Morven - thegoodwills.com

Strolling Through an Historical Village

A sure sign of advancing years is just how quickly you can identify household objects when visiting a local historical village. In my case, this is particularly so when an historic house has preserved its original laundry – twin concrete tubs, a mangle, a copper, a metal baby’s bath hung on a nail and a flat iron (designed to be heated up on a wood stove). Not to mention wire washing lines, strung between the outhouse and a sturdy tree, held in place by heavy timber clothes props.

We have a passion for visiting historical villages and museums, especially in the outback. I mean the ones in small communities, primarily run by volunteers. Not that there’s anything wrong with The Stockman’s Hall of Fame, Sovereign Hill (the gold rush town at Ballarat), or what used to be Old Sydney Town, But they are more theme parks than keepsakes of communities past.

Today’s photo, which I’ve shared on Facebook before, is my Dad, re-creating his days as an apprentice baker in Scotland. He is seen here in the replica bakery at Miles Historical Village in western Queensland, circa 1984.

The Miles museum, celebrating 50 years in 2021, is an outdoor historical village consisting of a 1900s streetscape, with 36 buildings. They include a bakery, a post office, chemist and general store. The re-launched Artesian Basin Centre houses information on artesian water, Aboriginal history, and land care. There’s a War Museum with displays from all World Wars. The historical village is operated by the Miles Historical Society. Its collections comprise memorabilia donated by families in the district. While the museum was closed for 56 days during the worst of Covid-19, plans are afoot to celebrate its 50^th birthday as part of the Miles Back to the Bush festival in September.

Wherever you journey around Australia, you will find (mainly European) regional history, preserved in historical villages, museums and outdoor displays. An example of the latter is the Machinery and Heritage display at Ilfracombe, between Barcaldine and Longreach. If you have an interest in old farm machinery and the like, it can take an hour or two to stroll along the highway stretch. If it’s a hot day, you can repair to the Wellshot Hotel afterwards for a chilled libation.

There are also few buildings along “Machinery Mile” which house items of local history that would not last in the outdoors.

Further west, in Winton, a visit to the rebuilt Matilda Centre includes admission to the original history museum, which includes a well-preserved settler’s cottage. Like most such houses, where rooms have been set up as they were in the 19^th century, wire grilles keep us from really appreciating the atmosphere. They do safeguard the memorabilia, however.

On the other side of town, Winton has its Diamantina Truck and Machinery Heritage Centre, most of it under roof. We visited on a rare rainy day, so it was a good reprieve from the windy conditions.

This museum costs just $5 to enter. We’re told that most of the prime movers, trucks, fire engines and tractors kept under roof are in going order. All they need (perhaps in 2021), is a street parade, a regional show, a rodeo or camp-draft to show themselves to the public.

Included in the display is a 1976 London cab. Museum secretary Robyn Stevens told me it was acquired and imported by a local donor who has loaned it to the museum. As befits such a rare vehicle, some 20,000kms from its original home, it is kept in an air-conditioned room.

Likewise another prized item – a fully restored, 1910 Talbot fruit and vegetable delivery truck, on loan from the Cassimatis family of Muttaburra. While browsing, I found a Bedford cattle truck made the year I was born (and possibly in better condition!).

The Dawson Folk Museum in Theodore was also a good find, as it is tucked away behind the main street. The museum is housed in a former power station and has a large collection of photographs covering pioneer families, Aborigines, ex-servicemen from World Wars I and II, and modern photographs – all tracing Theodore’s development. Displays include the history of early station families, a pioneer kitchen and bedroom and farm machinery.

Curiously, we could not find one mention of the State’s only Labor Premier of that era, ‘Red Ted’ Theodore,after whom the town is named.

One of the more comprehensive historical villages can be found near the Calliope River park south of Gladstone. We camped beside the river and set off for a look, admittedly a bit late in the day. The volunteers who locked up at 5.30 said we were welcome to come back and finish the tour the next day, which we did.

The Calliope River Historical Village, originally a cattle property, is located on 1.12ha of riverside land.

The village comprises a large number of original buildings, all of which have been relocated over a 40-year period from within a 60km radius.

historical-villages — The Clyde Hotel, Calliope

Buildings include several large country homesteads, a pioneer cottage, the Clyde Hotel (with a current liquor licence), an old school house, a jail, a church (hired out for weddings,) and a woolshed full of machinery and memorabilia. There is also a vintage steam train and carriages to explore.

Secretary Mary Lou Wright told FOMM the land is owned by Council and leased to the Port Curtis Historical Society Inc.

