Drouin Wooden Toys’ Frank Couacaud making gifts for 68 years
This Gippsland toy maker has been making kids’ dreams come true for almost seven decades with wooden toys crafted in his workshop. And he says there are some items back in demand after coronavirus.
FRANK Couacaud is Gippsland’s answer to Father Christmas.
From his workshop in Drouin, the 82-year-old has for the past 68 years produced handmade wooden toys for children around Australia.
With its shop front decorated with festive lights, Drouin Wooden Toys — a century-old business started by Frank’s father-in-law — makes thousands of items a year, from trucks and engines to doll’s houses, kitchen and nursery furniture.
“In the lead-up to Christmas we definitely get busier,” says Frank, in his signature cheery style.
“At our peak in the past it wasn’t unusual to work 70 hours a week.
“I’ve slowed down a little now but in this business if you don’t work hard the toys don’t get made.”
Toys are all made from pine, with timber trucked in packs of 1000m per pack, which are then converted in the factory behind the shop — a wood worker’s paradise, with machines up to 100 years old.
“We do use modern machinery, though, nail guns and battery-charged drills, but it’s all hand sanded,” says Frank, who sports a middle finger on his left hand that is a little shorter thanks to a run in with a sharp blade.
“The machines make the work much faster than in the past. Routers finish the edges smoother and easier.”
Frank works with his wife, Barbara, and son, Berin, to make items to demand, in large numbers, such as 20 cradles at a time.
The fastest item to make is a horse stable, at almost an hour, with the most detailed a kitchen combination sink-stove dresser that takes up to three hours to construct.
At the peak of the business, Frank sold to 70 shops around Australia, including Myer.
But these days toys are mainly sold through their own shop front, as well as a handful of loyal distributors, one of whom “reckons we’re the biggest toy maker in Australia, but I don’t know whether that’s right”.
Frank says trends have changed over the years, with wheelbarrows not so popular now, but chairs, tables and blackboards are in demand on the back of homeschooling during COVID-19 lockdown.
He even continues to make wooden rocking horses, originally made by his father-in-law, Alf. Proposch. Alf started the company — then known as Proposch Toys — about a century ago in Melbourne, later moving to a 50ha farm in Longwarry.
Frank grew up in Longwarry, where his grandfather first carried logs from the bush on bullock teams.
His father was a jockey and when he urged the young Frank to also join equine racing, Frank declined. At the age of 14, Frank started working for Proposch Toys across the road from his home, also living with Alf and his family when his own family moved back to Melbourne.
By the age of 21 Frank had earned enough money to buy 2ha in Longwarry, and by 26 also ran a chicken meat farm as a sideline to toy making.
Frank ended up marrying Alf’s daughter, Kathleen, and when Alf died after a timber accident, Frank took over the business, moving to Drouin about four decades ago (Kathleen passed away in 2008).
Frank says children haven’t changed in seven decades, although more parents buy blackboards as an antidote to technology.
He says the popularity of wooden toys has never waned, with many of his customers preferring wood to plastic. “I have multiple generations of a family come in to buy toys. Some items bought 40 years ago still work perfectly and so become heirlooms for their children.
“People just like the feel of wood.”
The father of two and grandfather of four says he has never tried to sell the business — “a developer would probably buy the shop and bulldoze it” — adding that because his son is not keen to take over the business, when he retires it will probably close.
“I get up at 6.30am and start work and if I have quiet time on the weekend I’ll come and work.
“The doctor tells me I’m fit and I should keep doing what I’m doing,” he says.
“The past 30 years have gone so quickly. I’m happy making toys.”
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