Casino

Pre WW1

The earliest Greek in the beef town of Casino appears to be an unidentified female, perhaps the wife of an overseer of the Comino oyster leases at Evans Head, who shows up in the 1891 census. The first Greek café presence came in 1904 with the establishment of an Oyster Saloon in Walker Street by Peter Emmanuel Comino of Lismore, just after completion of the Lismore-Casino rail link. More than likely he left the place in the management hands of his brother George, who in turn seems to have delegated to an unknown manager upon moving off to Grafton to open a shop in mid 1905.

The place was sold to the Murwillumbah-based firm of Samio & Andronico in late 1906, with Theo Con Andronicos returning to town to become the hands-on manager while Samios held the fort in Murbah. Andronicos was 15yrs old when he landed from Kythera in 1901, spending nearly 4yrs at Moree and Coonamble before arriving in Casino in late 1904 to become a Comino employee, perhaps manager, but moving on 6mths later upon joining Arthur Anastasios Samios in partnership to open the first Greek oyster saloon in Murbah. This second Casino sojourn was just as short lived as the first, selling out to the Cordatos Bros around mid 1907 and returning to home base upon the partnership rolling out its second Murbah restaurant.

George and Simon Emmanuel Theodorakakis (Cordatos), in silent partnership with their uncle Denis of Dubbo, were the initial managers of the Casino branch of the various Cordatos Bros enterprises. They were two of the six brothers who began arriving from Potamos after the turn of the century and initially settled around the New England Tablelands. Twenty year old Kyriacos (Kery), claiming 5yrs cafe experience in America, was the first to land in 1901 and after a couple of years trade-training at Moree was posted to Armidale to open a restaurant on behalf of Comino & Panaretto, the firm established by Victor Dimitri Panaretto at Moree around 1898, the same year Kery’s uncle, John Cordato, the son of Kyriacos and Marouli, nee Panaretto, had landed. In mid 1903 came Kery’s 21yr old brother, Tony, who joined him at Armidale, followed later in that year by their uncle Denis directly off the boat from London. But he clocked off after 6mths and hiked onto Glen Innes and thence Dubbo, where he was joined by Tony in 1909. Hot on Denis’ heels was Kery’s older brother Simon (Stylianos/Stellios) who also joined him directly off the boat and remained on the Armidale roster for 3yrs before coming to Casino in mid 1907 to rendezvous with George, who had landed in 1905 and spent a couple of years at Dubbo. Around 1908/09 George went off to manage the brothers branch at Hillgrove while Denis took a break on Kythera about 1911, the same year the youngest brother Jack turned up and a couple of years after Cordatos Bros had acquired the Armidale business from Comino & Panaretto. Two years later they sold Armidale to George Peter Comino (Galanis), whereupon Kery took the loot to Tenterfield to acquire the business of the Andronicos Bros (who then consolidated in Lismore) while Jack came down the range to Casino to say hello to Simon.

Casino has the distinction as the spot chosen by Harry Catsoulis, the son of Theo Harry and Chrysanthi (nee Coroneo), to pop into the world in 1910, probably making him the first Kytherian-Australian on the north coast. His parents had ignored the instructions in the Greek employment manual and become dairy farmers somewhere along Camira Creek, Whiporie, down along the Grafton Road. Theo had landed as a 26yr old in late 1904 and had tried catering at Glen Innes and Grafton before acquiring this 640acre farm in mid 1909, perhaps winning a crown land ballot. He was the first cousin of Mick Charles Catsoulis who married Peter Comino’s daughter Stella in Lismore in 1919, and probably connected to the Katsoulis of Woodburn and Ballina. Mick and Theo established a shop together at Bellingen in 1912, but upon Mick’s return from the Balkan Wars in 1915 they split up; Mick acquiring Victor Tsicalas’s cafe in Goondiwindi and Theo heading off to a farm at Aberdeen. He and Chrysanthi eventually settled around Urunga where their sons went on to establish the largest tomato farm in NSW.

A couple of months after Harry Catsoulis made his appearance Simon and Cornelia Cordatos presented him with a playmate. Simon had done a quick trip home to Potamos in 1909 to successfully woo Cornelia Peter Chambiras, coming back in time to have daughter Catherine registered as a Casinorian.

Casino also has the distinction of being the location for the first Greek Orthodox wedding on the north coast when Tony Cordatos of Dubbo, the third son of Emmanuel and Katerini (nee Megaloconomos), married Anthe Minoucoe of Kyogle in 1916. It was a grand affair, drawing over 60 Greeks from the local area and beyond. But this group was dwarfed by the curious crowd of Casino onlookers stretching out the door of the Anglican Church, being entranced by Fr Dimitrios Marinakis of Sydney as he worked his binding spell. Anthe's cousins, Stella Galanis of Maryborough and Jack Aroney of Murwillumbah, were bridesmaid and best man. At the Marble Bar Café afterwards, Stella and Muriel Comino of Lismore provided the choral entertainment with renditions of the Greek and British anthems and the Marseillaise, while Cornelia Cordatos sang the Greek Bridal March, all accompanied by a pianist and violinist especially brought up from Sydney. It was all topped off with a honeymoon at hedonistic Byron Bay.

[Stella Galanis later upstaged Anthe big time. Of all places to find a reference, the mighty Richmond River Herald, a low circulation 6 page bi-weekly published at Coraki, had this to say on 12Apr1921: There was quite a stir in Maryborough last week when a unique wedding was celebrated, the contracting parties being Miss Stella N. Gallanis to Mr G. N. Marsellas, of Melbourne. The religious ceremonial was performed at St Paul’s Church of England by a Greek priest specially brought from Sydney. The wedding, which was carried out in Greek fashion, was the biggest thing in marriages ever seen in a Maryborough church, which was packed, whilst hundreds were unable to gain admission. It is estimated that 1500 people were in and about the church. Some of the ladies forgot themselves, and (says a local paper) fought under scratch-as-cats-can rules to gain admission to the church…For a couple of hours after the event groups of women could be seen at the street corners discussing the wedding…The story then goes on to dwell on the cost and imply that all Greeks were as rich as Croesus – ‘the presents were worth well over £1000’…. ‘the wedding breakfast must have cost hundreds to prepare’… ‘the bride’s dress alone is said to have cost over £50’….. (And the groom, George Dimitri Marcellos, was a café owner of Ipswich at the time.)]

The Chambiras (Tsampiras) families seem to have had the earliest permanent association with the town. Con Peter, 14yrs old when he landed from Potamos in 1908, had spent time with Theo M. Fardouly at Oakey before coming to Casino around mid 1910. Over the next few years he had interludes at the Cordatos branches at Tenterfield and Hillgrove until settling permanently at Casino around 1917, at the same time as his older cousin, Con Theo, came from Tenterfield. The latter Con, old-aged at 36 when he landed in 1914 after sometime in England, had wandered around various towns before deciding Casino was the place to party. It seems be became the gaffer at the Marble Bar while Con Peter retained the management of the second café, by then probably known as the Golden Bell Café.  The Marble Bar at this time was Casino’s most salubrious café, making all their own confectionery and ice-cream and dispensing elixirs from ‘the latest American Soda Fountain’. Another Chambiras, Theo, either Cornerlia’s uncle or brother, rolled into town around mid 1912, but it’s unclear whether he ever joined the partnership. He faded from the scene in the early 1920s.

And then came the stayer, Harry Peter Chambiras. He was 22yrs old when he landed in 1924, coming straight to Casino and buying into the partnership a couple of years later, about the same time Peter Theo Georgopoulos (Hlihlis) and Tony Emmanuel Calopades bought out the remaining shares of Chambiras & Co, a Casino trade name that continued to be passed on into the 1960s as new cafe proprietors came and went. The two Cons are then believed to have returned to Potamos where one or the other, or both, acquired a shop. The fate of Theo Chambiras is uncertain, but it’s likely he also returned to Potamos at the same time as the Cons. They all died there.

Con Peter would have had good reason to remember his early years in Casino. On Christmas night 1911 he and Jack Cordato, both 16yrs old, were on duty in the Marble Bar when seven cheerful lads decided ‘to go the dago’s for a meal’, but figured that the spirit of Christmas warranted a free feed. The two young dagoes were unaware of this Australian custom and attempted to prevent their entry to the dining room, which resulted in Con suffering a broken nose, concussion and deep cuts to the head, delivered by an axe handle, and being laid up for a week, while Jack was ‘subjected to the argument of the boot’ and also suffered concussion and deep head wounds. For good measure the boyos helped themselves to the contents of the till, and later down the street were heard to say ‘We have slathered the dagoes’. Simon and Cornelia Cordato, who were holidaying with the Cominos in Lismore at the time, returned the next day, only two days into their planned week-long break. Stan Andronico of Lismore was the official interpreter at the subsequent trial.

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Casino – 1920s/30s

Around 1925 the Greeks began to expand their business interests in Casino, at the same time a reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald passed through town and noted that there is little to attract the eye. The streets are straight and broad, and an air of quietude broods over them. Yet it is a progressive and expanding centre, buoyed up with hope of yet becoming the chief depot of the north. …It bases its hopes of surpassing both lively Lismore and contemplative Grafton on the fact that the main railway from Sydney to Brisbane will, in a few years, pass through….

The first competitor was Emmanuel Vlandis, trading as Landis & Co, who came from Queensland and acquired a refreshment room business somewhere near the Marble Bar. He was 17yrs old when he landed from Kythera in mid 1911, and in the main stuck to the café game despite his training as a compositor.  However, his Casino sojourn was just as short as his stints elsewhere, which saw him with a drapery in Sydney, a printery in Melbourne, fruit hawking in Orange, amongst other ventures. In about 1927 he moved to Lismore to acquire the fish shop business of Manuel Andronicos (perhaps a rellie - Vlandis is a Andronicos nickname), leaving a mystery presence in his Casino shop.

But his departure is coincidental with the arrival from Lismore of Nick Calligeros. Although Nick opened his own fishmongers business in Barker Street, there is a vague understanding that he may have had the Vlandis business for a short interim period. The folklore goes that the Vlandis shop was in fact the Golden Bell, acquired from the Chambiras partnership, but reacquired by them in the late 1920s. How long Nick remained in town is another mystery, but he ended up as an old age pensioner at Botany in the 1940s.

Notwithstanding these machinations, in the late 1920s came the first non-Kytherian competition when the Volos/Valos Bros, led by Peter Vlahos of the village of Exanthia on Lefkadia in the Ionian Islands, arrived in town. They acquired a business, perhaps that of Calligeros or Vlandis (or maybe even both), giving it a makeover and re-emerging as the Belle Vue Cafe with an expanded product line. But confusingly, in 1931 Volos Bros, cafe proprietors, George Volos, fish shop proprietor, and Peter Volos fruiterer, are listed separately, perhaps suggesting they had separate cafes, although they could all have been in the one shop and specializing in offering the range of services from different departments.

In mid 1931 Peter Velos became an employee in the Walker St café of a mysterious John Cone. This shop was one up from the refreshment rooms of George Wright, and a couple up from the Chambiras business (and near Tinson’s grocery store and Imeson’s butcher shop, if that’s a clue.) Cone is possibly a corruption of some Greek name (perhaps Constantine?), but nothing is known of him. At this time too, Vincent Greenhalgh opened a fish shop in Walker St, sourcing his stuff from his own commercial operation in Ballina. He may have installed a manager. And also at this time, or shortly afterwards, the Misses Gooley were running the Popular Cafe next to Tinson's Grocery, from the building of Mrs Matterson, an ex-cafe proprietor of Lismore. The Gooley sisters were still operating the Popular post WW2.

