10 to 16 December 2023
Presented by Mildura & District Historical Society
Compiled by Judi Hyde for Mildura Rural City Council Libraries
100 YEARS AGO
LOCAL ITEMS: Red Cliffs Annual Picnic will be held at the Picnic grounds near the main Pumps near the River on Friday, December 15. Lorries have been arranged to take those who have no form of transport to the site to meet at the Red Cliffs State School at 9.30. Parents are asked to bring lunch baskets with them. Events are planned. A Red Cliffs Christmas Bazaar will be held in Jones’s Hall, including hoop-la, post-office, bran-tub, fish pond, nail-driving, spelling bee and cooking competition. The ladies of Mildura plan to form a swimming club for ladies. There was a very large attendance at the baths on Sunday owing to the change in hours, until a weather change came in around 4.30.
STAMMER: People who stammer are usually of more than normal intelligence, although the natural impression is that they are not. A local who once stammered sent in a cutting of a statement that was made before the Neurology and Psychiatry section at the Medical Conference in Melbourne by Dr Early who is a specialist on the subject. Although stammering was caused by predisposition imitation and shock – the root cause of it was psychic. A stammering child should be encouraged to overcome its dread of speaking. Stammering children suffered agonies of mind over infliction. The best method of cure was to cultivate purity of tone and a sense of rhythm in speech. If the vowels were made to carry the burden of sound, and greatly prolonged, stammering would become impossible.
KITCHEN: A simple method of keeping bread moist for any length of time in hot weather is to place a layer of salt in the bread tin base, place sheet of paper over the salt and the bread will stay moist for several days. Orange Wine: Use any oranges to make 10 gallons and use a keg of same capacity, squeeze sufficient oranges for 2.5 gallons of juice, add 2.5lb of sugar to the gallon, say 25lb to 10 gallons. Keep all pulp in another tub, add cold water to this and leave for 24 hours then strain and fill up keg. Keep the keg filled with cold water and when finished working, hung up airtight and let the wine remain for 12 months.
75 YEARS AGO
GROUPS: “If the men whose memory the Wentworth and District Services Club is dedicated had failed in their duty, Australia might now be suffering the horrors and misery existing in Europe.” Said Brigadier M J Moten at Wentworth to over 200 people. A Memorial Plantation surrounded by a strip of trees a chain wide may be established at the Old Aerodrome sponsored by the Apex Club. Fear was the greatest power on earth today and, coupled with ignorance and want, could do more damage than the atom bomb said Mr B C J Meredith, Dean of the University Branch at the Annual Speech Night of Mildura High School. Tolerance was another thing which young people should watch as intolerance was ruining today’s world.
HERO REWARDED: “I’ll always remember today,” said nine-year-old Harold Dowdy at Buronga when he was presented with a new bicycle, a reward for his bravery on November 25. Young Harold rescued his three younger siblings from their burning home. Donations reached 22 pounds 18 shillings and 4 pence, and an appeal by Sunraysia Daily took it to over 26 pounds. About 70 of Harold’s school friends and their parents were there to witness the headmaster of the Buronga School, Mr T Cooke, his friends sang For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow. He has never had a new bicycle before and is unable to ride but said he did not think it would take long with the help of his friend.
ITEMS: The Art of Cooking originated in China and but for Marco Polo it would have stayed there. There is no European tradition in culinary art. Classical Greek cooking was oily, tasteless and monotonous. Roman cooking was no better, stories of Emperors gorging on Peacock tongue pie and Meerkats fed on human flesh are eloquent proofs of its vulgar and parvenu character. They had Pulmenium, something like Barley porridge, washed down with Muslum – a lukewarm beer tasting of lemonade. Marco Polo was a gourmet. A full service of six trains each way a week will operate between Mildura and Melbourne, said the tourist Officer Mr W Sherriff, over the holidays.
50 YEARS AGO
BOWLS: Red Cliffs Dot Jenkinson and Bacchus Marsh’s Lorna Lucas, won the World Women’s Pairs title in New Zealand. The reigning pairs champions won the title in the final play against England on a count back. Dot started her career in 1954 has held nearly every major bowling trophy in Australia. Coming home, she alighted from the Vinelander train at Red Cliffs to a hero’s welcome.
NOTED: Plague locusts have cost Sunraysia beekeepers a Japanese order of 100 metric tonnes of orange blossom honey, worth about $500,000, when locusts invaded outlying areas of Sunraysia, and aerial spraying was started in an effort to control them. Mr Emmins said the sprays used to combat locusts were extremely toxic to bees. Once the spray was inside a hive, it was useless for at least three years.
JOBS TRAINING: Many Sunraysia women must be eligible to train for a new career at the Government’s expense. Widows, single mothers, and deserted wives are among those eligible to train for any job these days.
25 YEARS AGO
FIRST BURIAL: The first burial at the new Murray Pines Lawn Cemetery near the Mildura Airport took place yesterday. Although burials can be conducted at the site, its official opening will not take place until the end of February next year. Mildura Rural City Council has recently acquired water rights and is expected to begin beatification works at the site within the next few weeks. The cemetery is expected to serve the community for more than a century.
CARP CONTROL: The development of a national approach to controlling carp has earned the Murray Darling Association (MDA) a gold Rivercare 2000 Award. MDA regional manager Adrian Welles, said the award recognised the work of the National Carp Task Force, established by the MDA in 1996, in providing a focus for carp amid concern about lack of government and research activity in carp control. The taskforce has been a driving force for a co-ordinated national approach for carp research and education, he said.
RACE TRACK: An evacuated pit at Sandilong Park will be converted to facilitate a new sport – jet sprint boat racing – race driver Peter Freckleton confirmed yesterday. Establishment of a track follows several years of effort by local jet boat enthusiasts, with backing from national and State racing bodies, to get a racetrack in Sunraysia, Mr Freckleton said. The track, built to international standards, will be situated a few kilometres from Mildura CBD at Sandilong Racecourse. He described the inside of the Mildura horse racing track as the perfect venue and said ground level works to be undertaken there would complement the existing venue. Jet sprint boat racing was described by Mr Freckleton as high-speed rally driving in very shallow water.
