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PORTWINE Robert Lyle Back in the
1800s the earliest Portwines were “puddlers” in Melbourne making wrought iron
fencing for houses and balconies. Lyle Portwine’s grandfather, George Edwin
Portwine was a wanderer, came over from the East and settled in Western
Australia. He was in partnership with the Lovelocks and had a number of bakeries
in Nedlands, North Perth, Belmont, Laverton and a few others. The only
Grandfather Lyle knew was George Brainford Beard and is wife Martha (nee
Brown). He worked and owned a number of hotels in Fremantle and Perth. They
lived in a little cottage down the end of Heath Road with a magnificent view of
the city. They had eight children and are related to the Beard Family at
Pickering Brook. |
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LYLE PORTWINE 1937 #2 |
George Portwine's son, Robert (Bob) H. Portwine married the second daughter of George and Martha Beard, Veronica (Popsie) D. Beard in 1928. She had training as an accountant. Robert Lyle Portwine
(known as Lyle) was born in 15th August 1937 at the Nedlands Hospital,
Perth, Western Australia. He had a younger sister Jillian and an older brother
James Elliot and an older sister Doreen Allison. All born about 2 years apart.
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LYLE PORTWINE 1939 #3 |
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His family ran
a bakery at 15 Cannnig Road, Kalamunda (now Barberry Square), opposite the old
Crabb’s Store which is now vacant car park for the IGA store at the corner of
Heath Road. |
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PORTWINE'S BAKERY, CANNING ROAD, KALAMUNDA #4 |
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ROBERT PORTWINE ON RACEHORSE "THREE STRIPES" AT ASCOT 1930s #5 His father and brother Jim, were amateur jockeys, so their lives were really circled around horses. They had racehorse plus two or three horses to pull the bread delivery carts. One of these horses was quite a trick horse. He could turn on the tap when he wanted a drink but he couldn’t turn it off, so they had water running everywhere. Then when he felt hungry, he taught himself to open the feed shed door by sliding the bolts. They had to install keyed padlocks to stop him. |
ADVERTISEMENT 8th Oct 1931 WESTERN MAIL #37 |
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In the 1940s
Kalamunda wasn’t a country town it was a bush town. There was hardly any
buildings at all between what is now Barberry Square and the Hotel. Barberry
Square was just a large paddock with the bakery, the stables and three houses.
The rest was just bush. Where the Post Office is now, was a pumping shed for
water which would be pumped up to the Hotel. Then the sewerage and waste water
from the Kalamunda Hotel would then be pumped eastwards, across the railway
line into the bush between the Hotel and Jorgensen Park. Paddy Connelly lived
close by in a cottage covered in barbed wire as security, where he would sit
and count his takings from the Hotel. He actually owned race horse including
one that won the Melbourne Cup. |
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VIEW FROM THE TENNIS COURTS ON HAYNES STREET #6 THIS PANORAMIC IMAGE HAS BEEN CREATED BY JOHN LINTON "STITCHING" TWO SEPERATE PHOTOS TOGETHER |
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In those
early days Mrs. Portwine was always busy with the bakery so Lyle would hop on
his three wheeler bike, ride up to the Kalamunda Hotel where his Aunty was a chambermaid.
She would give him breakfast and morning tea and then after that he would hop
on his bike, ride down Railway Road tors. McCullagh’s place and he would have
lunch there. Mrs. McCullagh was a good friend of his mothers and after he had
lunch there he would hop on his bike, ride further down the road to Mrs.
McCullagh’s daughter and have tea. Then he’d hop on his bike and ride home
about 6 o’clock at night. That was a fairly regular daily trip because in those
days it was quite safe to wander around. If ever his mother wanted him she
would stand on the back verandah and blow a whistle which was heard all over
Kalamunda in those days because there was little traffic noise. The Portwines
were the last trade’s people in Kalamunda delivering bread with horses. In
1940s and 50s many people living on the outskirts of Kalamunda would come in to
buy their stores and groceries in a horse and buggy. Tying their horses up to
trees next to the Kalamunda Hotel, have their lunch at the pub, do their
shopping and then load their carts and then head home. But about in the early
50s the buggys had disappeared and there was just the baker’s cart still on the
road. They also kept their racehorses on the property behind the bakery. The
local Road Board allowed the horses to be kept in the centre of the town
because they were attached to the bakery. However eventually rules were changed
that meant this could not continue because of health reasons. |
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JIM PORTWINE AND ARTHUR WILSON ON THE BAKERY CART #7 |
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An average
day at the Bakery would start early morning when the doughs would be made and
then there would be a six hour wait with the doughs resting in the bowls. Then
they would be cut and weighed and put into tins in the evening. There would be
three or four batches cooked during the night. Then the bread would be loaded
ready for delivery the next day. Usually
Lyle’s father made the dough but was helped by Ron Hutchinson for a few years.
