Interview Transcript from Illawarra Stories Wollongong City Libraries Oral History Project – Ron Dryburgh

Interviewer: Edie Swift

Interview date: 11 April 2012

Edie Swift:  My name is Edie Swift and I’m recording with Ron Dryburgh this morning and ah, it is the 11th of April 2012. Ah, we are talking about the me- Albion Park men shed at the Albion Park Anglican Church and in Albion Park. And ah, we’re in the building called The ATCO demountable building and ah, it will be put, this oral history in the local studies department of the Wollongong City Library. Now we, I’ll ask you a little bit about your parents your date of birth and their dates of birth.

Ron Dryburgh:  Right. I was born on the 1st of July 1941, I was born at, ah I was born in Wollongong. My parents, eh, my mum. Her name is Florence May. She was born in Balgownie in 1943 on the 3rd of December 1943. My father was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland on the 10th of August 1900. And now I said one mum was born in forty-three she was born in 1903. I don’t want her making younger than I am so yes, she was born in 1903 in Balgownie which is on the South Coast here. My Dad came to Australia when he was 21-year-old. And eh, they’ve lived in Balgownie. I was raised in Balgownie until I was twenty-three when I got married. I married a girl from Fairy Meadow and eh, we’ve been married now 48 years. I’ve got two daughters, Karen, and Leoni, and they’ve got one grandchild each.

Eddie Swift:  And your grandparents?

Ron Dryburgh:  My grandparents “eh” I only ever knew one, my grandfather which was my mother’s father. He lived with us towards the end of his years. He died at the age of eighty-four. My grandparents in Scotland I never knew.

Eddie Swift:  And what was his name?

Ron Dryburgh:  Alexander Pollock. Yep.

Edie Swift:  And your father’s name?

Ron Dryburgh:  Archibald

Edie Swift:  Now the Men’s Shed we’ll shift to that. I wondered how that started.

Ron Dryburgh:  Well, about 5 years ago I heard of the Men’s Sheds being established around the country. And um, I spoke to our local minister at the time John Cornford, and I said to John  that really Albion Park needed one of the sheds because we knew what the, the we knew there was a lot of aged people in Albion Park. And um, yeah, we knew that because of the 1997 census that was taken there was about 450, aged, single men living in this area. And I just had a feeling, or I had, I knew we had to do something for them. And it’s taken that long. It’s taken just on 5 years, through applications for funding. Last year we were fortunately, ah, fortunate to get a grant from the state government through our then local minister, then Matt Brown, our, ah, the state minister, Matt Brown. Um, we got $30,000. That enabled us to, to get a shed, twelve metres by eight meters and be able to line it and put power through the shed. Ah, that was completed in Ah, December 2011. This year 2012 we had our official opening toward the end of February. Gareth Ward who is now our local state Member for Kiama he did the official opening for us.

Edie Swift:  Why did it, what went on in the 10 years as you started?

Ron Dryburgh:  5 years.

Edie Swift:  5 years that you started planning?

Ron Dryburgh:  Well we applied for eh, we, we originally, because we, we’d never applied for grants before. So um, we didn’t know how to go about it. But we applied to the state government in 2010 for $94,000. Um, we got a letter back from them saying that we were unsuccessful, eh, although we met the criteria. The amount of money was too much. So, the following year we applied again for $54,000. This time we had our act together a little better so myself and eh, John Cornford – our minister at the time. We went down and spoke to Matt Brown – our a member. To get his support he told us that$54,000 was probably still too much. He had… He’s allocation for he’s area was $300,000 to distribute, and he had applications. In hand for over a $1,000,000 from different groups nonprofit organisations we eh. So, he said to us eh, “That’s just too much, but maybe we can do something for you next year.” But 2 weeks after we had a talk with him, he’s parliamentary secretary from Sydney rang us and said he’d been through, look through our application he looked through our mission statement of what we wanted to do for the men in Albion Park and he said. “Your application is so good what you want to do in your town.” He said, “that’s just, we’ve got to help you somehow but $54000 is just too much.” He’s asked me to think about it. And come back to him in a few days, um with a lesser figure. So, I rang him about a week or so later, And I said Look I said, at, well originally wanted a 20-metre shed. So, when I rang him back, I said look $30,000 would give us twelve metre shed and that would get us established. And then we can source more funding at another date. So eh, Matt Brown, our local member, then rang us about a week after that again to say that he has $30,000 for us. So that’s how it started, yep. And that took up till then and that was a vision of mine for the past 5 years.

