Grey, Robert (Bob)

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NameGrey, Robert (Bob)BiographyIn the years immediately after World War II, the Milk Board decided to extend regular home delivery of milk into Oak Flats. Regular consumption of milk was considered essential for public health and the board had an obligation to ensure it was readily available to as many people as possible. As my grandfather farmed jersey cows, which produced lots of cream, they decided that he should be pressured into providing the service. After a good deal of persuading, my father started deliveries in July 1947. The first day, he sold a total of 5 gallons (23 litres). It was all unpasteurised, direct from the farm. When the run grew a bit, I started helping him before school and at weekends. When I left school, I started working full time.

Oak Flats in the late forties was the original Struggletown. No one had much money. There was a couple of small shops and not much else. No school, no other facilities at all. A lot of the ‘houses’ were just fibro garages, which people would build and live in until they could get enough money together to start on the main building. Despite (or because of) all this, the town had a great sense of community. Everyone knew everyone else and everyone was prepared to help his or her neighbour.

Apart from Central Avenue, the roads were either just lines on a map or, at best, a narrow strip of blue metal meandering through the trees. Delivering milk, we would mostly just head along one of the many tracks, which left the gazetted road and dodged through the trees until they met up with another road.

During one long spell of wet weather, we could not get the truck into most of the area west of what is now Moore Street. We would drive in as far as we could, then I would put about 5 gallons of milk into two small cans and deliver it to homes in the inaccessible areas while my father would drive back out and meet me at the access spot.

Over time Oak Flats gradually grew. The majority of the new arrivals were migrants from Britain and Europe. The ones who came from cold climates must have thought they were in hell – living in a fibro shed with an unlined corrugated iron roof in the midst of a scorching summer. But, they mostly stuck it out, raised families and generally prospered. In the main
they were great people who worked incredibly hard to build a future.

When they celebrated a wedding or other major event, some of them could also celebrate with gusto. When delivering milk in the early hours of the morning, the last thing you needed was to be pulled into a party for a drink or two. For this reason, we were always very, very quiet when we were delivering anywhere near a celebration. It wasn’t that we didn’t appreciate their hospitality – it was just that we had a job to do and we did it better while sober.

It is easy to remember the hard things about those days. Working seven days a week in all weathers; the rain that saturated you for days on end, the westerly winds, the heat, the flies. Carrying two heavy cans of milk across paddocks two feet high in wet, sticky paspalum and the occasional nasty customer.

The memories that linger longest are of the friendliness of the people, their open hearted acceptance of life and their toughness and tenacity in building a place for themselves and their family.

As the town grew, our business grew with it. We were able to take on an employee. This was great as it meant that after years of working seven days a week, we could have a day off. Deliveries were still seven days w week, 365 days a year, but we were able to sleep in one day a week. Gradually the town changed. New shops, better roads, a school and lots more people. Our business grew with it until one day I realized that I no longer knew every customer. That was when I realised that Oak Flats had grown up.

I spent thirty more years their delivering milk around Oak Flats. I made a lot of friends, some of them are still my friends today – but the toughest and the best years were when the town and I were both young.

Contributed by Bob Grey 2006.

Photograph

The Royal Agricultural Show

Slab Building On Don Grey's Farm 'The Meadows'

Robert (Bob) Grey

Drilling For Oil at Mount Terry

Keith Grey

Family

Grey

Gower

Person

Grey, Theodore James

Albion Park Public School classes 5-6, 1948.

Back l-r: Bob Grey, K Glasgow, J Stubbs, W Hartley, K Tasker, R Evans, , , R McBarron, C Smith,

3rd row l-r: M Dennis, F Pryor, T Green, G Cramp, P Ferguson, , J Wilson, Fell, J Pearson

2nd row l-r: D Stubbs, R Faulks, B Lough, E Pearson, A Swan, B Swan, J Thomas, , R McKinnon, B Wilson, A Martin,

Front l-r: B Wilson, N Wilson, R Williams, T Denyer, D Stavely, N Mason.

Teacher: Mr McClelland.

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Grey, Robert (Bob)