collection for food parcels to Great Britain (an arrangement with a research station in UK), writing my address down as Farm 639, Yoogali. Someone, unknown, crossed out Yoogali and wrote “Little Italy”. The nearest my family came to Italy was my mother being taught in Italian at her school in Austria, and anyway, my father fought the Italians in WWI. So, I left after giving one week’s notice.
Other people I remember were George Sosnovsky, a chemist (he was not included socially either). He was Lithuanian and had worked on the V2 program during World War II. He left Griffith in c1952 for USA. Andy Connor, until he left for the army, worked for Bill Greacen; we shared a laboratory. Olaf Perkman was a good mathematician. Vern Wagner left soon after I did, for an agronomist position in Queensland.
I left to become a refrigeration mechanic and beer plumber, working all around the MIA. After the 1956 flood I joined my father on the family farm (he was 66 then and needed some help) and stayed there until 1989.
BarbaraDelves(Mrs.Morel)
After finishing school, I had a year at home, then responded to an advertisement for an assistant’s job at CSIRO. In answer to my telephone call Eric West said come round in the morning: I got the job. From 1952 for 11 years to 1963, when I left to get married, I worked for Clive Gates for 1 year, for 4 years for Roger Black on saltbush, then after he left for Nambour, Queensland, Horst Doelle and Alan Gunn. I read the meteorological data, climbing the tower to read the anemometer and the sunlight hours.
People I remember.
Jack Kloot was the head clerk during that time, with Una Biggert, Maureen Taysom and later Pat O’Brien in the office. When Maureen’s family left town, her father was in the bank, my sister Helen took her place as Eric Hoare’s secretary. My sister and I had a car to get to the laboratory. When she was late to finish work for Eric Hoare, I would wait for her, often for a long time, reading in the car. Al Grassby called me “Rusty” because of my hair colour. He was very keen on Maureen Taysom. I remember Dr Whelan who was there for about one year: he would talk about Kenya and the need to carry a revolver. Arthur Huon, the photographer, had been a squadron leader in the war. He eventually joined his navigator to set up a real estate business in Adelaide. Robyn Condon after she married and had 3 children, moved to Blayney from where she gained a teaching qualification (probably going each day to Mitchell College in Bathurst). They later returned to Griffith where Robyn taught in Griffith Public School. Before Maureen Taysom was secretary, Barbara Macfarlane was in the position for about 5 years. She was cousin to the Stannards, and married Terry Josling. Margaret Broome worked for Hank Greenway
Social events at the laboratory always included film nights given by anybody who had been travelling, and the occasional social evening in the old conference room.
In early days my parents would visit Yarrangobilly Caves and often Reg Pennefather was in the party. He would spend a lot of time in the thermal pool, on arrival going quickly there with his towel over his shoulder.
When my sister Helen was unwell, and I had a broken leg from skiing, with our parents, we made a trip to Queensland. It was then that we visited Roger Black in his new job in Nambour, it was probably in 1962. It was then that he asked me to work for him there, but I stayed in Griffith.
WendyBested(Mrs.Polkinghorne)
Old Meteorological Tower
CourtesyMrsNanSimpson
My father was a winemaker and after he graduated from Roseworthy Agricultural College in SA he worked for various wineries before we came to Griffith in 1940 when he obtained the position of winemaker with the Beelbangera Vinegrowers Co-operative Society. This was during WW2 and as petrol was rationed, we caught the mid-day train into Griffith to shop, returning to Beelbangera on the 5.00pm train. I attended Beelbangera School and the teacher boarded with us.
When McWilliams purchased the winery in 1943, we went to Sydney where Dad worked for Lindeman’s. In 1946 Dad decided to establish his own winery and he purchased a block of land in Griffith in an area then known as Wickham’s Camp. His first vintage was in 1947. We lived in a rented house in Kookora Street until late in 1952 when Dad built our new home at 14 The Circle.
I attended Griffith High School from 1947 to 1951 when I obtained the Leaving Certificate. There was the thought in the family that I should go to a business college in Adelaide, but my parents saw an advertisement for a position at CSIRO. I applied for the position providing a reference from the school as the Leaving Certificate results had not been released – I don’t recall being interviewed. I worked there for 12 months in 1952, as a comptometer operator. The machine was upstairs in the old building next to the common room. Clive May, from the workshop, maintained the comptometer and, I think, the typewriters as well. The bus to work was a canvas covered utility with side seats in the back; sometimes I rode my bike to work. Una Biggart was on the switchboard; Margaret Russell was the librarian and in 1952 Joan (Mills) Fenn assisted her. I usually had lunch with the office girls but cannot remember where the laboratory girls ate. After I had caught up with the back-log of work there was little to do and the position became boring, so I left in January 1953 for a clerical job in a Real Estate business in the Rio Building.
After I left school, I worked in pathology at the hospital then in the town library when it was upstairs in Kooyoo Street. Margaret Russell often came to the library and in 1954 she asked if I was interested in working in the CSIRO library while she spent some time in the Merbein library. Margaret was away for 9 months and I held the fort during that time. I remember we routed the journals, on a trolley, to the scientist’s offices every day. That was the time when Bert Gilliard drove a ute with side seating in the back as the station bus to collect people from town.
It was a happy, friendly place, but outsiders used to accuse the staff of being bludgers but they worked as hard as in any workplace in Griffith. The Commonwealth cars (Z-cars) were watched very closely by some townspeople, then and later, and if parked in Banna Avenue for any length of time, on legitimate business, were reported to the station. My certificate to drive a Z-car is reproduced below.
Dick Bouma needed an assistant so after the library job finished, I joined his team, with Bert Gilliard and, occasionally Eileen Belford would help but she worked with Tjeerd Talsma most of the time. I remember starting very early some mornings so as to collect citrus samples from Farm 466 and one time I was almost faint from hunger, only slightly helped by oranges for breakfast. Also, Bert Gilliard saved my legs when a bottle of hydrochloric acid slipped from my grasp. He lifted me into a sink to sluice me down. I did spend 2 days in hospital but without a lasting injury. Bert was an Englishman who had spent time in his younger life playing the saxophone on cruise liners. After he settled in Griffith he worked in the Citrus section for many years.
Barbara Delves recorded the weather including climbing the tower on the meteorological lawn. On one occasion when I did the observations for her, I left my watch at the top of the tower but when I climbed up to find it, one of Harry Frith’s friends, the bower birds, had taken it. My cousin, Leah Solomon, worked there for a while.
After Eric West retired, Emilio Levi, a nice bloke from Merbein, an Italian Jew, was acting Officer-in-Charge. He was probably disappointed not to get the position that Eric Hoare took up in 1958. Some staff did not get on with Eric Hoare and moved on to other positions. I left in 1959 to get married.
Mrs Shirley Calabria (1 July 1936 – 30 May 2018) died in Griffith Private Hospital after a short illness. She supported Dom for many years on their grape and fruit orchards. They had 4 children and 6 grandchildren.
JohnMiller
John & Yvonne still lived in Griffith, but John died on 26 January 2013, aged 79 years.
I finished my high school years in Griffith then worked for 6 months in a factory before getting a job in WCIC. I was there for 6 years until February 1955 when I obtained a position with the Department of Agriculture, based at CSIRO. That was always a temporary job and after 6 years I was sacked with one day’s notice. Luckily next day I started with IREC, the transfer being organised by Ron Purchase, the CSIRO administrative officer. He also organised for Mrs Lyn Hallam to assist me, which she did for 5 years. I needed help because the horticultural aerial surveys we were recording were huge. The Aero Club contracted for the fly-overs and I handled the photography. We used 100 feet rolls of film, taking one chain groundcover to the inch, and then enlarging to 2 chains per inch. So new trees were easily identified. That work and other photography for CSIRO kept us busy.
I started at the Research Station about 18 months before Eric West retired. He soon asked me to clear out many of the Station records but I put what I judged to be the more important ones aside and trickled them back into the system later. Having worked in the WCIC and Department of Agriculture I believed
I understood the ways of bureaucracy so had no trouble keeping bosses happy and my job a satisfying one. Early on, the finances were tight and special application had to be made for even small amounts of printing paper.
I met Eric Hoare when he made his 1957 trip to Australia before he was appointed to Griffith. His English-made camera was playing up but I managed to sort it out for him. After his appointment it took Eric some time to understand the Australian culture, for example, in November 1958 he kept me talking through the running of the Melbourne Cup. I had to see a re-run in the evening, something no Aussie should have to tolerate.
My photography was self-taught. We saw an opportunity for the commercial printing of colour film in 1970. My wife, Yvonne, and I set up a system in our garage and we had customers from pharmacies in Griffith, Hay, Tullibigeal and Shepparton. Yvonne would develop the film and I would do the printing and delivery in the evening. We were the only processors between Griffith and Melbourne, and Griffith and Sydney. There did not seem to be the opportunity for new initiatives at CSIRO, and with our family business growing, I resigned from CSIRO in 1972. Yvonne and I moved into premises in Banna Avenue, and later built our shop where it now stands.
Bill Van Aken returned to CSIRO from MTN9 to fill my place. Later when he moved to Perth, Les Gallagher moved from Woomera to be the photographer Bill Van Aken, 12 October 1943 – 10 April 2017. Judy & Bill’s Perth address was 15 Culloden Road, Duncraig, WA 6023/
MerelynStokes(Mrs.Bardney)
My family home was in Stokes Road, Hanwood but my grandfather had been secretary of the Leeton Cannery. My interest in biology led me, after I left school, to answer an advert for a position at CSIRO. I was interviewed, accompanied by my mother who would have answered all the questions if not stopped by Mr Hoare. So before I was 16, in 1958, I started at Griffith taking Shirley (Byford) Calabria’s place, first assisting Dick Bouma and then, after he left for Canberra, Fritz Lenz. This was on citrus research, much of it on Farm 466 but in the glasshouse as well. At 466 we were trying to establish best practices in minimum tillage by using ground covers such as grasses and legumes, all of which were ploughed back in. A bare ground treatment was maintained by spraying regularly with oil. We took measurements of fruit quality such as juice volume, sugar / acid ratio, skin thickness and size of fruit. We also had flowering experiments in the Canberra Phytotron and I drove there a number of times to count the flowers. To enter the Phytotron I had to put on a white suit and go through a decontamination routine.
TOP Left to right: Erris Fisher (?), Bevan Brown, Merelyn Stokes, Robyn Condon.
BOTTOM: Bill and Judy Van Aken with Merelyn Stokes PhotographscourtesyofMerelynBardney
On one occasion Farm 466 had another use. Harry Frith, who was at that time in Canberra, wanted to test the idea that a kangaroo’s age could be assessed by the skull sutures. Bevan Brown, Harry’s assistant, arranged a roo shoot near Carrathool. As a friend, I helped Bevan bring up to 40 carcasses back to Farm 466 where they were to be left for the ants to clean the skeletons. Before that was complete, however, the neighbours noticed the smell, called the police and I suppose Bevan explained it all satisfactorily.
ABOVE: On the front lawn, left to right: Jan Bell, Elsie Nairne, Maureen Taysom, Helen Delves, Colin van den Hoff, Jim Saunt
BELOW: Hilda & Fritz Lenz at Merelyn Stokes & Bill Bardney’s wedding
I helped John Miller in the dark-room sometimes; I baby-sat their twins. I remember Elsie Nairne who was assistant to Hank Greenway. Hank had a habit of writing his reports as he wandered around on long streamers of paper (on toilet paper sometimes) and handing it to the typists in that form. Jan Bell was Alan Gunn’s assistant and came from Leeton; she boarded with me at Stokes Road, Hanwood for a while. I rode to the lab from Hanwood on my bike until I was old enough for a car licence. I used to take my trusty AWA transistor radio for Melbourne
Cup Day and everyone would come up to the common room or lab to listen to the race. Wendy (Steadman) Newman was the statistician, she also read the weather. She taught me to use a calculator. Jerry Pudelka, a Pole who lived in George Chapman’s converted garage, was an instrument maker; he moved to Canberra and worked at Mount Stromlo. At one time he helped my father and I, in the evenings in his garage, to hand-grind a mirror for a telescope. It was sent to Sydney to be aluminised – I still have it. Al Grassby’s office (IREC) was upstairs near our lab. I remember three of his secretaries: Edna Jennings, then Kaylene Sell, followed by Nell Locke. Greg de Saxe from Lake Wyangan was a photographer. Other names I remember are red-headed Ron Masgeil and Colin van den Hoff. Barbara Ballantyne and Jim Corbin were employed by the Department of Agriculture to work at the Station on brown rot of stone fruit.
We often had lunch on the front lawn but sometimes I played 500 with Margaret Russell, Jack Bleijie and Peter Hughes. We had an outdoor social life as well, with trips to Whitecliffes, walking the hills around the region, to Kosciusko and carrying gear up Mount Bingar when the site was being assessed for the Anglo-Australian telescope, I suppose.
Jack Bleijie and Peter Hughes, Wendy Newman, Jan Bell, Elsie Nairne, Garry Plant and probably others were in the group. I remember, too, parties at John Palmer’s house – rock & roll parties, long conga lines
Jan Bell and Merelyn Stokes on “new” meteorological tower
PhotographscourtesyofMerelyn Bardney
Peter Hughes and Di Proud, a student.
PhotographcourtesyofMerelynBardney
I left in 1964 to get married. Fritz and Hilda Lenz came to our wedding. Rhonda (Bartholomew) Miranda took over from me. After our 4 children had grown, I returned to laboratory work, for 14 years in wineries.
HelenDelves(MrsTyndall)
After I left school, I did a secretarial course and then applied for a stenographer’s job at CSIRO where I started in November 1958. My sister Barbara had been working at CSIRO for a while and our father bought us a little car so that we could drive to work from our family farm in Hanwood. George Chapman was in the administrative team, and acted as paymaster, and I was one of two stenographers. At time it was difficult to keep up with the demand for typing, for IREC as well as CSIRO. Maureen Taysom was Eric Hoare’s secretary and when she left I moved into her position. I found Eric Hoare demanding at times, perhaps he was concentrating on building up the Research Station, and perhaps he was under pressure from the Executive. At times he and Al Grassby would clash over secretarial help and he was rather abrupt within hearing with some of the scientists. Al was always appreciative of any work done, as was the research staff. Dot Dreyer always had to chase Al for his tea-money. After a while I realised that I would be happier in another job so left in December 1962 to work in Cater & Blumer, where I was secretary for Os Butler. Juinetta Batros filled my vacated position at CSIRO. Eric told me later that I had been the longest serving of his secretaries.
The administration was headed by Geoff Little who was replaced by Jim Donovan in 1960. Jim was an understanding man but he left for a job in the Norfolk Island administration. Other names I remember were Greg de Saxe, an instrument maker who was a keen photographer; Jim Corbin from the Department of Agriculture who worked on Brown Rot of stonefruits; Colin Van den Hoff; Erris Fisher & Ross Arnold, who were laboratory assistants.
DicBouma
Anne and I and our young baby started our life in Australia in Adelaide, S.A. where I was appointed in November 1952 to the Department of Agriculture after graduating from the Agricultural University at Wageningen in the Netherlands. Although we were happy and satisfied to be in Adelaide and to have a job, which was interesting as an introduction to Australian conditions and agriculture, I was not very happy in the job. It was an extension job, which did not attract me as a future career. When a research position, concerned with the Citrus industry in the MIA became available at the Irrigation Research Station in Griffith NSW, I applied for it. There was another Dutch graduate from Wageningen, Henk
Groenewegen who had joined the Department of Agriculture at the same time. He later changed his surname to Greenway because of the difficult pronunciation. He also was not very happy with his job and applied for a job in Griffith at the same time. And so it happened that on a hot December day in 1953 Anne, our first baby and I, together with Henk Groenewegen and his wife, travelled in an ANA DC3 plane via Merbein to Griffith. We landed around three o'clock in the afternoon, the plane creating great billowing clouds of red dust as it touched down on what was little more than a graded and rolled piece of Mallee country. When we left the plane the heat struck us like a hot oven. We were welcomed by a gentleman dressed in a tattered pair of shorts, a white kind of shirt and a pair of well-worn tennis shoes. He turned out to be the Officer in Charge of the Research Station, Eric West. To me he looked very much the absent-minded professor. This impression was reinforced by his greeting “Welcome to Griffith, isn't it a lovely morning”, this while stamping his frayed tennis shoes on the red dirt.
There was one cloud hanging over our move to Griffith, namely our accommodation. No provisions of any kind had been made by CSIRO to help us till we were able to find something suitable. In our enthusiasm we were sure that we would find some living quarters once we got there. We were sadly disappointed to discover how difficult finding accommodation was going to be. Fortunately we had received the offer of temporary lodgings with a Dutch colleague, Tjeerd Talsma and his wife Corrie before we left Adelaide. Tjeerd (or Ted as he was called later) was also a graduate of the Agricultural University in the Netherlands. He was appointed to the Soils Division of CSIRO directly from the Netherlands, with the provision of a CSIRO house on Wakaden Street. He was a soil scientist, whose work was concerned with the physics of water and salt movement in irrigated soils, leading to the installation of tile drains to overcome salinity problems. So it was that the Talsmas took us to their home, where we, as it turned out, were to stay for about 9 months. This was a lifesaver because we soon discovered that housing, or any suitable accommodation, was nowhere to be found. We had one baby (born just as I was leaving the Netherlands for Adelaide) and as it happened on our arrival in Griffith number two was expected about 7 months later. Even though there was a large Italian population in Griffith, usually with large families, having a family, even with only one baby, made it particularly difficult to find accommodation. There was a distinct bias among potential landlords against people with a family. Although the Talsma house was not very large we fitted in and lived happily together over the period we stayed with them. Both families had one child each at that time (both were to grow substantially later). We took care of housekeeping and all kitchen activities as well as expenses on an alternate weekly schedule and this arrangement worked quite well. Nevertheless I was happy to be able to land a job, which looked good as the beginning of a worthwhile career in a new country. In those days, nearly 60 years ago, jobs for 'foreigners' with a degree from a non Anglo-Saxon University, were not plentiful. Foreign degrees were then, almost by definition, considered inferior to Australian, British and perhaps American ones. We soon realized that this was no more than a reflection of the isolation of the country. At the same time we discovered that the Research Station was anxious to attract staff but without a great deal of success. This was no doubt the result of the Australian preference for the city, particularly in this case because of the town's isolation and 'newness'. Another niggling concern was that we were appointed as Technical Officers and not as Research Scientists. This was another reflection of the doubts, or sometimes even suspicions, at the time about overseas qualifications, in spite of the fact that we came from a highly developed country like the Netherlands, a world class university and that there were frequent and fairly close contacts between the University in Wageningen and agriculturally oriented Divisions of CSIRO. Fortunately we were assured that this classification was intended as a trial period. This was honoured fairly soon after our appointment by a reclassification to Research Scientist. As our salary was better than we had received in Adelaide we were not greatly worried.
Before Greenway, Talsma and I arrived on the scene there were several scientists who had left for 'greener' pastures not long before. When I went to work the next day at the Research Station there were very few scientists on the staff and there did not seem to be much going on. I will briefly refer to the people working there at the time. Eric West was the O-i-C, who lived in a fairly large house behind the Research Station together with his wife and family. Eric was a man of great intellect, who was very knowledgeable about agriculture, particularly as related to the irrigated agriculture in the area. Above all he was a very good statistician. I have heard it said that he was as good as the well known British pair Yates and Fisher, the brains behind the development of experimental techniques and the statistical analysis of results. Eric was more interested in the research side than the administration of the Station. He gave the impression of an absent-minded professor. The following is an example of this. During one
of the Christmas periods in Griffith I received a Christmas card from him saying: to Dick and Mrs Greenway (Henk Greenway's wife) and family, wishing you all a happy Christmas! When I showed him the card a day or so later he laughed his head off and said “Isn't that funny”. Eric also had a sizable piece of Mallee country not far from Griffith. He was still in the process of clearing it. I remember going out there on weekends, often with a couple of our kids, to collect mallee roots for our open fireplace. The main crops Eric grew were potatoes (Sebagos), onions and carrots. He and his wife also had a sizable chicken (egg) operation at the back of the Station, not far from their home. I think it was Mrs West who was mainly responsible. My offsider Bert Gilliard (about whom later) drove the Dodge Utility bus between Griffith town and the Station for staff transport in the morning and afternoon. He was often called upon to take the crates with eggs to town in the little bus. I remember Eric saying once, when talking about the egg enterprise, that this enabled Mrs West to buy the few extra things for the family, which they otherwise could not afford!
There were few other scientists at the Station at the time we arrived, no doubt due to the isolation, particularly for scientists. There were still people living under primitive conditions, such as huts built out of flattened kerosene tins on frames of mallee saplings. For example, Bill, the cleaner at the Station. He also had a beautiful Jersey cow producing lots of lovely creamy milk and was our main supplier of milk for quite a while. Much of the town had no sewerage and depended on a pan collection from the dunny in the backyard, like our own place in Groongal Avenue. Many streets were still unpaved, or, if paved, covered by no more than a car width of bitumen. There were virtually no footpaths. There was no air-conditioning apart from the beginning of some evaporative cooling. It was also the time when more and more farms were taken over by the influx of Italians and it was not uncommon to see Mum and Dad and a number of bambinos, with bent backs or on their knees working the land for the growing and harvesting of vegetables. Many of the shopkeepers were appointing Italian staff, although I was told sometimes with some reluctance, in those pre-multicultural days.
When we began at the Station things were somewhat chaotic as briefly referred to above. Two reasons for this were that the O-I-C did not have the necessary administrative support, and the lack of research staff. Apart from Eric West there was seconded to the Station a soil scientist Dick van Dijk, another Dutchman. He was concerned with a survey of the Riverine Plains soils under Bruce Butler of the Soils Division in Canberra. However, he was more or less camping in the Chemistry laboratory at the Station, where he carried out his culinary activities and also stored potatoes and other foodstuff in the laboratory cabinets. Working on weed control in irrigation channels was Emilio Levi, seconded from the Division of Plant Industry under the guidance of the late Milton Moore, assistant Chief of the Division. Another scientist was O.K. Perkman, of Russian origin, who sadly came to an untimely end of his life not long after our arrival. Another scientist at the time was Clive Gates, working on drought tolerance of plants. Finally, there was Harry Frith the man in charge of Farm 466, the Citrus Research farm near the Station. Harry was a real bush character. Apart from doing a bit of Citrus research he was very much a wildlife researcher. He was involved in the rice-growing venture of Humpty Doo in the NT, where he found that ducks caused the downfall of the rice venture. While in Griffith he did his work on the Mallee Fowl. Harry was leaving for overseas a few days after my arrival and since I was to take over his job, Eric West took me to meet him in his office. After West did the introductions Frith could not be bothered to get up and take the cigarette out of his mouth and mumbled something like “If he wants to see me he had better bloody well hurry because tomorrow I won't be here”. That was all I got from my predecessor. Needless to say I did not try to get any information that could have helped in the takeover of the experimental Farm 466, which was to be the centre of my research efforts in Griffith.
There were quite a few other people working at and for the Research Station. There was of course the administrative staff of which I can remember Una Biggart, the receptionist in the front office always with a friendly smile. In the office there were a couple of ladies taking care of the typing. Of these I can remember, Pat Young, also always happy and helpful and Maureen Tayson. There was a photographic facility manned by a chap call Bob Tillett if I am not mistaken. He resigned soon after our arrival and his job was taken over by John Miller. An important part of the Station was of course the Library with Margaret Russell in charge, assisted by Joan Mills, both always helpful to a new chum. The library was upstairs, close to my laboratory which was in the centre of the floor. The Department of Agriculture had 2 people at the Station in an office next to my lab: Ron Bosanquet and Miss Tange. Miss Tange was the sister of Sir Arthur Tange, secretary of the Dept of Defence under the then Prime Minister Bob Menzies.
Unlike her well-known brother there was nothing special about Miss Tange, except her driving. She drove a Morris Minor, often at excessive speed, particularly when she made what we referred to as her Grand Entrance in the mornings when she arrived for work. There was a gravel parking area behind the Station, which could only be reached from the front along the side of the building and then take a 90degree corner onto the parking area. This nearly always happened under a great cloud of dust and often with at least some sort of sidewise slide. Opposite my lab were our two 'data-crunching' ladies, Wendy Newman and Barbara Delves. This was of course in the days before computers and their only calculating tools were a couple of heavy, hand operated, noisy Marchant calculating machines. I use the word machine on purpose because that is what they were, with a handle on the side to operate the cogs inside them and rows of figure keys to do the calculations
An important small office at the Station was that of the IREC which was set up to bring the fruits of research to the farmers, from the Station and the Dept. of Agriculture. A well-known farmer, V. C. Williams, was the Chairman. He was a very likeable man and usually referred to simply as VC. He was assisted by the Secretary, Al Grassby. I had quite a bit to do with Al because much of the work coming from Farm 466 was of interest to the Citrus growing community. Another person of note in the early days was Dr. Joan Tully. Soon after our arrival the Dept. of Agriculture appointed a horticulturalist Jim Corbin to work on Brown Rot in stone fruit. He left not long after and was replaced by a young plant pathologist Barbara Ballentyne to work on the same problem. Unfortunately, she became ill not long after her appointment. It was suspected that this could have been caused by the organic phosphates, parathion and malathion, used as control measures. The WCIC also had a soil/agricultural expert on its staff by the name of Dick Jackson. He too was a frequent visitor and participant in related activities at the Station. Mention should also be made of a plant physiologist by the name of Roger Black, who arrived in Griffith with his family from Adelaide and left for the Queensland Dept of Agriculture in Nambour.
There was a fairly large number of outside staff working on the field and glasshouse experiments at the Station. In the garage the man in charge was a real character called Alan May. May was a real bush type who knew a greater variety of swear words than anybody I have ever come across and when he talked every second or third word was a swear word. But he was a good mechanic with a good heart. I have a suspicion that for my benefit as a newcomer to the country he wanted to give me a good introduction to the Australian vernacular. There were other people in my memory at the Station. One was Bill Kletter, another Dutchman, who had retained some of the somewhat posh allures of his time in the Royal Dutch Navy during World War 2. Bill was assistant to Dick van Dijk, and appeared to us also to act as a selfappointed caretaker of the place. He lived with his wife Audrey in a large caravan at the Station and managed to tap into a free electricity and water supply and generally lived quite comfortably. In the common room there was a large refrigerator which Bill had just about annexed for his private use. I remember on one occasion that one of the research staff needed refrigerated space but found the fridge full with Bill's consumables. This happened just around morning tea time when Eric West was also having a cup of tea and noticed the altercation going on between the two. Eric got up and in his usual fairly gentle manner, while stamping his feet, told Bill to get rid of his stuff. This episode was typical for the cosy way things worked at the Station. There were two other people of note in the general running of the Station. One was Ben Martin, referred to as the Orchard Superintendent, who had general overview of the outside activities. Then there was his assistant Arnold Dreyer. He was probably the mainstay of outside operations, a hard worker, a kind but very straight man, who had the respect of the fairly large and quite diverse field staff. Not to forget his wife Dot. She took care of morning and afternoon tea, and was a lady with a heart of gold, loved by everyone.
