“I walk down the street and nobody notices me. They think I’m a tourist. It’s as though I’m invisible.” We were having a cup of coffee at the baker’s with Fumiko. She had lived in Tallangatta for four years and was married to the son of a local plumber.

That was so sad and surely something could be done about it. I talked it over with Lou, the Neighbourhood House co-ordinator, and so the Multi-cultural Program was born.

The plan was for a monthly two-hour cooking class followed by lunch and a talk with a different country featuring each month. Our initial program included Italy, Japan, the Philippines, Bali, Russia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, France and China. As we outlined the course, much interest was shown. “But where are these people coming from?” we were asked. No one could believe it when we said, “Every one of these leaders lives in Tallangatta.”
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The cooking class, including lunch, was $25. Lou talked over the proposed menu with the leader and went off with a list of ingredients to buy. Other than the free use of the room and adjoining kitchen, the course paid for itself.

The limited number of places were snapped up. The leader showed how to prepare the chosen dishes and the class went to work, slicing and dicing, stirring ʹand straining. Everyone was absolutely enjoying themselves and the leader was beaming.

After two hours, lunch was ready. There was always plenty of food and  leftovers were often on offer.

After lunch, Lou put up a map of the country of the month followed by photos of the countryside, the family, wedding photos – anything at all that the leader had been able to find. The leader, often in national dress, would explain the photos and add comments. Some leaders had perfect English, others less so, but that didn’t matter. Finally each guest was given a piece of paper with Hello and Thank you in the language of the day with the leader showing us the correct pronunciation.

Don interviewed the leader before the big day and then wrote it up for the local paper along with photos and comments on the class and lunch.

We found enough leaders for 2018 and 2019. People were clamouring for more but there are only a certain number of nationalities to be found in a town of 1000 people. We had covered Scotland, Austria, India, the Czech Republic, Somalia and more. “Never mind.” they said, “Give them another turn with different food.” I have never known such a popular program.

However Lou went into Albury to work, then Covid came along.

But the real outcomes were local people coming to know these ‘others’, maybe even having a try at saying Hello in their language, and these ‘others’ finding new friends. As far as Fumiko from Japan goes, she is teaching the piano to the son of Ifah from Malaysia, working at the hospital with Sasika from Sri Lanka, teaching the piano at the Secondary College and best friends with Madeʹ from Bali, who lives just around the corner!

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Carmyl Winkler

In March 1979 a meeting was called in Tallangatta with the aim of establishing a cottage industry centre. Unbelievably, less than two weeks later was the grand opening!

Pat Greig had been appointed Community Education Officer, closely associated with the local high school. She was full of enthusiasm as well as expertise and was the wonderful backbone of the project.

I was there at the first meeting and eagerly paid my $10 to join. My membership number was CW12. Over forty years later new members are still joining with their numbers being well over 600.

NW3 was Noreen Wood who was a scout leader and made leather belts. DF4 was retired Dulcie Franks who knitted extraordinary jumpers with self-designed patterns. We knew they wouldn’t sell. Then we had some visitors from Melbourne. They snapped them up!

Pat contacted some of her artistic friends from nearby towns and they happily joined and put their more professional goods up for sale. But while they certainly attracted customers, the members I remember were locals who had been knitting or sewing for years. They tentatively put a baby jacket in the shop and, when it sold, were so surprised and delighted that someone would want their homemade article that they rushed home and got out the needles to begin the next treasure.

The Winkler family saw a way of supplementing Dad’s pay packet. What could we contribute? Jam was a good start and we decided to specialise in marmalade. We began with Sweet Orange and Four Fruits but then launched out with Carrot and Lemon, Apple and Lime, Cumquat, Chunky Lemon and Pineapple. Don made some little racks, Michael did some marmalade research and wrote a leaflet (did you know the word comes from the Portuguese ‘marmelo’ which is a quince conserve?) and we put the racks, leaflets and an assortment of marmalades together. They sold well.

That was the beginning. We found a woollen mill in Castlemaine that sold material at a reasonable price and added cushions and kettle holders to our wares.

But one of the most loved projects was making hand-made paper.  We saved boxes of old paper, pulped it, pressed it and packed it. As we became more experienced we imprinted leaves on the corner of the paper.

If you spent a day a month looking after the shop, The Hub took 10% commission. If not, it was 25%. So, of course, one day a month was a pleasant change from the housework. Later with other commitments, I continued to contribute to The Hub with photo cards.

We never made a lot of money but 43 years later, we have made a lot of friends, sold over 1,000 jars of jam and 2,000 cards and had wonderful family fun together.

I’m going to sadly end my membership in June now that I live in Benalla. ‘The Hub’ has been one of the special things in my life. I’m not particularly creative but it’s amazing what you can do when you try.


Carmyl Winkler

I looked around at my fellow students sitting with pens at the ready to tackle the next exam. We were in St. Mary’s hall in Geelong. Of course I knew all the Geelong High Year 12s – we called it Form 6 in those days. The remainder was dozens of private school girls and boys, all strangers to me. In those days, High School students sat external exams in their final year while private schoolers had to sit externally for years 10, 11 and 12. One girl in a Morongo uniform stood out. She was tallish with a long black plait almost to her waist.
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The next March I went to live at University Women’s college to start my science degree. The year went by and, before I knew it, I was back ready to start my second year. When the ‘freshers’ came along, here among them was the same girl from Morongo, still with her long plait. I recognised her straight away even though I had no idea of her name. It turned out to be Olive and Olive and I became quite good friends. I finished my degree a year before her but I was aware that she had become a Presbyterian deaconess after she finished hers.