The village holds monthly markets which were put on hold for much of 2020. Mary Lou said that now the markets had resumed, they have been well patronised and everyone had co-operated with the Covid 19 rules. The markets attract many stallholders and big crowds and the revenue is vital to the ongoing upkeep of the village.

A large building on-site is home to the Gladstone Model Rail Group, which maintains an elaborate model railway village. The model rail is operational and open to the public on market days. The group also meets on Tuesday nights for its weekly get-togethers.

If visiting community-run historical villages is something that interests you, open your wallets and purses wide. Admission fees are usually modest (Theodore’s museum was just $2), so make time for afternoon tea, buy a drink, an ice-cream or a postcard. Go for broke – make a donation.

Speaking of donations, I just sent a few dollars to Wikimedia, which is on its annual fund-raising quest. Some 98% of Wikipedia’s readers use this on-line resource without ever contributing to its upkeep. I often use Wikipedia as a source for general information, (e.g.) background on the Miles Historical Village and Museum. Some people help Wikipedia by updating and editing existing pages. Or you can just send them (they suggest $2.75), a modest donation. It’s worth thinking about.

More reading:

When Aussie families lived in kerosene tin huts

This week we are leaving president-elect Joe Biden to struggle with his Disunited States, to reflect on a time in Australia’s history when homeless people were forced to build kerosene tin huts. This Depression-era story may also give us pause for contemplation as the year-long corona virus pandemic sends many nations into deep recession. No-one wants to use the D-word but also no-one can predict how long countries will have to deal with Covid lock-down periods.

As you may already know, if you also subscribe to our Goodwills Music page, we wrote a song about it. I had the idea couple of years ago when visiting Morven, in south-west Queensland. The show piece of the historical village there is a Depression-era kerosene tin hut. It was built by the late Bob Johnson, whose widow Ethel runs the village.

A sharp-witted reader wanted to know if I was ‘trumpeting’ the new song in last week’s piece about Nellie the Elephant and the price of democracy. I prefer to think of it as drollery (listing it as one of the news stories you may have missed because of the mass media preoccupation with the US election).

Sometimes I have an idea for a song and it loses momentum because I can’t match the lyric to a tune (or maybe I’d rather watch Grey’s Anatomy). Kerosene Tin Hut sat in the drawer for a year or so until She Who Now Also Writes Songs helped me stitch the lyrics together.

As you may gather, we were brought up by parents who lived through the Great Depression (and WWII). They were frugal, good at recycling before it was a thing and were fond of sayings like “never a borrower or a lender be”. Goods could be bought on lay-by, but never on ‘tick’.

That generation was good at saving to buy a particular item deemed necessary for a family – like a fridge, or a washing machine (once the copper and the mangle went to historical villages). I remember once complaining about not having a wardrobe in my bedroom. Dad brought home three wooden butter boxes from the bakery. He stacked them one on top of the other and Mum made a curtain to hang on the front. This is where I stashed my Famous Five collection (I’d grown out of them), and recently collected Mad magazines.

People who battled through the Great Depression (1929-1939), became adept at “making a muckle out of a mickle” as Mum and Dad would say.

Not much has been written about that period in Australia when shanty towns were developed on common land, usually on the outskirts of towns and cities. This happened as unemployed families were either evicted from rented dwellings or worse, lost the homes they were struggling to buy. Small communities formed on Crown land, where the inhabitants did not have to pay rent or rates. They erected corrugated tin huts or, more commonly, kerosene tin huts.

Maleny reader Mike Foale remembers the kerosene tin era, but for different reasons. He contacted me after I’d sent the new song around to a mailing list.

Like others, he asked the obvious question – where did the kerosene tins come from? Kerosene was widely used in the 1920s for cooking, lighting and refrigeration, but also provided cheap fuel for tractors.

Mike recalled from his days growing up on a farm in the Mallee that the early tractors of the 1920s to the 1950s ran on kerosene, as did other stationary engines used on farms.

“Kero was imported in four gallon (20 litre) square-top tins, with a box around the tin for travel security.

“On our farm, the boxes were converted into shelf units. Dad had to sell the early tractor off (a Caterpillar) for lack of maintenance services in the Mallee. So I grew up in the 1940s with draft horses doing the farm work, but the shed was full of empty kero tins.”

Kerosene tins were popular in Tin Town because they could be cut into square tiles with tin snips then stapled together over a bush timber framework.

