New England history: Personal stories reveal times of change

War photographers, New Guinea: (Back left) Damien Parer, Frank Hurley, (front left) Maslyn Williams and George Silk. This the first of a six part series on growing up on the Northern or New England Tablelands

My writing on domestic life and childhood has taken me deep into nostalgia territory, as it has for some of my readers. This has not been helped by the Armidale Families Past and Present Facebook site!

Founded and moderated by Elizabeth Pollard, the membership has exploded to almost 2,200. The majority of members no longer live in Armidale, but are enjoying exchanging reminiscences and sharing photos. It is, all agree, quite addictive.

From my viewpoint as an historian, the site and others like it add to the already great depth of historical material on the broader New England. We need many more historians if we are to capture and present the story of our past over the last 30,000 years to the level that it deserves.

That requires broader action. For the moment and to continue the childhood and nostalgia theme, I thought that I would share with you over coming columns five stories about growing up or coming of age on the Tablelands during the twentieth century.

"They are stories of personal and family change set against a backdrop of major change at local, regional and national level". 

Four of the five are based on autobiographical pieces. The writer’s age varies, although all were born before the Second World War: Maslyn Williams was born in 1911, Judith Wright in 1915, Binks Turnbull Dowling in 1923, Judith Wallace in 1932.

To their stories I have added a fifth, that of Peter Woolnough, better known by his stage name Peter Allen. Born on 10 February 1944, Peter carries our coverage into the 1950s.

Four of the five were born in New England, the fourth (Maslyn Williams) was born in the UK. Three of the five became writers, the fourth a songwriter, singer and cabaret star. The fifth (Binks Dowling) was the daughter of a writer. Of the five, only Binks Dowling remained in New England.

Each story is different, describing different aspects of life during formative periods in the subject’s life., They are stories of personal and family change set against a backdrop of major change at local, regional and national level. Yet there are similarities between them.

All four have an element of nostalgia, a feeling of looking back. Four of the five have an element of loss. Only one, that of Maslyn Williams, is totally sunny. Only one, Judith Wright, involves an explicit and sometimes acerbic rejection of a past that yet retains its hold over her.

In the short compass of these columns with my 500 word limit I can do more than sketch a few key elements in each story. Still, I hope that they will be of interest and encourage you to read further into the fascinating story that is New England’s past.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 13 June 2018. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018  

UNE Humanities Weekly seminars on-line

In an earlier post, New England Travels: journeys through space and time, I posted a paper that I had delivered in the University of New England Humanities seminar series.

One of my frustrations in living away from Armidale is that I cannot get to the seminars on a regular basis. As you know my primary historical focus is on New England, but I'm always interested in what other people are doing and in other fields as well. It stops me becoming blinkered.

I mention this now because the University is making all the seminars available as podcasts including the discussion. The sound quality is a little variable, but not enough to be a significant problem. Four years of seminars are on-line, with seminars added generally the week after they have been delivered. You will find the full set here.

I am working my way through the whole series, starting with the ones in which I have the most immediate interest. You might like to have a browse.

The high country flick - Enjoying the warm heart of the family home

All smiles: The kitchen in Marsh Street, Christmas Eve 1979. Kathleen Vickers is on the left, and Jim Belshaw Snr is washing up.

I suppose that we might call it the high country flick. The girls would come into the kitchen, stand with their backs to the stove and flick up the backs of their skirts to allow the heat to penetrate.

As with so many homes, the kitchen at 202 Marsh Street was the family centre. It was neither a big nor a posh kitchen. Few were at that stage. It was, in fact, extremely poky. Later when we sold the house, the first thing the new owners did was to rip it out.

Despite its small size and sometimes crowded nature with people perched around the small kitchen table, it had a warmth. That was partly because it was warm., no small plus in a New England winter, at least as much because my mother created a welcoming space.

In it’s own way, that kitchen was a microcosm of our shared history.

The kitchen benches were low, too low for me. I had to stoop to use them. They were low because people were shorter when they were built.

People are just much taller now, an increase that has happened over many generations. When I played rugby at school I was taller and heavier than average. Now I am dwarfed by the average rugby player.

