The
History of the
Don Bosco Camp
Extract
form "Grateful Heirs"
by Fr. Ted Cooper SDB
Some
Photos from the Old Days
During the Christmas break, not
all the boys at Rupertswood, Sunbury went home for their holidays. Father
Ciantar was well aware of how boring it would be for youngsters to spend
the six weeks break at Rupertswood, and how difficult it would be for
the Salesians to keep them entertained and have some sort of vacation
themselves.
The versatile Father Ciantar, while
carrying on negotiations regarding the move to Brooklyn Park, paying
off debts and bringing young Salesians back from Europe in wartime conditions,
was able to spread his energies and organisational skills to arranging
a holiday for the boys forced by circumstances to stay at Rupertswood.
Somehow in January 1943 he arranged
with the parish of Mordialloc in Melbourne to use their school grounds
as a site for a holiday camp. Mordialloc is along the eastern shore
of Port Phillip Bay, and has always been a popular ‘family’ holiday
spot.
It was a real thrill for the 50
or so Rupertswood boys to sleep in tents for a couple of weeks, even
though they were set up in a school yard. The beach was just down the
road, and there was a real sense of liberty and change in the hours
spent there. The school shelter shed was kitchen and dining room. The
parish church was for Mass. Frequent swims kept the boys reasonably
clean - who wanted to be really clean on a holiday, anyway!
This camp was not just a sudden
inspiration. It more than likely had its genesis the summer before,
January 1942, when Brother Terry Jennings took his fledgling Scout Troop
on a camp to Woodend. We will see more of these Scouts later; but whoever
heard of a Scout Troop that never went camping!
This was Brother Terry’s philosophy
too; so in a ground-breaking effort he arranged for the troop to camp
in a corner of the Woodend Golf Course. Brother Jim Carroll’s father
took all the gear up to Woodend on his truck, while the troop came by
train. It was too late that evening to set up camp, so a make-shift
one was made on the Woodend racecourse. The real camp was set up the
next day.
Father Ciantar came up to visit
the camp and was quite excited with what he saw. If this group of boys
could be having such a lot of fun, why couldn’t the rest of the Rupertswood
‘stay-behinds’ have a camp too? This, I believe was where the idea for
the Mordialloc camp originated, and then later, the whole concept of
camps at Dromana. Mordialloc was a great success, but it had its obvious
limitations. During 1943 Father Ciantar was on the lookout for a more
suitable site for what could become a permanent camp.
He found what he was looking for
at Safety Beach, Dromana, several miles further around Port Phillip
Bay, in an area where there was a lot of undeveloped land, and the people
of Melbourne had not yet discovered its attractions.
He purchased a large block of land,
flat and swampy and almost completely covered with stunted tea-tree.
The Australian army was disposing of a large number of their surplus
fibrous plaster huts which had been located at Royal Park, roughly near
where the Childrens’ Hospital now stands in Flemington Road.
A working party with Brother Alfie
Confeggi and Mr Cyril McCarthy as the driving force, dismantled perhaps
three of these huts, transported them to Dromana and when the first
camp was opened in January 1945, the huts were well along the road to
completion.
Use had to be made of five army
tents in the meantime. The scouting talents of Terry Jennings, Jim Carroll
and Jim Brophy were invaluable. Some of the early photographs show the
kitchen area - open fires, tables and benches made of tea-tree branches
in real Baden-Powell style. Dining areas were partly canvas covered,
but mainly ‘al fresco’.
It was indeed primitive! But the
boys loved it. There were about 80 campers that year, a group of outsiders
swelling the Rupertswood numbers. This brought new faces into the group
and their influence was good.
Toilet facilities were basic and
were on the same lines as army latrines: an open trench with hessian
surrounds. But the trenches soon filled and new ones had to be dug.
Terry Jennings has some fond memories of being chief trench digger,
and trying to keep ahead of the ever demanding advances of clientele.
This was one of the sagas of the first Dromana camp, particularly when
it rained!
Alfie Confeggi and Cyril McCarthy
stayed on during 1945 and completed the reassembling of the huts. It
was a very big and difficult job, but by January 1946 the construction
was ready to take the campers, with bunks in place, and good kitchen
and dining areas - much as it has been over the past fifty years. Again
outsiders were accepted, and numbers began to grow.
The surrounding area was still
much the same as when the land was bought. The tea-tree was cleared
for playing fields and little by little the camp began to develop, and
the number of outsiders soon swamped the number of Rupertswood boys.
The camp began to take on something
of its present identity and the number of campers grew so large that
they had to be divided into different groups, occupying the camp at
different times throughout the summer. Some years ago there were five
camps each summer with between 100 and 130 boys in each.
Initially the staff running the
camps was predominantly Salesian, but with time, other people volunteered
to help and grew very close to the Salesians and to Don Bosco. At present
a number of young people have been trained as leaders and are present
for one or more camp groups each year. These have been wonderful helpers
and provide a youthful zest and adventurous spirit to the camp.
In 1995 the camp celebrated half
a century of operation and remarkably the huts with many modifications
are still substantially the same buildings as those completed in 1945.
The treatment energetic young campers meted out to them over fifty years
would not have been gentle, but they have withstood time (and treatment)
very well.
As I write (1998), plans are afoot
to develop the camp even further with more modern facilities, so as
to be able to cater for both summer and winter camps. Schools are increasingly
using the camp for retreats and staff development seminars; and other
groups make use of the facilities for weekend retreats and seminars.
This has been made possible through
the work of the Salesian lay community based at Safety Beach, Dromana.
This community has been based there since 1990 with the idea of developing
an active Salesian apostolate on the Mornington Peninsula. The community
members meet regularly and are involved in the local area through the
establishment of a local youth ministry team linking schools and parishes,
pre-marriage education, etc.
So Don Bosco Camp Dromana, which
had its origins in the need for Rupertswood boys to have a holiday,
moved on from the Scout Camp at Woodend, to the camp at Mordialloc,
through the rough and ready hut and tent days, to the well equipped
and developing modern complex that has done so much, in true Salesian
spirit, for the youth of Victoria.
Some
Photos from the Old Days ©
Fr. Ted Cooper SDB |