Ron’s son, Geoff Hutchinson, was a radio announcer on 6WF. Robert Portwine snr
died in 1948 when Lyle was only 11, from complications with his liver and
heart. His brother, Jim became a father like figure during his teenage years.
Jim took over the running of the Bakery and Ron stayed until he got married and
then decided to start up his own Bakery. Then a variety of bakers worked over
the next few years. |
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"DAISY" THE MILKING COW #8 |
"DICK" IN THE STABLES AT THE BAKERY #9 |
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Lyle
regularly delivered the bread on Saturdays from about eight years old, in the
horse and cart, taking about three hours unless he stopped and chatted or had a
cuppa. Then on Sunday afternoons he had to work in the bakehouse. There was no
time for any sorts of sport. It was really a seven-day-a-week job running the
business, plus keeping the horses. That was a never ending job and then we had
the cow to milk. Stirk Park was then a dairy so after the cow was milked it was
taken down to the dairy paddocks in Stirk Park. Next to the dairy was a dam
which supplied water for the trains, but it also became a favourite spot for
swimming. |
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Lyle went to school at Mary’s Mount Primary at Gooseberry
Hill. He used to ride his horse, “Mickey” to school and tie him up in the
bushes next to the school. He became a bit of entertainment for the other kids
at the school. The nuns at Mary’s Mount were pretty tough and didn’t stand too
much nonsense. They were pretty quick in handing out punishment with the stick.
During this time Lyle reckons he developed the hardest pair of hands because
his misbehaved so much.
MARY'S MOUNT SCHOOL, GOOSEBERRY HILL #11 |
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LYLE PORTWINE AND "MICKEY" #12 |
LYLE PORTWINE AND "MICKEY" #13 For his secondary education he went to Christian Brother
College (now The Duxton Hotel) in the Terrace in Perth. By this time his hands
were so strong that whenever he received the cane from a Brother, it didn’t
hurt. His class was were called “the class of greats”. It include Gary Meadows, Herb Elliott, The Isaiah Wine Factory boys, Bob
Cribb, the reporter for Channel Nine and another radio announcer was Brian
Thurley. Lyle was there for two years 1950 and 1951 and completed his schooling
at Forrest High School in Mount Lawley at the age of sixteen. |
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He enjoyed Geography, Maths and sports. They played Hand-ball and Rugby. Then an ice-skating rink started up in Barrack Street over the railway bridge in Northbridge, where what later became Canterbury Court (now demolished). That was when they found a new lurk and started wagging school to go there. That was where he met Gabrielle, who later became his wife. His only thing
he can remember about the War, was when it ended he was standing on the corner
of Canning Road and Haynes Street with Ailsa Crabb marching up and down the
footpath saying, “We’ve won the War, we’ve won the War”. It was just Lyle and
Ailsa was there neighbour from across the road. Whenever she and her brother,
David would have an argument or fight, Lyle could hear it all. When he
chattered about it she’d turn around and say, “Well that’s all right “Porty”, I
can hear you and Jim having some fights last night too.” Everybody could hear
everybody shouting at one another. It was nothing unusual. |
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INSTALLING THE ROTARY OVEN 1950 #14 |
Lyle left
school at 15 and went straight into the bakehouse and onto the horse and cart
to help start rebuilding the family finances. This saved paying a man’s wage
for the same job. Then they started buying machinery that started to replace
other workers which in turn, saved wages and then that started to improve the
finances. They made one huge investment and purchased a travelling rotary oven
from England. It cost 3000 pounds ($6000) to buy, and when you consider you
could buy a car for 700 pounds ($14000) it was a big investment. The deal
involved the Portwines conducting demonstration days for all the bakers in
Perth. It came in pieces and took about three months to erect because they had
to extend the bakery and build a new shed over the oven. It was oil fire with
electric motors that turned the rotary trays. As a result of the demonstrations
days they ended up selling one to New Zealand and one to Israel.
