Shearers Strikes and Other Things

 

This story starts in 1891. That's when my great grandfather was killed. It was during the 1891 shearers strike and despite Stewart Svensen's assertion in the The shearers' war that no one was killed during that strike, our family thinks differently, but that's another story.

One of his children was my grandfather, and he was killed at Poziers on the night of 4/5 Aug 1916. My father, in later years befriended a number of soldiers from his battalion (26th Bn) and other Queensland WW1 veterans. One of those was Otto Nielsen (25th Bn). If they were Dad's friends, they were ours as well, and I regret now in later life, not having taken a closer interest in these soldiers of yesterday.

So last Saturday, I went to the computer markets for no particular reason, though I did end up spending $50. When I was leaving, the Lifeline Book Fair was full steam in the next pavilion, so I wandered over, maybe I will get lucky and find Stewart Svensen's book.

The book fair was fantastically well organized, I found the Australiana section and looked at all the books. The book I wanted wasn't there, but here was another, The Shearers , by Patsy Adam-Smith and after a quick glance, bought it on the basis it would help me better understand the background to the 1891 strike. There was another book by the same author, titled Goodbye Girlie , so I bought that as well.

A quick squizz at "Goodbye Girlie" when I got home and couldn't put it down, what an extraordinary woman was Patsy Adam-Smith, but back to the point, there, when relating her trip for the 60th anniversary of the armistice, she talks of Otto Nielsen.

Otto was taken POW during WW1, lost a leg and when I first met him, was the sole operator of a banana plantation, with his wooden leg! Incredible. He had a grandchild in Canberra and when he visited, we would invite him over for dinner.

Life is full of regrets, on his last visit I rang to say I couldn't arrange for dinner. He died not long after that, and I really felt ashamed I suppose, of not having made the effort.


 

Wheelie Bins

 



The local yobos out again with a box of matches on the neighbours bins. I suppose the optimist would say we are lucky that is all the damage they did.



 

1600 Gas Bottles

 




31 Aug 2010

Coming back from Brisbane, three lanes of the F3 were being funneled into one due to a truck carrying 1600 gas bottles crashing off into the rock face (driver went to sleep?).

Looks like they all had to removed by hand. Wasn't too bad, we got there pretty early, a couple of hours later, the delay was newsworthy.