Early Development of Melville

EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE MELVILLE AREA:

Ted Miller's Recollections and Reflections

There was a bush area on Canning Highway (Road) between Canning Bridge and Stock Road in Palmyra. The 1926 bus service from Palmyra to Perth stimulated Sydney company Peet & Co to propose development of an estate west of Wireless Hill. By 1929 five homes were built, the first display homes in Perth. One house was sold to a mine manager and the other four lay empty. The great depression had struck. Ted Miller's parents (presenter of this talk) bought their house in 1931 as newlyweds. Mr Miller was a jockey with racing one of the few places where money circulated as people took their chances. The proposed estate never developed, at least not for another 25 years.

Until the 1940s, the area remained the same. Under the Wireless Hill tower, the children's playground was square miles of native bush. They did not get lost, when it was time to go home, one climbed a tree until the tower was visible to guide them home. An abundance of wildflowers beautified the landscape. 'Never pull a wildflower up by the roots and only pick one or two wildflowers for home', were regular instructions. On the other side of Canning Road were two dairies which benefited from the river floodplain. One dairy was the Atwell's, whose house is now an art centre. The river played a big part of life with swimming, fishing and crabbing. A commercial fisherman earned his living in a row boar and Mr Miller and family trained horses on the beach and in the bush.

The bus service was vital for the development of Melville and Applecross. The Fremantle tram stopped at Stock Road. As with Stirling Highway, public transport was vital to development. Peet & Co. showed their awareness of this by building a substantial bus shelter opposite the five display homes, the only shelter on Canning Highway for many years. A small substitute stands today as its replacement.

Life was simple in those days and development was slow. In the 1950s a delicatessen shop was built on the corner of North Lake Road. Fridges hadn't yet reached many homes and Sunday dessert was augmented by a pre-ordered 'brick' of Peter's ice cream, packed in thin cardboard. In some families, after the main course of a baked Sunday lunch, one eager child raced down to the deli for the vanilla flavoured delight.

On one afternoon, a three year old boy wandered into the bush away from his mother who was walking on the bush track with a baby in a pram. The district organised a search party after dark without police or officials involved. Such were the times. As Mr Miller knew the bush well from training horses there, he saddled up one of the horses and set off. He reckoned the lost boy would follow the horse tracks, the least line or resistance in the bush, once he came upon them. When a noise was detected by the rider, the cause was not the boy but an alert kangaroo jumping away. Soon the rider heard a whimper, it was the child. Not wishing to frighten the boy, Mr Miller found one of his foot searching apprentice jockeys and directed him to the spot. It was a very quick recovery of a lost child at night, to the relief of all, especially the family.

Away from the highway, chicken farms developed with egg production, particularly in the vicinity of North Lake Road. Plucking and dressing of poultry had not been mechanised and commercialised, and chicken as food was rare unless people took to the chopping block themselves. Likewise wood fires with identifying chimneys were the order of the day.

In the 1950s the telephone line at last reached that far. A little later, the PMG discovered a block on Canning Highway near Stock Road did not have a house number, so everyone had to change their number by two. It led to many incorrectly delivered letters being exchanged between neighbours for a couple of years. There was a very friendly community atmosphere.

The Miller's cow provided milk for neighbours, who would leave their empty billy hanging on the picket fence, often with some little cakes insider as appreciation. The sign that the billy was ready to collect depended on which side of the picket fence the billy was hanging. The Miller's neighbour, Mrs Prowse, routinely curled primary age Margaret Miller's hair each morning before school.

As the economy began to recover after the war and migration increased, blocks of land were taken up a little way from the highway. Nearby the Lorek family from Poland lived in their cement fibre garage while they slowly built their home. Mr Lorek had a secure job and his wife was a midwife. While she did night duty several times a week, their two children slept at the Miller home. The Doust family took up a nearby block and converted a tram carriage as a home while they saved enough to build. Ted Miller remembers delivering fresh cow's milk on the pony to these people.

One of the thrills on 'Wendy' the pony was the experience of riding the three kilometres to the Miller Bakehouse to collect the family's daily supply of bread. Towards the end of the day, the pony was very reluctant to leave home where its hunger would be satisfied. The pony was a hard ride, real work for a young lad. Once the bread was retrieved in a sugar bag from the bakehouse, the pony was keen to be home. The rider had hardly time to throw the sugar bag over the pony's wither and get into the saddle before she galloped at full pelt, without need of encouragement, all the way home. She had incredible stamina. It was a most memorable, enjoyable experience for Ted Miller.