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History for sale

Posted on September 2, 2011

‘STEPTOE’ AND WIFE: What you see is what you get with Don and Iris Wilson...the God-fearing couple are seldom without a beaming smile of welcome at their Cabarita salvage yards.

By ALAN ERSKINE

WALKING and driving through Don and Iris Wilson’s Cabarita salvage yard is like taking a trip back through time.

It’s also educational and entertaining, with Don’s computer-like memory reeling off facts, figures and events embracing more than 100 years of early Australian history, most of it centred on Mildura.

The yard, split into two sections and criss-crossed with roads, is a collector’s heaven – a total of 23 acres holding tens of thousands of items. You name it, there’s a better than even chance Don’s got it…somewhere!

It’s an untidy place, overgrown with weeds, and piles of metal, boxes, trucks, cranes, tyres, tins, bins, old signs, sheds, rail carriages, rope, machinery – the kitchen sink and everything else that opens and shuts, strewn around…but it would be wrong to call this place a junk-yard.

For a start, Don doesn’t like the word. Can’t say I blame him. There’s something here for almost everyone, and very few people come for the drive just for the sake of it.

People are usually on a mission…they know what they want, and if they’re prepared to pay Don’s price, it’s theirs, but he makes it clear he doesn’t give things away.

In fact, you quickly get the impression that genial Don doesn’t want to part with anything at all…after all, this yard has been virtually his whole life for the better part of 60 years.

Iris has a quiet dig at Don…telling him he’s not getting any younger, and maybe it’s time he had a giant clearing sale and let the bulk of the stuff go.

Don pretends he doesn’t hear, but he does admit that these days, he doesn’t buy as much as he used to. And things now are about on an even keel…with goods leaving the yard just as quickly as they are coming in.

The Mildura Weekly caught Don on one of the quieter days…just four cars pulled up at the gate as we were speaking. Another one drove past…probably just a tyre-kicker.

A little earlier, Don and Iris had excitedly opened his latest acquisition – a baby Pathex hand-cranked movie film projector from the early 1920s, all the way from a collector in the United States, and with a heap of films…so old that the perforations are down the middle of the film!

Don wasn’t saying what he paid for the projector, but the land and sea freight that took two months was more than $200!

It’s a hobby, Don explains. He’s been collecting old movie cameras, and especially old home movies, for half a century, and has a collection of dozens of projectors, and hundreds of films. He and Iris have seen them all, and Don says he’s always on the lookout for more.

As he says, they’re no good stuck up in someone’s attic…kids these days aren’t too interested in old stuff like that, and he promises it is going to a good home if anyone reading this wants to part with their old projector and films.

To understand the way Don works, it’s important to go back through a bit of his history, and it’s pretty colourful. And interesting.

He tells how his father William first came to Mildura in 1956 to work in the salvage industry, buying two old FMIT pumping stations…one called the 90ft and the other at Nichols Point. Don grew up in a world of steam, cranes and boats, and when he married Iris in 1958, they lived in a bus, travelling to various jobs around the region.

He worked for Cecil Evans, Geoff’s Dad, at Boeill Creek, salvaging part of the boiler from the PS Alpha, and using the tubing to build the fence around Ken Leake’s first truck yard at Buronga. The chain wire mesh was made by a special machine at the Wilson’s salvage yard at Cabarita. When people asked about the mesh, Don used to tell them Iris knitted it in her spare time! Don says he would dearly love to track down the rest of the boiler.

Driving slowly around the yard, Don points out the boilers from the PS Kookaburra, plus another dozen or so boilers from other boats. He also points out the truck and the crane that were used on the Evans property…along with one of the original cranes that helped build the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

There are cranes everywhere, each with a story to tell. One of the more interesting ones is a yellow monster that in a previous life was used to lift engines out of a wide range of aircraft…one of its last jobs was lifting the huge concrete wall slabs into position when Centro was being built.

In the early days, Don and Iris got to work with a lot of the well-known paddleboat skippers…Max Anderson…Paddy Hogg and the Collins boys. Don remembers lifting the 10-ton boiler out of the PS Pyap with a 60ft Oregon derrick pole…which bowed like a banana!

Another interesting job was carting red gum sleepers for the Sydney to Perth railway line.

He and Iris loaded and drove two trucks, each with nine tonnes at a time. One of their boys, Daniel, then only a few months old, slept in a banana box beside Iris.

The pair also later used the old Reliance to cart sleepers off Bumbang Island to the rail siding at Robinvale, and when the Loyalty sank at her moorings in 30ft of water, the Tonkin family called on Don to do the salvage work…another big job, underwater divers and all…and another success.

Demolition of the original Mildura Bridge took months, and nothing was thrown away.

Don is pleased that the Lift Span section holds pride of place at the new Mildura Marina, and everything else off the bridge…even the many thousands of rivets, were kept, perhaps one day to be sold as souvenirs.

According to Don, dismantling the steel framework was the easy part. The hard part was demolishing the four 200-tonne concrete support pylons. Don says he could write a book about this job alone…”If it could go wrong, it did go wrong,” he said. “And even if it couldn’t go wrong, it still went wrong!” It took many months, but finally, it was another case of ‘Mission accomplished.’

Parts of the old bridge were used to make other bridges on Cuthero Station and at Romsey, near Ballarat, plus a shelter shed at Mildura South School. The Wilsons also recall another big bridge job, this time at Wentworth, and the lift span from that bridge is at the entrance to Fotherby Park, just over the Tucker’s Creek Bridge on the approach into Wentworth.

Don has travelled all over Australia, with the exception of way out West, in the buying and selling game over five decades, with Iris always by his side. Like Don, she’s as sharp as a tack, with a memory to match, recalling events right back to her childhood.

One of her fondest memories is their honeymoon, when they set off in Don’s pride and joy, a lovingly restored old amphibious Army Duck. It created a lot of interest back then, and still does…kept in a separate shed in the Wilson yard. Don has had it since he was 16, and holds the record for owning such a vehicle for the longest time.

Not far from the shed containing the Army Duck (and a few other unique vehicles) we drive past several stacks of old sweat boxes that even Tatiana Grigorieva couldn’t pole vault over! Nearby are stacks of old dip-tins, thousands of ‘em…surrounded by massive bridge timbers, the shells of rusting cars and trucks, steel-wheeled tractors, farm implements and machinery and much more.

Don and Iris can tell you where each and every item came from, and when. A story comes with most of the items, and you just know that while they’re making ends meet from scrap sales, they’re not going to part with a lot of these treasured items.

Don admits there’s every chance the kids will inherit the lot. All three kids, Daniel, Andrew and Esther grew up in the salvage business, and they’re already well established, Danny with his own salvage and demolition firm, Andrew well-known as the head honcho with the Forbes-Wilson group, and Esther and hubby Hank now well established in the bigger of the two Wilson yards, running H and E Rossgregor’s recycled timber yard.

Set amongst the mountains of scrap, cars, machinery and other items, the timber ‘yard’ is an impressive set-up, a huge variety of second-hand and recycled timber stored neatly in shelves off the ground, and under cover.

Don and Iris are justifiably proud of their kids, and grandkids, and are ecstatic that all of them are continuing the family tradition in the demolition, scrap and salvage business.

One day…and that day may never come…but one day, if the family ever decides to hold a clearing sale, there is no doubt it will drag people from all over Australia, if not the world.

But pity help the firm that’s asked to do the inventory!

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