history

Steamfest 2023

in

Held at the National Steam Centre, home of the Melbourne Traction Engine Club is Steamfest. It's located at 1200 Ferntree Gully Road, Scoresby, immediately after the exit off of EastLink for Ferntree Gully Road if you're going north. <link>

It's held across the Labour Day long weekend from the 11th March 2023 - 13th March 2023. It is full of stationary engines, industrial engines, traction engines and a miniature railway that goes around the boundary of the land.

Before you even pay your $15 entry (for adults) is a mini rail crossing for the miniature railway, complete with boom gates operated by a pulley system from the mini-Scoresby station area. 

Then you're greeted by the sounds of a fairground organ, with the background sounds of whistles, engines and the sound of steam being worked.

The first shed as you start to wonder is full of industrial steam engines, with most in operation and all having an information sign to explain where it had come from. Although some of the older ones it's seemed to be a case of 'we're not sure who made it'.

This supplies the steam for all the engines on display.

Cleaver Brooks Co., Milwaukee, USA

(Built under licence by Tomlinson Steel Ltd., Western Australia)

Four-pass Economic Package Boiler

Because of all the steam and engines operating in this shed it's quite warm inside these sheds. 

The next shed, they're actually all joined up but had different doors and different engines within. The next section held diesel engines and the boiler that was generating the steam for all these engines, followed by some models, and then the steam engine and the other steam-operated parts of the Lyttelton II tug.

Outside of the sheds there were more people showing off individual smaller traction engines and random engines like a MerryGo Round engine. 

MerryGo Round Engine

There was also a shed of books for sale, the various manuals for many of the engines and older vehicles that were on display, plus magazines etc.

Towards the back of the site, heading out to the ploughing area there were a several older / vintage trucks and cranes on display.

In the ploughing area I saw a plough being operated between two traction engines, it's basically winched along by one and it tilts / pivots in the middle so at the end of one row it can tilt and then be pulled back by the other engine.

It seemed, looking at it to be somewhat of an inefficient process, with two of these huge traction engines to do ploughing, especially in the context of when these would have been coming in. I can imagine (with the costs involved) farmers just sticking with their clydesdale or other horses for ploughing.

As I wondered back I contemplated the food offerings; a milkshake / tea and coffee van, a pizza van, a burgers, sausage stall and a hot chips van.

I went with a sausage in bread with onion $4.

Before I left I decided to ride the miniature train. They have diesel and stem locomotives pulling carriages around. You leave from Scoresby and there's one stop at Clydesdale (basically where the ploughing happens) and they'll give you a pass so you can jump back on the train. 

The miniature train is very quite small, the carriages wobbled / swayed a bit as the adults sat down onto them. I wish I'd asked what gauge the miniature railway was. 

The train I ended up getting had a diesel locomotive. It moved at a decent speed.

We got about 3/4 of the way around the track and then came to a slow stop, it seemed the steam locomotive had broken down, or something so we had to wait in the sunshine (and then after a few moments we crept forwards to some shade) until the steam locomotive had been fixed.

All up it was a great interesting day out. It's mostly flat and gravel or paved, I saw lots of people with children and with prams. Also several people in wheelchairs both the pushed variety and people propelling themselves. 

The only part that might post a problem is the ploughing area which is grass. There is a tractor with trailer that goes from near the front around the site, so if there's people with limited mobility then that's an option.

Parking is on a mix of gravel parking out the front of their gates, and then as that filled up they opened up a paddock next to this, it's where I parked, there were a mix of cars both SUV and not, there shouldn't be any problems parking regular vehicles.

If it's sunny best wear a hat as there's not a lot of shade around when you're not in the sheds.

Masters - Timeline of a Failed Hardware Endeavour

Masters Home Improvement (or just Masters) was Woolworths Group Limited’s attempt to grab some of the hardware retail space in Australia away from market leader Bunnings (owned by Wesfarmers).

I have long hoped for a book that details the specifics of how Masters so supremely failed to read the market, but a quick search of book sellers’ sites reveals none presently written. So I thought I'd try a ham-fisted attempt to at least collate much of the past news reports and associated annual reports etc about the failure of the business into a timeline and summary. 

2009 

Masters began as something called 'Project Oxygen', supposedly because their new venture was going to steal the oxygen from the other hardware players in the market. The earliest reference to 'oxygen' regarding Woolworths is in their 2009 annual report, under the list of subsidiaries there is 'Oxygen Nominees Pty Ltd'. 

The first mention of hardware from Woolworths is a press release dated 25th August 2009 under 'Strategic rationale' which I would take to be the 'why are we doing this' they cite:

The existing category for home improvement in Australia is under-serviced and Woolworths believes there is a genuine opportunity to bring competition and grow the sector with an enhanced offer.  

This is in fact the only real statement about hardware, the rest is mostly fluff about growing the sector and category expansion, it's a lot of nothing that seems to be saying 'we want to grab a bit of the Bunnings pie'. Included in this section are several quotes from Chief Executive Michael Luscombe including:

“The Australian love of property and high levels of home ownership mean that maintaining and improving homes is an important part of everyday life." 

Then seems to both speak to the American partnership with Lowe's in the language used, and is also the closest he comes to mentioning Bunnings:

"We’re interested in adding choice to the industry and we believe we can improve the pricing, product range and experience for customers. At the moment, the sector is dominated by one major big box player, so there is a real opportunity for increased competition in that part of the sector."

There isn't much in their annual report for 2009 beyond what is in their press release, aside from their recommended purchase of Danks (a hardware wholesaler) and several mentions of the $42 billion hardware and home improvement sector. This is a figure that will get thrown around a lot by Woolworths.

