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Monthly Archives: July 2019

Read more about the article A pleasant personal coincidence
My father on exercise with RAEME at Gan Gan, Port Stephens, in 1960.

A pleasant personal coincidence

WHEN my Dad got called up for National Service he ended up in a section with two other blokes named Geoff. The sergeant didn't like that. It was inconvenient having men with the same names. So one Geoff got to keep his name and other two were renamed on the spot by the sergeant. My Dad's name became "Sam" or "Sammy". Funny how the name stuck. Years later when I met blokes who been in the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (RAEME) with Dad they honestly believed his name was Sam. Dad in uniform at…

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Read more about the article How Neville got Bill Haley’s autograph
Neville Goodwin's autograph book, with his drawing of Bill Haley

How Neville got Bill Haley’s autograph

When rocker Bill Haley turned up at Newcastle Railway Station in 1957 young teachers college student Neville Goodwin was there waving his trusty autograph book. Neville, who was 78 when he told me this little story a couple of years ago, had drawn a picture of his favourite star and was keen to show Bill. According to Neville, Mr Haley was quite impressed. “He looked at my drawing of him in the book and said, ‘Hey kid. Did you do this?’ He suggested that if I went  with the group to the Great Northern Hotel he’d…

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Read more about the article Old trams became Depression housing
Old Waratah tramcars being towed to the bush as accommodation for single men in the Great Depression.

Old trams became Depression housing

DURING the Great Depression hundreds of Hunter people lived in makeshift humpies cobbled together from whatever materials their owners could scrounge. Some of the camps were Nobbys Camp near Horseshoe Beach, “Texas” in Carrington, “Hollywood” (also known as “Doggyville”) at Jesmond, “Coral Trees” in Stockton and Platt’s Estate and “Tram Car” at Waratah. A Ralph Snowball image of the opening of the Waratah tramway in 1901. Thirty years later the trail cars became housing for unemployed men. According to researcher and author Dulcie Hartley, writing in her book The Hungry Thirties, Tram Car camp housed 17…

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