My own little empire was centred around Farm 466, a short distance from the Station, with my laboratory on the first floor, where all the data resulting from the field experiment, as well as those following related soil and plant chemical analyses were tabulated analysed and further 'digested'.. My right-hand man was an ex-Englishman Ben Gilliard. Bert looked the rather typical Englishman and had an interesting previous existence as a saxophone player on ocean liners between the UK and Australia. We became good friends and he was a dedicated assistant. In the laboratory I was assisted by Mary Cobden, the daughter of a farming family nearby. She too was a very good assistant. Unfortunately for me she married a Department of Agriculture officer, Jeff Habel, and moved away from Griffith soon after. My next assistant in the laboratory was Shirley Byford. She too was a bright, lovely and dedicated worker.
She also married, to Dom Calabria, a local farmer. In the seven years I worked at the Station I was three times lucky because among the applicants for a replacement of Shirley I found another attractive and clever young lady called Merelyn Stokes, also a daughter of a local farmer. We also hit it off well and it did not take her long to do independent laboratory and other tasks. The field experiment around which my research revolved was a complicated one. It was a factorial experiment, involving four different irrigation methods, four cultural treatments, four different levels of nitrogen fertilization, and different orange varieties budded on different rootstocks. The statistical analysis and evaluation of the results were quite complicated. This, as well as the initial statistical set-up of the experiment, was largely the work of George McIntyre, who was seconded from the CSIRO Division of Mathematical Statistics to the Division of Plant Industry in Canberra. Eric West was also involved in the early stages. Much of the number-crunching was done by Wendy Newman and Barbara Delves, while Bert Gilliard assisted with the field recording. It is interesting to recall that towards the end of my period in Griffith, the late fifties, the first computer was being developed at the University of NSW. George Mclntyre was able to get the results from Farm 466 statistically analysed on this machine, which meant, of course, a great reduction in the relevant workload at the Station.
Mention has been made of the Division of Plant Industry in Canberra. Contacts with the Division were important to us because of our relative isolation, without any senior staff to help and guide us. There were of course people in Plant Industry who had prior involvements or contacts with Griffith. Bob Williams, for example, was mentor to Clive Gates and it did not take long before he also became my mentor. This was a great help to me scientifically but also socially in our settling-in period. George McIntyre was another person of great help, partly because of his statistical expertise and great knowledge of agriculture resulting from his support to many people working in different fields of agricultural research. Both became my very good friends. Much later, in the seventies, I had the pleasure of spending a couple of months with George in Malaysia and Indonesia for the Colombo plan aid program.
I referred to Emilio Levi, seconded to the Station from Plant Industry in Canberra to work on weed control, mainly Cumbungi, in irrigation channels. Emilio was quite a character. He was Italian by birth, grew up in his younger years in Egypt till King Farouk was turfed out, went to high school in Paris, and then to the University of California in Los Angeles to do an M.Ag.Sci. with Prof. Crafts, a well-known plant physiologist. He was then appointed to the Division of Plant Industry in Canberra by Milton Moore, Assistant Chief of the Division, and then seconded to the Station. He worked in Griffith for about 9 years and resided in the Area Hotel during this entire period. Emilio was very much involved in the difficult period following the retirement of Eric West. Emilio and I became good friends for the rest of his life, which sadly ended a bit over a year ago. He had a deadly fear of snakes, of which there were plenty, particularly near the irrigation channels. So it happened that on a hot sunny day one of his accompanying helpers draped a dead black snake over the steering wheel of his utility. When Emilio was finished with his job, he told his helper to go ahead with the other vehicle, while he tidied up a few things. When he finished and was to enter his utility he got such a fright when he saw the snake that he slammed the door after yelling blue murder. He was too scared to get in his utility and walked all of 4 km. back to the Station and got someone else to pick up his utility. He was still fuming when he arrived back. The real culprit was never found. Emilio could not see the joke played on him. On occasion a few of Plant Industry researchers in Canberra came to Griffith for a bit of an exchange of ideas and views. There was also a fairly active branch of the Australian Society of Soil Science with members in Griffith, Deniliquin and Wagga. The branch had fairly frequent meetings rotating between the three places.
The years in Griffith were good years. A worthwhile future career appeared likely and we should be able to build our family life, arriving in Griffith with one baby and another one following in July 1953. The isolation of the town did not matter to us. There was little entertainment apart from the picture theatre in Banna Avenue, where at every show the National Anthem was played and people were expected to stand up. This, to us newcomers, was an ancient relic of colonial times. The best, and may be even the funniest, illustration of the 'she'll be right' attitude was evident when Anne and I, together with a number of Italians, became naturalized at the Wade Shire Council Chambers. This procedure was necessary for me to be eligible for the benefits of the Commonwealth public service such as leave and superannuation provisions. The ceremony was performed by the Shire President, guided by the Shire Clerk. The president was known to like his little tipple. On this occasion he looked somewhat distracted.
His oration, which was extolling the advantages of the faster ocean liner, and particularly plane, transport for migrants to Australia compared with his forebears who took nearly a year. During his speech he got lost and after a few minutes shuffling the papers of his speech back and forth he said quite audibly to the Clerk “Where is the rest of the bloody stuff?” It was sorted out then and he managed to finish. The next item on the agenda was an explanation in Italian by Angelo Provera, a liaison officer with the NSW Dept. of Agriculture, about the advisability and benefits of sickness and hospital insurance. Part of the way through his talk the President began to become restless and suddenly asked the Clerk in a loud voice “What's the bugger talking about?” It was all rather pathetic, even more so since in those days it was not possible to have dual nationality. This meant that we had to forswear any allegiance to our Dutch nationality and swear allegiance to ER II, who to us was and still is a foreign monarch. At a get-together with some friends the same night Al Grassby and others expressed their regret about the performance of what should have been a significant and solemn event.
In the meantime, little was being done about our accommodation, in spite of trying to get some action by Eric West. We were beginning to feel that we were wearing out our welcome with the Talsmas. In spite of all our efforts to get something this proved impossible. In desperation I looked around for other employment in my field of interest, partly to force CSIRO to do something, but also as a real answer to our problem. A very well-paid job with housing etc. was advertised for someone in charge of a plant nutrition laboratory in Papua-New Guinea, the job being under the umbrella of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs. I applied for it and after an interview in Sydney was offered the job. When I told Eric West about it, I made it clear that I did not really want to leave Griffith, but without the firm promise of a house being made available very soon, which meant the purchase of one by CSIRO, I would have no choice but to accept the offer. Again nothing happened; Eric said he was talking to Head Office in Melbourne. I suspected that he or they thought I was bluffing. After a little while I got a telegram from Foreign Affairs asking whether I could please make up my mind about PNG. I then showed the telegram to Eric and I almost immediately got the promise of a house: 29, Carrathool Street was bought by CSIRO within a couple of weeks. To be able to move into a house was a great burden off our minds and Anne and I could really start to think about and work for our future. Among other things this involved building our own home as soon as finances allowed. And so it happened that after a couple of years in the middle fifties we were able to build our own home at 75, Groongal Avenue, opposite Jubilee Park. This was nothing like a park as we were used to in Europe. It was just an empty paddock, but it at least provided plenty of room for the kids to play and kick the profusion of paddy melons around.
Time was moving on and with the retirement of Eric West came a difficult period for the Station. Frank Penman, from Merbein, was put in charge of the two stations when Eric West retired. Clive Gates, who was the most senior person on the staff, was placed in charge of the Griffith Station under the overview of Penman. The latter left it all more or less to Gates. Clive was not an easy person to work with and was very focussed on his own work, and although friendly and helpful, Emilio Levi had his feathers easily ruffled. It therefore did not take long for these two gents to clash, particularly since there were rumours of a somewhat arbitrary allocation of funds in certain directions. Since Clive Gates and family were to go on an overseas trip in that period the controversy fortunately came to a conclusion, albeit a rather acrimonious one, with Emilio Levi taking over from Gates as acting O-I-C till the arrival of a new man.
In the meantime, Penman had been looking around in the UK for a permanent replacement for West. He found what he thought was a suitable candidate in Eric Hoare who managed to arrange an inspection tour before accepting the job. He appeared quite an enthusiastic person who seemed to have great ideas, but largely as we could figure out doing up the grounds, including a rose garden, and attracting new staff from the UK and elsewhere. Anyway Emilio Levi handed over to Eric Hoare.
Hoare managed to attract a number of new additions to the research staff. There was David Philips from Wales and John Palmer, a plant physiologist, also from the UK, a New Zealander called David Russell. Of course there was Ted Trickett, one of Eric's colleagues at Silsoe. There were also two new staff members from Germany: Horst Doelle a microbiologist, and Fritz Lenz, a plant physiologist. The purchase of houses for new staff was apparently no problem now. It was soon clear among the research staff that Eric, although a good organizer and shaker & mover, did not have many ideas about
agricultural science. He established a beautiful rose garden and smartened the outside up generally. The gripe was that this happened by taking field staff away from research support. He also built a new instrument design and construction facility and appointed the appropriate staff for it. There were also new ergonomically designed glasshouses built. These were probably his main interests for which his expertise in his UK job was helpful. Of those mentioned above, it did not take Philips, Palmer and Russell long to disappear fairly soon after they arrived. The two Germans also did not last long. Doelle went to Brisbane and Lenz to Berlin as Professor of Plant Physiology, where I met him in 1965. In all these cases the exit was related, if not caused, by the relative isolation of the place and the distance from anywhere, certainly for people in research, but also in education and social outlets.
We left Griffith for Canberra in January 1961 where I took up a research scientist position in the Plant Nutrition Section of the Division of Plant Industry. This was quite an important change because at the time Plant Industry was an internationally recognized centre of agricultural research. Time has validated the move and we have spent many happy years in Canberra. Scientifically and career-wise I have also had a very satisfactory and fruitful life.
In hindsight I feel that the difficulties, which eventually led to the demise of the Griffith Station as a centre for Irrigated Agriculture were largely due to the fact that it never managed to develop to a firstclass international centre for irrigated agricultural research, with sufficient spin-off for the local industries. There were several reasons for this in my view. The Executive seemed only half heartedly interested in the place during the later years of West's reign and after his retirement. What should have been done, well before West's retirement, was to instigate a thorough search for a top agricultural scientist. Another factor of which not enough notice was taken was the isolation of the place in those years of transition. The rather brief periods of their stay in Griffith of the people referred to above is proof of this. Griffith now is a vastly different place from what it was in those days, nearly 60 years ago. These and other factors were, I consider, at least part of the cause for the Station to 'whither on the vine', the vine being CSIRO in general which has also changed.
A birthday party at the home of the Connors, Jane’s parents. Jane (bending over the table in the second photo) did the work on Manganese deficiency in Citrus. She was a lovely girl with quite a sense of humour. She later left for New York where she worked as a chemist and soon after married an American. She and Emilio Levi were quite pally and we all had hopes that they might become an item, as the saying goes. This occasion was on 28 September 1957, a party organized to celebrate Emilio Levi’s birthday, his 34th I think.
In the top photograph, the gent with the black hair, bending over grabbing some tucker was Emilio Levi, opposite Mrs Connor, Jane’s mother. Behind Levi with his back towards the camera is Al Grassby. In
the lower photo he is facing the camera, opposite Jane Connor. Standing up on the left Jane are Dic Bouma, closest to the camera, and Roger Black.
On a number of occasions Griffith staff made presentations of research results to the public at large:
Bert Gilliard, Dic Bouma and Emilio Levi with results of Citrus research, c 1957
Photograph courtesy of Roger Hoare
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HankGreenway died Thursday 11 Feb 2021at Regis Care Home, Fremantle
When we arrived from Adelaide, on a somewhat dusty airstrip, to take up our positions, the Officer in Charge of the Station (Mr West) was there to meet us, but only because a fellow Dutchman had assured him that we were definitely coming. Apparently appointees in the past had not turned up. One of our early abodes was a converted front veranda in a typical Griffith house, square, corrugated iron roof, and verandas all round. The Station was in the doldrums, but not because of the quality of Mr West's science. When Howard L. Penman, the famous man of evaporation and transpiration equations, came out from the UK he insisted that a visit to Eric West in Griffith was his highest priority (it was not on the list drawn up by CSIRO head office). Somehow the Executive had lost interest in the place, almost certainly due to vigorous scheming, apt to happen in a small research station like Griffith. All was somewhat demoralising when the Executive visited, presumably to decide what to do with the place after Mr West's retirement, and they asked our needs. We pleaded for a flame photometer since we were doing Na+ and K+ measurements with a gravimetric method. The reply implied that such a request was too puny to worry about; they wanted something dramatic, such as the recently bought ship for the Division of Fisheries.
Mr West was a funny man, when the High Commissioner of Pakistan visited the station, he referred to him repeatedly as the 'High Commissioner for India'. Was that absent-mindedness? I doubt that, more like a practical joke. When the Queen visited Wagga scores of towns-people flocked east. Mr West used
the day off to clean his chicken pen and was quite vocal about that feat when chatting with royalists. Maybe a pity he did not go to Wagga, since he might have enjoyed some of the Duke's more outrageous comments.
When Mr Eric Hoare took over he clearly had the mandate of HQ Melbourne and much activity started. He was clearly a technologist interested in applied research, with little interest of the mechanisms determining the behaviour of plants, my hobby. As a good technocrat he was in a hurry and hardly appreciated my remark that a Research Station should have above its gate the motto: 'Patience and time, time and patience' (From Tolstoy). He commented on my research on plant acclimation and adaptation to salinity “Salinity is of no interest to Australia”. His predecessor Eric the First, had warned that Australia was going through a typical sequence for irrigation areas. Salinity at the start, transient disappearance and salinity returns usually with a vengeance. My nadir came when I had not added K+ to a solution high in NaCl; the barley plants quickly showed severe tip burn. Realising my mistake, I went at night to the glasshouse to discard the barley pots, halfway during that depressing venture Eric Hoare appeared commenting “Well, well is that a new type of experiment”.
Living away from the cities had its rewards with memorable Australiana: once having taken a wrong turn from Mildura on our way from Adelaide, heading for Broken Hill rather than to Hay, after 40 miles we realised something was amiss. We called in at a sheep station, dust blowing, wind mills screeching and wind howling. When we asked where we were going the lady replied: “Oh, you are heading straight for the outback”. On a weekend trip to Wilcannia we chatted with the barmaid of the hotel. She told us she was going that evening to a dance. Next day we asked her whether the dance was fun, the reply.. “Oh no, I never got there, I found what I wanted before I reached the dance floor!” When we told this tale to a guy at the petrol station he recounted that this redoubtable young woman had recently served a planeload of passengers after an emergency landing of a plane from Adelaide to Sydney. The barmaid entered the dining area in the morning, put her hands on her hips and challenged “Hands up who do not want sausages and eggs” and nobody dared. And this joke, or was it a true story? Two guys camping, in the evening one of them cleaning his rifle with a toothbrush. Silence all round but at bed time the partner said “Funny to use a toothbrush for that job”. Next morning the rifle cleaner started to pack his bags His mate: “Hey what are you doing”, reply: “I am clearing out, there is too much argument in this place”.
Station folklore: We had the luck that the Administrative officer was an Englishman, Ron Purchase, who had the slogan: 'if the rules do not bend they have to be broken'. Under this happy slogan he organised transport of our furniture to Adelaide when I took up a PhD studentship with Bob Robertson as supervisor. If Ron did not get his way with the Melbourne administration he would pick up the phone and inquire :”Is there a problem? Should I come over to Melbourne?” That was usually enough, no trip to Melbourne was required,
First I failed to get a CSIRO PhD scholarship. Then miraculously I obtained a scholarship financed by the Griffith lab. The secret: I had met Bob Robertson in Sydney and later at the Griffith Station. He was then an Executive of CSIRO. Do I need to say it was dead easy to get a Griffith Research Station scholarship? Well it was patronage but my good luck. Adelaide Botany was an exciting place under Bob's benevolent reign with a string of visitors, including Dainty, Beevers, Milthorpe and Steward and not to forget Higginbotham. When Milthorpe visited he asked the usual question where I was from. Since one became used to the immediately following question, “Where is that?” I started an explanation When I caught my breath Bob said “Yes Professor Milthorpe knows, he hails from Hillston”.
Five years after returning to Griffith from Adelaide we left for good, to Western Australia. Was the parting hard? Yes, primarily because in a small town one makes friends readily outside one's own circle. In our case, truck drivers, orange and rice growers. These rice farmers were independent, well educated and often, cultured people, marvellous company. As usual, settling into a new place takes some doing. The shop people in W.A. would say “That item has to come from the East”, which was met by my wife's reply “Oh from India?” The shock of the new was epitomised by our 5 year old, youngest, daughter, who asked: “Mummy are we in a different country?”. Interestingly, 40 years later the talk of secession is still rife in the West, a different country indeed!
RogerHoare
The Hoare family arrived in Melbourne on the 10th of February 1958 after a three-week voyage on the “SS Arcadia”. After a week in Melbourne Eric, Isobel, Erica, Roger, Cedric and Rosemary travelled to Griffith via Deniliquin (CSIRO had a field station there). The journey was broken by an overnight stay at Echuca made memorable by the violent summer thunderstorm that occurred during the night. The next day’s drive was “interesting” over the then unsealed roads. On our arrival in Griffith we stayed at the Griffith Hotel, then a large imposing two story building. The furniture arrived after a couple of weeks and that enabled us to move into the house at CSIRO
Memories are vague of the early years at the research station as we were busy adjusting to our new schools and surrounds. As kids we helped in establishing Eric’s large vegetable garden at the back of the house and rejuvenating the tennis courts that we put to good use. I recall swimming in the dam along with all the neighbourhood kids, and Sunday BBQs at which visitors and new-comers were made welcome. As far as the research station itself, again memories have faded but I do remember new buildings and new equipment arriving together with new staff members from many different parts of the world. During its zenith CSIRO Griffith was a division of CSIRO in its own right with over a hundred staff, the largest employer in town and owning twenty-eight staff houses in Griffith. Today one can only wonder why those in power made the decision to abandon irrigated agriculture research in the very centre of the Murray-Darling Basin at a time when such work appears to still be required.
It was not until much later in my own career in Agriculture and later in Viticulture that the influence that growing up in that exciting period at the research station had on my life. Looking back I can only wonder at the enormity of the decision that Eric and Isobel made to uproot their family, travel half way round the world to establish a new life. The contribution they made to the development of Griffith and irrigated agriculture can be seen today. I, and am sure my siblings would agree, am proud and grateful that they made that decision.
JohnPalmer.
I was employed at the CSIRO Irrigation Research Laboratory, Griffith, as a Senior Research Scientist from 1960 –1964. My prior research interests before working at Griffith included the control of shoot and leaf growth in whole plants. Before immigrating to Australia, I was working in the Botany Department at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. I was appointed by CSIRO, after applying for a vacancy for a plant physiologist, to work with a team of agronomists and physicists on an agronomic environmental project at Griffith. I moved from Jamaica to Australia by traveling on a banana boat from Jamaica to Bristol in the UK and then from Southampton to Melbourne on the P & O liner “Oronsay”.
On arriving in Griffith, I was impressed by the town, which by comparison with Kingston, Jamaica, was modern with wide streets, and good shopping, restaurant and recreational facilities. But I was shocked to discover that night-time temperatures were very low in the winter months, and that night frosts occurred frequently. I had not anticipated this, assuming that since Griffith was located in a major citrus growing area, the climate would be semi-tropical.
Finding somewhere to live in Griffith proved to be an unexpected difficulty, because I was single. On arrival I was told that I was not eligible for CSIRO allocated rental accommodation in Griffith, because it was all reserved for married couples. Initially, I stayed in the Griffith Hotel, while searching for suitable accommodation to rent. I found residence in the hotel to be uncomfortable because of the communal bathrooms and absence of heating in my guest room, which was essentially a single bedroom.
When I commenced looking for suitable single accommodation to rent, I found that Griffith accommodation agencies would not consider renting property to a single man. In the 1960’s single men were expected to either live at home or reside in a boarding house! I inspected several boarding houses in Griffith but the rooms in them were unsuitable for a professional person. Like the Griffith hotel, they
were essentially unheated bedrooms. When I reluctantly decided to apply for a bank mortgage loan to purchase a house or flat, I discovered that the NSW banks in Griffith excluded single men from mortgage loans. Faced with this accommodation problem, Mrs. Hoare, the wife of the Officer in Charge, contacted a local citrus fruit grower who agreed to rent me an unused furnished fruit pickers cottage located on his property close to the Research Station. The cottage, which was very small, contained very basic facilities. There was no sewage connection and only rainwater for drinking. I lived in this cottage for three months during my first winter in Griffith.
In September 1960, I negotiated the rental of an out of town, two-bedroom unfurnished farmhouse located on an citrus farm property at Tharbogang. While being much larger than my first house, with two bedrooms and a wide front balcony it was still very basic accommodation, with a rain water tank
for drinking water supply, no hot water, and no sewage connection. I renovated this house and lived there for three years. In 1963, CSIRO regulations relating to single employees were changed and I was then permitted to rent a modern CSIRO two-bedroom brick house, located in Griffith.
My first impressions of the Irrigation Research Laboratory were very favourable in that it appeared to be an active research facility, with modern glasshouses, research laboratory equipment and ample supporting staff. I was also impressed by the wide range of interests of my professional colleagues, which I recall included 3 agronomists, a plant physiologist, a soil physicist, a climatologist, an electronics expert and a plant breeder.
I hoped that my contact with these co-workers would give me the opportunity to diversify my knowledge of botany and introduce me to new research fields in agriculture such as agronomy, crop environment interaction and the physical science of meteorology, of which I previously had only limited experience
I was part of a research team investigating, the way in which crop plants received and partitioned solar radiation. In the 1960s this was a new emerging field in agriculture. It was thought that the information gained would assist plant breeders selecting crops for irrigation agriculture, by identifying those varieties, which were able to efficiently accumulate biomass with minimal water use. Eric Hoare had been actively engaged in this type of research, in the UK before coming to Australia.
The Griffith project involved continuous measurement of solar radiation, air and plant temperature, and hourly water use. Water use was recorded by measuring weight loss from plants growing in soil in large weighing machines, lysimeters. My role in the team was to record and measure plant temperature
electronically, using thermocouples. Working with this team gave me my first experience of measuring and recording environmental factors electronically and eventually changed the direction of my scientific career.
In addition to this environmental project, I also collaborated with David Phillips another plant physiologist at the Research Laboratory. He was researching how waterlogging restricted crop growth. He was using sunflower seedlings as marker plants, because waterlogged sunflowers displayed a characteristic visual symptom, namely downward curvature of the leaves. In our joint research we studied how leaf growth and leaf orientation in the sunflower was regulated. After David Phillips returned to the UK in 1962, I continued to study the physiological control of sunflower growth, particularly the role played by plant hormones.
After my departure from Griffith, I expanded my research interest in sunflower growth and eventually concentrated on the flowering process. This programme continued for another 25 years. It was supported by research grants from the Australian Oil Seeds Research Committee.
Although my employment at the Research Laboratory in Griffith occupied only a short part of my professional career, it completely changed my research interests, by firstly making me aware of the influence of environmental factors on plant growth and crop yield, and secondly by unexpectedly introducing me to the sunflower plant as a challenging, but rewarding subject for investigating flowering processes in crop plants.
The research experience I gained at Griffith also changed my teaching objectives, when I subsequently returned to a university career as a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales. There in 1966 I launched a new undergraduate course, named ‘Environmental Botany’. This was the first undergraduate course in Australia to relate environmental science to agriculture. The course was very popular with students and ran for about 20 years.
WarrenMuirhead
My family home was in Maitland. I became aware of the CSIRO Irrigation Research Station when I was gaining practical experience while studying Agricultural Science at Sydney University. I was picking almonds and apricots on John Morphett’s horticultural farm at Stanbridge during the summer of 1953/54. John would go to important meetings at the CSIRO Research Station and when he returned, would relate details of the latest developments in agricultural research. Interestingly, John’s farm was purchased many years later by Eric Hoare and then by his son, Roger.
I had a NSW Soil Conservation Service traineeship to go to Sydney University and after graduation was sent to Condobolin for 12 months to gain more experience before taking over the Hay office in 1956. In 1958, Clive Gates, a plant physiologist from the CSIRO Irrigation Research Laboratory contacted me to see if we could collaborate to measure evapotranspiration from saltbush using lysimeters located at the Soil Conservation Service Paradise Experimental site near Hay.
The project went ahead and when Eric Hoare arrived in 1958, several new positions were created in Griffith and Clive encouraged me to apply for an Experimental Officer position which I did. I received a letter in July 1960 offering me a position for an indefinite period as an Experimental Officer, Grade II at the Irrigation Research Laboratory, Griffith with a commencing salary of £1,730 ($3,460).
I was to assist Frank Cope investigate the impact of agronomic practices during the inter-rice period, on managing high water tables and salinity. These high water tables were developing in the broad acre irrigation farms in the MIA and elsewhere. The project was funded by the Water Conservation and Irrigation Commission for 5 years. CSIRO did not undertake applied research but solved problems by understanding the processes that influenced certain outcomes, and devised management strategies to minimise adverse effects. The WCIC wanted to find solutions to waterlogging and salinity problems in
large area farms in the much the same way that Tjeerd Talsma’s work contributed to controlling similar conditions in horticulture areas with tile drainage
I commenced work at CSIRO in October 1960 and, initially, had a desk in Jack Bleijie’s engineering workshop while new offices were built. Gwen and our daughters Elizabeth and Susan temporarily moved into Ben Martin’s house located at the Research laboratory. We expected to move into a CSIRO staff house in Griffith when Tjeerd Talsma moved into the new house he was building. We didn’t expect to have the good fortune to spend the next fourteen years surrounded by well-kept gardens and a dam that doubled as a swimming pool. The house was divided into 2 flats with Jim Saunt, the Farm Manager and cotton agronomist living in the front portion. Eric Hoare and his family were also our neighbours and we enjoyed many a Sunday barbeque with them and staff, friends and visitors to the CSIRO.
