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If you know exactly where to look as you drive out of South Arm, you can still see the cottage where Maurice Potter’s father grew up. It’s now dwarfed by a pine tree and it’s hard to tell where the house begins and the tree ends.
Maurice himself grew up on the other side of The Neck along Roaring Beach Road. He was one of the 20 children or so who attended South Arm school, which had moved to its existing location in Harmony Lane. Classroom numbers increased during the war years as new families moved in to be close to their fathers who were stationed at the Fort Direction training camp.
Life on the farm altered too at this point as its location next to the Fort Direction camp meant that the possibility of being hit by a stray bullet during live-ammunition training exercises was a very real risk.
Fishing was a big part of Maurice’s childhood and the bluff between Hope Beach and Pot Bay was explored thoroughly for fishing potential with a plank secreted away near The Big Cave to allow easier access to favourite fishing spots such as Morley’s Rock and The Old Woman Rock. Names such as Crayfish Creek near Opossum Bay tell of the bounties which could be found there and the legendary day when Maurice and his father pulled in 70 crayfish has become South Arm folklore. Of course the preparation of such a haul for market was a feat in itself! And yes, they did have a licence to sell fish in those days.
Everyone was expected to contribute in Maurice’s family so early on he established a business catching rabbits. Rabbits could be sold for 10 pence (about $1 now) and those skins in the best condition would fetch 2 pounds per dozen. And there were always those shack-owners arriving for the weekend on the ferry who would buy the meat for their dinner that night.
Maurice left school at 14 and began working for his father. There was work to be done on the farm; fishing, and the number of rabbits never seemed to lessen. Later there was a 3 year contract cutting firewood as land was cleared where the new RSL now stands. Trees were pulled over with a steam tractor, cut into lengths and a splitting gun pushed into the base. This would be filled with gun powder, the fuse would be lit and “you would run like hell”. Maurice and his father cleared 70 tonne of firewood a year in this way, most being sold locally.
On the odd occasion when the family took a well-deserved break, Cremorne was the holiday destination of choice although there was even the occasion where a shack was hired in far-away Opossum Bay as a getaway when family came to stay!
Maurice left South Arm when he was 21 but couldn’t stay away for long, returning to buy his own property in 1963 when the development of Oakleigh sub-division (now Blessington Street) was a real-estate agent’s dream. Maurice and his wife Pauline still live there today and it is through Maurice’s records of the history of the area that we are able to have glimpses of a South Arm very different to that of today.