Eungella chalet tales abound from early 1950s

From the memoirs of the late Malcolm ‘Pumpkin’ Maclean

Eungella Chalet when occupied by Kay and Hannah Sprogoe

From the memoirs of the late Malcolm “Pumpkin” Maclean with the kind permission of his family.

I FIRST worked at Eungella in the early 50s, when Kay and Hannah Sprogoe had the ­Chalet.

This was before Kay had a liquor licence to sell grog to the general public.

I’m sure Gavin or Steve won’t raid the place if I say that you could go around the back of the building and Kay would sell you a bottle of Fosters or Melbourne Bitter for three shillings (30 cents), kept cold in a kerosene fridge, and I can tell you it tasted better than beautiful after a day’s work.

Sprogoe’s liquor licence arrived in 1955, and he built a small bar in the front, near the dining room.

Muddy Oswald helped out in the bar, but when Muddy and Hannah were in there together there was no room for anyone else.

The drinkers were mainly sawmill workers, a few Lovi’s, Jack Brodie, and a couple of us road workers.

Mick Lovi would have had his turkey dog Bing with him, as wherever Mick went in his T Model Ford, Bing went.

We were never short of scrub turkeys. Before there are any complaints, remember this was 50 years ago and you had to practically live off the land.

I was sent out to grade the Lizzie Creek Road in 1953, with no rations supplied.

During the week we camped in the bed of the Broken River near Buggy Bend in a tent and fly.

So, after two days you had to shoot ducks or turkeys to survive, as there was no such thing as refrigeration in those days.

Corned beef was the only thing that we could keep.

A bottle of beer thrown into the deepest hole in the river didn’t taste bad, though.

Naturally, this was years before the Eungella Dam was built.

The Lizzie Creek Road then, was a road through brigalow scrub, where you crossed Lizzie Creek 25 times in one mile.

Timber trucks about to descend Eungella Range

The roughest, rockiest road I have ever seen – a bugger of a job, but someone had to do it.

I remember leaving the grader running one day so I could find my way out, and going into the brigalow scrub to see if I could shoot a turkey, I walked right on to one of McEvoy’s wild scrub bulls.

He jumped to his feet snorting, and went one way, while I ran the other. After that I waited until the “Turks” came out onto the road.

Back at the Chalet, Kay was one of the publicans you used to see in the western movies.

If you asked for a nip of rum, he would put the bottle on the bar and you could pour your own nip.

He said it evened out by the end of the night, as the drinkers started by taking big nips, however they finished off on little ones, as the bar was on the edge of the mountain, and if you weren’t careful you walked over the edge in the fog.

Kay came from Denmark, in fact the boys used to call him a Great Dane. He used to get his Vs mixed up with his Ws, much to our amusement.

Vic Lovi used to drink with us, so “Victor” became “Wictor”.

Another time Vic had a cold, so we all cracked up when Kay told him, “Wictor, you should rub your chest with Wick’s Wapor Wub.”

You didn’t need TV in those days for amusement.

Eungella at that time had three sawmills and four schools – two at Crediton, one at the township, and another at Dalrymple – as well as over 50 dairy farms.

Timber trucks used the narrow dirt range road day and night.

John Thompsett and his son George had the milk run about 1954 or 1955.

If I start on Jack Brodie stories, I would never get around to the other pubs in the Valley.

The Pioneer Valley Museum is now open to visitors every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9.30am to 2.30pm. Drive into the beautiful Valley and call in to see us. Entry is free. Unfortunately, we are unable to take group bookings at this stage.