Edie Swift:  How did, how did you um you have to have a plan and draftsman and all that?

Ron Dryburgh:  Yeah, we went to a local company here called Unibuild. they, they, erect, eh large sheds and garages colour-bond garage sheds. As we have here and eh, we told them what size we wanted, what eh, height we wanted, what we wanted in it. How many windows, skylights, roller doors, etc. They gave us a quote to establish, erect the shed. And that included all ah, drawings, all our plans. Um, we then, we paid them a deposit then it goes to council for a DA approval, development application approval, that was approved pretty quickly because the council realised “eh” that it was a Men’s Shed, and it was a community concern. And yes, so around December last year it was complete. From that point there was about five of us that were all members of our church here that did a lot of work. We laid cement blocks, did pathways, we lined the shed, we put the electrical wiring through the shed. And up until the time we were able to do an official opening in February. As I was saying that was done by our local member then and at that point of time had twelve members.  Two months on now after our official opening we have forty-four members.

Edie Swift:  And you advertise?

Ron Dryburgh:  We haven’t advertised, the only advertising we’ve done is through the editorials at the local press have done for us in relation to the official opening.

Edie Swift:  The Advertiser?

Ron Dryburgh:  The Advertiser and the Lake Times and yes and we also got a feature in the Anglican magazine which comes out monthly which is the Southern Cross.

Edie Swift:  Can you describe what you do in the shed and what’s in the shed?

Ron Dryburgh:  Well, we, it’s early days but we really, we really didn’t know what talent we were going to get you know the people that we were going to attract and what skills they had. And as it’s worked out, God has just blessed us so well that we’ve attracted skilled people for the lathes working, wood lathes, we have a really good welder, so we’ve set up a metal department in our Men’s Shed so we do welding. We’ve got some school woodworkers. We’ve got one chap who is a joiner so he’s very skilled. As far as projects, as I say it’s early days but we, we are starting to make toys for the preschools and play groups in the area. Rocking horses and small wooden other toys. We are doing a project at the moment for the local light rail museum. They’ve brought up a coal skip. Now this coal skip dates back to the 1930s and it came out of Corrimal Colliery it was horse pulled out of the mines and it was used to back in the days when it was a pick and shovel job in the coal mines, and they fill these skips, and the horses pulled them out. This, the local light rail museum were able to acquire a few of these and they’ve asked us whether we could take on one and restore it for them and that’s what we’re doing now. We’re being asked too by the Shellharbour City Council, not the City Council, the Shellharbour Public Hospital if we could build them a park bench. They need a park bench over there out of sight, outside their medical areas so people can relax, and the patients can step outside and enjoy the sun so we’re taking that on. One of their local schools, Mount Terry public school, we’re going to be repairing a lot of their chair trolleys there, all the caster wheels have started to break off so we’re taking that on so we’re sourcing the wheels at the moment. So that’s another project. These are projects that are just being not so much thrown at us, but we haven’t gone out to source these, these people have come to us, which is very encouraging. The crew that we’ve got here the forty odd guys that we’ve got here are all dedicated guys to do community work, yeah, who knows where it’s going to finish up its early days as I say, and it’s just so exciting.

Edie Swift:  And what type of equipment do we have in there?

Ron Dryburgh:  Ah, yeah, we have some good equipment good equipment we have quite a large bench saw. It’s new, it come from a federal government grant. We have a beautiful wood lathe, a lathe. We have drop saws, we have sanding machines, we have planing machines, we have bench drills. There are a few things that we haven’t got which I’m sure will come through future grants that we’ve applied for. We’ve made application to the IMB for some funding for machinery.

Edie Swift:  What’s the IMB?

Ron Dryburgh:  The Illawarra Mutual Building Society.  A couple of the directors and the local manager have been up to see what we’re doing, and they seem to be very excited. So, we’re very hopeful we can get a few thousand dollars through the IMB. They do, they do community grants so if we’re successful there that will enable us to buy a air compressor, a mental lathe, and a few other pieces of machinery.

Edie Swift:  And you’re thinking of extending the building?