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JIM PORTWINE 1956 #15 |
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At the end of each day any loaves left over were put through a bread
crumbing grinder that chopped up the bread and turned it all into breadcrumbs
which was re-bake, bagged and then re-sold. Getting the waste down was a fairly
fine art. On the daily bread delivery run they got to know pretty close to
exactly what was needed each day, with none or very little left over. Friday nights
was “pie night”. People coming home from the movies would pull into the bakery
and get a bag full of hot pies that had just come out of the oven. It was the
only business open at that hour of the night and the only lights on in
Kalamunda. The bakery became a bit of a social spot for the young people to
call in at as they were too young to go to the pub. On a cold night it was good
to stand by the oven and get warm. The movies
were shown in the Kalamunda Town Hall on Friday nights. The boys would all sit
on the left hand side and the girls on the right hand side. Then after interval
at the movies, the lights would go out and there’d be a scurrying of feet as
different people changed chairs. Lyle maintains he was too young to know really
what was going on. |
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DELIVERY VAN USED TO TOW THE HORSE FLOAT #17 |
His father and
brother were both amateur jockeys. After his father passed away he went to the
races as a strapper for his brother. This continued until his early teenage
years. They would load into the float the horses that were racing that day,
hook up the float and head off. Because they didn’t have a car they used the
baker’s van. Lyle would stand in the float with the horses which gave him time
to have a secret cigarette on the way down there. Races were held at Ascot,
Belmont Park, Canning Park (Maddington) and Helena Vale. Lyle was bigger than
his father and brother so becoming a jockey was never possible.
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He actually
began driving at the age of 15, helping with the bread deliveries. He applied
for a driver’s licence when he turned 17. A policeman from Guildford had a one
room office in the old Kalamunda Road Board offices (now Dome Coffee). They
drove around the block and back to the office. Then the officer said,”Come back
with five shillings (50 cents) and I’ll have you a new licence typed up ready
to go”. |
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DELIVERING BREAD IN RECREATION ROAD, KALAMUNDA 1950s #18 |
DELIVERING BREAD IN BIRD STREET, KALAMUNDA 1950s #19 |
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DELIVERING BREAD IN BIRD STREET, KALAMUNDA 1950s #20 |
Then Lyle
started riding a motorbike around Kalamunda but by the time he reached 19 he
actually had a very large motorbike – a Triumph 650 Thunderbird. Then a few
more locals started to get motorbikes and they had quite a large motor cycle
group then. They then started to go to dances around Kalamunda and Pickering
Brook. Then they started they started to go down to Forrestfield and Maida
Vale, and then they hit the “big smoke”. Dances at Anzac House, Canterbury
Court and the Embassy. Appearance and
dress sense became important and they were all starting to get into fashion.
