The Muster Point - ABC Local

Aubrey Brooks of the Newcastle Industrial Heritage Association says the site is incredibly special to him and other former employees and their families, "A lot of people lost their lives on that plant and the Newcastle Industrial Heritage Association want to build a memorial to the people who died. We want to place it here in Muster Point Park."

"This place was built by artist Julie Squires and the men and women of steel just before we closed. I think it started in 1997 and we shut in 1999."

"There's a lot of memorabilia on the walls and when I do tours here I tell the story of the steelworks, how it started."

Aub's family members clocked up over 125 years of combined service, "When I started there in 1961, there was over 100 miles of railway line on the site. My clock number was 67924, and that meant that from 1915 to 1961 e over 67,000 people had worked on the site."

"People get goosebumps when they come here and hear the stories of those who died. I was here the other day and a lady told me the story of her nephew who was laid off and committed suicide after the closure."

"The BHP was a big part of Newcastle and people should think about what Newcastle would be if BHP had never come to town."

"If you look up high you can see the whistle that used to blow at the start and finish of every shift, there's the clock which is set on the time that we finished work on the last day."

Around the top of the walls of the Muster Point, Julie Squires has made it look like the skyline you used to see when you looked on to the plant.

"There are representations of the many unions which looked after the welfare of the blokes. The site was a very dangerous place to work."

"There's a loco with a driver and loco shunter which represents the railway on the BHP. It didn't matter how much steel they made, it was all moved by rail."

One of the gates includes images of four men and Aub says it represents friendship, "BHP was a great place for friendship. If you had a problem, you could solve it at work."

"We had our own chaplain, our own medical centre, we had everything and everyone was a brain surgeon - they could fix any problem you had. Whether it was marital, or you had something wrong your car, there were also the tradesman who could help you with your plumbing or roofing. We could fix anything at the BHP."

"The site was a dumping ground for cats, but they were never mistreated. We used to feed the cats because on such a big site there was a lot of vermin. So the artist has included lots of cats and pigeons inside the sculpture."

What about the six shower roses?

"When I started there, there was seven to ten men to a shower. I can tell you that for a boy of 15, going into a shower with sixty men was frightening. Absolutely frightening!"

The Muster Point sculpture, while not strictly a memorial, certainly does recognise the darker side of the plant.

"No-one can deny the BHP was a dangerous place."

"A shunter once ran ahead of his train to change a set of points over, pushing slag trailers up the hill. He got his foot caught in the point blade, it threw it to the ground and the slag trailers ran over him and cut one of his legs off. But he worked hard, was rehabilitated and went back to work."

"But sadly, there are a lot of stories about people getting hurt or killed on the site."

"People will remember the diver who swam up one of the pipes for cleaning but was caught when the intake pumps were turned on."

"People will remember the two guys burnt to death in the crane."

"This is why the Newcastle Industrial Heritage Association are working so hard to raise the money to build a memorial here."

"One of the saddest stories was the closure. People didn't know what they were going to do or where they were going to go."

"People over 50 found it hard to get a job. One of the problems was that many of the employees had literacy and numeracy problems."

"There's also the sheltered workshops. They used to go through rehabilitation there. People were injured, but they'd go there and, yes, sometimes they stayed there forever, but the aim was to get people back on the job and give them a sense of wellbeing."

"In the early days, safety wasn't even considered. Like the mines, I guess it would have been the same here in 1915."