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 The Gold Coast Bulletin said this of Sir Bruce Small
"Few men have excited he public imagination as readily and vividly as
Sir Bruce Small. Characterised by an indomitable spirit and a tireless appetite
for work he established a reputation that will serve as an enduring monument to
his memory.
...The son of William and Annie Elizabeth Small, Bruce was born at Ryde,
Sydney on December 11, 1895.
His parents were both Salvation Army Officers and by the age of six he was
playing tenor horn, a talent which he employed for forty years in various army
bands.
For 22 years he was the solo euphonium in the Territorial Band of Victoria.
The start of his business empire came in 1920 when at the age of 24 he bought a
small suburban bicycle shop in Malvern Victoria. Under the brand name Malvern
Star, it blossomed into the largest venture of its kind in the Southern
Hemisphere comprising a chain of 115 retail stores, supplemented by 1000
dealers. The second world war provided great scope for Small to use his
ingenuity an inventiveness as Australia became isolated from the rest of the
world. His factories geared up to meet the demands of the military and the civil
population, immobilised by petrol rationing.
In addition supplies of radio-location sets, tubular tent frames and radio
masts were built for the RAAF and for the 2nd AIF.
The Small factories worked three shifts, day and night to produce intricate
lugs, tools and dies for the new equipment which had not previously been
produces in Australia.
It was part of a vision that Small had for Australia. He saw the dangers of
the nation being too dependant on primary industries and wanted it to become as
far as possible a self-contained manufacturing one. " Gold Coast
Bulletin, Friday May 2 1980, p41.
Sir Hubert Opperman summed up his relationship with Sir Bruce Small thus:
 "It is difficult for me to assess his value to my
cycling but from here his name must appear more often than route signs on the
road to Sydney. With few exceptions when mind and muscle still demanded that
indefinable stimulus of morale, he was present, for I felt that maximum could
not be obtained were he not on hand. I learned to lean on his strength of
character and commonsense and his amazing analysis of whatever capabilities I
possessed. When flesh and spirit yielded to the insistence of sleepless hours
and increasing miles, his calm judgment was a spur to greater efforts. His
business acumen steered my wheels to financial returns and dissipated an
athlete's dread of failing to balance a commercial future with a sporting past.
In later years when one would have bargained the loneliness of political
decision for any agonising stage in the Pyrenees, he could still make one feel
that there was no need to walk alone.." Pedals Politics and People.
For a more detailed account of Opperman’s regard for Bruce Small click
here.
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Rolf Lunsmann, 2000
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