THIS IS A COPY OF AN INFORMATION SHEET WRITTEN BY WILLIAM (BILL) NEWNHAM IN 1962 WHEN THE BACON FACTORY WHICH HAD BEEN OWNED BY THE NEWNHAM FAMILY FOR 92 YEARS WAS SOLD. HE WROTE IT FOR THE ARCHIVES OF THE SALE MUSEUM.

Newnham's Bacon Factory has a long history associated with Sale and District.

In 1847, two brothers William and Frederick Newnham, aged 20 and 19 years respectively came out to Australia from England. They liked the country and settled here.
William Newnham, in the year 1870 built a factory at “Hill Top” -- a ridge overlooking the back waters (Long Waterhole) of the Latrobe River at Longford. He returned to Melbourne and his son (also William) managed the factory.

Business prospered, and a new factory was built in 1873, near the Junction of the Port Albert Road, and the Prospect (Seaspray) Road. The old building at Hill Top was remodeled and used for the first Longford School.

By 1874 the business was under the name of Newnham & Son, advertising regularly in the Gippsland Times Newspaper –“"Newnham & Son. First class Bacon and Ham Curing Establishment"” and in 1891 the advertisement included “"Champion Prizewinner at the Royal Society's Show Melbourne, and chief prizewinner for Bacon and Hams at Sale, Bairnsdale, Maffra and Traralgon Agricultural Shows."”

During the early 1900s the factory traded under the name of "Newnham Bros., Longford".

In 1920 it became Newnham's Pty Ltd.

In 1927 the Sale abattoirs overlooking the common , was purchased for the sum of 400 pounds, and the Bacon Factory commenced in Sale.

Newnham's products in the years following, became widely known throughout Gippsland, and although the factory was eventually sold in 1962 it continued to be carried on under the original name of the family who commenced it nearly 100 years ago.

FORWARD
This is a brief history of the Sale Bacon Factory that operated in the Sale district for about 60 years, of which I was associated with for over 40 years, and some of the funny and serious stories and events that took place.

Most of the stories involve me. I suppose that is only natural as they are the ones that I remember most, a few happened away from the factory, but have links with the works.

I was prompted to write this account by my wife Betty, because whenever we went anywhere and I would meet up with s a of those years, we would talk and swap stories of the factory years, and if we didn't have somewhere else to go, would talk for hours, so here's hoping you will get some enjoyment out of our experiences, as those days are gone forever never to be repeated, Just memories, probably of the best days of our lives.

Where I have written some of the incidents, I have used nicknames to help those involved, if they want to tell you, the reader, that that person is them, then that is their choice.

Bill Astill

I started with the Sale Bacon Factory in June 1940 at the age of 14 years. I had left school about 6 months before, and not being able to get other work, after trying to get on as a mechanic, a grocer, etc.

The wages at these two jobs was ten shillings and six pence a week. The Bacon Factory paid fifteen shillings (1.50) and after one years work, one pound ($2.00).

At this time the Bacon Factory in Sale was situated at the south end of Guthridge Parade, and about 100 yards east in Stevens Street, and was owned by W.F. (Bill) Newnham, Harvey Newnham, and Charles McKenzie. Harvey Newnham lived in Melbourne, and the factory was run by Bill Newnham and Charlie McKenzie, the former looking after the office and sales, while McKenzie handled the stock buying and work procedures. Both of them had worked for Bill Newnham's father, Tom Newnham, who had a Bacon and Smallgoods factory in the Woodend district.

Charlie McKenzie knew stock well, and was a good boner of meat, but had a forthright nature, and most employees were apprehensive of him, whereas Bill Newnham was of a quiet nature, so that the hiring and firing was all done by Charlie McKenzie. At the time I started there were about fifteen employees plus two office staff.

Before coming to the Sale Factory site in 1927, (which was the old Council abattoirs) they conducted their factory at Longford for about six or seven years. It was on the right hand side of the Seaspray Road, on the first hill past the road junction, known as Newnham's Hill, which they purchased from the Newnham Bros - Arthur, Walter, and Sam, who had been running it since the early 1900s.

When I went to the factory some of the employees were: The Mackay bros, Bill, Jim, Alec and Bob. Jack Wilson, John Johnson, Jack Schuback, Bill Vizard, Colin Johnson, Trevor Shaw, Harold Smethurst, Wally Jones, Joe Knight, Eric Werthiemer, Lorna Greenaway. Employees who had joined the army were - Arthur Flint, Keith McMillan, and Bob McConnell.

I started in the smallgoods section, which was run by Alec Mackay as the foreman and maker of the smallgoods. In those days we were making approximately 500-600lbs of beef sausage, nearly the same of pork Strasbourg, about 1500lbs of saveloys per day, and per week about 100 1b of black puddings and the same of white puddings, garlic Strasbourg chubbs about twice a week, which were filled out in weasands, the beef and Strasbourg were filled out in beef bungs; also about 100lbs of frankfurts and cocktail sausages a week.

There were four employees in the smallgoods, plus a cook who also tended the boiler.

The slaughtering consisted of two slaughtermen, for beef and sheep, Jack Johnson and Bill Vizard. Because all the rails in the place were only about six feet six inches high, the cattle were not split down, just put on gambrels then cut through at the second rib and left in two pieces. Later on a hanging room was built with high rails and the cattle were split down and left in sides until next day. Later still this hanging room was made into a chiller.

About six men used to look after the pig slaughtering which were usually killed on Monday and Wednesdays. All were scudded by hand in a large wooden tub which was an old butter churn from the butter factory, sawn in half, about 4 pigs at a time, then into the next tub which was full of cold water for shaving with a knife. Then on to the rails to be dressed, flare fat removed and split down the middle. At that time they were killing about 80 pigs per week, bacon pigs that dressed about 130-1401b. The largest pig I saw killed there dressed just over 1100lb. Pigs were killed with a pole axe, which is like a hammer about 4lb in weight with a spike about as thick as your finger about three inches long on it. By putting about eight to ten in the pen, the size of which was about seven feet by seven feet and hitting them in the forehead with the spike. Choppers were killed the same way but boars were shot with a gun.

