Iron Man
It's a quiet sunny day and a retired couple sit on the hill opposite where the once majestic BHP steelworks once
stood. They unpack their picnic lunch, look over the now barren site and reminisce about times long gone.
The man in question is Aubrey Brooks and he and his wife Peg have travelled in from Tanilba Bay where they live in a modest single storey home.
Man of iron, man of steel....call him what you will but the late Aubrey Brooks will live on in the memories of Newcastle's steel workers due to his lifetime commitment to BHP. He was a third generation employee of the now international company. What's more the newspapers and TV cameras loved his rugged image as he seemed to epitomise the working class man of his day.
On the last day of its operation, Aubrey led the workforce to the entrance gates and made a speech on their behalf. He was also filmed flicking the switch to bring the operation to a grinding halt. Newcastle and the lives of all who lived there would never be the same again.
The company however offered Aub a job as a night watchman to roam around with a torch in hand as a security officer. It frightened him being alone with the ghosts of those who once worked there so he resigned.
There was no way that he could embark on a new career as iron was well and truly in his blood and he spent the rest of his life keeping the memory alive.
He offered his services to give talks to community groups and his fame quickly spread after he led the push to establish the 'Muster Point' in a nearby park as a memorial to workers who had died in serving the company.
To do this he and his fellow travellers needed money and in a deal to support politicians they came good with the dollars.
The centrepiece of the Muster Point is a rusting monolithic structure which captures the spirit of the steel industry. Aub would conduct bus tours of the site and answer question about BHP and its history.
He was also moved to offer up his services to train women in defensive tactics after reading of them being set upon and being assaulted at night. He was a highly trained black-belt recipient of an Oriental martial art. This he became involved with as young man which he confessed got him away from 'the wrong crowd'.
To his wife Peg and children we express our sincere condolences to a 'one off' character who stood head and shoulders above the rest of us.
Picture: Aub at his Tanilba Bay home.
Solar Savings
Power bills have soared and PSSC is considering extending the winter down time at its three pools to save money.
As things stand they have maximised the solar harvesting at Tilligerry after a $30 000 insurance payout replaced the panels on the hall next door. A bushfire spotted onto the old ones which were written off.
The pool is now open between 6am and noon weekdays and for shorter periods of a weekend.
The pool is also used by lappers, skin diver trainees and our Marine Rescue does survival courses there. Kids' birthday parties are also popular.
The thermostat is set at a very comfortable 26 C.
Photos: A lifeguard showing the solar hot water delivery pipes and a Marine Rescue crew practises survival skills.
Lions Judge Literature Awards
For over 20 years the Port Stephens Literature Awards have grown to be one of Australia's most supported writing competitions.
It was run by our local TACE group for most of that time but over the past few years our Lions Club has taken over.
Cash prizes and certificates are awarded for the top twenty short stories and the awards are sponsored by PSSC, Club Lemon Tree, NOTA and PSSC.
All details can be found from Kevin Colman on 0407 279 844.
Photo: Kevin Colman....Lions to judge competition in 2025.
Chameleon
A chameleon is a reptile which changes its colour to fit in with the environment of the day.
We could very well say the same about the TAG gallery on the main road at LTP but rather than disguise itself this structure has become bolder to attract attention.
The building has an interesting history and began its life as a fire station. It was built by voluntary labour and was for use by any community group. The teenagers used it as a drop in centre; It was a Sunday school; the Coast Guard met there; it was a cinema and a pre school as well as a health care centre for the district nurse to use to check the wellbeing of young babies.
It was named to honour the memory of fire captain Bernie Henderson who died at a young age.
That changed with the amalgamation of the two fire brigades and the opening of the new station at Tanilba.
PSSC gave it over to the TAG group which relocated from the Kooindah Centre to take advantage of its prominent location. It is staffed by the artists who exhibit their work there.
It's just become something of an eye catching artwork itself as the artists have freely expressed their creative feelings with paint and brush.
