Stories - Friends of Donnelly Village

Stories From the Village

Get a glimpse of Donnelly life through stories from the ex-residents and workers.

Below you’ll find a compilation of personal interviews from past residents who lived or worked at Donnelly River.

Family Life

Notes on the Mill Whistle: Paul Crouchley

I along with my ex wife I worked in the mill during its last year of operation but left shortly before it closed down. Like many new workers I started on the sorting tables. Most of the workers on the tables were women. Jack Surina sat up at the end of the conveyor that fed the tables and sent the timber to either the right or left side of the tables depending on the sizes of the timber. After a few months on the table I was assigned to tail out on number 3 bench and remained there until I left.

My house was no 22, the house at the top of Donnelly Village, the last house on the right on the road to the oval and the engine drivers house and the fitters house. The engine driver was a Russian nicknamed Cat-Weasel, his wife as I remember was Welsh. The night watch man was Wally Jam Toes. He kept an eye on the boilers and watched out for fires and anything untoward during the night.

At ten to six each working morning Wally would blow the whistle to wake everyone up and again at six to get out of bed. I think the next whistle was at seven to come down to the mill for work. As I remember the whistle blew for lunch at twelve and again at twelve forty five to return to work with the final whistle at four. There was also a second small signal whistle in the mill itself used to indicate events such as, one short whistle the mill is about to start, two starting, three stop the mill, four accident and five emergency stop.

Originally the boilers were fired by sawdust and off cuts which resulted in the boiler in use having to be shut down I believe at the end of each week for the dirty time consuming job of having the tubes cleaned and another of the boilers being fired up to take its place while that was happening. In later years the boilers were oil fired from large oil tanks at the end of the engine house.

Paul Crouchley, ex-resident and mill worker who donated the replica whistle to the Friends of Donnelly Village Inc. You can listen to the sound of Paul’s replica Mill Whistle here.

Life at the Donnelly

School Days

Housing and Home Life

Jack Surina from Donnelly

Jack was born on the 18th February 1903 in the town of Pasjok on the border of what is now Croatia and Austria and emigrated before the Great Depression at the age of 18.

He came to Donnelly in 1953 and was employed as a feller in the Karri bush. Jack initially worked alone in the bush at Donnelly, felling logs first by hand and then using a Dennis Frag Saw.

When the mill closed, everybody packed their things and moved away, the last one to leave was the mill manager. No one had the heart to turn Jack out of his cottage. Jack lived in his cottage until 1997 when his health started to deteriorate and he moved into Bridgetown hospital until his death on the 14th September 1999 aged 96.

A number of years ago the Friends of Donnelly River undertook a project to relocate and restore Jack’s original shack. After a lot of work by a lot of people the project is now complete. You can catch up on all the latest from the official opening here.

Your Stories

Got a story of your own to share about living, working or holidaying at Donnelly River Village. We’d love to hear from you.

You can contact us at chair@friendsofdonnelly.org.au or by phoning Sally Paulin on 0434350183.