Cattle were killed with a spear driven in behind the head to the spinal cord at the Atlantil joint. Both these methods were quite humane if handled by an experienced slaughterman, but a bit cruel if in the hands of a novice.

In 1940 the holiday leave was one week per year and it was a bit of a problem to get your holidays. Among all the workers at the factory there was only one car, which belonged to Bob Mackay who lived at Longford about five mile out, all others rode bikes.

There was hardly any shop trade in those days at the factory, all cattle killed (mostly choppers) were cut up, cured with kwik-urit a mixture of salt and saltpetre and stored in cream cans in the chiller for smallgoods. The factory had three large chillers, a small freezer situated at the end of the large chiller, was used for storing legs of pork all through the year to make hams for Christmas, and a large cool room called the cellar where the sides of pork were salted and cured for bacon. After killing the sides of pork were trimmed next day.

This amounted to putting each side on the table, removing feet, head, trimming off rough edges, sawing off the back bone removing fillet etc., then taking out the blade bone which was done by opening up around it, and pushing the meat back off the top of the bone (being careful not to go over the end of it, as this caused a broken section which remained wet even after the bacon was smoked and dried and was vulnerable to fly strike), then pulling it out by means of a leather strap arcxjnd the shoulders with a string attached to wrap around the end of the bone and pushing the flesh back while pulling.

It was then stacked in the pickle and salted that day, then later in the week taken cut, pumped with a special curing pickle, placed back in the brine, sprinkled with salt, sugar and saltpetre and left to soak for two or three days, then turned over, the joints moved to let the pickle get into them.

There were four large concrete pickle tanks about six feet by six feet and about five feet deep with about three feet of pickle in each, this pickle was about twenty years old. In this type of curing the age of your pickle was the flavour of your bacon and was highly prized among bacon curers (like whisky). (When the factory was taken over by Matkovich's, the manager threw all this pickle out). After a week the pickled sides were taken out and stacked on the floor of the cellar, sprinkled with salt, sugar each layer, six sides to a layer and up about seven feet high and left to cure for five weeks, when they were taken out, soaked in fresh water over night, the fresh water changed next day, and in the afternoon washed off, scrubbed with a brush in warm water to which was added a handful of washing soda, then taken upstairs on hooks of five sides, and pulled up by hand on a windlass type hoist consisting of a large iron wheel about seven feet in diameter (nicknamed the mankiller) which was turned by two men. This had an eight inch round wooden axle around which the rope to pull up the load was wrapped. The sides were brought up through a trapdoor, then hung in the blower, which was a long room about twenty feet long and about four feet wide with a large extractor fan at one end and steam pipes at the other. When filled the fan was turned on, the steam pipes activated, and was left there until the next day, when it was carried out, rough bones sawn off, and put into the smoke room. This was a room about ten feet square with a wooden slat floor and the roof about nine feet above, rails about five feet off the floor with cup hooks about eighteen inches apart to hang the sides on. When full, the door was shut and you went downstairs to the room directly underneath the smoke room where a fire was lit with quite a bit of wood put on it.

When this fire was burning freely a bag of sawdust was put on it so it would smoke the bacon in the room above for about eighteen to twenty hours. In those days, the bacon was practically all sold as sides, shoulders, jackets (a side with the ham cut off) or middles (a side with the has and shoulder cut off). This bacon when cured did not need putting in a refrigerator, just kept in a dry place.

Salt was also stored in the cellar and usually there was a stack of about sixty to seventy bags, in those days the bags were jute bags and were 180 lb per bag. This used to come to Sale by train and was delivered to the factory on Wallace's horse and wagon by Wally Clark. He was a rough short strong fellow who it was said, could put a bag of salt under each arm and carry them up onto the wagon. When the salt arrived most hands had to help to carry it into the cellar, a walk of about fifty yards on slippery floors with the bags on your back.

About ten weeks before Christmas time the legs of pork were brought out of the freezer, put through a small trapdoor at the end of the room near the freezer, and spread out all over the floor of the cellar and left for about a fortnight to thaw out before being processed into hams. All the curing was done by Bob Mackay in those days. A lot were sold as raw hams but just as many were cooked on the bone and sold, also a lot were sold as pressed ham, after being boned out and put in presses and cooked. This cooking also loaded work on the smailgoods section as all the cooking was done in the cook house of that area. As the shoulder of the bacon pig was the hardest to sell as bacon a lot of these were cut off fresh and were used to make frankfurts (a select smallgoods) as no muscle or hocks were used, only the prime meat, they were cut, seasoned, and filled out in large sausage skins, then smoked until dry and left raw, hanging in the chiller in bundles of six. To be sold they were dipped in boiling water with dye added to make them a bright orange colour, then packed in a bundle with label on them instructing you how to cook them. Cocktail sausages were the same meat, later on saveloy meat was used for cocktails.

The Boiler that was there when I started was the same one as when I left thirty nine years later. It was an underfired, fifteen horse power Multi Tubular, solid fuel type. W.F. (Bill) Newnham held the Boiler Certificate but the boiler was handled by the smallgoods cook or the yardman, but W.F. Newnham had to be there when boiler inspection was on. In the early days the boiler was fired by wood, of which there were about five large stacks always in the yard.

Mostly stringy bark about four feet long stacked about seven feet high and about twenty yards long. Later on the fuel was practically all briquettes, the large household briquettes being more economical then the small industrial one because of the grating.

The smallgoods are cut first through the mincer (except for pork Strasbourg) then cut, mixed and seasoned in a silent cutter with four blades, cutting approximately 801b of meat per batch. They also had a smaller cutter with three blades which was used for pork Strasbourg sausage and black and white puddings. This was later removed and all cutting was done in the larger cutter. The blades on these machines were honed with an oilstone every day before use, and about every month or so were taken off and ground down on a grindstone and replaced and set down to the setting that they cut an ordinary shipping tag halfway through in the bowl of the machine. The sharpness of these blades were one of the main factors in keeping the smallgoods from going fatty when it was cooked. Smallgoods were cooked in iron tubs about four feet by three feet and about eighteen inches deep by direct steam injection which was a very noisy method.

There was also a tub about three feet by two feet six inches by about two feet deep which was used as a dipping tub, as all smallgoods had to be dipped in boiling water for about two to three minutes, then let dry to stop it from sweating after it came out of the chiller where it was held until required for sale.