They are currently taking entries for their upcoming 'SOCTACULA ' competition with a cut-off date of September 1st. Entry forms can be obtained from the gallery and categories include: Best Wearable Sock ….Best Dressed Sock......Best Sock Painting.....Best School Sock.....and Most OUTRAGEOUS Sock. Their facebook page will bring you up to speed with TAG and its activities.
Photos: Lisa Henderson at the fire station named after her father....The TAG gallery taking shape....The decorated gallery today and the entry form brochure.
Special Trees
Tilligerry has some special trees which bring back memories of the past and have links with historic events.
Top of the list is arguably the oldest olive tree in Australia which stands in the grounds of Tanilba House. The
historic homestead also boasts two 160 year old fig trees which now form part of an arbor used for wedding celebrations. On top of this is a wistaria which is some 100 years old.
Wollemi pines are freely available these days after countless thousands were cloned from this newly discovered species in a Blue Mountains gully
One now grows on Tanilba Golf Course having been planted there by the Oldham family as a living memoria
l to the late Doug Oldham, a long time member of the club.
A highlight of the ANZAC day service at Tanilba Bay School years ago was the planting of a 'lone pine'. This was a descendant of the lone pine tree standing on a ridge at Gallipoli. A soldier brought back seeds which fathered the mature tree growing at Canberra's War Memorial. The RSL now propagates them and sells them to clubs and schools when they are around three years of age.
The most expensive tree out this way cost $30 000 and was brought in as a huge mature native fig on a low loader and put on top of the man-made island in Lancom's settling lake near the main road.
One interesting tree related name: 'Nullarbor' sounds very much like an aboriginal word for the vast arid plain between SA and WA. It isn't! It is actually Latin...a combination of 'null' (nothing) and 'arbor' (tree)...ie: no tree!
Pictures: The wistaria arbor and the Fig Tree grotto at Tanilba House plus the $30 000 Landcom native fig being set in place.
Pot Holes or Parks?
When are they gunna fix the bloody roads?.... I pay my rates but the pot holes are worse every year!!....The roads are dreadful. Sack the council!....These, dear reader are some of the comments angry residents come up with as our roads disintegrate under the 'big wet'.
The answer in simple terms is money and our Mayor and former councillor Steve Tucker have the solution.
Both agree that the millions of dollars needed to fix our main road can only come from the state government when it is reclassified as a main arterial road and they take full responsibility for its rebuilding and
maintenance. Currently council have a petition to have this done - please Google - Port Stephens Council petition and that will explain the procedure and you can use the links to sign it.
When it comes to urban streets our mayor sees the liquidation of unused council assets as a way of funding local road repairs.
Take Stanley St in LTP as an example. It's the last street on the left going towards the waterfront. It actually crosses the road to the right and ends at Johnson Pde but will never be turned into a road. By selling this and many others of its type, millions of dollars could be released to fund roadworks.
Steve Tucker suggests that the Tanilba Bay has an excess of parks that are unused and could be sold to create a road fund.
“ When Tanilba was developed in the 1930s land was very cheap and its designer, Henry Halloran, left vast areas of parkland for public use as well as making the roads very wide. There is no way these days that Ave of the Allies would be left so wide by a developer. On top of this, there are far too many public parks nobody uses and council has to maintain them.
Years ago, PSSC sold off some of the six parks fronting Beatty Bvd. The land Coles stands on is one such; The Baptist Church bought another and Monash Cl. was turned into housing blocks.
Others surplus to requirements are one tucked in behind King Albert Ave and another with access from Lloyd George Grove.”
“The best way to use the many millions raised by the sale of these assets is to invest the money in a 'Roads Fund' and spend the interest generated on bringing the back streets up to scratch, he said.
“There is no such thing as a money tree where you just pluck dollars off it when you need them. It's all about options. We can put up with what we've got, increase the rates, seek government grants or sell unproductive assets. It's as simple as that,' he added.
PSSC seeks public input on this ongoing problem and the public is invited to forward suggestions.
Photos: Road funding sign.....Baptist Church property which was once a park and sold by PSSC.....and Steve Tucker... “ Park sales could fund roadworks.”
