Tribute to creator of SA’s hair-raising Monash playground
It was one of the nation’s most famous playgrounds – where kids in the ’70s climbed giant slides and rode metal giraffes. See the gallery as its founder is recognised.
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The designer and engineer of SA’s original Monash Playground in the Riverland, the late Grant Telfer, has been recognised with the installation of a bronze statue.
About 200 people from across the Riverland, Adelaide, and interstate attended the official unveiling ceremony of the statue on Sunday, August 23, at the Monash Adventure Park where the former playground entertained hundreds of thousands of children and adults across the nation.
Locals who grew up with the playground on their doorstep shared some hair-raising stories to the crowd about their adventures on giant slides and the roller coaster as children, and as teenagers sometimes at night after a party.
Telfer’s daughter Alison Halupka, who is also the secretary and treasurer of the Lone Gum and Monash Community Association, and Berri Barmera Mayor Ella Winnall, officially unveiled the statue of Grant Telfer.
Halupka said her father was initially asked by the Monash Progress Association in the 1960s to make a small slide and a swing for the town, which is how the original playground first known as ‘Grant Park’ began.
She said her dad’s interest in designing and making more playground equipment at the site grew in the 1970s.
“He started to make a few more things including a lighthouse type spiral slide that he had seen at Semaphore in Adelaide when he was a child,” she said.
“He worked out how to make one of those and also a carousel that was also at Semaphore.”
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Telfer then started wondering how many different seesaws and slides he could make.
Halupka said eventually the playground in Monash featured 33 different types of seesaws, all kinds of slides, swinging ropes, a roller coaster, exhilarating flying foxes and several rotary cones.
Over a period of 15 years, Telfer filled the two-hectare reserve with 180 pieces of steel equipment with Halupka saying her father just kept adding new playground pieces to the community land.
“He didn’t ask permission from anybody, and nobody told him to take it away,” she said.
Telfer’s original Monash Playground was free for everyone to enjoy, attracting more than 300,000 people annually in the 1980s, when it was at its height of fame.
Due to rising public liability insurance costs, Telfer made the decision to close the playground in 1992. The land is now home to a heavily toned down version of a playground.
The statue is the result of five years of planning and fundraising by the Monash community and is based on a photo of Telfer taken in the 1970s.
It depicts him exactly as many locals would remember him when he first started making equipment for the playground, in his white overalls and bare feet, often arriving on a bicycle or one of his self-built recumbent bikes.
Telfer who was well known for his inventive and generous nature died in December 2021 at the age of 89.
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“It’s been a huge project raising funds, planning the statue, and liaising with Berri Barmera Council on a suitable location,” Halupka said.
Telfer was one of Australia’s most innovative engineers and owned and operated a business at Monash.
He designed and built the original ‘Gopher’ brand of three and four wheeled electric scooters and also made hand-propelled tricycles for disabled children.
Telfer also constructed an ocean-going catamaran at Monash that was launched at Morgan and motored down the River Murray to the sea.
He and his wife Margaret and a small crew travelled in it on many enjoyable trips around SA, Australia, and to the Pacific Islands.
The Berri Barmera Council recognised the playground’s historical and economic significance to the Riverland and redeveloped the site into the Monash Adventure Park, which was officially opened in November 1996.
Halupka said the Monash community was grateful to the council for committing to replacing the old playground so that local ‘Riverlanders’ and tourists still have a “great facility”, to enjoy.
Berri Barmera Mayor Ella Winnall at the celebrations paid tribute to the local community who had contributed to ensuring the Grant Telfer Statue had become a reality.
“This has been an enormous community effort and that feels entirely appropriate, as Grant spend his life giving back to the community in ways big and small,” she said.
Berri Barmera Council supported the project with a $5000 grant, and the Lions Club of Berri presented The Grant Telfer Statue Committee with a cheque of $1500 at the unveiling ceremony.
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