After Frank Cope arrived, a site on Jim Wilkinson’s farm at Murrami, about 44 km from the Research Laboratory, was chosen for the field experiments. A rice crop was grown in the summer of 1961/62 and plots with four different rotations were established during the autumn. Setting up such a large field experiment was a steep learning curve for us but with practical input from George Richards and others, it was generally successful. Looking back, we did not have the equipment of today - no electronic calculators (just the mechanical Facit), no plastic bags, pumps and generators. Because of the distance to the Murrami site, we were often late returning from fieldwork. This earned us the displeasure of one of our Administration Officers who lived in the front flat with his wife and daughter, after Jim Saunt left, but who regularly travelled to Leeton after work to spend the night with a lady friend. He was reluctant to leave until we returned in case we passed him travelling on his unauthorised trip.
Eric realised that the Research Station was vulnerable to criticism because of its isolation from other learned institutions and promoted cooperation with them. When Hank Greenway was undertaking a Ph.D. at Adelaide University, Eric encouraged me to do a Master’s degree through the Waite Institute attached to the Adelaide University. After passing a preliminary examination, I was accepted as an external student with Dr Keith Barley, a respected crop agronomist, as my supervisor. I was able to travel to Adelaide with Hank for a week several times a year. I received my Master’s degree from Adelaide University in 1967. My thesis investigated the establishment of winter crops and pasture after rice and their effect on water tables and salinity. The research showed that the low light levels beneath the rice straw inhibited the establishment of crops. However, burning the stubble, preferably after slashing, produced satisfactory crop establishment that achieved respectable yields and also lowered water-table levels.
Eric saw defining the limits to the growth of irrigated crops so that the potential productivity can be achieved as an important activity for his group. By the time I completed my Master’s degree, Jim Saunt had resigned and I became Farm Manager and involved in research with John Loveday to ameliorate dispersing clay soils. I was able to investigate the limitations to the growth of cotton on dispersing clay soils. I applied to do a Ph.D. at Macquarie University with Prof Fred Milthorpe on this topic and was accepted.
The field research was carried out on John Woodside’s property at Benerembah on a soil not ideal for row crops because it dispersed when irrigated. My earlier research with John Loveday showed that gypsum ameliorated this problem. However, the main limitation for cotton then was the low soil temperatures early in the season. Later sowing when the temperature was higher did not allow sufficient time for the fibres to mature and the bolls open.
An enduring journey I undertook at CSIRO concerned the advances in the analysis of data from agronomic experiments. All calculations while in the Soil Conservation Service were made by long hand - addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and sometimes a slide rule could be used. At CSIRO, Facit mechanical calculators were available but in high demand. However, staff at the CSIRO Division of Mathematical Statistics carried out limited statistical analysis such as the Analysis of Variance and Regression Analysis.
Eric Hoare recognised the potential that computers offered to research workers. A lasting memory I have is flying to Sydney on a DC3 aircraft to attend a course run by Sydney University, programming
their new Siliac computer, one of the first in Australia, in about 1964. Siliac was very impressive –several large rooms full of twinkling valves and about as powerful as a small hand-held calculator of today. During the week, we learnt machine language so that we could program Siliac to do simple operations like 2+3. In 1965, Teddy Trickett was sent overseas on a study tour to “assess data recording systems … and automation methods in rural industry”. As a result, in 1968, the Division of Computing Research provided a PDP 9 computer with a paper tape feed at Griffith. However, it was primarily used for continuous data capture and its analysis, and not statistical analysis of agronomic data.
The breakthrough for me came in 1970 when George McIntyre from the Division of Mathematical Statistics produced a series of statistical programs to run on the large CDC 3200 and CDC 3600 computers in Canberra. These programs required a number of parameter cards, a subroutine (in Fortran) and data cards. We had to enter the information on coding forms (1 line per card) and post the forms to Canberra to be punched on cards and run on the computer. The results were printed on large fan-fold sheets. The turn-around time was about 10 days and if there were any errors such as a comma out of place, the error had to be corrected in Griffith and the program sent to Canberra to be rerun. When a lot of data needed analysis, it was often more efficient and quicker to go to Canberra for a few days to carry out the analysis. Later, the time taken to run a program was reduced to 4 or 5 days when airfreight was used for transport. In 1973, a PDP 11 computer was installed at Griffith, which formed a node for the larger computers in Canberra. With the purchase of a card-punch and reader in Griffith, a more rapid turnaround, usually within a day, was possible.
For me, the Hoare era provided one of the best environments I have experienced for carrying out research. Eric outlined the field of research and let you get on with it. Staff meetings allowed open discussion of priorities and particularly how money was to be spent. This was in the days before external funding determined what research would be carried out. The only frustration for me was that Eric always related my findings to what happened in his vegetable garden – if your conclusion didn’t agree then you should reconsider them.
AlanGunn
Alan and Marie continued to live in Griffith where Alan died on 18 January 2015 and Marie on 27 September 2021
Marie and I met while working as analytical chemists in London for a pharmaceutical company which was eventually taken over by Smith, Kline & French. I was born in the UK and Marie was on a working holiday from Sydney. She returned to Sydney to open a laboratory for Smith, Kline & French. We later married, in London where we continued to live. After a while I contacted the Scientific Liaison Officer at Australia House in The Strand just to talk about job prospects in Australia. Within two to three months, I had received letters from a number of Australian universities and 5 or 6 divisions of CSIRO. Then I received a telephone call from Eric Hoare who was visiting London. We met over tea, and he showed us a set of pictures of houses in Griffith (including the
Barbeque in the gardens. Warren and Gwen Muirhead 2nd & 3rd on right
Others on the right include Tony Macri, Arnold Hosking, Jack Potts, Frank Melhuish; On the left Tony Masciocchi, Ben Bruemmer, The Dewars, John Blackwell. PhotographcourtesyofDenisDreyer
one we now own, then Dr Welch’s). Eric suggested there would be no problems with accommodation in Griffith and that of all potential workplaces it would suit us best. He seemed to be concerned about staff leaving Griffith [Bouma and Gates had gone by then and perhaps Russell and Phillips had made their imminent departure known] but he thought we would stay inland.
I was appointed on 29 September 1961 but we made our way independently to Australia, both as “₤10 Poms”. We were impressed by the help and welcome given to us when we visited Griffith to confirm the appointment and to arrange accommodation, on a house on Farm 49 which was being vacated by the Administrative Officer James Donovan. It was suggested that if I started work before the end of 1961, I would get annual leave entitlement for that year so I started on 29 December!
We found the Research Station to be a happy group of people, partly due to the way Eric and Isobel were concerned for the staff, and, for us, the helpfulness of Warren and Gwen Muirhead. It was a community within the community of Griffith where the families were involved socially as well as professionally at work. There was social tennis and swimming in the dam (I devised a method to clarify the water).
Previously, Horst Doelle had collected methods needed for chemical analyses in the Station. My job was to automate the process of analysis. I took delivery of the first Beckman analyser and used Al Grassby’s office space next to the chemistry lab for it. We used my motor-bike on trips to collect information and materials to set up the system, and my glass-blowing skills were put to good use. At other times I could use a CSIRO-car on longer trips, also accompanied by Marie after getting dispensation, but not expenses, from the organisation. Another man in Perth was involved in the same task so we had close contact, swopping methods.
When the system was running well Eric took delight in publicising it to the local community. As a result, a number of outside jobs turned up: analysis of wood preservatives, medical pathology tests (before the hospital had a pathology lab). These unpaid jobs became quite large, and overwhelming; I often worked on them late into the night. I started as a Technical Officer, then Senior TO and eventually to Experimental Officer grade 3. I obtained an M.Sc. by research from Macquarie University in 1983. One outside interest that occupied my spare time, and gave much pleasure, was helping to establish the Griffith United Football (soccer) Club.
When I started, when analyses were manual, I had three assistants: Barbara Morel, Jan Bell and Yvonne Brauman. Because of the analytical load, by 1971 Leith Higgins joined the group and he took over the auto-analyser services. I concentrated on atomic absorption and methods for water analyses, and later oil analyses by NMR for the oilseed’s programs. Much of this, however, was after Eric Hoare retired and when the Division seemed to be in a constant state of flux. After being offered an early retirement package, and the need for a quick decision on the offer, I retired in December 1987. We still live in Griffith – a vote of confidence in the community we joined years ago.
YvonneBrauman(Mrs.Brennan)
Yvonne and Tony continued to live in Griffith until moving to the Brisbane area in about 2014.
I finished school at the end of 1959 and hoped to go to Teachers’ College but did not have a scholarship. So, I spent 6 months as a nurse’s aide at Griffith Hospital until I saw an advertisement for a “real” job at CSIRO. It was working as an assistant to Alan Gunn in the analytical laboratory, testing soil and plant samples for the research groups. The other two assistants were Barbara Delves and Jan Bell. Barbara has contributed to this history but we have lost contact with Jan. She was from Leeton, loved jazz and wanted to study Italian. Like most of the assistants I took weather readings.
I remember putting a glass pipette through my hand and having some stitches; Jack Bleijie making me a needle for rug-making; Teddy Trickett teaching me to spin after helping me to assemble a spinning wheel from a kit. I bought my first car whilst I worked there, an old Morris Minor. Elsie Nairne taught me to drive. Every morning, she walked to my home and I practised driving to and from work. Then she walked home again. It was a friendly workplace: we swam in the pool, picked asparagus from the channel bank by Trewin’s house and had barbeque parties. We were invited to many colleague’s houses on social occasions.
During 1962 I decided to leave and went to establish the MBF office at the back of the furniture shop of Griffith Co-operative. I continued in office work, in Sydney and Griffith, for many years but always liked the practical aspects of laboratory work.
EdwardLinacre
Edward Thornton Linacre (born Liverpool, Lancs on 28 April 1925) died in Canberra on 27 October 2018. His wife Helen had died before him, and he had married again, to Mary Samara-Wickrama, who survived him.
There was nobody to meet us from the ship in Melbourne, after a three-weeks sea voyage and an escape from an unpleasant job in England, but we had the address of a small, old-fashioned place, the Cathedral Hotel, in the middle of the city, and someone met us there. He was one of the drivers from the laboratory at Griffith, our final destination. He had come 450km to welcome us and to carry our several trunks back in his truck. He also negotiated about our crate of furniture and other large goods which should have come on the same ship as us, but there had been a strike at Southampton. So the man from Griffith arranged to return to Melbourne when the right ship arrived several days later. In consequence we got to Griffith well in advance of our main belongings.
We flew to Griffith by DC3 and our flight was low and unsteady amongst the thermals from the parched brown ground beneath, until suddenly we were over the emerald green of the irrigated fields around Griffith. The staff at the laboratory had rallied round and accommodation and borrowed basic needs were ready for us, pending the arrival of our crate
It was wonderful to live and work in Griffith, after the depression of Worksop and Leatherhead. The Griffith people proved so outgoing and friendly, the country atmosphere so fresh and healthy, everything new and interesting, the job so worthwhile. Getting the job was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me. It’s possible that I owe it partly to the Teddy Trickett who was so affable when I visited Silsoe in England more than a year before, and who, I discovered, had gone from there to Griffith. Maybe he’d spoken on my behalf.
We were overwhelmed by the welcome, on our arrival on Boxing Day 1960. Everything here was such an adventure and the climate so warm after England's Christmas weather. When we arrived just with suitcases, people lent us pots and pans etc. to get through the weeks until our huge packing case arrived. I remember that Eric Hoare lent me a swimming costume so that I could cool down in the station's reservoir. A lot of time was spent in the adjacent pool because of the heat. He was always most friendly. For the first days after our arrival, our family lived in an empty, unpretentious house in the laboratory grounds. When our furniture did arrive, we moved into Griffith itself, to another bungalow owned by CSIRO at 57 Noorilla St, just vacated by the Tricketts on their completing the construction of their own house. We were just lucky, as we have been ever since coming to Australia. We rapidly felt at home in Griffith. So, we were easily able to persuade Helen's parents, in their 70s, to join us after a year, she being their only child. They too took to Griffith like ducks to water. We grew vegetables and had hens; at one time we had a sheep. In summer, we could go to one of the nearby vineyards and fill a bucket with grapes for next to nothing. It was a good life
We stayed in Noorilla Street for about three years, and then followed the Tricketts (again), to 19 Wood Road on the edge of town, to a house that we had designed, and whose construction we supervised. Actually, we built two adjacent houses, number 21 being for Helen’s parents. It is very satisfying living in a house you have designed. Considerable reading, calculation and consideration went into those two houses, and they worked out well in terms of the view from the kitchen, low energy cost, comfortable temperature, quiet bedrooms, some beautiful timber, and so on. Colleagues from the lab helped in surveying of our block on Wood Rd, prior to our planning the house. Later a dozen or so workmates helped dig the trenches in the large front garden for the sullage from the various sinks. That was before we were connected to the main sewer, during the year or two when the toilet was in a dunny. That had to be at least 10m from the house. Night-soil men would come in the cooler hours to exchange the full pitch-coated buckets for empty ones.
Beyond the dunny we had about a dozen hens in a run I built against the back boundary. Our family of five had all the eggs on weekdays, and Eric & Laura on weekends. But there were problems about the hens. Firstly, they would sometimes create a racket at night, and I’d have to go out in the dark and shout loud and suddenly, to shut them up. Secondly, I had to decapitate those who had stopped laying, which was very repugnant at first, and never easy to accomplish tidily. Sometimes the headless chook really would run away. Thirdly, we now realise how much cholesterol we took in with the many eggs we ate.
Another aspect of our life in Griffith was the Quaker worshipping group we started. We met in a disused storeroom over a chemist’s shop in the empty main street. There were the Linacres and Helen’s parents, and also Teddy Trickett’s wife Theodora, and one or two non-Friends would attend at times. Occasionally we would travel 45km to Leeton to be with Quaker Lloyd Williams and one or two others there. About annually we went to Canberra to attend the opening of the newly built Meeting House.
As regards the start of my research program, I was intrigued by the freedom to work out what to do, after previous experience in various laboratories in England. Initially Eric asked me (a physicist) to join Trickett (an engineer) and Palmer (a biologist) in what they already had in hand and the combination did result in a couple of worthwhile papers. By then I had some notion of what to tackle, after abortive attempts to get ideas from local irrigation farmers, whose research needs remained ill-defined. I now
think that Eric Hoare might have led a more coherent research team by more transparently discerning the problems we should address, perhaps in anticipation of the Murray-Darling problem, for instance. So, it was left to me to decide that two questions worth tackling were i) when should an irrigation farmer put water on his crop, and ii) how much should he put on? The answers had become fairly clear by the time I left CSIRO, as a result of work around the world. In particular, the first question depends on the rate of evaporation from the crop, which in turn depends on the climate. So I was obliged to learn some meteorology, at first reluctantly. In parallel I wrote a large survey of methods of determining evaporation rates. This led to my modifying a recent theory for lake evaporation by Howard Penman FRS, to suit individual leaves. (The same modification was made simultaneously, independently and more usefully by John Monteith in England, who narrowly published first what is now well-known as the PenmanMontieth formula.) The idea seemed worth exploring further, and so in 1961 I applied to London University to prepare a Ph.D. thesis on the topic and they accepted the proposal. When I submitted the thesis five years later, Penman was one of the two examiners appointed to interrogate me at an interview in London. After a grilling for an hour or two on details of the thesis, I was taken to the staff common room for drinks, and it was hinted to me that I had passed. I was 41. It was on returning from this trip that I realised how much I now identified with Australia. However, it was a while before we became naturalised Australians. I have an ‘Evidentiary Certificate of Australian Citizenship’ dated 17/1/72prior to our going on the long trip overseas that year - and a more colourful ‘Declaratory Certificate of Citizenship’ dated 17/11/80.
One project was concerned with the effect of an irrigation area (the new Coleambally Irrigation Area) on the local climate, and involved setting up automatic instruments to measure temperature, wind etc at two places. One place became surrounded by irrigated farms during the experiment, whilst the other remained outside the irrigation area. The idea was to compare the climates at the two places and deduce the effect of irrigation on the region.. The equipment had to be visited about each fortnight, which took a whole day’s travel. However, a couple of years’ results showed that the differences were erratic and probably small, and therefore extremely vulnerable to errors in calibrating the various parts of the equipment. I was still trying to sort out this problem when I left CSIRO in 1969. After that I became so busy adapting to the next job that I had no time to continue the work, and the project lapsed, wasting considerable effort by several people. A regrettable business, but research is inherently an uncertain affair.
One of the best things I did concerned the evaporation from a swamp near Griffith, where the overflow water from the irrigation channels accumulated to cover an area of several square kilometers. The farmers around the edge wanted the tall reeds removed, so that, they said, evaporation would be reduced, leaving more water for them. The question was, did the reeds indeed cause increased evaporation? Well, the problem came down to me, and I found the literature on the subject was contradictory, so actual measurements were needed. Equipment newly invented in another CSIRO Division was ideal for the purpose, and I also arranged collaboration with the weeds man of the WCIC. He arranged a raft in the middle of the swamp and another on a nearby lake (the one we sailed on), and evaporation equipment was mounted on each. To get to and from the swamp raft we had dinghies and many empty beer cans, which were stuck on reeds as we went along, to ensure that we could find our way out. (We had only two weeks for the measurements, before the duck-shooting season made the place dangerous.) The outcome was a neat paper that showed that the reeds should not be removed, since in fact they reduced evaporation, contrary to the farmers’ expectations. This saved wasting a lot of money on aerial spraying of weedicide.
I had two assistants, Doreen McPherson (a widow, who repeatedly typed out bits of my thesis, amongst many other things) and Wal Harris, who was technically qualified. He and I developed a useful electrical instrument for measuring the temperatures of leaves.
Griffith was an excellent place for our sons’ growing up, with the streets safe for cycling, the bush all around, the climate benign, the social atmosphere relaxed. We sailed a ’Moth’ on Lake Wyangan. Earlier, Robert had started making a small dinghy in woodwork class at school, and we finished it at home. This was another flat box. Helen made the sail. Also, she bought a tiny wooden canoe for paddling amongst the reeds around Lake Wyangan. The canoe was so small as to be unstable, and I had to make outrigger pontoons for it.
I enjoyed singing, as a foundation member of the Jondaryan Singers. I also belonged to the film society, run by an enthusiast in the town, with monthly showings of foreign films in the canteen of CSIRO. This supplemented the offerings of the cinema in the town. Actually there were two cinemas during the first year we were in Griffith. The older one had a sliding roof, which was opened on warm nights for coolness; you could see the stars of screen and sky at the same time.
A notable event in the life of the lab at Griffith was the ‘challenge walk’. There had been a discussion and then an argument over lunch about the time it would take to walk from the town’s main street to the laboratory. Could it be done in half an hour? To settle it, a date and lunchtime were fixed, and the laboratory manager was to be umpire and organiser. His main task was to disqualify anyone who ran, as distinct from walk. I made an attempt alone the day before and took 35 minutes. On the day, I managed about the same again, but two or three out of the large field did it under the half-hour, so the point was settled. The fastest was Alistair Low, one of the oldest on the staff.
One activity I inaugurated at the Griffith lab was a series of seminars by the scientists on the staff, for each other. The group, not me, decided to exclude non-PhDs, which annoyed the engineer, who bore me a grudge about this thereafter. It was a foolish decision.
The freedom to work hard on worthwhile topics was a wonderful feature of the CSIRO work. However, I gradually began to feel that the work was something of a luxury from the point of view of the nation, because the chief impediments to a more efficient use of irrigation water were sociological and political. The farmer’s water was too cheap, and market fluctuations more important to him. In addition, son Robert had left Griffith at the beginning of 1968 to start university studies in Sydney, and Andrew was likely to follow. So I was interested when a new university post was advertised in Sydney, offering opportunity to teach as well as organise the research of post-graduates.
The post was at Macquarie University, which opened its doors in 1968. I had already met the Professor of Physics there, Peter Mason, helping him when he visited Griffith to interest school leavers in going to this new institution. Also, I had met one of the biology professors, Fred Milthorpe, when he had brought Howard Penman (mentioned earlier) to our Griffith laboratory, on a visit from England. And I was able to quote my experience in giving a course of lectures on climatology to the young university at Canberra in 1967, when their regular man was abroad. Anyway, I got the job. Andrew and Robert were astonished when we told them. How come I’d be joining a group of geographers? I had no knowledge of geography - which was true. But there was general enthusiasm at the prospect of moving to Sydney, which seems an exciting place when viewed from the bush.
LesBromfield
I answered an advertisement by CSIRO Griffith and went up for interview. On the plane to Griffith, I was chatting to the chap in the next seat and the next day was interviewed by Jim Donovan. I took the place of Dennis Gill who went to the telescope at Parkes and sadly died there some time after. I was employed as an Electrical Fitter from 1961—66, and did a lot of work moving overhead wiring underground and lighting the glasshouses. Why did I come to CSIRO Griffith? Well! with 4 children and no money to purchase a home I was seeking employment with housing provided, I was 2nd in charge at the North Loxton Irrigation Area with a comfortable cottage provided, but Loxton is a very small town and would never provide education and employment for the future. I answered an advertisement and was offered what I needed, the station first set me up in a cottage they owned in Wakenden St. opposite the railway yards and then purchased a home of my choosing at 4 The Circle. I was very busy taking down the dangerous overhead wiring and putting it underground. I wired the glasshouses for power and connected a underground line to a weighing lysimeter Eddie Linacre set up near to the vehicle workshop. After all this work was finished, I had little to do except a bit of maintenance work: I had worked myself out of a job!
I went to Orange as an Electrical Inspector with Ophir County Council. That was a mistake as it proved to be boring with much paperwork and I soon transferred to the NSW Department of Health at Bloomfield Hospital, Orange. Later my daughter enrolled at Newcastle University and the three boys moved out to Sydney so we followed suit and I transferred to NSW Education Department as Resident Caretaker at Manly Boys High School in charge of maintenance, cleaning and security. I stayed 14 years and retired to Gosford 28 years ago and here I stay. Our kin were mainly around Sydney, all the Bromfields in the Gosford telephone book are my relatives, 3 generations of them!
Keith Garzoli was my immediate superior. James Saunt was there all the years I was and lived on site. Mind you I was more familiar with the ancillary staff: Arnold Dreyer was the carpenter, Fred Whitford was the storeman and of course Al Grassby He had a session on the local radio called “Farm Flash Today “. When he advised about the Oriental Peach Moth that became his nickname, truly a colourful character, he and his Riverina Rig.
Griffith was, and still is, a vibrant community because of the large Italian presence and the international scientists of the CSIRO. I retain my admiration for Eddie and Helen Linacre and John Loveday for their work with the Aboriginal Advancement Society and I was involved too with meetings at Three Ways Bridge Reserve. I was particularly friendly with Wally Armstrong and Fred Whitford: Fred died of a heart attack while attending a meeting.
I recall an amusing incident of those days, it concerns a UK Scientist who was driving out to the station and heard a strange noise so stopped the car and lifted the bonnet but discovered the loud noise was coming from nearby trees, it was a very good year for a large cicada population!
MrsJanSaunt
I met Jim in 1961 when he had managed to get the flat which had been part of his job specification but which Eric Hoare had decided to ignore. He had been in a guesthouse in Yambil Street and then in a shared house with the likes of Neil Inall, Ralph Cotsell and Don Lander. He needed the flat because he was farm manager as well as a Research Officer. I joined him there at our marriage in Jan 1962. It was a very pleasant place to be, with the Muirheads and the Hoares. The Hoares were very hospitable. It was summer and there was plenty of company, swimming in the dam.
I don't remember exactly when we went to Noorilla Street but it was well before our second child arrived in 1965 so 1963 is definitely possible.
As a schoolmarm at the local high school I managed to teach 3 of the 4 Hoare brood. Can't think of a negative thing to say. They were delightful. Jim and I saw Roger and his wife, Rhonda, a couple of times about 10 years back. It was a scream to realise how close in age we actually were.
I have great memories of a Trickett offspring falling into the dam, and rescued saying "It was frightfully green down there!"
Other memories: the Governor General's visit was a highlight - everyone dressed to the nines; the continual hassle of Kununurra's research man; I certainly remember the arrivals of the Garzolis at CSIRO in 1963; the excitement of the arrival of Americans; and a world trip to look at cotton growing. Then our departing Australia for Kenya after the inspirational input of Alistair Low.
Finally, Jim managing to get the job that changed the course of his life and rewarded him with much success, by using his experience as manager of the Citrus farm at Griffith. He worked for Outspan, first in Covent Garden and then in Berkhamstead, Herts. Twenty years on, having collected a great deal of information on varieties of citrus, because of being Technical Manager (overseas) for South African Citrus, and after a people-to-people citrus trip to China, he realised he had enough information to write
" Citrus Varieties of the World", with the support of his new associates at Sinclair International Fruit Labelling Systems. It was published in 1991 with a second edition in 2000.
MickFleming
Mick died in Canberra on 27 February 2013, aged 81 years.
I first met Eric Hoare at Claredale, north Queensland about May 1959 when he was making a survey by car, with Isabel, of Queensland Irrigation Developments. At that stage I was District Engineer, Clare and O-i-C Burdekin Irrigation Areas. I had also applied for an Experimental Officer position at Griffith.
We spent effectively 2 days inspecting the Irrigation scheme and also private irrigation developments at Ayr and Home Hill, while Isabel inspected myself, Judy and our family and lifestyle. They also had lunch with us. At the end Eric raised the matter of giving me a job and sort of ticked off an interview form. Most importantly he offered me a trip to Griffith for a formal interview, which I took in the August school holidays.
The whole family drove to Brisbane to stay with my parents, and my father and I then drove down to Griffith and spent 2 days meeting the staff, in particular Tjeerd Talsma with whom I would work for the next 7 years.
After various complicated negotiations, partly because I was a State Officer joining a Commonwealth Agency, and dropping about 12% in salary, I finally arrived in early January 1960, and boarded until Tjeerd could finish a house so we could move into Wakaden Street which the Talsmas vacated. My family arrived just before Easter 1960.
I could go on about the development of an irrigation engineering section and the recruitment of Keith Garzoli and John Blackwell, and eventually my role in CSIRO and nationally and internationally in estimation of crop water requirements for engineering purposes.
