Kandos a Rare 20th Century Town
The first colonials born in Australia ‘currency lads and lasses’ were, according to Commissioner Bigge, taller, fairer, stronger, healthier, better educated and more industrious than their immigrant counterparts; and, it goes without saying, their parents.
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.
When I started researching Kandos history almost two decades ago I was intrigued by the number of newspaper articles about St Patrick’s Day in our industrial town. This month I headed back to St Patrick and discovered a few unvarnished truths.
the beginning and emergence of Lue village
The Depression had a devastating impact on Kandos property. At the second mortgagee sale in 1934 seven “fine” Kandos properties sold for a total of £135 (one property worth an estimated £800).
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.
Some cultural celebrations have an obscure origin. Not Mother’s Day. Its founding is indisputable.
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.
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".
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.
Kandos History 