Western Plains Cultural Centre local activities officer Simone Taylor has researched the ‘Tin Town’ which existed in Dubbo, NSW. The town formed in the late 1920s during the onset of the Great Depression and disappeared 20 years later. Ms Taylor told the ABC in 2018 there was a a lot of stigma attached to ‘Tin Town’.

“The shanty’s residents were pitied by the people of Dubbo. I think the people in Tin Town were getting on the best they could, but in newspaper reports it’s clear the town was seen as a social issue to solve.”

Tin Town survivors recall the hardships – there was no electricity and only a single community tap to access water. Council collected rubbish and sewage every week for a small fee.

In Dubbo, as in other locations where Tin Towns evolved, kerosene tin huts were erected on Crown land. They did not appear on official maps, so historians rely upon people’s memories and references in old newspaper articles.

Australian National University historian Joan Beaumont told the ABC that Australia was one of the countries worst hit by the 1920s crash. Communities that relied on wool and wheat exports suffered the most as global demand fell away. While the evidence suggests that Tin Towns housed families and pensioners, Professor Beaumont said single men without strong family connections were more likely to live in tin shanties.

Why is this relevant today, you might ask, when our wealthy are uber-wealthy, well-educated professionals are doing well (in two-income households) and the middle classes are, well, in the middle?

The massive disruption to the orthodox economy caused by Covid-19 has forced even conservative governments to use Keynesian economics to manage the crisis. The theory evolved by John Maynard Keynes advocates increased government expenditure and lower taxes to stimulate demand. This, rather than monetary economics (controlling the supply of money), is more likely to help avert a global depression.

There is a domino effect when people who depend on a wage to pay rent or service a mortgage, not to mention car loans, credit cards and ‘60 months nothing to pay’ consumer lures, lose their source of income.

The job goes, the search for work is fruitless, the bailiff comes calling. Suddenly, you are living in your car (the 21^st century version of the tin hut). Those of us with a proper roof over our heads ought to count our blessings – count twice when rain falls.

As this recent Sydney Morning Herald article informs, the early help offered to get homeless people off the street in 2020 is being wound back. While the official homelessness figure is north of 116,000, the Australian Homelessness Monitor found that 290,000 people sought homelessness services in the year before the pandemic.

Homelessness numbers fell between April and June this year as a result of Federal government assistance, a moratorium on evictions and a targeted campaign to get rough sleepers indoors. But the future is looking somewhat bleak as supports come to an end.

Telling people to stay home during a Covid spike is all well and good if you have a home in the first place. The alternative may well be descensus in cuniculi cavum (descent into the cave of the rabbit), or in 2020 vernacular, down the rabbit hole.

Camel Racing And The World’s Longest Damper

camel racing-damper — Camel racing at Boulia -Image courtesy of http://www.bouliacamelraces.com.au/camel-racing/

Queensland’s outback towns may still be struggling with the impact of drought, but they are now more than ever engaging communities and outsiders in unique events. Tourist attractions like Winton’s Vision Splendid film festival, Birdsville’s Big Red Bash, Boulia’s camel races, an outback golf tournament and the national silo art trail are just a few of the initiatives. Attractions and events are primarily organised by locals (and sponsors) as a way of attracting cash-spending visitors and giving locals some respite from the hard life on the parched land.

Travel writers tend to visit places for a day or two, then write about them as if they’ve lived there for a lifetime. It’s quite a skill and I’ll admit to doing this presumptuous thing in the interests of whetting your appetite for outback travel. Though we spent only 10 days in Western Queensland on this trip, we picked up more than a few pieces of information and inspiration.

camel-races-damper — Kerosene tin hut at Morven, image by Laurel Wilson

For one thing, there’s a kerosene tin hut built in the grounds of Morven’s historical museum. The hut is made from flattened kerosene tins, held together with staples and built over a light timber framework. There are few remaining examples of Australia’s ‘tin towns’, which sprung up on the outskirts of towns and cities during the Great Depression. (Photo by Laurel).

Small western towns like Morven and Bollon need the support of visitors. Local people have less to spend as a result of the ongoing drought. Some have made an attempt to attract and keep visitors, especially the ubiquitous grey nomads. Travellers are important to the rural economy; they spend money in supermarkets, hardware stores, pubs, clubs and petrol stations.

We were horrified to learn that Bollon, a town of 334 people, has lost its last service station. If you don’t happen to see the sign on the highway between St George and Cunnamulla, chances are you might run out of fuel on the 294-km journey.

Even when outback towns do have a service station, there are no guarantees. On the way home we limped into Charleville with six litres of fuel left, after finding that Quilpie’s service station had run out of fuel – drained dry by the convoy of grey nomads and 4WD adventurers heading 625 kms to Birdsville for the Big Red Bash.