In those days during the second World War, trucks were scarce with petrol rationing and quite often pigs that were bought at the saleyards at Sale had to be driven from the yards to the factory. As the factory was at the far south east of the town and the saleyards at the far north west, this meant you had to take them right across the town.

Well, if you have ever driven pigs you know where they get the saying "Pig-headedness', for if you wanted them to turn up a street to the right, they would go up every other street, and by the time you run around them and brought them back to where you wanted them, the ones that went up the right street were in everybodys garden rooting up lawns and flowers, in garages, people screaming, dogs barking, threats, law suits promised, etc.

Round the next corner and the same thing all over again, until finally you got them on the final run arund the lake, then they all headed in and started wallowing in the mud, then it was a matter of taking off the boots and socks, rolling up the trousers and get in and hunt them out, a lovely job, especially if you have about thirtyfive to forty pigs and usually a couple of big choppers (large sows or boars) amongst them that dress out at in excess of 4001b. Once I remember when they came back with the pigs, I said "You got them here all right", the drivers said "Yes, all except two, they are out on the island in the lake". So they had to go back, swim out to the island and hunt them back, both big chopper pigs.

Quite often because of the bad condition of the fences around the factory a pig would get out and away and it was a matter of chasing it and bringing it back. As I could run a bit I usually had the job and with a couple of others would go and either catch it, or drive it back. No easy task!

Later on I decided the easiest way was to take a rifle and a knife, shoot it and bleed it, then pick it up in the factory utility. Once I remember we had two pigs brought into be killed for private killing. They were pigs that dressed about 1001b but they were ex-wild pigs, that had been fattened at the farm. When they were being driven up the race to the killing pen, they just jumped over the race fence, ran out onto the road and away. At this time the floods were up, a near record flood and the water was right up to the bottom of the hill below the factory, and it was a full stretch of water through to the river about three mile away, the only land showing was Boultons Island, about three quarters of a mile out. As soon as we tried to head the pigs back they jumped straight into the water and swam out, the last we saw of them they were about half a mile out, just little black heads bobbing in the waves.

When we came back to the factory and told Charlie McKenzie, he said "I'll go and see if can find them". So he saddled his horse and rode up along the bank. When he got up about a mile or so he saw them swimming back in, and waited and watched them. They came in, ran to the farmhouse nearby and crawled in under a boxthorn bush. He came back and told me and I went up and shot them. That is just one story of dozens, of pigs getting away.

Another I remember, a large chopper took off and Jack Wilson and I chased it, also a fellow called Ossie, the yardman at the time. He was going to show us how to get it back. About half a mile from the factory he caught up with it, after it had knocked up a bit, then, as he ran alongside, the pig turned at him, opened its mouth and barked. He dropped right back and said to Jack Wilson who was the foreman, "I Just remember, I left the water running in the boiler", then took off. We eventually coached the pig back.

When I was about fifteen years old and had been at the factory for about twelve months I said to somebody how we used to catch rabbits when the floods were up by chasing them and running them down, as they had nowhere to go as all their burrows were full of water. Well, this brought a big argument, that it was impossible to catch a rabbit by running after it. Well, to settle it, I had to bring a live rabbit to work and we were going to take it down to the common and let it go and I had to run after it and catch it. So I got the rabbit (I had ferrets in those days) and took it to the factory and that night after work we all trouped down to the common . When all was set they lot the rabbit go. Away it went for about 150 yards with me just jogging along; when it used to sit and look around I used to yell at it to make it start running again. After about 300 yards, I was right up to it and it just sat down and I picked it up. So ended the Big Rabbit Controversy.

Charlie McKenzie always had a horse at the factory and for years had a white pony stallion, that he could do anything with, but it was very snakey with anybody else, and occasionally it used to get out. Somebody would bring stock in and leave the gate open. Once I remember, the floods were up, and again a near record flood, and the bottom road from Lake Guthridge where we used to travel to work from the town was flooded with about four to five feet of water over it. Well the horse was seen in this area, and Roy Newnham, the boss's son and I went down to bring it back. Well it just headed straight down the road into the water, deeper and deeper, until it started to swim. I started to strip off to go and chase it, when it headed off the road, then hit a fence and started floundering when its feet got caught in the wire. It struggled for a while then disappeared. We waited for a while, it never surfaced, so we went back to the factory, wondering how we were going to tell Charlie McKenzie when he got back. But, before he got back, we got a phone call from Mrs Daymond whose property ran down to the flood waters, to say that Mr McKenzie's horse was walking around in her paddock. So everything turned out all right. Lucky horse!

Because of petrol rationing the bus that was used to deliver bacon and smallgoods which used to travel as far as Orbost in the east and Warragul in the west was fitted with a gas producer, a large one on a trailer, which had to be filled with charcoal and lit in the morning. The chillers were kept cool by ammonia plant, with coils on the walls, and a coil in a large tank of pickle on the side or in the end of the room to hold the cold. When I went there, they only had one machine, a Vertical Twin Cylinder, but when the Traralgon factory sold out they bought their machine, an older type of a Single Horizontal Cylinder. Quite often you could hardly work in the factory because of the smell of escaping ammonia gas. Bill Newnham used to look after these machines, the older machine was only used on very hot days when the other machine could not cope. Later on I got the job of looking after these, when I had to go to the factory at all hours of the night to shut off the machines when the chillers reached the required temperature.

The changing room for the workers was an old tin shed next to the boiler room, not lined, nails in the studs to hang your clothes on, boxes to sit on. Later on we rigged up a shower in one end, consisting of a cream can on the roof with a ball tap on it and a steam pipe to warm the water, which worked very well, but quite often when having a shower, because the top of the walls of the shower room were open about a foot below the roof, someone would sneak out around the back and put their hand in through the gap and sprinkle a bit of saveloy dye (a reddish black powder) on top of your head, and when you put your head under the shower you went red like a saveloy and had to spend ten minutes to a quarter of an hour under the shower until most of it washed off. I remember once one of the boys put-a sprinkle of dye in "Darkie's" beret and it was in there for months. He used to ride a bike in to work from Longford about five miles out. One morning he came to work as red as a saveloy all over, he had struck a shower of rain on the way in.