Whatever the circumstances, the Velos seem to have disappeared from town around 1932/33 when Nick Harry Chomenides (aka Nick Harrison) arrived to open a fruiterer's business in Walker Street. He was 17yrs old when he landed from Akrata in the Peloponnese in 1914, spending most of his time around southern NSW and eventually acquiring his own café at Coolamon. He traded as Alefontos & Homenides for about a year until taking up a more permanent business at Trundle in late 1921. During the mid 1920s he was employing Peter Mena Kalopaides, perhaps connected to Tony of the Marble Bar. In 1926 he acquired the ex-Coronakes Canberra Café at Murbah, but didn’t make a go of it and 12mths later sold out to Archie Elefentis (aka Alefontos), a likely rellie of his ex-Coolamon partner, and moved to Grafton to work for Jack Moulos. Everybody interconnects somehow. Nick had disappeared from the north coast scene by the late 1930s, although he is likely connected to Eileen Doris Homenides who remained ensconced at Grevillia through to the early 1950s.

Meanwhile the Chambiras/Calopades/Poulos partnership began to flex its pecks. Tony (Andonis) Kalopaidis (Calopades) was born in Lianianika, Potamos district, 1885, the son of Emmanuel and Stamatia (nee Megaloconomo), and was the Godson of Mina Anthony Comino of the Oyster King’s family. He landed in Sydney in 1897, initially working at the Comino Fish Shop in Oxford Street before taking over the management of an oyster saloon in Alfred St, Circular Quay. Sometime after 1908 he moved to West Maitland with his younger brother George, but returned to Sydney around 1915 to become a restaurant manager in Newtown for Peter Kalopaidis, his likely brother who landed with Mina Comino in 1894, aged 8yrs. Thereafter Tony seems to have been based at Newtown, but probably with sojourns around the traps, until moving to Casino in 1923. His 13yr old cousin, Peter Theo Georgopoulos, landed in 1914 and went directly to West Maitland, remaining until 1920 when he moved onto Cessnock for a year or so before shifting to Wauchope, where George Calopades had re-established himself in the meantime, and finally to Casino in about 1924.

In 1930 Calopades was the first to move to suburbia from the accommodation above the shop upon his marriage to Caliope Manolara of Coolamon, in a dual ceremony with his likely sister, Calomira Calopedi, who married Stratis Venerys of Gilgandra. Next to move out was Harry Chambiras who married Emily Jenkins (Tsigounis), a renowned singer born in Smyrna but raised on Kythera, in 1931. And finally Peter Poulos married Vrania G. Jenkins, the sister of Emily of Coonabarabran, in 1934. He and Vrania lived with the Chambiras for a fair period until selling up in 1936, shortly after which Harry and Emily moved into the Canberra Guest House, by this time owned by Paul Victor Panaretto, one of the new proprietors of the Marble Bar.

First to leave Casino had been Tony Calopades who sold his shares to George Christos Simos around early1936 to try his luck in Sydney prior to going home. However, Herr Hitler thwarted his ambition to retire to Kythera and he returned to Casino in the early war years, running a shoe shop until buying back into the partnership in 1945. Peter Poulos sold his shares to Paul Victor Panaretto about mid 1936 and moved to Gilgandra to join his brother, Emmanuel, for a short period before retiring to Kythera, with by then three Australian-born children.

In 1926 the 12yr old George Simos arrived to work as a waiter at the Marble Bar, followed by 14yr old Paul Panaretto, his Potamos schoolmate, in 1928. Paul was the son of the illustrious Victor Dimitri Panaretto who had sailed into Sydney as a 24yr old in 1892 and within a couple of years had acquired his own oyster saloon in Oxford Street. Sometime in the late 1890s, probably after the death of brother Polichronis, who lost an argument with a Sydney tram in 1898, he and his younger brother, Ioannis, moved on to Moree where they can be credited with the establishment of one of the very first Greek Oyster Saloon in country NSW. Over the next few years they branched out into a number of nearby towns, installing their compatriots as managers.

In early 1900 Victor went back to Potamos where he married Marouli Aroney, the daughter of Athanasios and Gregoria, and shortly afterwards the couple returned to Moree where their children Jim (Denny), Arthur, Jack, Calliopi (Poppy) and Gregoria (Florrie) were born. Ten years later the family returned permanently to Potamos where Kalypso, Paul, Eugenia, Sophia and Stamatina entered the world. Victor, who went on to become the President of the Commune of Potamos, died in the 1930s and Paul, on behalf of the family, subsequently donated the family mansion to the Potamos Old Peoples Home. This magnificent Georgian style villa, with a plaque dedicating the building to the memory of his parents, was handed over in a ceremony attended by all of Kythera’s dignitaries in 1981. Victor’s sojourn at Moree had been very rewarding, with his house an obvious statement of his success, and his example of what could be achieved in Australia contributed to the large wave of Kytherian migration just prior to the First World War.

Denny was the first of the family to return to Australia in about 1918/20 followed by Jack and Arthur two years later. They in turn sponsored out 14yr old Paul in 1928 at the beginning of the Great Depression. At this time Arthur was working in Sydney, Jack in Lismore and Denny in Collarenebri beyond Moree.

Paul’s introduction to Australia didn’t augur well. Arthur, who met him in Sydney with the news that a job had been found for him at the Marble Bar Cafe in Casino, slipped him a couple of quid and promptly bungled him on a train for a terrifying journey north. Paul, alarmed and without a word of English, sat clutching his small suit case containing a change of underwear all the way to Grafton where the train terminated and, thinking this was the end of the journey, he got off and started looking for Jack who was supposed to meet him. With panic levels rising after a fruitless search he noticed that a ferry carrying all the other passengers was about to pull out across the Clarence. He just managed to scarper on board and on the other side doggedly stuck with them as they entered the railway refreshment rooms, where a waitress thrust an English menu in his hand and remained standing impatiently by his side. Greatly intimidated he eventually figured out what was going on, pointing vaguely at an item that turned out to be some inedible concoction that he stared at until all the other passengers got up and left. Not to be deserted be bolted after them, mimicking their actions on the way out and passed one of Arthur’s notes to the person on the till - and worked out sometime later that the uneaten meal had consumed 18 pence worth of this survival money.

Once on the train again, and still utterly bewildered, he cried all the way to Casino where, lo and behold, things got worse. Once again there was no sign of Jack, and Paul’s anxiety levels were off the scale. ‘I cried and cried’ he said. It turned out that Jack couldn’t make it to Casino and had sent a taxi across from Lismore with instructions to the driver to walk up and down the station shouting “Polychronis Panaretto”. After all the other passengers had departed he was petrified when approached on the dark and deserted platform by this madman chanting something that sounded like ‘Polly Parroto’. Through some wild sign language he was eventually persuaded to hop into the cab, only to be ordered out again in the same language after a few minutes travel. Completely mystified and almost a gibbering wreck, he found himself in front of the Marble Bar Café and astonished to see his old school friend, George Simos, who eventually managed to assure him he wasn’t in the middle of a bad dream. ‘George saved my life’ says Paul.

Paul’s first English lessons were to recognise stock phrases like ham 'n’ eggs, steak 'n’ eggs, etc. On his first foray as a waiter he learnt a couple more. His customer ordered ‘steak n’ eggs’ which Paul, proudly resplendent in starched white jacket, duly comprehended and delivered, only to met with the phrase ‘Good onya’. Not to be out-bluffed, he appropriately bought the customer the onion he had ordered, but upon trying to place it on the plate was treated to a loud rendition of a new inscrutable language. He then called for interpretation from his boss, Peter Poulos, who taught him his next English phrase: ‘Bloody fool’.

The Chambiras/Calopades/Poulos partnership also (re?)acquired The Golden Bell Café a few doors down from the Marble Bar. It was without a kitchen and only licensed for the serving of light refreshments, but when someone asked for something more substantial, rather than pass up the opportunity to pull a quid (these are Greeks we’re talking about), a runner would be dispatched down the back lane connecting with the Marble Bar where the meal was knocked up and delivered back with the customer hopefully none the wiser. One particular evening Tony Calopades and Paul were on duty in the Bell when a customer came in and ordered ham 'n’ eggs and Paul, still preening in new white mess kit (think Manuel in Fawlty Towers), was duly dispatched down the back lane. But it was a day of torrential rain and the lane was flooded, creating a great test of piloting skills. Completing the scene was a sewage main running down the lane, which had either broken or overflowed, giving rise to a few more floating navigation hazards. On the return journey the inevitable happened, as the Great Scriptwriter dictates, and Paul and the ham 'n’ eggs went for a swim. As fast as he could he brushed off the worst of the effluent from his now unstarched jacket, located the ham 'n’ eggs and picked out most of what shouldn’t be there, before making it back to the Bell dripping wet in what he thought was good time. But his sterling effort and devotion to duty went unrewarded as he arrived to find an irate Basil Fawltipades being berated by an impatient customer. Heavy negotiations were in progress, involving a complementary cuppa tea as a peace offering, the eventual outcome of which was a placated patron who walked out thanking the pair for a tasty meal. Said Paul: ‘The customer is always right’, a motto that served him well on the road to fortune, women and fast cars.

[One more anecdote from Paul's store of stories, verified and supplemented by the newspaper report: The proprietors lived above the Marble Bar, sharing the spartan conditions with a number of employees who came and went, and using the downstairs kitchen sink for bathing and ablutions. At midnight on 7Sep34 they were all playing cards in the cafe when water began pouring from the ceiling. They were so engrossed in this serious Greek pastime of trading fortunes that they were deaf to the crackling of fire, the sound of fire trucks and shouting firemen, and immune to the smell of smoke (so he said). It turned out that Tommy Lee's bootshop next door had caught fire and spread up the stairway at the rear to the Greek's residential apartment, which ran across the top of both shops. They lost all their bedding and furniture and most personal effects, and were presented with a damage bill of £2000, inclusive of water damage to the cafe stock and fixtures. Sympathetic store keepers gave them credit for replacement pyjamas and tooth brushes until their fortune was recouped from the kitchen, and they could afford to get their ears and noses checked.

One employee who missed out on the fun was John George Pappas (Papaionou), who had died 2mths earlier, aged 35. He landed in 1926 and allegedly came direct to Casino to become a cook at the Marble Bar, but perhaps with an initial sojourn elsewhere, as mourners came from Bondi and Quandilla as well as locally for the funeral conducted by the Rev Demopoulos of Brisbane.]

Casino – Depression

But prior to this came the Depression proper, things getting desperate from 1930 with the end of the railway projects. In early February 1930 it was announced that the Casino-Bonalbo line was suspended, but the coming election forced the Government to reinstate the project in late May, offering employment to 200 out of the 650 ex-navvies camped at Carrington Park, all potential Labour voters.  In mid Jun30 the limit on the number of men approved for work on the line was raised to 300, but there are hundreds of men camped in and around Casino, altogether too many for requirements, and further arrivals will only augment an already congested labour market....  By early October the only road work relief scheme was £1,600 granted to adjacent Tomki Shire for the Spring Grove and Leeville development roads, an increase to, or supplement on top of, the £1134 for the Casino to Pelican Creek (Spring Grove Road) granted in late July. Post election, mid Dec30, the non-viable Casino-Bonalbo project was terminated, resulting in the 300 men joining the enlarged tent city at Carrington.

