Author Jamie Callister remembers his grandfather Cyril, the inventor of Vegemite, 100 years on

They didn't believe him until their mother confirmed it was true.

"Dad was a Vegemite tragic, he had it on everything," says Callister. "And I mean everything. If he had scrambled eggs on toast, the Vegemite would go on first."

As a child, Callister never thought about why there was always a jar in the pantry. Like most Australian kids, it was just a given.

It was only as his father was getting older that the family story became his to keep. There were a few boxes in the shed full of letters and old photographs and Callister soon became intrigued by the story of his grandfather Cyril.

Callister told this fascinating story in Vegemite: The true story of the man who invented an Australian icon, first published in 2012. A revised edition has just been released to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Vegemite, and includes an epilogue outlining the dealings of the mid 2010s where the ownership of the spread returned to Australia.

"Everyone knows the product but not a lot of people know the story," says Callister.

"It really does involve a lot of the major events of the 20th century. It's a very Australian story."

Born in 1893, Cyril Callister was the third child in a family of nine. His father William was a school teacher and the family lived at the back of the schoolhouse, in Chute, near Ballarat. It was soon evident Cyril was academically gifted. He won a scholarship to Grenville College in Ballarat where he excelled in science and Shakespeare. Future prime minister Robert Menzies was one of his schoolmates.

In 1915, alongside 20,000 other young Australian men, Cyril and his brother Reg enlisted to fight in World War I. Reg headed to Egypt. But this is where Cyril's life took the turn that would eventually lead to Vegemite.

He was summoned by a senior officer who told him his enlistment had been cancelled. Cyril's former university mentor, Ormie Masson, had become very involved in the war effort, suggesting that a "war of applied science" was about to be played out around the world. Cyril's name was close to the top of the list of men Masson wanted to recruit.

"Cyril would not serve as a soldier but as a scientist," says Callister. He spent a year working as a chemist in a munitions research plant in Melbourne, before heading to England where he eventually ended up in Gretna Green, Britain's largest cordite factory.

In 1919 he was back in Australia with his new wife, and not long after met entrepreneur Fred Walker whose company had already made a name for itself in the food industry, thriving on export trade, with Bonox being one of their best sellers, modelled on the British drink Bovril.

Walker soon began to investigate the possibility of mimicking another British best-seller, Marmite, which was rationed in Australia post war. The spread was considered a nutritional supplement and was used to prevent dermatitis and scurvy, among other things.

In 1923, on this 30th birthday, Cyril went to work on Vegemite. For the next few months he worked on what he labelled "yeast experiments", testing results in the lab as well as at home on his young children.

"My father once told me, 'The old man was always trying stuff on us', a distaste that defied the ages still curling on his lips," Callister says.

Not long after, the product was ready to hit the shelves. Walker ran a public competition to decide the name, with a prize of 50 pounds, and received numerous entries. He couldn't decide and got his daughter Shieilah to draw one out of a hat.

Vegemite rolled off the factory lines, packed in a two-ounce amber glass jar. On a bright red and orange label was the name "Vegemite", below was the description "Pure vegetable extract". An Australian icon was born.

"It really doesn't matter if you love it or hate it, it defines who we are as Aussies. It's quirky and irreverent," says Callister.

"Vegemite transcends the nostalgia of a bygone era to be very much at the front and centre of a modern Australia. It's an instantly recognisable Australian thing."

In 1954 Vegemite's popularity grew after the "Happy Little Vegemites" advertising campaign. More than 22 million jars are manufactured every year, out of the Port Melbourne factory.

Actor Margot Robbie once described the scrape of Vegemite on crusty toast as "the sound of my childhood".

In his Kevin07 election campaign Kevin Rudd called himself "a Vegemite and toast sort of guy". Not long after he became Australia's 26th prime minister.

In 1982, Men at Work wrote it into their song Down Under. Who doesn't swell with pride when they hear the lyrics:

Buying bread from a man in Brussels

He was six-foot-four and full of muscle

I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"

He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich

In April 1984, a jar of Vegemite became the first product in Australia to be electronically scanned at a supermarket.

Callister says it's quite comforting to know that Vegemite is back in Australian hands. The Bega Cheese Group bought Vegemite off US company Mondelez - on Australia Day, fittingly - in 2017. The deal was worth $US460,000,000.

"As we celebrate 100 years, it's comforting to know we have come full circle," Callister says. "A company born out of a cooperative of hardworking dairy farmers is now the proud custodian of our famous national icon, which is both appropriate and entirely fitting. It has all the hallmarks of many of the decent people who have helped make Vegemite what it is today."

That one of them was his grandfather still amazes Callister. Does he feel a sense of pride when he sees a jar on the shelf?

"I just feel hungry," he laughs. "No, no, no, I do feel proud, but I think we can all be proud. It's very much Australia's story, not just my family's."

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