Author Helene Sutherland says her late husband John had a reputation for doing the impossible.
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In fact, his own motto, which is printed on the back of Mrs Sutherland’s new book, The Salvage of the Alexander Arbuthnot 1972-1973, was ‘The impossible we do straightaway, miracles take a little longer’.
Mr Sutherland made many miracles happen in his time, successfully conquering rare and difficult tasks at which others had tried and failed.
Mrs Sutherland’s book tells the story of one such feat when he headed a hard-working team of volunteers to raise a sunken paddle steamer from the watery grave where it had lain sunk in the Murray River for 25 years.
The Alexander Arbuthnot was the last paddle steamer to be built as a working boat on the Murray River during the riverboat trade era.
It was named after the former owner of the Arbuthnot Sawmills, Alexander ‘Squire’ James Cooke Arbuthnot, in Koondrook, where shipwright Charles Felshaw built it.
It began life as a barge in 1916 before being commissioned in 1923 and towed to Echuca to be fitted with an engine, boiler and superstructure.
Last year, its centenary was celebrated in Echuca, where it is now being used as a historic passenger tour vessel, and Koondrook.
Mrs Sutherland had never considered writing a book about her husband and his team’s salvage of the paddle steamer until its 100th birthday rolled around and she was tasked with providing information and images for the celebrations.
“I had no intention whatsoever of writing this, but Suzan Dalziel from the Port of Echuca got in touch with me and got all my old albums and slides from 50 years previously,” she said.
“They did a wonderful exhibition up there and had a big celebration.
“That was in September and, then in October, they had one in Koondrook.
She said Koondrook Progress Association president Tom Chick had persuaded her to go on breakfast radio to tell the story.
“It was a miracle at the time, but then you forget about it 50 years later; 50 years is gone and you don’t think about it anymore, so it all came back and it was wonderful,” Mrs Sutherland said.
“Tom went on the same program to talk about the celebrations and, when it was over, he rang me and said, ‘You have to write the book’.
Mr Chick told her he believed the story had to be recorded and because Mrs Sutherland had all the accurate information and knowledge, she should be the one to do it.
“I said I’ll record it all for you, but I’m not writing a book,” she said.
“When I started, I thought I’ve got all these old photos and I should do it properly, so that’s how it all started, but I had no intention of writing a book.”
She said she had documented all the history about it for no other reason than she just did.
“I’ve still got the list of every man who worked every day up there and the hours they worked,” Mrs Sutherland said.
“My father had a Super-8 movie camera, so I filmed it as well and part of my film is running up in the museum at Echuca.”
The book was launched to a small group of parties who had played a part in its history at Mrs Sutherland’s Kialla home.
She spoke about how the sunken paddle steamer was wanted by Shepparton City Council and the historical society in Shepparton.
Council’s go-to man at the time, the late Murray Slee, had been told if he could salvage it, he could have it.
Throughout the years, different groups, including the military, had tried to salvage it but were unsuccessful.
“The Shepparton City Council were interested in obtaining the boat for Shepparton, and Murray approached John with the challenge,” Mrs Sutherland said.
“We went up and had a look at it. It looked impossible, but John said ‘I’ll give it a go’.”
It was 1972 and The Sutherlands owned Shepparton Mobile Cranes at the time. They had the machinery but needed extra tools and equipment for the task.
“He just had a flair for doing difficult and strange things,” Mrs Sutherland said of her husband.
All the volunteers in their crew were friends and employees. One was an amateur diver who also had a friend who was an ex-naval diver. The pair spent some 40 hours in the cold waters during winter, because that’s when the river was lowest, therefore easiest to get cables underneath the wreck that had sunk after the river had risen sharply one night in 1947.
Everyone had day jobs, so work was mostly carried out on weekends.
“The day we lifted it was very tense; we thought, ‘Will it break? Will it lift?’,” Mrs Sutherland said.
“Miraculously, it did; it came up out of the water.”
After successfully lifting it, it was gently lowered back down until summer; the crew leaving all the cables and equipment in place.
“When we lifted it up again, it was full of mud and debris and bottles and branches, so all that had to be removed,” Mrs Sutherland said.
“They shovelled and shovelled and shovelled and shovelled, they got it clean and then the next miracle happened. It floated!
“The caulking had never dried out because it had been under the mud and water for 25 years. The hull was in perfect condition.
“We went down the river that day and it never leaked a drop; it was solid as the day it was built.”
After spending time at McGuire’s Punt, it was taken out to former Shepparton theme park The International Village to live on the moat there, providing trips for tourists around the grounds.
Mrs Sutherland said it was great to revisit the memories during the celebrations after such a long time.
“Murray started the whole thing. If it hadn’t been for Murray it would still be up there, sunk,” she said.
“It is an amazing salvage story, there is no doubt about it.
“John did a lot of things that people said couldn’t be done.”
And now having immortalised the fabled paddle steamer’s story in the pages of her new book, Mrs Sutherland will go down in history as doing something quite remarkable too.
You can get a copy of this comprehensive illustrated history at The Shepparton Heritage Centre, the Shepparton Visitor Information Centre at SAM, Dookie Emporium and at the historic Port of Echuca.
Senior journalist