Ron Dryburgh:  Yes, we’ve applied for a further grant of $20,000 from the state government. And that will extend the building to our original suggested size of twenty metres. Instead of getting the full amount of money in one hop, we’re now hoping to get it in two application grants.

Edie Swift:  You have a welding course?

Ron Dryburgh:  We run a welding course, yeah, “eh” Tom Brown who is first class welder he “um” he runs a welding course, we’ve run so far, we’ve run two and “eh” we’ve taught probably fifteen chaps the basics. basic skills of welding “eh” and “er” they will improve because they are also members of our shed and as time goes on, they will be doing a bit of welding. So it’s, the idea is we want to set the shed up so to be able to tackle pretty well, you know any job that’s given to us. Whether it be a woodwork job or a metal work job. Yeah, so, we, eh, the welders yes, are getting better You know after their basic course. We’re giving them small jobs they can do with supervision of course.

Edie Swift:  Now how about the “eh” program you have where the toys go overseas.

Ron Dryburgh: “eh” we’re making small wooden toys like little cars and little trucks out of wood. “um” which we will be taking down to “um” a group called Samaritan’s Purse. Which is “eh”, they operate in in a shed behind the Uniting Church here. The Samaritans Purse they put together shoe boxes with different toys and clothes and whatever they can get into a shoebox size They go over to Asia and distributed through the orphanages, throughout Asia, so that’s just a little bit of support we can do for another organization that’s for, not-for-profit.

Edie Swift:  And the bicycles…

Ron Dryburgh:  The bicycles yeah well we as I say we just never know what’s going to turn up so, we’ve had overall 7 pushbikes given to us some of them are beyond repair but we’ve been to take bits of pieces off them and others are not too bad we’ve been able to restore them and that’s what we’re doing as well and they will, they will probably go to kids in need maybe at Christmas time we might have half a dozen or ten bikes that we can distribute through maybe Anglicare or Salvation Army or St Vincent de Paul. Vincent de Paul. So yeah, these things will happen.

Edie Swift:  Do you have solar?

Ron Dryburgh:  No, we don’t have solar but yeah, we have it in our future vision to be able to put it in solar power.

Edie Swift:  So how do you heat it?

Ron Dryburgh:  The solar, well it will, the solar power…the solar power we put in will be solar panels on the roof and, and that will go in into our electricity grid.

Edie Swift:  Do you have electricity for heat in there, right now?

Ron Dryburgh:  No, no we don’t have we don’t, no, we don’t need heat. We’ve got a very high ceiling. It’s 3.6.  3.6 high walls which is 12-foot-high walls and that gives us a lot of ventilation and so we’ve come through December, January, February and now we’re in April and the heat hasn’t been a problem in the shed. We’re yet to face the winter but I’m sure I’m sure the shed will be quite warm.

Edie Swift:  Now why are these men so needy of this service?

Ron Dryburgh:  Well, we’ve, I knew of a few chaps that of recent times that had lost their wives and they just sort of, I call it hibernated. What I call they’ve just gone into their shell and didn’t want to talk to anybody, and I suppose after you know these chaps are 70 years old most of, they or their about and you know a lot of them have been married for 50 years. And then to lose their wives is a big shock for them. I’ve realised that and so have a few of our other chaps and so and so they’re the people we’ve reached out to and gradually we’ve brought them around give them fellowship in our shed. We have a great team of guys and the company. The company is the big thing. We’ve brought them out of their homes where they were sitting by themselves and brought him into a shed where there are up to 15 or 20 guys that they can talk to. A lot of them are Christians and which is being good because we know how to care for people and yeah it’s amazing also there are other chaps who have retired and they’ve just done nothing they think they’ve retired and can just sit back not want to be involved in anything which is not a good not a good thing for them because they have no more purpose in life. I know a neighbour of mine three houses down from me I’ve been at him for I was at him for about three months just to come down and have a look at the Men’s Shed and I knew he was a skilled, skilled worker he had he had a beautiful Little wood workshop in his garage. His name was Rolf and he said “No, I do my own thing”. He was a German fellow. fellow. Anyway,he was walking past home one day with his wife Margaret. And I said “Rolf”, I said “When are you coming down to the Men’s Shed” and she, Margaret turned and looked at me, and wanted to know what the Men’s Shed was, so I explained to her what the Men’s Shed was, what our operations consisted of and she turned around to Rolf, she said, “Rolf get yourself…”get yourself down to the Men’s Shed” and anyway about a fortnight later, Rolf said to his wife,”I’m just going to go down and have a look at this Men’s Shed, I’ll be back in half an hour. “Four hours later she rang to find out where he was. He is here now every day yeah, he’s just so excited and “eh”, his, Margaret, his wife, said me she said that it’s the best thing that’s happened to him. That’s just one example and there’s many like that where the wives have come to appreciate the fact that their husbands have some other fellowship other than sitting at home with the wives.

