Former Aussie band member is revamping post boxes across Vic

A former member of a well known Australian bush band is taking it upon himself to revamp pillars of Australia’s heritage all across Victoria.

Former member of The Bushwackers band Mick Slocum is revamping post boxes all across Victoria. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Postbox pillars across Victoria are getting a revamp, with a former member of a well known Australian bush band taking it upon himself to fix them up.

Mick Slocum, a former member of The Bushwackers, has revamped 21 post boxes across the state, and last month went to Castlemaine to help launch an anti-graffiti campaign.

“There was one near my place here in inner-Melbourne and I must have driven past it 1000 times. It was covered in graffiti, and I just stopped one day and thought I’ll just clean it off for a minute,” Mick said.

“I came home, bought some cleaning material, cleaned off the graffiti, and stood back and looked at it and thought, I’ll just keep going.

“So I went down to the hardware store, bought a can of red, a can of gold, and a can of black and went back and rubbed it all down and sanded it and resprayed it.”

Castlemaine Post Box before revamp. Picture: Supplied

Mick beside the Castlemaine post box after he restored it. Picture: Zoe Phillips

This was six months ago, and since then Mick has been fixing boxes up across Melbourne, and is now taking it to the regions in Chewton and Castlemaine, with plans to fix up 123 boxes across the state.

“I want to do them all, and it’s a bit like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge, right? Because once you finish them all, it’ll be effectively time to start again,” he said.

“It’s amazing the number of people that have come up and said ‘how long has this been here?’. They’ve been hiding in plain sight.”

With support from Australia Post in his endeavours, Mick plans to turn it into a nationwide project.

“We’re lifting the veil on Australia’s heritage. There aren’t many things on the streets these days that are 130 years old, and I think these things are well worthy of preservation.”