By Jed Lanyon
Upper Yarra Valley Historical Society’s annual Crank Up festival took place on April 6-7 marking the 43rd year the event has run.
This year’s Crank Up was different to many in previous years as it went by without the historical society’s president Tom O’Meara, who had passed away weeks prior to the event.
Mr O’Meara had a great influence on organising Crank Up and volunteers worked hard to make sure Crank Up would be a success and honour Mr O’Meara’s memory.
Committee member and volunteer Maggie Smith said that she was surprised at the turnout for Crank Up and said that people wanted to show their support for their late president.
“We were a bit floored at first because it was so recent, and he is one who likes to keep it to himself, do it all himself because he does it so well,” she said.
“We were all going ‘what are we going to do? We thought we’re not going to cancel it, we’re going to do it and do it as well as we can because of Tom, and things have just fallen into place, it’s just been wonderful.
“We relied on him for doing so much. Too much actually, we let him get away with doing too much,” Ms Smith said.
“He was so easy to get along with, he was just great. I’m going to miss him tremendously, we all will.
Despite the loss of Mr O’Meara, who was so influential to the success of Crank Up, Ms Smith said the other volunteers will continue to push the event to be its best each year.
“It’s going to be bigger and better; we’re going to keep it going for Tom,” she said.
Crank Up featured a variety of activities including chainsaw wood carvings, a blacksmith, steam engines Clydesdale horses and raffle prizes.
Ms Smith said that the most popular attraction was the animal farm, which had piglets, goats, chickens and ducks.
“It was a really good day, and the animal farm was doing wonders again, it’s just very popular, the kids loved that,” she said.