However prior to the press release being released to the media, Woolworths was already scouting for locations for their (then) unnamed stores. Including a site on McIvor Road in Strathdale (a suburb of Bendigo). In June 2009 Grant O'Brien who was the person who was originally in charge of Masters, and then became CEO of Woolworths in 2015, along with him was Woolworth's senior development manager, Tim Macmillan, and head of property Richard Champion. [Source: SMH - Bendigo 2009] A lease was signed for this location, however the situation between the landlord and Woolworths turned sour and five years later Woolworths were taken to the Supreme Court and ordered to pay $10.9 million. [Source: ABC - Bendigo 2016], [Source: SMH - 2015 Dumped Deal]

Grant O'Brien ended up leaving the company in 2015 shortly after this payout. [Source: ABC - Woolworth Chief departs 2015]

Looking back on this 'first year' of Project Oxygen/Masters and trying to chart where the interest in the hardware market might have come from for Woolworths, it might be from Danks. As according to a Sydney Morning Herald article in August 2009 Michael Luscombe had a close friend who had worked at Danks for decades. 

2010

In 2010, there wasn't a lot of interesting news concerning Masters, or more likely it was still 'Oxygen' at this point. Woolworths' annual report doesn't mention Masters although it doesn't mention 'Oxygen' in a project sense either. The 2010 annual report does mention that Woolworths have completed their acquisition of "Danks Holdings Limited, Australia’s second largest hardware distributor, supplying 581 Home Timber & Hardware, Thrifty-Link Hardware and Plants Plus Garden Centre stores and over 900 independent hardware stores.", this acquisition was completed late in 2009 (11th November 2009).

Beyond this, I assume that Woolworths were acquiring land and building locations for the Masters stores, as I've not found very much information regarding Woolworths' explorations into hardware in 2010.

2011

In an AFR article dated 2 May 2011 it states that "The Masters chain will compete not only with market leader Bunnings and Metcash’s Mitre 10 but a range of homewares, appliance and specialist retailers such as Harvey Norman, The Good Guys, Reece, Tradelink and Ikea." This article is perhaps one of the better articles because it's written before the first Masters store opened in Braybrook, Victoria on 31st August 2011. It contains a lot of predictions about what Masters will do to the hardware retail space and how it will affect the market. A lot of the things promised such as high stock levels and higher levels of service from staff never really were achieved, or if they were it was only in the initial opening period and then very quickly went down hill.

In Woolworths' annual report for 2011 the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Michael Luscombe predicts that "Masters will roll out between 15 and 20 stores a year". 

Interestingly under 'Outlook' the amount the hardware and home improvement figure has dropped $2 billion to become $40 billion in only 2 years from their last pronouncement of this figure.

"As Woolworths plans for future growth, through expansion into the circa $40 billion home improvement market, we anticipate start-up costs for Masters of up to $100 million (net of Danks operating profit and before tax and minority interest), which will impact our overall earnings in FY12. The amount of these start up costs is dependent upon a range of factors, particularly the pace of our new store."

2012

In just Master's second year of operation there was already an article talking about its layout and marketing demographic. 

A Smart Company article from September 2012 cited a report from Madison Cross (a retail consultancy company) that Masters was "using a model that is suited towards female buyers, giving off a 'premium' vibe with polished [concrete] floors and bright lights. But they point out women aren’t usually the ones who make purchases in hardware stores."

This article also states that "the construction of the stores, with their bright lights and air-conditioned atmospheres, differ wildly from a store like Bunnings, which is more suited to tradesmen and people who are used to its simple, low-gloss atmosphere."

In a comment on a reddit thread from 2015 a user who said they worked at Masters seemed to also support this idea mentioning that managers of Masters would never refer to the Masters stores as "hardware stores" they were "DIY stores" – they were selling DIY ready to go, and were trying to cater to those who didn't like the current "hardware stores".

These observations are some that will be observed and repeated throughout Masters' short time in the retail space. That, for want of a better term the 'vibe' of Masters was wildly different from Bunnings.

They were, very different experiences, walking into a Masters vs Bunnings, and it wasn't just the weird vest things that the Masters staff wore. Masters had an Ikea-esque layout with separate entrance and exit doors with the former being an airlock style entrance with a vestibule area before entering the building proper. Masters also had quite uneven lighting, there was a lot of bright lighting, but that led to some portions of the stores being...not gloomy, but certainly having pronounced shadows. The flooring looked like it had never had anything hardware near it. 

Again it's a return to Woolworths' annual report for 2012 to garner some information about what happened. Perhaps the most interesting thing in the annual report is again from the 'Capital Improvement and Outlook' section "Planning to secure 150 Masters sites in five years (from announcement of JV). Plan to open 15-20 Masters stores per annum with approximately 100 stores opened by the end of 2016". This prediction is interesting simply because by the end of 2016 Woolworths was looking to get rid of Masters.

In other hardware circles Metcash completed its 100% purchase of Mitre 10 in June 2012. [Source: ABC News - Metcash completes Mitre 10] Metcash is also the supplier for IGA, which means at this point there are essentially 3 hardware chains; Bunnings, Mitre 10 and Masters being owned/supplied by the largest supermarket chains Coles (Bunnings), Metcash [IGA suppliers] (Mitre 10), Masters (Woolworths).

2013

In 2013, according to Roy Morgan research in the September quarter Bunnings had 84.2 million purchases in the past 12 months, with Mitre 10 14.6 million and Masters not quite half that at 6.6 million.

According to the article "Around two-thirds of Bunnings’ customers visited (and bought) from the store four or more times during the year—including around 1 in 5 who made at least 13 separate shopping trips." Masters wasn't as good "around two-thirds of Masters’ customers only go once, twice or three times annually, for an average of around 3.5 visits per customer," however it did report that this figure was "up from under three per customer in 2012."

So, in 2013 things should have been looking up for Masters?

Well, no. 

Supposedly they "didn’t know a lot about this business when we set the budget for financial 2013," CEO Melinda Smith said in July 2013. "We didn’t know a lot about the seasonal curves," she added. "We didn’t have the right stock in some instances." [Source: SMH - 2013 Woolworths failed to understand]

This statement comes up cited in a few places, which I find pretty amazing. Woolworths might not have something like Coles' Flybuys card to grab data from, but they have their own 'Woolworths Rewards' card which should have given them some data, along with just regular purchasing data. Some of that should have helped them figure out that there are seasonal curves, while it might be for their supermarket chain, some of it should have transferred to their attempt at hardware. Even sending some of their team to a Bunnings / Mitre 10 throughout the year prior to opening up Masters should have yielded some data for them. 

