The death of Mrs Vida McMaster in July 1990 (at the age of 90) has caused me to contemplate on the fact that, years ago, when an old respected resident of the district died, the newspapers usually paid tribute to them and to the part they had played in the life and development of their town and district.
These days, with much larger populations, local papers have been much more impersonal and folk who have given great service to their community, never rate a mention except in the obituary column.
In the four years since my book “The Old Brown Coal Mine” was published, over 30 of these folk who personally shared their memories with me have died. Mrs Vida McMaster was the first person I visited and she was most willing to share those memories of the earliest days of the Latrobe Valley coalfields.
Born in Baringhup near Castlemaine in 1900, she was one of 10 children to Charles and Arabella White, who bought a 92-acre farm on the Latrobe River and moved there in 1902. Their home was named “Bonny View” and was only a short walk to what had been The Great Morwell Coal Mine which had operated for 10 years before going into liquidation in 1899.
The caretaker of the mine was a frequent visitor to the White’s hospitable home. Conditions then were much different to now – when water was scarce, a horse and sledge with copper on board would be taken to the river near the old mine, boiled up and the washing done there.
Mrs White was a midwife and sometimes had to leave home (on horseback) to attend the birth of a baby, perhaps leaving a batch of bread rising, which Vida would bake and attend to the chores. When they were children, a favourite pastime for themselves and their friends was to board a railway trolley from the abandoned mine and push it along the rails to the highway – then all aboard and have the thrill of riding it back downhill, over the river bridge and into the mine. The White children walked across the flats to the Morwell Bridge School, one room of which had been part of Godridge’s Hotel, a coaching stop on the Prince’s Highway.
By the time Vida was a teenager, the old mine had been re-opened and was just known as the Brown Coal Mine Camp, or the camp on the hill. Here a Mr & Mrs Cooper erected a big marquee to use as a boarding house and Vida, with two other girls, helped with providing meals for the hungry miners – no days off – but maybe a walk in the bush on a Sunday afternoon. Soon the camp had a little post office store and had officially become Brown Coal Mine – there were numerous tents, bark and slab huts and humble little homes.
In 1919, Vida married Charles McMaster, who had a little store there and soon they established their own boarding house, feeding up to 70 men. Vida tells of them cooking whole sheep, buckets of potatoes and other vegetables on big wood-burning stoves which never went out. No refrigerator or running water in those times – and sliced bread was unheard of – cutting the cribs (lunches) in time for men on different shifts was a big task in itself.
Half a mile or so away at the home farm, various families in turn were boarded until they could build their own homes. By now the coal winning had extended to the Yallourn Open Cut and the model town of Yallourn was taking shape. Vida’s memories of these times, supported by photos, were to me, living history.
When I knew Mr & Mrs McMaster personally they lived not far from the Brown Coal Mine school with their four daughters. Soon after the second world war broke out, it was realised that the Power Stations would be a prime target for enemy bombs so First Aid classes were commenced in earnest. My sister and I, with others, belonged to one which met at the McMaster’s home, Mr McMaster being our instructor. Sadly, he died in 1941 so never saw us receive our Gold medallions.
Vida McMaster had seen tremendous changes in her life time – the old mine worked out long ago and, like the farm, surround by pine trees. Their old home, “Bonny View” is marked only by a clump or two of arum lilies and some old pines. Roads and bridges have been rebuilt several times – there have been two weirs over the Latrobe below their home. Little settlements, including Brophy’s Flat and the SEC work camps, as well as the town of Morwell Bridge, have gone.
The beautiful town of Yallourn has lived and died. The Brown Coal Mine township, where it all started, has become Yallourn North and the coal fields of the Latrobe Valley have extended for many miles.
The changes Vida McMaster saw, and was part of, are typical of those experienced by other pioneers who were her contemporaries and have now passed on.
