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Bridge   Bridge over canal below the sports ground was the only vehicle crossing – it allowed a scrap-food truck to go to the Piggery and rubbish dump. There was also a good but rarely used swimming hole further on in the depleted Derwent with a diving springboard. Main lasting rubbish are the white Peck’s Paste and Marmite jars. Remnant rubbish is still there as bridge has gone and only a footbridge remains. Safety chains dangle from the sides of the canal all the way to Tarra. A chain every chain. Before the canal was filled for the first time, Jeeps had great fun racing along its length – supposedly inspection vehicles.

Canteen The wet canteen was open for about one hour a day before Tea. Red Cascade bottles were rationed. No wine allowed – considered Plonk. Some migrants made their own wine from vegetable pillages from the cook-house. There was a ‘still somewhere but nobody knew where. The Copper from Ouse would sometimes come asking questions on his Indian motorbike and covered side-car. He wore a black shiny-peaked cap, black corduroy Jodphurs and glossy black leather leggings. His rosy wind-blistered puffed cheeks bulged from behind his thick goggles. He always took a deep breath and composed himself before eventually speaking in thunderous spurts. He always ended any investigations with a closed confab in the back room of the Canteen. Then he and his motor-bike farted their way down to the canal and swerved and bucked an erratic track along the gravel corrugated road towards Tarra. Parts of his uniform glittered in the billowing dust clouds as he chuggered and spluttered to keep in front of the wind.

Cook-House The Cook-house catered for all the single-men. Meal Allowances were automatically deducted from all their pay-packets. Breakfast and Tea with sandwiches for dinner were on a take-it or leave-it basis. There was no choice really. Mutton served in every way possible with steak or stew for a change. Marmite, Peck’s Paste, IXL tins of Jam, Golden Syrup and Cockeye’s joy (Treacle) or Honey were the go to top-up on bread brought in from Bothwell. Rats, Mice, weavels and Lice were part of the ignoratie. If you didn’t like the food, you smothered it with ‘dead horse’ (IXL Tomato Sauce). Noisy enamel plates and mugs with nic-Names painted on them.

Derwent River  When talking about Butlers Gorge we tend to forget that the settlement was all about the Derwent River. Before Clark Dam was built, it flowed somewhat serenely from the natural Lake St. Clair and across sprawling glacial formed button-grass plains into the steep-sided gorge that became Butlers Gorge. As a child, I walked the river banks and the plains to the slopes of the ‘King Billy mountain’. There was, at the bottom of what is now Lake King William, a large weathered wooden hut made with clay, thin saplings and bark. A gnarled and knotted moss-covered apple tree down the front. Summer-time sheep men on horseback followed flocks of straggley sheep for a couple of months. Two families of men, the Farrows and the Pearces, were scruffy and tough. Straggley beards and smelly brown balaclavas. They wore sheep-skin coats and trousers with leather bowyangs. Their saddles and much of their horses were also covered with sheep-skins. When the Lake was flooded, they were the first non-workers to cross the dam. My Dad once said – "all that blood, sweat and tears to get covered in sheep sh-t".

The Derwent, after going through the portals of Clark Dam, is then halted at a weir where it is diverted from its natural course into the canal to travel all the way to the brow of the hill at Tarraleah. The poor old river is just a trickle of its former self. The decrease in water flow did however make some great swimming holes and fishing spots.

Engineers Row   We didn’t think about class differences. We wouldn’t have known what it meant anyhow. In many ways the HEC or th’eye-dro was run like an army. The Engineers and permanent staff were the Officers. The foremen and gangers were the sergeants. The migrants, POW’s, blow-ins and others were the soldiers. The staff offices were down at the edge of the village on a bank overlooking the river and canal in a quiet undisturbed position. The engineers and surveyors had their better standard houses in ‘Engineers Alley’. A road skirting the village on the other side of a hill. Even the schoolteacher didn’t make it to there. He lived in a house opposite the General store and beside the Hospital. My uncle Owen Gossage almost made it. He was in charge of the Works Store up on top of the hill behind the dam and lived in one of the new pre-fab houses between the Post Office and Engineers Alley. I remember his new glossy light-greed and yellow-mottled enamel Kookaburra electric. Married men were considered the more likely to stay and were made Leading Hands. The single men each had their own hut, open fire, wire bed and a chair. Each hut had a small porch to keep the wood dry and hang coats. We used to say ‘ the clever dry their boots and the wise dry their socks’.

Head Office  The Head Office was on the edge of the village where the road to the dam-site began. Nice and quiet there. We didn’t go there very often. The HEC had a few telephones there for their own use. The only other phone was at the little Post Office shed and the PostMistress had to be there to make a connection. The bosses and permanent staff kept very much to themselves. Mum used to call them the ‘toffs’ and not of the ‘hoi poloi’ They had office rooms, desks, lots of papers and blue and white blueprint drawings, indelible pencils and brown tubed heaters. It seemed the height of luxury that they could sit in a closed office with flameless heaters going and their coats off. Sometimes cars with important-looking men came to the Head office but they didn’t visit the school or anywhere else. We assumed it was an important place for important people and treated it that way.

