One of the things I love about old letters is the language that plants them in the past. Things like "the blinking b battery", "thingamajig", "going goodo", "oh gee", "a fair cow", "cheerio", "the old mob".
Author: Kandos History
Four things about me. I like reading, writing, researching and living in the country. In particular I like living at Kandos, where we have been for more than a decade. I have deep roots in this part of the country. My mother spent her early life in Kandos. My father was born at Rylstone. My grandparents were pioneers of Kandos and Rylstone. And I was born at Lue - and went to school in Mudgee. The history of this area excites me and I would like to share it with you.
My monthly blogs are posted on the 1st of each month. However I intend taking a six-month furlough from blogging to continue a project that has been sitting on the shelves for too long. Also, after 71 posts and 59 articles I feel a bit stale. I posted my first blog in May 2017.
There is plenty to read on this site. If you are looking for a particular person or subject use the Search function. My last post is scheduled for 1/3/2022.
If you pressed "Follow" and gave your email address, the blogs will be sent to you when I return.
Thank you readers for your interest, comments and support.
Colleen
Beatrice Hayley Kandos Sporting Hero
On 7th February 1962 Beatrice shared the front cover of the Australian Women's Weekly Teenagers' Weekly with two other sporting heroes from the bush, tennis player Margaret Court from Albury and squash player Heather Blundell from Queanbeyan.
What’s a Wool Press?
Is it any surprise then that many Australians in the nineteenth century, especially those newly arrived, saw opportunity in sheep farming? Little labour (most of the year) and big returns.
Charbon Township – Vision and Reality
Overwhelmingly I felt a sense of sadness for a once-thriving village.
No Water, No Life
The "Wishing Well" piques childhood enchantment but perhaps I was always too focused on the present or future to stroll down a leaf-littered path into the past.
Land, Lots of Land
It was a familiar scene: a rough dirt road, dry creek bed, scrubby bushland. I saw no evidence of cultivation or construction, just shadows, silence, rustlings. But overwhelmingly I felt a sense of connection. I belonged there. I had sprung from this spot.
A Founding Mother
This is the story of a gutsy, red-headed, seventeen-year-old, Sarah Bellamy
A Notable Building in a Rare 20th Century Town – Kandos
What could be more mood-altering than a dance hall that suggested a glittering French palace.
Roaming Around the Long Paddock
It might surprise you to learn that TSRs are part of Kandos history.
How a church was built at Lue in 1934
In 1934 Lue had a pub, school, railway station, baker, butcher, one church, another store and fewer than twenty scattered houses.
Beneath a Moving Ropeway at Kandos
There was something magical about the ropeway. A continuous stream of buckets gliding across the landscape, sliding against imperial towers, over rugged hills, and deep gullies, above sheep grazing in paddocks or a plough turning the soil.
Kandos History 