There was an annual Lilydale ball in aid of the much needed bush nursing fund. Provide music and they will come!
There was an ethic of “improving society” in many organisations. Everybody has heard of The Temperance League which opposed drinking and the Salvation Army built Coffee Palaces all over Australia, close to railway stations, so that men travelling with families would bring them there for coffee and snacks, not head for the pub. (See an image of the Lilydale Coffee Palace.)
I spotted near the top of an article titled EPITOME OF NEWS in THE HOBART MERCURY on 1 Dec, 1896 the news of an “Anti-gambling League formed at Launceston last evening.” The Daily Telegraph of 15 July 1903 reports lively goings on at Underwood.
UNDERWOOD
The Underwood Band of Hope held a concert and coffee supper in the church on Wednesday, the 8th inst., which turned out a great success. In spite of the rain, there was a large attendance, including a number of visitors from Newnham and Lilydale. The following programme was given with much credit: Song, "I'll be your sweetheart," Mr Len Boon ; recitation, "The Last Hymn," Mr Will Bennie; song, by Misses McGaughey ; recitation, "Gone with a Handsomer Man," Thos. Orr; song, "Auld Lang Syne," Mr and Miss Bennie; recitation, "Since I've Become a Married Man," Alex. Dickson: dialogue, "A Regular Tartar," by Miss B. Orr, W. Bennie, Miss Kate Orr, Tom Orr, H. Benn, R. Benn, and Freddy Boon. A plentiful supply of coffee, cake, and sandwiches was served round.
UNDERWOOD. (1903, July 15). Daily Telegraph (Launceston, Tas. : 1883 - 1928), p. 8. Retrieved May 4, 2015, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article153948852
Doesn’t that sound like a hoot? In spite of the rain. How many happy days and evenings over generations have those old wooden churches and halls at Lilydale witnessed? The warmth of community combatting the cold of Tasmania.
I asked my father-in-law a couple of years ago about sodalities (I’d never encountered the word) and he went into a fascinating description of the Catholic lay societies - almost like a continuation of school “houses” into adult life – and how they would come (this was in Wollongong in the 1930s and 40s) to Mass bearing the banners of their sodality on certain days, some for women and girls, some for men and boys, some dedicated to a certain saint or the Virgin Mary. It was communal activity designed to attract families (especially men, I think) to engagement in their church community.
I think many of these sociable activities must have dwindled after the Second World War as prosperity, the big move to the city suburbs, electronic entertainment at home (hi fi’s, radio, tv), cinemas, mobility in cars and professional sports events outside the home took people’s attention. I could speculate about declining religious faith and perhaps Australia after WW2 being in a mood to enjoy itself, inclined to look back on previous ideas of respectability, duty and abstention as wowserism. But I leave that to readers to think about … or comment.