THERE is a twinkle in Graeme De La Rue’s eye when he walks on to the huge dredge that now quietly floats on the lake it created at Eldorado.

It brings back memories of his days as a young man when the dredge processed mud into a golden bounty.

After 50 years he can still recall how myriad of complex parts and processes came together to create gold, tin and iron.

Now living in Tarrawingee, Mr De La Rue was born and grew up at Eldorado, so he was already familiar with the Cock’s gold dredge by the time he left school to start working on it.

“The company liked to employ all the men who worked in town, including the young blokes,” Mr De La Rue said.

“They paid good money and I saved my money.

“I never went anywhere, but I was a wild bugger.”

He said the dredge dominated the town, creating a noise that was hard to escape.

“The noise from the dredge going 24 hours a day just seemed relentless, the top tumblers rubbed over each other, steel over steel, made a squealing sound,” he said.

“This is the noise the people of Eldorado had to endure.

“From when I was about four years old I can remember the headline coming over our house and hitting the roof.

“The noise was very loud, like it was coming through the roof.”

Mr De La Rue is one of the last men alive who worked the dredge.

He started in the bowels of the machine in 1951 and was promoted to greasing it prior to being called to National Service in August 1954.

He learned all aspects of the operation and was looking towards promotion to the control room prior to leaving.

There were 78 men permanently employed from when the dredge started operation in 1936.

It operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with men working in three eight-hour shifts.

There were eight men on day shift, five on afternoon shift and five on night shift, along with two in the control room, a supervisor and another man who controlled the whole machine.

There was also a team of blacksmiths and engineers charged with repairs and maintenance.

The only downtime was for half a day on Wednesdays when the machinery was serviced and repaired.

“My working week started at midnight Sunday and finished at midnight on Friday night,” Mr De La Rue said.

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“I started working on the spigots at the bottom of the dredge, which is where the gold and tin came through.

“Every morning it all went into a tin shed to be processed into gold, tin and iron.

“The gold was melted into nuggets and taken to Wangaratta to the bank to be sold.

“The tin was put into 100 weight bags which was picked up and sold by the tonne.

“The iron was just left in a heap at the back of the shed and is still there where the shed once stood.”

Mr De La Rue said the dredge eventually closed in 1954 due to the rising costs of processing.

“It was a very sad time for it was a very close community,” he said.

“There were a lot of unemployed men in Eldorado and families moved away to seek work.

“To wind up the company was a huge task — it took about three years to dispose of all the dredge assets.

“Closing down the dredge finalised the gold dredging days of Eldorado, but it is now a thriving tourist town with all its history of the dredge and the gold that was mined here.”