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Monthly Archives: March 2019

Read more about the article Newcastle girls helped build bombers

Newcastle girls helped build bombers

Mollie Clewett  was 21 years old and had only been married a year on November 29, 1943 when she started working as a machinist at Newcastle’s Lysaghts plant. It was wartime, and ever since the Japanese submarine bombardment of Newcastle, people in the city were acutely conscious of how much was at stake. Thousands of Hunter men were away fighting, creating a shortage of labour for vital war industries and opening opportunities for young women like Mollie to work in jobs that would have been closed to them just a few years before. Mollie's husband, Dick,…

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Read more about the article Newcastle’s lost boat harbour

Newcastle’s lost boat harbour

In its early days Newcastle was linked to its harbour. Its streets ran down to the water and it had a large undercover produce market at the harbour end of Market Street where farm products from the highly fertile river islands were traded. Incorporated in this market complex was a boat harbour, the headquarters of the watermen who used to take goods to the ships that came into port. The ferry wharves were also close by. But the demands of the state government meant this situation couldn't last. First, the government eliminated easy access to the…

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Read more about the article Les Lumsdon, a life in cartoons

Les Lumsdon, a life in cartoons

During his long reign as The Newcastle Morning Herald's resident cartoonist, Les Lumsdon became a household name. His daily drawings of blue-collar families grappling with the issues of the day captured the spirit of a city that liked to laugh - especially at itself. In the 1960s visiting American servicemen were making dating a tough job for local boys. Born in Abermain in 1912, Les Lumsdon had an early ambition to be a newspaper cartoonist. His first jobs, however, were in retail, first at his parents' corner store then in the advertising department at the Hustler's…

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