I have also visited the site in Kununurra where Eric had his final fatal heart attack and regularly visited Eric and Isabel in their retirement at Dalmeny.
AnnetteMelhuish
Annette and Frank moved to Queensland after he retired. Frank died there & Annette moved back to Griffith where she died (18 June 1940 - 15 Dec 2012).
Annette, Frank and Karel Melhuish came by sea, on the “Willem Roos” in October 1962. We found the community at CSIRO very friendly – they were very happy years – and I enjoyed the hot weather (and still do). We soon moved into 21 Kelly Avenue, a CSIRO house. There were no fences, no garden and no trees. The garden used to be used as a walk-through path until CSIRO erected fences, and the family created a garden. I worked in the office at Bartters for many years. Eventually we designed our own house in Mannell Place, North Griffith. While waiting for it to be finished we lived at 4 The Circle.
PennyBarrs
Penny died in Queensland in August 2015. There is a copy of her eulogy. Henry 20 Sep 1932 – 9 Dec 2016
I'm writing on behalf of Henry who is rather ill, and waiting to undergo more tests at present. After two moves, he has no records of time spent in Griffith, and sends his best wishes for your project. On arrival in Griffith in 1962 we lived in a CSIRO house in Boonah St. That first year my memories are of the summer heat, and how my bottles of home-made ginger beer kept exploding, and then the dust storms
rolling across the town and the eerie half-light while they lasted. We spent one Xmas day enjoying the hospitality of Eric and Isabel Hoare out at the research station. I had a new baby and while we wilted under the shade of trees, I remember Eric bounding about, full of energy and relishing the heat. Through Hilda Lenz I met two long time resident, Griffith women who introduced me
Frank & Annette Melhuish with Eric Hoare at his retirement party, 28 April 1977. PhotographcourtesyofRogerHoare
Left to right: Rudy Amato, Frank Melhuish, Henry Barrs. Photographcourtesyof BarbaraHarrigan
to the Griffith Women's Club, quite a remarkable institution founded and run by women. It was there I learned to play Bridge, and over the years enjoyed many Bridge parties, some held on farms with their lovely green homestead gardens. We grew to appreciate the scenery of the area, and it did not take us long to find the Cocoparra National Park, and the swimming spots along the Murrumbidgee. As the boys grew older, they enjoyed sailing on Lake Wyangan with their father. My children often talk about their time in Griffith.
EvelynGarzoli
Keith and I both grew up in Melbourne. Keith graduated from Melbourne University in Mechanical Engineering in the mid 1950s and I completed my training as a General Nurse in 1961. Keith worked for General Motors in the UK for 2 years and then in Dandenong with the Frigidaire group as a Quality Control Engineer. Keith was 27 and I was 23 when we married in 1961 and lived in Springvale. At the 21st birthday party of a friend of mine at Kyneton, Victoria, Keith talked with her brother, who worked at CSIRO Highett, about an upcoming job for an engineer at Griffith. We watched out for the advertisement in the Melbourne papers and Keith and I and our baby Lyn, went to Griffith for the interview. On the way back to Melbourne, we had to drive our FJ Holden via Albury because of rain on the unmade road between Coleambally and Jerilderie. I knew little then about Griffith or CSIRO except for the recent Bogle murders.
The three of us moved to Griffith together in mid-June 1963 with nowhere to live or nothing to rent! Our parents thought they’d never see us again! We stayed at the showground caravan park for a while in the freezing cold, and then Mick Fleming and wife Judy rescued us. We stayed with them in the CSIRO Evatt Street house with their 4 kids for 2 weeks while Judy was in hospital! Frank and Annette
Melhuish, another CSIRO family who lived in the CSIRO Kelly Avenue house, also took us in for a while. We did eventually find a farmhouse with a huge garden, in Hanwood to rent - I think through contacts at church. We were there for about 12 months through that hot dusty summer, while I had my first and only encounter with a wood stove instead of a gas or electric one. Bonny, my young sister joined us, and son John was born in 1964. During this time we also had our first encounter with bulk wine! Keith could never get used to the fact that red wine in Griffith was cheaper than milk. The CSIRO 13 Almoola Street house became available later in 1964 and we moved in after waiting and waiting for the newly varnished floor to dry - it never did completely. We bought a house in 1966 on the former Griffith Golf links – 17 Hickey Crescent, and had 2 more children - Karen and Anne. We sometimes thought we were back on that Hanwood farm as we often heard the cattle in the nearby sale yards bellowing.
Keith was the first graduate engineer to be employed as an engineer at the Research Station. His role was to sort out the day-to-day building/maintenance needs and look at the greenhouse development. He had little involvement then in research. However, on completion of the initial projects, Keith was encouraged by Mr. Hoare to broaden his career and went on to gain his Master’s in engineering in 1970 and a Ph.D. in 1986, in the area of glasshouse and renewable energy technologies for buildings of all kinds. In the 1980s he became involved in the NERDDC Solar Greenhouse Technology project, and was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship in 1985 to study solar energy applications in horticultural engineering in North America and Europe. He continued in that area of research and development after he retired from CSIRO, very actively as a Professorial Fellow at ANU and as a consultant, until he died in 2010.
I remember fondly the social activities that involved us with other families at CSIRO in those early days - dress-up garden parties with kids running egg and spoon races; playing tennis with the Lovedays, the Bleijies and Al Grassby; the film society gatherings, especially the showing of “Nanook of the North”!! We used to call in on each other and often baby-sat so we had some evening socialisation. I recall Benny Bruemmer and John Blackwell helping Keith set up the garden shed complete with concreting in our back yard; and John butchering a pig on our small kitchen table inside our house! Both those occasions were very, very funny! In those days we “shared” a mower with the
Keith Garzoli, Ted Trickett and Bill O’Brien prepare a display in the early 1960s
PhotographcourtesyofRogerHoare
Melhuishes and seemed to be forever carting the thing backwards and forwards across town, to mow our lawns. Our little kids loved it when Anna Pistillo (she and I were at school together) became a
regular on TV Romper Room – our children were even “guests” on the show! The friendship that existed between the CSIRO women then and those who came later to this hot and dusty town – far from our home towns, really helped with the initial isolation of that move to Griffith.
RayCeccato
I started work at the CSIRO laboratories fresh out of school in 1964 at the tender age of 16 as a laboratory assistant. My memories include:
Growing an endless number of plants in hydroponics for water potential and water efficiency experiments. Measuring leaf water potentials in a constant temperature room (great on hot days) and setting up experiments to measure photosynthesis and transpiration in corn and sunflower plants. Water stress was simulated by adding polyethylene glycol to the hydroponic solution around the plant roots. I often wondered about the validity of some of these experiments, as the glycol was somewhat toxic to the plants. An interesting phenomenon was that the plants could sometimes be induced, by a short period of darkness, to undergo a periodic cycle of the opening and closing of their stomates.
The social activities, including film nights, dances, and our participation in the Water Wheel Festival, as it was then known. We built and entered a dragon & a chariot, in the festival, and the “African Queen” in the Venetian carnival. Alistair Low was a driving force in these activities and they were important in maintaining morale.
The arrival of Betty Klepper a visiting researcher from the USA. I developed a firm friendship, which has lasted to this day. Her friendship and support at the time was very much appreciated. The arrival of Helmet Panhuber: We developed a firm friendship and he was instrumental in my joining him to undertake further studies at Macquarie University. This involved studying by distance education and attending residential schools. I found this stimulating and invigorating and made work at the laboratory more interesting. Without his encouragement I might never have done it. After completing my degree I joined the staff of Wade High School as a Science teacher and later became Head Teacher of Science. A decision I have never regretted.
Our very long dragon entered in the Water Wheel Street procession. In the striped shirt, Ray Ceccato, Ben Bruemmer on stilts. John Blackwell (I think) also on stilts with head obscured by a balloon.
Testing the African Queen’s “sea” worthiness in the CSIRO dam.
From L to R Ray Ceccato, Louise Ford, Alistair Low, Rozanne Collier, Kathy Bock and Chris Leonard
The African Queen failing its “sea” worthiness. PhotographscourtesyofRayCeccato
PeterCary
Peter & Kath moved to Bribie Island after he retired. After a number of years, they moved back to the Riverina. Peter died in Wagga on 27 March 2013, aged 85 years.
Kathleen Sylvia Cary (25 May 1928 London – 2 May 2019 Wagga)
Eric Hoare had a keen interest in horticulture inherited from his nurseryman father. He was appointed after being headhunted by Sir lan Clunies Ross, the then Chairman of CSIRO. His recruits were almost exclusively from overseas, because local scientists did not wish to work in country areas, preferring to work at major city centres.
Sadly, from about 1970 onwards, a policy was developed by the CSIRO Executive in Canberra to reduce research in country areas, until the staff at Griffith was gradually reduced from a maximum of about 80 to virtually zero a few years ago. It was considered that all agricultural research could be carried out in greenhouses, based in Canberra. This resulted in all meaningful, locally-based agricultural research being left to State Departments of Agriculture.
In its heyday, the CSIRO Station at Griffith was a thriving centre, fully integrated with the local community. Eric was a great and charismatic leader. After selection, and given a broad area of research to be carried out, each scientist was left to complete his or her research activities, without interference. Eric supported and encouraged each scientist, and when the opportunity arose he ensured that members of staff were suitably rewarded by promotion to more senior positions. He facilitated two members of staff in the acquisition of PhD qualifications from Macquarie University.
Apart from research, Eric promoted many social activities, not only at the laboratories, but also at activities organised by the Griffith community. He was a very active member of Rotary and the local Wine and Food Club. Such was his fondness for wine, that he built an underground wine cellar to store his wine purchases. Sadly, over the years he developed an allergy to red wine, and hence his wine consumption was severely restricted.
My acquaintance with Eric Hoare began in the UK, when I used to take soil samples from his greenhouse experiments for analysis at my Advisory Service laboratories at Cambridge. Three years after my appointment to a research position at the NSW Department of Agriculture, Yanco, Eric asked me to apply for a research position at CSIRO Griffith. In this application I was successful, and for more than 20 years I had the most interesting and fulfilling time, carrying out research and gradually gaining an international reputation. Sadly, the last few years of my scientific career were overshadowed by frequent changes in research direction, and uncertainty as to whether or nor adequate funding would be provided. These conditions were a strong factor in my decision to accept early retirement. It is most distressing that the CSIRO Centre at Griffith hardly exists, and I blame the myopic decisions of the CSIRO Executive for this demise.
With regard to my recruitment to CSIRO and finding a suitable place to live, I did have some reservations. My wife and I were given the expectation that a home would be provided for us, but this was not so. When Eric found out that we had owned a house in Leeton, he thought that we had sufficient equity to buy a house in Griffith, and so instead of being offered a house to rent we were forced to find a house to buy. At that time there were very few houses on the market, and we ended up buying a house, which was too small for us, and it needed substantial additions soon after we moved in. Subsequently. we found out that the house we had expected to rent was offered as a lure to entice the recruitment of a scientist from Adelaide. I do not know how many houses were available to rent by CSIRO Staff, but I do know many were sold off over ensuing years.
Long Term Citrus Factorial Experiment, Farm 466 Griffith
To adequately describe and evaluate the research findings of the 466 citrus experiment at Griffith would take many months of work, amounting to a doctoral thesis. Perhaps I should have done this on retirement, but I failed to do so, thinking that it would be best if some impartial person completed this task.
The concept and design of this experiment was carried out pre-World War 2 by Eric S. West (the Officer in Charge of the Research Laboratories at that time), assisted by G. A. McIntyre of the CSIRO Division of Mathematical Statistics in Canberra. Amazingly, the trees for the experiment were planted in 1941, and nurtured throughout the war. Treatments did not commence until 1947. From then onwards, studies were made of the effects of four cultural treatments and four levels of nitrogen (as ammonium sulphate) on crop growth and fruit quality of Washington Navel and Late Valencia oranges, budded onto either Rough Lemon or Sweet Orange rootstocks. Initially, there were also four irrigation treatments, but these were discontinued in 1954, and replaced by four liming treatments, applied annually until 1965, by which time a total of 33 tonnes of calcium carbonate per hectare had been applied to those plots, which had received the highest treatment level of ammonium sulphate. In October 1965, a further single application of 17 tonnes per hectare was made to the latter plots; in order to reduce the soil acidity induced by long-term ammonium sulphate applications; and to restore soil pH levels to near-neutral status. Lesser amounts of lime were applied to those plots which had received lower levels of ammonium sulphate. From then on, nitrogen was applied as calcium ammonium nitrate (which had little effect on soil acidity) at the rate of 100kg of N per hectare, uniformly over the experimental area.
Over the years, several persons had been responsible for the supervision of the Experiment, and for the reporting of research findings. They included:
• Harry J. Frith who reported on research findings over the years 1942 - 1952.
• Dick Bouma who reported on research findings over the years 1953 - 1960.
• Fritz H. Lenz who reported on research findings over the years 1961 - 1965
• Peter R. Cary who reported on research findings from 1965 until the experiment was terminated in the early 1980's.
It was a privilege for me to have made the final reports; and to have been able to make appropriate remedial treatments, which enabled the whole experimental area to become one of the highest yielding orchards of good quality fruit in the world.
Many other researchers were involved in reporting results from the Experiment. They included: E. S. West and O. Perkman (1953); Jane Connor (1954 and l959); R. F. Williams and C. T. Gates (1956); E. L. Greacen and O. Perkman (1963); H. Groenewegen and D. Bouma (1960); H. Groenewegen and Jane Connor (1960); R. A. de Fossard and F. H. Lenz (1967); G. I. Moss (1969, 1971a 1971 b, 1973); G. I. Moss and W. A. Muirhead (1971a and 1971b); B. T. Steer and B. Darbyshire (1973). In addition, there was a statistical review of the experiment made by a member of the CSIRO Division of Mathematical Statistics in Canberra during the 1980's. Although I can not remember his name, I think that the title of the review was "466 and all that".
It is conceivable that someone might design a similar experiment these days, but it would never become a reality. No one would dare to commit the resources required for a period lasting more than four decades. I doff my hat to Eric West and George Mclntyre!
Some of the most important results of the Experiment included: The best soil management treatment was non-tillage, with a bare surface, maintained by herbicide applications to control weed growth. Yields from these plots were about 20% better than permanent sod or tillage treatments.
Using ammonium sulphate, as a nitrogen source, caused soil acidity and reduced soil phosphorus availability, which in turn lowered yields and adversely affected fruit quality. Applications of appropriate amounts of calcium carbonate reduced soil acidity, and restored soil pH levels to a near neutral status. These treatments improved soil phosphorus availability; thus increasing yields and vastly improving fruit quality.
High average annual yields of good quality fruit can be maintained by annual applications of 100 kg of N and 30 kg of P per hectare. Annual foliar sprays of Zn and Mn are also required, together with a fungicide spray to control septoria spot, and a pesticide spray to control red scale. A biological control treatment can now replace the pesticide spray treatment.
Many persons were involved in the day-to-day management and care of the Experiment. They included highly skilled technical assistance from: H. L. Gilliard: R. Miranda: Fred Whitford; J. Potts: and last, but certainly not least, my able colleague P. G. J. Weerts.
MrsMargaretHaggarty
I lived in Sydney and went to work at Colonial Sugar Refining Co. in Pyrmont, in their quality control laboratory. We had to test 50 samples per day, which required some good time-keeping. I had met Alan in Sydney but he had taken a position in Griffith so when we planned to marry, I needed a job in Griffith. In answer to an advertisement, I was asked to an interview. I flew to Griffith on a DC3 (only my second flight, I think) dressed in a cream linen suit, hat, handbag, high-heels and gloves. Quite appropriate for a formal interview at a Commonwealth facility, I thought, but it did not match the staff at the Station who cruised around in shorts and sandals, and who seemed amused at my décor that morning.
After the interview Alan took me to Wagga where the Jondaryan Singers were performing that night. The cream suit was rather tired by the end of the day. Jan Saunt was also in the Singers. Alan had tried to enter a ballot for the forthcoming release of housing blocks but because it was before we were married, he had to tender a statuary declaration with the date of our forthcoming marriage. We did not even get into the ballot. We bought our house in Ortella Street, settling on 14 February 1966, from the Talsmas after they had moved to Canberra.
We had married in October 1965 and I started at the Research Station in November 1965. The position was a laboratory assistant to Frank Melhuish who would have preferred a man but I suppose I topped the experience stakes so I got the offer. Frank made sure I did the lifting that he thought a man would handle – large quantities of nutrient solutions, and heavy pots and trays in the growth cabinets. The later microscope work was much more to my liking. I left in November 1967 to start a family but I had not been home long before Alan Gunn telephoned to ask me to work in the analytical laboratory. I negotiated a 3 day per week position, making up standard solutions in the main. That continued until December 1969 when I left because I was pregnant. Judy Van Aken (she worked for Keith Garzoli then) and I had our babies on the same day – we have been friends ever since.
Moving to Griffith was not difficult socially. We were members of the Methodist Church congregation (Alan was part-time organist there) and together with the social life at the Research Station we fitted into town life. In those days shopping up Banna Avenue could be a very time-consuming business, meeting so many people to talk with; the shopping malls are different now. I particularly liked the smell of the saddlery shop in Ulong Street. Our parents visited us from Sydney, after a very long train journey. On one occasion we took them to Coleambally; the new town site was just roads and kerbing – not a building to be seen.
There were two aspects of working at CSIRO that I enjoyed particularly. One, equal pay: whereas at CSR I was in charge of a group of young men, they were getting a bigger wage than I was, as a woman. Secondly, my journey to work in Sydney, from Willoughby to Pyrmont required two bus trips, with a very fine changeover between them. Often the bus over the Harbour Bridge would be late into Wynyard and I would run (in high heels) down York Street to catch the other. In Griffith there was a bus which took minutes for the journey to the laboratory, and it would pick you up very close to home, and it was free.
I remember the conference room being used a lot, and overseas visitors coming through the Station, some of them would snitch seeds from experimental plants. When I read a book on the lawns at lunchtime the Muirhead girls would be playing outside. Rhonda Trewin (now Mrs Hoare) was a guide during one summer holiday, taking visitors around the Station’s facilities.
Alistair Low
Alistair & Vera stayed in Griffith after he retired. Vera died on 15 March 1998. Alistair still talked, and stayed at home until he had a fall about Easter 2021. After some weeks in hospital, he moved to a Nursing Home in Brisbane, near his son John in mid-May. After, apparently, another fall, some broken ribs and punctured lung he died on the morning of 16 June 2021, aged 95.
My service covered 20 years from 1965-85, and I was privileged to serve under Eric Hoare’s leadership. My desire to continue my career from The Cotton Research Corporation (CRC) in Africa, to the CSIRO in Australia arose from my reading a publication by Jan Basinski, a member of CSIRO Division of Land Research in Canberra. It discussed proposals to increase cotton production in Australia to supply both local and export markets. This would require embracing both rain-grown and irrigated crops, the latter in particular. I had 10 years of experience in both, as a Plant Breeder/Agronomist with short and long staple cottons.
My inquiry was also motivated for family reasons in regard to education, lifestyle, in a land of sunshine. Future prospects for tertiary education and subsequent employment for the children in Australia, contrasted with what might be the scenario after independence and Africanization in Africa.
My employer (CRC) was based in London, UK, but with many research inputs in Commonwealth countries. It understood my family priorities, and that administratively a secondment to CSIRO was feasible for both Organizations. Mr Hoare was contacted and prolonged exchanges were conducted so that a position could be provided.
30,000 acres of cotton were envisaged in the MIA / CIA, and preliminary yields at the research station were satisfactory. So diversification through cotton would lessen the dependence upon rice. Through irrigated cropping there would be less national vulnerability than when only dependant upon rain-grown wheat and wool; and also adding another fibre for export. A position was found!
The arrival of Mr Hoare in 1956 as an engineer to the Irrigation Research Station, coincided with disastrous flooding from prolonged heavy rainfall. This affected, particularly, citrus, peaches, and grapes as perennial crops. This provoked joint efforts by agronomists and engineers, and tile drainage became a reality. However, this was not applicable to annuals in larger scale cropping such as cotton.
A wide range of soils with varying clay content convinced Mr Hoare and his scientists that a multi-disciplinary team to tackle varietal adaptation by plant breeding was to be the future pattern of research. Engineers, physicists, physiologists, agronomists, should be recruited, together with supporting staff. Expertise was to be exchanged with other Divisions of CSIRO, Universities, State Departments. Locally a committee (IREC) was to advise priorities requiring research, and the extension of research.
Alistair with cotton. Photograph courtesy of Alistair Low
The Research Station was well situated in the region, but also adjoining a town with an adequate business centre and schooling. Thus, the needs of research and family requirement were met especially with CSIRO low rental housing to settle overseas appointments to a new environment. His philosophy was, “Happy Families resulted in Better Science”.
If cotton was to help diversify cropping several hurdles had to be surmounted. The thrust was directed toward water use efficiency to reduce that required by rice and thus obviate rising water tables and salinity. It was evident that cotton would use less water than rice, but solar energy was inadequate due to a short season. A temperature model based on heat units as Growing Degree Days was calculated using many years of data obtained from the Meteorological Bureau covering Eastern Australia. These data revealed a season 30 days less than cotton growing areas further north. Thus, a future variety had to bridge this gap, and this was achieved in conjunction with higher plant populations. A multi-disciplinary approach then required the application of weed and pest control, and both sowing and harvesting machinery. Mr Hoare's vision had been vindicated.
During this period an emphasis towards physiologists increased as the demands of physicists decreased. Soil scientists studied soil profiles with respect to drainage and nutrient uptake, with application to citrus, rice, cotton, corn, and vegetables. These intra-divisional priorities coincided with inter-divisional changes particularly in relation to cotton. In 1973 centralization of cotton research to the Namoi Valley, and withdrawal from the Ord and MIA, coincided with an increase in heart disease, so CSIRO initiated the ALTA PROJECT. This was to involve three Divisions: Health Sciences and Nutrition, Animal Production, and Irrigation Research.
This project was to produce polyunsaturated beef and dairy products from ruminants, such as steak, lamb, milk, cheese, yoghurt. My role was in the MIA, to secure safe yields of sunflower via disease resistant cultivars under the safety of irrigation, and based in Griffith. Thus, plant oils replaced plant fibres.
Once again, the lack of suitable germplasm to increase genetic variability became a priority. Introduction via seed was slow and in 1974/75 my initiative to import genes by using pollen was successful. Overseas breeders from several countries co-operated and pollen was flown in by arrangement and crossed onto male sterile females under the safety of glasshouse conditions. Several crosses could be made onto one female line. Dominant genes were readily secured and plant variety rights evaded as crosses had to be made. At this time Mr Hoare retired having supported my research throughout, whether on cotton or oilseeds.
Thus, my initial inquiry in 1964 resulted in secondment as an Experimental Officer Grade 3, to do research as a Plant Breeder. After 2 seasons, I accepted a permanent position as a Senior Research Scientist and later my promotion to Principal Research Scientist in 1975. My career had been satisfying and amply rewarded, and I retired upon reaching 60 years of age in 1985. I had enjoyed, along with my fellow scientists, Mr Hoare's leadership as Chief of the Division Research CSIRO.
NoelDewar - Memoirs of a cotton picker
In the spring of 1965, after working and saving for 2.5 years I bought my first car, a Ford Cortina. At the time I was working at the Victorian Department of Agriculture research farm at Werribbe, involved in the variety testing of cereals and the maintenance of the parent seed lots.
I was keen to take the car for a long drive to run-it-in, and to see the Riverina which was regarded as fine grazing and cropping country, and the MIA about which I had read. I crossed the Murray at Echuca and journeyed through Deniliquin and Moulamein to Balranald and Hay. These were magical names, famous sheep towns with famous merino studs dotted throughout. When I got to Darlington Point I took a loop north through Griffith and Leeton before returning to the Sturt Highway at Narrandera. I was impressed: the MIA looked prosperous with a variety of agriculture and horticulture. I admired the cereal
crops and thought the yellow shoots emerging from the wet ground were rice plants; it was early October. I remember two other things: it was warm and dry, in the high 20s whereas in southern Victoria it was still cold and wet. The second was the smell of orange blossom, although I didn’t know what it was at the time, only that it was a clean, sweet smell, intermittently as I drove through the area.
Only a week after I returned home, I saw an advertisement for a position at CSIRO Griffith. I recall writing a very strange application in which I said I know nothing about cotton and very little about irrigation, but I did know about managing variety trials and had been involved with some cereal trials throughout southern Victoria. Several weeks later I came to Griffith for an interview and that was the first time I saw an irrigated cotton crop. I joined the cotton crew in the first week of 1966.
Our primary aim was to establish a cotton industry in the MIA & CIA and in other western Riverina areas where water was available. To this end the research took several directions with the major challenge being to produce some varieties having a shorter growing season, without losing yield or quality compared to the commercial varieties available at the time. In a conventional breeding program we aimed to reduce the season from 180 to 145 days. Another direction was plant density trials to enhance earliness and yield. We also had district trials at Moulamein, Jerilderie, Yanco, Coleambally and Warawidgee to demonstrate that cotton could be grown on a wide range of soils throughout the western Riverina.
The cotton team I joined comprised young and active members. Alistair Low even claimed to be the “fittest man in the MIA”! We were all driven by the desire to produce suitable early varieties and to see them used widely in the Riverina. On the research farm there was hardly a paddock without cotton. There were hundreds of small plots so the manual work needed was incredible. To sow the plots one person sat on each planter and dribbled the seed down the planter tubes. Later we needed to manually thin every plot, and then make monthly observations through the summer. In autumn we would pick each variety several times to produce a yield curve and a final yield. Then in winter each plot was ginned separately so June McMahon could make fibre tests in the controlled atmosphere laboratory. In 1966 the cotton group, in addition to Alistair, June and myself, included Ben Bruemmer, Pino Pistillo, Robin Godber, Kathy Bock and Laurie Bisa. When they left, the last three were replaced by Jan Lomas, Chris Leonard and Phillip Matthews.
The cotton picker
We worked quite hard in the summer and to beat the heat started about 6 am and finished mid-afternoon, then a swim in the dam and cool-down before going home. In those days CSIRO was a socially active place and quite a few of us played tennis each weekend on the courts behind the potting shed. We also had an active social committee that organised several socials each year for staff and guests. These needed extensive decorations and frequently some catering. In the summer they were held at the barbeque beside the pool, and in the winter in the tea-room. Since many of the staff came from outside the MIA or from overseas, they had no family ties in Griffith, or long-term friendships, so our first friends were made within the CSIRO staff.
