COLIN Cleary records the history of his boyhood home - Carwarp - in his latest book, writes DAVID COONEY
The drought and dust storms of the mid-1940s are perhaps Colin Cleary's most vivid memory of his hometown, Carwarp, in the northern Mallee.
He recalls the red dust, a metre deep along the fence lines and paddocks turned to sand.
"The erosion was a disaster," Colin says.
"All the sheep were gone, there were no crops and the only grass growing was around the channel.
"The London Evening News did a story on it, saying the Mallee was blowing away.
"Victoria's Premier, Albert Dunstan, came up to see it for himself and left, saying there was no problem.
"On his way back, his car got bogged (in the sand) at Sea Lake."
Now, 65 years on, it's as if the Mallee dust is still in Colin's skin.
In the past couple of years, he has made it his mission to ensure the history of that far-flung frontier, about 35km south of Mildura, is not lost forever, with his latest book, Carwarp, Community, Politicians and the Wanderers: A Social History of a Special Mallee Town.
Colin, a retired teacher, now 72 and living at Epsom, near Bendigo, says the book began as a history of Carwarp's Wanderers cricket club, for which he briefly played, but expanded into a more general social history.
He wanted to tell the story of how Carwarp's pioneers, despite coming from vastly different backgrounds, lived and worked harmoniously together to form a secure, cohesive community.
"I experienced the Carwarp community at the football and cricket and through my mother being in the CWA, and my father being in the Wheat and Woolgrowers' Association and the Carwarp branch of the Labor Party, where he was the secretary in the early 1930s," Colin says.
"I thought it was important to get it (the history of Carwarp community) down.
"I was just going to write about the Wanderers but I began to realise there's a lot more to Carwarp, in particular, Percy Stewart, a Carwarp resident who became state member in 1917 and then federal member and minister for railways in 1919.
"Not much is known about Stewart. He helped start the Victorian Farmers Union and the Country Party. He pulled out over the Country Party joining with the Nationalists and helped bring down the Bruce Government."
It's a book of highs and lows that looks at Carwarp from its settlement in 1913, when Colin's father, Bert, selected a block, the grim years faced by soldier settlers and other blockies between the wars, the more prosperous decades after World War II and the inevitable decline of the community that followed.
Most grew wheat and ran sheep, but by late 1930, their debts had spiralled as returns plunged.
The Government decided to force soldier settlers off their 256ha blocks, offering 100 in compensation and paying off their debts.
The blockies were glad to leave.
Bert Cleary was among the few the Government allowed to stay on, with the offer of extra leasehold land.
By 1937, his leasehold had increased to 1600ha, enough to make a living.
Colin left the district about two decades later but returned as a primary teacher at Carwarp primary school from 1966 to 1971.
The other motivation behind the book is Colin's passion for history, scholastic research, politics and sport.
Since his retirement in the 1990s, he has completed five degrees, including two Master of Arts degrees and a PhD, and written books on the history of Labor in Bendigo and Ballarat.
As well as inheriting his father's love of politics, Colin also showed plenty of that ancestral Mallee toughness and stoicism.
He played cricket until the age of 57, accumulating five centuries and countless wickets along the way, and football until he was 37, chalking up more than 400 games in the various parts of Victoria to which teaching took him.
He has also inherited a love of things English from his mother, Lily, who was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne.
He travels to London most European summers to teach English as a second language to European students, always taking the opportunity to see Test matches.
