Batemans Bay residents past and present have recalled their memories of the area’s long-serving bridge, as the seaside town prepares to unveil a brand new bridge tomorrow.
The original bridge opened in 1956 and is an icon of the area, with Batemans Bay the only spot where coastal traffic can cross the Clyde River.
Prior to the construction of the bridge, a motorised punt allowed traffic to cross the river between 1915 to 1954.
The local community hold strong connections to the river and the existing Batemans Bay Bridge, which has serviced the community for over 65 years.
Denise Thornton (pictured, below) was there in 1956 when the original bridge opened – and will be there again tomorrow as the new structure is christened with traffic.
Her uncle, Bob Davis, a World War II veteran and prisoner of war, was a foreman on the original bridge and integral to its successful construction.
He was a hard hat diver, working underwater for 10 hours a day to dig the footings for pylons into the riverbed. He then worked his way up to become the foreman on the project and was considered a local hero by many, as there were no lives lost and no serious accidents during the building of the bridge.
“He hand dug every pylon… months and months of work just to dig through the sand until they got to bedrock,” explains Denise.
“He was a very loyal worker – his men all loved him.
“He was my hero. I was orphaned quite young and he was my mentor, he was a very, very good man.”
She remembers fondly the day of the bridge opening 65 years ago.
“My aunty was invited with an old Holden ute and three squealing children to be escorted across the bridge.”
“We were squealing with delight, being the first real people to go across the bridge.”
Leah Burke (pictured, below) also has fond memories of the original bridge – a spot where she caught her very first fish.
Her father was the town’s local baker at the time, and was so caught up in the excitement of the bridge opening that he briefly abandoned his post to take part in the opening parade.
“The day the bridge opened, Dad had to work,” explains Leah.
“He didn’t like a show without him…so with a spindle from Perry’s Mill, he put a jam tin on top and as the parade went past he ran out – it was the same week that the Olympics opened in Melbourne and Dad being a keen sportsman, loved it – so he grabbed his torch and ran up the street with the parade.
“I’m not sure how far he went, but he had to come back and go back to work,” she says with a laugh.
She says the opening of the bridge changed the town – allowing better access for tourists and for the transport of goods and services to and from the bustling township.
Paul Helmore (pictured, below) recalls being “totally obsessed” with the construction of the original bridge as a six-year-old boy in the town in the 1950s.
“What we’ve got to remember is when they started on that bridge, to build it, there was still the necessity to have coupons to get sugar and tea,” he recalls of the effort to acquire the materials needed to construct the bridge.
“I did keep a pretty close eye on what was happening on the construction of the bridge right from the world go – it was the number one focus in my life,” he laughs.
“How they built it with the facilities that they had, is absolutely amazing.
“I made it my business – every opportunity I had – to go and ask Bob…I used to call him Mr Davis to start with but he put his hand on my shoulder one day and said, ‘Paul, you call me Bob and I’ll call you Paul’.
“So the next couple of times it was ‘Mr Davis’, so he insisted on calling me Mr Helmore if I was going to still call him Mr bloody Davis,” he says with a chuckle. “But that was the man that he was – incredible man.”
“Bob had had an awful time on the Burma railway as a prisoner of war. From that background, coming to do what he was doing…Bob never told me this but his father-in-law did years later…and I couldn’t ever comprehend – how that man could get his mind to allow him to do that work, under the river, under compressed air with a pick and shovel to dig the amount of dirt that he dug, I just couldn’t gel…but [his father-in-law] explained to me that because of his background as a prisoner of war, what he was doing under the river was a better way of living that what he’d done previously.”
Despite his fondness for the original bridge, Paul describes the new bridge as a “magnificent structure”.
The project delivers a new four-lane bridge across the Clyde River, improvements to the Kings and Princes Highway intersection, and allows improved access to Batemans Bay and surrounding areas.
Crews have poured 30,000 tonnes of concrete and used 2,700 tonnes of Australian-made reinforcing steel during its construction.
Removal of the existing bridge and upgrades to the public foreshore are scheduled to start next month, with work due for completion in 2023.
If you would like to watch the full interviews with the Batemans Bay residents quoted above – and we highly encourage you to do so, the full interviews are a wonderful step back in time – please click on this link.
