Nutcracker History

It began in 1962 when the initiators began to think about the idea of building their own ski lodge because of shortage of beds available at short notice, and the cost of those that were available. Contracts with the other skiers soon resulted in a workable core of interested people and the first official meeting was held. Some 20 people went to the Prince Of Wales Hotel in St Kilda for that meeting, and as they progressively drank more and more they decided that a preliminary plan should be designed and a second meeting held three months later to see if the same interest existed.

This second meeting saw tremendous interest, and due to the enthusiasm of the RJW Young group, details relating to the site application building regulations, constitutional requirements etc., were available. A committee was elected, and over many beers, much time was spent in selecting a suitable name. The original concept was for an A-frame building, but due to the problems in design and construction a more conventional design was adopted. ‘Springback’ became ‘Nutcracker’; an implement used on old rope tows, for those who don’t know and thought it was something else. For those that were disappointed with A-frame abandonment, our early work parties were housed at Mt Buller Lodge, the largest A-frame of them all.

The initial members were: Mike Morcom, David Langworthy, Max Cooper, Stan Darnley, Laci Toth, Don Williams (1&2), Greg Anderson, Lee Chapman, Ian Thompson, Don Murray, Lou Jones, Roman Sigel, Geoff Larkin, Ken Gaylard, Marie Anthony, Marilyn Garvey, Ross McIntosh, George Camakaris, Mike Lolagis and Geoff Wilkinson.

The necessary applications were made, plans lodged and construction details mapped out. The site was surveyed and early in 1964, work began on clearing away the trees.

Accommodation was a continual problem and was often changed at the last moment. Everything, including water had to be taken with us. Showers were a rarity. We were grateful for the regular assistance received from Bill Lucas of Maganni Ski Club and Ernst Wandella of Mt Buller Lodge, who provided us with fairly regular accommodation for 15-20 people and occasionally more. Interest grew and we welcomed Sue Ellem, Ken Branch and David McLennan to our membership.

Work was slow as we soon hit crystalline granite in excavating the foundations. Crow bars split and bent, whilst shovels were blunted. The local water supply was being put in at this time, and so it was arranged with the contractor that we hire his compressor and jack hammers overnight. Two shifts were worked that night. Whilst one group worked, group two went to ‘The Whit’. Even at that distance it was obvious that someone was working. Group two took close to midnight, but soon had a disgruntled visitor who complained about the noise, but every time he tried to speak the drill was started and his protests drowned. By 2am most of the work was done and we retired. Unfortunately we found more rock and by this time the compressor was unavailable; so we resorted to gelignite. The charge was set and cover taken. Peering out from his hiding place at about zero minus ten seconds, Mike Morcom spotted the theodite and other equipment belonging to his employer. Several hundreds of dollars worth to repay he thought, cause “I ain’t running out at this stage of the proceedings”! Fortunately, all was ok as the equipment was undamaged in the blast. Don Murray arranged for timber and it’s transportation to the site. In the meantime, we had pre-cut a lot of the stumps to size in Melbourne. At Easter 1964, our morale received a great boost as the first stumps were put up.

In those days, we had a ritual trek to ‘The Whit’ where the grog stopped flowing when they ran out or the last customer left. Trini Lopez was the big favourite on the jukebox followed by Chubby Checker and the Limbo. In the early hours of the morning and Indian file of Nutcrackerites would wind their way homeward. Most of us remember piling one after the other into the main water trench on Bourke Street, which was about eight feet deep and walking until we could crawl out. Only once did we lose a member when Don Williams flaked in “The Whit” drying room after pulling a rack of parkas down on himself. Egged on by the taunts of our good neighbours, the Discobulusians, we grew rapidly. One wonders whether we would have built it faster if we had used the empty bottles. Anyway, we were using our lodge before our neighbours, despite their taunts.

1964 saw a tremendous snowfall and the framing was buried to within a few inches of the roof.

Due to the help of various people we managed to ski as a club, usually staying at Mt Buller Lodge where we had the use of the benches in the party room from about 4 or 5 in the morning until 6am when theyn started to clean up. Don Murray became known as ‘old yellow-stain’. Mike Morcom finished up in Warburton one night and claimed a record trip in the belief that he was up at Mt Buller. Lee Chapman showed that, although he knew what a gelundersprung was, he couldn’t do one. In those days, Saturday night was club party night with turns on at various clubs around the mountain. ‘Kooroora’ was new, ‘Arlberg’ in it’s present form didn’t exist and ‘The Whit’ was king.

