A member of Rotary for 40 years and Probus for 21 years, Reg O’Brien was before that a prolific home builder who has retained an exceptional memory of his youth in Eastgrove, Goulburn. Photo: John Thistleton.
Retired Goulburn builder Reg O’Brien, his first apprentice Bryce Ronning and his former right-hand man Ron Reid get together each Christmas for a festive drink.
One Christmas they decided to make a list of all the homes they built between 1961 and 1985. They did so by going through every street and recorded what they had built there. The final total was 93 homes, including 17 at Bradfordville.
Reg, 95, belonged to a network of well-regarded Goulburn builders and friends who included Tony Oxley, Billy Hollis, Keith Gregson, Jim Hill, Dud Harding, Peter Winterton and Eric Dunlavie.
An apprentice to Arthur Thwaite, he says his boss was a brilliant man who came to Goulburn as a plumber and put the first copper dome on top of the Court House. “He was very reserved; I don’t think he had a friend in the world – it was all work all the time,” he said.
Looking back on his school days, he said he had a difference of opinion with the brothers teaching at St Pat’s Technical School, so his father sent him to Goulburn High School. He wagged every day with classmates Ken Bolton and Lloyd Erinshaw from August to November one year. Aged about 13 or 14, he learned to swim with them at The Rock, a popular swimming hole on the Wollondilly River and was untroubled by the icy water in winter.
This 1945 photo shows Goulburn High School’s 3 C class, with Reg in the middle of the second row. Photo: O’Brien family collection.
After high school he worked for Thomas Williams produce merchants for 18 months before joining 100 or more staff at Rogers Store. Working in hardware, then as a carpet layer, he loved the social club’s outings, most especially one evening when the younger staffers walked over to the eastern side of Rocky Hill for a picnic at Deadman’s Rock.
They lit a fire about midnight, got up to some mischief and headed home, having the steep hill to get over first. Trudging up the incline, Reg reached out and took the hand of Edna Maher. Inseparable after that, they were married for 71 years until her death in September last year.
“When we were 17 or 18 we went to dances at St Pat’s Hall, the Masonic Temple in Bourke Street, the Liedertafel and every Friday night at the Railway Institute which is next to the Fireside Inn,” Reg said. “Half of Goulburn learned to dance there. We went dancing three times a week, then to the Hoyts pictures on Friday nights and Odeon Theatre on Saturdays; we had permanently booked seats all the time.”
Reg and Edna O’Brien beginning their married life together, after meeting at a Rogers Store social outing. Photo: O’Brien family collection.
Reg and Edna, Helen and Finley Robinson and George and Mary Harrison played cards together and were so well known for attending balls together, when they arrived at the most popular one of all, the Apex Ball, George once announced: “Now you can start the ball, we are here.”
The O’Briens’ first daughter Debra died when she was five days old of a golden staph infection. Their son Craig and daughter Shan are regular visitors for Reg.
Few bike riders in NSW were quicker than Reg, the son of a roster clerk on the railway, Jack O’Brien and his wife Gladys, who raised three boys and three girls in Eleanor Street, Eastgrove, on the hilly eastern side of Goulburn. Those hills and living almost two miles from the centre of town partially explains why Reg became so quick on his push bike.
“Every second person in Goulburn rode a bike back then,” he said. “In my day I was pretty good; I was one of six starting off scratch in NSW. The cycling club had about 50 members and half of them worked at Baxters (boot factory),” he said.
Reg leads a bunch of cyclists along the Braidwood Road, with the ramp up to the railway coal loader in the background. As a junior he rode with a Goulburn team including Nev White, Ron Drover and Nev Keighran to win the the 1947 State and Country premiership race over 15 miles. Photo: O’Brien family collection.
Reg suspects he is one of only four people who grew up with him in Eastgrove during the 1930s who is still alive today. The others are Kevin Shepherd, Nancy Hawke (nee Broadhurst) and Pat Anable (nee Coffee).
He was most interested when a fellow Probus Club member the Reverend Peter Bertram wrote in the club’s newsletter that 99 per cent of people born between 1930 and 1946 worldwide are now dead.
“You are the last generation coming out of the Depression who can remember World War II that rattled the structure of our lives,” he wrote.
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