Smith is quoted later in the article that having Lowe's as a joint venture partner was helpful, but "when it's Christmas time over there it's also winter, our Christmas time lines up with Spring and Fathers Day so its quite a different seasonal curve." 

Again...I can't help but wonder how no one picked up on this, that of course, the seasons are different between Australia and the United States of America. We're in different hemispheres. This seems like really simple stuff if you're getting into a joint partnership with a company that operates in a different seasonal and retail environment to Australia that you might need to think about this stuff.

Later in this article it cites that Masters for "2012-13 [will have] a loss of $119 million but that should now blow out to a pre-tax loss of $157 million" and "Woolworths is still forecasting that Masters will break even during financial 2016, assuming more moderate growth in sales per store and improvements in gross margins.".

Later in the year in October 2013 it was reported that 'Infinity Cable' a Chinese-made electrical cable which did not meet Australian standards had been sold. Electrical Safety Office boss Brian Richardson says in the article that he believed it was mainly sold in Masters.

A year later in 2014 it was reported that Masters was "asking victims of the $80 million Infinity Cable scandal to sign away rights as a condition of removing potentially deadly wiring sold by the hardware chain."

Additionally in 2013 Dulux pulled its premium brand products which included the Dulux and Cabot brands from Masters, returning to Bunnings. [Source: SMH - Dulux denies retail price war in the cheap paint]

To round off research into this year I returned to Woolworths' own annual report for 2013. They opened 16 Masters (and 34 supermarkets in Australia, six BIG W stores, 16 Dan Murphy stores and a net additional 14 BWS stores) however the number of Masters is only one above the lowest cited in the previous year which was 15-20 per annum.

Masters Mornington October 2013, note the hand-written signs lining the entrance driveway

There's lots of promises of Masters being a "long term profit contributor to the group", and the oft-quoted $42 billion in hardware and home improvement sector figure is back up at $42 billion. 

The report notes that Masters were the first hardware chain to launch online and mobile shopping, and that customers could check availability of stock online. 

This is something I remember thinking was useful, especially as it's something that Bunnings didn't launch until several years later. 

Page 35 of the report gives this forecast (bold my emphasis):

"Home Improvement losses before interest and tax of $138.9 million were more than initially anticipated mainly due to optimistic sales budgets for Masters and Danks, relatively higher wage costs for new store openings, and lower gross margins due to the Masters’ sales mix and the highly competitive trade segment in which Danks operates. Masters’ losses per store have declined...Based on our planned store rollout profile and current forecasts (targeting approximately 90 stores opened by the end of FY16), we expect Masters to break even during FY16...Given the greenfields nature of the Masters business, short term results will continue to vary. However, we expect the losses for FY14 not to exceed this year’s level."


2014

In early 2014 Marketing Magazine was spruiking Masters' new website and mobile-focused website and platform. 

August 2014 the Herald Sun reported that Masters had "bled $169 million over the financial year — 22 per cent more than the previous year" and $12 million more than forecast the previous year.

In an AFR article also from August Woolworths chief executive Grant O’Brien a vehement defender of the Masters home improvement strategy "revealed that the Masters big-box stores had lost $176 million in 2014 – $20 million more than in 2013 – taking losses in the last three years to almost $450 million."

Also stated in this AFR article:

"Woolworths has tried to differentiate Masters from Bunnings by adding low-margin whitegoods and home decor products, making the stores lighter and brighter to appeal to women, and stocking a large number of private label brands sourced through its US joint venture partner Lowe’s. However, the “squeaky clean" Masters stores have deterred trade customers and have failed to resonate with DIYers and home renovators."

Shiny floors in Masters Mornington - May 2013

Which seems like another failure of Woolworths and Masters to read the market and understand who it was that they wanted at their stories and who they were appealing to.

That tradies, Bunnings' biggest market didn't want squeaky clean floors and whitegoods when they were shopping.

I recall whenever I went into Masters' stores I always heard my shoes squeak on their floors, admittedly I was wearing sneakers, but their stores did not have the well trodden concrete floors of Bunnings, looking at the handful of photos I have from within a Masters store there seems to be a large amount of reflection on the concrete there. 

Woolworths' annual report for 2014 doesn't yield anything interesting. The most notable part stating:

"Sales were lower than expected and were impacted by a highly competitive market and lower consumer confidence. Losses before interest and tax were higher than anticipated."


2015

One of my favourite facts regarding Masters reflects on the management-heavy culture at the retailer and that it was the written policy of "tail to the curb" parking for staff – meaning that staff have to reverse their cars into the car parks. I had enjoyed knowing this fact, as it seemed to wrap up the Masters culture. But reading into it, it comes from this article and it's cited as being from retail analyst Rob Lake.

According to this post on reddit in 2015 from someone who worked at Masters there was never this requirement. 

Toilet seat range - Masters Mornington August 2014

According to this same post, stock control seemed to have been one of the larger problems for Masters, somewhat ironic considering in their initial press release in 2009 they were leveraging their stock management as Woolworths and their purchase of Danks as a distinct advantage. Perhaps related to their stock control issues was the departure of Julie Coates in 2014, she left Woolworths after only 10 months, she had been director of business transformation and was leading a "10-year task of transforming the company’s entire supply chain and logistics operation." [Source: SMH - 2014 Woolworths logistics]

On stock however, one of the things that seemed to pull Masters down was its ties to its American partner Lowe's, the oft cited 'gun cabinets for Australians' seems to have the most detail in this AFR article from 2015 which specifies at an "inner Melbourne [Masters], consumers can buy a gun safe. It holds five rifles and has a locked box for ammo." The article points out that Bunnings also sells gun safes, but in regional/rural areas, where there is more likely to be customers for such an item.