In late 1969 Eric Hoare asked me to leave the cotton team and become Farm Manager. I did, largely for the challenge and experience. At this time, I took on a small project, under the guidance of Keith Garzoli,
growing some vegetables in the glasshouse in hydroponics and enhanced CO2 levels (I don’t dare tell now I was adding CO2 to the atmosphere!).
After about 18 months as Farm Manager, I thought I knew about farm management and decided to go share-farming, growing vegetables. I remember Eric Hoare telling me it was not a wise decision which would lead only to long hours of toil and very unreliable recompense. He was right, of course, but I was too young to be told.
I married Lynn Mallaby in 1969. She had joined CSIRO on 5 February 1968 and was assistant to Dick Lang then Ben Darbyshire until 1974. We still live in Griffith, in retirement.
GeoffEvans
I was appointed to CSIRO in late 1966, while working for the Agricultural Research Council of UK, at Cambridge School of Agriculture. I had not met Eric Hoare or anyone else from the lab until someone (I forgot who) told me that Hank Greenway was on sabbatical in Europe and arranged for him to come and see me. I remember we chatted away in my little dark room in Downing St., Cambridge. Towards the end I said “Oh, the odd thing is I have been to Hillston, West Wyalong, Wagga but never to Griffith”. Hank stared at me in amazement and his jaw dropped. Finally, he said “Oh, I thought you were English but you are vun of us!”. Vun of us indeed! I have never forgotten that.
There was a bit of confusion when we arrived in Griffith, with 2 small kids then, in a newly bought station wagon in January 1967. It was as hot as Griffith can be, and we were relieved to find that it was, indeed, over 100oF when we got there, because “God keep us” had it been only 80o in the shade. We were taken to the Boonah Street house and spent 1 or 2 nights there. Ann was particularly outraged by the dried baked beans splattered on the walls of the oven, due, allegedly, to one of the bachelor groups last there trying to heat a sealed can of beans in the oven. Also, the Kikuyu grass growing up, in and through the roof of the toilet, was not a good look. Eventually Keith Garzoli, with someone else but I forget who, arrived to check it all out. Ann was very angry and my memory is of Keith retreating fairly quickly up the garden path (someone had to be responsible) and Ann shouting after him “Do you work for CSIRO?”; and Keith per force “Er well sort of “ while keeping moving quite fast.
But it all came good because it was Keith who came back shortly after with the information that Almoola Street where Keith and Evelyn had lived, was vacant, and a much better house. So we went there and it was very good for the whole five years we were in Griffith.
Eric Hoare wanted me to do some sort of water balance study of the MIA – where the water went, drainage losses etc. So, I spent a lot of my first year, 1967, driving around and studying the area to see how it all worked. Also, discussions with Alan Gunn on a substantial program of water analysis which his lab did. Also, a lot of time in the workshop with Jack Bleijie building a set of flumes to measure flow in a set of strategic drainage channels. I had one of these on a point in Mirrool Creek and after a flood it disappeared. Pieter Weerts used to go to change the charts on these flumes and on that day he announced “It’s gone, cannot see it anywhere” Doom & gloom! John Blackwell to the rescue: he announced that he would go to find it with his long legs, and he did. Just down stream, as you might hope and expect. Unfortunately, the only published report of all that was an IREC conference proceedings in 1971. It should have been published as a CSIRO bulletin because a lot of data, which would have been useful for comparative purposes now, has been lost.
I left at the end of 1972 to join the Senate Committee staff in Canberra, after a lot of uncertainty in making up my mind. I tended to think that what was needed in the MIA, and elsewhere too, was action to implement what we already knew in a practical and policy sense rather than basic research. The pressure points were political, in the broadest sense, rather than scientific. Of course, that is not to knock those at the lab who were doing good publishable work in various fields. I did some other work myself
and published it (nothing world-beating) because the water balance work was long term and essentially local, and one had to publish in CSIRO, and rightly so.
A visitor from Israel, Israel Levin, worked with me for a year (1970?). He was 60ish then, and in a tremendous hurry. He had migrated to Israel in the 1930s, been a dairyman, and did a degree late in life. We did some work on leaching. I remember his coming back from a car trip around SE Australia with his wife and being absolutely blown out of his mind by the vast distances.
Before my time, is this story which I have only second- or third-hand. When Eric Hoare was appointed he ordered a state-of-the-art, knockdown glasshouse from England, to be delivered to Griffith. It arrived before he did. In the inter-regnum between Eric West and Eric Hoare the station was under the charge of Emilio Levi at Merbein, with someone at Griffith responsible locally. When the glasshouse kit arrived the local did not quite know what to do with it, so he telegraphed Emilio for instructions. He telegraphed back “Postpone erection until Hoare arrives”. Very sensible.
Eric Hoare was a great raconteur, with various stories. One, which I always enjoyed, was his encounter with King George VI whilst Eric was director of engineering at Silsoe. It was an old landed estate in Bedfordshire and had various brick arches to certain areas. The king was on an inspection tour and being shown around by Eric when he noticed that some arches had been widened. Eric had caused certain machinery to damage them because they were too narrow. HRH was impressed and confessed he would love to do the same but the (expletive) Department of Works would not let him, “But I can do what I like at Sandringham, they cannot tell me what to do there, because that’s mine”. In the telling of this story, it was accompanied by much “and I said to the King” and “the King said to me”; great mates! Very entertaining.
I think Eric Hoare was good for the laboratory because he kept, much better than anyone else, in touch with local matters. He also engendered a very cooperative, angst-free environment amongst the staff at all levels. He did not do scientific work himself; he didn’t need to.
BettyKlepper
died October 2018 (message from Ray Ceccata)
From October 1966 to April 1968, I held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the CSIRO Irrigation Research Laboratory, which became a Division just after I left. Eric Hoare was my supervisor. I worked with Henry Barrs, Hank Greenway, and Dick Lang. I lived with June McMahon on Banna Ave. over Aliprandi’s drugstore.
I learned a lot about managing scientists from Mr. Hoare. When later I directed a lab for the US Department of Agriculture in Pendleton, Oregon, I found that some of his approach showed up in my style. He knew when to bend the rules and when to play it by the book; when to direct and when to give the scientists free rein- which was frequently. On my first Christmas, I had little leave time accumulated but had the chance to go with Gerald Moss in my little VW to see Victoria and meet up with the Langs on the coast. Mr. Hoare wrote out a leave slip and told me that he would put it in his drawer and would tear it up if I got safely back. Yes, he bent a rule, but he won my loyalty.
I’ll never forget working with Henry Barrs. One day as I was walking down the hall in the main building, Henry came barreling along yelling at Keith Garzoli that a power outage had just interrupted his latest experiment. Pat O”Brien and I were just outside of the Women’s Restroom and we slipped quickly into that refuge to escape coming in contact with the approaching maelstrom. It turned out that that outage, of about 20 minutes, threw the plants in the growth chamber into a cycling where the stomata closed during the outage and then began to open and close so that the plant alternatively swelled and wilted on about a 1-hour cycle. That little episode led to quite a chunk of work by both Henry and Dick Lang.
Working with Henry gave me a chance to get to know Ray Ceccato and his family well. We even did some research on the Ceccato farm. His folks would always send me home with some eggs or some of
whatever fruit was in season when I worked there, or whenever they had me over for dinner. I have kept up with Ray since I left and followed his growing family and his career in teaching with great pride.
Hank Greenway was both fun to work with and productive. He left to go to the University of Western Australia while I was still in Griffith. With him I worked on water and nutrient fluxes into plant root systems. I got to know Peter Hughes pretty well when I worked with Hank and adopted Peter as my Aussie brother. Some of my finest memories were of trips down to the Murrumbidgee River with Peter on Sundays to fish, yabbie, and cook t-bone steaks on his barbeque made from an old plow disk.
The Lang family was a favorite. I’ll never forget the first weekend that I was in Griffith. June had been called away by a death in her family and I was by myself. On that Saturday morning, I was puttering around in our flat when a tap-tap-tap came to the door and Hilary Lang was out there peering through the glass door. She and Dick and their family took me on a delightful picnic in the bush that day. That gesture symbolized to me the hospitality that I received from everyone in the lab. I was out to barbeques, dinners, and all sorts of family activities during my stay. I loved living in Griffith. Everyone in the lab was so kind to me and were so willing to share with me all of the lifestyles represented there.
Dick Lang and I did some modeling of the stomatal cycling that Henry had discovered. Working with Dick on mathematical models and computers helped to prepare me for a later career of modeling crop root growth and water uptake from soils and describing patterns of cereal shoot development mathematically for crop growth models.
I was fortunate to be able to room with June McMahon during my time there. She was very patient with me. I learned so much from her by helping her in the kitchen. I still think of her every time I cook something special. We gave a couple of great parties while I was there and she and I have remained friends over all the intervening years, with occasional visits to spend time together.
Betty Klepper, operating a pressure Bomb to measure leaf water potentials
PhotographcourtesyofRayCeccato
The secretaries then were Robin Martin, Neva Cornale, and Roseanne Collier. I spent leisure time with all of them. Neva and Roseanne travelled with me to Sydney when my uncle came on a cruise and enjoyed blueberry pie for dessert on the ship. I happened to have Robin visiting me in the USA in Alabama when Eric Hoare came for a visit and she helped take good care of him. I remember that it was asparagus season and Eric wanted to be sure that we did not overcook the asparagus!
I brought with me to Griffith a design for a pressure chamber (it measures leaf water potential in the field) from the laboratory of Paul Kramer who had supervised my Ph.D. program on plant water relations. Jack Bleijie and Reg Anlezark worked hard to build a chamber which Ray and I then used to measure diurnal changes in the water potential of fruit trees, vines, and other field plants.
One teatime, Gerald Moss claimed that he could walk, not run, from the Co-op Corner to the Station in under 30 minutes. I bet him that he couldn’t! Reg Anlezark, who had been a champion walker in his youth, also bet me that he could do it. We had at least a dozen or more try it. Mr. Hoare was the “official” timekeeper and Mrs. Hoare served cold lemonade at the finish line. Ray Ceccato was one of the referees to be sure that everyone walked (heel down first). Gerald and the cotton breeder, Alistair Low, were the only ones who made it in under 30 minutes.
After I left Griffith, I taught for four years at Auburn University in Alabama; worked for four years for Battelle Northwest Laboratories in contract research on ecological mobility of radioactive materials on the Hanford Reservation in Washington State; and finally took a position with the USDA from where I retired in 1996 after 20 years of service. My time in Griffith prepared me well for my career. I got the chance to work with some excellent scientists and technicians and absorbed a lot of lessons in style from some top-notch people.
GeraldMoss
Gerald & Christine moved to England after he retired from CSIRO; they live in Whitchurch, Shropshire. I was recruited in England in the second half of 1966, and met the Officer-in-Charge of the Irrigation Research Laboratory, Eric Hoare, and also Hank Greenway. (There was also a job going at the Deniliquin laboratory, but Hank decided for me by saying about Deniliquin that it was OK there as long as you liked 100 in the shade and there was no shade anywhere.) My position was that of Research Scientist dealing with problems of citrus, in particular biennial bearing where a large crop is inevitably followed by a poor crop.
I sailed from Southampton on 10th November 1966 on the “Achille Lauro”, arriving in Melbourne about the 7th December. As I took with me piles of reprints, I had plenty of time to study the literature on citrus, as well as get acclimatised in many ways. A day before the ship arrived, a cool front had gone through so the weather was very pleasant on arrival, but there was a dock strike. The next day I was collected by Fred Whitford in a ute bearing Commonwealth plates – he simply drove into the dock area and collected my two trunks with no problem. The scenery on the drive to Griffith did not impinge; it was more or less what I expected, except for the Galahs, and place names such as “Jimmy Turn Back Creek”.
In those days Griffith was expanding rapidly, and accommodation was scarce, and often rather primitive, but probably better than in some other parts of Australia at the time. I stayed for a few days in the hotel at the corner of Kooyoo Street and Yambil Street. Very old fashioned, the food was plain but very good. At the laboratories there was the Chief’s house, another house where the Muirheads were living, and a small flat. In addition, CSIRO owned a number of older houses in Griffith because it was considered that housing problems made recruiting quality staff difficult. I was housed in the flat for a short while. People were very helpful, and I was introduced to such survival techniques as putting a wet towel over the fridge to keep it working in the extreme heat. Soon I was fortunate to rent a new flat in a block on Wakaden Street, near the railway yard. The noise of the trains was no problem, but the Kookaburras
were very noisy in the morning. Rents were relatively expensive (around $70 - $80/month). I was able about a year later to move into 233 Wakaden Street, a CSIRO-owned house, due for demolition. I shared this with Lloyd Downey (on secondment for the NSW Department of Agriculture). This house was a timber frame construction on piers with weatherboard exterior, I remember it as being very hot in summer; I do not think the garden was very inviting. We then moved to a small house at 19 Evatt Street, a big improvement as it was of recent build, with brick veneer and an evaporative cooler, in a nice street, but the house was built in one corner of a bare block. I married in 1969, and my wife moved into Evatt Street, and we developed a garden there. Another move to 29 Carrathool Street in 1970, an old CSIRO house, built around 1934, corrugated-iron-roofed, fibro-clad, plus a sleep-out with louvre windows. The soil physicist, ‘Bill’ Blackmore, had just moved out, and I remember having to hack down a large Agave with an axe to get to the front door, and remove a ute load of old newspapers. It was on a large block of about 1300 square metres, with a nice garden – I remember a side hedge of Tecoma capensis with its orange flowers in winter, Kurrajong trees on the west side for shade (but they lose their leaves in a hot summer), and a large white cedar (Melia azedarach) in the back garden which shed hard marble-like fruits that made a din when mowing the lawn as they hit the galvanised iron fencing. Although cold in winter and warm in summer (we fitted a cooler) we enjoyed living there. I could catch the laboratory bus in the morning, and it was a short walk into town. The CSIRO bus was about a 20-seat bus, usually driven by Stan Barrett; it collected people to start work at 08.00, and made a second run for those who started at 08.30, returning people home at 16.45. We were ‘green’ before the term was ever thought about. In 1973 we bought a small ‘hobby farm’, and built our own house, living there from 1974 until we finally left in 1987. It was not easy at the time to buy or build a house – mortgages were ‘rationed’, taking years of saving before one could obtain one.
In the early days CSIRO had a great reputation. On trips to the city, someone would ask what you did, and often they would comment “what a good job CSIRO is doing for Australia”.
It was impressive arriving at the laboratory with its carefully tended rose garden in front, purpleflowered Campsis sp. around the main front entrance (in winter the orange flowers of a Pyrostegia venusta climber graced the junction of the new and old building). The new block (adjoining the left of the main building) had been completed only a year or so before I arrived. There was a car park in front of the workshop with large impressive date palms casting much needed shade (sorry no dates).
The whole facility was self-contained, and very well equipped. It had: its own services (water, rainwater, steam boiler heating, emergency power), an excellent workshop, two large Cambridge greenhouses, two older greenhouses (one for the garden and one for propagation). There were photographic facilities and a chemistry laboratory in the oldest part of the main building. The ground floor of the new building housed growth cabinets, an electronics workshop and, almost ahead of its time, a computer facility. The upper floor contained the library and most importantly the tea room and conference room, and drafting office. The ground floor of the central building was mostly administration. My office and two laboratories (on the first floor of the middle section of the main building) I shared with Peter Cary, Bert Gilliard, and my assistant was Rhonda Bartholomew. In the grounds were also the cotton laboratory and store, and a little way off the farm buildings and garage. There were tennis courts on the site, but I cannot remember them being used a lot.
Despite citrus (oranges, lemons, mandarins, grapefruit) being an important fruit crop there was little published research, mostly from Riverside California and Florida, and by very few people. However, at the Irrigation Research Laboratory practical citrus research had been carried out since the early days of its formation. There was some very good solid work done before me. A remarkable field trial had been planned as far back as 1939 before being set up later, that is the Farm 466 citrus experiment (see Peter Cary’s contribution). Recognition should be given to Bert Gilliard who worked overseeing this trial, and the data collection; he was a real stickler for accuracy, reliability and organisation. I ‘mined’ the data (along with Warren Muirhead), and was impressed how reliable it was. Also, the technique of using fruiting citrus cuttings had been developed at the lab; I do not think the importance of this technique to citrus research has ever been fully realized. It enabled a wide range of studies to be carried out relatively quickly as long as a regular supply of one-year-old plants was available. My immediate predecessor had been Fritz Lenz who had done some work on the flowering of citrus, and had confirmed it is stimulated to flower by short days. The citrus work done at Griffith from 1926 to 1976, I think, represents a solid
achievement. When one looks back there had been some very able people working at the lab, and some work was probably ahead of its time e.g. the water relations work of Eric West and Reg Pennyfather, and looking at the staff list for 1949 I can recognise several names of people who had successful later research careers.
I was able to exploit the technique of using cuttings to work out the detail of the flowering response of oranges, study flowering in the field on well grown trees, and to mine the data from the Farm 466 trial for responses of yield to weather events. I think I succeeded in describing the causes of biennial bearing, and other environmental factors that affect yield. I carried out some detailed studies of flowering and fruit setting in the field – I doubt if this will ever be repeated because it is so labour intensive. Biennial bearing could be controlled by using the hormone gibberellic acid (which also increased yield) but at the time it was too expensive. Ethylene promoters could be used for fruit thinning, but my experience was that their use was too unreliable. It was very much a team effort; there was a lot of co-operation, and up until about 1974 there was a very good environment for research. I also did some measurements of photosynthesis of citrus, and was aware that atmospheric CO2 was higher than that published earlier; alas we did not latch on to global warming, but Eddie Linacre had tried to show that large scale irrigation farming might change the local climate. Due to various pressures, I also carried out work on other aspects of this crop.
The 20 years following 1966 was a period of rapid technological advancement. As a student I had used mechanical calculating machines for statistical calculations, by the time I reached Griffith, main frame computers were available where the data were punched onto Hollerith Cards, and bundles air freighted to Canberra; a slow and tedious process, but it enabled complex statistical calculations to be carried out. This progressed steadily to a PDP9 computer, which enabled interfacing with the main frame in Canberra. About 1974 we were able to use the predecessor of the Internet for literature searches although it was costly and limited to few databases. Henry Barrs returned from the USA with the first on site PC, an Apple computer. I bought my own PC, a CDC machine, in 1984, but it cost me $5000.
Peter Cary and Gerald Moss showing current Citrus research to Federal Minister for Science, Bill Morrison c 1973
PhotographcourtesyofRogerHoare
Some of my work I carried out in Canberra, at the Phytotron, and some fieldwork at Mildura, and I had very good co-operation with the N.S.W. Department of Agriculture, and to a lesser extent in Victoria and South Australia.
One probably did not realize what a good boss Eric Hoare was, until he retired and left. The 1960’s were probably the golden years, as funding was adequate, and one could get on with the work within a broad remit. Eric had a very good understanding of irrigated agriculture, and the importance of crop efficiency to the system. However, I thought that policy at CSIRO Irrigation Research Laboratory was sometimes confused – there was basic research (although this related to practical things), basic applied research, environmental and agronomic work including the plant breeding, which all went together very productively, but sometimes we got involved in short-term practical problems because of our closeness to the local farming community. Things changed in the 1970’s, but not for the better; my view is that research became more directed, directed into other areas, with more ‘short-termism’, and morale suffered. Alistair’s cotton work could have come to fruition if it had been allowed to go on for a few more years – the time frame was not long enough – now in 2011 there is a world shortage of cotton.
Social life was very good. A highlight event, in my first year was the visit of the CSIRO executive in March 1967, Eric putting on a very showy barbeque. There was always something, from lazing around the dam underneath the Sugar Gum by the Chief’s house on a Sunday afternoon, boozy barbeques, and varying events. Alistair Low was a great one for organising things – such as the station’s float in the Griffith Carnival – one was where a group of ‘slaves’ pulled Alistair’s carriage through the main street, with him dressed in a ‘leopard’ skin.
There was a visiting American scientist, Betty Klepper; one morning she missed the bus, and had to ring up and get someone to collect her. At morning tea, I suggested she could have walked to work in less than 30 minutes. This rash statement resulted in a bet. So, one lunchtime, many from the lab took part in a walking race; from the Ex-Servicemen’s’ Club in town to the laboratory (4.7km). It was won by Michael Lord in about 27 minutes, Alastair Low came second in 28 minutes and myself a close third – the bet was won (I still have the photograph to prove it!).
A lot of discussion was carried out in the afternoon tea break, as well as social interaction. Jack Bleijie (workshop supervisor) organised a trip to Whitecliffes to fossick for opal. This was a real expedition, and I suppose quite risky with a long journey on dirt roads across black soil plains. It was before the era of terrorism so explosives were easily obtained – I am not sure they were used to clear the spoil or just for the bang.
There was an air of the Wild West in Griffith – on paydays two people went to the bank to collect the money, and were issued with a 0.38 revolver and three rounds of ammunition; fortunately they were never used. On the other hand I sometimes found it constraining being a long way from other places. I very much enjoyed my frequent trips to Canberra.
When I arrived, it was the start of the 1966-68 drought. Those two summers were very hot. The ‘old timers’ took delight in telling me “You should have been here in 1939; it was really hot then”. This happened so often that I thought there must be something in this folklore, so I went through the original weather manuscript books, and was surprised by how extreme the weather had been in 1939.
I thought the town attractive in many ways. It was busy, but with a relaxed air as well. People often did not lock their doors, or lock up their cars. In the 60’s shops closed at 5 pm, and on Saturday afternoons, and Sundays. However, there was a loop-hole in the regulations – a shop selling refreshments (a cafe) could remain open – there was a popular grocery store in Banna Avenue that had a cafe, and if one needed anything urgently you could slip behind into the store and buy essentials - very useful. I always found the Co-op very convenient; it was the first supermarket and department store in town, and served us well for many years.
I owe a lot to Griffith. I learnt a lot, and had to be very practical. One regret was that I did not study the local wildlife more. Although one could start identifying birds as there were good books such as
Cayley’s “What Bird is That”, there was very little for plants. I learnt how to identify most of the Eucalypts, and a few other trees, and I became interested in native ornamental plants. One interest I have is grasses, but Australia has a huge number of species, and they just overwhelmed me.
BenDarbyshire
Ben & Geraldine moved to their orchard in SW Western Australia after he retired as Warden of St George’s College in The University of Western Australia. I arrived at Griffith in December 1967. I had completed a first degree from The University of Western Australia and PhD from the University of Tasmania.
Rudi Amato picked me up from the airport. I first met Eric Hoare then Hank Greenway, Gerald Moss, and Betty Klepper. I knew Bill Blackmore from Perth where he had presented a soils unit at UWA.
The location was not a challenge, it was an ideal mix between irrigated and dry land agriculture. Early on it was difficult to figure out the direction of the Division and what my role was to be. We seemed to be a laboratory of individuals with the common direction arising from the coalition of individual inputs. In my view Eric was not a leader and probably did not promote a collective approach. The real positive of this was that it was up to me to achieve whatever it was that I chose to do. I think Eric intervened when external influences caused him to do so. For example, he “would prefer” me not to separate pigments from dry grown and irrigated wine grapes. And “was I really working on wheat” – not really just fructan metabolism. And “did I have any horseradish” that I could let him have. I think he accepted my work even if he didn’t seem to directly support what I was doing.
In point of fact the lab’s direction probably came from the enviable model that existed at and around Griffith. First, industries’ issues seemed to be identified through IREC and its committees. These were addressed by the WCIC, NSW Department of Agriculture and CSIRO. People came from other centres from southern NSW as well as ACT to be part of the activity. And then there were Yates Seeds, WattiPict, and the wineries, service providers, Leeton Cannery and more. So, CSIRO at Griffith was a small cog in a much bigger wheel. Perhaps Eric’s less directive approach contributed to a cooperative and collaborative outcome between people from different agencies. Perhaps he was able to facilitate rather than direct.
The active presence of professional associations (AIAST and Soils Science in my case) offered tremendous opportunities to meet people and to engage in a wide range of activities. This led on occasion to cooperative activities in addressing problems.
I was fortunate to have support for my research activities from Lyn Dewar (née Mallaby), John Brewer, and Rob Henry. Certainly, the engagement in all research activities benefited greatly and was made possible by the skills and gifts brought to the lab from all staff, both local and those from further afield.
The MIA community was in my experience both welcoming and egalitarian. We lived in a Commonwealth house at Yenda. Formally the house was owned by the Department of Customs and Excise. We were welcomed by the Yenda community and felt part of it. We were again fortunate when Eric agreed to support the use of a CSIRO vehicle for taking people to and from Yenda. We also called in at Bilbul to pick up Bobby Dalgliesh.
Overall, I am very grateful for the opportunities afforded to me during my time at Griffith. We have retained contact with some, and followed the progress of others. It would have been good to have visited since our departure but maybe that can still happen.
We moved to Perth in 1978, to take up the Wardenship of St. George’s College within the University of Western Australia
JohnBlackwell
John & Deb run a cattle property near Gundagai, but still owned the grape-crop on their Yenda vineyard (April 2021) having sold the house and land!
On landing in Sydney in mid-1967 my first attempt at job seeking was to buy the first weekend edition of the Sydney Morning Herald that I had ever seen. This produced a small one-column advert for an environmental control technician with CSIRO at its laboratory in Griffith NSW. The tale of my application and subsequent procurement of the job is worth the telling as it indicates something of Eric Hoare’s approach to management and introduces a real character and lifelong friend, Keith Garzoli, who, very sadly, is not with us to give his recollections of all the marvellous times we had in Griffith
I researched all aspects of the advert, a map helped me determine where Griffith was, an encyclopaedia what CSIRO was, and I remembered that I had had 6 lectures in Environmental Control so knew I was qualified. The application duly sent off, I entered into a great correspondence with Keith Garzoli, a man I pictured as a very suave, tall, grey-haired gentleman, of Italian extraction, in a beautifully tailored light grey suit. I was called for interview in Griffith in late 1967 so dutifully extracted my charcoal grey suit from my duffel bag and had it cleaned and pressed. I landed at Griffith airport in mid-December at around midday. As the plane door opened, I realised that I had not done sufficient research on Griffith and had overlooked the climatological data, the blast of 50-degree air made my charcoal suit seem a little ridiculous. Nevertheless, I braved the steps and tarmac and began dutifully scanning the fastdisappearing crowd for my tall Italian host. The crowd dispersed completely and I was left with a short personage of dubious descent wearing a tee shirt, shorts and thongs. Mr Garzoli, I asked quizzically, Mr Blackwell he replied in similar vein. This was the start of a lifelong friendship of many laughs and red wines.
