Donald Dixon, a grandson of Island benefactor WE Thompson, passed away last month.

He was an island dairy farmer at Ventnor for sixty plus years.

But in his younger days, he, with other islanders, was responsible for the construction of the beachfront rockwall that extends along Lovers Walk and Stradbroke Avenue, which halted the rapid erosion occurring.

The rocks used in construction were blasted from Cowrie Beach.

In 2014, he told the Advertiser in an interview how this was done.

To earn some extra money, Donald, at the age of 22, got a job with Clarrie Spokes, at fifteen pound a week, driving a six yard tip truck.

There were no front end loaders in those days.

They had not been invented!

It was the 1950s, and the only means available for filling the truck was on the end of a shovel, and the use of a chain and a crowbar.

Don worked with Arthur Niven, who drove the other tip truck.

When the decision was made by the then Public Works Department to barricade the seriously eroding Cowes coastline adjacent to the iconic Lover’s Walk and Stradbroke Avenue in the 1950’s, by building a boulder rampart, Donald and Arthur were given the task of carting 2,000 tonnes of rock blasted from the Nobbies coastline, into Cowes.

“The contract was for 2,000 tonnes of rock, and that is exactly what we carted,” Donald said.

“Each load was individually weighed. There were portable scales put under the truck, and weights were recorded.”

While Donald and Arthur Niven did all of the carting, personnel from the Phillip Island quarry came across and were responsible for blasting rock from the foreshore in the Cowrie Beach area.

That was where Steve O’Callaghan came in.

It was a well synchronised operation.

The quarry personnel would blast the rocks from Cowrie beach; two men would load the tip trucks; and the trucks would be met in Cowes by a further two chaps; who would unload the boulders to form the sea wall.

Steve OÇallaghan, back in 2014, recalled feeding gelignite into the rocks at Cowrie beach alongside quarry operator Jim McKenzie, who was in charge of the operation, and blowing the rock face into usable pieces.

A 13 foot hole was drilled for the gelignite.

That job done, the hard work then began.

There was no modern lifting machinery in those days.

A dump truck was manoeuvred into position; and the large boulders were loaded from it on to the back of the tip trucks with the use of manpower, chains and crowbars.

“The large rocks always went to the back of the truck. There were two fellows who then loaded the smaller rocks on by hand.

“Your heart was often in your mouth as you drove back up the cliff,” Don said.

A special track had been created, winding down the cliff face at Cowrie Beach for this operation, for truck access to the water’s edge.

At times, the trucks were not powerful enough to get the heavy loads back up again.

“We often had to get the dump truck to pull us to the top,” Donald said.

“You’d go flat out in an effort to make it, and then the truck would just die.

“There was a hair pin bend on the track. We would roll back to the hair pin, to let the loader go ahead.

“It was pretty hairy at times.”

Occasionally the work would be washed out by a king tide, but normal tides you could work with, Donald recalled.

Donald and Artie Niven co-ordinated their trips so that they passed each other as they made their way to and from the blasting site back into Cowes.

While one truck was loading at the Nobbies, the other was being unloaded back in Cowes.

This kept everyone at each end of the operation fully employed with no waiting around.

Five or six trips a day each was the norm.

Building the wall

Back in Cowes with the load of rock on board, Donald and Artie would be met by a PWD officer, who was always on hand.

His task was to direct placement of the boulders, and two workers heaved the rock into place before the next load came along.

The large rocks remained where they were dropped, and the rampart was shaped and built around them.

“They would build it flat enough for us to drive along,” Donald explained.

The rampart was constructed in such a way that the tip trucks could reverse back along the top of it, and the wall was thus extended with each new load dropped.

“We would reverse the trucks all the way back along the top of the rock wall to the end, and dump the next load.

“That’s how the sea wall was built. By hand, and load by load.

When you tipped the huge rocks out, the trucks often tilted,” he recalled.

Proud of the job they did

Donald and Steve were proud of the job they did, and the efficiency and co-ordination involved in the operation.

They estimate their section of the wall took about 400 loads of rock, and two months to complete.

The good news for the community is that while part of the rock wall is visible, another two thirds, now covered with sand, is continuing to provide a solid barrier against the elements.

“The wall we built saved this place,” said Steve back in 2014 quite matter of factly.

“This foreshore would be gone now without it.

“It was a simple and cost effective solution to what was a grave problem. “The foreshore was disappearing at a fast rate, back in the fifties. That is why the decision was made to save it.

“Problems were recognised, and solved back then.

“That’s the way the community operated.

“Those were the good days,” the long time islanders lamented.

Donald and Steve recalled Bill Evans, Barney Noonan, Tassie Jones, Jim McKenzie, Kevin Grayden, Charlie Everett and Jack Love as some of the island men who worked alongside them, at each end of the operation, to ensure the foreshore at Cowes remained in place, for the enjoyment of following generations.