Like them or Loath them
Trees are very much in the news at the moment as our Lord Mayor supervised the replanting of trees at Shoal Bay which were deliberately cut down.
Residents wanting uninterrupted water views are very tempted to poison or chop down trees in public reserves. A panoramic view also greatly improves their property value and Port Stephens has many sites where this problem is common.
On the other hand, greenie zealots plant trees which obscure the views of those nearby with no regard for the rights of affected residents.
One previous case in Nelson Bay saw Council take swift action when a huge eucalypt was poisoned. They
festooned the bare branches with ugly bunting and stacked shipping containers in the reserve.
Tilligerry has had its own troubles over the years with trees 'disappearing' in the reserves at Mallabula, Tanilba and LTP. Some may have fallen victim to vandals but many have been illegally removed for selfish gain.
Council's reaction has been to erect
warning signs, replace the trees and to letterbox residents who could be suspects.
But, dear reader, trees can be very dangerous things as rodworkers found out in the 1930s. A large eucalypt fell and killed a road worker at the bend near Orange Grove Rd which has been known as 'Dead Man's Corner ' from that time
on.
Since bushfires have burnt down hundreds of houses over recent years, property owners are now allowed to clear - fell around their homes and grub out undergrowth for some 50metres as a fire buffer.
Council regularly inspects trees in reserves and trims suspect dead branches which could fall on unsuspecting picnickers or park users.
Some very old grass trees were transplanted from the Landcom estate to Tanilba School ahead of development to save them from the bulldozer and a $30 000 native fig tree was placed on the man-made island in the middle of their settling pond.
Photos: Before and after: Illegally planted trees at Tanilba and after their removal....Vandalized trees in Henderson Park....Warning signs in Cook Pde LTP and grasstrees donated by Landcom to Tanilba School by Landcom.
Dedicated Historian
Tilligerry has not only had a few dedicated souls who keep our history for future generations, it also has a society which preserves historical documents and shares its journals with other like minded souls.
The late Jean Truebridge was one such dedicated researcher who well and truly left her mark.
It was Jean who collated the Doyle story by sifting through family documents found under a vacant run down LTP home by a tradesman. Some of these were photo copied and were published in a book 'Letters from the Heart'. The original collection, stored in two suitcases, was returned to the family after some 20 years.
More interesting were the diaries of a certain James Montagu Smith, her grandfather who spent many years at sea and on the Australian goldfields.
She painstakingly transcribed these diaries from his spidery longhand script, typed them up and distributed copies to family members. She also tidied up the spelling and punctuation.
Noted Victorian author and editor Peter Cuffley then transformed it into a book: 'Send the boy to Sea' in 2001. His research checked the original manuscript for accuracy and he added detailed end notes.
It's a page turning read with Smith lucky to survive to tell his tale. It is much similar to A B Facey's blockbuster; 'A Fortunate Life'.
A copy of the book is now kept in the LTP library or can be ordered by phone from the library service and picked up from the bookmobile. You can also buy a copy quite cheaply online from antiquarian book sellers.
Pictures: Jean with her book.....The Governor of Queensland, a personal friend of Dr. Doyle....and the Family History Society's centre at the old LTP School.
Mushrooming in Tilligerry
Mushrooms have been well and truly in the news recently with the murder conviction of a Victorian woman who fed her family the the lethal 'death cap' variety.
The good news is that Tilligerry is free from these killer fungi indeed so is most of NSW.
Death cap (Amanita pualloides) mushrooms are found in forested areas of SA, NSW and Victoria and have a symbiotic relation with trees, particularly oak trees. They pop up during autumn and winter and are easy to identify.
On the other hand, field mushrooms that our local residents gather grow in the grassed areas in public parks, backyards, pastures and golf courses. They are easily identified and picking them is a great family fun activity. What's more they are free and delicious.
A great time to look for them out this way is after a good downpour followed by sunshine.
To check out the field mushrooms just google 'field mushrooms' for pictures and photos. You can do the same with the death cap mushroom if the story interests you.