Masters Mornington - Inside whitegoods area - February 2013

The same article mentions that you could purchase various whitegoods such as fridges, washing machines, vacuum cleaners at Masters, which further diluted the 'hardware' offering of the shop and alienated tradies from the store. I can attest to the huge range of whitegoods, it was one of the reasons I went to Masters in 2013 as the small amount of photos I have of my local Masters attests. I went there because they had a large range of large capacity washing machines. I didn't end up purchasing then as life things got in the way, and when I did end up needing a new washing machine and dryer, I went to The Good Guys. Another article claims that Masters' 'squeaky clean' appearance made people think they were more expensive. That Bunnings' big, slightly dusty appearance makes people think it's cheap. That Bunnings uses their staff in their adverts vs Masters which used actors, again made Bunnings seem more believable because they are cheap and cheerful. [Source: News.com.au - Masters vs Bunnings]

In early 2015 (February) Woolworths was showing some signs of needing to 'pause and rethink' as "deferred the previously advised construction start date of 2016", so a spokeswoman was quoted in the Daily Liberal regarding the proposed construction of a store in Dubbo. It was never built, and looking at Cobra Street in Dubbo, New South Wales there doesn't appear to be many locations it could have gone, like many locations where a Masters was built it's likely it would have sat opposite or just down the road from an already existing Bunnings. 

In May 2015 the AFR reported that analysts thought that Masters wouldn't turn a profit until 2019. And that $3 billion had already been ploughed into Masters at that point. 

$3 billion, chasing the $40-$42 billion hardware market, I guess would have been a good outcome, if they'd managed to pull it off.

Unfortunately according to one news site it estimates that Woolworths was loosing $75,000 a week on Masters. [Source: News.com.au - Masters screw up]

In June 2015, Woolworths' CEO Grant O'Brien left the company, raising the share price, but was likely one of the nails in Masters' coffin. [Source: ABC - Chief Executive departs]

In August 2015 it was reported that Masters' improved store layout raised their sales by 30 per cent. These 'improved layout' stores were barely 3 years old. According to analysts cited in the article the improvement would need to be 50 to 100 per cent to get Masters to break even.

Woolworth's 2015 annual report for this year cites that same 30% increase in sales, but also states that "Masters loss before interest and tax increased by 39.5% to $245.6m".

2016

2016 was the year when Woolworths announced that the Masters experiment was coming to an end. This was ironically the year according to their annual report in 2013 that they expected to break even.

Masters Mornington - Going Out Of Business - October 2016

Woolworths announced on 18th January 2016 that they would be exiting the home improvement business. Their media release states that it would take several months to wind operations up, and that to speed up the process they would be exercising their option to purchase 33.3% of the business held by Lowe's in the US.

Ten days later things didn't improve for Woolworths / Masters with the ABC reporting that the company would have to pay out $10.5 million for lease disagreements and loss of revenue relating to a site they had looked at in 2009 in Strathdale. [Source: ABC - Bendigo developer payout] 

In March 2016 Woolworths began the sell off of Masters, supposedly codenamed "Project Miami", there's few sources I could find for this codename. It appears there that there was an email exchange published in The Australian in September 2016 (a PDF version here).

The Masters sell off began, despite disagreements between Woolworths and their US partner in Masters – Lowe's, who were in discussions (and heading towards the courts) concerning the value of the Masters business. [Source: Daily Telegraph - Masters sell-off] This wouldn't be resolved until April 2017 with arbitration in the Federal Court in Woolworths' favour. [Source: The West Australian - All clear to sell Masters sites] 

Woolworths' next official statement came on 24th August 2016 when they released an online media statement further explaining Masters' exit from the market.

It stated that all Masters would cease trading on the 11 December 2016. 

Metcash (owner of Mitre 10 and supplier to IGA) would be acquiring Home Timber & Hardware Group (HTHG) for a headline purchase price of $165 million, with the business continuing to trade.

Woolworths' annual report for 2016 still tried to spin the positives.

Masters' sales increased to 21.8% on the previous year, meaning their sales were $1.1 billion. 

Masters' loss before interest and tax decreased by 4.9% to $233.5 million.

Most of the reporting around the end of 2016 concerned either Masters' fire sale of all its stock following the announcement of the close of business and articles on "why Masters failed" or other spins on this. 

2017

At the start of 2017 reporting concerning Masters was mostly dominated by the aforementioned case concerning Lowe's stake in Masters, which was settled in Woolworths' favour. 

At the end of 2017 Woolworths' annual report sort of states the obvious regarding their home improvement sales stating "Home Improvement sales declined in FY17 compared to the prior year following the closure of Masters stores in December 2016 and the sale of Home Timber & Hardware Group (HTHG) to Metcash in October 2016." which is sort of stating the obvious if they were ending Masters.

The only other vaguely interesting part of the annual report is the sale of 40 Masters freehold trading sites, 21 Masters freehold development sites and 20 Masters leasehold sites, with Woolworths obliged to acquire three Masters freehold sites and take assignment or assume responsibility for the liabilities associated with 11 Masters leases. 

For those unfamiliar with these terms, freehold means they own the land.

Leasehold means it's a lease, they're renting, but it's a big (usually long) agreement. 

Freehold development sites I believe means blocks of land that they haven't put anything on, but they were going to build a building on. 

So:

  • 40 Masters freehold trading sites = 40 sites which are a block of land with a Masters building on it.

  • 21 Masters freehold development sites = 21 sites which are a block of land that might've been developed into a Masters.

  • 20 Masters leasehold sites = 20 sites which they're leasing. 

After the Masters sell off of stock, land, building and sites the most notable remaining feature of Masters were all the large blue buildings that were left at various locations around the country.

Some of these Home Consortium had a deal to buy 61 ex-Masters stores and 21 development sites. With the intent to turn them into large shopping centres with a few major lease holders within. [Source: SMH - Woolworths extricates from Masters mess]

While others were purchased by Bunnings. [Source: WA Today - Bunnings swoops on four old Masters stores]

2018

With the Masters sell off more or less complete any coverage concerning Masters was mostly related to the sell off of their freehold trading sites - those locations with a building on it. 

Other hardware-related coverage concerned the quite disastrous foray into the hardware market that Bunnings made in the UK. [Source: SMH - Wesfarmers' British Bunnings nightmare deepens] With analysts in February 2018 saying that Bunnings UK & Ireland (or BUKI) wouldn't even break even until 2022. [Source: AFR - BUKI losses 'worse' than Woolworths' Masters] Which is about the same amount of time Masters was given (and then was would up within that time). 

