AYLMORE George

Notes written by George Aylmore

The Hesse girls walked 6 miles to school even from year one
Has a photo of the 1927/28 class with names, Helen Harris has a copy
During the Depression up to four men at a time would be walking past the Gnowangerup School. They would have walked many miles looking for employment. Some come as far as 200 miles or more on foot and a lot of them were heading east hoping to find work on the inland farms. The kids were so hungry during the depression they used to ask others for the core of their apple – the standard reply was – “There aint going to be no core!”.

The Aylmores came to Tambellup in 1901  and set up bee hives close to Lake Toolbrunup. Bees need a lot of water. One year they took out 11 tonnes of honey, stored in new containers which were the same as those used for kerosene. Each drum weighed sixty pounds. They were paid seven shillings and six pence for each tin. The honey was taken to Pootenup Station and from there were sent to Albany. There were three families who settled at Toolbrunup and they had about 300 hives. It was considered a cash crop and was the main income for the family.

GEORGE AYLMORE              #1
 

GEORGE AYLMORE ON HIS MOTORBIKE              #2
 

The family lived mainly off tinned dog. This was a wonderful item for family considering there was no refrigeration and many ants and flies.
The Dolley family attended the Jackitup school. Evelyn and Bonnie, Burt and Pandy. Evelyn married Jones and became Evelyn Jones and Bert Dolley married Evelyn Jones and became Evelyn Dolley.
The Jackitup Hall had a generator out the back and  Stutley’s held the key to the hall. Dances were held there. There were acetylene gas lamps.
Alan Harris was an incredibly hard worker and lived up to his responsibilities according to George Aylmore. Alan loaded and carted wheat single-handed from Moort Vale. Bags weighed 180 pounds and he would load his cart/truck full with about 8 tonnes (?) each trip.
Mr. Doug Thornton owned the newspaper shop..  He was very active in the Lodge.
George Aylmore’s father Ted (AE)  was very interested in anything mechanical. He bought an aeroplane in 1957. This was the Gypsy Moth built in 1928 and brought to Australia in 1932.  During the war it was absorbed into the air force and used as a training plane. After World War II it was bought by a private individual for 50 pounds and taken to Kalgoorlie.

However he soon discovered that he suffered from air sickness and the plane was housed in a shed for some years and not used.  In 1956 it was brought to Perth where it was refurbished and Ted Aylmore bought it in 1957 for 600 pounds. The Gypsy Moth had folding wings and was stored at the Aylmore's property which was named "Kiddy’s Well". George travelled to Maylands in Perth, where the main landing strip was at that time. DC10’s used to land there, along with much smaller‘mail planes.  He spent about three weeks learning to fly and has travelled across the Nullarbor twice to Sydney (Query)
George sold the plane about 2004 to an Eastern States buyer and it is now located in Sydney.

 GEORGE AYLMORE'S GYPSY MOTH             #3
 

The first block that Ted Aylmore purchased was Kojonup Location 1296, and consisted of 160 acres, this was a "homestead block". The mineral springs were situated on this block and in 1933/34 the Aylmore family gave 11 acres of land to the Gnowangerup Roads Board in order that the population be able to enjoy a swimming pool. This was the first swimming pool built south of Perth. (The Katanning pool was built a few years later) this was during the years Nelson Lemmon was the President of the Gnowangerup Roads Board, and some famous identities came to Gnowangerup in March of 1934 for the opening. (Evelyn DeLacey, Don Boulden & Percy Oliver). Locals at the opening of a swimming pool are Colin Heppell, Ernie Brade, Joe Ball, Fred Lloyd, Jim Grocock. George says that initially the water was fresh.

OPENING OF GNOWANGERUP SWIMMING POOL             #4
 

OPENING OF GNOWANGERUP SWIMMING POOL               #5
 

George has an education Department Award Certificate belonging to A E (Ted) Aylmore from Toolbrunup School in 1905
Felix Grocock was in the class, so was Gordon Allen, Gordon Stewart and Norman Stewart.
George has a photograph of the trophies presented to the Gnowangerup roads board by the Royal Agricultural Society in 1930's. Reg Austin is the man with the tall hat and Ziggy Walker is holding one of his daughters behind him, and  on the extreme left is old Mr Johnson and also on the back row is Nat Ball.
George also has a photograph which was taken from the air in 1929 of the Gnowangerup Townsite showing the railway line

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AERIAL VIEW OF GNOWANGERUP TAKEN FROM GEORGE AYLMORE'S PLANE              #6
 