Still worried? Buy some fresh ones from Coles or some canned varieties but be careful to read the label. You see, many are imported from overseas.
Picture: Aussie field mushrooms.....Check out the videos on you tube.
Crocodile Tears
There will be no crocodile tears shed if residents see surface crazing developing in roads near them. They will be real tears!
You see, when asphalt roads get a crazing pattern developing on the surface similar to a crocodile's skin, it can't be repaired and need to be resurfaced quickly or the whole section replaced. True!
Once water penetrates the road base, you can't just give it the pot-hole treatment because it doesn't work.
In 'normal' times, Council inspectors patrol the roads on the lookout for the tell-tale early signs and get another top coat of bitumen put down but of late they have been overwhelmed by pot hole problem.
Many years ago, Dean Pde LTP was totally resurfaced while Tilligerry Track was still unsealed. So bad was it that residents preferred to drive on the grassy nature strip to escape damage to their vehicles.
PSC justified this by saying that Dean Pde had extensive 'crocodile' patterns developing and unless they resurfaced it, it would cost a fortune to rebuild. Tilligerry Track would have to wait until a total makeover was prioritized. It has recently been brought up to scratch.
Photo: A close up of 'crocodile crazing' of a bitumen road surface.
Flooding at Vinnies
The 'big wet' saw Vinnies at Tanilba Bay flood with water entering the charity store and ruining the carpet. This happened because the drainage system under the main road and the big easements through the golf club failed to handle the volume.
This choke point sees a large pool form outside with heavy downpours and a previous weather eve
nt saw a local reporter barred from the store because of something he wrote in 'The Examiner some years back.
Here's what happened:
An elderly man was suck in his car outside Vinnies during heavy rain so the staff got him out of the car and ushered him inside to safety. The women were soaked so Priscilla Perry said that they should have a wet T shirt competition. 'The Examiner' heard about it and wrote a short piece which said that the competion was a dead heat between a double 'B' cup and a double 'D' cup. Everybody had a good laugh except for the stony faced Catholic lady who was the boss.
The reporter was barred from the store for writing something she thought was disrespectful.
Priscilla has our best wishes as she has just had a hip replacement. For many years she has been a member of the fire brigade for which she raised funds tirelessly, She was a belly dancer, and artists model as well as a keen swimmer. Other medical issues have seen her absent from the pool of late. Her infectious personality has lifted the spirits of all those who have had the pleasure to know her,
File photos: Vinnies ladies outside their store....and Priscilla (centre) with swimming buddies at the pool.
Gold Mine
There isn't a gold mine in Tilligerry but the headline got you interested. True?... It's an old journalistic trick to draw you in. There is however gold in the rutile and zircon extracted but in such small amounts that it is not worthwhile trying to retrieve it.
The real gold mines out this way make good money by getting the various heavier metals from the sands as well as getting rid of them to produce the clean white silica sands for glass making. Both types of mines date back some 50 years and the history of the process and the extraction methods are very interesting.
Rutile and Zircon were found in abundance just below the surface between Oyster Cove and Mallabula. They are used in a wide variety of industries and the current price is somewhere between $3000 - $4000 per tonne. This proved to be a real gold mine for the company bearing their name. They started at Mallabula and a floating dredge ate its way towards Tanilba through the area now known as 'Koala Bay'. They then 'swam' the dredge around to the flat area behind Tanilba and worked their way towards Oyster Cove.
So rich was the deposit that they extracted 17% of product from the soil and coffee rock. Indeed as the price rose it was worth their while to return about 20 years later to work it over again. The extraction process had the slurry pumped over spirals which cut our the metals by centrifugal force.
Meanwhile the tall dunes were mined for the clean white silica sand and the heavy metals found in the reject - about 10% were dumped back at the mine site. Bricklayers then found that this unwanted sand was perfect for some sorts of work so the miners gave it away for free.
Later, with the rutile price soaring, the ACI miners found it was worthwhile to extract the rutile and zircon.
