It was 61 years ago last Wednesday when Bill Bock arrived in Corowa, possibly for just two weeks.
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“It was a Wednesday at 7.00pm and I remember coming over the bridge from Wahgunyah going past the bowling club where they were practising then up the street where the Rex Picture Theatre was alight – there were people outside,” the 85-year-old retired builder told The Free Press.
“I gave myself a fortnight as I came across the bridge. I was told by the employment officer at Bonegilla the boss would take me for a fortnight on a trial basis.”
As a teenager in East Germany, Bill wanted to learn a trade. “My father was a carpenter and a good one,” Bill said. So the son completed an apprenticeship at two other building firms. He taught gymnastics. But he wanted to make Australia his new home.
At age 24, he did. Bill moved from Bonegilla Migrant Centre to work as a carpenter in Corowa, in a town of some 3,000 people at the time.
“I had been a journeyman for a long time. I had no money.” Except for a couple of years (1963 to 1965) working in other states, Corowa has been Bill’s home for the best part of six decades. “Corowa’s a great little town. I came back.” Wife of 54 years, Roslyn, was the catalyst.
In the very early days of Corowa, Bill stayed at The Terminus Hotel and used to walk on his hands from his room to the end hallway’s bathroom. “Out the hotel window, at the entrance to Ball Park, were these monkey bars – there was nothing else there,” he recalled.
Upon his return to Corowa at Christmas time in 1965, Bill established his own business. He offered to teach gymnastics at Corowa High School on the one condition, there’d be a school teacher in attendance. This popular venture attracted “20 to 25 kids” and increased from one to two nights a week during the three years.
While out walking one evening, he heard noise inside a building via squash players. “I didn’t know the game existed,” he said. “Corowa had a squash court, on River Street where the carpark is at IGA. It belonged to the Royal Hotel. It was meant to be stables where people parked their horses. Every hotel had stables but after a while people had a motor cart.
“Jim Webb, a taxi driver, asked me if I wanted a game. I asked ‘What’s it all about?’.”
Bill became involved and along with Tony Wright, Terry Magill and Barry Curtis, led to the sport being far more recognised in town and beyond.
After work was undertaken to improve the building for squash, Bill ascertained that the court was five foot three inches too wide for a squash court. Fast forward the years and the number of squash courts in Corowa increased to seven, with four at the RSL club and three at the then golf club, with as high as 220 squash club members.
Today there are three courts, at the RSL club, with, before COVID-19, some 60 members.
Bill is a multi-squash club champion, twice in local A Grade and five-time runner-up to a player he coached, Neil Osmond, and has starred at the highest level in Albury and for Murray Valley. Dave Allen was rated as his toughest opponent.
Another well-known Corowa identity Gary Poidevin OAM appreciated Bill’s initiative in introducing gymnastic classes. “It gave us young hooligans – kids I should say – something to do,” the young boy who went on to being record-serving mayor Corowa Shire Council, said.
“He was always a lovely bloke. He was a perfectionist his whole life. Everything he did, in building or whatever, it had to be perfect.”
Former squash player and gymnast John Fraser described Bill as “a hard task master”. “Bill introduced a lot of younger local people to squash and coached them. He was a well-respected man, a club champion and represented Corowa in association squash involving intra club competitions in other associations and up against the best.”
Corowa Squash Club President and club champion for the past three years, Graeme Leslie said that when he started squash in 2000, Bill was the one who graded him.
“He’s the reason why there’s a squash club,” Mr Leslie said. “He has trained so many people and a lot of people are so glad there’s a squash club.”
Bill Bock was nicknamed ‘Mr Squash’. He was made a Life Member of Corowa Squash Club in 1973 and was awarded an Australian Sports Medallion in 2000.
The builder of over 100 homes alone in Corowa wanted to be part of the Corowa community. Employing people and building homes to perfection, establishing gymnastics classes and being an integral part in ensuring the sport of squash in Corowa, and always up for a good chat, Bill Bock has certainly been an asset to Corowa.
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