We jumped into Keith’s government car and drove to the research station. All the time Keith was impressing upon me that I would be interviewed by one Eric Hoare who was an engineer of world fame who would be asking me a lot of searching questions. I recall thinking, “Oh well I have only come to Australia for a year on the way home to Rhodesia so I probably would not have visited Griffith in the normal course of events. Look on the bright side, John”. As we turned into the research station we were preceded by a large white Humber Super Snipe in which sat two very agitated women, who immediately sprang out of the car and ran to Keith who had pulled up behind them. They were shouting, “Keith we have run over a large brown snake and we believe it is still wrapped around the undercarriage.” Keith immediately entered the same frame of mind as the women and became quite flustered. I asked for permission to remove my jacket, what a relief, crawled under the car, killed the snake and brought it out. Brown snake, piffle, you should see a black mamba or gaboon viper, they are snakes. I assure readers that this gallant action had no bearing on the events that followed, the women by the way were Eric’s wife Isobel and youngest child Rosemary.
Keith dutifully showed me around the laboratory and introduced me to many staff. The dreaded interview with Hoare began at 2.00 pm with Keith ushering me into the Chief’s office and introducing me, before taking up a position slightly to my left and behind me. Eric began the interview by telling me how marvellous my qualifications were and that he had helped conceive the National Diploma in Agricultural Engineering, of which I was a fortunate recipient. He then quizzed me deeply about my experiences mining gold near the Arctic Circle in the Canadian North and building agricultural buildings around Calgary. I knew the difficult engineering questions would soon arise so spent as much time as I thought prudent answering these general questions. After further questioning my CV’s claim to my good health and being a reasonable rugby and squash player, Eric leaned back in his chair, looked over my shoulder at Keith and asked him; “When does Blackwell start, Keith?” I cannot vouch for Keith’s response as it was silent, but he assures me his jaw dropped, he held up 5 fingers, pointed at them with his other hand and mouthed the words “No, no, we have 5 more to interview”. Eric’s response was immediate; “Nonsense when does the lad start?” Thus began a wonderful 39 year association with an organisation I always felt paid me well for doing the things I loved, as well as affording me the opportunity of meeting so many great friends and growing to love Griffith and Yenda in spite of the climate. I gave the charcoal suit to Vinnies. I enjoyed my time and had a reasonably successful career in the organisation, ending up occupying Eric’s chair, though not his office, as Officer-in-Charge of the Laboratory.
Those early days were the halcyon ones when the Chiefs were all powerful with a one-line budget to manage, and the authority to manage it. Eric was a great democratic manager, I used to love the management meetings where he would listen to requests from individuals, Henry for more IRGAs, John Loveday for “just another shovel, Eric”, and Alistair for more field staff. Alistair took a long time to leave Africa in spirit. Lively discussion ensued around the table and then Eric reached his conclusions, from memory everyone seemed quite happy with them on balance. I sincerely hope I did half as well as him during my tenure of his seat.
Eric was also quite cunning in getting his way. He once approached Ben Darbyshire and me with the proposition that we youngsters should do our bit in the community, so why didn’t we join the newly formed Pioneer Park Committee that was going to preserve Griffith’s heritage for coming generations. We went to the next meeting and were duly elected to the committee, Ben as secretary and me as treasurer. The next week we bumped into Eric who greeted us with his usual, jovial, “What-ho men, can you spare a couple of minutes in my office?” On entering Eric explained that he had just purchased a farm at Whitton and there were loads of stuff suitable for the museum, would we like to go over and sort it out? For this read: the farm is full of junk, would you like to come over and clean it up for me? This may seem a little harsh of me but I cannot recall getting much for the museum, although we enjoyed the cleanup. The most memorable part of it was the discovery of an almost full case of hail rockets; the heads were about 3 inches in diameter and about a foot long. Darby and I looked at each other gleefully and agreed we should test just one. Darby being the senior got to insert the 6 foot stick in the head and I to ignite the thing. We positioned the takeoff to head out over the rice paddies and I lit the fuse whereupon we both retired to a safe distance. She took off beautifully, soaring into the air to a great height. On reaching about 2000 feet the thing arched over in the sky, not towards the paddy fields, but straight down towards the town of Leeton. At about 500 feet there was a puff of brown and black smoke, we turned to each other and said thank goodness, then the sound reached us. A deafening boom that really shook our eardrums. This was reported next day in the local paper, with much consternation as to the source of the noise. Like good Aussies, never dob in a mate, Ben and I kept stum.
Eric was a great gardener and his garden on the station was probably the most fertile patch in the whole MIA, he fed his family and many more from it. He was responsible for encouraging onions as a potential crop in the MIA and also, I believe, for demonstrating that roses were great for Griffith in spite of the summer heat. The Hoares were incredibly good parents, this is attested to by their four high achieving children. I have been fortunate to be close friends with the two sons, Roger and Cedric, and know the two girls Erica and Rosemary, though not as well. Rosemary may be able to confirm the veracity of the snake under the car tale. I ended up owning the Super Snipe buying it from Eric for the price he was offered as a trade in, generosity being another of his traits.
I spent 39 happy years with CSIRO in Griffith until I was made redundant by the Chief of the day following our amalgamation with two other Divisions. The wisdom at the time being to close down the remote laboratories, not that this was the reason for my redundancy, rather I believe I was far too outspoken as to my belief in the stupidity of this move. It is a view I still hold, which I hope will be vindicated some day.
In closing I want to put you straight as to the result of my initial meeting with Eric and the interview. I know many of you will believe that it was the snake incident that got me the job. On the contrary, the truth was shown to me by Eric’s son Cedric, who on my redundancy card presented at my farewell party, and sadly just before his early death, penned the words “Dad always had a good eye for a likely lad!”
On being made redundant the likely lad felt he could make ends meet by drawing a pension on his super and put more effort into selling his wine, Pentland Petit Verdot. We were picking approximately 50 tonne per year but only making about 5 tonnes for Pentland so there was plenty of room to expand. However, a marital separation prompted a year of my being pretty down, but this was deflected by the offer of a Professorship at Charles Sturt University in Wagga, which I gratefully accepted. My contract with the Uni was for 5 years, this ended in January 2012 but I have been asked to stay on at five days a fortnight to clear up some loose ends following the closure of the International Centre of Water for Food Security.
What really rescued me from my depression was the meeting of a wonderful woman, Deb Paton. We are now married and having a marvellous time. We have embarked on a beef-cattle rearing venture and, as well as keeping the vineyard and wine business going, have built a wonderful relaxing retreat at Talbingo in the Snowy Mountains. I might be a likely lad, but am certainly a lucky one. Much of this luck I attribute to lessons learnt from Eric: first stay calm in life, second live with enthusiasm. Eric was always cheerful and lived life with an entrepreneurial spirit.
VicEdwards
After I had graduated in economics from Sydney University, I took up a CSIRO administrative cadetship, during part of which I worked at CSIRO Fisheries in Cronulla. Having finished that training I decided to do my honours year, but with that completed I approached CSIRO again and was told of a position available as divisional administrative officer at Griffith, but ”the chief there was not like those at other divisions”.
So, I was the person endorsed by the Regional Administration Office before arrival, and Eric Hoare did not particularly like that. Moreover, I was only 23 years old and he thought I was "wet behind the ears". He told me these things almost in the first sentences of his initial interview with me. Nevertheless, we agreed on a modus operandi and on the whole I was left to get on with the job. I started at CSIRO, Griffith in January 1967.
I had to handle the administrative side of appointments: what different staff members wanted in terms of housing, accommodation, air-conditioning, equipment, budgeting and travel etc. both in terms of career and work, as well as their personal residential and family needs. It can always be said that Eric was a person who tried to select the best people who were appropriate to the job - even if Head Office did not think so. He backed those people with trying to ensure, in order of priority, that housing and family life were taken care of, and funding was sought and directed to their programs. His style of leadership was very transparent and democratic (whereas my experience with most other organisational units in my later career demonstrated styles were usually secretive and manipulative).
I was doing an historic overview of the MIA for my Masters thesis. I remember I was encouraged by Eric Hoare to write an article on "Bagtown", Griffith. I was assisted by the fact that Mrs Maureen Parker had a few old photographs of early Griffith from her father or grandfather. From memory, this article was published as a feature on two centre pages in "The Area News" sometime in 1968. I am not sure how much about the CSIRO lab was in this article.
My wife and I lived in the little flat at the back of the Muirhead home at the Station. We departed in about January 1972 for a lecturing position at Mitchell College, Bathurst where we stayed for 5 years before moving to the University of New South Wales where I remained until retirement.
StuartJ.Paterson
After I had left school and had had a few odd jobs, I saw an advertisement in the Melbourne “Sun” in 1968 for a position at Griffith. Having always been interested in plants, I applied, had an interview at East Melbourne; Gerald Moss was there. I was surprised when a telegram arrived at home to say I had been successful. Vic Edwards gave me lift from Melbourne to Griffith, and so I joined the citrus group on 1 April 1968 as a technical assistant, taking over from Rhonda Bartholomew. Peter Cary was overseeing Farm 466 and doing experiments in the glasshouse helped by Bert Gilliard and Fred Whitford. Gerald Moss was doing histology, investigating biennial bearing and fruit creasing. We also had experiments at Dareton. In the field the group was helped by Jack Potts and Ron Locke.
The workshop Photographcourtesyof RogerHoare
The Research Station was a friendly place with a lot of social activity: tennis on the courts behind the potting shed, an annual cricket match against ICI staff, and trips away for those interested in fossicking and the outdoors. In later years, after 1977, I worked in the experimental greenhouse group. Jack Bleijie trained me for 4 years, adding to my welding certificate, so when he retired from the workshop I was able to take over. I was in the workshop for 22 years until I decommissioned it before it was demolished, and I retired after almost 40 years in CSIRO. Part of my farewell present was the small lathe, which I still use in my home workshop.
Stu still lived in Griffith, when he was not travelling in the Outback, fossicking, sometimes with the Bleijies. However, I heard from Peter Rangott on 20 Feb 2020 that Stu had died, aged 70. He had been found at his home in Gordon Avenue; his funeral was at St Albans on 19 July 2019.
JohnSale
John & Margaret lived in Hobart for some years. He was still a vegetable grower, on an allotment. 28 Oct 1933 (Chichester, SSX) – 17 Nov 2022 (Hobart) I joined the CSIRO Division of Irrigation Research in Griffith, in 1969. The position was simply 'to do research relevant to the growing of vegetables in the MIA", an initial term of 3 years but extendable.
I had been doing cocoa research for 4 years in Trinidad at the time I saw the advertisement and thought it was time I moved on. Although the Trinidad lifestyle was exciting there was increasing West Indianisation - the days of the expatriate were really coming to an end. My wife Maureen had just had our first child, Katharine, and we envisaged doing 3 years or so in Griffith and then moving back to the UK. As it turned out, jobs became increasingly scarce and competition greater, and I converted to a permanent position and stayed 20 years in Griffith. Henry Barrs, another plant physiologist, came down from a sabbatical in the USA to interview me. My first job had been nearly 5 years in the irrigation section at the National Vegetable Research Station, Wellesbourne, UK, which clearly made me well qualified for the Griffith position. Alastair Low, a cotton breeder in Griffith who had previously worked in Africa, sent me an encouraging letter to say that I would probably find life in Griffith similar to that in Trinidad - alas, he could not have been more wrong. Griffith proved to have nothing of the exotic magic of the tropics. No vibrant life springing up as the sun set over the coconut trees and the fireflies dancing on the lawn as a steel band tuned up in the distance. Just the mosquitoes.
We were given the option of flying out or travelling first class on a passenger boat. Not a difficult choice, and after a holiday in England we caught the “Angelina Lauro” in Southampton. Those were still the days of the ten-pound migrant, and we had three stops in Italy as well as Cape Town. We were met by car in Sydney by Vic Edwards, then the Griffith administrative officer, who, after a night in Sydney, first took us to second-hand whitegoods shop to buy a washing machine and refrigerator - presumably such were not easily available in Griffith. They were collected, together with our considerable luggage, by Fred Roberts who had also come down with the laboratory's lorry. We travelled over the Blue Mountains and Vic took us to see the lookout over the Three Sisters at Katoomba. The visibility was about 3 metres through dense fog. We spent the night in West Wyalong and then to Griffith - a long way
especially with an 18-month-old baby. We were put up for two nights in the Griffith Hotel in Banna Avenue. Not impressed. Steak, chops and chips for breakfast and a very dreary room in a tired old building. The laboratory owned several old houses in Griffith and we were allocated 4 The Circle. A pleasant location but a grotty and depressing old fibro house with a tin roof in urgent need of repainting, and kitchen repairs, which were done in due course. No carport, but a large and neglected garden which we enjoyed doing up. CSIRO replaced a broken wood heater as winter came and we bought two window mounted evaporative coolers to make it bearable in the summer. The house had borrowed furniture which sufficed until our own turned up. Really not a good beginning, but at least the weather was pleasant since it was May. After about 6 years, and the birth of daughter Anna. we bought a house, 26 Wood Road. I think it cost $33,000. This was almost the only one on the market at the time - before East Griffith development - and was still fibro, tin roof and outside toilet, but in a popular road. We extended and modernised it. We found Griffith was quite undeveloped and while it had a hospital, quite a good public library and swimming pool there was not much else. Nearly all entertainment was at big clubs such as the RSL. The large Italian communities had their own clubs. It had no venue for visiting arts groups apart from St Alban's church hall, and I remember with embarrassment when the local Arts Council group, which I helped to relaunch, brought through Musica Viva the Sydney String Quartet for a performance there. The musicians were perspiring freely and trying to swat the mosquitoes away as they played. The cinema closed soon after we got there. However, it was a flourishing town and better facilities became available as the town developed rapidly. There were several clubs which I joined or helped to start - Rostrum enabled me to meet a wide cross-section of the more educated population, and a film society (held at CSIRO) and a play-reading group got underway.
On our first day Eric invited us out to lunch and we found him and his wife Isobel to be very kind and hospitable. They lived in a house in the laboratory grounds and were very committed to the district. It took me quite a while to feel comfortable in calling him Eric (even I had been "Sir" in Trinidad) though I observed the under-gardener had no such problem. The Laboratory and its surrounds were very attractive. Eric had landscaped the grounds and there was a beautiful rose bed and a small pond at the front with two gardeners to look after it all. There was a tennis court. The laboratory had excellent services – a good library with two librarians, engineering and carpentry workshops each with two craftsmen, a plumber, storeroom with storeman, a draughtsman and a good farm with farmhands and vehicle mechanic. Eric had sent out two large greenhouses from England on his appointment. There was a large collection of old citrus varieties on site, not now needed and barely maintained, but I enjoyed wandering through them. The Division also owned a citrus farm - farm 466 - about 2 km away, originally acquired for citrus research. It was still run by our farm staff and the fruit marketed to give us a bit of extra income not subject to the whims of Canberra. Later, when the price of oranges fell, it became a bit of a liability. The Division owned a small bus which made a daily circuit of Griffith to get people without transport to work by 8.30am, leaving again at 4.45pm (no charge). Money was quite plentiful in those days. Perhaps half of the scientists were British - there were not then many suitably qualified Australians, and those there were mostly wanted to live near the coast. All staff members were very friendly and co-operative. One was Teddy Trickett who Eric had persuaded to join him from National Institute of Agricultural Engineering and who was a technology and ideas man. I had met Teddy in about 1958 when my PhD supervisor and I went to NIAE to seek his help with measuring radiation He was then just preparing to come out to Australia and had been making recordings of typically English sounds (one was a scythe being sharpened, surely a bit obsolete?) and he was very excited about expanded polystyrene which had just been invented as an insulator. Teddy was an enormous help to everyone in the laboratory. Eric was quite avuncular and interested in staff and family welfare and morale was high. An active social club put on comic plays (a be-cloaked Keith Garzoli made a memorable villain), dances, quiz nights, barbeques and so on. Every Christmas Eric held a party for the children of all staff. He said he liked to see how they resembled their parents. Eric was greatly concerned with making the Division and Griffith well known in the area. We had a comprehensive weather station and I believe he was responsible for getting Griffith included in the ABC's weather forecasts. There were also twice daily tours of the laboratories for the public - these were conducted on rota by technical assistants, who did not enjoy doing them.
Divisional chiefs had great autonomy at first but bureaucracy was growing with a new CSIRO HQ in Canberra, which Eric found very frustrating. He was often in argument with them, convinced he was right, and he usually was. He was also carefully studying his superannuation to decide the optimum time
for his retirement. He had strong views on many subjects and was not afraid of expressing them. One day I walked past his office, with open door, and heard him complaining bitterly to himself about some iniquity perpetrated by our admin officer (who succeeded Vic Edwards, and was a difficult man). I put my head round his door and said "Eric, you can be heard all down the corridor". "Good, I don't care" he replied. He trusted his staff and let them pursue their research with little interference.
Research funds were quite plentiful and once a year all the research scientists sat round a large table and specified their requirements. As a new boy I was initially given favourable treatment and had no difficulty in getting funds for gas analysis equipment, data logging and so on. I had decided that since Griffith was a very high radiation area and water was cheap and plentiful (long before the days of over-allocation) I would study what factors were limiting crop productivity in the region. To this end Reg Anlezark built an excellent self- propelled air conditioner in the workshop, which could be used in the field attached to a movable Teflar covered tent. This could be placed over crops to provide a closed system in which measured carbon dioxide was added to a circulated air stream to maintain ambient levels. Peter Rangott was one of my technical assistants who was highly skilled in electronics and in the workshop and he built a second system and helped with their maintenance. I collected copious data on punched paper tape (thank you Teddy) and this was processed by my other assistant David Erskine, in the Division's computer room. I decided initially to work on potatoes since much data was available from round the world for comparison, later extending to other vegetables. In brief, I found that there was excess radiation for photosynthesis but productivity for each crop was limited by shorter daylengths and higher temperatures than in other parts of the world, but the higher temperatures caused crops to mature more quickly and enabled two crops a year to be grown compared with only one in most other regions.
I found that while there were good relations with other agricultural organisations, and even office space provided, there was little official cooperation between CSIRO and the local Department of Agriculture, which was heavily bureaucratic. This later improved. CSIRO was forbidden to work on rice, the principal local crop, and there was a small viticulture research station just down the road. Soon after I arrived Eric had arranged for me to meet with Angelo Provera who was the head of the region's packing and processing facilities and had good knowledge of vegetable growing. He had just returned from a
Assimilation chamber for vegetable crops in the field. PhotographcourtesyofRogerHoare
visit to America and had seen four varieties of tomato he thought suitable for the MIA, but quarantine would not allow the seed to be imported. As a very practical effort to help the area I offered to get them in and the seed raised in quarantine, which took about two years, and then do a field trial. I did this but unfortunately, he had by then apparently lost interest.
Eric had bought a cottage on the south coast at Dalmeny and was very fond of fishing. Teddy Trickett built a cottage just round the corner from Eric's and generously lent it to friends for holidays. We went there twice and Eric and Isobel once took me fishing. I caught a little bottom dwelling shark that I had no idea what to do with and felt bad about it. I only lasted a short time on a rather a bumpy sea. Griffith had very poor transport connections. There were two flights a day to Sydney via Narrandera, one very slow old rattler train a day to Sydney (changing at Junee) but no coach services. I once had to drive to Darlington Point (about 30km) to pick someone up at 4.30am off an Adelaide to Sydney coach. Otherwise, we drove everywhere, and a long day's travel to meetings and conferences as well as on holiday was frequent. HQ had forbidden the Griffith laboratory to have air-conditioned vehicles in spite of extreme summer heat. Then we found that when the occasional quasi-bureaucrat from Canberra HQ visited us they always had official air-conditioned cars (surprise) and one of my achievements when I was the Officers' Association representative for the lab was to overturn the ban. This was after Eric's time. Eric was very fond of his official car - a Humber I think - and when it was time for it to he replaced he went down to Sydney and bought it for himself at a government auction. Griffith's relative isolation meant weekend family outings were generally limited to the Lake Wyangan reserve, Scenic Hill, the Murrumbidgee at Darlington Point or the Binya Hills. We found this a bit limiting.
Eric eventually retired, to Dalmeny, in 1977. The laboratory had been a good place to work during his tenure, but after he left there were constant reviews, cut-backs and changes throughout CSIRO which made life much more difficult and morale deteriorated. He was sorely missed. About 2 years after he left, he asked the new chief if he could come and use our library for a couple of days to help research a paper he was writing. The chief refused permission, to the sad incredulity of the rest of us.
Peter Rangott
After living near Bundaberg for some years Peter & Marie-Claude returned to Griffith in 2012. The 12-13 years span I spent at CSIRO, Division of Irrigation Research, were probably one of the best experiences of my life. I came to CSIRO in 1969, after spending nearly 15 years working in my father's electronic business in Griffith. Vic Edwards, the admin officer, was a regular visitor to my father's shop for electronic components, and, during one of these visits, Vic suggested I might like to apply for a Technical Assistant position, working for Dr John Sale. I then met John who took me around the station and described what the job entailed. I remember at the time that there was a bit of trepidation about whether I would be up to the task of helping in his research on field grown potato crops, but felt reasonably confident that I could do the job. I still think about those years with a great deal of pride and also often think of all the people I met and worked with. Almost without exception, we all got along extremely well considering the diverse personalities.
What a wonderful place to work! What a wonderful job! What a pity it could not have gone on forever! My job was to design, build, fabricate or modify commercial equipment for John's needs for his research program. I worked with a wide range of materials, amongst these copper, brass, silver steel, and the heat treatment of same; skills I would never encounter anywhere else. There was equipment that needed to be fabricated from Perspex, sheet, tubular and round, all of which involved working on a variety of lathes, medium to large, as well as fabricating parts on the workshop large "Deckel" milling machine. The instrument workshop was comprehensively equipped and ably supervised by Mr. Jack Bleijie who kept a close eye on things.
I could go on and on... a wonderful experience. It was my exposure to an entirely different type of profession with elevated academic skills. It had, in retrospect, a profound effect on the way I looked at problem solving and approaching a task. I have never forgotten my time at CSIRO during these years.
It was an experience I would recommend to anyone. I often think of that time and would do it all over again.
I was very fortunate from the beginning to have a supervisor such as John Sale who was probably the best boss I could have ever had. He was a real gentleman and a wonderful human being. Bless you John, I hope life has been kind to you, and thank you for guiding me through some ups and downs. Later, in my time at the station, I had the opportunity to work for a number of other research scientists until the late 1970's, early 1980's, at which time I accepted a job as workshop supervisor at the School of Applied Science, Canberra College of Advanced Education (later known as University of Canberra) from where I retired in 1984. I was there 4 years.
DavidErskine
David lived at Moss Vale
I joined CSIRO Griffith in late 1969, and I was already living in Griffith. I understand that Eric favoured support staff from the Griffith region rather than have young people move away to the cities.
CSIRO Griffith, during the Eric Hoare years, was engaged in agricultural research, which while usually mundane, is important. Eric Hoare was in the mould of the practical man during the Industrial Revolution, an electrical engineer turned research manager. I wonder how he would have reacted to the change in focus of CSIRO Griffith from agricultural research to environmental studies. Perhaps he would have acknowledged the importance of scientific knowledge, including environmental knowledge, but would have preferred agricultural research. How would Eric have reacted to having research programs funded by short-term grants?
BarrieSteer
Adrienne and I arrived from UK in September 1969, after having spent 3 years in Indiana and Boston, USA, on post-doctoral research positions, followed by 10 months back in UK, at Bristol University. There were few jobs in the UK then but I had replied to an advertisement in the English newspapers and had had an interview with the CSIRO Liaison Officer in London, Mr Turnbull. I remember saying to him that I thought biological research was well-based in countries having vigorous agricultural industries. Years later, on my personal file, I found that the comment had been reported to Griffith; had that comment helped secure the job?
We were on the CSIRO pay-roll before we flew to Sydney on a Boeing 707, hopping across Europe and Asia, a remarkably easy journey with two young children. In Sydney we were met by an Australian friend from Indiana days, and by a young “meet & greet” fellow from CSIRO Sydney who had had a wasted journey to the wet, cool airport because we stayed with our friends for a few nights before flying on to Griffith. While in Sydney I visited the senior common room at Macquarie University, and was amazed to hear somebody from Griffith, Peter Cary as I discovered, talking about the expense of housing in Griffith. We thought it would be cheap in a country town. The surprise was heightened because our friends, who had been away from Melbourne for 3 years, were still reeling from the cost of houses in Sydney; and Griffith sounded yet more expensive.
Housing was always a problem; mainly because of the slow release of land in Griffith for domestic housing by the WCIC. This was recognised early and CSIRO purchased houses in Griffith so as to rent them to arriving staff, particularly those with families. Even then, many arriving families had to make do with other, hard-to-find, accommodation. I remember a fast drive to Yenda along the Beelbangera Road, then soft loam, by Ben Darbyshire to look at a very run-down shack with water dripping down the light lead – No Thanks! We had lived in “modest” premises just after we were married, but not now with 2 young children. We could find nothing to rent for a family, but a colleague, Jill Ford, lent a caravan which Fred Ford quickly put in place, by the CSIRO dam, plugged into the Hoare’s power supply, & close to Eric’s huge volumes of gaspacho. It was a very pleasant home, with spacious gardens,
for 2 spring months. Luckily before summer started, a CSIRO house, 107 Noorilla St., became vacant when the Barrs moved out and we moved in, and we bought their evaporative cooler, in situ. We stayed there for 2.5 years until we bought our own house in Youll St.
Once in a CSIRO house, folk could stay there until they moved from Griffith or bought their own house, something that could take a long time. New sub-divisions were occasionally released by the WCIC and the blocks were offered by ballot, which was usually over-subscribed by factors of 2 to 4. More commonly an established house was bought, after it became clear that the officer was going to work in Griffith for some time. Many who arrived here thought a five-year-stint would be acceptable professionally, but then stayed for longer, and not just because jobs elsewhere were difficult to find, but often because they liked working in Griffith, and their families enjoyed the lifestyle. When moves were made it was to other Divisions of CSIRO, often in Canberra, or to universities around Australia.