Came spring 1964 and work recommenced. Geoff Wilkinson had gone overseas, Keith Tanner, Ken Brain, Ray Marsh, Bruce Peuker and Jim ‘you-dirty-Cagney’ Colias joined whilst Marilyn Garvey resigned. Don Murray, who recieves alot of mention in this, brought us a truck and has never let us forget about it.

A quick recalculation of the roof specifications showed that the beams we had were not strong enough and Greg Anderson obtained two clearspan trusses for us. These enabled a large number of members to demonstrate their acrobatic skills, or rather their lack of skill, as they either fell off or got stuck and had to be helped down, rather than drop head first onto the floor. Work proceeded rapidly and early 1965 the walls were on and we proceeded to lay the roof. We nearly lost a friend of Sue Ellem’s when the centre clearspan broke away whilst being errected.

On the Labor Day weekend the whole roof was laid. First canite, the roof battens, then wiring, followed by ACI pinkbats, the prettiest insulation (a pitty you can’t see it because it has yellowed with age). Having done all this with some 14 members moving around on just half of the roof, the lunacy hour struck as Les Toth side stepped Mike Morcom to make the immortal etching in the roof above the main heater in the lounge. In a flash Mike had him by the scruff of the neck thereby preventing his further descent. Within the next few minutes several other members had succeeded to put a foot through the canite, but remarkably all the damage was done to the one sheet of canite. Fortunately not one made it to floor level. After the pinkbats and the corrugated iron went on, we then had to wait and see if any of the roofing nails had penetrated the electrical wiring with the roof on. Flooring started and, like the rest of the building, was done without the aid of power tools.

The most memorable event followed Easter, when Mike Morcom, David Langworthy, Lee Chapman and Ken Brain took up residence for the Easter. Other members stayed at Mt Buller Lodge. On the Friday the temperature fell to around minus 3, those present were trying to get warm with hot toddies.’ Huey’ sent the white stuff down, trapping a number of cars. The Army stuffed the road as they winched their big 4×4 and they soon trapped the area warden, Doug Escott in his ‘Dungflinger’. With no front windows, the snow swirled around the main room which was only half floored. Trying to hammer nails whilst wearing gloves left it’s impressions. However, by Queens Birthday weekend we had an operating lodge with temporary bedding, hot water and heating thanks to a great plumbing effort by new member Ray Marsh.

Lango and Mike drank a bottle of rum and complained bitterly about the cold in the little living area constructed in bedrooms 3 & 4. Little did they know that the kerosene heater had gone out. Lango got all knotted up over the real or imagined knots in his sleeping bag before joining Mike and Ken in a snoring match.

The following summer saw further improvements, but the loss of some of the members. Greg Anderson resigned after an accident where he walked through a glass door at his home. Greg was a tremendous loss, as he and his father had provided valuable assistance in the framing of the lodge and obtaining of materials. Don Williams and Lou Jones found other commitments restricted the time they had available, whilst Max Cooper and Emeray Faraday found that married life didn’t give them sufficient time for the building program or skiing. The culmination of the 1966 season was the club party when about half of the people on the mountain wandered through various stages through the night to partake of our hospitality. Neil Glenister fell asleep on the couch where he stayed for about two hours before it was realised that he wasn’t looking for something. The boys put him to bed, but he promptly fell out so they put him back in several times (perhaps he just didn’t want to go). In any case, he was lucky, for when other members decided to turn in found their bunks occupied by visitors who apparently decided that since there were two couples christening the bathrooms, the bedrooms were the next best alternative. As a moving tribute to the hangovers the next morning, all tows started between 30 minutes to and hour late.

The rot further set into the membership numbers as more members got engaged or married. But we recruited some notable replacements. Carlo Stella came and went after finding that he didn’t own the joint. Mike ‘Captain Map’ Harrison put in a few seasons mapping out the mountain at night with varied success accompanied by various members and friends of the Australian Olympic Water Polo Team. Mick eventually got a job in Queensland where he found that married life and stud duties made a suitable substitute to skiing. Roiman Sigel moved to Perth and then to Sydney with Switzerland and General Insurance (which is the only free as they will get from us). Peter Coulson moves continuously around Australia and we have stopped guessing where he is. Kate Boas, of whom we haven’t a photo, spent a short time as a member before going to England where she eventually married someone called Levermore. We will always remember her enthusiastic admission at breakfast that the big bang we heard during the night was not someone falling off the roof. Max Cooper rejoined us and left again after introducing Don Chisholm and family to membership. Dave and Joan Lester joined, followed by Gary Brill who, after paying his joining fee, wanted to know where was the garage for his Land Rover that we didn’t know he had.

All these people found their way onto the committee at various stages, and have continued to help promote Nutcracker as as active organisation.