Another time "Puddin" filled the shower rose with dye, and "Clem" was first and went in for a shower. He never looked at the water and was singing away and going as red as a saveloy soaping himself up. Everybody was laughing their heads off. He said, "What are you laughing at?", then he looked at himself and took off after "Puddin" in the raw, round and round the wood heaps. But he never caught him.

In those days we were not entitled to morning tea (later on we were allowed ten minutes for a cup of tea or a smoke after working two hours in the morning only), but usually about 9a.m. to 9.30a.m. both Chas McKenzie and W. Newnham would both be away, W. Newnham on the bus and Chas McKenzie to a sale somewhere and we would put the billy on the steam pipe and boil it. It would take about two minutes, then somebody would keep lookout while we had a cup of tea and there would be a mad flurry if they yelled “Lookout, Bill's (or Charlie's) back”. But I think they knew about it, but said nothing as long as the work was done.

The toilets were the real outdoor dunny type, two of them side by side. The thing was, if anybody went over there and spent too long just getting out of work, somebody would sneak over with a dipper full of water mixed with saveloy dye, open the little door at the back and throw it in, all over the person's bottom. By the time the person got cut there was no-one there of course and no-one would know who did it.

I remember once “Barkie” said to me, “Coop has been over there for a long time. I think I'll give him a wash with dye”. Over he went, threw the dye in, and Coop walked straight out from behind the screen laughing. He was in there talking to “Chuffer”, who was the foreman at the time. “Chuffer” said he never got any on him, but about three months later he let it slip, that he had just got the last of the dye off himself. So it used to stick pretty good.

Bill Newnham also got caught once. Somebody told “Darkie” that I was in the dunny, and he had a phobia about catching me, so away he went and threw in the dye. Later on Bill Newnham came in to him in the cook house and asked if he had seen anybody running away from the toilet as it was him on it, and got covered in dye.

“Darkie” was one of those fellows who was always into something. The next door neighbours chooks used to come over to the factory boneyard and feed all day, “Darkie” used to collect the eggs when they layed in the sheds at the factory, or wait until they sat, hatched out the chickens, then take the hen and chickens home. Once he had his coat hanging in the change room with all the pockets full of eggs and somebody wacked the pockets with a stick (probably accidentally) and he had pockets full of broken eggs.

Another time "Darkie" was heading home on his bike, he used to have a sugar bag folded in half with a piece of rope tied to it, around his shoulders to carry his gear. "Puddin", who used to ride a motor bike, rode up alongside him, said, 'How you going Darkie, then caught hold of the bag and took off on the motor bike, around the corner and up Guthridge Parade about 40 miles per hour, with "Darky" just hanging on to the handlebars of his pushbike. About half a mile up "Puddin" just let him go and went his own way up along the lake, and "Darkie" on his fixed wheel bike, no brakes, just kept going for about another half mile before he could slow down enough to turn around and ride back, to go out the other way to Longford. In those days the road was gravel, loose on the sides and corrugated in the middle, just lucky he never came off.

I also saw "Puddin" one morning coming to work on his motor bike travelling at about 50 miles per hour along Guthridge Parade, tried to hit a mob of turkeys that belonged to a house along the street as they were crossing the road, but they were too quick. If he had hit them he would probably have been thrown off and killed himself. No brains, no fear, just young and silly!

Another incident involving "'Darkie". He used to smoke a pipe, and each morning just before starting time, he used to load up his pipe ready for smoko time at 9.30a.m., so he would only have to light it and thus get more of a smoke. Well, this time somebody sneaked out, took all the tobacco out, filled it up with dried sheep manure and put a few strands of tobacco on the top. At smoko, the smell was terrible of burning manure, "Darkie" kept saying it was good tobacco too, he couldn't understand why it tasted so crook. He kept the mossies away though!

Another morning "Darkie" did not arrive for work which was unusual. There was a flood up and the Longford road was under water, large vehicles were being allowed through, but "Darkie" would ride his bike around through Rosedale if he could not get in on the Short Road. Anyhow on this day he arrived about 10.30am, soaking wet, and when asked where he had been, said he was wading through the flood waters on the Longford Road and there was a muscovy duck that looked sick or wounded sitting in the water on the side of the road so he chased it, away across the common, walking in the shallow water, swimming when it got deep. About a mile and a half he chased it, then he decided it wasn't wounded at all.

One morning Charlie McKenzie came in and called me over, and told me to turn the cold water tap an and see if there was anything in it. I turned it on, but there was nothing in it. He said he saw a frog come out and look at him the night before, when he went to have a drink, but it went back up the pipe. So he got "Squarehead" and I to dig up the water pipe line from Bill Newnham's house, (about ninety yards away), open up all the joints, trying to find the frog. About a day's work, NO FROG! Just a case of the horrors, I think.

Another morning when coming to work, most of us used to ride our bikes around Lake Guthridge; all the railing on one of the bends had been knocked down, and the roof of a car was just showing in the lake. "Mac" was late in coming to work that morning, and when he did come, he looked a bit forlorn, he had had too much to drink the night before, misjudged the bend and went straight through the railing into the lake. They had to get a tow truck and a person to dive in and hook a chain on it to get it out. In the big fires in 1944 when Morwell was burnt out, my sister and her family were burnt out at Morwell. As she had no means of getting home to Sale with the family so she could stay with us, I asked Bill Newnham if he could lend my brother-in-law a van or utility from the factory to go and get them, I would get a permit from the Police for a petrol ration. Instead he sent his son-in-law in his own private sedan, a Pontiac and brought them back to Sale. A friend as well as an employer. My younger brother also worked at the factory and had been there about four years and was learning to be a slaughterman, had developed into a strong solid lad, at nineteen years of age he accidentally shot himself at home and was killed instantly. He was cleaning his rifle, we think, and apparently had not chocked to see if it was loaded. Costly carelessness. The bullet went in his middle and up into his heart. A very sad time for all at the factory. Another death of a worker at another time was my sister's husband who worked at the factory before joining the Army. After the war was over he came back to work there. He rode his bike home late at night after being somewhere and missed the little bridge across the road gutter, falling off and hitting his head on the footpath. Receiving concussion, he was in hospital for a couple of weeks, but never recovered.