Edie Swift:  Now, what is it in the society that makes it that they can’t reach out, they can’t call their friends to go boating or go skiing or something. What is it that happens, that they can’t reach out?

Ron Dryburgh:  Well I suppose when you come out of your working life the people that you’ve worked with all your life. Once you retire, they seem to disappear you’ve got to make up new friendships. Because you know they don’t all come from where you live, they’re from all over the place. They’re not so close by where you can pop around and have a coffee with them or whatever. yeah, so they, they, the men are not like the women. The men find it difficult to strike up relationships like the women do, the women have always got groups and they will pop one another’s place for a cup of tea. The men are not like that, they’re more, manly like I suppose, because they like their independence but, we’ve found once they come to our Men’s Shed, they then strike up new relationships with the guys they’ve never met before in their lives. We sit around and have morning tea which is the highlight of the day strangely enough most the food comes from the wives. They cook, make scones and they make pikelets, and they all come to our morning tea and it’s just like a feast here every morning.

Edie Swift:  The wives come?

Ron Dryburgh:  No, no the wives cook, and the husbands bring the food.

Edie Swift:  “Mmm”

Ron Dryburgh:  Yes, and we have a banquet here every morning yeah and that’s the highlight of the day.

Edie Swift:  Any activities outside the shed or not?

Ron Dryburgh:  No not at this stage but that’s in the planning we have we’ve had suggestions from a few different guys that we do have some outings away from the shed, but we haven’t planned anything along those lines yet but it’s early days for us. It’s, I’ve looked at other Men’s Sheds in the area and we, I feel that that we just need to just do a little, something a little different. I’m referring to the youth here in Albion Park we have a lot of vandalism here. We have a lot of unemployed kids. One of our goals is to run a program where these young kids can come into our shed and rub shoulders with the more senior people maybe learn a little discipline, maybe learn a little a little bit of a skill from maybe welding or a doing a bit of woodwork so we can help them along. We intend to talk to other churches in the Albion Park area. We intend to talk to the police. We intend to talk to the local councils regarding the youth. So they’re aware of what our, we want to do for the young guys in the town. And that way we may get some support from them but as far as maybe even through the courts where someone’s got to do some community service, well this would be great place for a young kid to come and learn a little bit of discipline especially you know and rub shoulders with the more senior people and learn a skill or two so maybe it will just help them go get a job.

Edie Swift:  If you wanted to know would you be able to go to a different topic and talk a little bit on the history of this whole church here? Just briefly, would you want to do that?

Ron Dryburgh:  Yes, yes, I could do that.

Edie Swift:  Or would you rather I contact the former minister?

Ron Dryburgh:  Well the former minister, he would know more about the…

Edie Swift:  Oh okay, right

Ron Dryburgh:  …early days of this church than I than I, I’ve only been, I’ve been a member of this church for 18 years.

Edie Swift:  Okay.

Ron Dryburgh:  John was here a lot longer than I so he would he was here for 23 years, just over 23 years. Yeah, I’m also at the moment I’m the current president of the Albion Park Oak Flats Probus Club and I have given a talk to Probus on my, my life and on Men’s Shed.

Edie Swift:  Would you like to make any more comments on the Men’s Shed or would you like to conclude the interview? Well as I say it’s early days for our Men’s Shed. If you comeback in five years I can give you another interview and I can give you an update. But at the moment, what I like to do is give you this, our, vision statement which covers pretty well much of what I said and a little more.

Edie Swift:  Now would you donate this to the local studies at the Wollongong City Library?

Ron Dryburgh:  Yes certainly.

Edie Swift:  And would you allow it to be transcribed if they wanted it to be done?

Ron Dryburgh:  Yes, yes.

Edie Swift:  Okay, well thank you very much.