Bert Bartlett
Bert Bartlett – TOY MAN
Bert joined the Woodworkers of Southern Peninsula (WoSP) in 1998.
A couple of the members led by Don Brewster were already making toys at home – one at a time. Bert took the opportunity to convince Roger Stubbing to make toys in bulk which the club continues to do to this day.
The club makes 500 plus toys per year and Bert is still there among the members making toys while helping, mentoring and guiding others. He is now the longest serving member of the Woodworkers of the Southern Peninsula.
But that is not where it all started. Bert spent his younger years in Northern Victoria – in Wahgunyah (famous for the All-Saints Winery). Even though he was born in Corowa, Bert considers himself a Victorian thru-and-thru. His siblings moved to Melbourne as soon as they were old enough and eventually convinced their father, a boot maker, to do the same. Bert did not want to move to Melbourne – “They are all b…..y gangsters”, he maintained.
Where else to settle but Collingwood – the shoe making centre of Melbourne at the time –
Hotham Street – opposite the MacRobertson chocolate factory. The aroma from that factory when they heated up the chocolate was somewhat less than attractive (at least it was not a tannery!!!). Bert was 9 at the time and remained in Collingwood till he was 27.
By this stage, Bert had become somewhat a sportsman – mainly Australian rules and basketball. For Aussie rules, you need a footy. To get them, Bert and his mates teamed up – a couple of guys behind the goals at Victoria Park and a couple on bikes outside the ground. When the ball came their way, the ‘inside guys’ booted it over the fence for the ‘outside guys’ to souvenir it. He and his mates used the area in the middle of Alexander Parade for kick-to-kick where they were from time to time joined by the occasional VFL player – Kevin Murray (Fitzroy) and Bill Serong (Collingwood).
In his late ‘teens, Bert and friends rocked up to Victoria Park to try out for a spot on the Collingwood team. At this time, Bert was a somewhat tall, lanky lad. After kicking the ball around for a while, the coach told him to go play for Preston Football Club where he could beef up and learn more of the rules. Bert gave him a ‘Collingwood mouth full’. “I didn’t want to play for so-‘n-so Preston, I want to play for Collingwood”. “Well mate” he said, “you’re not playing for anybody”. However, he has remained an ardent Pies supporter.
Meanwhile, Bert had been playing a lot of basketball – three/four nights a week in the stadium at South Melbourne. His usual form was to give the umpires a bit of a mouthful during play. On one occasion, after providing the umpire with his usual ‘guidance’, at half-time he turned around to continue his commentary when he realised that the umpire was a lady. She advised him to ”Shut up No.5 or you’ll be off straight away”. He’d never experienced a woman umpire before.
Bert did the first four years of his apprenticeship at (and working for) the Collingwood Technical School. His fifth, and last, year of apprenticeship was spent at Rojo & Sons.
Come the Korean War, Bert was rejected at the medical and put on ‘Deferment’ where he remains to this day. Next, he went to work for the Melbourne Chair Company – initially in Collingwood then Preston then Campbellfield. He worked his way up the ranks to Foreman. When moving to the new factory at Campbellfield, he and his supervisor spent two days on a ‘whiteboard’ planning the factory layout for optimum workflow from raw material to finished product. Bert stayed with this company for 32 years.
Retirement brought Bert and his wife Helen to Rye and golf. The green fees put paid to his golfing aspirations and this is when he found the WoSP team doing demonstrations on the Rosebud main street during a Trash and Treasure market. He has served on the Committee and as Chairman. And the rest is history for our ‘regular guy’ – our Toy Man.