AceHistoryDesk – Part of the Australian vernacular, the word “furphy” describes a story that may be untrue or an embellishment: Its origins date back to World War I, when troops in military camps would gather, swapping tales, around water carts manufactured by the company Furphy.

Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Nov.27: 2023: ABC History News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe

An inventor is born

This weekend, collectors, enthusiasts and community members alike will gather to celebrate Furphy’s 150-year anniversary of operating in Victoria’s Shepparton region.

Born at Moonee Ponds in 1842 to Irish Immigrants, John Furphy had little formal education and first began business as a blacksmith in 1864.

Originally setting up operations in Kyneton, Furphy moved his business to Shepparton in 1873, after hearing good reports of the area from a family member farming in Kialla.

Furphy went on to invent and produce a horse-drawn water cart with cast-iron ends, which was used for many things, including carting water for troops in the military camps prior to being transported to the Middle East and Europe in WWI.

The water carts have become highly collectable with one selling for more than $60,000 last year.

Family business

The long partnership between the Shepparton region and the Furphy name still survives today, with fifth-generation descendants of John’s — Sam and Adam Furphy — running J Furphy and Sons and Furphy Foundry respectively.

Managing director of J Furphy and Sons Adam Furphy said the 150th anniversary was an exciting milestone.

“There is a lot of people internally in the organisation that are proud to work for a company that has been around for that long,” Mr Furphy said.

“It’s part of Shepparton’s DNA.”

Mr Furphy said he tried to not think too much about the legacy and history behind his family name.

It is pretty unique, and I think speaking on behalf of my cousin Sam and I who are both running the businesses that old John kicked off all those years ago, our primary focus is on today and tomorrow, not so much looking back,” he said.

“It is a wonderful legacy and we are very proud of it and I think both of us think our job is just to try and do something that is worthy of what John started.

“John was a pretty interesting guy, I think he was ahead of his time.”

A collector’s item

The celebrations are being held at Shepparton’s Museum of Vehicle Evolution, which houses the Furphy Museum.

The museum’s curator Josh Powell said he hoped to put on a display of interesting and not often seen water carts from collectors around the country.

“ There are a lot of collectors out there, a lot that are very passionate about Furphy products,” Mr Powell said.

One of the collectors attending the festivities is Matthew McQualter from Shepparton, who has roughly 20 Furphy water carts from the 1920 and 30s, up to the 1970s.

Some of Mr McQualter’s earliest memories can be connected to a water cart set up as a sprayer on his family farm.

“I remember the jingle on the end, ‘Good, better, best, never let it rest, too good is better and the better best’.

“I can remember working out the words and reading that, around the time I was learning to read.”

‘Remarkable’ legacy

When Mr McQualter was 12 and on a family holiday to Western Australia, he spotted a water cart at a rally.

“I didn’t know the connection to Shepparton, we were on the other side of the country but I just liked them,” Mr McQualter said.

“I got intrigued by them, and turns out we had one back at the farm out under a tree, so when we got home I insisted we get it home and fix it up.

“My grandfather had experience in rebarreling one, we got it fixed up and took it to Shepparton for Furphy’s 125th birthday.

“That event really opened up to me how many different ones there were.”

From then on it became Mr McQualter’s mission to collect as many water carts as he could.

“The more you learn about them, the more intriguing it gets,” Mr McQualter said.

“Plenty of businesses come and go, there are not too many that stand the test of time for 150 years and to be in a regional area like Shepparton is pretty remarkable.”

Mr Powell said Furphy had made many different products over the years that were showcased in the museum.

“ Most of the things in the Furphy museum are the Furphy family’s collection, we do have a few things on loan from time to time,” Mr Powell said.

“It is good that they have a significant interest in their own history.”

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AceHistoryDesk – Whitlam was in the Lodge, flares were in fashion, man had walked on the moon, and in the South Australian regional town of Mount Burr, children were walking into open space

Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Nov.27: 2023: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe

It was 1973 and that space was a prototype of what was still a fairly new concept — the “open area school”.

There was so much excitement around the opening of the new school, the ABC sent a film crew to the tiny timber town to document the moment.

After that it was long forgotten, but the opening of a 50-year-old time capsule buried on school grounds has revealed a snapshot of life in 1970s regional Australia.

The time capsule, the teacher and the reporter — a surprise connection

When the time capsule was dug up, the film came as a surprise, but it had an ABC label so the school sent it to the broadcaster’s Sydney offices and asked if it could be digitised for them to view.

Its arrival sparked interest and, as a journalist based in South Australia, I was asked if I could take a look at it and turn it into a story.

As soon as I heard about the film, I had one main thought — I wonder if my mum is in it?

