About 25 years ago Jack Harriott became a custodian of Waurn Ponds Memorial Reserve. He speaks to Luke Voogt about the “local treasure” and life during COVID-19.
Tell us about you…
I’m 86, I started work in Waurn Ponds in 1952 and have been here ever since. I grew up in Newtown and joined the national service in 1952. They were getting us ready for the Korean War but it finished before they needed us. I had just got out of national service and was looking for a job on a farm and I found one in Waurn Ponds.
I married my wife Glenda in 1959. She came from the Mornington Peninsula – she saw something she liked over here. I started my own farm, where I worked until I retired a dozen years ago. We have four children and a dozen grandchildren, maybe more! And we’ve got five great-grandkids. I’m a Richmond barracker, which is of much annoyance to my wife because she barracks for Geelong. I love it when Geelong plays Richmond.
How did you help save Waurn Ponds Memorial Reserve?
The reserve replaced the Waurn Ponds’ Avenue of Honour trees, which were planted in July 1919 in memory of residents who served in World War I. It’s 101-years-old now and it’s a local treasure. The land was going to be sold off nearly 25 years ago and it had no right to be sold. We jumped up and down, and it sort of kicked off from there. I got the RSL in Melbourne involved, wrote some letters and ran a local campaign. The owners, now known as the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, put us there as a committee of management. All the names it was dedicated to had vanished. I went and saw an old bloke named Glen Lugg and he told me about some of them and my wife and daughter researched some others. We had help from the RSL, Bruce Ruxton and other locals.
We made lots of improvements there and put a fence around it in 2016, with some help from the locals. It’s a very popular spot now.
What do you like to do locally?
We go to the RSL and the local hotel. I reckon at Geelong and Waurn Ponds we’ve got the best of both worlds, it’s close to the city and we can go to the beaches if we want to.
How has COVID-19 affected you and what are you looking forward to once the pandemic is over?
We’ve been in the country virtually all our lives and we’re used to being out here. It hasn’t upset us that much really. The kids drop in and see us every now again but life’s got a lot slower. Once it’s over, we might go for a trip somewhere in New South Wales or South Australia. We sold our caravan, so we just stay in motels now.
What’s something people might not know about you?
I’ve got a train set that keeps me occupied in the shed. I’ve got quite a few carriages and trains. My wife’s happy to see me out of the house, it gets me out from under her feet!