Twenty years went by which included, for us, several moves. Now, with four children in tow, we were to move to Tallangatta where Don had a position at the local high school. We had sold our Cobram house so drove over in the September holidays to buy something in our new town. Not a house to buy anywhere! ‘They all sell at the funeral,’ the real estate agent told us.

But the Methodists in Tallangatta had recently joined forces with the Presbyterians so the Methodist parsonage just might be available. We found out where the Presbyterian manse was so we could enquire about the situation. We rang the doorbell and the minister’s wife answered – and yes, it was Olive! She had married a minister with a pilot’s licence and they had spent some time in the north of Western Australia when John was a frontier services chaplain. They had four girls, just a little younger than our children.
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We didn’t find a house to buy and rented a school house for ten years before one became available. But we did find a friend to spend two or three years with before they moved on.
Forty years on and I moved to Benalla. One day I was sitting in church and someone a sat down beside me. I knew that face! Olive is hoping to sell her Melbourne home and come to Benalla to live. One of her daughters lives nearby and it turns out that Olive grew up on a farm at Badaginnie. We’re looking forward to resuming our friendship.

 
Carmyl Winkler 
April 2022

We moved to Ballarat when I was nine.

I learned to recognise elm trees by checking the leaves. The two halves of the leaf didn’t quite meet at the same point when they joined the stem – always a handy piece of information to tuck away!

But the trees that really became a part of my life were the plane trees. Huge trees with giant leaves right along both sides of Pleasant Street. It wasn’t so much the trees themselves but the gifts they gave.

At the end of summer, little round seed boxes sprinkled the footpath. The naughty boys at school would collect these, crush the powder out of them and, lo and behold, they would end up with a handful of ‘itchy powder’. Put some of these down the back of the shirt of some unsuspecting victim and watch them writhe!

The other gift was so generous – piles and piles of leaves dropping right through autumn. Pleasant Street, and many other Ballarat streets, had wide and deep bluestone gutters and here we had a ready-made fire place. We three girls and Dorothy’s friend, Val McKenzie, who lived just round the corner, spent many a Saturday afternoon raking leaves into great piles and setting a match to them.

At first we just thought it was fun to have a warm fire on a cold Ballarat afternoon but then we extended our entertainment. We threw some potatoes into the fire and then enjoyed adding leaves and stirring them up with sticks. At the end of the afternoon’s fun, we carefully flicked the potatoes out, dashed inside for some butter and the salt shaker and a knife to slice open the blackened skin and then tentatively tried the scorching insides, yelling with joy at the delicious taste, alternating with the paying the necessary price of a burnt tongue.

Our little brother joined in every now and again, to the extent a four-year old could be part of such grownup cooking ventures, but never, as I remember, did our parents feel it necessary to come out and oversee or direct.

If you walked all the way down Pleasant Street, across the tramway running down Sturt Street, you came to Pleasant Street State School. We knew every fence post and puddle as we walked that way not just to school and back each day but also home and back at lunchtime.

The school astonishingly included a very small, high walled, very cold swimming pool among its assets. At the far end of the yard was ‘The Branch’, not in this case a part of a tree, but Form 1of the far-away High School, which had run out of room for all its pupils.

If you kept walking past the school, you came to Lake Wendouree. Here the dominant trees became willows, circling the lake. We went swimming at times, wading in with feet sinking into several inches of mud before we had sufficient depth of water to splash around in.

Great memories!
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In the Dutch East Indies in 1928, a youth congress met and determined to work for one race, one nation and one language for their country. Despite some being punished by the Dutch by exile into swampy country far from their home for many years, they remained determined.

In 1942, the Japanese marched into the Indies, imprisoned the Dutch and after a year or two reopened the schools and proceeded to teach the students in Japanese.

When the Second World War ended on 15th. August, 1945, the Japanese prepared to leave, and the Dutch were still locked up. Two days later, on the 17th August, seizing their chance, some of these original young congress men with other friends, flew a red and white flag and, their leader, Soekarno, proclaimed independence for the new republic of Indonesia. Of course as soon as the Dutch were freed they sent the natives back to their rice, aiming to resume their previous life. However the new Indonesians went to the hills and fought determinedly until, in 1949, under world pressure, the Dutch left the new republic.

Gradually the country that had been left with just ten high schools for a population of over 150 million, trained Indonesians to take over public service jobs, becoming doctors, engineers and teachers.

The new wave of schools and universities started in Java, the most populous although one of the smaller islands, and spread out from there.

By 1961, one of the furthest provinces, Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra, acquired a university. There were three faculty buildings and a number of lecturer’s houses all in the middle of rice fields.

By early 1962, Universitas Syiah Kuala was ready to be officially opened and requested no less than the president of the country, President Soekarno, to come from Java to officiate. 

The only slight problem was that, on the whole, the Acehnese did not have a high regard for the president. To a fiercely Muslim population, his lack of dedication to Islam was not popular. While Muslim in name, he had married one too many wives and Javanese in general were thought as fairly wishywashy Muslims.

Orders were issued. Every household had to make a red and white flag of required size and fly it in the front garden. Soldiers were sent to stand guard along the road the presidential car would take, each man with his back to the road while looking steadfastly at the houses to ensure safety.

Most university students wore their traditional Acehnese dress, with smart white suits and hats for university leaders. The president’s car, number plate Indonesia 1, drew up at the door and the president stepped straight into the hall of gathered audience, Indonesians plus two Australians. I couldn’t understand a great deal of what he said but, to this day, I can remember being so impressed by the charismatic way he spoke and the hostility of the crowd gradually melting away.

I was there.