Bert Reynolds

September 13th 1928 - September 23rd 2021

Bert was born in Bridgetown on 13th September, 1928. His birth was at the private home of Nurse Mesnell, on the corner of Barlee and Steere Streets, Bridgetown.

This is Bert’s story.

My parents were Kath and John Albert Reynolds. My mother (Kathleen Moore) was born in Dublin and my father was born in Birmingham.They arrived in Bridgetown in 1925 on the group settlement scheme and settled on a farm at Catterick.

The group settlement was a scheme put forward between the Western Australian Government and subsidised by the British Government and was put in place to assist returned servicemen from England and also Australian to open up the farming areas of the south west of Western Australia. The original scheme was a failure with most of the settlers walking off because it wasn’t financial enough and many finished up working on main roads on what they called ‘sustenance’.

We followed Dad who was working on the main roads and we camped wherever he went to work. I was 7 years of age when I recommenced school in Busselton.

With the start of the 1939 war, Dad joined the air force and after the war he got a war service land settlement farm back at Winnejup in Bridgetown.

I sought work in Bridgetown and was offered a job at Sunny West Cream Depot which was located opposite the Bridgetown Primary School. I started off working as a general hand in the depot and then a position became available as a truck driver on the cream run.

During these times virtually the whole of the south west was involved in dairying for butter fat. Very little of wholesale milk was produced by the farmers. Butter factories were situated at Busselton, Boyanyup, Brunswick, Harvey, Spearwood, Capel, Manjimup, Denmark, Mount Barker and Albany with cream depots at Bridgetown and Northcliffe.

With the advent of wholesale milk and beef production all of these factories slowly closed down.

I finished with Sunny West in November 1958 and then commenced work with the Post Master General’s Department (then Telecom now Telstra) where I worked until I retired and went into business with my wife Jean.

We built a menswear shop in the main street of Bridgetown. We also had a real estate branch (Hunter Lavery) based in our menswear shop. We were in our shop for ten years exactly, from 29 September, 1978 until 1988. This shop is now known as The Quality Shop.

From the editor, In April 1988 Bridgetown experienced a flash flood when 50mm of rain fell in 40 minutes. Kordics was under water, the Civic Centre was almost flooded. In the Boat Park, the barque Bridgetown near the Memorial was surrounded by water 600mm deep, the Geegeelup brook was a raging torrent, cars parked behind the shops were washed away. In a matter of minutes, a huge wall of brown water rose along the brook, breaking its banks and charging through the town as a 35-metre-wide torrent.

This flood not only put an end to Bridgetown’s planned Bypass which was to be built behind the shops but also set Bert Reynolds on a mission to make the shire aware of the need for flood mitigation work along the Geegeelup Brook.

Having witnessed the power of the flood first hand Bert would remind people about the dangers of building on flood ways and he was always keen to remind those in the Shire of their responsibility for keeping the Geegeelup Brook clean of debris.

After buying The Quality Shop in the 90’s Bert was always keen for us to do well. He was always a regular customer and he often contributed to The Mailbag with letters to the editor mostly on the dangers of flash floods.