In early Dec30 the Secretary of the State Labour Bureau at Casino (Mr C. Court) has registered 218 unemployed for the current month, and anticipates that the number will be increased to 400 by the end of the week. Those registered for December constitute only a portion of the men seeking work, and a number of others decline registration. Over 100 men are already discharged from the Casino-Bonalbo railway line, and the remaining 200 or 300 will be paid off about Friday next. …As soon as the weather broke, added Mr Court, he could place a number of men on farms. Recently Kyogle Shire Council employed about 70 men, but the financial position of the Tomki Shire Council precluded the possibility of absorbing any of the available unemployed. Yesterday the Casino police were busy issuing ration orders to a large number of men seeking relief. In two days Casino police issued 500 orders for sustenance, at a cost of £350 to the taxpayer.

A month later the unemployed held a monster rally to demonstrate their dislike of being called dole bludgers. They complained against persecution of the unemployed by the police, who around the dance rooms and theatres had approached men and demanded to know how they came by certain sums of money found in their possession. ….And in another agenda item Voted that this meeting demands the immediate release from gaol of the 10 men imprisoned for illegally travelling on a goods train as referred to by Mr Fitzgerald, and that an inquiry be held with regards to the methods employed by the police to enable arrests to be made. (Allegedly the police fired on them.) At the court (16Mar) The men claimed that they were destitute, and were compelled to travel by train to enable them to reach centres where food supplies could be obtained….

The Railway Department had started to expand in mid 1930 as the Grafton-Brisbane line neared completion. In late June1930  it was advised that in the near future there would be about 60 men coming to Casino to be employed in the railway service… and there wasn’t one vacant house. There would be about 15 or 20 from Lismore and the balance would come from centres between Tamworth and Lismore.  There are some of the men in Lismore… who would not get buyers for their homes… so the Government should shift these houses to Casino. By December 1931 there would be about 180 men on the permanent staff at Casino… By mid 1933 the Casino railway department had 250 employees (at the expense of Lismore) bringing ~£50,000/yr in wages to the town, but housing in Casino was still scarce, the average house rent  of between 25/- and 30/- per week apparently beyond the means of the average employee, forcing the railway department and council to approve tent living on railway land. (But a few months later the health inspector sprung 29 blokes living in one four-roomed cottage.)

By Dec34 camping was still the go at Crawford Square where the 'tents' had expanded into small houses surrounded by cultivated gardens on the rate-free land, so much so that the place had its own real estate market. The happy campers weren't anxious to move unless offered a monetary incentive, and the council had little hope in closing the place without a big protest. Nevertheless, council started a crackdown by insisting on development applications for anything smacking of a 'house within the meaning of the act.' The year 1934 marked a turnaround in the benchmark building industry however, with 53 new houses going up and a new 30 lot subdivision. (The aberrational 1933 record for value of development applications (£41,610 v. £29,183), included the big ticket items such as the 7 new shops on the the School of Arts site along with 44 houses (the same as Lismore), but excluded the £18,000 remodelling of the hospital and £3000 spent on the Intermediate High School. 1934 also marked a turnaround in council finances and an end to ratepayer defaults, running counter to a lot of other LGAs.)

But just as the unemployment and housing problem was resolving itself, the district's economic mainstay, the dairy industry, went from sick to ailing, the years 1934 and 35 generating the worst ever returns. The monthly butter cheque to the 812 suppliers of the Casino Co-Operative Dairy Society's three butter factories paid an all time low of 6½d/lb in Jan34 on a production record of 850,446lbs, generating a gross pay of £22,900 distributed and circulated around the district. But the exhausted farmers continued to work like the clappers to maintain their income, and that of the co-op's 1100 shareholders, as the price continued to scrape along the bottom of the trough. Two years earlier 781 suppliers produced 649,276lbs returning £26,965 on a rate of 10d/lb. At the time of the Mar33 pay at 7¼d/lb, then the lowest price ever, (and the pay which started the farmer's militancy around the region with calls for an end of the Paterson Scheme), the Casino Co-op had 826 suppliers (650 supplying the Casino branch factory, 77 at Mallangee, 99 Dyraaba) who shared £18,325 between them (95 Casino suppliers getting under £10, 223 between £10 and £20, 198 between £20 and £30, 86 between £30 and £40, 48 over £40.) And 1933 turned out to be a production record as the farmers peddled like hell to restore their income, generating 2644 tons of the stuff to return a gross income of £198,883 from an average monthly pay of 8.79d. Like elsewhere in the region, the number of farmers had started to increase from about 1930/31 as many sharefarmers entered the game as a means of buying a job, decreasing everyone's share of the pie. But by the end of the 1934 they and their cows started to hop off the treadmill in increasing numbers.

Nevertheless, from about mid 1932 the town benefited by the circulation of money from the cows, trains, government relief, family endowment and sundry sources, keeping the cafes ticking over. (And a piece of trivia: In early 1934 the Chamber of Commerce was on the prowl looking to crucify any unpatriotic pastry cook using margarine and found that the Railway Refreshment Rooms was the biggest culprit, all pies and light pastry, of which they sold zillions, being manufactured from the stuff. Also disclosed in the investigation was the startling fact that the railways' Casino outlet was the most lucrative cafe in the region, providing almost 3500 meals per month for a profit of almost £1000, and growing rapidly. But no Greek in NSW ever seems to have tendered for a railway contract.)

Casino – Aftermath

The Golden Bell was disposed of in the late 1930s a few years after Paul and George joined the partnership. The deal was done in a swap with the newsagent next door to the Marble Bar who agreed to move out into the converted Bell, sited between Heathwoods and Bowens at the time, but now home to Crazy Prices. The Marble Bar was then expanded into the ex-paper shop.

In 1939 the Chambrias/Simos/Panaretos partnership bought the El Gronda Milk Bar in Barker Street, adjacent to the stately El Gronda Picture Theatre, established in 1936 by Dorgan in his rush to tie up all the theatre outlets in the region and preclude the Notaras Bros. [And another piece of trivia: Paul Panaretos was at the very first screening and vividly remembers being captivated by the dancing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the movie Spring Time!] The old established Ring Theatre, way down the end of Barker Street, without a kiosk or milk bar, also was serviced by Paul and Co from the El Gronda. Their team of young kids would race down from the El Gronda with their laden trays to be in time for interval.

In the mid 1940s George and Paul got out of the catering trade and acquired the Canberra Guest House, with a suite of shops at street level and accommodation above. They sold their shares in the catering business to Con Minas, a Cypriot who had married Paul’s niece Poppy Kronopoulos in Sydney and afterwards been invited up to Casino by Paul. Poppy, the daughter of Paul’s sister, Calliope, who had died in childbirth in Potamos, was initially raised by the Panaretos sisters on Kythera before going to Kalamata to live with her father. But Paul later sponsored her to Sydney as a teenager where she once again lived with Paul’s sisters before marrying Con and coming to Casino.

Around 1946 Tony Calopades bought back into the Marble Bar and El Gronda by acquiring the shares of Harry Chambiras and Con Minas, but on-sold the El Gronda back to Paul and George who, being gluttons for punishment, decided to renew their association with the cafe game after refurbishing the Canberra building. Poppy and Con Minas returned to Sydney for a period but came back in 1958 to once again buy into the El Gronda, remaining into the 1980s before retiring permanently to Sydney. The El Gronda milk bar still operates as a food outlet, now trading as The Golden Chicken, but the magnificent forecourt of the theatre, which the milk bar fronted, has been roofed over and become a mall.

In 1950 Tony left the management of the Marble Bar in the hands of his nephews, Jack and George Black, and also returned to Sydney, where he died the following year.

Zachary (Jack) and George Ioannis Black (Mavromatis), and their brothers Jim and Manuel, had arrived from the village of Logothetianika in the mid 1930s to join their father and uncle, John and George Black, at Gayndah and Murgon respectively.  Following WW2 service and a couple of years back in Murgon, Jack and George came to Casino to work for their uncle Tony Calopades in the Marble Bar, taking over the business in 1950. George however, married Mary Crethar of Lismore in 1952 and a couple of years later sold his shares in the Marble Bar to Jack and moved permanently to Lismore to take on the Star Court Milk Bar. The final transition occurred in the late 1950s when Jack acquired the freehold of the café from the Calopades family. In its heyday the Marble Bar, long since converted into a pharmacy by Jack’s son John, was Casino’s premier restaurant.

George Simos and Paul Panaretos remained active in their Canberra Guest House in Barker Street. This building had one and two room accommodation upstairs, where Paul lived, and eight shops on the street frontage downstairs. But George became a silent partner in this venture after he moved to Sydney in about 1958, selling out his share of the El Gronda to Con and Poppy Minas, who continued to trade under the original company name of Chambiras & Co. In the mid 1970s Paul bought out George’s share of the Canberra and shortly afterwards passed his share of the El Gronda to his niece and nephew-in-law, who sold up about 5yrs later to return to Sydney, so ending the Greek presence.

George retired to New South Head Road in Sydney and acquired a block of flats in Edgecliff where he died in 1999, aged 87, just as he was about to embark on a trip to Kythera. His wife Koula, a Melbournite whom he had married late in life, had predeceased him two years earlier. Paul, fed up to the back teeth with cleaning up after tenants, finally sold the Canberra building in about 1990 and moved to suburbia where he continued an active retirement, and probably enjoying the distinction of being the longest continuous Kytherian resident of any country town in Australia, let alone Casino. He had been a significant contributor to the development of Casino, serving on the committees of Rotary, Apex, the Masonic lodge, various clubs and a host of other community organizations that came and went over the years. In retirement he remained a well-known and well-liked figure around town until moving into a retirement hostel in Mullumbimby in 2004 and dying at Pinehaven Nursing Home at Byron Bay in 2005.

In the meantime other Greek competitors had arrived in town to spice up the cooking competition. The first was Anastasios (Ernie) Stavros Zantiotis who came in 1936 and in partnership with Harry Karydis created the ‘Rose Marie Cafe’, a two-storey establishment in Barker Street newly built by Dr Earl Page of Grafton. They traded as ‘Zantos & Caredes’ for a few years until Karidis withdrew from the partnership and moved to Sydney. They initially found trading tough in Casino in the face of a lot of established competition, and as the business was not generating enough income to comfortably support them both they wisely decided that one should buy out the other. Ernie won the toss.

Sixteen year old Ernie had landed from Kythera in 1924 to join his brothers Jack, Tony and Peter who had all landed pre WW1 and worked all over the place, but mainly up and down the north coast until settling in the coal mining town of Weston in 1917. Jack had returned for the Balkan wars and copped a bullet in the chest, which upon removal in Sydney he had gold plated and wore as a good-luck charm thereafter. During the Depression, when Weston and surrounding towns were amongst the hardest hit in NSW, they all worked out west, Ernie spending most of his time with his Zantiotis cousins at Gunnedah, until things settled down.

