Blue Bag
Before we had modern laundry detergents with optical brighteners, there was a mysterious little blue bag that was stirred around in the final rinse water on washday. This was laundry blueing or blue.
A factory-produced block was the “modern” (mid-19th century onwards), commercial version of older recipes for whitening clothes, with names like stone blue, fig blue, or thumb blue.
It disguised any hint of yellow and helped the household linen look whiter than white.
The armistice of 11 November 1918 was celebrated in Concord with fervour. Citizens immediately formed tin-can bands and took to the street and within twelve hours of the news of armistice the Western Suburbs Master Carriers’ Association had organised what was then the largest procession in the history of the Western Suburbs. Beginning at Concord…
The original Palace Hotel was opened in 1886, the same year as the gasworks It was built on the river at the end of Tennyson Road, where the River Quays Marina now stands. The first licensee was John Stuart. The hotel, known as Mongomery’s Palace, was a distinctive building with verandas and a tower which…
In December 1916 William Graham Eyles, a former alderman of Drummoyne, was sentenced to death in Sydney’s Central Criminal Court for the murder of his wife, Ellen, who was found hanging by a strap from a bedpost in her house in Courland Street, Five Dock. There were signs of a struggle with numerous bruises on…
In the wake of the devastating Lismore floods earlier this year, the members of Canada Bay Heritage Society decided to support an initiative to collect new and pre-read books in very good condition, to replace those damaged or destroyed by the rising waters. An appeal was made to the Canada Bay community and the response…
This cherished timeless poem speaks to the core of the Australian heart with its line “I love a sunburnt country”. The love of field and coppice, of green and shaded lanes. Of ordered woods and gardens is running in your veins, Strong love of grey-blue distance, brown streams and soft dim skies I know but…
We remain a society fascinated by gadgetry. The industrial revolution ensured that our ancestors were similarly attracted to wondrous objects which promised to make life easier, and, at times, more profitable. We might say that all useful objects are not gadgets and all gadgets are not necessarily useful objects. Knives for picking the stones out…
Do not print this page until after the first of the new month
This window will automatically close after 10 seconds
