News

New dunny is in the can

By Daniel Harvey

Nov 4, 2026

Ross Mason and his dog Bonnie standing in front of where his father built the first comfort station in Echuca.

Chips Rafferty ‘christening’ Echuca’s newest public convenience is about as fair dinkum as it could get for any country town with a sense of self pride.

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But local builder Ross Mason, whose father, Ern, and his mate George McLeod built the public dunny, swears the story is true.

The story goes, he recalls, Ern and George were working on the last touches at the Heygarth St comfort station ― as it would become known in the period parlance ― when this big black Cadillac pulled up.

That alone was enough to draw a crowd in 1950s Echuca, those Yank tanks were few and far between outside the big smoke.

Chips Rafferty, silver screen icon, true-blue Aussie and face of the outback, strode up to the comfort station with his pressing agenda.

Ern and George dropped their trowels as the giant actor politely asked if he could use the facilities ― effectively christening the brickwork before council could even schedule a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The encounter survived decades thanks to Ern's son, Ross Mason, who spent 64 years in the local building trade himself before hanging up his belt last Christmas.

He said his old man came home from work ― not gushing, he was not one to do so ― to share the tale of the unlikely encounter.

"’Chips basically christened the toilet block there, he said,” Ross said.

“’He was very personable and had a chat, and then went off again.’”

Ern and George had forged a 40-year partnership after a chance footpath chat while George worked on the local Country Women’s Association building ― and at the end offered him a job.

Ern rushed home to grab his trowel and never looked back — and so began a legendary local partnership built on green timber, hand tools and a lifetime of quiet, honest graft.

So Rafferty left an impression precisely because Hollywood stardom had not ruined his bush-bred modesty.

“He was impressed by the fact that he was so down to earth and just as he appeared in pictures and that. He was just a bloke you could talk to, you know?” Ross said.

Nobody ever solved why the towering star of The Overlanders and Mutiny on the Bounty was cruising through regional Victoria in a Cadillac.

Whether he was scouting locations or simply taking in the Murray River air, his impromptu pit stop has remained fondly etched in Campaspe Shire lore ever since.