The last brother, George, born in 1911, was sponsored out by Ernie in 1937 and came straight to Casino, but moved on to Ipswich a couple of years later, followed by a stint in the army from 1942. Upon discharge with a mangled hand in 1945 he went into partnership with James Pisanos (Panos) in the Monterey Cafe at Tenterfield for about 12mths until returning to Casino in 1946, initially joining Ernie in partnership before establishing The Busy Bee cafe near the bridge on the Tenterfield road. He married Katina Psaltis in 1950 and continued to trade at the Bee until passing the business to his nephews and moving to Sydney in 1957. Ernie married an Aussie lass, Mavis Trapper, from a long-established Rappville family, and continued to run the Rose Marie into the 1970s. He died in Casino 1998 age 90. His eldest son Steve still maintains the family connection with Casino as an accountant. Sometime in the late 1970s the Rose Marie evolved into a pure fruit shop and is now an electrical shop.

George Zantiotis sold out to his Venardos nephews, the sons of his sisters Anastasia and Kyranee, from the Kytherian village of Agia Anastasia, in 1957. These two sisters and their husbands never came to Australia, but it’s believed the other three Zantiotis sisters, Eugenia, Dimitria, and Kalliopi came at some stage.

Stavros Jack and Stavros Peter Venardos were sponsored out by George in about 1954 after their three years national service, while a little later Ernie sponsored out Vasili Jack Venardos, who worked with the two Stavros’ in The Busy Bee for a short while before relocating to Sydney. The two Stavros’ bought the Bee from their uncle George on a walk-in/walk-out basis for £2000 in 1957, but the partnership only lasted a year before Stavros Peter, nephew of the Warwick cafe owner, Andrew Venardos, also relocated to Sydney. Stavros Jack, who had worked in Kyogle for 18mths after arrival, then ran the business with his wife Anastasia through to 1978 before selling out to George Nick Crethar and retiring in town. Anastasia (nee Koultis), a relative of Denise Londy, was born in the Melbourne melting pot to an Asia Minor father and mother from Leros in the Dodecanese. The Busy Bee is still trading in Casino, but never again in Greek hands after the brief 18mth stewardship of George Crethar. (And Stavros Peter maybe connected to James Peter Venardos, a 21yr old cafe proprietor at Torrington near Tenterfield when he drowned in Deepwater Creek in 1927.)

Greg Jacob Londy (Leondarakis) came from Kavounades on Kythera in 1923 and after a couple of years in Gympie with his uncles, and some time with rellies at Brisbane and Ipswich, was prompted to come down to Lismore around the late 1920s, initially as an employee of Angelo Crethar until joining him in partnership in the Star Court Milk Bar. He came across to Casino in the early war years and established Londys Fish Cafe in Barker Street. [It’s possible he acquired his business from Nick Calligeros, but Nick’s circumstances after he established his fish shop in Barker Street in about 1930 are a bit hazy.]

Greg married another Katina Psaltis, of the banana growing family of Mullumbimby, in a dual ceremony in Lismore in 1948 with Katina’s brother George. Katina, who had landed in Melbourne just after the war and been driven all the way to Mullum by brother Peter, had to curb her impatience to wave the banana game good-bye whilst she awaited her mother whose boat was trapped for nearly a year at Port Said. Her mother, sick of her sons’ procrastination in producing her grandchildren, was chaperoning Hariklia Prineas to Australia to marry George. George, less of a masochist than his banana brothers, Peter, Nick and Theo, had remained in the cafe game at Mosman, to where he and Hariklia returned after their Lismore marriage.

Greg and Katina remained in Casino until 1965 when they retired to Sydney, with daughters Despina and Marie, and passed on the business to Greg’s nephew Jack Londy. Jack’s father, George, 16yrs old when he was sponsored by Greg in 1927, at which time Greg was a café owner of Ipswich, had returned to Kythera at some stage and didn’t make it back until 1950. But once again he found Australia wasn’t for him and left Casino around 1957 to return to his family. His son Jack however, was happy to stay, and, with his wife Denise, still runs Londy’s Take Away, now the only Greek-owned cafe still trading in Casino. [And now the only Kytherian cafe still operating on the whole north coast following the 2007 closure of the Popular Cafe at Mullumbimby, coincidentally run by his koumbaro, John Psaltis)]

Jack, who arrived as a 13yr old in 1954, spent 2yrs at Casino Public School learning to become an Australian, at the same time working in the shop before and after school and weekends. He became a partner in 1960 and bought the business outright upon his uncle’s move to Sydney, and has worked a 12hr day ever since. He met and married the delightful Denise (Dionysia) Alijos, who had come to Australia as a baby after the unfortunate early death of her mother, whilst on holiday in Sydney in the late 1960s.

Nick James Crethar moved across from Lismore in 1947 when Casino was still enjoying a big growth rate, which continued through to the mid 1950s before stagnation set in. (It’s growth to 1954, up 17% on 1947, made it second only to Mullumbimby as the fastest growing major population centre on the Far North Coast.)

Nick initially leased the restaurant of Thomas and Peter George, the well known Lebanese family, in Walker Street, renaming it ‘Crethars Fish and Chip Shop’, before acquiring his own shop around the corner a couple of years later. Nevertheless, after 35 hard years in the café game he figured he’d earned a rest and retired in 1959, initially getting high on the seaside air of Evans Head until returning to Casino, where he died in 1960. His family, wife Florrie (sister of Paul Panaretto) and children Jim, Victor, George, Louie and Helen continued to terrorise Casino. Their original fish ‘n’ chip shop is still operating as a food outlet, now in Italian hands and trading as Petero’s.

Thoukydides (Theo/Thouki) Vlismas, the youngest of the five Ithacan brothers of Murwillumbah, moved to Casino in the late 1940s and established a general store in Canterbury Street opposite the hospital, and at some stage down the line acquired a taxi business. He died in 1989, aged 78, leaving wife Evelyn and daughters Christine Olsson and Lucille Karanges.

Nick Bavea, brother of John Kyriakos Bavea of the Vogue Cafe Lismore, came to Casino from Gilgandra in 1950 and established The Black and White Cafe next to the old post office across the road from the Londys. It’s believed he walked away from the business in around 1970, after some time trying to sell it, and moved to Sydney with his family.

Denis John Triarchis, born in Smyrna of Kytherian extraction, came to town with his family from Southport in the early 1950s and acquired a boarding house in Walker Street, near Martin Arentz’s garage, remaining for about 10yrs until retiring to Brisbane. He had landed in Fremantle from France in 1914, aged 29, returning to Greece with his German wife and 4 children around the beginning of the Great Depression. He came back in 1936 and 2yrs later acquired the café at Southport.

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Kyogle

Early Years

By the early 1900s the breaking up of the large cattle runs and the rapid growth of the dairy industry was transforming Kyogle from a large open grassed paddock into a frenzied commercial centre. By early 1905 there were about 400 permanent residents in the village, with a butter factory taking the produce of 62 surrounding dairies.

Arthur George Lyvanas, 30yrs old went he landed from Patras in 1902 (probably with 16yr old Theo Zeanopoulos, aka Patras), seems to have been the first Greek into town when he acquired Horsleys Café in Main Street in late 1906 and made it over into The Sydney Oyster Saloon. Horsley, a prominent caterer with a number of interests, then concentrated on his Casino outlet, the largest restaurant in Casino at the time, which catered for meetings, banquets, weddings and the like. (He was also a significant ‘away caterer’, competing with Smith of Lismore from whom he won the contract to feed the multitudes at the Bangalow Show in 1918.) Lyvanas however, doesn’t seem to have made a go of it and sold out to the partnership of Comino & Patras in early 1907 and wandered off to Blayney to have another go.

Comino & Patras, who were staked by the Murbah/Casino partnership of Samio & Andronicos, redubbed the joint The Victoria Café. But they went bust within 6 months and there appears to be no further Greek presence in Kyogle until 1910 when Theo Minucoe set up shop. Comino could be 15yr old Gregory Comino, later an employee of Jack Aroney at Murbah, while Patras was 23yr old Con, brother of Theo Zeanopoulos of Mullumbimby and earlier of Lismore.

Theodoros Ioannis Minoukhos (Aroney), aka Theo Roney and Theo Minucoe, was a nuggety little bloke of 5ft 1½ins who earned distinction in the sporting arena. He arrived from Aroniadika on Kythera as an 11yr old in 1901 and in the NSW Sport Club’s wrestling championships in 1907 got to the final of the light weight division ‘and was only beaten after a bitter and sustained struggle.’ In 1908, when ‘he came down from Murwillumbah where he is an employee in a fish and oyster saloon’, he again won second prize and a medal in the lightweight division. In 1909 he gained another medal in an amateur wrestling contest and the following year he played in the team that won the state’s rugby union premiership. But he didn’t escape unscathed; under ‘distinguishing features’ on his Alien Identity Card was: scars on forehead and both ears cauliflowered.

[A fellow Kytherian sportsman in the district at the time was Peter Nick Mazarakis, the brother-in-law of Denis Cordatos of Casino. He was a boxer and runner of some renown, coming to Lismore in 1908 to work for Peter Comino and remaining in the region until mid 1910 before moving on, eventually settling in Forbes around 1912/13 with his brother Andrew.]

In 1910, when the railway reached Kyogle, Theo came across from Murwillumbah and opened a confectionery shop and ice-cream parlour in partnership with his newly arrived sister Anthee who, in 1916, aged 16, married Antonio Cordatos in Casino, leaving Theo, and by then his brother Peter, to carry on. 

Having learnt from the experience of the two previous Greek attempts, it appears that they never attempted to open a classic Greek oyster saloon, at least initially. A bloke named W. Hoffman dominated this more substantial trade with a large two-storey establishment incorporating its own refreshment rooms, fruit shop, bakery with specialist pastry cooks, and a host of general catering facilities.

The railway had accelerated growth and just before the war the Kyogle population had reached 1000, with about 3000 in the surrounding district engaged in milking cows and chopping down trees. In 1915 the biggest drought on record hit the district, which no doubt affected business and forced Peter’s move to Murwillumbah. At the same time Theo and Anthe must have moved temporarily to Dubbo, as in 1915 he was recorded as a member of that town’s winning rugby league team. Whether the business was leased in the interim is uncertain, but Theo and Anthee were back behind the counter in Kyogle in 1916. Earlier, in 1912, he must also have taken some time off to play Union, as that year he represented NSW against QLD, at the same time he won the QLD Wrestling Championship.

He left town in early 1918, just before Kyogle’s pioneering wood veneer industry started to stimulate more growth, and moved to Brisbane for a few months before ending up in Dubbo. Whether he sold the business or walked away from it is unclear, although there’s a suspicion he may have been burnt out. He spent seven years in Dubbo before moving to Sydney in 1925 and taking up employment with Aroney Bros in George Street. His brother Peter, who all up had spent ~3yrs in Murbah and ~5yrs in Kyogle, had established a ham and beef shop in Sydney around 1920 and became foundation Vice-President of the Kytherian Brotherhood of Australia in 1922.