All offal and bones were cooked up in digesters. The fat ran off into drums as tallow and the residue was then carted down to the end paddock, spread out on the ground to dry in the sun, and used to spell terrible. Every few months, a family of market gardeners from Trafalgar way used to come to the factory and live in the old tin shed next to the boiler room for about a week and crush the bones for blood and bone manure. There was a bone crusher run by a big Blackstone engine down near the bone yard and these fellows used to smell as bad as the bones. There was the father and two sons. The father would be sitting eating his dinner near the boiler on a box or a tin and if a cat walked past his he would pick it up, look at it and say, "Ah, a tom cat", then fix it up, wipe the knife on his trousers and go on eating his dinner. When they left there wasn't a tomcat in the place. He was probably the original Mau Mau terrorist. They used to crush about a semi load of bone dust, bag it up and send it back to their farm.

At Christmas time the usual thing was for the firm to put on a few bottles of beer. Later on it got to be a type of party, with a few biscuits and a ham to eat. One year I remember, if you didn't bring a glass you had nothing to drink cut of, and "Darkie" got a cardboard dripping carton and drank out of that. It was that year that Chas McKenzie bought himself in a bottle of whisky and when he wasn't looking someone would pour some into "Darkie's"' beer. This went on all through the evening, Chas McKenzie was wondering where his whisky was going and "Darky" was getting more and more sozzled. He had no sense of taste even when sober, he finished up as usual and somebody took him home out to Longford.

Another year "Coop" got pretty full. I had an old 1925 Chevrolet utility and "Nigger" and I took his home in it. Me driving, "Nigger" in the middle and "Coop" on the outside near the door. "Coop's" wife was a Scottish girl and reputed to have a very nasty temper and did not like "Coop" drinking. Well, we pulled up outside his house and were trying to get him to get out, when the front door of the house burst open and "Lil", his wife, raced out yelling, "You got my Stanly drunk". Well, "Nigger" just put one boot behind "Coop" and pushed him out the door, landing him on the nature strip and yelled out to me, "Get going". The old Chev really chewed up the gravel that day.

Another occasion at a Christmas do, (Bill Newnham never drank beer), but they had brought out a no alcoholic drink called Six O'Clock Lager. It was sold in a beer bottle, looked like beer, only the label was different. Well, Bill Newnham had bought himself half a dozen of these to drink. After they had been in the tub of ice for a while all the labels came loose, so we switched the labels and every time we went to give Bill a drink he would check the label and we would fill his glass up, he got quite happy, saying, "Blinded good drink this Six O'Clock". He went home and next day went out and bought a dozen of them but told his son "Porky", "It bloody well doesn't taste as good as it did at the party". I don't think he ever found out why.

One fellow who started with us was a big, solid fellow, "Bushells", loved a beer and was one of the boys, got a game playing football with Sale, when Sale had two teams, the Blacks and the Greens. It was around October this time and the Agricultural Show was coming to Sale and "Bushells" raved on about how he was going to have a go in the boxing tent. We all laughed at him and said he couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag. Anyway that Saturday afternoon when we got to the show, who should be standing up on the stand at the boxing troupe but "Bushells". He was as full as a boot, and when asked by the spruiker who he was going to fight he said, "I'll take the bloke on the end", a little black follow, less than half his size. Anyway they let him win about three fights and then flattened him at the finish.

"Chuffer" used to quite often drive in from Longford either in a horse and jinker or a spring cart and most evenings after work it was like a circus watching "Chuffer" take off, because if there was a jib horse around "Chuffer" would get it. One night I remember, the little horse he had in the jinker lay down on the ground and crawled through ' the fence. It had to be un harnessed on the ground, taken around the fence, put in again and led out the gate onto the road. Another time he had a half draught horse in the cart and all it would do was walk backwards. He finally got it to go out through the gate onto the road, put his passengers in and then the horse just started backing up the road. As there was a steep bank on the side down into the morass, it started to go over, all the passengers jumped out, but "Chuffer" rode it right to the bottom with the horse slipping and sliding backwards down the hill.

The usual thing in those days when we knocked off on a Saturday morning about 11.00a.m. - about half way down the hill going back towards the town, Joe Hoy would be waiting in his car to take bets on the horses. He was the local S.P. bookie, and most of the workers would line up and put their bets on with his. "Two shillings each way, one horse all up the next," or, "If any, a pound on So and So in the last", was the kind of conversation around the car, and always with a wary eye looking for police.

When the first of the immigrants started coming to Australia, there was a migrant camp at West Sale, from this camp we got the services of a slaughterman.
A Bulgarian named "Raji", a short thick set man with dark complexion, which I nicknamed "Coon". He could not speak a lot of English when he came but quickly learned and fitted in well with all the other men. He had a terrible fear of snakes, I think mainly because of the reputation Australia has of so many venomous reptiles. I remember once somebody got a dead snake and coiled it up behind the tin he used to get and put under the pipe to catch the blood from the killing pen. When he saw it he blew a fuse, was going to kill the broke that done it and threatened to leave. Another time a few years later, they put a dead snake under his seat where he sat to change his clothes in the morning. Boy, did we have a time trying to calm him down after that. Another incident involving Raji was - I was with the Rifle Club and they wanted a novelty prize for the Christmas shoot. There used to be an old bird that used to feed on the drains at the factory and had been there for years and was on its last legs. So I shot it, cut its legs off short, also its neck and head, took it in and asked Raji to dress it. He had been working on it for a while when he called me up and said, 'Bill, this chook no good". I said, "Why not?" He said "Poo, stinks, no good". I said "Don't be a weakie and dress it". He said "All right, I fix, I don't care if it kills you". The fellow that won it at the club, cooked it for about a week and it still wasn't tender enough to get a fork into. It was dressed and sealed up in a chicken pack when he won it.

Another time for a Rifle Club trophy, because one of our members had had all his teeth out and was walking around on the range every Saturday looking like a gummy shark, I cut the bottom teeth out of a couple of old cows heads, cleaned them up and preserved them then set them up like a set of false teeth, packed them in cotton wool, and put them in a small box and put them in with the trophies at one of our Gippsland Prize Meeting shoot with the "Gummy Sharks" name on them. They were presented to him by the then Member for Gippsland, Peter Nixon. He took it in good part, and it went over well and helped put a bit of fun in the day.

