Sandgate & District
Historical
Society & Museum
Sandgate & District Historical Society is a registered charity and relies on community support. We would be most appreciative if you should choose to make a tax-deductible donation. You can make a payment by card or cash at the museum or by direct debit.
BSB: 084 365 Account: 52 501 9521
(If you pay with direct debit, please use your surname & initials as a reference)
Left to right:
Barbara Kulpa, Mike Chamberlain (Committee Members), Barbara Bow (Patron), Zac McHardy (President), Marie Sinha (Treasurer), Annie Lawrie (Secretary), Clive Porritt (Vice President).
150 Rainbow Street
SANDGATE Q Australia 4017
Wednesday: 10:00 am – 3:00 pm
Sunday: 10:00 am – 3:00 pm
Entrance fees: $5.00 adults and $3.00 children
Sandgate Historical Society Life Member, Mr Bertram (Bert) James Midgley passed away on 1st July 2024, at Cardwell.
Bert was born in 1929 and was a long-term resident of Sandgate. For many years he lived with his family in a house he built in Best Street, Brighton. His house was a treasure trove of tools, maps, sailing gear, awards and photographs of his family and caravan travels.
A gentleman and a family man, with his wife Norma he had three sons and one daughter. Norma passed away twenty years ago. He was a good husband, although almost certainly at times a handful. When married, for their honeymoon Bert took Norma and they hiked the full length of Moreton Island!
Bert enjoyed good health well into his later years, enabling him to maintain an active involvement in the community. He took great pride in the maintenance of his house and yard.
In September 2020 Bert had a cerebral haemorrhage. After a two week stay in hospital where he enjoyed the meals and the care from staff he returned home to Brighton. However he needed increasing assistance and in early 2021 Bert went to live with his son, Andrew on Magnetic Island. Needing more care, Bert then went to live out his remaining years at Rockingham Aged Care, Cardwell.
As a boy Bert grew up in Sandgate. With a thirst for adventure and exploring he criss-crossed the streets, paddocks, bushland and waterways of the district. He tells stories about his life and that of Sandgate in the two short movies available on the museum’s website – the Bay of Lights (2018) and Voices from the Past produced by the museum and Abintra Creations in 2021/22.
One of his stories relates to an incident during World War 2 on the bay foreshore near Eventide. An American bomber had made a forced landing and then after patching up and reducing weight, the aircraft just managed to take off…being watched avidly by young Bert. Around the same time, while “wagging school” to go fishing on the Shorncliffe Pier he witnessed an American Airacobra fighter crash into Bramble Bay.
In the 1950’s Bert was a member and leader at the Sandgate and Brighton Scouts. His scouting days included leading a group of Rover Scouts up Mount Tibrogargan, in the Glass House Mountains where his group found the remains of a missing hiker.
He was also a keen and competitive dinghy sailor and regularly raced in the bay from the Sandgate Yacht Club in Cabbage Tree Creek. As typical of Bert he knew how to build things and fix them. He was accomplished in using boat rigger’s and sail maker’s tools and materials.
In early 2020, coinciding with the start of the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht race there were plans to have a boating display at the Sandgate Museum. Bert had offered to give demonstrations to “yachty” visitors on the traditional use of tools for sail making and rigging. Unfortunately, that never eventuated as Covid19 caused cancellation of the yacht race and temporary closure of the museum and many public places across the city and beyond.
Bert was an active member and volunteer for the Sandgate Museum. He was a legend at selling raffle tickets, always selling more than anyone else. During his time, he was a dedicated member and supporter of the museum’s management committee and was appointed a Life Member for his contributions.
Bert loved Sandgate and loved life. He expressed his feelings and humour in the following poem, penned as a teenager around 1940.
IN OUR BOROUGH BY THE BAY – By Bert Midgley
Where the people live down by the sea,
The people they work with a will all day long.
And at night they’re so happy and free!
In our town by the bay.
We are proud of our arts and our sports,
We have fields, we have baths,
And pictures and courses and courts.
We’ve planes that have motors,
And others that glide.
And if you play marbles we are sure to oblige,
In our town by the bay.
In our town by the bay,
We have girls with beauty to spare.
They’re dimples so rosy and fair,
They rate with film stars of that have no fear!
They’re better than film stars ‘cos our girls live here on the shore.
In our town by the bay,
The boats can be seen at weekends.
Sailing round off the shore,
As you sit and you watch with a friend.
Your girlfriend will say “What a beautiful sight!”
But she can’t hear the crews swear with all of their might
On our shores by the bay,
Where the people live down by the sea.
This tribute has been prepared by Barry Smith, David Hill and David Kerr, July 2024.
THE WADING POOL
Not to be confused with The Saltwater Baths located on the beach front between 4th and 5th Avenues. The baths opened in 1927 and closed in 1971, during which time several generations of kids learned to swim and later became champions, without the help of the Mud Whelks.
The wading pool was a public facility, situated between 8th and 9th Avenue. It was developed as part of the construction of the current stone seawall during The Great Depression from 1929 to the late-1930s.
The construction of the seawall provided work in return for relief payment (sustenance or ‘susso’), to many of the unemployed, and often itinerant families who were part of the 30% of the workforce unemployed at that time. The wading pool, located where the Aquatic Center and gym now is, was completed in 1938. It was filled and flushed by the tides and provided a safe, shallow swimming place for the kids, and, no doubt, many adults.
In 1966, responding to public concern expressed about a storm water drainage outlet’s proximity to the pool’s tidal inlet, there were discussions about the wading pool’s fitness for use. The pollution problem may have been exacerbated by the rapidly increasing population resulting in occasional flood runoff from the proliferation of grease-traps, back yard wastewater sumps and septic tanks, and who knows what else, channelled into the storm-water gutters and ultimately into the bay.
The pollution problem, while not completely eliminated, was substantially reduced by the construction of the city-wide sewage system under the stewardship of Clem Jones in the late 60’s. However the Wading Pool did not survive the changes taking place.
What happened to the pool’s stone retaining wall? Was it dug out? Bulldozed in or built over? Call the Sandgate Museum if you can fill in the details of the pool’s demise.
On a lighter note, the pool provided excellent, permanent, untroubled water for the many model boat sailors in the district. It was also home to an astounding number of Hercules Club Mud Whelks taking advantage of the protected environment of the pool.
While about a meter deep at high tide, the wading pool was not much more than ankle deep at low tide, except around areas of water turbulence at the slippery slide and the tidal inlets where it was a little deeper because the bottom was sand. Unlike the Heritage-listed Wynnum Wading Pool, also a 30’s relief construction, which has a concrete bottom and is still in use.
The Olympic swimming pool, opened in 1973, has expanded to become the Sandgate Council Aquatic Centre and Gym, occupying some seven acres where families were free to enjoy the bay’s glorious seafront.