Ray Woonings
Job Description
Fitter, Machinest
Period
1976 - 1978
Ray is the son of Andy and May Woonings, Andy being the longest serving employee of the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company. Ray spent most of his child hood at the station, the first 15 years of his life living in one of the six cottages on the site.
"I had an amazing childhood living out there" Ray said. "There were a few other kids on the station and some of my friends lived at Little Grove and Goode Beach. We would bike to each others places and loved life around the coast, but our parents warned us about the ocean and the blowholes."
The isolation did not bother the children living around the station. "We would make our own fun, walking, swimming, fishing - it was fantastic."
When he was 15, Ray left school to take up an apprenticeship at Wallace Engineering, so his parents moved to town. After serving his apprenticeship he went back to the whaling station to work for the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company until it closed, when Wallace Engineering re-employed him. He then went on to own Wallace Engineering.
Ray Woonings