Brown bus excursion in 2004: "What's your aim? You seem to just write down anything anyone says." Well, I was excited to be with a whole bus load of local history knowledge.
Why?
I like looking at what our grandparents and their parents were doing and thinking, their work ethic, their sense of independence and self reliance (bush cunning), their religious beliefs or lack thereof, their struggles, concerns and conflicts, because the decisions and values of our grandparents and their parents shaped our parents. And they shaped us (and we also rejected some of what they thought and did, for the better sometimes, sometimes not). I like looking at the small community, the big picture and the long term.
I have a fondness for greenery, fresh air and frank unpretentious people. I also have a nostalgia for that feeling of close community that I experienced when I came as a teenager to Saturday night dances in country halls at Karoola, Lebrina and Lilydale. Community wasn't all just fun and big supper tables and exchanging glances. This article below describes some of the community networks that initiated and maintained the Bush Nursing scheme for example and that surely saved lives and alleviated pain and suffering countless times.
Lilydale - support for bush nursing 1944
(From Our own Correspondent)
Residents of the district surrounding Lilydale appreciate the value of the work carried out by the Bush Nurse (Sister M. Walsh), and they generously support the scheme by raising funds to enable the work to be continued. At Karoola, the younger members of the district, with Miss Mary Finan as secretary, held an entertainment in aid of the fund, and Miss Finan was able to forward the sum of £14/3/- to the Bush Nursing Committee at Lilydale. At the last annual me eting of the committee it was hoped that a cottage for the Bush Nurse would be erected during the year, but so far the sketch plans of the building have not come to hand. The Bush Nursing Scheme was established in the Lilydale district 22 years ago, and this was mainly due to the efforts of the Lilydale sub-branch of the R.S.S. & A.I.L.A. as members of the branch raised over £100 towards the cost of the necessary equipment.
LILYDALE. (1944, June 13). North-Eastern Advertiser (Scottsdale, Tas. : 1909 - 1954), p. 3. Retrieved March 7, 2015, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article151467235
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As you would expect in 1944, there was war news or war references on most pages of the North-Eastern Advertiser. On page 3, the Scottsdale CWA were running a Red Cross fund raising stall; there's a little remembrance of an American inventor: "Elmer Sperry whose discoveries revolutionised marine navigation, aircraft navigation, and made possible modern precision bombing had more than 400 inventions to his credit." On the front page we read about "France under the heel - Her Travail of Soul" alongside advertisements for Handbags and Gloves at Wardlaw Bros Ringarooma and Branxholm; the Launceston Bank for Savings; Lords Hotel at Scottsdale; and Aladdin kerosene Lamps. Life goes on. Technology evolves. We evolve. Women don't wear gloves much anymore and many men and women wear hats only on special occasions (but caps are common.) War is still with us but perhaps our trust in the governments that get us into war is not as unquestioning as it once was. That's for the better.
I want our children and grandchildren to always know where and who they come from - not just be television or internet zombies - to be grateful for it and to question it. What do you think?