The open drains at the factory used to harbour lots of seagulls, magpies, ibis and other birds because of the pieces of meat that used to come down in the water when we were washing down. The young fellows working there used to set up a large box at lunch time, with a stick propping up one side and a piece of string tied to the stick, then put a few pieces of meat under the box and wait for a bird to go under after the meat, pull the stick out and catch the bird, usually seagulls. Then they would take them into the factory and dip them into the tub full of saveloy dye and let them go again.
There were always a few red seagulls and some black and red magpies flying around. Probably changed from Collingwood to Essendon barrackers.

At the factory there was a great feeling of mateship, most of the workers had been there for years. The Smallgoods section was at the rear of the building and the boning and slughtering at the front of the building, so we were known as the back or the front workers, and if one section was running late, usually a couple of the others would go and help them, and we would all knock off at the same time and go home together. If we had a party and somebody got a bit under the weather we always saw that he got home all right.

Once I remember, one of the workers, Harry Garner had joined the Army, he and his wife had a small farm on the Netherlands. One of the boys came to work one day and said "That paddock of lucerne of Harry's was ready to be harvested". So we all went down after work, with horse and carts and worked until dark and brought it in.

Shooting, fishing, flounder spearing and other trips used to be arranged between us. Occasionally we used to arrange a cricket match against the Woollen Mill. Loser paid for the drinks, but usually we all dobbed in. When "Nigger" got married, he was a popular fellow, and one of the boys. He used to come fishing with us and generally be in most trips. Well "Square", "Stik" and I used to knock around together, all being around the same age (at this time we were around seventeen to eighteen). Anyway, we were not invited to the wedding, but having nothing to do on the Saturday afternoon, decided we would go to the church to see "Nigger" married. It was in the Catholic Church and only "'Square" was a Catholic and had been in the church before. Well, when we got to the church he said, "'Follow me, I'll show you where to go". Well we went in following him, looking all around us at all the beauty of the church walls, when all of a sudden he knelt down in the aisle and the two of us fell over the top of him. (Country bumpkins).

Every year on the third Wednesday in January was the Butcher's picnic, so we decided we would do just that, "Have a picnic". So that year we all went down to the beach, a good day, from then on it was an annual event. We used to hire a bus, get a nine gallon keg, have a cricket match, races for the kids etc. Years later it was organised and run by the Union and eventually fell through.

An incident involving the floods. The firm had a paddock on low land about half a mile up from the factory, and the licensee of the Criterion Hotel used to keep his racehorse there on agistment. I think it was called "Beau Chief", well the floods came up over night and the horse was stranded right down at the bottom end of the paddock. Because there were two creeks flowing between it and the high land and the water was rising, in a few hours it would have no land to stand on and would try to swim out and get caught in the fences. Vern 8rown stripped off and went in, wading in the shallow water and swimming across the creeks, got to the horse, put a bridle on it and brought it out.

The only serious accident I remember apart from cut hands, fingers, faces, arms and legs and being stitched up, was when Dan Mackay was cleaning the mincer, he had it all pulled to pieces except for getting the screw out, when he went to pull it out it gave one more turn and cut off half his index finger and the one next to it. Jack Abel eventually lost most of the sight of one eye as a result of getting soda ash in it while working at the factory.

On the lighter side and some of the funny things that happened were, - Jim Wickham and I at the end of the possum season decided we were going out to try to get a deer, we had seen them occasionally when out duck shooting and were talking about it at the factory and asking a couple of the customers, men that lived in, and knew the area well, and we decided we were going out on the weekend. "Darkie's" son, "Floong" had just started at the factory and was mad keen to go out with us. We tried to put him off by saying "What if we are about a mile from the car and we shoot three deer, you would not be strong enough to carry yours back". Later that day when both the bosses were away, some of the fellows at the factory took him out to the sheep pens where there was a big old ram. They caught hold of it, put it on his back, with the front legs over his shoulders and he staggered in the door yelling out to me. "See, I can carry this, so I should be able to carry a deer", with the ram kicking and hopping around on his back. Well, his father went mad, berserk, calling him all the idiots under the sun and going to belt up the fellows that put it on there. But nobody could do anything for laughing. He got the nickname "Geronimo" after that.

Talking about "Darkie", and when he got stirred up, I remember once he and "Mullet" had a difference and "Darkie" was going to belt "Mullet" up and he took off after him, round and round the factory they went, "Mullet" really running for his life.
Well after about three to four times around the factory "Darkie" being older, knocked up, and gave up the chase. We said to "Mullet" later, "You were lucky he never caught you". "Mullet" replied, "He was lucky, I'd have dropped him if he had". (It's all right to be cocky when the danger has passed.)

Occasionally because of the scalding tub in relation to the pig killing pen a pig would jump out through the door, land in the scald tub, then scream, and jump out of there and off into the factory. Once a big chopper pig went through and headed up into the shop section. By the time we got there to bring it back, there was "Vess" the shop butcher and a lady customer standing up on the block and another customer had locked herself in the chiller. We got the pig back all right.

A story I was reminded of at our reunion, - I was serving in the shop, and one of the women customers, a fussy difficult one, (we nicknamed "Lornaes Lasting Lovliness"), got me to get her some meat, when I got it, after having to break up a carcass to get it, she said she didn't want it but would take something else. After getting the second item, she decided she didn't want that either. She said she might take the first piece, then she decided against that. She said, "I really don't know what I want". Pretty stirred up by this time, with other customers waiting, I said, "I do, you need 1080" , (a rabbit poison). Our meat must have been much cheaper or better than other places, because she kept coming back.

Another story involving customers, "Durka" was serving in the shop and a lady customer cam in who he didn't like, and she didn't like him. When he went up to her she said, "I'll wait for Mr Mullet please". (She thought that was the other butcher's name because she had heard us calling him by his nickname). 'Durka' said, "Certainly madam, take a seat over there". After she had been waiting for over half an hour, and we had seen her and asked "Durka" was she being served, he said "Yes, she's all right". Some time later she said to me, "Is Mr Mullet around?", I replied, "No I'm sorry, he's on holidays". "Durka" would have let her sit there for hours.