My first impression of the Research Station was of the dry, red soil along twisting Research Station Road as Vic Edwards drove us there from the motel on our first morning, to meet Eric Hoare. I came to like the red soil plains, especially the mallee, and it was that which attracted me back to Griffith, in retirement, after 23 years of absence, in Perth and Bathurst. As a plant scientist I see landscapes in terms of their vegetation so I soon tried to understand the Australian flora, making a flora list for Scenic Hill; and walking, with others over hills like the Cocoparras, Lachlan Range, Weddin National Park and the Ural Range near Lake Cargelligo.
The job advertisement had stipulated “the effect of the aerial environment on photosynthesis and the utilisation of photosynthetic products…may include the role of phytochrome in their utilisation”. My understanding of CSIRO before I came was that basic and applied research was acceptable, so when I realised that some other information was needed before starting on the effect of environmental factors, I drafted a research proposal before I arrived in Griffith. It was to investigate changes in photosynthetic products within the normal day/night cycle. With a lot of help from Teddy Trickett we modified a growth room where a lot of light / dark experiments were made. I never got to see how those cycles responded to stressed conditions because after a number of years, vegetables (onions in my case), row crops like sunflower, and aquatic plants became the changing focus of research at the Laboratory and my programs changed accordingly. I was ably, and cheerfully, assisted over the years by Ray Jelley, then Wayne Bellew, then Jilma Maier. I am not sure that Eric Hoare took a deep interest in my research programs, but I was very happy to have the freedom to pursue them as I thought proper, and to collaborate with others in the Division like Ben Darbyshire.
I still see Jilma sometimes but know little about Ray and Wayne, except that Wayne’s sister told me (2019) that he had eventually trained in law.
After 16 years in Griffith, I moved in 1985 to a position at The University of Western Australia, in the School of Agriculture, as Associate Professor of Tropical Crops, in a foreign aid program involving Thailand. My students continued research on sunflower, added sesame and soybean; and some worked on rice alongside Hank Greenway. Being at UWA also allowed a reconnection with Ben Darbyshire, then still Warden at St. George’s College. Living and working in Perth was a delight but in “another country” as Hank has said. Evelyn and I moved back east and eventually back to Griffith. Now, in 2011, Griffith town has changed for the better from the 1970s, let alone from the 1940s and 1950s.
I have thought about research philosophy and management recently, after visiting Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire,UK and reading about it and the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill, north London where Eric Hoare worked during the war. At Bletchley Park where they worked on codebreaking, the philosophy was to get (very) good people together and let them work individually on the central project i.e. breaking German codes. Was that the approach at Griffith under Eric Hoare, but what was our central problem? Was it water stress (but irrigation avoids that); was it wet / dry cycles; was it another agricultural input like N or P fertiliser? If that was the approach, perhaps it was this central feature that was ill-defined.
Considering the end of CSIRO Griffith in May 2016: just as Bletchley Park disappeared quickly at war’s-end, so should CSIRO Irrigation Research, Griffith have disappeared, when a goal had been
reached, whatever it was; or was it the result of the long-held view in Canberra that the regional stations should close, leaving CSIRO divisions in the capital cities?
KathBowmer
Kath & Frank continued to live in Wagga where Frank died in July 2023, aged 98.
I was ready for adventure after six years in academia (University of Nottingham School of Agriculture) So, the advert in the “New Scientist” for an appointment at CSIRO Division for Irrigation Research seemed a salvation from my main other option, a teaching post at an English rural boarding school at less than half that pay. But where was Griffith?
Fortunately, while I was pondering on the offer, Dick Lang visited my University. He said to expect heat, flies, dust, locusts, mice, isolation and a demanding social scene that might be hard to fit into, ‘but you get what you give ‘. Anyway, I liked his style. Also I remembered that a family acquaintance (Frank Skinner) worked in Melbourne. He knew nothing of CSIRO or of Griffith, so he asked his Australian mates about the job offer on my behalf.
‘Tell him not to come’ they said, ‘Griffith’s a terrible place’.
‘Actually, it’s a girl’.
‘Tell her to come. She’ll have a ball!’
And so, I embarked on the “Castel Felice” surrounded by ‘ten pound Poms’. An Australian liaison officer had provided valuable advice on Australian lore and custom, such as saving up for the sales, taking a plate with food on it, avoiding red backs and funnel web spiders, and dehydration. (She hadn’t heard of Griffith). Unfortunately, half the passengers disembarked in Adelaide and were replaced by disgruntled returning emigrants, keen to regale the immigrants with their disappointment and frustration with everything Australian.
So, I arrived in Melbourne with a degree of apprehension, especially when I found I was summoned to the CSIRO Head Office in Albert Street. They took me down to Albert Park Lake which was chock-ablock with weeds and slime, an embarrassment for the Queen’s impending visit, so it was urgent to turn the lake into a sparkling visual amenity. They thought I should know how to achieve this miracle. I didn’t. So, not for the last time in my career, I attempted to run the fine line between expertise (they might discover your innocence) and ignorance (they might wonder how you got the job). I promised to find out more about Lake Albert, while thinking this first task was way off track for my expertise on herbicide persistence in the soil. How wrong I was!
But first I had to find Griffith and get to it. Fred Whitford , a marvellous laid-back character, came to pick up trunks and cases and confirmed expectations about climate (‘bloody hot’) , and snakes (‘no worries mate ’; or was it ‘no worries at all’).
A few days later a howling, hot, northerly delayed my plane’s arrival beyond 5 pm on POETS day. The airport staff had gone home and had no intention of turning the bloody landing strip lights on. (Eventually, they did). So my first daylight view of Griffith was Saturday morning from the second floor of the Irrigana Motel that backs onto the railway shunting yards. It was already 42 degrees in the shade.
I was the last of the ‘new contingent’ that included Barrie Steer, Emmett O’Loughlin and John Sale, so office accommodation was tight. Alistair Low generously provided space in his room that was also shared by several off-siders, including June McMahon and Pino Pistillo, together with the burgeoning collection of the Rotary international James Cook bicentennial art exhibition and my growing collection of equipment — centrifuge, refrigerator and freezer- that I was directed to buy (this was the ‘use it or lose it’ era of purchasing).
Alistair introduced me to drinking beer with cotton growers in RSLs and taught me to drive at sufficient speed to float over ruts on gravel roads. But the thought of a move to Moree with the cotton team, as threatened, was not enticing so I renewed my efforts to get my own research moving. And by then I’d been camping with Alistair for nearly a year.
Eric Hoare allocated me an upstairs room for which I was grateful (later ‘the fine instruments room’) but there were problems. Sparking lights were worrisome because of my use of hydrogen gas; there was no fume cupboard for use of flammable solvents, not to mention a Galois chain-smoking met officer just over the partition. It’s a wonder I didn’t blow up the laboratory. Other challenges included a highly variable water supply, a sludgy mix of ground water and dam water, and peaks in the power supply caused by Barter’s chook operations that sent the gas chromatograph berserk. Fortunately Jim Somerville and Teddy Trickett managed to advise on this and fix most other mysterious electronic foibles with great skill and patience.
So, at last I began to explore the problems of herbicide residues in soil, the reason for my appointment. Warren Muirhead introduced me to several leading growers such as Alan Irvine and Richard Stott. However, after another year I realised that the problem was not researchable because it was already dealt with by the chemical manufacturers through herbicide label restrictions. So this was another lesson in the school of hard knocks: some research is not very useful even if it’s your main expertise.
Kath Bowmer in glasshouse, c 1973
PhotographcourtesyofKathBowmer
Fortunately, about this time I ran into Geoff Sainty, weed control officer with the WCIC, who introduced me to a range of rather nasty herbicides being use for weed control in irrigation supply and drainage systems. Together we researched how to tune herbicide use, eventually leading to the development of ecotoxicology methods for assessing the impact of pesticides on aquatic life, and rapid and cheap immunoassay methods for detection of pesticide residues. Co- researchers included Dick Lang, Emmett O’Loughlin, Wolfgang Korth, Linda Anderson-Carnahan from the USEPA, and John Skerritt from CSIRO Plant Industry. Many technical officers provided excellent support, one of the longest serving being Geoff McCorkelle.
Emmett O’Loughlin foresaw the opportunity to develop a focus on water quality and organised a national workshop on the topic in Griffith. Bill Williams from Adelaide University, the doyen of Australian limnology (freshwater ecology) was vocal in publicly indicating that we had better keep clear of the field because he apparently had ownership rights on it. We continued anyway, later appointments to the fledgling Rivers and Wetland Program including David Mitchell, Max Finlayson, Sue McIntyre, Jane Roberts, Gary Jones, Rod Oliver, Wolfgang Korth and others. So that is how a soil scientist, via pesticide residue chemistry, became a water quality specialist.
Eric Hoare and Isobel are remembered for their generous hosting (lots of good food and wine) and quiet concern for staff welfare, at work and at home. Eric effectively advocated the benefits of irrigation to all, being especially interested in engineering design and the production of food and fibre, as appropriate
for the time, though the emerging threat of salinity left us rather flat-footed soon after his departure. I wonder what Eric would make of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and current concerns about climate change and water for the environment.
Now, after numerous management and leadership courses and experience in CSIRO Head Office, a corporation and a University, I have come to appreciate Eric’s democratic style, open door policy, and encouragement to question authority. This was unusual in CSIRO in the days of ‘Chief-as-God’. Subconsciously, I probably absorbed some good practice from his example. I continued to work at CSIRO Griffith until 1995, developing the Rivers and Wetlands Program, and rose to the dizzy heights of Deputy Chief of the Division of Water Resources. Graham Allison was Chief, based first in Perth then Adelaide and it was thought important to have a Deputy in Canberra, so in December 1994 I was winkled out of my comfort zone to go to Canberra. In January 1996 I took up the post of Deputy ViceChancellor (Academic and Research) at Charles Sturt University and was concurrently Principal of Wagga Wagga campus and Director of the University's Research Office. This was a huge and demanding five years. In early 2001 I returned to CSIRO Land and Water, becoming Deputy Chief and Business Director with line management responsibilities for staff around the country. In January 2004 I returned half-time to CSU as Professor of Water Policy, to develop a cross-disciplinary partnership with CSIRO Land and Water called the Institute for Land Water and Society. More recently I have worked as an adjunct professor with Griffith University, Brisbane on developing support for public participation in water planning, and developed and taught a subject on water policy and management for CSU. I retired in January 2012 and am thoroughly enjoying a rest!
Socially, Griffith was a great place to be in those early days. Highlights include the making of Ace Dry Red with John Blackwell, Richard Smart and Brian Freeman (but not drinking it because it was just too dreadful); lots of sport; an international community; and a spirit of enterprise. Later my husband, Frank Skinner, arrived from Melbourne, and was welcomed to ‘the outer suburbs’ by Peter Taylor of Griffith sailing club, and enjoyed regular outings with the feral joggers. We also raised two daughters and purchased several ponies. Occasionally I visit Griffith now. It still feels like home.
Yes, we had a ball!
HelenaHicks
Helena continues to live in Griffith, still running the bookshop. I started working life as a biometrician and later trained as a librarian, working in the State Library of NSW in Sydney and the veterinary school of the University of Melbourne, at Werribee. I had wanted to move away from the city and I felt more comfortable working with professional staff than with students so when the CSIRO librarian at Animal Health showed me the advertisement for the CSIRO librarian at Griffith I applied. However, I had arranged to go overseas for 6 months so Margaret Russell postponed her retirement so I could start on my return. I started on 17 December 1969. Jill Ford was the library assistant then. We were left alone to get on with the job in the library which was upstairs in the “new” wing (opened in 1962). It was rather a hot place, not the best-designed room for a library. The Research Station was a close and friendly community which swept newcomers into itself. I played squash and bridge. The lunchtime bridge school in the tea-room comprised Henry Barrs, Alan Gunn, Frank Melhuish, Peter Cary and Jack Bleijie. Being small stations, both Merbein and Griffith were chosen as guinea pigs for computerising the CSIRO library services in the late 1970s.
I started voluntary work in the Anglican Diocesan Christian bookshop in Kooyoo Street in 1977. In 1982 I took over most of the managerial work and soon realised I had to make a decision about which was to become my future career, especially as I already had major back problems. I left CSIRO for fulltime work in Four Rivers Bookshop in December 1983. This was a fortuitous decision as I would almost certainly have been compulsorily retired in 1988 when I was laid up for 6 months after back surgery. Lynne Stead took over as librarian at the Station, in the library that had moved from upstairs to the former Chief’s house, not the ideal situation for a library.
EmmettO'Loughlin
Emmett & Anne live near Bateman’s Bay, in the woods at Rosedale. Their property apparently escaped the bushfires of 2020, but they live in a retirement estate now (2023).
Overwhelmingly, my first impressions of CSIRO, Griffith and Eric Hoare are images of Keith Garzoli, entertaining a bus full of engineers attending a convention, on their way to visit the Irrigation Research Laboratory. Hosts Eric and Keith were both engineers (electrical and mechanical). They strongly supported the activities of their professional colleagues, like this tour of the irrigation areas. Keith educated and entertained us in the bus, with his flair for a good story and intimate knowledge of the best (and worst) wines from the area.
Eric had first offered me a job when I was at the University of Iowa. Anne and I, with our two little American children, weren't sure whether we wanted to stay in the USA (with our green cards), or to cut our ties and raise our family in Australia. My field was fluid dynamics – boundary layers, turbulence, river mechanics - and when Eric suggested there could be an opening for me at the Irrigation Research Laboratory, running some program to do with water in an agricultural setting, I wasn't at all interested. And where was Griffith, anyway? Nevertheless, we came back to Australia on spec, and I accepted a position for a while with consultants Sinclair and Knight in Sydney. Two years later, I was on the Griffith tour with Bruce Sinclair, with Bruce keeping up appearances for his firm, and I was taking in an unfamiliar world. During that tour, Keith Garzoli told me that the job that Eric had invited me to apply for (it had been Mick Fleming's position) had never been filled. Could I possibly be interested? The glamour of life in Sydney had worn off, and the world of consulting was less than ideal. So I notified Eric, was interviewed, and was accepted. We moved to Griffith on the last day of 1969, into the new CSIRO house in Wakaden Street designed by George Chapman.
The CSIRO community welcomed us like no other. In the early 1970s, we were mainly occupied raising the kids. Griffith was a great place for that. There were many families just like ours – little kids, little money – and a Griffith township that seemed to enjoy having us around. Much of that welcome stemmed from the social skills of Eric and Keith and many others in the Division who engaged with the town and the farming community. Eric and Isobel Hoare promoted excellent relationships between CSIRO staff, the Griffith community and visiting VIPs via their hospitable evening BBQs, with hay bales, and wines from Eric's enormous cellar.
My lasting impression of Eric (Mr Hoare to me) is the argument I witnessed between Eric, Keith Garzoli, John Blackwell and Brian Freeman (NSW Ag Dept) in a tomato patch on a very hot day. They argued about turgid leaves and pressure bomb measurements. I witnessed this argument for at least an hour, and learned quite a lot about stressed tomatoes in the process.
Eric had notions that irrigation areas could be better managed, and wanted me to work in that area. Tjeerd Talsma had already done a lot of theoretical and practical work on the emerging problems of rising water tables, and Geoff Evans was assessing the salt and water balances of the MIA. Water quantity wasn't an issue then – lots of new water was available from the diverted Snowy River via the new Blowering Dam. Colleambally Irrigation Area was being developed. Eric had a good grasp of the big picture, and gave the impression that he had good dialogue going with Sir William Hudson, chief of the Snowy Scheme. But it was not easy to identify researchable tasks; the NSW WCIC certainly did not admit to having any problems. And frankly, Eric was not helpful, explaining that he expected his research scientists to “strike sparks off each other”. It didn't help, either, that water management was a State responsibility, and Commonwealth interference was unwelcome. It even got to the stage, when Whitlam was Prime Minister and Tom Lewis was NSW Premier, that WCIC researchers were warned not to talk to their CSIRO counterparts.
There was, however, a water delivery issue that seemed to irritate the locals: how to time releases of the water from storages hundreds of kilometres upstream so that it reached the irrigation farms when it was needed and in the right amount. Mathematically, it was just like a water hammer problem I had worked on in an earlier life, so I set to work on it. I'm sure that Eric had no idea that I was tackling that problem,
but he provided whatever resources I requested. I developed a theoretical solution, but it was not practical given the infrastructure of the WCIC who actually managed the water, so it could not be used
Actually, resources were divvied up during budget meetings of the research staff, with Eric presiding, and Rudy Amato keeping the books. We essentially approved each other’s reasoned requests, but threw out the things we didn't understand. I remember that Tony Ceresa's requests for a microprocessor never got a guernsey; this was in the early 1970s, well before Apple and the PC. That was ironic, given the lab's pioneering use of its PDP-9 computer, well in advance of most academic institutions.
The research picture morphed into something more relevant with Kath Bowmer. Eric had appointed Kath to investigate the persistence of herbicides in soil and water. Kath and I investigated the way some nasty aquatic herbicides behaved, and showed how they could be better targeted and so minimise collateral damage. This was perhaps the shortest successful project that I had been involved with in Griffith; again, I don't think Eric knew much about it. After all, it didn't figure in his bigger picture.
During the mid-1970s, the emerging issue of deteriorating water quality became apparent. The awareness of nutrient enrichment in inland waterways led to a broader concern with water quality degradation, which then looked like getting out of hand. This issue, and what to do about it, was an important development that Eric did not oppose, even though the CSIRO culture at that time regarded water research with suspicion and kept it at arm’s length. The fact that, 30 years later, CSIRO has now emerged as the country's most credible source in matters concerning water resources in all its aspects, can be traced back to Eric Hoare's implicit – if unintended – support for research in that area.
In April 1976 I moved to CSIRO Division of Forest Research in Canberra
PegRoberts
After share-farming at Lake Cargelligo for a number of years, we moved to Griffith and Fred Roberts started at CSIRO in November 1970. His first task was to pick oranges for testing, under the guidance of Jack Potts. Later he was farm foreman and as the picture shows drove the tractor while Alistair Low and Arthur Riddle fed the chutes. The “Fab Four” as I called them (Alistair Low, Bob Dalgleish, Fred, Ben Bruemmer) remained good friends and the three visited our home to play cards with Fred until he became too ill. We were living in a CSIRO house, 8 Evatt Street, when Fred retired on 24 January 1985.
Fred Roberts driving tractor, with Arthur Riddle & Alistair Low sowing.
MrsHelkeDenston
Helke died in Griffith on 4 Sept 2016 after many years of indifferent health I had been in Australia for 2 years, coming from Canada, when I applied for a position at CSIRO Griffith, as a telephonist / receptionist, responding to an advertisement to cover a maternity leave absence. That was in 1973 and I continued in the position until I went on maternity leave myself in 1976. I did not return after I had my baby, except about 20 years later I spent some time there as records manager. As well as the role on the front desk, I typed correspondence and scientific papers for the staff; sometimes that was a difficult task because of illegible writing.
JohnAdeney
John & Shirley continue to live in Perth. My introduction to Griffith and the Division was when Bruce Birch (the Divisional Administration Officer), Eric Hoare and Kath Bowmer interviewed me when I was on a student tour of the MIA with other Agricultural Science students from La Trobe University. Bruce Birch and I were kindred spirits because he knew many Army Reserve people in Melbourne that I knew.
On arrival I stayed at Mrs Maher’s boarding-house. Mrs Maher was a rough and ruthless matriarch. Later I moved to a flat in Wakaden Street with John Fogarty and then to a CSIRO owned house in Wyangan Avenue since the houses were becoming vacant because many CSIRO staff were buying their own homes. I eventually purchased my own home in Ortella Street. I was at CSIRO Griffith for 12 years from December 1973 to July 1985
Since Kath was away at a yachting regatta, sailing her Laser, on my first day at CSIRO, I read and read and reread the CSIRO Safety Manual and played table tennis in the Potting Shed at lunchtime. I remember even wearing a tie to work that day.
Little interesting events about my (experimental) life have remained with me. The herbicides, diuron, terbutryn and acrolein and their effect on aquatic weeds and upon newly sown crops seemed to occupy most of my first years at Griffith, with Elodea canadensis (Canadian pondweed) and Typha spp. (Cumbungi) being the main targets. Many days were spent out in the blazing hot sun. That included several days with Ari van der Lelij of WCIC surveying water levels at different distances to try to calculate the Manning or roughness coefficient caused by the aquatic weeds. Needless to say the accuracy required for meaningful calculations did not equal the standard of the surveying instruments. I also remember vividly collecting water samples of atrazine from irrigated rows of germinating maize at Benerembah. With every step that I took the Benerembah clay increased my height by several centimetres until the clay fell off and the whole sequence started again.
The first field experiment I can recall was collecting water samples containing acrolein on a channel bank I think in the first week it was in conjunction with the WCIC. Of course, the trial ran late and I remember being bitten by huge mosquitoes as the sun settled. Much of my work was setting up a series of field trials to see how much herbicide remained after application and subsequent penetration into the soil. For example, in one field trial, diuron was sprayed on the bottom of a channel and allowed to penetrate the soil to control weed growth. We then sampled the first flush of water that removed the remaining diuron. Then with George Richards, we sampled at various intervals along the base of the channel using a Kanga Hammer and going down to taking cores to about 1 metre. These were then subdivided into I think 5 cm fractions and analysed for residual diuron. The diuron went down only 5 cm so most of that physical effort was wasted. Such is the (experimental) life! The farmer on whose property the diuron trial was held invited us to his farmhouse for lunch of homemade salami and red wine. Afterwards I was not in a fit state to drive a vehicle home but managed to do so and then collapsed in the shower recess only to be revived by my flat mate, to do it all again that evening!
Field trials with the herbicide terbutryn were conducted at Finley and at Coleambally. At Fitzsimons farm where it was pouring with rain and very cold, I remember Kath (bless her) came along with a thermos of hot coffee to revive the spraying crew. Other notable efforts were getting CS vehicles bogged and the farmer allowing me to use his tractor to extricate the vehicle from the bog.
Initially I was appointed as a Technical Officer Grade 1. On being awarded my degree in Agricultural Science I was promoted to the position of an Experimental Officer Grade 1 which allowed me to join the CSIRO Officers Association. Although I did not hold any position, since John Sale filled the role of Griffith representative very effectively at that time; membership stood me in good stead when I moved to Western Australia where I eventually became the President of the CSIRO Staff Association (WA).
PhotographcourtesyofAlanHeritage
Very important was the exposure to other scientific groups in the Riverina, such as the Soil Science Society (Riverina branch) and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI), which I had joined as a student many years previously. Membership and participation in the activities of the Soil Science Society allowed opportunities to visit NSW Department of Agriculture at Yanco & Wagga Wagga and CSIRO Deniliquin to learn of the wider issues of irrigated agriculture and its environmental impacts. A significant visit with the Soil Science Society, though I did not appreciate it the time, was the visit to the deep soil pit at Benerembah. This deep pit constructed under the direction of John Loveday of the Division of Soils defined many of the fundamentals of soil physics in Australia on swelling clay soils In fact I regard myself as being very fortunate in being able to attend these meetings since they had a big influence upon me in subsequent years.
My first big conference was a Conference of Residue Chemists in Adelaide. Afterwards I stayed with my sister and visited an antique shop, which is still trading today. There I purchased 3 pieces of Wedgwood ceramics and still collect the stuff! In a way, that conference began my extensive collection of Wedgwood ceramics.
At the laboratory I operated a gas liquid chromatograph measuring the levels of herbicide extracted from water and soil. Because this machine was so cantankerous and required considerable attention it caused me to miss the CSIRO bus so often that I ended up cycling to and from the research station. Every so often I needed to change the gas cylinders that were used by the gas chromatograph. Initially these had
John Blackwell, Alan Heritage, Bob Hewitt and John Adeney moving a soil core, July 1976
to be hoisted up to the first floor using a gantry crane: a risky procedure. Later copper tubing was run from the back of the main building to the first floor to remove the risk. I do remember changing the flat tyre of Kath’s red rotary Mazda that was parked at the rear of the main building. I was chiacked for this by my many male colleagues who asked if it was an extra work responsibility.
At the time Peter Rutter (Division of Computing Research) was the manager of the PDP9 computer. I remember accidentally dropping a stack of cards and having to reassemble them, more than once. Other little memories include the panic to have all the Division’s financial accounts paid before the end of the financial year. This necessitated travelling to Sydney and collecting goods from suppliers in the different Sydney suburbs.
Though I often cycled to and from CSIRO I looked forward to the conversations on the CSIRO bus. Joe Amato drove the bus and Alistair Low provided the stimulus to the conversation. How we heckled the conservative ideas that Alistair fervently held! Similarly, blue-sky research opportunities were often canvassed over the lunch time sessions on the long table in the lunchroom, such as capturing dugongs and allowing them to eat the aquatic weed in the irrigation channels.
Air conditioning or lack of it was a constant issue and I remember Peter Cary writing away with shirt off, clad in a singlet and sweating profusely. This was possibly the time when Peter Cary's paper on the economics of the production of irrigated oranges was published. The newspaper “The Australian” in an editorial questioned whether oranges would ever reach the price of 40 cents each.
Life outside CSIRO was busy. I was very involved with the Amy Reserve with Tuesday night training at Leeton and weekend training once a month. As well I was on the committee of the Arts Council which organised in conjunction with the Arts Council of NSW various plays and concerts. For example, jazz concerts featuring Graham Bell at the Griffith Ex Servicemen’s Club, and the play “Going North” by David Williamson at Griffith High School Hall. Membership of Rostrum provided an opportunity for a meal and convivial company. I remember having to buy the “Financial Review” so to keep up with current issues before each meeting.
Continuing my interest in the performing arts I was involved with the Griffith Music Club who held periodic concerts at the St Albans Anglican Church Hall. I joined the Griffith Wine and Food Club as a promising “trencherman”. Eventually I was appointed to being Cheese Master possibly at Peter Cary's instigation (an illustrious previous Master was Eric Hoare). I remember on one occasion I had planned to present four cheeses, one each from goat, sheep, cow and from horse's milk. There was a cheese shop in Banna Avenue, which was prepared to produce a cheese from horse-mare’s milk, but somehow others heard of the idea and it was quickly dropped.
Though I did not have much involvement with the Chief of the Division, Eric Hoare, he was to me, a benevolent boss who cared about his staff and his collection of roses placed around the glasshouses. The farewell to the chief was a barbeque on one of those very hot nights that only the Riverina can produce. In later years, Peter Cary and I attended a function in Melbourne where we met Sir Jerry Price, who was the overall boss of CSIRO at the time of Eric Hoare’s farewell. He remarked to Peter Cary some years later that he never knew what research we did at Griffith, though he had attended the farewell barbeque.