The Kyogle Examiner of 21st May 1919 records: “The undersigned wish to announce that they have purchased the business lately conducted by Mr. L. Brown. The business will remain closed for a fortnight during alterations, when the firm will open with a large and fresh stock of fruit and confectionery. Fresh fish and meals at all hours.
                                                 Malano & Peter"

The proprietors were the Kytherians George Ioannis Malanos and Peter Nickolas Megaloconomos (Conomos) who had been trading together at Coraki for the previous couple of years.

While they began trading together from Laurie Brown’s bakery, tea rooms and soda fountain shop, renaming the place The Richmond Café, it seems George split from Peter in about 1921/22 and wandered off to Nimbin to open a branch office, possibly remaining a silent partner until at least 1930.

Peter Conomos, born in Milopotamos in 1900, had landed as an 11yr old and worked as a messenger boy in Sydney until going to Coraki sometime during the war. Family folklore has it that as a young lad he had gone to Egypt with a brother, perhaps making the acquaintance of Theo Vangi, another Egypt and Coraki identity. A little after George left for Nimbin Peter began trading as Peters Richmond Cafe and, in 1922, at the time of purchase of a second café, as Peter & Co Cafe, but shortly afterwards and finally as Peters & Co, the same trade name Malano had used whilst in partnership with his brother-in-law, Peter Glitsos/Gleeson, at Coffs Harbour until moving to Coraki in ~mid1917. 

The second outlet was the ex-home of Mrs Jolly’s tea room and confectionery shop, one door down from their existing business where Birkbeck’s Menswear shop now stands. The place was renamed the Golden Star Sundae Shop and boasted in its opening adverts that it was fully equipped with electric fans, concomitant with the launch of Kyogle's Electricity Undertaking. They had a successful first day’s trading and donated the takings, £55, to the Kyogle Hospital Fund.

The Golden Star was placed in the management hands of Jim John Coroneo and about a year or so later he became a full partner, presumably after some machinations with Malano's holding. Jimmy landed in 1914, aged 13, and spent most of his time at Inverell and Casino prior to coming to Kyogle in late 1921, allegedly with his brother Angelo, and joining the partnership in Jan22. Angelo died in late 1924, about the time of the arrival of his brother and sister, 16yr old Peter who came to Kyogle and 18yr old Anna who went to Glen Innes. And then in 1926, the year Anna married Peter Nick Crethary at Glen Innes, the last brother, 13yr old Leo (Manolaros), turned up. 

On Christmas day 1926 both the Cafe and Sundae Shop, along with 13 other buildings, went up in smoke. This was the worst fire in the history of Kyogle and razed all these buildings on the western side of Main Street south of Geneva Street up to and including the Commercial Hotel, leaving a damage bill of over £100,000. Peters & Co erected a temporary cafe on the southeast corner of Main and Geneva Streets, on the corner block still vacant after the earlier 1919 fire, where they carried on business until their new premises were completed eleven months later, by which time Efstratios Emmanuel Glytzos/Glitsos (Stan Gleeson) had become a partner.

Stan was 23yrs old when he landed in late 1924, spending about 4mths in Sydney followed by a 12mth stint with the Mellitos Bros at Binnaway, near Coonabarabran, before coming to Kyogle in mid 1926, apparently with sufficient funds to buy into the Conomo/Coroneos partnership, although he may have been staked by a family member, many of whom were around the place by this time. His cousins, the pub owning Gleesons of Coffs Harbour and Urunga landed in 1908, while his uncle, Peter Stan Gleeson, landed in 1910 and after periods in Lismore, Sydney and Barraba, based himself in Brisbane sometime during the war. Stan’s older brother, Dimitri, had landed in early 1924, coming to Kyogle 6mths later. He was never in the partnership, remaining as a cook for Peters & Co through to his death in Kyogle in 1972.

Kyogle – Consolidating

In January 1927, a month after the fire, the partnership managed to cobble together £2640 to purchase the block on which the Richmond Café had stood and a few months later commissioned an architect to build them a giant new edifice. The new brick building, an elaborate art decor establishment with three shop fronts across a substantial 66ft frontage and a residence above, was opened with a competition to rename the new combined restaurant/cafe, with a prize of £10 for the best suggestion. The winner was ‘The Fairymount’, the name of the original squatting run in the Kyogle district. But whilst this became the official name, the cafe continued to be known as Peters by the locals and a giant sign on the second storey proclaimed it as such. Nevertheless, a compromise was reached; immortalised on the footpath in front of the building are the names PETERS and FAIRYMOUNT, set in large brass letters to denote the men only cafe and the more ‘exclusive’ dining room respectively. For the rest of his life Stan policed the dining room with great rigor, emulating Angelo Crethar of Lismore by barring anyone who didn’t meet his high dress standards and often rejecting any male not accompanied by a lady. The new building was opened on 1st December 1927, festivities culminating in a dance in the café that lasted into the wee hours. The day and night’s takings were donated to the Kyogle Memorial Hospital and the Country Women's Association Rest Room Fund, practices that continued through the years.

Stan's father, Emmanuel, had migrated to Smyrna from Kythera in the early 1890s and, except for a short sojourn in Athens, where Stan was born in 1901, remained there for the rest of his life. Kytherians had been migrating to Smyrna since the 1700s so much so that a well-established quarter of the city was called Tsirigotika, a clan name adopted by many who were subsequently forced out. (To this day Kythera is still known alternatively as Cerigo/Tsirigo.) Just prior to the slaughter and destruction in Smyrna in 1922 there were 25,000 people there claiming Kytherian descent, most of whom had access to the superior schools and opportunities not available to their home island compatriots. Stan however, was schooled in Athens and became a well-educated man fluent in five languages. Upon return to Smyrna he was drafted into the army, rising to sergeant major before being captured by the Turks and imprisoned, where his skills as an interpreter made him a leading figure amongst the POWs. His brother Dimitri also served against the Turks during WW1 and afterwards.

Their circumstances thereafter were fraught with peril as turmoil engulfed Smyrna. Their parents and brother Con, a soldier in the Greek expeditionary army in Asia Minor, were amongst the first to die in the bloodbath after the Turks moved on Smyrna. During the chaos and confusion that followed, Stan, having sussed the self-interest of the POW camp commandant, was able to buy his freedom by handing over the bulk of his father’s buried gold horde. Retaining ten sovereigns for himself he was eventually able to get on board a boat heading to Egypt where he was fortunate in meeting up with Dimitri who had managed to get out a little earlier. In Port Said they meet up with a cousin from Kythera, Stephanos George Gletsos, and in 1924 the three were able to secure separate passages on boats to Australia, Stephanos arriving with Zafiro Jim Crethar of Lismore. The only other family member to survive was their nephew Manuel.

Stan’s adoption of the name Gleeson was due to his cousins, Nick and Peter Glytsos, from Kypriotianika on Kythera, who had established themselves as Peters & Co at Bellingen before WW1 and saw the wisdom of anglicising the name after experiencing the excessive wog and dago baiting of the times. It’s likely that Stan called in on them on his way north and possibly was staked by them to acquire his share in the Kyogle partnership.

Meanwhile some Greek competition had arrived in town. Around mid 1927 Emmanuel Harry Andronicos came from Lismore to acquire what looks like the café/fruit shop of the Chinaman, Kong Young, although it could have been the short-lived venture of Jack Panaretto. In Sep1926 Jack, Lismore's man-about-town, was given a farewell party at the Iveli residence in Carrington Street, at which 'fifty guests were present, and an enjoyable time was spent in dancing, games, and vocal and instrumental items...,' and Jack spoke of his excitement to 'enter business on his own account at Kyogle....' But no record can be found of his presence here. Whatever the circumstances, Manuel revamped the place into the Neptune Fish and Oyster Saloon, but, possibly like Jack, doesn’t seem to have made a go of it, quietly leaving town in late 1928, although he was still being sued in mid 1930 by the fruit and veggie wholesaler of Lismore, Paul Coronakes, over outstanding bills. Thereafter Peters & Co had the place to themselves until Alex Dimitri Samios (Foundas) turned up in 1935 to build the Cabaret Cafe.

By early 1928 the rebuilding of Kyogle had been completed, with a new Norco factory amongst other things, and a rosy future looked assured, in contrast to economic fears around the rest of the region. In 1926 the railway line from Kyogle through to Brisbane got underway, although it had a bumpy start with frequent financing delays, but eventually attracting Commonwealth money, marking the Fed’s first ever foray into the railway business. The announcement of the project had attracted unemployed from all over the place and the delay in getting started was causing great distress. By mid 1926, when the first sod was turned at Kyogle to mark the official commencement of the project, over 200 blokes, sleeping in tents and under bridges, were nearing starvation. Nevertheless, things picked up, particularly after 1928, and gave the district a huge economic flow-on. Seventeen large camps, mainly tents but with boarding houses following, were set up along the line and housed around 1500 people through to the project’s completion in 1930. The concomitant demand for carriers, teamsters, horse yards, garbage collectors, butchers, bakers, dentists, doctors, hawkers, milkmen, tradesmen, quarry workers, sleeper cutters, boarding house operators and a host of other service providers had a knock-on effect throughout the whole shire and gave the business houses of Kyogle cause for much rejoicing.

The hundreds of navvies and support staff transiting thru gave a ready-made captive clientele to Peters & Co, and over the years the restaurant did a roaring trade providing breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in-between to these guys, so much so that at its peak the Fairymount had a staff of twenty working in shifts. (At Cougal, the largest camp, the population peaked at 1000 and gave rise to a school, various stores, a mercers shop, barbers, refreshment rooms, billiard rooms, bakers, a post office, police station, public hall, ply mill and a base for many carriers whose business boomed through carting steel, rivets, timber, gravel, sand, cement, horse feed, rails, girders and general provisions. The Tunnel through the main section of the McPherson Range, a great engineering feat, employed about 600 men directly and many more from the wider vicinity.) Provision of services and commodities also flowed on to most towns in the region, Byron Bay, for instance, providing all the sand. By the time of the official opening on 27Sep1930, £4,791,952 had been expended on the line thru to Grafton. And the opening of the Grafton bridge on 8May1932 gave a single gauge run from Sydney to Brisbane, cutting 6hrs off the old two-gauge route through Tenterfield and Wallangarra. 

It was Casino however, that had to wear the aftermath, the navvies making the place their resort-of-choice where they rode out the Depression in the forlorn hope of more railway work. But Kyogle too, had to do a little penance for the good times. And suffer a bit of anti-dago sentiment - an unusual incident involved a custodian of the law when a policeman and a few mates from Casino got a little carried away on a night out in Kyogle in mid 1930. They came to the café for a feed around 7PM and after some odd goings-on in the Ladies Dining Room the constable challenged 18yr old Leo Coroneos thus: I will fight you ------ and I will put up fifty quid to fight the whole blooming lot of you dagoes. Leo ordered them out and was knocked over for his impertinence. At the subsequent court case the magistrate told him your idea of swearing and mine may be different and asked him to repeat ‘------‘. Leo said They referred to us as ------ dagoes. The Magistrate dismissed the charge of ‘behaving indecently’ but fined the constable two quid for ‘insulting words’, although it was unclear whether ‘dago’ or ‘-------‘ was the offending word. At the same time in Casino, where Maltese railway navvies were being naughty, George Valos also had a bloke before the beek for ‘insulting words.’

