Boy from the bush

By KATH GANNAWAY
Born: 4 October 1922
Died: 14 July 2005.

“I TOOK to him immensely and knew even then that I was meeting a man of some considerable achievement, with a lot of local history in his life.”
Rick Burke was speaking of his first meeting with Frederick Arthur Lay Fred to everyone, some 20 years ago.
As in most things he did, Fred was right on the ball when he asked Rick to speak at his funeral.
Mr Burke painted a picture of a country boy who embraced the machine age, was unflinchingly generous and a good family man.
He said Fred, who was born at Warburton, grew up with his elder sisters, Ina and Irene, at a time when the only McDonalds were the people who lived down the road.
“Fred’s time before and after school was spent checking his rabbit traps rabbits not only being a staple food line but the skins which Fred treated and sent to Melbourne in sacks of over 100 at a time all contributed to the family’s livelihood.”
It was the beginning of the machine age. The first internal combustionengine tractors in operation were appearing by the time Fred started work. Warburton was an important source of timber for a growing Melbourne and Fred followed his father Alf’s footsteps into the timber industry.
“In 1941 he formed a partnership with another local lad, Vic David Bell, not in timber production but growing vegetables which were sent to Melbourne.
“But Fred and Vic were bushmen, not farmers, and their love of the bush soon led them into falling and milling timber.
“Vic had married Ina and the three of them set out on a remarkable, often difficult, certainly tragic journey through life.”
Axes, wedges and cross cut saws were the tools used when Fred first started.
“But Fred was born at the right time,” Mr Burke said.
“He took to machinery like a duck to water small or large, chainsaw or bulldozer, Fred liked both working it and working on it.”
It was a talent which Mr Burke said set both his destiny and his career path. There was plenty of work and they set up their first mill at Wesburn around 1944.
In 1950 the mill was moved to Yarra Junction and employed 12 people as well as others out the bush. They established a larger mill on the site now occupied by the modern mill which is run by ‘the three boys’ as they are known Garry and Robert, Fred’s sons, and Ina and Vic’s son, David.
The death of Vic at just 37 was a personal and business tragedy. The payment of Probate Duty left the business cash strapped, but intact.
Ina and Fred battled on together Fred back in the bush and Ina on the business end. Fred and Ina were renowned as better than fair bosses.
“It was their philosophy that the men should be able to earn enough to keep a family and they always paid the full union award or above when many at that time didn’t,” Mr Burke said.
In an industry first, they built a rest room for the 12 mill workers to protect them from the weather. In 1961, Mr Burke said, Fred discovered the chain saw. He became the Stihl dealer for the district and a skilled chainsaw mechanic who often worked into the night to rebuild fallers’ saws as Mr Burke recalled.
“Fred had been up most of the night rebuilding a fallers’ saw.
“I said ‘Fred, surely you don’t need to do that any more work all night you certainly can’t need the money’.
“‘No I don’t’ came the stern reply – ‘but that man’s got a wife and kids to feed no saw, no work, no pay’.”
Fred and his wife, Elaine, who predeceased him, went on several Stihl study tours and travelled the world several times.
He said Fred and Ina made it on their own to build the modern, sophisticated Bell & Lay Mill that ‘never in his wildest dreams did he think he’d ever see anything like in his lifetime’.
Mr Burke said Fred remained ‘a man of the bush’ who was successful in business and property, a good family man and successful Hereford breeder winning grand champion at the Royal Melbourne Show.
“He became well travelled, yet he never wanted to live anywhere else but the Upper Yarra Valley, close to his roots, and always remained ‘a boy from the bush’ at heart.”
Mr Lay died after a long illness on 14 July and tribute was paid by more than 200 people who attended a memorial service on Wednesday, 20 July for him at Lilydale. He is survived by his sister, Ina, and sons Garry and Robert, and their families.