Writing the book on town’s past

A NEW work detailing the history of goldmining town Rokewood Junction has been released after four decades in the making.

Titled Going Home to RJ, the book tracks the town’s industries, cultures and families, and author Anne Pitman said it’s been in the works since about 1980.

“Forty years ago, Joan Hunt asked me if I would write the story of Rokewood Junction when she was starting up the Woady Yaloak Historical Society,” she said.

“They ended up putting out books for Illabarook and Cape Clear and surrounds. I started on the book at the time but never finished it.

“During COVID it became my project, so I’ve spent the last three years returning to it. It’s really the story of Rokewood Junction going full-circle from the squatters arriving in the 1830s.

“It’s not my field but I have an interest in local history so I’m so elated to have this finished with some creative editing from my daughter.”

Much of the book focuses on the town’s history from its goldfields impact to its resulting education system from 1861 to 1947 to the railway line established in the early 1900s.

In researching, Pitman interviewed old associates and residents of the town as well as sourcing from public records and a historical collection from her mother who was a member of the Cape Clear Historical Society.

The histories of families with long-time ties to the town are explored, with the Everetts, McCallums and Pitman’s own family featuring.

The final chapter is dedicated to her memories growing up at the town.

“I’m a fifth-generation Pitman,” she said. “I was there for about 18 years before I boarded at Ballarat then moved to Melbourne.

“I was the oldest of seven children. We lived in three houses but predominantly in my great-grandfather’s original miner’s grant 20-acre block.

“My family was at Rokewood Junction from the 1870s to 1982.”

Contact Pitman on 0417 104 831 for a copy of Going Home to RJ for $25 and $11.50 postage.