Jeans were just starting to come in. By this time the boys were into wearing
tailor-made suits. So Lyle had a suit specially made out of bird’s eye green
material – beautiful material. It was pea green and very bright. Every time he
walked into the dance floor at Kalamunda there were yells of. “Here comes
“Porty” in his bird’s eye green suit”. So he couldn’t come into the hall
un-noticed. |
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However when
he met his later wife he was wearing a white furry, fluffy jacket and she
immediately took steps to get rid of it once they got better acquainted. He has been
very lucky surviving a number of accidents. Once riding on a tricycle crossing
the road near the hotel he got hit. Then riding down Lesmurdie Hill he was hit
by a lady doing 70M.P.H. that sent him flying through the air and two or three
times he came off the motorbike. In his teenage
years after he left school and started working in the bakery, his social life
blossomed. He got his first car, a Ford Prefect Ute, and he would put 13 kids
into that car and drive around Kalamunda. About 5 would sit in the cabin and
the rest in the tray. Coming up the steep Dog Hill Road, Gooseberry Hill, would
cause problems and the boys would hop out and push the Ute up the hill. It was
not powerful enough to do it loaded with 13 bodies. |
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Lyle became tired
of the long hours in the bakery and started to look elsewhere. He took over the
little old Karragullen Store in 1958. At that time it was just a general store
and he got the urge to get a liquer licence there. So he applied and got it. At
the time he was the youngest licensee in Australia. Sadly about three months later his brother
died in an accident with the horses. That meant Lyle was running the store and
the bakery, every minute of the day he was somewhere. They had workers running
the bakery but it still proved too much. |
OLD KARRAGULLEN STORE #21 |
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Finally Lyle
said to his Mum, “Look, I’d rather stick to the shop. Get rid of the bakery, I
don’t want it.” So the bakery was put on the market. It was bought by a Greek
Jim Saliako, a tobacco grower in Manjimup. That business was going downhill
fast and he decided to move on. It was great for Lyle, he was working in the
day time and could actually sleep at the night time. They continued to live in
Belmont for 10 years. |
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LYLE PORTWINE AND HOLDEN DELIVERY VAN 1962 #22 |
After selling
the bakery the family moved to Belmont. Lyle would travel from Belmont to
Karragullen every day. On a typical Friday he would start work at the bakery at
four in the morning and return home at 8 o’clock Friday night. He had to go
over to West Perth and pick up a load of pies and bring back to Kalamunda, then
pick up bread and take it out to Karragullen and Pickering Brook, and then come
back to Kalamunda, get another load of bread and take that out to Pickering
Brook. It was the busiest day of the week. It averaged about 1000 miles a week.
So he would buy a new Holden panel van every 11 months.
HOLDEN DELIVERY VAN #23 |
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After a couple
of years the locals persuaded him to move the shop closer to the main road
where he would pick up more business. The railway had stopped coming to
Karragullen the old station site nearer Canning Road, was empty and up for
sale. It was just bush with part of the railway line. So he applied for it and
got it. Unbeknown to Lyle at the time, three others had also applied
unsuccessfully to install fuel drum depots there. So he became the owner in
1962-63 paying two hundred pounds ($400). So he cleared the land and built the
new shop himself with advice from Roy Bovani. Golden Fleece petroleum wanted to
put the bowsers in, so the deal was they designed the shop and paid for the
cement slab either side of the bowsers and also the bitumen driveway. That was
the normal thing oil companies did then to secure a site for their petrol.
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BUILDING NEW KARRAGULLEN STORE 1964 #24 |
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OLD KARRAGULLEN RAILWAY YARD. SITE FOR NEW STORE #25 |
OLD KARRAGULLEN RAILWAY YARD. SITE FOR NEW STORE #26 |
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Having the
liqueur licence proved a great success because the nearest others were the
Kalamunda Hotel and another in Kelmscott. Then Pickering Brook Sports Club got
theirs, then the Rock Inn Tavern in 1970, and the Roleystone liqueur Store in
1972. The licences started to appear slowly but now they are everywhere even
the service stations have them. When they
built the new liqueur store - Karragullen
Store - they put in electronic alarms immediately. A good siren attached to the shop
so when it would go off, the locals would give
Lyle a ring at Belmont and let me know. Quite often, when the alarm went off,
the would-be burglars would shoot through because they wouldn't hang around for
very long. As they smashed a window, they broke the circuit and that set the alarm off. He would then replace the
glass with steel and eventually all the glass windows were gone and they were
all steel windows. The advantage that came from that was that he could also paint advertisements on the steel windows and didn't
have to clean the glass windows. So in all,
steel windows were good. |
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NEW KARRAGULLEN STORE 1964 #27 |
NEW KARRAGULLEN STORE 1964 #28 |
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NEW KARRAGULLEN STORE 1964 #29 |
NEW KARRAGULLEN STORE 1964 #30 |
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In the
early days at the old store when he had the
licence there, he had a couple remarkable things happen. There was Barton's Mill Prison a few
miles away and the prisoners would break out of the prison and they'd come across
to Karragullen, break in and steal alcohol and then take it back to Barton's
Mill Prison and break back into the prison and they'd consume it. It happened
one morning when the warden was doing his rounds at the breakfast table at the
prison, that all the prisoners were all quite jolly. Then he must've detected
an alcoholic smell in the air and then the game was on. They were rounded up and one thing
led to another and, yes, they realised they'd obtained alcohol from somewhere.