After what had happened here in Australia with Masters, Bunnings and Wesfarmers really should have known better than to try and expand, especially into an international market.

They didn't even wait the 5 years, in May 2018 Bunnings UK & Ireland (BUKI) was wound up, with Wesfarmers selling BUKI for £1. [Source: SMH: In for $705m, out for £1]

Beyond

Looking at the Masters legacy, the ones you can actually walk into; it's their physical buildings, which are quite poor as actual conversion for other retail endeavours. 

The formerly Masters Mornington, now a HomeCo and the home of a gigantic Coles and quite large Super Cheap Auto reveals a site quite unsuited to anything, even a hardware or DIY store. 

Large separated car park - HomeCo Mornington

A large separated car park, while the Masters separate exit and entrances have now been changed to a single entrance the layout of the car park is still poor with no disabled parking close to the entrance itself.

Inside the Coles seems to be riffing on the American format that Masters through its Lowe's partnership seemed to want to emulate. While this Coles is large and evenly lit, unlike the Masters that preceded it, it's too big to properly shop in if you're used to any regular-sized Coles. 
It's almost weirdly fitting that this is Masters' legacy, an unworkable format, too big and awkwardly thought out that isn't in keeping with the established architecture and layouts in the Australian retail market.

Creation of the Acrow Prop

I got into an argument the other day with my dad in relation to building and the things that hold up supports when building is going on.
I contended that the devices used to support structures while building, including support structures that the builders were standing on was scaffolding.
While my father contended that they were “arcoprops”.
I conceded defeat upon inspecting the devices which were holding up a structure. These had a screw arrangement and were single pieces used to support buildings and platforms to a desired height during the building process.
During a later ‘conversation’ / time for my dad to gloat that I was wrong he conceded that the “arcoprops” were related to scaffolding.

Advertising (1953, February 25). Construction (Sydney, NSW : 1938 - 1954), p. 7. Retrieved October 26, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article222895925

Advertising (1953, February 25). Construction (Sydney, NSW : 1938 - 1954), p. 7. Retrieved October 26, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article222895925

It got me thinking about what these “arcoprops” actually were and how they came to be a product.

As, unlike scaffolding, which has been around since we built anything above head height, these “arcoprops” are something that’s been designed and engineered. There’s a screw mechanism to them; they have been engineered and designed for purpose.

“Arcoprop” would seem to be a mis-pronunciation / mis-hearing of their name. The name for the original device is “Acrow prop”. “Arcoprop” could be a pronunciation difference, a long A at the start rather than a short A.

Wikipedia has a disappointingly short article on the Acrow prop. But at least it gave me somewhere to begin searching for a more detailed history, or more detailed information and a time frame to limit my search to regarding this device.

In 1935 Swiss-born William “Bill” de Vigier arrived in London, with £50 in his pocket, he set up a small workshop under Bow arches in the East End. There he made steel props which were adjustable for length by means of a robust screw thread. The name of the company comes from his solicitor who helped him set up said company a Mr A Crowe; de Vigier adapted his name on the grounds that it would be easy to pronounce and near the beginning of any alphabetical listing. <source:The Telegraph - Obituaries - William de Vigier>

That’s the summary history of Bill de Vigier from his obituary in the Telegraph and it’s this history that is cited on several sites and on a few different Wikipedia pages.

Reading into history provides a somewhat more interesting and detailed account.

William Alphonse Olivier de Vigier, born on the 22nd January 1912, best known as “Bill”, was schooled at Mrs Steiner in the Hermesbühl Schoolhouse in Solothurn, which he was expelled from the school for being an “extremely energetic child”. He was then sent to a Catholic reform school in Marseille. After that he attended a boarding school; La Châtaigneraie in the Canton of Vaud by Lake Geneva. After finishing school his father had wanted Bill to follow the family tradition and go into law, Bill was vehemently opposed to this and instead found a job at the engineering company Scintilla in Zuchwil near Solothurn. He completed a commercial apprenticeship with Scintilla in 1931. Scintilla is now part of Bosch, a part of Bosch which specialises in power tools for professional and domestic markets. In the late 1920s however it focused on magnetos for cars and planes.

Bill de Vigier then went to work at the Von-Roll factory in Klus-Balsthal. The Swiss company still exists to this day, focusing on electrical generation and power systems.

After this Bill went on to Madrid to work for Spanish company Telefónica. Which seems to be a telephone and communications company. Their history page is somewhat lacking on explanations of what they did when Bill was there.

Whatever he did there didn’t last long as he became ill and returned to Switzerland to again work for Scintilla where he was made responsible for the company’s correspondence in German, French, English and Spanish.

Now somewhere between 1932 and 1935 during the Great Depression which also affected Switzerland (and most of the world) there is something of a gap in de Vigier’s history. My guide and primary source is “100 years Bill de Vigier” which doesn’t fill in this gap very adequately.

This gap must hold something of interest, and more importantly would hopefully reveal where his inspiration came from for the Acrow prop.
His employment up to this point was with technical companies, those who produced magnetos or communications equipment. While it’s possible that he would have interacted with people in the construction field there doesn’t seem to be anything in any of the histories or information concerning Bill de Vigier or the Acrow prop that I’ve been able to find.

The only place I can fathom where he might have had some contact with construction materials (though why I’m not sure) is that in 1930 Bill served in the military, he was assigned to the Solothurn Fusiliers (Fusilier Company I/50). After training as a non-commissioned officer in Liestal, he was promoted to the rank of corporal but he was denied a more advanced career in the army because they said he lacked leadership qualities. In the future when he was running Acrow he would become the boss of over 10,000 employees.<source:100 years Bill de Vigier>
Reading up on fusiliers it seems that, while it’s the lowest rank in the army, in Switzerland it’s both the lowest rank, but also one where the soldiers do a lot of random (and menial) tasks. So it’s just about possible that Bill, while serving in the army he became inspired by building props and support structures and hung onto that idea until, after working in various industries set out to London to make his dreams a reality. (Note, I’ve found no sources for this, this is just my speculation based on available facts.)

