Social History in Southern NSW

by Natalie Bennett

This section of the website contains a few of the stories written while I was a journalist on an Eastern Riverina Observer, based in Henty but also covering the towns of Lockhart, Culcairn, Walla Walla, Urana, Boree Creek, Yerong Creek, and other hamlets in between.

This is the only male life I've posted, but it is one that I think deserves to be recorded. You can see me struggling to get a response - Curly was, for understandable reasons, quite taciturn.

'Curly' Heckendorf

When I called to find Curly Heckendorf for this interview he was in the place where he is now probably most commonly found, his beloved Lockhart museum.

He was working on a photo of the 1935 Lockhart Show Committee, attempting to identify its members. Curly said with a chuckle there was only three or four people he could not identify, so he was doing better than anyone else who had looked at the photo.

Ernest Heckendorf, universally known around Lockhart as "Curly", has been one of the town's leading citizens for many years and there is hardly an organisation in which Curly has not played a part at some time or another.

"I have been interested in pretty well everything in town, since the war particularly," Curly said.

Curly served five years in the army World War II, including over three years as a prisoner of war of the Japanese on the Burma Railway.

"We were thrown together as a group. You begin to feel a part of someone else. That is a sense of togetherness you don't normally get in life.

"It produced a very considerable change in my outlook".

Curly served 12 years on the Lockhart Shire Council and 25 years as a director of the Pastures Protection Board.

"It has always been a philosophy of mine that you should never be critical of something unless you take part in it".

"I don't like people who sit on the outside of meetings and criticise what happens".

Curly said all of this work would not have been possible without the support of his wife. "For anyone in public affairs the support of their wife is vital".

Curly recalls that he thought about the Museum and tried to get people interested for five or six years before finally "taking the bull by the horns" and calling a public meeting in 1971.

"For a few years before the Historical Society had run displays at the show which built up interest".

In October 1972 the museum officially opened when the Society purchased what Curly described as a "ramshackle, broken down old building" for $2,000 with the help of a Council loan.

Curly said he has always been interested in history and geography and his interest in the museum has grown from that.

According to Curly the most important things in the museum are photos and documents.

"Once these are destroyed they can never be replaced. Heavy articles are not so important because they will survive for quite a while anyway".

But Curly said that he does not have a favourite item in the museum.

"I like it all. Everything is presented as it was used in the district. There is very little that has not been in use in the Lockhart district."

Curly said by doing this the museum traces the development of the area through people and organisations.

Since moving to Lockhart from the family farm about three months ago.

Curly said he is spending more time in the museum, on average "a couple of half days a week".

'"We are replacing an old shed at the moment and we continually get documents, photos and articles which have to be numbered, listed and displayed".

Curly said from virtually nothing the museum had grown to a good building and four sheds which would probably be worth $80,000.

"That is not what it cost us. Most of the value came from voluntary labour, although we did raise $10,000 to put a new roof on it".

Curly said school holidays are the busiest periods in the museum. "We rely very heavily on the travelling public for support, although we often get people in who say they have been told to come to look at Lockhart's museum".

Curly said he enjoyed the challenge of his 12 years on Council.

"You are always coming up against something which needs doing that you can't afford to do it".

Curly said a lot of things had been achieved during his time on Council, although not necessarily by him.

"All my time on Council I fought for the Green Street verandahs. I didn't succeed while I was on there, but I am pleased they are being preserved now".

"They will be a tremendous asset to the town of Lockhart".

Curly said he believed his greatest achievement in public life was the control of flood waters along the Old Man Creek Basin.

"We had country flooded in about 1933 and a scheme was evolved to dry some of it".

"We got the support of the Water Commission and overcame local objections".

"It was successful and after the war was extended so it now protects many thousands of acres. Places where you could once boat are now being farmed".

Curly said his other main continuing interest is the development of Galore Hill.

"It has been a long-standing love of mine.

We lived near it and used to climb it on picnics".

"I always had a vision of tracks and roads which would open it up to many people".

"I probably planted the first trees up there, although Frank Pritchard was responsible for the first main plantation".

Curly said from now until about November, Galore Hill "is going to be a picture". "The wattles are coming out and the native grevillias will be in profusion".

On being asked if he had the chance if there was anything in his life he would change. Curly said he did not think so.

"I have had good health and enjoyed the things I participated in. I think that is all you can hope for in life".

Postscript: Curly died in 1991.