Flashback: October 25, 1976

By Madeleine Funcke

The Hopetoun firemen claim their new station is made entirely from beer bottles.

From The Wimmera Mail-Times on Monday, October 25, 1976.

For the past eight years, the Hopetoun Urban Fire Brigade station firemen have collected empty bottles to pay for the new fire station.

The previous week, a truck took 980 dozen empty bottles to Melbourne.

Hopetoun Urban Fire Brigade captain, Jack Kelly, said the brigade had had about three or four loads a year since 1968.

According to the Mail-Times arithmetic, the firemen have collected about 376,320 bottles since 1968.

However, Mr Kelly thought the figure might be closer to one million bottles.

Each Sunday morning, Hopetoun firemen collected empty bottles from houses in the town of 1,000 people.

Workmen started building the $70,000 station in May 1976.

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