Old Willy: The industrial sights and sounds that newcomers will never know

When they were teenagers, over a family dinner one night, my three sons enthused about how fortunate they were to be growing up in Williamstown.

“We have everything right here,” they said. It gave me pause to think about my own happy childhood in Willy, of days spent skylarking at the beach, maybe watching a VFA footy match on a Sunday afternoon, or riding pushbikes down the many back laneways, and stopping to grab some fish and chips.

It gladdened me that my boys felt the same way. But I was also slightly dispirited by the reality that they would probably never be able to buy a property in the suburb they grew up in, such was its newfound popularity.

From the earliest days of white settlement, Williamstown was always blue-collar, if not downright hardscrabble. It was a flourishing seaport, with all the vices and virtues that a seaport brought. Indeed, when I came of age, there were no fewer than 18 hotels to choose from.

The most visible reminder of the town’s maritime past stands silently and proudly on Point Gellibrand: our most important historical structure, the magnificent bluestone Timeball Tower would once have gazed out over the prison hulks moored offshore.

The opening of the West Gate Bridge in 1978 was a watershed in Williamstown’s development. Previously, a trip to Williamstown from the city or eastern suburbs meant a circuitous drive around either Footscray or Dynon roads, or queuing for the car ferry at Port Melbourne.

Suddenly, Willy was much more accessible. Although, when I told people where I lived, I was still often queried about Williamstown and its perceived remoteness.

“How long does it take you to commute from out there?” Probably not nearly long as it takes you, I would reply.

Growing up in Williamstown, the most likely vocation for boys was an apprenticeship at either the naval dockyards or the Newport railway workshops. It amazes me that now, there are daily buses on which students travel to and from schools as exclusive as Geelong Grammar and St Michael’s.

When my friend Tommy left our primary school in grade 3 to attend St Kevin’s, he and his brothers were the only schoolkids on the train. Nowadays, there are carriages full of kids heading for the city and beyond. All this is on top of enrolment in our well-regarded high school being more difficult than it once was.

Nelson Place, Williamstown.Credit: Jason South

Many of the sights and sounds of the Willy of my youth have disappeared. The newcomers will never know of the mournful late-night groaning of the dredge filling its buckets on the Yarra, the old Newport Power Station expelling coal dust onto roofs and washing lines, the stream of traffic on Melbourne Road immediately after knock-off time at the docks, and the clanging of the chains on the ferry as it crossed the river.

Some of the piers, which we often dived from into the refreshing waters below, are in such a state of disrepair that they have been closed to the public. No longer can you drive out onto them like my dad once did, engaging in a three-point turn at the end of the pier while my sisters and I screamed in terror from the back seat.

Williamstown is not immune to the issues afflicting numerous other suburbs. In recent months, two pubs have closed their doors. The many vacant shopfronts and restaurants along Douglas Parade and Nelson Place are a constant reminder that times are tough in Willy, too.

Like in many municipalities, community groups engage in disputes with the local council. Current campaigns include a fight to save the pool at the lifesaving club, and a residents’ group battling eviction from their properties at the Techno Park estate adjacent to the old Mobil refinery.

At first glance, much about Willy has altered. On the streets, the battered Holdens and Fords have been replaced by late-model BMWs, Audis, and Mercedes. Property development, which began in earnest when the old rifle range was sold off for housing, continues apace.

But, for all the change, you do not have to strain your eyes too hard to see the perennial beauty which still exists in Willy’s old bones.

The streets full of block-fronted Victorians and renovated workers’ cottages, the beaches, the yacht clubs with boats moored out front in the shallow waters of Hobsons Bay, the backstreet pubs like the Stags Head and Steam Packet, and the parks, the best of which is the glorious botanic gardens.

There is a large morning foreshore community of cyclists, joggers, walkers, and swimmers, the latter group having grown markedly since the COVID lockdowns.

Maybe best of all, we have that view back across the river to the city from The Strand. It is arguably the best view of Melbourne from any suburb, and I never tire of it.

My wife, herself a Williamstown girl, best summed our attachment to our suburb when we were house hunting prior to our wedding 30 years ago.

Having traipsed though numerous open-for-inspections in suburbs like South Melbourne and Altona, one day she turned to me and said: “What on earth are we doing? We could never live anywhere other than Williamstown!”

Darren Dawson is a freelance writer who lives in Williamstown.

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