The journey of Ed The journey of Ed

People NOLA GREEN

"IT WAS the best time in my life," said Ed Riley of his work at the Collie Co-op.

“Delivering bread and meat in a cart –you can’t ask better than that,” he said, as he recalled his working years.

“I worked for a time in hardware, and in menswear where I became ‘two-i-c’ to Norm Young,” Ed said. “He was a good boss.”

The Co-op – or the Collie Industrial Co-operative to give it its proper name – was the ultimate department store and loomed large in the life of Collie.

In the town’s early years, the Co-op was the first store to open north of the railway line, when markets were held in what became the stables, on the corner of what is now Johnston and Lefroy Streets.

It grew from there to spread right along the Johnston Street block, around the corner into Steere Street where Little Blue Door is now located, and diagonally across Steere Street to be opposite Soldiers’ Park.

Ed worked there when it was at its peak.

“There were about 150 employees at the Co-op when I worked there,” Ed said.

“You could set up a household through the Co-op, and then live off it - you could buy furniture, men’s, ladies’ and children’s wear, there was a grocery department, a butcher and a bakery, as well as a pastry shop.

“Mrs Gibbs used to make the most magnificent form of pastie, a meat slice, that we had for morning tea.”

Ed’s working life reinforces his standing as a true Collie born-and-bred person.

As well as working at the Co-op, he also worked at the Worsley mill as a docker, putting the timber to the saw, and stacking timber in the yard.

His first job however, was at his father’s bike shop in Throssell Street, on the ground floor of the two-storey municipal council building.

“He sold The West bikes and The Aussie bikes,” Ed said of his father, Ed senior.

“He was a generous businessman. A large part of the town’s miners bought bikes from him to ride to the mines. They would buy on a ‘tick’ basis, five bob a pay.

“So many of the new Australians who came into town just after the war would not have got a bike without my dad.

“There were very few cars around at the time, most people had a bike to get around. “Dad had a bike shop for well over 30 years.

“He also built the View Street shops. One was a general shop, sort of a corner store, and one was a butcher’s – that one is the fish and chip shop now.”

Ed junior worked in the View Street shop, and recalls when Collie was cut off in the 1964 floods and was running low on supplies, he drove a truck through forest tracks to the coast to pick up necessities.

Even outside working hours, bikes played a large part in the lives of the Riley family.

“Dad was a cyclist, a better track rider than a road rider – his brother John was the champion road rider,” Ed said. “Dad was a life member of the League of Wheelmen. He was a great organizer, he had a lot to do with the building of the velodrome.

“He organized many of the big carnivals and big events; it was his help and his foresight that attracted top riders Sid Patterson, Russell Mockridge and Giuseppe Ogna to ride in Collie.”

Sid Patterson is often referred to as the greatest ever Australian cyclist, a world champion amateur and professional track cyclist who won every Victorian and Australian title from 1000 metres to 10 miles, and represented Australia at the 1948 London Olympics.

He was inducted into the Australian Sport Hall of Fame in the inaugural intake. Russell Mockridge, known as the Geelong Flyer, was a champion cyclist who forced the rules of cycling to be changed when he won the Grand Prix de Paris as an amateur, and the next day, invited to compete against the professionals, won that as well.

The rules were changed to stop amateurs competing against professionals for years afterwards.

Mockridge, who had very poor eyesight, competed with his glasses taped to his head, but won two Olympic gold medals in one day, two Empire gold medals (as the Commonwealth Games were then known) and countless world records.

Ogna collected a bronze medal at the Melbourne 1956 Olympic Games, so Collie got to see three world class champions because of the quality of the velodrome.

“I have to give credit to Dick Hough (shire clerk) for the establishment of the velodrome,” Ed commented.

Ed junior did compete in cycling, but “with very little ability” he says.

“Cycling was huge in Collie - everyone had a bike as there were few motor cars. There were bookies in the street betting on the Donnybrook.

“Local bookmakers Bert Dye and Con Waywood stood as bookmakers, and a lot of money changed hands.

“Local kids made good money selling boronia to out-of-towners for five bob a bunch, or two and six for a smaller bunch.

“We used to ride out to the swamps, and ride back with bunches of boronia hanging off the handle bars.

“I completed my working life as an insurance agent for Colonial Mutual insurance,” Ed said.

Outside working hours, he was a member of the Apex Club, the Lions Club and the Golf Club, where he started playing in 1965, and still plays.

For many years, he wrote the golf notes for the Collie Mail under the pseudonym of “The Dancer”.

He played hockey for two local clubs, Co-op and as a foundation member of Centaurs.

He was a shire councillor for three years, but resigned because he was frustrated with local government because of the red tape and bureaucracy.

His other leisure activity, fishing, led to his long standing devotion to the Collie River.

Ed was named Citizen of the Year in January, 2021 for his contribution to Collie researching the river.

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