Later Houses  The area of later houses was built in a period towards the end of the war. The village had expanded to be too large for the marrieds only area and spread around the corner towards the milksheds. These were all pre-fabs. My other Uncle Gordon Gossage, who was in charge of Transport and Ambulance, lived there with Auntie Enid, young Pattie and Max. Because they had newer types of houses here, they were considered a little bit priviledged.

Main St    Main streets in rough country HEC villages are not always planned, they just get built around. I refer to the main street as the road going East West. As a kid, it was the road that led to where everything happened. It was only about 500 yards really. It was the first that a truck drove over to squish the snow to show the best way to walk without tripping over something or falling into an air-raid shelter hole. A short tunnel actually and usually half full with water. When we had air raid practice we reckoned it was probably better to get shot by the Japs than to drown in a shelter.

Married only Houses  - the houses for married men only were in the middle of the village. The single men’s huts and the Staff House were first and houses were built later when families began to arrive. The three Gossage brothers were among the first to occupy the married houses. From this general influx, the school, Post Office, hospital (for want of a better word) and other facilities began to establish. The men worked a 48 hour week and were away at the dam-site all day. It was left to the married women to meld the village into their own standards. There were only the young mothers and no extended families or older folk. These young women formed the culture of the village. Had the history of the village’s evolvement been recorded it would have made a fine basis for planning as it emerged from a confined area of mutual communal selection. The unwritten law was ‘a fair go for all’.

Milking Sheds   Distance and unreliable access made fresh milk a luxury. In warmer weather there was no refrigeration. At a later stage a small dairy was established but was considered more trouble than it was worth. I relied on the cows returning from the bush to be milked. The lack of fences, the wild turns of weather and the occasional slaughter by a gun-happy reffo mad the venture a bit dicey. Anyhow we had always had and learned to live with Nestles Condensed milk. Empty tins with the lids jawed open made the bulk of the town’s garbage. We used the empty tins with the lids pushed in to catch snakes. Condensed milk was used by the women in every imaginable form of cooking. We even mixed it with snow to make Butlers’ ice cream. When we did get fresh milk, it was immediately boiled and the cream scooped off to be used at some later time for desserts or scones. Each house had a butter churn and pats.

Oval  The sports ground was made with a dozer and railway iron dragged over it. The rain eventually smoothed it out enough for it to be called ‘the oval’. Grass couldn’t grow as there was only mountain grass and the wallabies snipped any hopeful shoots. The site, and therefore the village, worked a six day week. Sunday was the day of rest and it was hard to get the men motivated enough for play. However the children and women tended to shame them into it and they eventually enjoyed the contests. Cricket, Football, Shooting and encouraging the kids was the main pastime. On rare occasions the oval hosted a Worth’s circus, Harry Poulson’s boxing troupe or even Tex Morton’s travelling show. The school used the oval to practice athletics for the Anzac Day carnival at Hamilton.

Hall    Our symbol of community was the hall. A huge galvanized shed really. At one end was a stage with large white screen and a supper preparation room behind. Exit crash-doors on each side and a large entrance with a cloak-room on one side and a ticket collection booth on the other. To one side of the entrance was an external stairway that led to an upstairs projection room. Cinesound and Movietone newsreels preceded the main film. Sound and technicolor had arrived. As a child my attitude to the war and indeed all wars was formed by the Newsreels. Other than what we were told at school and what we heard people say, we had basically no other education. Mr Churchill, the King, Tom Mix and Gene Autrey were about equal influences on our thinking. To be able to view films (the flicks)in colour was magnificent and the sound was good unless drowned out by the rain on the galvanized roof. We all sat in rows of long slatted benches with windy draughts pasting the cold on any exposed flesh not covered by Onkaparinga blankets or a Kangaroo-skin rug. Nobody, but nobody was at home. Being part of a community was just that. Being part of everything that was going on. Everyone was huddled in the hall except single men and a few married ones who had snuck off to the canteen. My Dad sometimes had to ‘see a man about a dog’

Special occasions called for a dance and the hall was ideal for a true country barn dance. Decorations of gum-tree branches and streamers. The wooden floor had a sweeping of saw-dust dampened with kerosene. Music was supplied by my mum on piano, a squeeze-box or drums, a musical saw, a jews harp or even just us kids with a bit of tissue paper and a comb. Special occasions called for an outside band so long as they could get through. All in all the main fun was just dressing up and having all the village together. Just the thought of going to the hall prompted smiles.

Piggery  The piggery was more a necessity than a venture. Primarily it was to dispose of the cook-house food scraps. It came to be a source of pork meat, smoked hams and bacon. While pigs were good enough to eat, they were located far away from the village and hidden across the canal. Straw was a problem and had to be brought in from Ouse. The fences needed to be maintained as loose pigs were considered fair game by some of the gun-happy aliens.