Then when word got to them that I'd been burgled they knew where it had come from.
Then on every time Lyle got burgled he would inform the prison as to whether
any of the prisoners had got out, or were happy. Anyway, once they built the
new shop that put a stop to the prisoners hopping in and out quickly to get
supplies. However they
still tried. There would be break-ins through the toilets and climb over the
walls, so obstacles were put up on the walls and
that cut that entry to the shop out. They came down
through the ceiling so they had to rivet the roof together, and that stopped that. Then one of
the worst burglaries they did have was
where they actually ripped the door off the wall, or they pushed the door in and
then the alarm went off and they smashed the doors to the gun room down and
they stole guns - about ten or eleven, twelve guns, ammunition and took off. Lyle was
mortified and slept at the shop that night. |
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LYLE AND GABRIELLE PORTWINE'S WEDDING 1964 #31 |
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Lyle operated
the shop at Karragullen from 1958 till 1993 – thirty-five years. He married
Gabrielle Bertocci in 1964, the same year he built the new shop. Her mother had
a shop in South Perth and came from a family that had bakeries in Kalgoorlie.
They had two children Andrew and Nicole. |
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OUUTSIDE THE NEW KARRAGULLEN STORE #32 |
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In 1974 they
sold Belmont and moved to Lesmurdie. About 4 years later his mother-in-law also
sold and moved to opposite them in Silverdale Road. She then became a
“Built-in” babysitter. In 1993 Lyle officially retired and then dabbled in property management. He wasn’t making much money out of that so for a couple of years, he took a job as a cleaner at the Lesmurdie High School and on top of that he started doing Santa Claus stints. For 25 years a part hobby was scuba diving which he did in Tasmania, Sydney, Queensland and Ningaloo Reef. Bu now he is only doing Santa Claus jobs at Garden City, Booragoon and around Perth. He gets quite a buzz out of the experiences. Every year there are different experiences. He had a little boy come in one year and asked, “Can you get my father out of jail for me, Santa?” Life has been a pleasure for Lyle and he is amazed how one can get into their later years in life and find life is dull and boring. He disagrees with them. In 2017 following a robbery, the shop was set on fire and destroyed. After being closed for a year it has now been refurbished and opened under new ownership.
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REMAINS OF BURNT KARRAGULLEN STORE 2017 #33 |
REMAINS OF BURNT KARRAGULLEN STORE 2017 #34 |
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In October 2018, a local family decided over a few pints, to re-open the Karragullen Store. It has been renamed "Hills Emporio" and is now operated by locals who have strong family ties to the area. It was all about keeping it local. They offer good old fashioned friendly service, competitive prices and are dedicated to supporting the needs of the local community.
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THE NEW KARRAGULLEN STORE "HILLS EMPORIO" 2022 #35 |
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THE NEW KARRAGULLEN STORE "HILLS EMPORIO" 2022 #36 |
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NAME TRIVIA "What's in a Name?" There is an old saying about when a Greek meets a Greek. But during the round a burly bloke named Baker, who was visiting the goldfields, was introduced to Jim Butcher. By strange coincidence Baker is a dough-puncher by profession and Jim Butcher, is, of course, a sirloin slasher. So Baker the baker met Butcher the butcher. Unfortunately, although they met in a pub, it was not kept by Harold Beer. Which reminds me that a few years ago there was a goldfields hotel kept by Stout. At Subiaco the most prominent bakers were appropriately enough names Brown and Burns. And at Belmont some years ago there was a bread firm rejoicing in the name of Portwine and Lovelock (that should suggest something). But there was a guard in the Midland Railway Company named Beer. The stork visited his missus and deposited twins. Beer called them Swan and Emu. Reference: Trove Newspapers September 1941
Every endeavour has been made to accurately record the details however if you would like to provide additional images and/or newer information we are pleased to update the details on this site. Please use CONTACT at the top of this page to email us. We appreciate your involvement in recording the history of our area.
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References: Article: Gordon Freegard Images: Lyle Portwine Collecton 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32
Copyright : Gordon Freegard 2008-2022
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