I felt through my sojourn at Griffith that CSIRO was doing worthwhile research to improve the efficiency of farmers and adding to the basic agricultural knowledge, though at times I wondered if we were filling a research void that the WCIC was deliberately avoiding. Overall, my period in Griffith allowed me to continue my scientific career until retirement. Though I may not have reached the exalted ranks of a Research Scientist I was very happy and contented to remain at the experimental/practical level, eventually retiring as an Experimental Scientist in CSIRO Division of Land and Water, Perth, WA in 2008.
LizLewis(Mrs.Ellis)
I was born in Western Australia and after a number of moves around that state, and to Melbourne, my family ended up in Wagga. When I left school there, I did a secretarial course (it included deportment). Then my first job was in the Department of Treasury in Canberra but I liked country towns better than cities.
In April 1974 I moved to become the secretary to Eric Hoare. This involved shorthand and typing, of course, but for the first time it included filing. In Canberra there was another floor which handled filing! I had used electric typewriters in Canberra but not ones with “golf-balls”. Typing scientific papers with equations required frequent changes of 2 or 3 “balls” each with the special symbols. That exercise seemed as complex as the equations themselves, and of course there were 2 or 3 drafts to a paper. The Division had a weekly newsletter, as well.
For my first 2 weeks in Griffith, I had the use of the overseas visitors’ flat on the station grounds. I quickly made friends with the administrative and laboratory staff. In order to meet other people in Griffith I was advised to go to the local rugby union matches. It was there I met my future husband, John Ellis. There were two noisy men at the matches, one, John Blackwell in the scrum; the other Alistair Low on the sidelines with his rattle.
The staff had a real mix of characters. Some were great with their scientific minds but not with their social skills. Two who were always full of cheek and laughter were John Blackwell and Keith Garzoli, one short, the other tall, marching down the corridor. Another who frequently played pranks on me was John Brewer, but I got my pay-back one day. With a straight face I told John that he was in trouble with the Chief who wanted to see him immediately. John lost his grin, his face whitened to match his lab coat and he prepared to go to the office. Then it was my turn to be worried: supposing Eric had returned to his office before John got there! I was lucky he was still out. There was a little group in the corridor who enjoyed that event, as much as I did.
The Division was an amazing place, like a mini-city with administrative rooms and laboratories, computer room, library, tearoom. The outer buildings included glasshouses (where Bobby Dalgleish weaved his magic, raising plants), store, workshops, garage and farm buildings; and a tennis court and beautiful gardens.
Egg &
at A Day on The Green
I was persuaded to become the Queen Bacchante entrant in the 1975 Bacchus Festival (the Easter Festival of the early 1970s), where funds were raised towards the building of the Griffith Regional Theatre. “A Day on the Green”, a garden party on Sunday 17 November 1974, with laboratory demonstrations, train rides around the grounds, races for the children, and dress competitions, was used to raise funds towards my joint CSIRORotaract entry. One year, in the parade, I was the “Bagtown Belle” inside the bell pulled by the men, hessian-ed, on bikes.
John and I married in February 1977 and soon after, in April, I left CSIRO for a job in town with an insurance assessor. We are still in this country town, running Ellis the Jewellers, until they sold it in 2020.
Spoon Race
PhotographcourtesyofEvelynGarzoli
JilmaMaier
I had studied for a Diploma in Horticulture, from Melnik, for 3 years full-time and 2 years part-time. I left Czechoslovakia in 1968. By October I was in Melbourne where I worked in a tomato breeding program at Burnley Gardens. In December 1973 I came to Griffith. Betty Blake alerted my husband, Jim, to an advertisement for a position at CSIRO. I applied, had an interview and was successful. I started as Barrie Steer’s assistant in March 1974 and stayed in that group, later as Technical Officer, until Barrie moved to Perth in October 1985. I resigned soon afterwards because I was pregnant.
Soon after I started in Griffith, I studied at TAFE to improve my English language skills; Vera Low was the very effective teacher. Like many people who came to Australia with qualifications from nonEnglish speaking countries it took a long time to have my Czech diploma recognised. At one time Ben Darbyshire and Barrie Steer had to give me written examinations to test my abilities, but by 1977 I had been reclassified as a Technical Officer.
One of my first jobs was to help in a survey of nutrient and algal contents of irrigation supply and drainage water. This involved driving to a number of sites in the MIA to take regular samples and in the laboratory to identify and count the major algae. 1974 was a wet year and driving the dirt roads was often difficult, sometimes impossible. Later I took part in the projects on onion physiology and yield I often went to the Canberra Phytotron where we were measuring the bulbing response of Australian varieties to temperature and daylength. These tasks made slacks the attire of choice, so much so that colleagues would comment if I wore a skirt to work. After 1981 we had an extensive program on the physiology and nutrition of sunflower.
After CSIRO I have worked as a carer for some years, and my husband & I have a vine budding and cutting business in Yenda.
The Bagtown Belle in her Bell, Banna Avenue, Griffith, propelled by various slaves in hessian
PhotographcourtesyofRogerHoare
JohnBrewer
John, with Lorraine, opened Yarran Winery in Yenda but died on 19 November 2012, aged 61. His family continue to run it as a successful enterprise,
I had studied for a Diploma of Biochemistry at the Brisbane Institute of Technology. I saw an advertisement for a technical assistant with laboratory training and applied. I came to Griffith for an interview; Helke Denston had booked me into a motel for the night. I had an interview with Ben Darbyshire, which continued in the Vic Hotel over beers, then tea with Ben and Geraldine in Yenda, followed by more beer at the Yenda Hotel. I started at CSIRO in February 1975 working with Ben on carbohydrates in onions. By the end of 1976 I had decided that I wanted to go farming and resigned in November. Contract spraying followed, then viticulture and the Yarran Winery. My wife Lorraine worked in the chemistry lab from 1978 for 2 years until she was pregnant with the first of our 4 children.
MrsBarbaraHarrigan
Ken first worked for the Tobacco Board at Mareeba then joined CSIRO in May 1952. He worked at Katherine, Canberra and Adelaide before returning to his hometown, Mareeba, in 1958. We married in 1959, built a house and the children grew up there. He was involved in a tobacco-breeding program for tolerance to blue mould. When Tobacco Research was closed in 1975 Ken had a choice of CSIRO research stations to move to: Canberra, Narrabri or Griffith. The children and I did not want to leave Mareeba but by January 1976 we were all in Griffith and came to enjoy the town. Alistair and Vera Low helped us to settle in, helped to find a house to buy, and me to get a job.
AlanHeritage
During 10 years in Griffith, working with Alan Heritage and Cheryl Macrae, Ken ran a safflowerbreeding program, and two lines (Sirothora and Sironaria) with disease resistance were registered in December 1986. Ken retired from CSIRO in July 1987, after which he enjoyed 20 more years in Griffith.
Ken Harrigan and Alistair Low, with, behind left to right, u/k, Helmut Panhuber and John Loveday.
PhotographcourtesyofBarbaraHarrigan
Alan & Shirley lived in Castle Hill for many years, now in Turramurra.
I first met Eric Hoare when he came to the University of Queensland to interview me for a position of Soil Microbiologist with the CSIRO, Division of Irrigation Research at Griffith, NSW; a position to join a team of scientists looking into the causes of the poor growth of crops sown into rice stubbles.
I had just completed my PhD studies under the co-supervision of Horst Doelle, who himself had earlier worked at the Research Station, Griffith and recommended the position to me. I had been negotiating to join the Australian Wine Research Institute, but finding it to be in chaos at that time, I decided to accept the position.
On a glorious sunset evening in August 1975, I arrived at Griffith and on the next day met up with agronomist, Warren Muirhead and plant physiologist, Frank Melhuish and later the research chemist, Ian Willett. In a quick learning process, and with a new pair of gumboots, I was soon coming to grips with the irrigated farming practices and soil types of the region – sticky clays and lurking brown snakes.
Catching up with more of the staff at the Division over morning and afternoon tea club, I soon found that the Chief had brought together a multi-disciplinary group of plant and soil scientists – with a strong representation from the UK.
Not long after arriving, I joined the Australian Society for Soil Science, and soon got roped into teaming up with Ari van der Lely from the Water Commission to organise a major conference; The Hydrogeology of the Riverine Plain of SE Australia. This gave me a great understanding of the behaviour of the soils of the region as well as networking with other Australian soil scientists.
Initial research was based on comparing populations of microorganisms in the different soil types in the region with able help from Cheryl Orr (née Robertson). However, these population statistics did little to help understand the differences in cropping performance of the soils. Subsequent branching into plant disease studies was more productive. Working in conjunction with oilseeds plant breeders Alistair Low, Ken Harrigan; Brian Atwell, Pino Pistillo and Cheryl McRae resulted in the release of new disease-resistant safflower, sunflower and soybean varieties for the irrigated regions of S.E. Australia.
Ken and Alan Heritage inspecting safflower seedlings. PhotographcourtesyofAlan Heritage
One of my memories of Eric Hoare was his approach to cooling the buildings at research station. With the support of our two Scottish gardeners, lawns surrounding the buildings were kept irrigated to provide a micro-climate around the buildings. I soon grew to learn of Eric’s support for the work of Keith Garzoli to design environmentally friendly buildings, suited to the Australian climate. With my interest in the wine industry, I was surprised that wineries didn’t build their facilities underground as they have done in Spain and southern France. However, having seen the flooding of the region during 2012, I can see that this would need to be thought through! My research at Griffith would not have been easy without our two librarians, Helena Hicks and Jill Ford. With a limited background of Microbiological research at the centre and before our access to on-line journals, it was helpful to have their support. Recording of our research was also supported by the laconic photographer, Len Gallagher, who had previously filmed the Woomera rocket launch program – and while in that region, the Donald Campbell Bluebird speed trials on Lake Ayre.
Added to the challenges and successes of my twenty years working within CSIRO, in the fields of Soil Microbiology, Plant Pathology and Wastewater treatment, and providing a little support to the local
wine industry, were meeting and marrying my wife Shirley in Griffith and raising our three children, Claire, Jeremy and Elise.
CherylRobertson(Mrs.Orr)
I started on 20 September 1976 as a technical assistant to Alan Heritage in the Microbiology lab. I performed many tasks associated with bacteria and fungi, counting, inoculation of plant roots with bacteria, making up media plates and growth solutions. This appointment I thoroughly enjoyed and thought how lucky I was to be working for such an organisation that prided itself in excellence in science, and to work for someone like Alan, a gentleman and a pleasure to work for.
This start led to me having 16 appointments ranging from part time, full time to indefinite, which is probably why I am still working for the organisation 36 years in September 2012.
On the 4 October 1978 the funding dried up for the microbiology project but I was lucky enough to get a transfer to CSIRO Forestry Research in Canberra where I worked for Brian Heffernan in the chemistry lab with 3 other girls. We did all sorts of analysis and sample preparations, and the dreaded data entry under the guidance of Brian. We all enjoyed working with him as part of his team. He taught us so much about research in CSIRO and how we all fitted together and how important we all were in the team.
Cheryl in glasshouse PhotographcourtesyofAlanHeritage
Whilst in Canberra I then joined John Raisen's forestry group working on nutrient cycling in mixed eucalypt forests, and was asked to do more field work which meant going out into the Brindabellas collecting water, soil, detritus samples, and on the odd occasion gum leaf samples which we collected after one of our colleagues shot the branches down with a rifle: not sure how OHS would see that activity these days. One of these trips into the forest in the Brindabella's I will never forget: we were standing around, as you do, and the air became deathly quiet and then as if we were in fairy land it started to snow, I have never forgotten this and never will: just beautiful.
After a couple of years, I returned to Griffith on 19 January 1981 and worked on a number of short-term projects with a number of scientists. I was responsible for the air spore collections every day which meant I had to climb onto the roof of one of our buildings in Griffith to collect a slide I had prepared the previous day, out of a slide trap, and store them for that study. I really do not remember who I did this
for but I thought it was great fun as I used to take home the work motor bike so I could go into work over the weekends: any excuse for me to ride in those days. I spent some time counting orange blossoms, too, for a project for Kath Skinner, and planting citrus trees with Arthur Riddle (a gentleman I will never forget). I even got to hand-harvest rice plants for Kath Skinner and supervise her 2 students who I took out to Coleambally. After we finished, I told them they could rinse the mud off in the irrigation canal and they did with bare feet but when I followed their lead, with gumboots on, a snake in the water bit me. Because they were not employed by CSIRO, I would not let them drive the work car back, so I drove back to the site to have the snake bit confirmed by an ambo who had come out to pick up his wife Shelly. Oh well I am still here so it must not have been too bad.
From 1989 - 1991 I worked with Wolfgang Korth in a Taints and Odours project where I was known as "the Stripper" doing laboratory extractions like Closed loop Stripping of water samples for organic compounds produced by Blue Green Algae; and water collections, growing and maintaining algal growth cultures and some field work. I thoroughly enjoyed working in Wolfgang’s team but Sharon Foster and I must have been too hard on him and he left to go to work in Canberra but not with CSIRO.
I then remained working in this group but it was not the same and when the project finished, I was transferred to Brisbane to the Long Pocket laboratory to work again for Gary Jones. I started there on the 17 January 1998 to help Gary set up an algal research laboratory up north. This was a huge challenge, which we did, I think successfully, until Gary left CSIRO and moved to Canberra to work as the CEO of Freshwater Ecology at Canberra University where he still works today.
Occasion unknown. Left to right: Emmett O'Loughlin, Alan Heritage, Cheryl Robertson, Ian & Jackie Willett at a barbecue in Station gardens. PhotographcourtesyofAlanHeritage
I have only mentioned a few of the wonderful people I have met and continue to think of fondly like Jilma Maier, John Sale, Blacky, Hank Muskens, Ben Bruemmer, Pat O'Brien and Audrey Hass. We were also lucky to make so many international friends during my time with CSIRO who are spread around the world and I have been fortunate to catch up with some of these people at various conferences over the years.
In September 2012 if I am still there, I will have worked for CSIRO for 36 years, apart from a few short breaks. I feel very privileged to have had such a great work life and the opportunity to make so many wonderful friends.
The year is the time of their commencement at Griffith, although some listed in the 1962 Report may have started before that date.
SURNAME FIRST
KNOWN QUALIFICATIONS YEAR
Adeney John Dip.App.Chem.,B.Agr.Sc.,Grad.R.A.C.I. 3Dec1973
Amato Rudi 1966
Amato Joe 1974
Anlezark Reg 1966
Archer C.M. 1966
Armstrong Walter 1962
Barratt StanL. 1962
Barratt J.L. 1964
Barrs
HenryD.B.Sc.,Ph.D. 3Aug1959
Bartholomew Rhonda 1964
Barzan RhondaB. 1975
Batros(Trewin) Juanita 1964
Batson P.V. 1962
Baulch Pam 1968
Bavaresco A. 1975
Beaumont L.M. 1964
Bellato Andy 10Dec1973
Bellew Wayne 1972
Bensted C.E. 1964
Binello J. 1973
Birch
BruceA.R.M.I.T.,A.A.I.M. 1973
Bisa Laurie 1965
Blackmore A.V.Bill[Div.Soils]M.Sc.,Ph.D 1965
Blackwell John N.D.A.,N.D.Agr.E.,Gr.I.Ag.E. 15Jan1968
1946-7 Tomato Irrigation Experiments by K. Spencer, May 1947
Interplanting of Tomato varieties by K. Spencer, June 1947
Survey of Frost-liability of North Lakeview by E. S. West, January 1948
Atmospheric temperature inversion at Griffith, NSW by H. J. Frith, January 1948
Trials of a horizontal fan for protection of Citrus and deciduous trees from frost by H. J. Frith, October 1948
A new, quick and accurate method for determination of the sulphate ion by N. G. Cassidy, October 1948
Effect of date-of-sowing on maturity and yield of Sweet Corn by K. Spencer, March 1949
A Factorial Field Experiment with Citrus, Farm 466, No. 1 Introduction by H. J. Frith, June 1949
A Factorial Field Experiment with Citrus, Farm 466, No. 2, Results 1942 - 1948 by H. J. Frith, June 1949
A Factorial Field Experiment with Citrus, Farm 466, No. 3, Results 1949 by H. J. Frith, June 1950
Note on the composition of MIA irrigation water & Report on the composition of drainage water for sand beds in the Yanco area by N. G. Cassidy, June 1949
Superphosphate placement for Spring Peas by K. Spencer, February 1950
A Factorial Field Experiment with Citrus, Farm 466, No. 4, Results 1950 by H. J. Frith, June 1951
A Factorial Field Experiment with Citrus, Farm 466, No. 5, Review 1947-1954 by D. Bouma, November 1954
Effect of ammonium sulphate application on the soil chemical composition of the surface of a non-cultivated soil by Jane Connor, April 1959
The irrigated summer fallow in relation to the N-supplying power of soils by K. Spencer, June 1959
MiscellaneousPublications
Power kerosene as a selective weed-killer in vegetable crops by K. Spencer, March 1949
Cotton as an MIA crop by E. S. West, May 1949
Why is lucerne growing not an important MIA industry? By E. S. West, June 1949
Better Ditches and Grades by L. F. Myers, 1949. 48 pp.
References
[1] Reports in “Riverina Advocate”. Reels 6 to 13; January 1958 to November 1964.
[2] Gribble, Anne (2011) “This’ll do me” A Short History of Griffith & District. GGHS Inc.
[3] Interview with Arthur West, 18 September 2011
[4] Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1940 - 1980. Vol.15.
[5] Griffith Pioneer Registers. Griffith Genealogical & Historical Society Inc.(GGHS)
[6] Commonwealth Electoral Rolls.
[7] Telephone conversation with Mrs Norma Margaret French (née Tracy, ex Pennefather), and a letter, November 2011.
[8] Telephone conversation with Ben Martin jnr., January 2012.
[9] Reports in the “Area News”
[10] Launching of a New Scheme for Agricultural Organisation in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Areas. CSIR and NSW Dept. of Agriculture, September 1947
[11] Irrigation Research Station, Griffith, NSW. CSIR, 1947
[12] Interview with Alan Smith, 3 November 2011
[13] Bemrose, Anna, (2012) “Mawson’s Last Survivor: The Story of Dr. Alf Howard, AM”. Boolarong Press
[14] Obituaries from CSIRO Alumni, Wikipedia, The University of Queensland, Australian Geographic.
[15] Communication from Rosemary M. Burnett, Margaret Russell’s niece, July 2012.
[16] Talking to Ron Pickersgill (son of Robert), 5 November 2012
Addendumonthetwoski-lodges(February2013)
I think I understand the 2 ski clubs now, one at Kiandra, NSW and the other at Mount Buller in Victoria.
Margo French (ex-Pennefather) wrote [7] “that the Kiama Ski Lodge was founded in 1949 with Merv & Yvonne Hamilton
Nance & Allan Cruickshank, “Rothdene”, Rankins Springs
Son Adrian Cruickshank
Daughter Averil Cruickshank (later Everingham of Canberra)
Stan & Mary Polkinghorne
McWilliams
Reg & Margo Pennefather
The Rangotts
We stayed at Yarrangobilly Caves House and drove each day, after visiting a cave, to Kiandra for snow activities. Reg and I always had a swim in the thermal pool before dinner, and afterwards whilst most played cards, smoked, and drank early McWilliams (in demijohns in those days, - a bit rough by today’s offerings), I played table tennis with assorted small fry”.
Bill Rangott, jnr. has provided many photographs of the ski-ing in NSW from c 1956 or earlier. They used to stay at Yarrangobilly House then drive to the slopes at Kiandra. On one photograph some people have been identified:
For “Groupleaving” (c1956?)
1) 4th from the left including the partially obscured man - Bonnie Slade, wife of Warren.
2) 10th from the left with blue sweater - Elsa Rangott 9th from the left, child in front of Elsa Rangott - Warren Slade (deceased); architect / draughtsman with office in top block, Banna Ave. “Top bloke”. Drew up the plans for Lyn Brown’s parent’s house.
3) Women at back with blue cap and red hair - Marie Bashir ( I reckon this may be one of the Delve girls) – Barbara (Delves) Morel
4) Man standing in front of the second of the two verandah posts with blue jumper - Glen McWilliam (Glen Maxwell McWilliam 3 Feb 1914, Manly – 30 May 1996, GBH. Innovative winemaker, talented pianist, pilot). Father of Ross, Max, Bette & Peter.
5) Next to Glen McWillam on his left and with the bright blue jumper and red jacket over shoulder – Alice, wife of Glen McWilliam
6) Lady in front of Glen McWilliam with yellow shirt and grey skirt - Tots Beaumont (Ethel Kathleen (Little) 11 Feb 1920 – 15 Dec 2000 at Batemans Bay. Lived 76 y in Hanwood. Worked at GRF PO until she married Alex.
7) On her left, child with maroon or brown trousers - Enid Deanna Beaumont (only child of Alex & Tots)
8) Girl with blue bonnet - Lynette Braithwaite
9) Lady with yellow sweater - Mrs Braithwaite
10) 3rd from right at back -man with dark hair and tie - Alex Slade
11) On far right Alex Beaumont of Rosemont, Hanwood (Alexander George Beaumont 20 Feb 1913, Bowral – 8 June 1987 GBH.
As for the ski club Bill had a good conversation with brother Max about it and we can recall that some of the following people were involved:
Bruce Briggs, Stanbridge or Whitton,
The Delves family
Glen McWilliam
Merv and Mrs Hamilton
Bonnie and Mr Slade
The Alexanders
Harold Conkey (Cootamundra - Conkeys Smallgoods)
The Beaumonts
The Wards (Cootamundra)
Bob Wye
Marie Bashir
John Coghlan (Burrabogie Station?)
Max recalls the club was run on a formal basis by an elected committee and formalised membership. He also recalls that quite a few of the ski club members were also members of the Griffith Aero Club as they all used to socialise with each other.
As for Yarrangobilly Caves House it was run by Mrs Day for along time. Her licence to operate was eventually revoked or terminated by the government or probably National Parks on the grounds that as the building was mainly constructed of timber it was a fire hazard or risk. Mrs Day apparently moved on and purchased a property east of Wagga Wagga called Borambola Station which is now the National Fitness Centre.
There are also photographs on the Mount Buller 50th anniversary DVD of the Rangotts, Hamiltons, Beaumonts, McKenzies and Delves ski-ing at Kiandra, and some of them on Mount Buffalo in 1958. Then in the spring of 1960 an application was made to build a lodge at Mount Buller. It was approved and the first working-bee took place on 1 to 3 April 1961.
The list of founder members at Mount Buller were:
Harry & Maisie Delves Roger & Betty Blake
Ron & Audrey Delves Alec & Tots Beaumont
Helen Delves Enid Beaumont
Jean Elder Theo Portbury
Maureen Doyle Hugh & Dorothy Portbury
Barbara Delves Paul Delves
Mr & Mrs Les Potter Allen & Peggy Delves
Neil & Deci McNabb
Ian & Lex Salmon
Mervyn & Yvonne Hamilton
Taken from DVD
So, it is clear some families skied at both places, but perhaps after 1961 each tended to favour one or the other field. The later pictures in the Mount Buller-DVD are predominantly of the Delves families, plus the Kensett-Smiths, Andrews, and John Ritchie. The occurrence of these names, of course, will be skewed by the availability for the DVD of old photographs from peoples’ albums.
The CSIRO men’s hockey team in 1965, victorious after their only match (against the CSIRO women).
Back row, left to right: Robert Trewin, Eric Hoare, Peter Cary, John Loveday, George Chapman, and Jack Bleijie.
Front row: Alan Gunn, Eddie Linacre, Laurie Bisa, Mick Flinn, and Peter Hughes.
Photograph courtesy of Eddie Linacre
ADDENDUM
This is the first omission or mistake found after publication. Much to my surprise I had omitted to put this 1972 group photograph into the book.
Staff Photograph, 1972.
Front row, left to right: Barrie, Steer, Tony Ceresa, Warren Muirhead, Frank Melhuish, Peter Cary, Kath Bowmer, Dick Lang, Henry Barrs, Eric Hoare, Teddy Trickett, Gerald Moss, John Sale, Keith Garzoli, Helena Hicks, Leith Higgins, Alan Gunn, Ben Darbyshire.
Second row: David Erskine, Jan Lomas, Pamela Baulch, Alicia Price, Pat O’Brien, Jill Ford, Maureen Parker, R. McWilliam, J. Webb, Lorraine Deuis, Dot Dreyer, Ruth Taylor, J. O’Connor, June McMahon, Lyn Dewar, John Miller.
Third row: Rudy Amato, Steve Pierpoint, Andy Masciocchi, Ben Bruemmer, Bobby Dalgleish, Bruce Birch, Mike O’Connor (BoM), Bert Gilliard, Nigel Croudson, Ray Ceccato.
Fourth row: Graeme Flood (Div. Mech. Eng.), Ron Locke, Wayne Bellew, Helmut Panhuber, Jim Somerville, Peter (?) Margrie, Stan Barratt, Pieter Weerts, Fred Roberts, D. Brighenti, Philip Matthews.
Back row: G. McClure, George Richards, J. Binello, C. Steinberg, Reg Anlezark, Fred Whitford, George Chapman, Ron Gray, Mike Plowright, John Blackwell, Jack Bleijie, Peter Rutter (Div. Comp. Res), Bill O’Brien, Bill Van Aken, Wal Armstrong, Arnold Dreyer, Arnold Hosking.
Some of the participants in the Reunion Lunch, Griffith, 4 May 2012
Sitting left to right: Arthur West, Evelyn Garzoli, Margaret Haggarty, Pat Ingram, John Miller, Eddie Linacre, Kath Cary, Alistair Low.
Second row: Anna Pistillo, Ursula Wood, Anne O’Loughlin, Alan Gunn, Barbara Harrigan, Noel Dewar, Emmett O’Loughlin, Gwen Muirhead, Kath Bowmer. Back: John Delves, Sue Delves, Peggy Ceccato, Barbara Morel, Barrie Steer, Yvonne Brennan, Mick Fleming, Ray Ceccato, Frank Skinner, Warren Muirhead, Roger Hoare, Peter Cary, Marie Gunn, Rhonda Hoare, Helena Hicks, Shirley Heritage, Alan Heritage.