The sink had two cold water taps. One was for town supply, the second from the tank. Because town water was so hard, tank water was used to make tea or coffee or for cooking.

On the sink sat a tin with wire on the top and holes punched in the bottom. In the tin sat a bar of sunlight soap. Hot water run through the tin provided suds to wash the dishes. I don’t think we ever used commercial dish washing fluid.

The stove was the nerve centre. When we first moved into the house this was an old iron range. Then a new rayburn was installed. This gave a constant supply of hot water and was wonderful for cooking, if sometimes a bit cranky. .

The firebox was on the right. The temperature of the whole stove could be controlled by varying the intensity of the fire through a combination of fuel and dampers. The hot air ran along the top of the stove from the fuel box to the chimney on the left.

A hot plate ran the length of the stove with heat gradually diminishing towards the chimney. This allowed food to be cooked and then moved to a cooler place to set or stay warm.

The ever present kettle could be moved from the left of the stove to the hotter right where it quickly boiled. The oven was on the left with a warming oven below. This allowed food to be kept warm or plates to be warmed before serving.

I still miss that stove!

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 13 June 2018. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018 

Hidden stories and the respectable art of sticky-beaking

Paul Gavarni, La Flâneur 1842: To be a flâneur is to idle without purpose, interested in what you find

I was introduced to the art of flânerie by John Baxter’s book The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A pedestrian in Paris. 

Baxter, an Australian born writer, journalist and film maker, has lived in Paris since 1989.

There, by accident, he became a guide taking walking parties on literary tours through the streets of a city that he had come to love. The book describes his experiences in that role

I enjoyed it in part because I have been to Paris several times and so knew many of the places and some of the stories he wrote about. It’s a well written easy to read book. I was also interested in a professional sense since I see part of my role as a story teller. 

"The term itself derives from the Old Norse verb flana “to wander with no purpose”.

Baxter used the concept of the flâneur - literally the stroller, lounger, saunterer - to introduce his view of the pedestrian in Paris. The term itself derives from the Old Norse verb flana “to wander with no purpose”. However, it was in 19^th century Paris that the flâneur became a cultural icon, someone who wanders the streets as an observer and philosopher, an urban explorer, a connoisseur of the street.

I was immediately attracted to the idea of flânerie. It provided a perfect justification for my habit of just wandering, following my nose to see what I could find. It justified a sometimes insatiable curiosity that could verge on sticky-beaking. I was now engaged in a respected cultural practice! Most of all, I liked the idea of combining history with current observation.

We are surrounded by history if only we could see it.

The drive between Armidale and Sydney via Thunderbolt’s Way is a fascinating history lesson in its own right, embedded as it is in 30,000 years of human history. The streets of our towns and villages, the country side itself, are full of hidden stories.

To discover those stories you need to stop, to stroll, to observe and then to investigate. In fact, you need to become a flâneur!

In recent columns, we have been talking about aspects of domestic life, most recently Australian’s love of meat.

In the days before refrigeration, meat had to be killed locally to ensure that it did not spoil. Well, perhaps not spoil to much, for by the end of a hot day the meat could already be spoiling, beginning to turn black!

Animals might be killed just outside the town or on the butcher’s premises. The demand for meat meant that there were multiple butcher’s shops often co-located with a small general store, each one strongly favoured by particular customers.

Most have gone, victims of changing tastes and the rise of the supermarket. Still, if you walk your town you may be surprised how many of the buildings themselves survive. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 6 June 2018. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018 

Settlers board the gravy train

Scottish immigrants Morris Drummond and wife Catherine 1882. Morris was struck by the availability and cheapness of food in Australia.This is the fifth in a series on domestic life and the rhythms of childhood  

Two things impressed Scottish stonemason Morris Drummond on his arrival in Melbourne in March 1879 on the way to his new home in Sydney. The first was the stonework, the best he had ever seen. The second was the food.

“Meat is cheaper than at home”, he wrote in his diary. “we had a good Dinner for sixpence I will give you an idea of it had soup and Bread Mutton Potatoes & Cabbage and Plum pudding for a Desert” Tea was just as cheap: “we had our Tea for the same amount and as much as we could eat and fruit is cheap.”