By pure coincidence, my mum, Ann MacLennan, had worked at the Mount Burr Primary School in the early 1970s.

Once it was processed and entered into the ABC’s digital archive there my mum was — almost a decade before I was born — a young teacher standing in the back row of a school assembly.

Teaching at Mount Burr was mum’s first job straight out of college, part of a program that sent newly-trained teachers to regional areas.

“I had never heard of Mount Burr and it was a big adjustment for a city girl,” she says.

Despite being in the vision, mum couldn’t recall being filmed — the memory was lost in the blur of dignitaries frequently visiting the school.

“Because it was such a new concept, we had visits from many politicians, principals and teachers wanting to observe how the idea of open space teaching worked in practice,” she says.

“It was certainly an exciting start to my teaching career.”

Mum wasn’t the only person I recognised in the vision.

Standing next to her was another long-haired young teacher, Bettina Ritchie, mum’s lifelong friend.

Ms Ritchie says she has many fond memories of her time in Mount Burr.

“The staff was wonderful, everyone got on well and they had a good sense of humour,” she recalls.

“I met many great parents and children and the school council was really good too.

“We had a staff barbecue one night and we finished off with all of us dancing to Credence Clearwater Revival.”

Mum and Ms Ritchie both travelled to Mount Burr for the opening of the time capsule, but said they didn’t remember where it was or what was in it.

“The capsule contained a lot of printed information about the forestry industry and how important it was for the area,” Ms Ritchie says.

“But there were no writings by teachers or students and no children’s artworks which surprised us.

“I would definitely be adding them if I was burying it today.”

Surviving five decades underground

ABC archivist Jon Steiner was the first to see what was on the film, lacing it up on an old Steenbeck film machine and transferring it into the ABC’s digital archive.

Running just over a minute in duration, the silent, black and white film appears to have been recorded to mark the opening of the school and shows children in the playground and inside the new open-plan classrooms and a local MP, Des Corcoran, speaking to students.

“The film is in pretty amazingly good condition which I think is a testament to the robustness of film as a format because I don’t think a video tape or a digital file would have lasted 50 years underground in South Australia,” Mr Steiner says.

Steiner and his colleagues are in a process of transferring the ABC’s video and film records to a digital database, preserving and making them more accessible to staff across the country.

“For me it’s always that connection,” he says.

“You look at archival vision and think this is a different world but then you realise those are actually people and they are still around and it isn’t just some abstract history.

“It’s a crucial role because the ABC has been there to document all of these very significant events in the nation’s history both culturally, artistically, politically, socially and the ABC’s been there recording it.”

The more things change…

In the 50 years since it opened, the school has added a few partitions, but it still largely adheres to its original open air philosophy.Mount Burr Primary School today.

Current principal Anne-Marie Fitzgerald says it works for their small school.

“Certainly there are not doors that close anywhere and fortunately we’ve always had staff who are happy to work together in those spaces and we have a lot of collaboration between staff,” she says.

And while smart boards have replaced chalk boards, Ms Fitzgerald says what students care about the most hasn’t changed much.

“When we ask the children what they like about the school, they talk about they like the teachers,” she says.

“A lot about relationships which is probably no different to what it was 50 years ago.”

While mum and Bettina spent a few years at Mount Burr before moving on, former teacher Julia Whennen has a lifelong connection to the school and says things have changed for the better.

“I think the school’s a much happier place now,” she says.

“It’s a beautiful school, smaller numbers in classes, more variety in the curriculum definitely probably due to technology these days.

Ms Whennen was a teacher at Mount Burr when the time capsule was buried, and still volunteers there now.

“I didn’t think I’d [still] be here when I was younger,” she says.

“I thought I would be here on a walking stick.

“I’m privileged to work right across the school now when I come and this school’s amazing.

“It’s my whole life, it always will be, this school and the people of Mount Burr and the children.”

Ms Whennen said she’d been looking forward to seeing the film.

“I loved it, absolutely loved it,” she says.

“It brought back many memories.

“Probably some I didn’t like, like the milk delivery and kids having to drink this revolting milk, things like that.”

Current Mount Burr year three student Eloise Teagle says the school has changed a lot since the film was made.

“I thought [the film] was cool and it was weird how they took their shoes off in the classroom,” she says.

“You don’t need to take your shoes off and there used to be different things in different places.”

Year two student Michael Williams says his grandfather also went to the school, and it was interesting to see what life was like when he was young.

“[It was] really different from young to old,” he says.

ABC BACKSTORY Mount Burr Primary School discovers ABC film buried for 50 years in a time capsule and a surprise link to our news reporter

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