Bit of a mystery down Lorne way just at the moment. Good kind of mystery, courtesy the town’s born-and-bred Jeff Gaylard clearing out his factory in Melbourne.
What he’s unearthed is a motherlode of black and white photos of the old Louttit Bay and surrounds, a freshly-minted Great Ocean (dirt) Road, rugged hills, beachside bathers, jalopies and roadsters, and official functions.
The mystery is figuring just what dates can be ascribed to the images. One clutch of the shots was labelled 1943, the rest are up for grabs. It’s fair to put them in the 1920s and 1930s but specifics require better provenance skills that than this scribbler can throw at the job.
One dateable pic, however, is the official opening of the Great Ocean Road to Apollo Bay in 1932 after its 13-year construction by 3000 returned WW1 servicemen. Another, of Cape Patton along the road, I tracked to circa 1940.
Beachfront bathing boxes, scattered weatherboard structures and paddocks on Mountjoy together with be-suited gents on the sand would speak to the 1890s if not for the 1920s cars behind them.
The road into town from the northeast is something of a goat-track, its lack of cliffside barriers enough to raise the alarm among members of Facebook’s One and Only Lorne Community Notice Board where he’s posted the pics.
Others show the ocean road in vastly less-treed fashion, the track surface carved into a rugged rocky hillside, along with arresting views of sections into and out of Lorne; Cinema Point, Teddy’s Lookout, Big Hill …
“My dad, Bruce Gaylard, was a mad photographer. He took loads of photos and family slides, and lots of photos of other photos,” says Jeff.
“He passed away eight years back and my mum, Marjorie, five years ago. Mum had been ‘Throw it all out’ but I took them to my factory in Box Hill and I’ve only just got around to going through them.”
Bruce Gaylard worked with the PMG and Jeff says he also etched himself into the history books when he snagged the town’s largest-ever mulloway, at 61 pounds and four foot six, on 4 June 1971, 500 yards off Point Grey. A day for Lorne fishermen to remember forever. And, yep, he has the photo – plus a cork with the hook and 35-pound line attached.
“It was so big, he couldn’t take it home,’’ Jeff recalls. “So the locals chopped it up and helped themselves.”
While Jeff says the 1943 pics were his Dad’s, the earlier shots were his grandfather’s. These include Lord Stradbroke opening the Great Ocean Road’s completion as far as Lorne, in 1922, but he’s especially taken by an aerial shot of the Point Grey pier from the era.
The pier stands stark and alone bar a small wooden structure at its base. No restaurant, no co-op, no aquatic club. Look hard, though, and you might spy the old slaughterhouse in the distance.
The Grand Pacific Hotel across the road stands stark as well, surrounded by paddocks and hillside bush, bar some adjoining sheds and buildings and a Victorian house a couple of hundred metres away.
The photo appears to have been taken from a biplane, with an out-of-focus wire stay cutting across the edge of the shot. No drone shots back then, says Jeff.
It’s all different now, of course. But as Jeff says, the response he’s received to his photos demonstrate the liking for Lorne’s history and culture’s as strong as ever.
This story appeared in the Geelong Advertiser 5 December 2022