Into 1931The number of families and persons receiving assistance from the police has increased considerably recently, and is now well on towards 100 a week. ...The veneer Company’s three-ply factory continues to work part-time, and Norco’s staff is being fully maintained because of recent good rains leading to increased cream production …and work may be available for the right sort of men on some farms. The plight of the share farmer is probably the most distressing. One share farmer who recently lost his position at a local district centre, has a wife and 14 children. Since Christmas he has had only two weeks work… With so many additional taxes to pay, few dairy farmers are now in a position even to let farms on shares.... But while the dairy industry was as distressed as elsewhere, the Kyogle farmers kept breaking production records and by Oct31 a new Norco building was underway, at the same time the Northern Star could have been referring to Kyogle when it editoralised on North Coast Progress. Visitors from other parts invariably speak of the progressive spirit in evidence in North Coast districts…. The Richmond, once an area of scrub land, is the premier dairying district of the State. Other North Coast districts – the Clarence, Brunswick, and the Tweed – have also made remarkable progress, and boast of bright towns. “It is like meeting a breath of fresh air to come to the North Coast”, said a prominent visitor recently....

The Kyogle dairy industry continued to expand at a greater rate than anywhere else, particularly from 1933 when more crown lands were opened up and the ballots were being swamped with applicants, despite a continuing famine of farm hands: Dairy farmers in the Kyogle district are finding difficulty in obtaining men or youths for work on dairy farms. The big road works now in progress absorbed practically every available man and youth in the district. Although the wages are not high on the road work jobs, the men work only five days a week, and earn more in that period than they could earn in seven days on dairy farms....

The road ‘work relief schemes’ throughout the shire were massive undertakings, employing more people than any other LGA in the region. The major project, connecting Kyogle with the Bruxner through Woodenbong, started in Sep32 and gave work to hundreds of men living in camps along various sections, while locally the farmers maintained their own - ...During the last year the spirit of self-help manifested itself to a marked degree, and many miles of roads were graveled by the farmers and the lorries and drivers by the shire... said the Northern Star in a review of 1933... Depression, as it has been understood during the last four years in the congested areas of the State, has not, as yet, cast its shadow over this district... For months unemployment has been unknown. There are no empty houses and no empty shops. Not once, during the year, has a 'To Let' notice been exhibited.... And the Shire had far fewer rate defaulters than other LGAs, perhaps because of barter arrangements like the farmer's road work. And for some odd reason, Kyogle was one of the most politically active districts in the region, as was its PPU branch in initiating solutions to the butter marketing mess. (Mrs Perdriau, wife of an earlier Byron MLA, was Group Secretary of the NSW CWA when she initiated that powerful organisations' 'Eat More Butter Campaign' in early 1934.)

The mid 1933 census showed Kyogle was the best performing of the 7 shires in the region, with a median income per male breadwinner of £87, and while it had a 6% male unemployment rate, in Feb34 it had to reluctantly knock back an offer of £1000 from the Unemployment Relief Council because it had nobody on the dole (although there were still a few unemployed - apparently people did not want the dole if they had to work for it, said the secretary of the Urban Area Committee. Kyogle was one of the centres where those 'on the track' weren't entitled to the dole until they'd sat around for 3mths twiddling their thumbs to qualify.)

Kyogle – Post Depression

In 1935 the prosperity attracted Alex Samios to build The Cabaret Cafe, about a 100yds from the Fairymount and adjoining the northern side of the present Exchange Hotel. This was the site of Kyogle’s first hotel, which had been destroyed in another huge fire in 1927 and the allotment left vacant by Tooth & Co. Alex’s purpose-built two-storey affair consisted of a one hundred seat café and a shop for lease at street level, with a cabaret on the large open floor above. The shire president formally opened The Cabaret in mid 1936, but regular dances had been held there prior to this. A few years later however, whether due to lack of patronage and/or the failure of this style of ‘nightclub’ entertainment to catch on in Kyogle, the cabaret was converted to a billiards room. Nevertheless, for a period it was the most modern café in Kyogle, if not in the wider region, and, along with the Vlismas Bros Bellevue Café in Murbah, offered the best cabaret dances on the north coast.

It’s believed Alex found business tough in the face of the Conomo/Gleeson Juggernaut, now boasting three catering outlets. Eventually however, he found his niche clientele and the cafe, more often referred to as ‘the bottom cafe’ or ‘Samios’ Cafe’ by the locals, came good. While he traded as Samios Bros, it’s understood that none of his brothers, except Paul, ever came to Kyogle, although Milton is believed to have helped in the initial establishment of the place and visited often. His brothers, Paul, Milton and Peter, had purpose-built the Marble Bar Cafe in Bangalow in 1925, a year after which Samios Bros, with Alex as the principal, had sold their Mullum Marble Bar Café to Archie Caponas.

Alex, born in Aliozianika in 1899, the son of Dimitrios, a wine merchant and vineyard owner, and his wife Eleni (nee Feropoulos), landed with his brother Milton (Mitilides) in 1912 and worked for his future father-in-law, Mina Anthony Comino, in Sydney, and, after various adventures, including a café at Grafton, acquired the Feros Bros cafe in Mullumbimby in 1921. In 1926 he moved to Brisbane and established or acquired the London Cafe from where he traded for the next 10yrs before finally settling in Kyogle with his wife Theodora. Dora, a Lismore resident with her parents in 1917-18, had returned to Kythera with her mother Marouli (nee Catsoulis, the first cousin of Marouli Panaretos, nee Aroney) in 1924 after Mina’s death and had come back in 1932 upon accepting Alex’s marriage proposal by letter. She was subsequently very active in running their businesses.

Accompanying her to Sydney was her younger brother Tony who worked for Alex in both the London and Cabaret for many years before settling in Brisbane and establishing the Elizabeth Milk Bar. Her youngest brother, Theo, born in Sydney six months before his father’s death, returned in 1939 and also worked in Kyogle, where he was taught English by the catholic nuns, before joining the RAAF mid way through the war. He had also worked for his cousin, Paul Panaretto of the Marble Bar in Casino, for a year or so around 1942, before signing up. After the war, where he served in the Pacific, he worked with Tony in Brisbane for a while before acquiring the Paragon cafe in Hunter Street Newcastle, but subsequently settling in Townsville.

Alex’s brother Milton (Miltiadis) was in Kyogle for a short period, but whether he had any financial interest in Samios Bros is uncertain. He had sold out of his share of Samios Bros in Bangalow in about 1927 and took over the management of the London while Alex was on a holiday in Greece. In 1931 he also returned to Greece where he married Constantina Samios, both coming back in 1932 to eventually settle at Dalby. Over the following years they often holidayed in Kyogle, visiting on family and religious occasions and associating with the wider Kyogle Greek community. Their son, the Hon. James Samios MBE, born in Brisbane in 1933, became a Liberal MLC in the NSW parliament. Paul Samios was the last brother to leave Bangalow in 1943/44 and came to Kyogle with his wife Venetia to act as a shift manager for a period before settling in Sydney in the late 1940s. His financial interest in The Cabaret is another unknown.

Alex sold the business to the Goodellis Bros in 1951 and moved to Brisbane where he died in 1970. Dora and her children, Helen and Jim, sold the land and building in 1980.

Meanwhile Peters & Co had embarked on expansion. In 1936, after Dorgan of Lismore managed to find investors to build him the Roxy Theatre, Gleeson and Conomos established the Roxy Milkbar adjacent to the theatre in Geneva Street, which they ran part time with their families until the theatre closed in the 1960s. But they had established an earlier cafe in 1932, taking up one of the shops in the new £8000 Memorial Institute, rebuilt after another disastrous fire destroyed the old School of Arts, in which Mrs Hassal ran a cafe. This shop, opened under the mysterious proprietorship of Peters Bros on the corner of Main and Stratheden Streets, and simply called The Corner Shop, was allegedly established as an employee incentive scheme, but had the secondary benefit of precluding any competition from town. The intention was for the oldest serving member of the male staff at the Fairymount to be given this cafe to operate as his own for a period of two years, enabling him to make a financial start towards his own business. Possession however, is nine tenths etc and the first manager, Menelaos (Leo) Coroneos, hung on until the early 1940s when he left to join the AIF. After war service he worked in Pittsworth for a while before moving to Ballina in the late 1940s, subsequently going into partnership with his brother Peter who left the Peters employ around 1952.

Simon Angelo Papadopoulos, allegedly another survivor of the carnage in Smyrna and an old boyhood friend of Stan Gleeson, leased the business after Leo left and, proclaiming ownership, renamed it Papas Cafe. He was born in Athens in 1903 and landed in late 1924 after a year in Egypt, perhaps to where he escaped with Stan after the disaster of Smyrna. He was a six footer with an outgoing personality and was well-liked around town, developing a reputation as a bit of a character who smoked like a chimney and couldn’t resist a game of cards or pool. His cafe also had a bit of a reputation as a touch shambolic. [One anecdote has him preparing food over the hot plate with a fag hanging from his mouth when the health inspector walked through the door. He promptly swallowed the smouldering fag and was observed to have had watery eyes for a good period afterwards.] Nevertheless, he had a fond following in Kyogle and all were most surprised when he suddenly walked away from his business in 1964 and disappeared to Brisbane, where he died ten years later.

In 1948 Peter Conomo married Chrissa Samios, unconnected to Alex, in a grand affair in Brisbane that drew Greeks from all over the countryside. Best man was Angelo Crethar, the doyen of the Greek community of Lismore, while the master of ceremonies was Christy Freeleagus, the Greek Consul to Queensland. Chrissa’s nephews, Jim Samios, who landed as a 16yr old in 1950, and Peter, who arrived as a 14yr old sometime around the mid 1950s, and her brother John, who landed before the war, progressively turned up in Kyogle from the early 50s, becoming employees and remaining until Peter retired in 1958. Jim and Peter then acquired the Bellevue cafe at Warwick, a cafe their father George had owned back in the 1920/30s, employing John for a period until he settled at Maroochydore. Jim was subsequently awarded the OAM for services to the Warwick community. George had arrived in Warwick to join his brothers Peter and Theo who, in early 1919 in partnership with Kery Trifillis, had acquired the Bellevue from Nick Koukoulis and his uncle Jim Menegas, Jim having established the place in 1906 with partners Harry Tsicalas and Mick Catsoulis. Nick became an identity around Coolangatta, Tweed Heads and Murbah, while Jim’s offspring spent many years in Kyogle.

In 1958 Peter sold his share of the business, but retaining his half ownership of the building, to his Godson, Stan’s son Con, and retired to Brisbane. His farewell function was a grand affair, drawing Greeks from all over the region to hear the shire president give a fond speech remarking on his 39yrs of excellent service to the community.  He died whilst on holiday in Athens in 1962 and was buried back at Mylopotamos next to his parents. Chrissa recently died in Brisbane. Their daughter, Maria, married George Samios, the son of Andreas of Ballina.

