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Jack Hill remembers his uncle William (Bill):
My uncle William was apprenticed as a carpenter in the village and so, when he was enlisted into the army during the years 1914-18, his skills were utilised in true army fashion. He was set to manufacturing hundreds of latrine seats that could be set on top of large buckets for use by soldiers in the trenches.
A more disturbing job was to create thousands of crosses in anticipation of a battle. His was a vital function in so much as bodies could be identified for later retrieval from the battle zone and was consequently kept away from actual fighting, much to his relief.
His seats were not in use in the area frequented by my father, who recalls that the latrines that they used were simply a long trench with wooden poles to support the depositor's weight. It seems that a sense of balance was very important.
In the early days after the construction of the Thornton Waterworks dam in 1854 the idea was that trees would help to hold together the loose spoil and so many forest trees were planted. They must have been quite large because they were all fully grown by 1933 and presented a wonderful backcloth to the works. In addition several Sequoia Wellingtonia and two Araucaria were planted in the grounds, which had also grown to maturity.
Thus from a very young age I was aware of the spongy nature of the Wellingtonia's bark and would give demonstrations at other places by smashing my fist into the tree{with no ill effects of course}.
Later generations of Engineers had a different attitude towards the trees, which meant that Uncle Bill had a continual battle to try and preserve them. The argument was that the trees were too heavy and would eventually fall over and tear away the earth thus weakening the, by now, compacted spoil fill. A visit today would show that eventually the engineers won the argument and the dam and works are now bare of trees.
The open water collection tank was the next item to be corrected. Hygiene standards required that the tank be covered and so steps were taken to provide a concrete lid. Thus the tank was closed down for almost a year and during that time a new pump house was also constructed.
This housed the ram pump, which was activated by the raw water passing to the filter beds and pumped clean water into Thornton. Every stroke of the pump caused eerie sounds to echo around the house; in addition little spurts of water popped out of relief valves. There were also several standby electric pumps but eventually use of the ram was abandoned and the pumps then ran fulltime.
Sometimes it was decided that the bottom water in the dam was getting stale and when the order was given, valves in the flushing pipes were opened and a huge jet
of water would emerge from the 12-inch bore across the bottom section of the overflow channel called the 'Byewash'.
Water usually was taken from the reservoir via the siphon system but in the summer
months the level would fall and cause the siphon to break. When this happened, frantic efforts would be made to collect the workforce, who were then required to man the exhaust pump to clear the air and get a new siphon working. There must have been several tubes with inlets at various levels to cater for this problem of levels.
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