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Vintage Photographs and Photography

Read more about the article Nudes, beer and pasta in 1960s Newcastle
Copy of a Goya nude in a Cessnock Hotel, February 1962. Photo by Ron Morrison

Nudes, beer and pasta in 1960s Newcastle

In the 1960s a nude picture on the wall of your pub or restaurant might have caused strife with the authorities: unless of course it was a copy of a nude by an old master, which is a different thing altogether. In a Cessnock pub, for example, a local artist daubed a copy of Goya's Nude Maja for the edification and titillation of Coalfields drinkers. I don't know which pub was so gorgeously adorned, nor the name of the copyist, nor the fate of the copy. Here's a link to the original, so you can judge…

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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 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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