Wednesday 27 November 1935 marked the day that the first issue of The Coburg Courier was delivered into local mailboxes, free of charge. Coburgians were met with front-page news of: Wheeler & Woolsey performing their comedy “nit-wits”; a story of thieves bursting into a tailor’s shop front window (today, the Coburg Salvos) and escaping on a motorbike with two suits in tow; and news of larrikins on Sydney Road drinking beer and breaking into a car. The creators carved out a section on page two, headed ‘We Make Our Bow’ where they announced that they had accepted the invitation (from ‘some leading businessmen’) to ‘give Coburg a good newspaper service’.
The new publishers already had 10 years of experience in publishing newspapers under their belt, having conducted three newspapers in Kew, Hawthorn and North Camberwell. Coburg’s mayor at the time, N L Martin, endorsed the paper with his good wishes, quoting Marcus Terentius Varro, an ancient roman writer: “nature gave the fields, and human art built the cities”. In an homage to newspapers that could massage a heartbeat from the Murdoch empire, Martin went on to say: “included in the category of human art is undoubtedly the production and publishing of an up-to-date newspaper”.
Whilst the advert-heavy Coburg Courier might have fallen short of classifying as a work of art, the first issue delivered some memorable local opinions. One local describes the “unusual spectacle each evening where the bicycle brigade takes the road” on Sydney Road. These “sons of toil”, she writes, are providing themselves with “exercise and fresh air” which must be a relief from the “vitiated atmosphere of the workshop and factory”. She wishes “good luck” to the youthful “Oppermans” (a reference to a famous Australian cyclist) and thanks them for contributing to the cycle manufacturing industry. She would surely be disappointed to see the way that cyclists are treated on the roads — particularly on Sydney Road — almost 90 years later.
The Coburg Meddler 