Thanks so much for uploading this video Noel. It's so great to have someone compile some history of the area. Sadly, if it wasn't for people like you doing this, so much of this information would be lost. I love watching all your videos (they make for great travel suggestions!!), but as a resident of the area, this one was especially enjoyable.

That Coalcliff area is also a fav for those making car TV commercials, back in the day when the industry was protected from content made overseas. Nice to have the radio interview over the historic archive video. I love the protective clothing back in those days, very different world indeed.

@nleeder

10 жыл бұрын

Thanks Leo. The motivation behind the new video was to try to augment a current fight by today's Coalcliff residents to resist an austerity drive by Wollongong Council to reduce maintenance costs by allowing hard-fought community amenities like the great Community Hall, rock pool, Leeder Park, Surf Club, built by past generations of intense local effort, to be gradually run down by cost-saving neglect by the current abysmally short-sighted Council. An awful prospect! Coalcliff badly needs some "white knight" in today's Wollongong Council (like forward thinking Mayor Albert squires was in the 1960s) to get their crazy thinking back into realistic focus about the century ahead - fiscal challenges notwithstanding! Short term pain for long term gain is the real issue here!!

@leokimvideo

10 жыл бұрын

Noel Leeder I have always thought the 3 tiers of government here in Oz is a fail, the local level of it is possibly the most bust, closely followed by the state level. Sadly Noel forward thinking people no longer have the keys to power...all we have today is flash in the pan ideas aimed at short term gain and long term pain.

@nleeder

10 жыл бұрын

Yes Leo - local government seems to have become a forum for little people with delusions of grandeur to impose their mostly hair-brained ideas on their unfortunate neighbours. So sad - the old time local Council was once really useful for promoting good things in the community and was mostly sensibly caring about it' s residents and their aspirations. Tempus sure does fugit!!

@deanhall459

9 жыл бұрын

Noel Leeder I am a member of the Coalcliff Surf Life Saving Club and have family living there. I can't believe that the Wollongong City Council has completely forgotten about this amazing town. When you think about how much the Coalcliff Coke Works has helped Australia build our relationships with our trading partners and how much money the Coke Works has put into the economy.

Very good Noel. A nicely edited video with a great story to tell that will interest viewers for years to come. Coalcliff residents were certainly lucky that you came their way all those years ago and made the effort to record it all.

@nleeder

10 жыл бұрын

Thanks R&B. Hopefully, my video might help reinforce the current fight by today's residents of Coalcliff to stop Wollongong Council's stated intention to cut costs by ceasing routine maintenance of hard-won community assets like the vital Coalcliff Community Hall (built by local effort on valuable land donated to Council by Coalcliff Colliery way back) and also that wonderful Coalcliff Rock Pool which, again, was constructed by intense community effort. Council's published manifesto aims to allow these assets to gradually return to nature by total neglect of care - an objective almost beyond belief and the Coalcliff residents will fight such quite irrational thinking all the way! But, it needs all the support it can get!

Hi Dean. Yes, it is so sad that the Wollongong Council of today seems to have so little understanding of the real needs of it's residents and little appreciation of the history and significance of what Coalcliff meant to the growth and evolution of today's City of Greater Wollongong and, indeed, that of our nation! In my time at Coalcliff - sadly now fifty years ago - the civic fathers in Wollongong had huge respect for and real gratitude for the huge impetus the Illawarra Coke Company gave to the city's wealth and standing. They were very proud of what was happening at Coalcliff and wanted to do as much as they possibly could to help further those achievements! Today, it seems that the self-serving aldermen are only interested in what they can get for themselves! So disappointing for all those who have tried so hard in the past to build the 'Gong into today's metropolis of real national significance. I live in hope that, one day, a man of real stature and civic understanding like the hugely successful Mayor Albert Squires fifty years ago will again take over the management of Wollongong Council and create an all-encompassing, insightful and proven successful administration like it once was!

4:21 English Automatic not " Illawarra Koch" but "Illawarra Coke". 9:10 not " just licking into shape so rater rundown coke ovens " but "just licking into shape some rater rundown coke ovens"

;

@sarmadahmad5666

10 жыл бұрын

0_0