141 LOCAL HEROES – The Gold Man – Richard Darby

Local Heroes

Richard Darby on site at the mine

“The gold man”

Richard Darby

BY TREVOR STOW

Richard Darby was born in Melbourne and attended Box Hill Technical School. As a child, he was drawn towards minerals, mining and any course that involved gold. In 1952 Richard’s mother took him for a trip to Warrandyte, where he immediately walked over to the Yarra River where, as a 6 year old, he took his hanky out of his pocket and attempted to sieve for gold in the Yarra River. Richard knew that this was the site of the first discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851. His first attempts at finding gold were unsuccessful but his success rate would increase with the passing of time. After completing school Richard got a job with Vickers Rowult, a large engineering company as an apprentice fitter and turner.

Work was fine but Richard always had a fascination for gold. During teenage years, Richard used to ride his bike from Ringwood to Warrandyte to pan for gold, a ride of about 15 kms. One day he ran into an old man at the river who told him that “he was doing it all wrong”. This proved to be correct and Richard formed a friendship with the old man who educated him in the correct way to pan for gold. This changed Richard’s approach completely and he became much more successful at finding the precious metal.

At 18 years old, Richard met Lynette who was only 16 years old at the time. They courted for 2 years before getting married in Ringwood and living in Warrandyte. Lyn also loved gold prospecting, which was probably just as well, and often joined Richard chasing it. She also loved her expensive high heeled shoes and even wore then into the hills whilst panning for gold. Needless to say these shoes were not suited to the terrain in gold areas. She went through numerous pairs of shoes, breaking many heels and lucky not to break a leg.

During his days at Warrandyte, Richard constructed a little crushing plant. That plant is now on display in the Warrandyte Museum. Whilst not making his fortune, Richard made enough money to keep his interest up. At this period, Richard ran courses teaching the children from numerous local schools how to prospect for gold. At times he had up to 35 kids in his course. The children were quite successful in finding gold and the schools embraced this outdoor, practical education.

One Sunday, Richard was asked by the commander of the local SES to stage a mock accident in a mine. He told Richard that his SES staff were not to know that it was an exercise and not real. Richard was placed in a mine shaft, covered in fake blood and fake bruising. The SES members were then called in to rescue him. He told them that he had a broken leg and was in severe pain. It took 2½ hours to winch him down from the mine being very careful not to further injure the broken leg. Richard groaned in pain as his “broken” leg banged against the mine wall. He was placed on the ground outside of the mine entrance and reassured by the SES staff that “everything would be OK”. Eventually the staff got a little suspicious as there was no ambulance in attendance.

Eventually, the commander let the cat out of the bag and informed his staff that this was just an exercise. The rescuers were a little taken a back about being conned and did not unstrap Richard from the stretcher for some time.

In 1977, Richard and Lyn moved to Swifts Creek, attracted by the prospect of gold “in them there hills”. He worked for a timber mill for several years before purchasing the iconic Swifts Creek General Store in 1987. Together with his son, Jason, Richard still owns this store. Even though the store provided Richard and his family with their income, chasing gold was always his real passion.

Thirty years ago Richard noticed a person leaving the Swifts Creek pub, across the road from his store, in a vehicle each morning. Curiosity got the better of Richard and he approached this person and asked him what he was doing. That person, Bob Lynch told Richard that he was prospecting for gold in the Haunted Stream area. The 2 men started a friendship that lasts until today.

They formed a small gold company, Mt Gingee Munjie P/L. They obtained a licence and reopened the 900 feet deep Cassilis Mine which went on to produced 3 kilos of gold. At the time gold was only $295 per ounce, as opposed to about $2350- per ounce today, so they did not make their fortune. They went on to sell the mine to a large mining company. Richard stayed on as mine manager for 6 years.

There was significant gold in this mine however, the mining company could not get the necessary permits to fully develop it and also the price of gold was still low. The mine finally closed in 2010. Richard expects that it will again reopen one day.

Richard shows Anthony Bashford the crushing plant.

A great deal of mining equipment is now on site just waiting for the results of the core samples

In the meantime, Richard and Lyn had bought a 300 acre property at Cassilis as a hobby block however Richard knew that there would be gold on this property. Once again, the hobby got out of control and profits from the general store started to get buried in the new mine. Returns from the new mine started to go “OK” helped by the price of gold rising to about $1500- per ounce. Richard and Bob installed a new crushing plant but ran into trouble again by not being able to treat the concentrates on site. At this stage, First AU Gold Company approached Richard and Bob to prospect for gold at this site on behalf of the company.

They have now, recently, done significant core sampling and they are awaiting results. Richard has viewed these samples and is very excited at the prospects.

Some of the gold reefs are up to 3 metres wide with drill holes down up to 600 feet but a lot of the gold is near the surface. The terrain in this area is quite steep but this is no draw back to mining, in fact it assists in accessing the reefs. There are some old tunnels in this mining area and engineers are currently looking at additional tunnels, off the old tunnels. They will soon be diamond drilling these tunnels to check their potential. Diamond drilling is a form of drilling that is low impact on the environment. New, improved technology is helping uncover hidden sites that prospectors in the early 1900’s missed.

Richard says that “finding gold is the easy part; to get permits to operate is becoming an absolute nightmare”. Mining is controlled by many government departments some of which are ignorant to the needs of the miners. Also currently, environment policies make mining almost very difficult. The Darby family tradition continues. During days away from the general store, son Jason now takes his wife and family out gold panning. Grandson Thomas is also working onsite at the mine, unloading truckloads of rock samples. Work at the mine is dirty and hard but Richard who is now semiretired would not have it any other way and he can still peruse his love with gold even harder.

Richard explains to the author and Arthur his plans for this mine site