In 1935 Switzerland (like many other parts of the world) was in the grip of recession. 24 year old Bill de Vigier left Switzerland for London figuring he’d have better chance for success there. He arrived in London with only 1,000 francs (around £50) with only an idea for an adjustable scaffold prop.

Realising that there was no one in London that could help him realise his idea he decided that he would have to manufacture it himself. He rented a small premises under the railway at Bow arches in East London.
Around this time Bill approached a well known local solicitor Arthur Crowe to establish the company but the cost for doing so was £32, far more than he could pay, given that the deposit in the arches was £15 (they were £30 per annum), and on the offices around the corner in Charterhouse square £4.

He persuaded Arthur Crow to give him six months credit on his fee and, partly out of gratitude and partly on the basis that it would always come near the top in any directory or listing, he used the solicitor’s name for his new company which became Acrow (Engineers) Ltd. The name was also used for his product the Acrow Prop. <source:Building Products Online>

Arthur Crowe’s name is spelt with and without the ‘E’ in various sources, I’ve kept it with an ‘E’ as that seems the most frequent spelling of it.

Bill is supposedly to have said of the company’s founding:

“The lawyer who organised the founding of my company was a certain Mr Arthur Crowe. That gave me the idea for the name of the company. What particularly appealed to me was the fact that the name began with an ‘A’. The advantage was that the name ‘Acrow’ would come first in any alphabetical list. Furthermore, the word ‘Acrow’ is easy to pronounce in every language and is easy to remember.” <source:100 Years Bill de Vigier>

While Bill was in London, after he’d set up the company, though before he’d begun to properly manufacture any of the Acrow props he ran into an old friend Switzerland Willi Landauer, later another friend joined them Albert Bauscher (whom everyone called George), and the three of them decided to invest £50 each in the new company. <source:100 Years Bill de Vigier>

At this point Bill had around £150 in working capital to begin his company, which in 2016 is equivalent to around £9,600. It’s still not a huge amount to begin a company with. But seems it was enough, Bill hired three workers who along with Bill himself working 14-15 hour days manufacturing the props. Bill spent his Sundays wandering around London looking for building sites where he might be able to find and convince new customers to get interested in his new Acrow props. <source:100 Years Bill de Vigiers>

For three months he was unable to find any builders that would be interested in using his props, until he came upon the firm Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons and Peter Lind & Company. Both companies saw the potential in Bill’s Acrow props and placed limited orders with the Acrow company.

By 1938, just three years after arriving in London with an idea Bill moved the Acrow company to a ‘proper’ factory in Slough. <source:Building Products Online>

By 1939 they had produced over 40,000 Acrow props and were producing 100,000 props a year. The history beyond this point becomes a little less ‘one man with an idea and a factory’ and something more of a company expanding across the world. However, even with these expansions, floats on the stock market (this happened in the UK in 1949), Bill maintained 51% of the shares in the companies. In 1956 he was honoured with Knight of the Swedish Royal Order of the North Star.

Expansion followed for the company throughout the period from the 1940s all the way to the 1980s, notably during the period 1968 to 1975 where the number of Acrow’s employees effectively doubled from 4,500 to 10,200. During this time Bill was also on the board of British Airways and amongst other achievements negotiated the first landing rights for British Airways to land in China in 1978.

Advertising (1954, October 27). Construction (Sydney, NSW : 1938 - 1954), p. 24. Retrieved October 25, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article224517942

Advertising (1954, October 27). Construction (Sydney, NSW : 1938 - 1954), p. 24. Retrieved October 25, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article224517942

By the 1980s, when Bill retired his concern was handing over the control of his organisation; he wanted to give the employees and directors a chance to take over through employee buyouts.
During this period some international versions of Acrow disappeared, Acrow Australia for example was bought out by Boral Australia.
Interestingly recently in 2010 Boral Formwork & Scaffolding changed its name, rebranding to Acrow Formwork and Scaffolding Pty Ltd (Acrow).

The original Acrow UK also faltered during the 1980s recession in construction and finance, and sometime between 1980 and 1984 Acrow Engineers (Formwork and Scaffolding) was acquired by Leada Ltd which then formed the company Leada Acrow Ltd, a division of the HAT Group (an accountancy firm begun in 1975).

Acrow continues to this day with it defined by British Standard BS 4074:1982 “Specification for metal props and struts”, which was replaced by British Standard BS EN 1065:1999 “Adjustable telescopic steel props. Product specifications, design and assessment by calculation and tests” and BS 4074:2000 “Specification for steel trench struts”.

Covers of the Future

I was recently looking at various sites like Buzzfeed, Gizmodo, io9 and others that basically take a set of images and say some fairly obvious things about them to create a piece of content that will attract some views.

I’ve been in a bit of a creative blackhole for the last few months, so I thought I'd try my hand at it to see how hard it is.

I recently came across a bunch of science fiction story magazines and decided to take photos of their covers, which provided me with a great source of images to try and create some content from.

I unfortunately didn't take photos of the inner covers which would have provided me more details than I currently have. Publish date, publisher, the other stories in the magazine, the artist. Had I known this is what I was going to do with them I think I would have taken down more information.


Astounding Science Fiction October 1957 - “Ribbon in the Sky” by Murray Leinster

Astounding Science Fiction October 1957

Astounding Science Fiction October 1957

It’s basically FaceTime or any sort of video chat. Albeit more bulky. Although temperature today remains the killer with most electronic devices won’t function below 0º Celsius, although they will survive down to around -20º.

Analog Science Fact & Fiction June - “The Weakling” by Everette B. Cole

Analog Science Fact &amp; Fiction June

Analog Science Fact & Fiction June


Fantastically science fictiony and just a bit of the creationist faff. Humans and dinosaurs living and working together. Or alternatively and better more so, dinosaurs on an alien planet that humans come across and use them as pack animals? Perhaps not.

Astounding Science Fiction November - “Cat and Mouse” by Ralph Williams

Astounding Science Fiction November

Astounding Science Fiction November


This is one of the somewhat more staid covers; not containing anything that’s amazingly science fiction-like. A hipster in a flannel coat off to put out a fire. The gap in the trees is a bit odd, almost like they’re a fire barrier or something to the hilly countryside beyond.