The Bash is a three-day outdoor music festival held in mid-July. This year it was headlined by Midnight Oil, the Living End, Richard Clapton and Kasey Chambers. At $539 a ticket, not to mention the cost of driving 1,600 kms (from Brisbane), you’d want to be keen. Last year, the Bash raised more than $100,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. This year, 9,169 people attended, including volunteers, crew, kids, sponsors and vendors.

Meanwhile, the Boulia Camel Races are now scheduled to follow on from the Big Red Bash. If you are already at Birdsville, all you have to do is drive another 200 kms or so to Boulia, a tiny outpost on the edge of the Simpson Desert.

The 1,500m Boulia Camel Cup was won this year by a local camel, Wason. About 5,000 people came to Boulia (pop 230) for the two-day event, which featured heats over short distances before the main race on Sunday. If you are game, there are bookies on hand to take your bets.

The jockeys (who wear protective head gear), sit on small saddle pads behind the camel’s hump. There are no reins – the camels steer themselves down the racetrack (and can be disqualified for running in the opposite direction!)

July is the main month for outback tourism events, as the weather is at its most stable, with mild day temperatures and cool nights. In Charleville, an intrepid team set about cooking the world’s longest damper. At 153 metres, it surpassed a 125m-long damper made by Swedish boy scouts in 2006. The Guinness Book of Records is yet to officially recognise the attempt, but it’s in the oven, as they say. The event, organised by the Charleville Fishing and Restocking Club, involved a large team of volunteers who made the damper and then baked it in a 153m trench filled with hot charcoal.

Hundreds of locals and visitors attended the event, which made news bulletins far and wide. No doubt, that was the whole point. She Who Drives Most Of TheTime once amazed some Belgian backpackers at Carnarvon Gorge. She mixed up a batch of damper (flour, water, herbs and baking powder) in our 12-foot caravan. She then wrapped it in a piece of tin foil (first manufactured in 1910, in case you were wondering), and threw it in the camp fire. The primitive nature of this kind of cooking, the sweet smell of burning wood and campfire camaraderie perhaps convinces us that it tastes better than it does.

Damper is a traditional Australian soda bread, enjoyed in eras past by swagmen, drovers and stockmen. The basic recipe, one could suggest, was derived from bread prepared and baked in the coals of a campfire by Australia’s indigenous peoples for thousands of years.

Yelarbon rural oasis scene by Brightsiders

Small towns in grain-growing districts are increasingly embracing the idea of having artists paint murals on grain silos. The most recent example of this is at Yelarbon, 300 kms south-west of Brisbane. The first stage of the silo art project by artist group Brightsiders was completed in May.

A viewing station is being built so visitors can get off the highway and admire this artwork on the edge of the spinifex desert. The rural scene is titled ‘When the rain comes’. Local sources tell us that 100 visitors a day are stopping in Yelarbon to view the artwork, funded by the Federal Government’s Drought Communities Programme.

If film festivals are your thing, Winton’s Vision Splendid festival in June is quite an experience. Maleny residents Robyn and Norm Dobson spent 10 days at Winton’s Vision Splendid film festival this year. They took a train from Nambour to Longreach and then a coach to Winton – a 24-hour journey.

“We booked a sleeper,” Robyn said. “We couldn’t do that trip sitting in a recliner for 24 hours.”

She observed that a lot of the people in Winton for the festival were grey nomads, strengthening her theory that the survival of small outback towns depend on annual festivals. Films are shown at Winton’s famous open air theatre, with day-time films shown at the (new) Waltzing Matilda Centre.

Robyn and Norm were impressed with the 1949 British-made film, “The Eureka Stockade” starring Chips Rafferty, with a yet-to-be-famous Peter Finch in a minor role. The other highlight of the festival was the now-traditional silent movie feature. This year it was the 1906 film, The History of the Kelly Gang.

Our country town of Maleny had its own tourism event in July – Knitfest (a yarn and fibres art festival). Preparations for this included dressing street trees (and cow sculptures) in knitted garments. This event predictably saw visitor numbers to the town swell.

On the Southern Downs, the Jumpers and Jazz Festival will be winding up this weekend. This Warwick-based festival is a bit like Stanthorpe’s Snowflakes (July 5-7), in that both make a celebration out of being among the coldest places in Queensland.

I guess it could have been easier to do that instead of trekking to Thargomindah. But we did get to see green grass in several areas and most of the creeks we passed had at least a little water in them – not something we’ve seen on our previous outback treks. Ed)