By MARG STORK
I WAS browsing through a faded, tattered copy of The Dandenong Journal when a headline on the front page caught my eye: ‘Cranbourne Man Put Hand on Snake’.
The January 24, 1951, edition read: “While Mr Jim Gardiner of Cranbourne was out measuring some land with Mr Lou Collison the other day, he put his hand on the ground and pulled it back with a jerk when he found he’d touched a snake!
“The reptile reared up and objected to being so caressed, but it didn’t take Jim’s fellow snake charmer Lou long to grab a stick and despatch it.”
It reminded me how, during the school holidays — when we lived on our farming property at Ryecroft in Lyndhurst — my father would warn us about playing in long grass in the orchard for it was a favourite spot for copperhead, black and brown snakes.
You’d also find them basking beside the railway line near Abbotts Road crossing, where I and my school mates picked wildflowers to press and name for our nature studies.
My father, Rowland Hill Archer, was an ornithologist, and when I accompanied him on bushland treks in search of bird eggs he kept a hefty stick just in case we encountered a snake. And a reminder: with summer round the corner, it’s time to remove foliage in backyards. Don’t let your home be theirs.
An evergreen club
The Dandenong City Bowling Club’s 30 members are celebrating a big day: the club’s 130th anniversary. Based in a picturesque garden setting in the Dandenong Park, the club has men and women bowlers aged from 40 to 90.
Popular president Barbara Carlin says there are two pennant mixed teams, one playing on Saturdays, the other Tuesdays. Barbara is helped by vice-president Colin Haskett, secretary Len Diss, treasurer Leigh Makings and green directors Bill Clue and Bill Stevens.
I was rapt to learn from the club’s centenary files that Greg Dickson — for whom I worked at our Dandenong Journal office — compiled the history of the club from 1882-1982. The ‘boy from the Mallee’ was a member of the general committee.
It was a small unsigned advertisement in the South Bourke and Mornington Journal on January 18, 1882, that signified the birth of the Dandenong Bowling Club.
The first meeting was in the Dawsons Hotel two days later, in the days when Dandenong was a mere hamlet.
There was no town hall, Dandenong had four trains a day, black trackers were stationed at the police paddocks in Stud Road, and the locals were still getting good hauls of black fish and eels from the Dandenong Creek.
At that time, the bowling club’s nearest neighbour was the old granite and bluestone bridge … literally, the gateway to Gippsland.
Do you have a milestone, memory or question for Marg? Email marg@yourweekly.com.au or post submissions to A moment with Marg, c/o Dandenong Journal, PO Box 318,
What do you think? Post a comment below.
For all the latest breaking news, stay with this website. Also, follow the Weekly at facebook.com/dandenongjournal or on Twitter @DandenongJournal.Dandenong 3175.