Stan Gleeson died suddenly at Coolangatta in 1961 and a few years later Katina retired to Brisbane where she died in 1986. They both lie in the Kyogle cemetery. The sons of the partners, Nick Conomo and Con Gleeson, inherited the Fairymount building, but the business, like the café game elsewhere, was rapidly transforming. Sometime earlier, after it became uneconomic to make their own chocolates and cakes, for which they had employed a full time pastry cook, Con, an officer in the CMF, commandeered the shop front where the cakes were displayed and started a sporting goods store from where he sold guns, fishing tackle and the like. The café, reduced to half its original size by a subsequent dividing wall, continued to be operated by Con and his wife Chrissy, nee Aroney of Tamworth, until 1967 when they managed to sell the business to Fred Johnson. The building itself was sold to the accountant Harold Brown in 1983. Con and Chrissy went into the real estate game at Coolangatta for 6yrs, before eventually ending up back in the restaurant business in the Brisbane CBD. Stan’s brother Jim died at Kyogle in 1972, having served the partnership for almost 50yrs.

The cafe, at 85 Summerland Way, the new name for Main Street, has since been through the hands of a number of owners but continues to be known as Peters Cafe and still retains a lot of the old ambience, including the original pressed metal ceiling. What was the Fairymount side of the business is now occupied by a solicitor's office and the end shop is now Millers Shoes. The Corner Shop, aka Pappas Cafe, at 131 Summerland Way, closed in 1964 and initially became a photo studio before undergoing a couple of makeovers to reach its present status as Gateway Office Supplies. The drop in the floor where the deep fryer was sited is a trap for the unwary.

Over the years the Conomos/Gleeson partnership made significant contributions to the Kyogle community. A tradition established way back was the showering of the Citizen’s Brass band with one and five pound notes as they played beneath the balcony of the café each Christmas. Stan’s good friend was Fr.Nichols, the local catholic priest who had a daily appointment in the cafe for his cup of Greek coffee. Somehow the good Father managed to lay a guilt trip on the two tough-minded partners who ended up donating the front doors for the new church. But they got even by also donating the front doors for the new Methodist church. In its heyday  ‘Peters’ was Kyogle’s most popular meeting place, remaining a very well-run and successful establishment, due in part to Stan Gleeson’s authoritarian management style, for nigh on 50yrs. [For the trivia buffs, the 1943 wages book shows he paid a pastry cook £5 per week, a general cook £4/10/6 and a waitress £2/8/9.]

The Goodellis Bros, Con and Mick, born in Athens, 1925 and 1929 respectively, bought the Samios business and leased the premises in 1951. Con landed in 1940 and almost immediately joined the Army, which packed him off to serve in Bougainville, the Solomons and other unfriendly places in the southwest Pacific, while Mick survived the havoc of Athens to land in 1947. He left for Brisbane in 1956, the same year Con married Irene Appo of Lismore. Their sister, Christina, married Con Drougas, perhaps he earlier of Coraki. Con and Irene continued to run the business, still known as Samios Café, until 1961 when they sold out to Don and Marj Blinkton and moved on elsewhere. The Blinkhorns renamed the place Summerland Café, which it continued to be known as for the next 30yrs or so as the business passed through a number of hands. But today it is trading at 57 Summerland Way as Goody’s Cafe and still retains a little of the old style ambience of that classic cafe period.

The first Greek outside the café stereotype was Tony Lazaredes, a chemist born in Townsville to refugee parents from Sethitye, on the coast of Asia Minor, who had made their way to Australia via Crete and Athens after the infamous population exchange of 1922. Tony and his wife Marion, a local girl and also a chemist, bought Fords Pharmacy in 1963 and became prominent citizens in Kyogle. They retired to the Gold Coast in 1995.

Another later arrival was Spiro (Pip) Perdecaris who came up from Sydney in 1980 and acquired the Kyogle Newsagency and freehold. Pip was born in Sydney, but with the Greek wanderlust blood in his veins ventured out into country NSW after leaving school and worked in hardware stores, particularly in Boggabri and Blayney, before returning to Sydney with wife Netta and purchasing a newsagency at Fairlight after a stint as manager of an electrical store. Still with itchy feet, he moved down from Kyogle in 1986, subsequently buying Cappucinos in Lismore from Peter Coronakes.

In its heyday in the 1930s and 40s Kyogle looked like becoming one of the major towns in NSW. Through to the war and beyond it continued to grow as the commercial centre of one of the biggest dairy production regions in the nation. But while it enjoyed the temporary blip in growth experienced by most towns immediately postwar, soldier settlements and the wave of mass migration passed the shire by. And while Kyogle town itself continued a slow growth until 1960, the shire population peaked at around 11,500 in 1950, when there were still 840 commercial dairies operating, the highest concentration in the region, but thereafter stagnation set in and by 1977 the number of dairies had declined dramatically to 118.  Things picked up in the 1980s and since then, despite a fright in the late 1990s, it has experienced steady development and a lively township, being blessed with old-established families and businesses who retain an active interest in community affairs and the town’s progress.

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Nimbin

Nimbin was slow getting off the ground and its first building, the School of Arts, wasn’t built until 1902. Then came a general store in about 1905, followed by a boarding house, bakery, a couple of houses, a church, a school and the butter factory, and by the start of the war it was up and running. At the time George John Malano turned up from Kyogle in 1921/22, when the dairy industry was riding high, the place had a population of 800 people being serviced by three cafes. It seems this competition and the decline in profitability of the dairy industry forced a temporary return to Kyogle around the mid 1920s, when he was recorded as proprietor of Malano's Fish Shop, perhaps implying he was no longer a partner in Peters & Co. But upon coming back to Nimbin in early 1930 he took a leaf out of the Peters & Co marketing manual: George Malano, late of Kyogle, announces that he will be opening an up-to-date café in Nimbin… £1/1/- will be paid to anyone in Nimbin or district selecting the most suitable name for the café…. This was a desperate Depression decision given the high failure rate of other cafes in the region at this time. ‘Blue Mount Café’ eventually won the naming game and he proceeded to offer meals all hours... Hot Dinners... Fresh Fish every Wednesday and Friday…and also introducing the Latest American Fountain Drinks. The only other cafes in town at this time appear to be Duncan’s Refreshment Rooms, Fredericks' Café and The Diggers Shop, run by T.C. Lucas, late of the AIF.

Outside Lismore the Terania Shire appeared to be the first recipient of unemployment relief grants, getting £1132 in late Jul30 for the Cawongla to Kunghur Road (increased to £4000 in early August), which initially employed 12 men but was increased to 50 as work progressed. In mid August it was advised that Labour exchanges throughout the country have received instructions that the migration of unemployed to distant places where work is going on will be prevented as far as possible and local men get preference. Thus Terania council will absorb the unemployed men on its own electoral roll before engaging men from outside, presumably including Lismore, home to Terania Shire Council. It was all spent by by early 1931, at which time the shire's financial position is very much worse than it was twelve months ago, due to the large over-expenditure during the past year resulting in an increase of the overdraft of £3751 and the reduction of £1600 in Government endowment, making a total shortage for 1931 of £5351....

Thereafter no grant money trickled in until the election pork-barrelling of mid 1932, at which time the Teranians won £500 on condition they matched it with £100 from their own coffers. At Christmas they scored another £500 if they could find a matching £500, which was extracted from the 17 farmers along the Terania Creek Road where the money was spent giving work to 30 blokes. At the time of the mid 1933 census there were still 30 men receiving the dole, who were sprung supplementing the food hand-outs by working in banana plantations. The resulting crackdown left only 13 available to start work on the Nimbin-Channon Road by the time the council adopted the work-for-the-dole scheme in Aug33 . But they picked up another 21 on the Lismore register to work around Clunes.

Conversely, the census found 86 self-assessing males as unemployed in Terania, probably inclusive of 448 male breadwinners who reckoned they'd earned no income in the last 12mths (representing 15.5% of total 'breadwinners' and the highest percentage in the region), perhaps indicating a large floating population of blokes 'on the track' and a heap of subsistence farmers working around the clock but generating no income. Nimbin town itself had only grown marginally, to 847, a gain of 45 people in the12yrs since the 1921 census. (The census also sprung another Greek male in town, but his identity remains a mystery.)

By Oct33, when street lights were switched on at Nimbin, a review of council finances indicated that continuing rate defaults would leave a deficit of £6468 and an overdraft of £9668 by the end of the year, but a decision to curtail road maintenance expenditure resulted in the financial position being a little better by the end of the year. Thereafter finances were a juggling act, perhaps the reason for the Main Roads Board, in announcing a £20,000 Cawongla roads project in Mar34, stated it would be carrying out the work itself.

At the same time a bone of contention was the Forestry Commission's assumption of responsibility for building roads into Night Cap Range to allow the highly paid sleeper cutters access to the State Forests. The Commission was already employing 60 blokes on fire breaks, thinning, etc, while the sleeper cutters were earning up to £10/wk each, with each camp producing up to 200 sleepers per day. In early Sep34 a batch of 1800 sleepers from Whian Whian earned £270 at the Bex Hill Depot, from where they were trained to Byron Bay for dispatch to China or New Zealand.

Nevertheless, dairy farming remained Terania's main industry and its decline meant Nimbin went down hill for the next 50yrs, despite the temporary prop-up by the Italian banana benders. In the meantime George sold out to Paul Condoleon in 1935/36, although it’s believed he was still a Nimbin resident in late 1938, when the population still stood at about 800.

In December of that year he returned to Greece for a holiday, but got trapped by the war and by 1943 had run out of money. Somehow or other he made application to the 'Protecting Power' stating he was destitute and was duly awarded a provisional relief pension of 600,000 drachmae per month (about two bob) pending formalising the means of later repayment. How all this worked is a great mystery, but as an Australian citizen with a British passport he fell under the umbrella of some wartime convention. However, without any assets in Australia as security the tricky part was that he had to have a guarantor who would undertake to pay the money back should he later default. Stan Gleeson didn't want to know him and the police eventually tracked down George's brother-in-law, Peter Gleeson of Coffs Harbour, who was prepared to give such an undertaking.

In 1946, with the postwar withdrawal of his pension, George was desperate to return to Australia. But he was once more destitute, unemployed and unable to make any contribution towards the settlement of his debt, causing great hassles in seeking repatriation to Australian through the agency of the British Embassy in Athens. The Australian authorities wouldn’t grant entry until once again he had a sponsor and guarantee of employment, and once again Peter Gleeson came to the rescue. However, it seems the slow working of the bureaucracy meant the matter wasn’t resolved until late 1948 and how George, aged 64 by then, survived in the meantime is an interesting question as Peter Gleeson had cut off his progress payments in late 1947.

Apostolos Emmanuel Kontoleos (Petrocheilos), aka Paul Condoleon, was 25yrs old when he landed from the village of Avlemonas on Kythera in mid 1923 after service in the Greek navy. He spent a couple of years at Delegate in partnership with Emmanuel Leontsinis before joining his brother Nick at Bombala. In 1929 he returned to Kythera and married Pelagia, the daughter of John Condoleon and Kalliopi (nee Vlandis) of Hora, in 1934. That same year they returned to Queanbeyan with Pelagia’s brother Theo, but within a few months were prompted for some reason to go to Murwillumbah. Shortly afterwards however, they heard of Malano’s business for sale at Nimbin, arriving in town in 1935 and remaining for 10yrs before returning to Queanbeyan with Theo, who had in the meantime had adventures in the banana game around Murbah. In 1947 they all moved onto Wellington to acquire the Hollywood café of Theo Frilingos, remaining for 6yrs before going their separate ways; Paul and family to Earlwood in Sydney where Paul died in 1970 and Pelagia in 1992, and Theo who remained in Wellington where he died a bachelor in 1960 at the young age of 42.

