February 2019 - Photo Time Tunnel

Lovely “Bobbie” the 1942 beach girl

Post author:Greg Ray
Post published:February 28, 2019
Post category:History Miscellaneous Newcastle, NSW, Australia Vintage Photographs and Photography
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In the dark days of World War 2, when Australia and Newcastle felt threatened by Japanese military might, the population needed something to take its mind off the war. And what better than a beach girl contest? A promotional badge for the 1942 Newcastle Beach Beauty Quest. These sixpenny "buttons" were sold by the contestants to raise funds. Actually, the competition (modelled on similar ones that had been held in Sydney throughout the previous decade) was the idea of the Newcastle Commercial Travellers' Club (an association of travelling salesmen), which had already organised some successful fund-raising…

Handling blocks of ice at Dark's Ice Works, 1936.

Confessions of an ice dealer

Post author:Greg Ray
Post published:February 27, 2019
Post category:History Miscellaneous Newcastle, NSW, Australia Vintage Photographs and Photography
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RAY Kime used to be one of the biggest ice dealers in the Wallsend area. He’d buy from his supplier in Newcastle and break down the pure ice into smaller quantities for his many customers who simply couldn’t get by without it. That was before electric refrigerators, of course, when most people used iceboxes to keep their foodstuffs cold. “When fridges came in, well that was the beginning of the end for the ice home delivery business,” Ray told me. He still has his ice pick, his ice tongs and various bits and pieces of paperwork…

Panorama of Newcastle, circa 1902.

Post author:Greg Ray
Post published:February 25, 2019
Post category:History Miscellaneous Newcastle, NSW, Australia Vintage Photographs and Photography
Post comments:1 Comment

This delightful panoramic view of Newcastle Harbour, taken from Cathedral Hill, was created between 1899 and 1907 by Charleston Studios, a prominent photographic presence in the city at the time. It has been scanned from a folding copy in an old pamphlet and the digital copy has been carefully restored by Sylvia Ray. In the front right is a portion of the since-dismantled Cathedral graveyard. Stockton shows large in the background, with the masts of the sunken ship Regent Murray (lost in 1899) poking above the waterline at the end of the Oyster Bank. The old…

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