April 2018 – Edition 157 – Jerrems Journal

April 2018 – Volume 157

Volume 157 | April 2018

Your monthly Jerrems Newsletter

In this edition, Ray takes us back to yesteryear, almost 100 years ago.

I would love to own one of the charabancs today.

Donald Jerrems

North Carolina

Introduction – ARTHUR JABEZ SMALL SECOND ARTICLE

Above is a photo of Arthur Small, provided by Geoff Searl.

This article continues the story of Arthur Jabez Small, a grandson of Big Bill.

Readers will see that Arthur had an entrepreneurial spirit which was only exceeded by Nicoll the Tailor.

In the previous article we left Arthur in the throes of developing the rustic Sydney suburb of Avalon Beach. I will now move on to some of the projects he undertook to attract discerning buyers (or so he apparently intended).

Acknowledgements

In my previous article I acknowledged that a lot of my information had been obtained from the website of the Avalon Beach Historical Society, formed 35 years ago.. For this article I have drawn on discussions with the founder of that Society, Geoff Searl, whose grandparents were early settlers in the area.

Service Station

Here is a photo of the Avalon Beach Service Station (built by Arthur) which was so essential for supplying fuel to cars which were being driven to Avalon Beach or were passing through on the way to Palm Beach.

I remember this style of service station very well. The service station was very typical of its time. One of its distinctive features was that the petrol bowsers had pump handles where an attendant lifted the lever up and down to pump fuel from an underground tank.

But what types of vehicles called in at the service station?

Taxi cab

Taxi cabs were ordinary cars (see later photograph) which could have begun their journey in Sydney, Manly Beach or at the tram terminus at Narrabeen.

Contrary to popular modern opinion, these types of vehicles were strongly built and durable. They had a high clearance, low gears, and they were slow revving. Their big wheels added to their clearance and helped the vehicle’s traction.

Charabancs added a further dimension to touring cars.

Charabancs

Here is a photo of a charabanc, a generic term of French origin for a number of brands of vehicles which we would probably now call a “stretch limo”. Their carrying capacity was similar to that of a small bus.

Charabancs lent themselves to groups taking day trips or travelling to a guest house. Luggage could be stored on a platform on the back, supplemented by suitcases strapped onto the running boards.

Day trips from Sydney would have included routes via the Royal National Park to the south, Palm Beach via Coal and Candle Creek to the north and Katoomba to the west. Trips to guest houses would have included trips from Mount Victoria Station (where charabancs met the Jenolan Caves Express) to Jenolan Caves and the former Camden Station to Burragorang Valley in the west. Some guest houses had their own charabancs.

Cars with dickie seats

This type of car is shown later in a photograph.These were comparatively small cars (known as Tourers) having front seats for the driver and passenger and a supplementary seat behind the cab which pulled back. One of my uncles had this type of car, which was very exciting for a small boy but was of no use in wet weather.

[Editor’s Note: In the Iate 1940’s my family had a prewar blue Ford Mercury coupe when we lived in northern Illinois. My brother, Alec, and I rode in the back; we called it a “rumble” seat. It was really a fast car and fun when driving in the rain.]

General Store

Here is the first General Store, built by Arthur in 1922. It would have had a wide range of stock to supply the locals and travelers. For locals there would have been staples, including meat, groceries, bread and vegetables, and for travelers there would have been sandwiches, snacks and cups of tea and coffee.

Stan Wickham was the most notable and popular tenant from 1924 until he built his own store on the diagonally opposite corner in 1934.

Stan (1877 –1960), was a pioneer Australian Rugby Union player, a State and National representative who captained the Australian national side on a number of occasions in the early 1900s. He was tour captain for the inaugural Wallaby overseas tour, that went to New Zealand in 1905.

In the background are tennis courts and the beach.

Rock Pool

This is an early photo of the fairly small rock pool on the sandstone platform at the southern end of the beach. There was probably a natural pool there originally.

Geoff Searl reports that in 1917 Arthur lodged a cheque with Warringah Shire Council to allow workmen to formalise the shape and level the bottom of the pool to improve its use. Access to the pool at the time was somewhat difficult and at your own risk with some huge boulders to climb over. OH&S had not been born so there were no chains to protect the unwary from being washed over the edge – you had to be responsible for yourself!

It is interesting to note that Arthur paid the local Council to carry out work on the pool in 1917, demonstrating that he already had plans for Avalon Beach at that juncture.

Rudimentary timber change sheds were initially constructed in 1920, however these were replaced in 1934 by a pavilion, largely at Arthur’s instigation.

Surf Lifesaving Club

This meeting on the verandah of Arthur’s house “Avalon” in 40 Bellevue Avenue has been reliably dated at 1925. It was convened by him to establish a surf life saving service for Avalon Beach. Arthur (elected as Club Patron) is standing second from the left wearing white slacks and to his left is champion sculler and fisherman Bert Paddon. Arthur’s son Geoff is on the far right of the verandah.

The Club got off to a flying start, with its first Bronze Medallion squad members, Geoff Small, Vincent Fox, Cecil Holmes, Harold Metcalf and Bert Paddon, passing their examination on 31 January 1926.

Golf Course

Arthur’s subdivision plan provided for an area of seven acres for a nine hole golf course. This novel proposal was probably assisted by the area already being cleared for cattle grazing, except for a rough wooded triangular area in the middle.

The first structure adjacent to the first tee on ‘Avalon Golf links’ was the little ticket office shown above, erected around 1932. In front of it are an ordinary car and a small tourer. Water was still some 5 years away hence the water tank. The area is still very devoid of any substantial vegetation. The building was enlarged in 1937 creating a 2-storeyed clubhouse (see later).

There was in fact no actual golf club because Arthur wanted to have the course available to all comers.

The club house was replaced in 1937 with an elaborate structure described in detail in the Construction and Real Estate Journal as follows:

“The new building is of white sandstone with buttressed corners. The internal walls are of brick. In the lower storey are locker and retiring rooms for golfers with hot and cold showers for both sexes. The upper walls are shingled and the roof is covered with semi’ glazed brown tiles. It is mainly occupied by a large combined lounge and dining room about 60 feet in length. The flooring is of tallowwood designed for dancing. For log fires in winter, an open fireplace, framed in 9in. x 2in. briquettes, has been provided, with a hearth of 9 feet wide. Manchurian Ash of exceptional figure lines the lounge artistically furnished in autumn tints.”

The professional golfer Dan Soutar was responsible for the design of the course.

Mini golf course

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Arthur opened the Avalon Beach Miniature Golf Links in 1930. This was one of Arthur’s least successful ventures because, being built during the Great Depression it only lasted a few years due (one would assume) to lack of patronage.

Arthur had a fertile imagination when it came to advertising the miniature golf course. One gimmick which gained wide publicity sounds like something from the Boys Own Annual (a popular schoolboys’ book in the 1920s).

A particular hole on the miniature golf course was known as “Mount Vesuvius”.

It was the job of an early resident, Bill McDonald, as a teenager, to gather dried cow-pats and combine them with a few pages of the Sydney Morning Herald. They would then be introduced to the top of the hole and lit so that when patrons came to play on the weekend, ‘Vesuvius’ would actually smoke!

I would imagine that patrons who knew the origins of the smoke would have kept a safe distance.

Conclusion

In the next article I will describe Arthur’s career in the conservation movement and the reservation of a heavily forested area having a population of koala bears.