Today, the Tanilba Bay plant is closed and the raw sand is trucked from the Oyster Cove site to their Sat Ash plant which also processes beach sand for the manufacture of brown bottles.
Photos: The R&Z plant at Mallabula ….and the current silica sand mine site between Tanilba Bay and Oyster Cove.
Draining the Swamp
'Draining the swamp' was a phrase made famous by Donald Trump when he promised to get rid of the excess bureaucracy in Washington.
It's also a big problem in Tilligerry.You see, from Oyster Cove through to Mallabula, is a swamp. Indeed the early settlers skirted the edge of it and there were two tracks in. The Caswell family had one from where Medowie is now situated around the northern sand dune to their historic homestead. The other access was once again up out of the swampy lowlands on the southern side and ended at 'The Gibbers' in LTP.
When the new main road was constructed, it went straight down the centre which led to the drainage problems we have today. Two large drains were built across where our golf course now stands and large pipes were put under the main road to send the runoff into them. The water then ran through swampy marshland and into Tilligerry Creek up about level with The Oyster Cove road junction.
The drainage pipes block and cannot handle the runoff causing flooding in parts of Tanilba Bay. Water cannot be diverted to the bay itself because it won't run uphill.
The record flood of 1955 saw Fullerton Cove water levels rise some five metres and carve out a new pathway as Tilligerry Creek became a virtual tributary of the Hunter. What we saw in recent weeks was nothing compared to what happened 70 years ago.
Unless the big drainage pipes and canals are able to run free, the flooding will happen again and again and again. 'A History of the Tilligerry Peninsula' (1996) will give you a detailed explanation.
Photos: The drainage pipes for the new Tanilba roads can't make water run up hill!.....and our local history book.
Lift for Library
But where is it? This is most asked question by those wanting to borrow books in Tilligerry.
The town public library is situated on the main road opposite the Lemon Tree Passage Motel and when open, has a 'library' flag fluttering from a pole in front of it.
It's been there for decades and is staffed by volunteers and operates from 10am until noon six days per week. (Monday to Saturday).
A big makeover a couple of years back saw new carpet, reader friendly furniture and a slick paint job spruce it up.
What's more, a heavy cull of the least read books and an injection of new stock has something for everyone, including children.
Tilligerry Men's Shed workers have just removed the old overgrown sign and have carved a new one which is much more visible.
Business is more or less back to normal after a year or so of roadwork disruptions and the construction of a new police station two doors away. Council have taken over the computer access and has 2 brand new computers. A new scanner is on order and you will now be able to print A4 colour pages.
The library augments the mobile service which visits the villages of Tanilba Bay, Mallabula and Lemon Tree Passage on a rotational basis.
Both services have now recovered from the Covid lockdown restrictions and are back up to pace.
Photos: The LTP Library after the makeover......and the new sign giving it better visibility.
Book Donations
Tilligerry Community Library ha
s always enjoyed the support of the community donating their books. Whilst we do appreciate them, we can only accept them with prior consultation. Our hours are 10-12 noon Monday to Saturday and our phone number is 4982 3477 if you wanted to call up or pop in and check with us before bringing them in. Please don’t leave them at the door.
More than Just a News Service
You've seen our illuminated sign 'tilligerry.com' beside the main road near the golf club as you drive into town at night.
With news services moving away from the print media, tilligerry.com for over 10 years now has moved with the times and gives local residents the news that they can't get anywhere else. Indeed, those travelling around Australia or internationally can keep up to date with a click on a mouse or a mobile phone.
Before our 'hit meter' broke down we were averaging around 2000 views each month. We have a few businesses supporting us but we really don't want advertisers as we are a not for profit community service.
It gets even better. There are constant requests, usually from residents new to the area, for general information about available services and organizations out this way.
We now have an extensive community directory listing some 80 of these which includes: churches, clubs, social groups, cultural events, schools, tourist information, community support, JPs, medical services, play groups and pre schools.
Photo: tilligerry.com more than just news.
elebrating the re-opening.
