General News
4 January, 2023
John's team made history
SUMMER READINGBy CHRIS EARLTHERE’S no hesitation when Country Fire Authority veteran volunteer John Carroll is asked for the greatest moment as a local fireman. He had started Pyramid Hill brigade’s junior competition team in 1980. Within four...
SUMMER READING
By CHRIS EARL
THERE’S no hesitation when Country Fire Authority veteran volunteer John Carroll is asked for the greatest moment as a local fireman.
He had started Pyramid Hill brigade’s junior competition team in 1980.
Within four years, that team was Victorian champions.
“No doubt my fondest memory is the juniors winning the state title at Mooroopna,” he said.
“It’s still the biggest thrill ... there in the record book is Pyramid Hill’s name.
“Until then we were just a brigade like any other. After that, we were part of history, we beat 66 other brigade teams.”
The former brigade captain and secretary will tomorrow night be honoured for his 70 years in the CFA.
John reflected on that time between watching Pyramid Hill footballers take to Mitchell Park last Saturday for a final practice run before the Loddon Valley season starts this weekend.
From the elevated function room, John had a clear view of play, sitting in front of an honour board listing him as a club life member and a photograph of the 1950 premiership side.
“I’m the last surviving member of the team. I didn’t get on the ground,” said John who was named as 20th man in the flag-winning side.
His fitness and connection with the football club helped when becoming coach of the brigade’s running team in 1960, a position he would hold for 40 years. “We had keen, strong members who could run” he said.
“We had never won an event at a state demonstration (championship) but in 1966 we won the sixes at Warrnambool.
“We used to train in Kelly Street but Dominic (John’s brother and 25-year captain of the brigade) and Jack Kelly decided we needed a training track in the early 1960s.
“That’s when our running team started to take off. We were a good group, picked up footballers, blokes who could run and enjoyed the demonstrations.”
John’s record as a running team coach, until stepping down from the junior role in 2003, stretched beyond state champ-ionships. He recalls that competing at the Australia Day events in Boort, his Pyramid Hill charges winning 10 out of 11 grand aggregates.
It’s the record of success for Pyramid Hill juniors that more than put John into the history books.
Four of his young charges became permanent firefighters - Mac Kent, Anthony Hoban, Trent McKinnon and eldest son Shane who now works in Darwin.
He proudly points to successful careers carved out by other junior brigade members including Tim Oban, now a police inspector, and East Loddon P12 College principal Steve Leed.
Their introduction to the local brigade saw them have more equipment than when John followed Dominic into the brigade as a 16-year-old. “When I first started, I was given a beater to put out fires, graduated to knapsack and eventually on the back of the tanker with a hose,” John recalled.
“When I started, we had virtually nothing compared with the equipment today like breathing apparatus.”
Within months of joining the brigade, John was tackling a major fire at the town’s butter factory - the refrigeration plant’s ammonia tube exploded.
“We had no breathing apparatus in those days, firemen trying to fight the fire were going down like nine pins.
“The doctor said the only thing to help them was beer but in those days it was six o’clock closing. The local policeman demanded the publican open up for the firemen!”
The butter factory was where John had worked after school and on Saturdays, earning a farthing for every butter box waxed.
He started work there full-time after leaving school and qualified as a tester, grader, butter maker and boiler attendant, in charge of the factory when it closed in 1973.
He later spent 17 years working at the butter factory of Cohuna.
John said the fire that destroyed Pyramid Hill’s bakery and post office building in 2001 had been the most challenging.
“It was in the middle of the morning and at one stage it looked like it would spread into the supermarket,” he said.
John said the Pyramid Hill community had always been supportive of the fire brigade.
“We’ve been part of the community with Santa at Christmas and people have always supported our raffles,” he said.
When John joined 70 years ago, he didn’t expect to even receive the first service award for CFA volunteers - a 12-year badge. Now he was multiple bars to that badge, a National Medal and other CFA honours.
The veteran firie is still the brigade’s portable appliance officer. And his advice to future volunteers: “Join your brigade.” It’s a great organisation.”