This picture of the Australian colonies as places with plentiful cheap food is something repeated in many immigrant accounts. Australians had a particular love of meat, something that Sydney doctor and nutritionists Philip E Muskett complained about in 1893. Australians should, he suggested, eat more vegetables for health reasons.

There were good reasons for this love of meat. Livestock was readily available and could be driven to market over considerable distances. New England beef helped feed the diggers on the Victorian gold fields.

By contrast, vegetable had to be carted at considerable expense or grown on home or station gardens. The expansion of the railways allowed fruit and vegetables to be brought to the cities more easily, but the love of meat remained.

"Now that meat was cheap and freely available, they consumed it with gusto."  

In the home countries, meat had been expensive, a luxury. Many families rarely tasted meat in their daily diet. Now that it was cheap and freely available, they consumed it with gusto. It was, suggests historian Geoffrey Blainey, more than a food, more than an incessant topic of conversation. It had become a way of life.

Outside sheep country, beef was more popular and freely available than mutton. Pork became readily available from the 1890s linked to the spread of dairying. From the 1870s rabbit meat was being sold, initially as an expensive luxury. By the 1890s, rabbit had become the cheapest meat. The humble chook was available but remained expensive.

In sheep country like the New England, mutton dominated. The weekly rations of a station worker could include close to 6 kilos of mutton a week, more meat than some immigrant workers had eaten in six months or longer at home.

There were some complaints, but most settled in happily eating three meals of meat each day and talking about their good fortune in letters home.

Although Australians remain great meat eaters, the earlier meat based diet with its English overtones now seems old fashioned, even unhealthy. The idea of meat and three veg, itself a later model, has been replaced by a melded perception of food attributed to the migrant intakes after the Second World War.

There is some truth in this stereotype, but like most stereotypes it is only partially true. The reality is far more complex.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 30 May 2018. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018 

Is technology bringing history to life or distorting it?

Czesława Kwoka (15 August 1928 Wólka Złojecka – 12 March 1943 Auschwitz) was a Polish Catholic child who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp at the age of 14. She was one of approximately 230,000 children and young people aged less than eighteen among the 1,300,000 people who were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau from 1940 to 1945. The colourisation was done by Marina Amaral. You will find her website here,  a little about the story of  Czesława Kwoka and the process here.

There was an interesting piece by Steve Hendrix, in the Washington Post (May 10 2018),Is technology bringing history to life or distorting it?, examining the impact of new digital technology on the presentation and interpretation of history. Examples cited include the colourisation of photos; the use of digital technology to create the speech that JFK would have given in Dallas had he not been assassinated; and the use of powerful interactive techniques drawn from computer games to explain and allow people to participate in historical periods.

I find this an uncomfortable area. I'm not absolutely sure why. The use of dioramas to present historical scenes in museums, for example, has been around for a long time, as have the use of paintings and models. Skeletal reproductions are another example.The recreation of a speech whether by use of voice technology as in the Kennedy case or through the combination of actors and technology as in the case of martin Luther King's “Fill Up the Jails” speech, delivered at Durham’s White Rock Baptist Church in 1960 is more akin to a dramatic performance.  They are linked to history, but are not themselves historical works.

Thinking about it, I guess that I have two problems. The first is where the sheer power of the technology overwhelms the history, effectively substituting the presentation for the evidence. The presentation becomes the history, not an interpretation of the history. The second is where the technology alters the evidence in some way, substituting a new for the original.

I have a particular problem with the growing tendency towards colourisation. I am quite prepared to accept that Marina Amaral undertakes careful research to determine which colours to use. I would accept, too, that colourisation can provide new insights. In this sense, a colourised photo become the equivalent of a research paper based on the original photo. The difficulty is that the colourised version often lack context especially since the technique has become so widely available. The simplest rule is not to use a colourised version as evidence at all unless you do happen to know that the original had colour added at the time.  

There appears to have been a fair bit of discussion at international level as to how to manage all this to ensure historical integrity. An example is the International Charter for the computer-based visualization of Cultural Heritage. The London Charter 2009.