POW Camp  Because the "War to end all Wars" was on and workers were in short supply, prisoners from Hobart jails and prisoners of war were employed and housed in huts seperate from the main village.This was known as No9 Camp and 129 aliens moved in during July 1943. They caused many ruptions between the workers, staff and Unions. Mainly Italians, the ‘reffos’ were ordered by Mr Curtin PM to remain on the job but the unions had other ideas. Even though nearly half the men were prepared to work with the internees, a close Ballot was won by the Unions and the Tasmanian Government gave way. The aliens were forced to leave the village. No further aliens as such were to be brought onto the job. The Poles and other Nationalities began to take their place.

Prefabs:  To build within the village meant that timber had to be transported in from sawmills much further down rhe Derwent Valley. Some-one had the bright idea that so long as trucks were coming in, they might as well bring some ready-built houses. Pre-fabricated. They had many other names but ‘prefab’ stuck. They were constructed in Devonport. They were all built in three parts. The centre was the main living area and from here all the other rooms could be accessed.. One third contained two bedrooms. The other third was the kitchen, laundry, bathroom and toilet. The total two-bedroomed prefabs could easily have one or two more bedrooms added. All prefabs sat on many three to four foot posts. They all had an electric stove, hot water and a large steel wood-heater. Because they were painted horizontal boards rather than the oiled uprights, we considered them very modern. They were the only painted buildings in the whole village.

Rifle Range    When the oval had been bull-dozed, large mounds of clay formed a long wall at the Eastern end. By making this into a double row, it became a rifle-range where red and white targets could be raised or lowered in the trench. .303s could be fired from the middle of the sports ground towards the mounds. From within the trench there were 16 guage clay trap-shoots held. My dad had a bouble-barrell that he was proud of. Some of the more wealthy people had an under and over. I had my own .410 that I used to shoot snakes and tin cans but it was not powerful enough for trap-shooting. We spent many evenings loading cartridges with shot and wadding and using a pull-through. This was when we were not using a hand-drill to make hemp snares.

Road and Canal to Tarraleah    Butlers Gorge was known as No.7Camp. Simply the canal was a diverting of the Derwent River fom the Clark Dam at Butlers Gorge into the pipes above Tarraleah and down to the Tarraleah Power Station to supplement the River Nive with more water to drive more turbines. About 12 miles of canal had to be built in areas that offered no reasons for human occupation. Simple following of the landfall caused the canal to follow the general direction of the mother Derwent. This it did until it reached the bridge at the road junction and entered the pipes (penstock) about 5 miles above Tarraleah township. The road of course was a made gravel surface which is still the best in snow and ice. Water has flowed along the canal continuously since about 1939 with little or no maintenance.

School    After beginning in the hall, a two-roomed school was built. Each of these rooms had a fireplace in the front corner beside the room-wide blackboard. Children used slates and sat at twin cast iron desks with ink-wells, pens, nibs, blotters, rubbers and copy-books. Grades 1-3 in one room and 4-6 in the other. The first head teacher was Mr Faulkner to be replaced later by Mr Breadon. Those I remember to pass the State Ability Test and go to High School were Marie Gossage and later, Sergio Giudici. The next year he was followed by Charles Gossage and Georgie Ashwood. Other children just tended to drift into the Hydro workforce or impending marriages. Boys starting as billy-boys.

Single-men's Huts      The huts were very basic but a big improvement on the tents and flys. The Commission supplied shower and toilet blocks along with th cook-house and canteen. Each hut had a fireplace and a covered lean-to on the porch to keep wood dry. A wire bed, a chair a door and a window were part of the single-roomed accomodation. The walls were vertical planks lined with sisalcraft (Tar-paper). Add one central light globe and ‘Bob’s your Uncle’.

Store and Post Office    The store and Post Office were run by the Commission with mainly the women and children in mind. It was probably only once a year that they might go somewhere as substantial as New Norfolk or even Hobart. They relied on the Store to stock all their needs in one place. There was only one phone available in the village and that was at the Post Office.
Much use was made of Telegrams. There was a Telegram Boy who rode a red PMG bike and had a shiny black sachel attached to his belt. He wore a black glossy peaked cap to complete his officialdom.

Swimming Hole     Across a foot-bridge and over the canal below the Head Office was the swimming hole. Because the canal took most of the water, the river exposed big deepish places suitable for swimming.Along the near bank were large smooth boulders. The far bank was mostly tea-tree scrub. In-between there were many exposed pebble beaches.

This area was also the route to Majors Lookout with views across to the whole South-West. The King William Range to the North and Mt Hobhouse To the South.

Tennis   The Commission built us a tennis court between the hall and the schoolyard. It was fully surrounded with a six foot wall of fencing and chicken wire above that. It had a little open shed with a storage seat for the net. It also had a high wooden umpire’s chair. The wooden wall was great because it had a white line painted across it which represented a net and we could play alone. It was thought that because the whole court was so really good, one of the engineers must have wanted it. I had a Bromich tennis racquet.

Town Crusher and quarry. Specifically for making gravel for roads around the village. Rattling huge old steam shovels loaded the tip-trucks with the rock to be crushed and tipped into the jaws of the crusher. Another truck would receive the crushed gravel from below to be either taken away or stored back in the quarry.

Georgie Ashwood, Sergio Guidici and I would see how high we could jump from the walls of the quarry on to the gravel heaps. The nearest we got to being Tarzan.