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Editor's travelogue In January Robyn and I travelled to North East Victoria for a few days away at Milawa. On one day during our trip we drove towards Benella and visited a number of small hamlets on the Yarrawonga road. The purpose of this outing was to visit places on the Silo Art Trail. Across Victoria a number of silos and large water storage tanks have had works of art painted on them by well known artists. Some of these images are quite spectacular. We visited four small towns at Devenish, Goorambat, Tungamah and St James. Each has spectacular large-scale art works. George James (GJ) Coles, later Sir George Coles, was born in Jung Jung in the Mallee on 28 March 1885. The Coles family moved to St James later in the 19th Century where George Coles Senior was a storekeeper. In 1910, GJ purchased the shop from his father for 4500 pounds. Coles successfully ran this business and expansion quickly followed. In 1914, after a trip to America, together with his brothers Jim & Arthur, George opened the first Coles store in Smith Street, Collingwood, with the slogan "Nothing over a shilling!" Although expansion slowed because of World War 1 and the Great Depression, by 1938 G J Coles & Co had 86 stores across Australia. By 1976 the company had 576 stores with a staff of over 36,000. Sir George Coles died in 1977. He never forgot St James and over many years he donated considerable funds to local community projects. He is fondly remembered in St James and his face adorns one of the town's silos. Silo Art Work at St James Victoria Currently, St James, which is 238 kilometres from Melbourne, has a population of 132. Together with other townships on the Silo Art Trail, an attempt is being made to revitalise the district as a tourist destination. Artwork at Tungamah Memorial artwork to the fallen at Devenish One of a number of spectacular artworks at Goorambat It is certainly worth a trip to view these magnificent works of art. GJ Coles was the oldest of ten children. One of his younger brothers Edgar Barton (later Sir Edgar) Coles became the Company Secretary and was a key leader of the organisation for many years. An avid sportsman, Edgar Coles who was born in St James, settled in Mt Eliza in the 1950s and in the early 1960s he developed the Coles Estate in Mt Eliza which includes streets such as Coles Court, Edgar Place and Barton Drive.
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