Mick Slocum, aged 75, has been hard at work these past two days restoring to its former glory the historic Post Box at the corner of Camp St and Raglan Street, Daylesford.
So far he has lovingly restored 24 post boxes and has no plans of stopping! With support from Australia Post, Mick is turning a one-off project close to home into state-wide project to restore all 123 heritage post boxes across Victoria!
Job done, Mick Slocum poses for a photo op beside his labour of love. (Photo: Tim Bach)
The Daylesford Post Box was installed in 1883 .”There aren’t many things on the streets these days that are 140 years old and I think these things are well worthy of preservation,” he said.
“There was one near my place in inner-Melbourne and I must have driven past it 1000 times. It was covered in graffiti, and I just stopped one day and thought I’ll just clean it off for a minute,” Mick said.
“I came home, bought some cleaning material, cleaned off the graffiti, and stood back and looked at it and thought, I’ll just keep going. so I went down to the hardware store, bought a can of red, a can of gold, and a can of black and went back and rubbed it all down and sanded it and resprayed it. The rest has been history really.”
It isn’t really a retirement project because Mick hasn’t really retired. He still works in a pharmacy three days a week. He is also a musician who once travelled the world with the Bushwhackers and he still regularly plays button accordion with an Irish band in a Kensington pub.
On Thursday, Mick sanded and scraped the old Daylesford Post Box and removed decals long since painted over. “It’s hard physical work, but satisfying” he said as he sanded the pock-marked surface. “A new coat of paint covers a multitude of sins. All you really need to do is reveal the decorative elements and the paint does the rest.”
On Friday, Mick used a fast-drying red Dulux Weathershield on the body of the Post Box before masking the body and spray painting the gold highlights. A new decal indicating pick-up times completed the restoration.
