Richard Bush YHS 1955
Riding bicycles in the 1950s:
Pablo Picasso once combined an old bicycle seat and handlebars to form a sculpture entitled Tete de Taureau (Picasso Museum at http://picasso-paris.videomuseum.fr/). The seat formed the bull’s snout and the handlebars represented the horns. Those handlebars reminded me of the upturned bars on my pale blue Hartley bike I rode around Morwell in the 1950’s. It was a strange configuration although the upturned bars supported a stack of newspapers or a wheat bag full of rabbit traps. Girls’ bikes had straight handlebars (often with a basket attached) and step-through frames as they do today. Some models had a string guard over the rear wheel to protect skirts from being tangled in the rear wheel. A girl cruising past in the sit-up position, with long skirt flowing behind, was a sight to lift the spirits of any boy. I sometimes accompanied Robert Reid on his Saturday morning paper round in Morwell. Robert had a 1953 Malvern Star Coronation model resplendent in royal purple and gold livery. Malvern Star’s founder, Bruce Small, was a keen monarchist and he advertised the Coronation model as the “crowning glory of cycling”. Another Malvern Star model of the day had a rounded frame meant to resemble a crown. Town bikes in the 1950’s were simple, robust models. Back-pedal coaster hub brakes were common but not very effective. Flying down the hill from Yallourn to Morwell Bridge felt like a reckless speed with such little stopping power. As for climbing hills, most town bikes did not have the luxury of gears. Andrew Spaull’s bike was a heavy hand-me-down from his grandfather that made the paper delivery to the top of Reservoir Road a real challenge. Some expensive models came with three-speed Sturmey Archer hub gears made in England. Robin (Fitzie) Fitzgerald remembers with fondness his Healing bike with Sturmey Archer gears and brake combined in the hub. The Healing company was also remembered as a manufacturer of radios and TVs. Bruce Lewis had a Healing with turned up handle bars. He traded his Healing in 1957 for a Master Sports racing model from Olivers with Sturmey Archer gears and turn down handlebars. Arthur Oliver of Oliver’s sports shop was an institution among the sporting fraternity in Yallourn. The store was largish with a workshop at the back. It sold a range of sporting goods including for cricket, golf and fishing….but bicycles seemed to be Oliver’s main business which was not surprising given the importance of bicycles as a mode of transport in that era before the family car. Oliver sold new bikes and he assembled less expensive models in his workshop from spare parts. John Lewis had one such Oliverbranded bike with a newly sprayed frame that served him well on his paper round. The hill behind the school was too steep for a single-geared bike. John Lewis recalls that boys and girls living on the hill tended to walk both ways rather than ride to school and push the bike home. Andrew Spaull had a fairly flat ride to school from home and was a regular rider. He would dump his battered bike by the southern gate near the cricket nets rather than use the covered bike racks by the netball courts. Cycling is making a come back. So, if your bike is like Picasso’s and is missing a few parts, fix it up and take it for a ride.
