BURIED IN BUSH AT CABARITA Two Aero Club pilots, F.R. Maguire and J. Pollack, had an amazing escape this afternoon when a Moth plane they were flying crashed on to a narrow strip of scrubland at Cabarita Point. The plane came down within a few yards of the roadway and narrowly missed diving into Kendall…
Here we are past halfway through 2020 and what a year we have had so far with the worst bushfire season on record following a drought (still on going in some areas) and that in some areas was followed by floods when the rains finally came. Add to this the COVIO -19 pandemic which has…
Alexander Vindex Vennard (1884-1947), collected yarns, ballads and anecdotes about bush life, which were published for about twenty-five years in a regular column ‘On the Track’ for the “North Queensland Register” and “Townsville Daily Bulletin”. He adopted the pseudonym ‘Bill Bowyang’ after the straps buckled over trousers below the knees. The following article was written…
Jean’s story continues about her experiences as a Volunary Aide at the Walker Hospital in 1919: Much coming and going of masked and bewildering figures, among which a tall, straight, young doctor (a returned soldier named Percival Davenport) stood out clearly. He spoke to me curtly once and later unexpectedly apologized. The house matron, Newman,…
I dream of a better tomorrow… where chickens can cross roads and not have their motives questioned. Early to bed and early to rise — till you get enough money to do otherwise.” “The sun shines on the rich and the poor alike. But when it comes to rain, the rich have better umbrellas.” –…
Picture this. It’s 1932 and Australia was in the grip of the Great Depression. One in three workers were unemployed Decrepit shanty town hugged the outskirts of the big cities. A scrawny rabbit, caught in a trap, would feed a family for a week. Country roads were filled with broken men walking from one farmhouse…
Nu-Dry, your Mechanical Laundress Clothes dryer and Automatic rinser.The turn of a tap and your clothes are rinsed and ready for the line in three minutes.No electricity. No Gas. No gears. Operates from a water tap and lasts a lifetime. Their instruction book reads . . . Your Greatest Problem is answered, Mrs. Housewife! Yes,…
The Legend of the Patrol In 1920 the horse and cart were still a predominant means of transport. Many roads were not fit for cars, and ferries were often a preferred means of transport where available. Back then the roads were a disaster. When it rained a car could almost disappear into a pothole, and…
1. WHY . . . do men’s clothes have buttons on the right side while women’s clothes have buttons on the left? BECAUSE . . . when buttons were invented they were very expensive and worn primarily by the rich. Since most people are right-handed, it is easier to push buttons on the…
A short while ago our member, Trish Skehan, was fortunate in being able to access diaries of a young 21-year-old Jean Curlewis, as well as a series of letters which she had written to her mother, Ethel Turner, and brother Adrian. This is Jean’s story of her first three weeks as a Voluntary Aide (VA),…
Farmer’s Letter Caused the Ute In 1932, during the savage depression years, a letter arrived at Ford headquarters in Geelong. Addressed to the Managing Director, it was from a farmer who asked simply: “Why don’t you build a car in which I can take my missus to church on Sunday and my pigs to market…
‘The Breville’ manual washing machine was made in Australia by Breville Pty Ltd in the Sydney suburb of Camperdown between 1935 and 1940. Sold as the Breville ‘ 5-minute washer’, this machine is simply a tub with a posser attached to a handle. Its selling point was that, being hand-operated, it was free of mechanical…
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