Analog April - “Blind Man’s Lantern”


When I saw it this cover made me think of a piece of art I saw online a few years ago. “White Castle” by Yuri Shwedoff. Looking at them now the similarities aren’t that close, just the presence of a spacecraft and horses.

 

Now a few covers with similar themes, though more likely stories with similar themes, I didn’t have time to read everything contained within the magazines unfortunately.

I’d broadly call these the ‘savage’ vs the learned man. First a literal savage vs the intelligent men with guns in their city, the second the elite vs the workers and finally the 'explorer' vs the savage indigenous.

Future Science Fiction No.2 & No.10

These two covers, which are two of three that were in the pile that I took photos of share a similar theme of a blonde woman on the cover.
The blonde woman on an alien planet and presumedly Earth, in both she’s the ‘outsider’, preyed upon by the space butterflies in No.10 and oggled by the soldiers in No.2.

Astounding Science Fiction, stencil tagged covers.

The stencils are something I didn't notice until I started to compile and arrange the images into galleries and format them for this page. Not every Astounding has a stencil of some kind in the upper left corner, but enough that it seems like it was some sort of indicator to the reader.

Finally some a few more images that wouldn't fit into a specific grouping or analysis, but nonetheless are interesting and noteworthy.

Origins of Butter

I started musing on this after seeing reading a random tweet, Until I started to research this I didn’t really think about the link between milk and butter and where cream factored into it.

Butter is created by whisking/mixing or ‘churning’ the cream until it the fats separate and it becomes butter and buttermilk. You can do it with pure cream (rather than thickened or any other form of adulterated cream) and an electric beater (you could also do it with a whisk if you’ve got a lot of time on your hands and want to do some focused exercise, but like making meringues by hand it’s something you do once and never again). The cream undergoes a seemingly magical transformation and goes from white to yellow.

The earliest mention of butter comes from Herodotus a Greek historian, according to him he says “pour the milk of their mares into wooden vessels, and shake it violently; this causes it to foam, and the fat part, which is light, rising to the surface, becomes what is called butter”. They considered the foam, the butter to be more valuable than the separated milk.

Hippocrates also mentions butter he prescribes it externally as a medicine; though he gives it another name, pikerion.

Pliny the Elder also recommended it; to ease the pain of teething (mixed with honey) and also for ulcers in the mouth.

In fact, after the Greeks and Romans learnt how to make butter they used it only as an ointment in their baths and as Hippocrates used it; in medicine.
The Romans used it to anoint their bodies and the Burgundians smeared their hair with it.

It didn’t pass into cookery use at this point in time, very likely because of the climate, the churned butter wouldn’t stay solid for long in a warm climate that the Romans inhabited, and they were already using oils for cooking and wouldn’t have a reason to switch to dairy based ones. [1]

Another source, an article in the Southern Argus Thursday 20 April 1933 says “The Arabs and Hebrews made a sort of bag out of animal pelts, filled them half full of milk, sewed them up, and then manipulated them by swinging and kneading them until butter formed”, this article also states the ‘legend’ of butter’s creation that “legend has it that butter was accidentally discovered, through the ancients carrying the milk in an animal skin, the swaying giving the action and producing butter.”. [2]

From around the same era, 1923 The Muswellbrook Chronicle on Friday 5 October published an article called ‘Butter Some Interesting History’ which agin mentions a variant of this legend, except it actually quotes a member of staff Mr W. R. Torrens from the Byron Bay Butter Factory who says "I believe, the Arabs have used a method of tying a rope to the skin bag containing the milk, and draw ing it about the ground, from the back of a pony or camel, till the butter formed.”. [3]

Another article in the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin (Friday 2 August 1929) has another variant of this tale, this time attributing it to the Aryans who it describes as “The early Aryans of Central Asia, from whom the entire descended were the first heardsmen” and because they were “not being tillers of the soil, these nomads were forced to depend wry greatly on the dairy products of their herds.”
It goes on to state that “On their journeys the nomads carried their milk in the goat skins by camel or horseback. During one trip the jogging of the animals churned the milk to butter. The surprised Aryans liked the taste of the butter and regarded it as a gift from the gods.” [4]

There are several other newer articles I came across and a lot of them tell some variation of the ‘vessel of milk on horse back’ story. This story / myth / legend of butter’s discovery must have come from somewhere. These various articles I’ve found have pretty similar components to the story.

This ‘legend’ appears on several sites and it’s got the air of one of those facts that has been repeated so many times that it sounds true enough, the logic behind it seems to make sense, but I haven’t been able to find anything that actually backs it up with any good sources.
The issues I have with this legend of butter’s creation really, is that it’s similar in the way it’s repeated to how blue cheese was discovered which also goes through similar variants of a ‘it was left in a cave’ / ‘a sheppard left his cheese in a cave and it went mouldy’ tales.

That just in my brief voyage through Trove’s search engine I’ve found similar tales of its origin more likely means all these newspapers were working from the same piece texts.

Butter it seems is one of those things discovered by accident. Although that isn’t an answer I’m happy with, but for now, it’s an answer. Just not a complete answer to the question.

Girt - The Unauthorised History of Australia review

“Australia owes its existence to tea, tax evasion, criminals and cannabis. With these four sturdy pillars as its foundation, what could possibly go wrong?”Girt - The Unauthorised History of Australia By David Hunt, pg.96

This book grabbed my attention because of its title Girt. As the name of this blog shows it’s a word a rather like and think should be used more often. Surrounded is such a long word and in many (fine a few) situations girt could be used. Of course, then to anyone outside of Australia you’d need to explain to them what “girt” means, but language should be used, it’s in the Australian anthem and should be used in more places than just “Advance Australia Fair”.

I was quite surprised by Girt, by its humour and what I learnt from it.
In short it makes early Australian history funny and interesting via the characters of history.

The tone of Girt is relatively light and the footnotes make it slightly comedic. The footnotes that are on almost every page are a sort of commentary of the text itself.

Girt is also fully indexed, which was something of a surprise that it was when I reached the end. So I imagine that university students when needing something to liven up an essay about Australian history can turn to Girt to fill up their reference list.

