Kandos a Rare 20th Century Town
I ask myself why am I drawn to family history, a passion I have had for forty years, a passion aroused by stories of fame (or at least brushes with fame) and fortune (or at least the desire for it). But I am not alone. Genealogy research is a booming business.
According to the Mudgee Guardian Kandos Stores had “a distinct air of progressiveness”. Double-fronted, two-story, with overhead balcony and paved entrance, it was built with CCCs locally manufactured ash and cement concrete blocks, 9 inches by 18 inches.
Most of my four hundred and three postcards are about travel – the great Australian pastime of the last four or five decades – leaving home, coming home and, for the recipient, staying home.
the beginning and emergence of Lue village
On 15 July 1933 Kandos Talkies would treat you to a double-bill, Beauty and the Boss, a “radiant romance, spicy and snappy – She had ‘IT’ but she hid it”; and “a sparkling satire Once in a Lifetime which reveals what goes on in the private offices of Hollywood film studios”!
That was Meg’s secret, like many women at that time. Keeping it secret enabled her to gain employment and a husband.
They were absentee landowners, colonial gentry, fraternising with their peers, making deals, raising capital and writing letters to public officials and newspapers. They paid an overseer to manage their holding.
I ask myself: why did my Aunt Meg, an openhearted, gregarious woman, who set me on the path of family history, and recorded so much of it, not tell me about my Aboriginal connections?
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".
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.
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.
Kandos History 