How can objects bring back memories and engender a sense of place? Because they carry the history of families. This is my second post on the importance of keeping objects and documenting provenance and significance. The subject of this post … Continue reading The importance of objects as holders of memories – the family piano
It was purely coincidence (or so I thought) that I happened to be looking through old photographs on the night before Mother’s Day this year and found an order of service for a Mother’s Day service held 73 years ago (nearly to the day) on a far-away, war-torn island. The Order of Worship for the Mother’s Day service was amongst the few photos and personal letters brought home to Windsor by Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Sergeant Alfred Cammack, after the end of WWII. The service was held in conjunction with the United States 13th Air Force (known as the famous Jungle Air Force) … Continue reading Memories of Mother’s Day on Morotai Island in 1945
A shortage of building materials after the end of World War II, combined with an acute post-war rental housing shortage, saw the increased use of one of the wonder products of the twentieth century: fibro. My childhood home at 44 Court Street, Windsor, c1960. My mother Iris Cammack is in the driveway. The house now has a brick facade. Photo Bert Hornery (my uncle). While building figures in Windsor revealed that from 1930 to 1936 seventy timber and fibro cottages were built for a cost of £23,419 (approximately £335 per house), by 1948 the cost of building a basic two-bedroom … Continue reading The ubiquitous fibro house
Our family was fortunate in that, of the family members who served in World Wars I and II and in Government or Defence Service, only one was killed in action. That one was my grandfather, Private Walter Cammack 203661 who was killed on 1 April 1918, aged 33, in France while serving with the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment, 1st/5th Battalion. He is buried in the Aix-Noulette Communal Cemetery Extension, Pas de Calais, in France. As mentioned in an earlier blogpost, I was approached by the Horncastle (Lincolnshire) Civic Society two years ago to provide information and photographs about my grandfather (who came from Horncastle) … Continue reading My Anzac Day Heroes
Recording Hawkesbury history 