At our Septemb  er 5 th meeting, David Godfrey gave a fascinating talk on the history of the Melways street directories. David is the son of Merv Godfrey the originating designer and cartographer of the Melway Street Directory. He trained as a survey draughtsman with the Victorian Lands Department. He served with the RAAF as a radio operator during WW2. Following the war he was employed with the SECV and became involved with various tourist maps during his “out of hours” time. His involvement with Ray Harrison, a publisher, in the mid 1950′s gave him the opportunity to produce the Olympic Games map of Melbourne in 1956. He also was involved with many other tourist and oil company maps. Merv resigned from the SECV in 1961 and along with Iven Mackay began in earnest the task of producing a new multi-colour street directory. From his home studio, which remained his office until 1985, Merv took role of creating his vision of designing and drawing the highly accurate multi coloured maps while Iven took these maps and drove many thousands of miles in a second-hand old Morris Minor field checking every road and detail. The First Edition of Melway Street Directory was published in 1966 after having taken five years to compile. After a very short time, Melway had firmly established itself as Melbourne’s number one Street Directory and quickly became a household name. While Melway has not joined the Satnav world, they have produced an app for IPhones.  |
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Winery this Sunday. Rotarians from Nunawading and Eltham clubs and some friends enjoyed the views, the meal, the wine and a tour of this family run winery. Plenty of fellowship time too! Thanks John Lynch for your efforts.
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