Another shop story, "Wokker" who was a bit crippled with arthritis at the time, was asked for an ox tongue. He went into the cellar to get it, a walk of about twenty yards. When he came back, she said it wasn't big enough. So he took it back and got another, when he brought that back she said it still wasn't big enough. Getting wild by this time he came into the cellar and said. "I'll show the Bxxxh", and stuck the pickle needle in it and pumped it up until it was enormous and took it out to her. She was happy, even if she didn't know she was paying tongue price for about a pound and a half of pickle.

In 1963 the factory was sold to John Hojnick, a smallgoods maker from Fitzroy and Ted Matkovitch, a sausage skin manufacturer from Warragul, and was managed by T. Matkovitch's son, Les, who had had nothing to do with bacon or smallgoods, but was going to learn as he went along. He tried hard, but with changing times, more buses on the road bringing bacon and smallgoods from Melbourne and other parts of Victoria, it was going downhill. When Hojnik and Markovich took over they made me the foreman and I had to leave the union of which I was the delegate. I didn't mind, as I thought I could handle my own problems. While I was the delegate, an employee who had been with us about twelve months and work was a bit slack, got put off, he wrote to the union, complaining that he had been put off for some reason or other, the union official came up, and said to me that it was wrong that he should be put off and wanted us to go on strike. I told him I would not go on strike, as the man was a bad worker, and surely the boss had the priviledge of choosing his workers. He said no more and nothing came of it.

In 1968 John Hojnik got Barry Pigot, who also had a sausage making business in Melbourne and had finished up in that, to come and manage the factory with the option of buying. Well Barry knew the game pretty well, got along well with the workers and know the smell of a quid. I told him his philosophy was that people were like oranges, "No good until they had been peeled". Well with hard work and a few changes here and there , the place started to be a viable concern. With the change of ownership came an influx of new employees, some good, some not so good, but like every place only those that were interested stayed on. Amongst the changes was the making of tripe to sell on the bus round We used to sell in excess of 200lb a week.

A story concerning the tripe - We had a young fellow doing it with the machine, after cleaning, it was cooked, then cooled and the fat and skin removed, after which it was put in large tubs of cold water with a bleach added to make it nice and white and left there until next morning when it was taken on the bus. Well the young fellow who I called "Dreams", instead of putting in the bleach, which is a white powder-, and that he had done hundreds of times before, went out and got saveloy dye, which is a black powder, and put that in with the tripe. Of course next morning all the tripe was red like saveloys and was useless.
He said somebody had moved the tin of saveloy dye over near the bleach and he must have got the wrong stuff.

The sausage trade increased, but unless you could put on specials for the supermarkets you could not compete with the large smallgoods manufacturers with German Sausage like Strasbourg and Beef Stras. A story regarding the frying sausage trade. - The firm was charged by the health inspector for what amounted to putting too much meat into the sausages. I had to represent the firm at the court. After the charge was read, the Health Inspector gave his report, the judge asked me what I had to say. I said that the Health Inspector had come into the shop, asked for a pound of sausage meat, which I gave him from off a tray in the display counter, marked "Sausage Meat, Preservative added", which was a white mince, which he took. Then we were charged with adding preservative to mince steak. The judge looked bewildered and the Health Inspector told him if sausages had too much meat content they were classed as mince steak and not allowed to have preservative added. The judge said, "It looks like I have no option but to fine you the minimum fine".

I said "It looks like we are making our sausages too good". It was probably the best and cheapest advertising we had. After that most of the legal profession bought our sausages and took them back to Melbourne.

Also the shop trade selling butchers meat improved. But bacon and the killing of bacon pigs dropped to a minimum. With the high cost involved in holding bacon pigs for up to seven weeks from when they were killed to when they were processed into bacon it did not make the old fashioned bacon curing viable, so a modern method was used, the same as all the other factories, which makes bacon in a week. But the bacon has to be kept under refrigeration and has nothing like the flavour of the old recipe. It's just pickled pork, dried and smoked.

Also we used to do a lot of private killing and cutting and packing for home freezers. In Barry Pigots time the Christmas party became a real party. One year we went to the Lindenow Hotel for the Christmas party, but because of the long drive home, in other years it was held at the factory. At the Lindenow party I remember one fellow went to sleep wit his head on the table, he had a bald patch right on the top. "Perc", another worker got the candle from off the table, melted some wax on top of his head and stood the candle up on his bald spot alight. It stood there for most of the night while we were dancing and enjoying ourselves.

At one of the parties at the factory, was held upstairs in the old room where we used to keep the bacon, before the new method. It was a good party. We had a new worker that we had nicknamed "Harpo" because he had a head of hair like Harpo Marx. Well after he had had a few beers, he got on my ear and just wouldn't stop talking, all night this went on, telling me how he could shoot, fish, what he can do, what he can't, all his troubles, well when the party was over, we went to go out the door, he was still yap, yap, yap, he didn't see the stairs. Just stepped straight off into mid air, fell right to the bottom about fourteen feet, stood up and kept yapping as though nothing had happened. After that our parties were held downstairs.

"Darky" was another one once he had had a few beers would not stop talking. So one year we sneaked up behind him, put a chaff bag over the top of his, tied the top and hung him on a hook on the beef rail until he cooled off.

Because the slaughter yard was in the same building as the shop we used to have problems with flies. As good as anything to combat them was the electronic fly killer, they used to be attracted to the light and were electrocuted on a wire mesh. About every second or third day I would take the tray out of the bottom, tip the dead flies onto a piece of shop wrapping paper, wrap them up and throw them in the rubbish bin. I was wrapping them up one day when a new worker we had there who drove up from Yarram each day about forty miles away said, "What have you got there?" I said "Raisins", (they looked just like raisins). When I said I was going to throw them in the rubbish bin, he said, "Don't do that, I'll take them, I love raisins". So I gave them to him. That night while driving home he apparently put them on the seat beside him, tore a hole in the paper parcel and popped a handful of flies in his mouth. (Live and learn).