Their two sons, Manuel and John, were born 1935 Nimbin and 1941 Lismore respectively. Paul’s cousin, George Kavalinis, the father of Sylvia Petrochilos of Bonalbo, was Manuel’s godfather, while Florrie Crethary (nee Panaretos) of Lismore became John’s godmother. Manuel died in 1982, while John, an architect, now lives in Sydney with his wife Androulla and sons Paul and Christopher who work as systems consultants in information technology.

The Condoleons are of Venetian origin and amongst the oldest families on Kythera, establishing Kontolianika after moving up from Hora. It’s a curious coincidence that they and Petrochilos, the odd men out amongst this regional stronghold of the northern Kytherians, should choose to settle not far from each other in two remote towns either side of Kyogle where Malano and Megaloconomos from Milopotamos were also lone rangers.

The Blue Mount Café remained one of the oldest continuous businesses in Nimbin. Upon leaving town in 1945 Paul handed on the shop to Tom Smith, a local farmer who promptly converted half the premises to living accommodation and the other half into a barbershop. But in the 1970s a café in the hands of Tom Smith was again trading under the name The Blue Mount. It was later eclipsed by the internationally known Rainbow Cafe, established just down the road during Nimbin’s hippy era, which rescued a dying town, and still going strong as a major tourist curiosity, despite the recent fire. 

Earlier the Italians had revitalised the area when they started to appear in the late 1920s. By 1933 they were producing 3000 cases of bananas a month and later, with post war family reunions, Nimbin became one of the major banana producing areas in the country. Their increasing presence however, couldn’t sustain the loss from the dairy industry and by the time the first of the hippies turned up in the mid 1960s bananas had also collapsed, leaving Nimbin as a basket case with a population of 386. By the time The Age of Aquarius arrived in 1972 Nimbin’s population had declined a further 20%, leaving vacant and boarded up shops everywhere. Communally, the hipsters brought up about half the town for peanuts, including the deserted RSL club for $500 and the Rainbow and Hemp Embassy land and buildings for $1000. Today the banana and dairy industries have disappeared entirely and Nimbin is now propped up by marijuana and associated industries. Andrew Kavasilias now runs one of Nimbin’s popular Cannabis Cafes. 

Bonalbo

Bonalbo was almost a beneficiary of the money being thrown around for the rail line into Queensland. In early 1928 the Premier visited the Northern Rivers and was heavily lobbied for a Casino-Bonalbo line that would cure the alleged population drift from the district, having apparently dwindled to 350 farming families. The line, it was argued, would give residents access to cheap freight and easy export of their dairy produce, as well as opening up the country to more settlers and releasing the huge timber reserves. At this time the Bonalbo factory was producing mountains of butter and the cold storage was overflowing, warranting removal of the excess to Mallanganee on the Bruxner Highway 14 miles away, a distance which was a two day transport task for a bullock team. The Premier was swayed and the first sod turned at Casino in mid 1928, four days before Bonalbo’s new butter factory was opened, which 12mths later was absorbed into Norco.  Alas, the rail project was a stop/start affair and didn’t pick up until early 1929 when the navvies from the Kyogle-Border line began to be progressively laid off as that project neared completion. But in early 1930 it was once again curtailed, and finally aborted in late 1930. Many of the navvies and locals were then employed on the various Kyogle Shire road work relief schemes. The major road project, the Bruxner Highway, started in 1924, was completed in early 1930, and by the census of 1933 Bonalbo town could boast 480 people, a spectacular 234% growth on 1921 and the highest in the region. Whilst the Depression meant that implementation of Kyogle Shire’s full road network plan was delayed, nevertheless major undertakings included the Kyogle-Woodenbong upgrade, which employed 600 men in two shifts through to late 1932, the ongoing work through Bonalbo, Urbenville, Woodenbong to the border, completed in early 1935 with an expenditure of £243,800, and many new bridges, one of which connected Bonalbo and Woodenbong in 1934. Bonalbo, like the rest of the shire, was thus insulated from the worst of the Depression and looked to have a rosy future when the first Greeks turned up.

Aris/Arthur Harris (Kharalampidos), from the island of Imbros, opened the Blue Bird Cafe and grocery business at Bonalbo on behalf of Harris Bros in early 1934, just as 7 new shops and 6 new cottages neared completion, along with a nice new bitumen road through the town to Old Bonalbo, while the butter factory was churning out 500 tons a year and its number of suppliers had grown to 125. And all while the timber industry was expanding like the clappers. By early 1934 the Bonalbo Timber Co was cutting and milling 2,000,000 super feet per year and marketing all over Australia, and boasting that the quality of its product was such that it had been selected to floor Parliament House in Canberra.

The other half of Harris Bros was Antonios Athanasios Kharalampidou of the Blue Bird Café at Merriwagga, close to Hillston where the Cordatos Bros of Casino had settled, who was still listed with an interest in the Bonalbo business in 1937. (And local folklore has it that Harris Bros in fact built their Bonalbo store in 1930?)  Arthur and wife Mary sold out to Askew Bros and left town in about 1946, at which time the café was renamed The Bankok, possibly due to the dry humour of Marty Askew and his memorable meals in Changi prison. The place is now a mini supermarket.

In 1938 Panagiotis Emmanuel Petrochilos, born in Alexandrades on Kythera in 1906, was the next to arrive, purchasing the newsagency and later extending it into a general store. He had landed in 1922 in Melbourne where he spent many years working in a wide variety of jobs, including cleaner and cook in hotels, before accumulating the capital to go the traditional Greek route of café proprietorship. He subsequently had cafes at Eden, Canberra and Wagga before ending up at Lake Cargelligo where, having assessed the potential of other business opportunities, he began looking for a newsagency. He put his requirement in the hands of an agent who eventually managed to trace such a business for sale in the remote town of Bonalbo. But he may have been pointed in this direction by Tony Kharalampidou of nearby Merriwagga.

He married Argyroula (Sylvia) Kavalinis in Sydney in 1941. Sylvia was born in Fremantle in 1921 when the boat bringing her parents, George and Eleni (nee Leontsinis), and brother Spiro, made its first port of call in Australia. They moved on to Sydney where the family settled at Kingsford and where the last children, Katerina and Peter, were born. George and Eleni, married in Avlemonas on Kythera in 1919, were one of the rare couples at that time to arrive as a family unit. As a general rule most Kytherian males arrived alone and worked for many years before being able to bring their families out or, in case of the more numerous single males, get married and raise a family. Peter and Sylvia had two daughters, Eleni and Marina, who went to school in Casino and stayed during the week with Nick and Florrie Crethar. Peter was also the Godfather of Steve Zantiotis of Casino, and both families subsequently had a close relationship.

Peter was the only one of his family to migrate but, with Greg Londy (Leondarakis) of Casino, shared a relationship with the Collarenebri identity, Emmanuel Basil Petrocheilos. Peter died in Lismore 3Sep88 aged 82, while Sylvia still lives in Bonalbo. Their daughter Eleni, who now lives in Casino, described her father as ‘a man who loved everything and everybody and firmly believed that you got out of the community what you put in’.

By the time of Peter’s death Bonalbo was recovering from its slump, which saw it decline to its 1933 population by the mid 1970s. Post war however, it had been one of the rare villages to go against the region’s trend, peaking at 630 people in the mid 1950s, a growth of 30% on pre war figures and greater than all the main population centres. Alas, the rapid decline of the dairy industry ended what looked like a bright future.

Woodenbong

It seems Theo Peter Lahanas established a café here sometime in the late 1920s when the place was smaller than Bonalbo, being home to about 300 people, but, like Bonalbo, amongst the handful of places experiencing  the highest growth rates in the region, particularly through the Depression. He had landed from Potamos on Kythera in 1900, aged 18, and gone direct to Inverell to do his on-the-job training with Spyro Peter Panaretos. Three years later he moved to Sydney and in 1910, after another stint at Inverell, established the first Greek presence in Wauchope. Just before the war he sold out to the Cassimatis Bros and moved to Kempsey to relieve his brother John who had decided Hobart offered a more discerning clientele for his gourmet oysters. And then in 1920 he sold out to the Motte Bros and came to this region, mainly working at Kyogle, where a number of Lahanas’ appeared over the years, until deciding to test the market over the border at Killarney around the mid 1920s. But it seems he sold to Peter George Malano a couple of years later and returned to NSW, perhaps with a stint at Nimbin before setting up shop at Woodenbong.

The road linking Woodenbong to the Bruxner Highway through Urbenville and Bonalbo was one of the first to attract finance in the Depression work relief schemes, granted £2000 in Jul32 and employing 80 blokes within a month and 250 by early 1933, at which time the Woodenbong-Kyogle road, now the Summerland Way and one of the most important roads in the district, became part of the network that received a whopping £280,000 from the Unemployment Relief Council. Towards the end of the year 140 miles of road and numerous bridges were under construction, with camps established all over the place, allegedly one at Grevillia temporarily building to 1152 men. The roads enabled closer settlement, opening up more grazing and dairy land and giving easier access to the timber resources, so much so that in 1933 Woodenbong’s population had grown to 362 and the butter factory had 80 suppliers.

Theo died in 1936 and shortly afterwards his café was acquired by Peter John Crethar of Lismore. He landed from Karavas, on the northern tip of Kythera, in the late 1920s and worked for his cousins, Nick and Harry Dimitrios Crethar, in the Regent cafe in Lismore until putting his own stamp on the Lahanas café, making it over into Crethars Café, under which name it remained for the next 25yrs. He married Garavgalia (Fofo) Crethary, the sister of Peter Nicholas Crethary of the Monterey Cafe in Lismore. Together they traded in Woodenbong until the early 1950s when they passed the business to Peter's nephew, also named Peter Crethar, son of his brother Harry of Tenterfield, and moved to Brisbane.

Peter Harry Crethar had landed in December 1939 and after a short period with his father in Tenterfield, and Minas (Mick) Crethar at the Empire Cafe in Stanthorpe, came to join his uncle at Woodenbong in late 1940. He grew up here, doing the usual Australian things of playing football, cricket and tennis, before starting a boot repair business, acquiring a milk run and then a cream run, which he ran for 6yrs between Urbenville and Woodenbong, before taking over his uncle's business. He sold up in 1961 and moved with his family to Brisbane, so ending the Greek presence in this neck of the woods.

Peter married Alexandra Mariakis/Maliaroudakis (Alice Miller), the niece of Fofo Crethar, in 1945. Alexandra and her sisters were sent down to Woodenbong from Brisbane during the war because of their mother's fear of Japanese bombing raids. Her mother, Marianthi, was foundation Vice-President of the Orthodox School Committee in Brisbane in 1931, with Maria Sargent, mother of the Sargents of Lismore, as President.

Woodenbong continued to be a curiosity in defying the trends of similar sized towns. In 1947 the population had surpassed that of Bonalbo, reaching 515, an extraordinary growth of 42% on post Depression figures. Although it continued to grow, Bonalbo again took the lead in the mid 1950s, but thereafter both places went into rapid decline. Nevertheless, over the period of the early 1990s, when all towns were again haemorrhaging, it grew an extraordinary 8%, and today with 382 people is again bigger than Bonalbo. It remains the centre for another 200 people in the surrounding timber and dairying industries.

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