As one of the brigade’s longest serving members, Jack celebrated his milestone birthday on Monday, June 17 by indulging in his favourite sponge cake alongside his family and friends.
Jack joined the Loddon Vale brigade 11 years after its formation in 1931, just before the CFA’s inception in 1945.
“Back then, you just did what you had to do,” Jack said.
“We are mostly farmers, and for self-preservation you need everyone’s support and that’s how it goes in a region like this.”
Jack reflected on how members were given five fire beater sticks back in the day before the brigade was provided with the two-wheel driver which carried only 100 gallons of water, back when the captain drove around scooping his troops in the event of a fire as there was no radio.
“We used to have two people working a hand pump until we got the little engines — that made things a lot easier,” he said.
“We were all satisfied if we contained a fire.
“The biggest change has been the arrival of the tanker trucks.”
With his family heavily entrenched in the CFA, it is no surprise the land for the original fire station sits on the Harrison farm next to Jack’s property, which also supplies the station’s electricity and water needs.
“My Dad donated a bit of land for (the station), and we built it with voluntary labour in 1976,” Jack said.
“Then in the later years it got replaced with the one that is standing there today.”
While it is said he was often the first one to take the truck to an incident, it seems his devotion to CFA remains with his daily checking of the air pressure in the truck’s tyres.
Jack frequently engages with brigade members, often stepping out for a friendly chat when at the station, and for many he is a great mentor passing on invaluable knowledge and experience.
“To have CFA around means you feel secure and when the temperature hits over 40 degrees with a howling northerly wind, without the fire brigade you would be very apprehensive,” Jack said.
Jack looks back fondly on his time with CFA, including when he was deployed with his brother Ken for a week to the Gippsland fires at Bairnsdale in 1965.
“We also rode a tanker down to the Victorian coast and headed up east where there was a plantation fire; we stayed there for around three days and the local ladies put us up at night time. This was all in a little Austin tanker.”
The Harrison name continues to thrive at the brigade, with many playing major roles over the years, including Jack’s brothers Ken and Cliff, nephews Chris and Ian and great nephews Luke and Peter.
16°C