The movies or ‘Star Talkies’ were held behind Richardson’s store, in the back yard of that building which is adjacent to Parry and Stewart’s hardware business. George says that often children would get on the roof of Parry and Stewart’s to get a free show and one night his father took some gravel stones and threw up on the roof!
George tells of the night after the movies when they heard a train travelling ever so slowly labouriously into Gnowangerup. It would have been around midnight.  As the train schedule was Monday leaving Gnowangerup to go to Ongerup, Tuesday returning to Gnowangerup, first day leaving Gnowangerup to Ongerup and Friday returning,  it was unusual. It eventuated that the railway staff were in enjoying some alcoholic refreshments in Ongerup when they ran out and they decided to take the train into Gnowangerup and replenish their suppliers the Gnowangerup Hotel. In the inebriated state they were not able to keep the train boilers stoked up enough although they did make it into Gnowangerup!
George has the book by Norm Colin's from Donnybrook which is a really good read.  He has a copy (the original proof of the story which was found in a house that the Collins family had vacated some time earlier, Confidential). Norm Collins was also an aviator, but was a bit of a muddler and couldn’t keep his log book up to date, so George wonders why he was able to write such a good book (Although he says his daughter did the typing!)
George Aylmore was the eldest in the family query and therefore he had little education because he didn't stay home to help with the farm.  
George referred to the dam sinking team of Mills and query what other teams were in the Gnowangerup district.
Dad Stutley got a hand throttle put on his car.
VDC on manoeuvres near the golf course, along came an elderly Aboriginal on a bike collecting wool from dead sheep. Only it was Tom(?) Wellard in disguise, as a spy.
A Steam Engine was outside their home for 30 years owned by the Carpenter Brothers., It was very expensive to hire and to not very effective at times.  In the 1960's the Gnowangerup Shire bought a Steam Engine and sent it to Albany to be blasted and painted. There were originally two of them which were brought from England. In England they were used on either side of the paddock with the chain between and some kind of disks to plough the field.
Tom O’Dea came to Gnowangerup in 1928 in a Sopwith Gnu. George doesn’t know if it was his or not. His mechanic was Jim ?. He left GNP to go up north and join the search for Sir Kingsford Smith when he was lost (later found)
George was a wireless operator in WWII in a Lancaster and has a picture signed by ‘ ‘ who was a V.C.?? and was in one of the planes that dropped the bombs on Hiroshima later became a devout Christian (Roman Catholic).
George built a glider. Photo of George with Bob Hawke, another with Tom Wardle, participated in the 1970 opening of the Perth Airport, flying his Gipsy Moth from the Esplanade to deliver Mail to the Perth Airport.

GEORGE AYLMORE WITH BOB HAWKE              #7
 

 GEORGE AYLMORE WITH TOM WARDLE              #8
 

TOOLBRUNUP SCHOOL             #9
 

Arthur sold the land to R.B. Davies
There is a very good photo of Gnowangerup taken from Wally Parnell's shop and it shows Paddy Creedon's boot shop and others of the Lyric building and so on.
The Vickers machine guns were taken down from the Gnowangerup Hall and used for training just demonstration as was no ammunition.  Aircraft were coming over during VDC training and gelignite would be exploded from under rocks to make it appear like bombing.
George's sister on is very interested in wildflowers. There is a book about the Toolbrunup School and Bert was at the late Toolbrunup School. At the same school was Margaret Walker. There was a reunion about five years ago approximately in 2003 where there was a list of all the pupils.

Bob Farley was an English conman. He had an office next to the Star office and eventually this was incorporated into Heppel's. He was a photographer and that is where people had their photographs printed up by a chap called Jack Millner who had very large ears.
There was a band in Gnowangerup and in Tambellup. Snowy Wilson played in the Tambellup band and he owned a shop in Tambellup. He had a billiards table and there which was always full of patrons. 

Charlie Black went to Rosa Brook and he retired there because his daughter Bernice had married someone who lived there.
Saw pits consisted of a pit, by placing a log over the top of the pit and someone stood in the bottom and was covered with sawdust.  White gum had curly grain and it was a very hard wood as George says “ it is as hard as the hobbs of hell”. Many houses in the Cambridge area are made from cedar because it was washed off of the ships in Cape Riche - huge pieces of timber.
Augustus Walker used manna gum to roll the Gnowangerup papers. He would put dob of manna glue on them as he rolled them up
Charlie Denny was the one who introduced doves to Gnowangerup  

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References:                 Article:      George Aylmore

                                  Image:     1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8,         George Aylmore Collection
                                                 4, 5, 9                      Internet

Copyright : Gordon Freegard 2024