Girt was incredibly easy to read, with each chapter easily flowing into the next and everything told in vivid and amusing detail.
From Girt I have learnt the etymology of the word ‘grog’, who Trim was and that Bligh was a bastard who no one liked.

There are excerpts from letters throughout the book that help further illustrate the people that it covers and illuminate their thoughts and psychology a bit more than the writer’s commentary provides.

Some of the history in Girt I recognised, having learnt it in the long since past history lessons in primary and high school, but Girt really brought to life the characters of Australia’s history. Whilst reading Girt I felt more like I knew the men (and occasionally women) of history that fill the book (and history) and that should anyone mention Macarthur, Bligh, Major Ross, Bass and Flinders or Macquarie something that I’ve read in Girt will be conjured in my memory.

I hope that David Hunt has plans afoot for a second volume continuing to look at Australia’s history, continuing on from where Girt finishes.

MICF - Tommy Dassalo - "Spread"

Tommy Dassalo's “Spread” is sort of about his (Tommy Dassalo's) connection to the creator of Vegemite Fred Walker.
Except it isn't.

I'm going to mention Joel Creasy again, he has oddly become my yardstick for comedy festival gigs. Mostly because there were things I didn't like and didn't get in his show.
That wasn't actually the case with Dassalo's show though.
But like Creasey's show I was left curious, interested and wanting to see more of Dassalo's work.

I found out about Tommy Dassalo via The Little Dum Dum Club podcast, my traumatic experience with that in the post below (only joking).
It was from that podcast that I was first intrigued by his show "Spread" that he had mentioned he was working on/touring so it was one of the first shows that I booked (well I actually booked 12 shows at once so there's 12 that I book first) and was excited to see what Dassalo could do away from Karl Chandler and away from the podcast.

Something that was notable was that Dassalo didn't use a mic for is stand up elements.
The Ladies Lounge at the Forum Theatre is a small venue I think 4 rows of 8 chairs. So while he had his voice raised it wasn't shouting and it didn't need the mic and speakers.
This was something of a revelation for me, as I've always heard Dassalo's voice either via podcast or via microphone and speakers (in the case of The Little Dum Dum Club), but this time hearing him naturally he doesn't sound so pitched high.
It was also a revelation in general, seeing a comedian without a mic, just performing was, it was actually kinda special.

That it wasn't fully booked out kinda added to the experience it was much more like a performance, something almost theatre-esque about Dassalo's performance.
Creasey also performed without holding a mic, but was rigged up with a mic that sits in front of the mouth like those musical/pop singers sort of thing, with him it was part of his Drama Captain style that he had going in his show.

But with Dassalo the lack of the mic brought something of a different intimacy and casualness to the show.
The mic was used during his vignettes which delved into the history of his ancestor Fred Walker.
I found this rather fascinating, though I do know something of Vegemite's history having visited "Gusto" the free exhibition at the State Library of Victoria about the food culture in Victoria (I had some time before The Little Dum Dum Club recording).

As I've mentioned in previous posts I like a narrative through a show and
“Spread” had one, he also had pictures which were wonderfully drawn.
The narrative wasn't really of Vegemite's history but more about his life and family, sort of.

Dassalo’s stand up was insightful to him and his life, funny. Although not a laugh on every sentence, this was thoughtful stand up, leaving insights and allowing the audience to take in the story.

One thing I found a little odd about Dassalo was how formal he looked in a suit and a green tie. At the podcast recording he seemed much more laid back lacking the tie and in something brown (I can't remember more than that).

Dassalo also made use of the small stage that he had to work with at the Forum. It was quite a small stage; with an easel, chair, microphone stage, speakers on either side and a red curtain. Yet he still made it seem expansive and his space, moving around it during his vignettes and during stand up. I think theatre-esque is the word (hyphenated word) that I’ll return to.
Dassalo’s show isn’t a performance (not in the drama production sort of way), but it was a production. Something that had obviously been crafted and created. It wasn’t something just created after a few beers.

At the end of “Spread” I was left curious and wanting. I learned some things from his show, I was left curious about Dassalo and wanting to see more of his work.

Australian Day and Australia for me

I don’t really know what makes me Australian, I certainly don’t presume what makes you Australian (or whatever other nationality / cultural identity).

As Australia Day comes up people and newspapers / news organisations start to think on what it means to be Australian.

I don’t beat the “I’m Australian” drum extremely loudly, I’m not one for tattoos, I don’t have a Southern Cross on my car.
But I do have confidence in Australia, there is not another country that I would want to be a citizen of. I would not move to another country on a whim or an offer.

I think we are lucky, that Australia was settled when it was, that we sometimes do not acknowledge how fortunate it is that Australia became what it is, rather than what it could have become.

1901, Federation. Australia turned from a colony of six states into one nation and became more or less what we have today (give or take a territory or two). This happened on the 1st January 1901.
Which makes it a little problematic as a day of celebration.

So that’s not Australia Day, 26th January was in the past known as “Landing Day” or “Foundation Day”, on 26th January 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip rowed ashore at Sydney Cove with a few dozen men and took possession of the land in the name of King George III.
There he raised the Union Jack as a symbol of the British occupation of the eastern half of the what became known as Australia that had been claimed by Captain James Cook on 22nd August 1770.

History lesson over and back to the present.
Australia is a prosperous country, part of that is from, digging stuff out of the ground and then selling it to other countries. But it has kept us prosperous.
We have had a stable government one that doesn’t defer to or be ruled by religion or any other silly thing like that.

Stability and freedom, I think is part of what makes Australia for me. We have a huge country, that for some of the population only know from the coasts and the cities. The interior is something on a map, the bush something that is on the news when there is a disaster. But it’s there, should we want to explore it and it’s huge.

On Australia Day I will, like thousands of others will have a barbecue very probably with family. There will be lamb chops and sausages on said barbecue.
I’m not sure if anyone will must on Captain Arthur Phillip, or James Cook, or the concept of “Invasion Day” though I’m sure the news media will mention one of the three.

But I might raise a glass or bottle of something fizzy and possibly alcoholic and toast Captain Phillip, Edmund Barton and the thousands of other people who created the country we have today.