July 2005 Newsletter

This month our speaker will be President of Inverloch Probus, Phillip Chapman, who will speak on farming at Glen Forbes.  We meet at 2:15 pm for a cuppa.  All are welcome to attend.

The 9th Annual General Meeting will be held this month.  The Annual Report & Financial Statement & Balance Sheet for the year ending 30 June 2005 will be presented.  An election of Office-bearers and Committee will be held.  Phillip Chapman, President, Inverloch Probus, will act as scrutineer for the election.

At last month's meeting, Norm Deacon spoke on 'Openers'.  A friend came to visit Norm whilst he was working at the RACV, and showed him a flat steel opener, embossed with a car on one side and names of popular 1930s cars on the other.  From then on the search for openers became a preoccupation with Norm.  Op shops were frequently visited and the collection steadily grew and now comprises some 15,000 of many types, shapes, sizes and novelties.  Norm has followed up their history and catalogued his collection.  Before he started the collection, whilst holidaying in Inverloch, he visited Calvert Wyeth at "Pine Lodge Guest House".  Cal had operated the Atlas Seal Company and the Milk Cap Company in Middle Park from 1922-29 and sold the companies in 1930.  He returned to Inverloch and built "Pine Lodge".  Cal told him the crown seal was invented by William Painter, from Baltimore, an engineer with some 80 patents in his name, who in 1885 had a disk-capping machine.  Then in 1892 he took out a patent for a clipped metal bottle top for crowning bottles of a new clipped design.  By 1914, many corks had been replaced by crown seals, particularly on thermatically sealed bottles.  Cal told him of the development of tin-plate.  It was used to make tins in 1812 but it wasn't perfected until the 1840s.  Cal's factory in 1922, produced 12,000 crown seals per day from first grade tin-plate done in a one-press process.  Three machines operated in his factory and produced 3.5 tons of seals per day.  One brewery, at that time, took 20-30 gross per month.  Norm's talk also covered tin-plate, cork, how crown seals were made, cork screws, bottle & can openers, food preservation and other related items.  Many types and samples were displayed for us to view.  Thank you, Norm, for your informative and interesting talk.  An audiotape of the complete talk is available from our Library.

Next year Melbourne Museum will run a series of community collections.  Forty unusual collections will go on display in the Australian Gallery and range from tea sets, gem stones, theatre programmes, packet toys, ginger beer bottles, footy cards to name a few.  We will follow this up next year.

We were saddened by the passing of our member, Mrs Sheila Gwyther last month.  Our sympathy was expressed to Eric and their family.

Inverloch Cycle Club

Some time before WWII several young boys used to meet outside the Inverloch store on Sunday afternoons to ride their bikes.  They would ride down a'Beckett Street, up the Leongatha Road to the school road, then turn left past the school and then right into Sandymount Avenue, along there to "Two Views Guest House" and back down to the store.  This 'round the square' route was made more interesting by each contributing 3d. to kitty and first back was given the kitty as a prize.  This was an informal bike group until a cycle club was formed and a track was graded around the football ground by Alan Brewster and Les Miller, grader drivers for Woorayl Shire.  The club organised longer races to Leongatha and other places; one regular ride was out along the Wonthaggi Road to Martyn's Lane and back to the school - most races started at the school.  A car was always driven ahead of the riders to check they reached the turning point.  Another regular ride of 12 miles was to the water reserve on the Leongatha Road and return.  One rider, then proud owner of a 3 gear bike and who told this story, remembers riding to Kongwak, and returning home via the Wonthaggi Road.  They were great Sunday afternoons with a crowd gathered to watch the races!  Can anyone add to these recollections?  Eulalie Brewster (Contributor).