Les Gittins – A Montville Gem Last of a Generation

Les was born in 1942 to Reg and Molly Gittins. He grew up on the family dairy farm on Harpers Creek which flows into the upper Mary River outside Conondale. Molly had been a teacher and home-schooled Les until he was old enough to travel to the Conondale State School. She was a strict teacher. He remembers getting into strife when he was only two for learning Italian quicker than English. Reg had been allocated two Italian POWs to help on the farm and Les had spent his toddler years following them around the property and learning Italian from them.

A Farm Boy at Heart

In the early 1950s, Reg built a proper family home. He sourced the right trees and felled and dressed them for posts. A carpenter surveyed/pegged out where they needed to go and Reg set them in the ground. The carpenter came back to level and cap them and between them they built the new home. Les is understandably proud that it is still standing today.

In 1956, Les was off to Brisbane Boys College to complete his secondary education. Fortunately for family finances, the Conondale school was short a teacher and Molly was able to go back teaching. He says that he accepted BBC as a necessary evil and when he graduated in 1959, he couldn’t wait to get back to the farm. Then, in1960, the family moved to Baroon Pocket where Les entered into a partnership with his Dad in a new dairying venture.

The farm was just above and west of where the dam wall is now, bordering a State Forest. Here Les worked and developed a new interest. He bought a welder to do basic repairs and modifications to their farm machinery and taught himself welding. This led him to seek advice and tips from another self-taught welder, Jim Hooper who had Hooper’s Engineering at Montville.

He also joined the Maleny Branch of Rural Youth and met Leonie Geritz, the daughter of another dairy farmer. Les and Leonie married in 1967 at the Maleny Presbyterian Church and moved in to a small worker’s cottage on the farm until a new house could be built for his parents. However, in 1972, their eldest son, Robert, was attacked by a large carpet python while asleep. Les was able to pull the snake off his son but the incident led Les and Leonie to reconsider where they wanted to raise their children.

An Ambitious Project

In 1974, Les and Leonie purchased a double block of land at the top of Kondalilla Falls Road. They chose to build a steel-framed, three storey, A-Frame home of 32 squares, (66ft by 40ft and 35ft high) big enough for their eventual family of seven on one block, and for a family vegetable garden on the other.

Leonie and Les double check the plans while Maria plays on the tyre swing with brother Robert alongside

It was very much a hands-on, owner builder venture for Les who only called on professional tradesmen as needed, so it took several years before it was fully finished with the family living in a caravan and shed and moving in in stages as sections were complete.

The family lived on the ground level and built upwards

A magnificent view to the Coast from the A-Frame's roof top

An Engineering Career

At the same time, Les’s relationship with Jim Hooper had developed. He began part time work with Jim on specific projects which led to being offered a permanent full-time position, eventually becoming a partner in the business. Les worked with Jim Hooper for the next 18 years, retiring from the business in 1990. Les went on to manage and later purchase a Nambour steel fabrication business, relocating to Kunda Park when the Nambour Sugar Mill site was redeveloped in 2012.

Jim Hooper with new products he and partner Les Gittins designed and manufactured

Wide scrub blade for large scale land-clearing

Les Gittins Steel Manufacturing Business at Kunda Park

While Les was working at Hoopers, Jim became concerned about the state of the Montville Rural Fire Brigade. He encouraged Les to join it and together they designed and built a system to convert the four-wheel drive tractors of Len Gorsch and Des McCulloch into fire fighting vehicles until Montville got its first fire truck. Then Les worked on improvements to its capabilities and carried out routine maintenance. Les admits that he was better at keeping everything working than actually fighting fires.

Volunteering

All the Gittins children attended Montville State School from 1994 to 2010. Les became an active member of the Montville State School P&C over those 16 years. At the same time, he also joined the Montville Village Association and served as President from 1994 to 1996 and again in 2004/05. In his first presidency, he worked closely with the President of the Tennis Club to get funding to restore the tennis courts at the Montville Sports and Recreation Grounds. He was recalled to serve as President in 2004 after members of that executive had failed to declare conflicts of interest in considering community support for a major Country Club/Golf Course development proposal. The integrity of the executive was compromised and Les was recalled to steady the ship and begin the process of restoring MVA credibility.

Les had had a long association with the Montville Sports and Recreation Ground. Over time, the trustees of the sports ground changed and by the 1980s the five trustees were Les Gittins, Chris Hooper, Ian Russell, Peter Glover and Des McCulloch. Les recalled that Joe Delaney funded a long overdue upgrade to the fence around the tennis courts during his years as trustee.

When his kids wanted to join scouting, Les naturally became involved and was Cub Leader of the Maleny Scout Group for 9 years.

Maleny Scout Group Cub Leader Les Gittins welcomes his son, Ashley to the Maleny Pack with the Scouts handshake

He was also Assistant Cub Leader at the Range Scout Group on Kondalilla Falls Road after that for a couple of years until it disbanded. Les currently walks every morning and enjoys the company of the Flaxton Walking Group.

Retirement

When Les retired, he pursued his life time interest in agriculture and developed a vegetable garden that incorporated traditional gardening in raised beds and hydroponics as well. He also travelled widely with Leonie and joined Probus. However, he maintained his interest in community welfare. Although it is a struggle at times, he still attends Montville’s Australia Day ceremonies and the Dawn Service on ANZAC Day. He can no longer physically attend meetings but still corresponds to voice his concerns about homelessness, the isolation of older Range women and the lack of a public transport system that meets the needs of aging Range residents.

Les celebrated his 82nd birthday (September 2024) with the Flaxton Walking Group at the Flaxton Barn

In volunteering to serve our community through five separate organisations, the MVA, the school P&C, the Sports Ground, the Firies and the Scouts for over fifty years, Les epitomises the values of generations past where family and community work together. Les Gittins is indeed a worthy Montville Gem.

Doug Patterson

Montville History Group

March 2025