The slaughterman "Dink", this day he had another fellow helping him, "Sidly". Well, he sent "Sidly" down the paddock to bring the sheep up. After he had been gone for quite a long time, he thought he had better go looking for him, as the sheep were still running around the paddock. He thought he heard someone calling out. When he went down to the end of the yard, there was "Sidley", right up to the armpits in the hole we had nearly full of manure and other offal. "Sidley" said there was a lamb stuck there and he walked in to get it. These pits were eighteen feet deep, he would never have got out on his own.

Another time we had a kid working in the yard and the yardman told him to drive the tractor with the trailer on, full of offal, down and tip it in the pit. Some time later he came back and said the tractor was bogged, when we went down, there it was with only the seat and the steering wheel showing out of the muck. The trailer was down under, we had to get a crane to got it out.

Another story on the tractor, the young fellow working in the yard (not the one that bogged it), drove the tractor around to the front of the factory to the petrol bowser to fill it with petrol. After filling it, (so we found out later), he forgot to put the cap back on the petrol tank. Being full right to the top, and the rough trip around to the back of the factory, it spilled petrol all over the hot exhaust pipe and it burst into flames. There was nothing we could do, so we rang the fire brigade, but by the time they got there and put it out, it was burnt out and had to be all rewired.

During Barry Pigots time I told him I was going to get a Boiler Attendant's Certificate. He offered to pay for the course, as there was no one at the factory with a certificate, except Bill Newnham who used to come over if we needed him as he only lived 100 yards away. I got my ticket in 1970. Later on I decided that I would not be happy about butchering all my life and if somebody took over the factory that I didn't like, I would just have to go somewhere else. So I got the opportunity to try and get a Meat Inspector's ticket, travelling to Yallourn Tech. on Monday nights, and to Rices slaughteryards at Moe for Practical Instruction on Saturday mornings. It was hard going, but I got my ticket. Out of a class that started with thirtynine, only three got through. That was in 1971. After getting my ticket, I waited for an opportunity to get a job locally, as I was not in a position to shift away from Sale as we had a family going to school locally, as well as other commitments. When a job came up locally, I told Barry Pigot I was going to put in for it and he offered me better conditions than the Meat Inspector's job, plus a car to drive, so I stayed with the factory. About seven years later when it was inevitable that the factory would close, the area of Maffra, Boisdale, and Heyfield came up for a Meat Inspector, so I applied and got that job and so left the factory.
The factory only went for about twelve months later. As a Meat Inspector I had to inspect the meat at the factory a few times when the regular Inspector was sick or away for some reason.

As a foreman at the factory I suppose I was pretty hard at times, but I did not expect anybody to do anything that I wouldn't or couldn't do myself and always believed in a day's work for a day's pay, and used to tell anybody that I thought was not pulling his weight, - If he didn't want to work, to get out of the place and let somebody come here that did.
I believe most workers agreed with me as even since the factory has closed I have remained friends with most of them.

Because the city housing was gradually getting closer to the factory, pressure was starting to be put on the place to close, like contacting the E.P.A. about offal being buried, the drains and other things. A story concerning the E.P.A. - One day a young fellow fresh out of university by the look of him, came there with his pencil and notebook, said he was from the E.P.A. and was going to inspect where the offal was buried. Barry Pigot and I told his where it was, down at the end of the yard among the thistles and blackberries. "But", Barry said, "Be careful, one of the boys killed three big tiger snakes down there yesterday". The E.P.A. bloke walked down to where the long grass started, stood on his toes and said, "It looks all right to me", and filled in his book. He wouldn't even see the hole from where he was, he was more scared than Raji. Also the Agriculture Department wanted upgrading at the works, and one of the issues was the drain to carry the excess water and drainage away. The Agriculture Department wanted it open topped so it could be cleaned, the E.P.A. wanted it covered, the Health Department wanted it pumped to the sewerage and the council just wanted to be difficult. So Barry Pigot told them to come to an agreement and he would do it, but the fact remains some of the councillors wanted the place closed.

Eventually the Agriculture Department gave final notice that unless the place was brought up to specifications it would have to close down. This happened in 1979. Since then the factory has been demolished and the land subdivided into building blocks. The house that was built where the offal pits used to be had to put foundation footings down to twenty feet. This was six or seven years after the factory closed and the auger boring the holes for the foundations was still bringing up slurry all those years later.

Most of the employees found employment in other jobs around the city. A few stuck with butchering, some got other types of work and used to do a bit of part time butchering when the shops got busy.

To finish off I will give a list of some of the nicknames that I remember over the years and where possible the reason for them -- SHINY, AKER, RARY, CHUFFER (keen on a racing dog by that name), NIGGER (dark hair), NINNY, SQUAREHEAD, HERMAN, DINK (short for delinquent), DRACULA, FOXY (red hair), KATIE (initials K.T.), COOP, MULLET (had all his teeth out), COON (very dark complexion), DARKY (dark hair), WING NUT (big ears), STIK, TYRA (reminded us of a man by that name), RANGA, HOPPER (like a kangaroo), FLOONG, ROO, POLLY (from his surname), DOON (girl named Lorna), BLIMEY (his pet saying), MAC (short for McKenzie), BLUE BOTTLE, BUSHELLS (sounds better than Bulsh-t), SLIPPERY SAM (always looked greasy), DREAMS (self explanatory), DICK (short for D.H.), BEANS (beanstalk), REDDA (red hair), LOOSEY, PADLOCK (came from Matlock), PORKY (bosses son), WEETIES (name was crisp), WACKY, FRANG, DICKY BART, GITT (a pommy girl), JUNEE (said she had as much as Junee Morosi), ALKY (liked his beer), SONNY, LIZARD (had all his teeth out and kept flapping his tongue in and out), SPIDER (lanky fellow), BUTCH, HOY (a girl who used to call that from the office If she wanted something), SMITTY, WAGGA (came from there), DURKA, HARPO (hair like Harpo Marx), CONNIE BOS (from a greyhound of that name), PUDDIN (fat fellow), JINGLES (horse happy), TREACLE, SNOWY, EFFIE (large girl), MOUSE (small girl), CHOCLIT, DUCK DRAKE (built low to the ground), WONGA (initials W.G.A.), DUMP, VESS (from his surname), TANGLE (could run), EARTHA (looked like Eartha Kitt), IDI (short for idiot), PLUTO.