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Published: August 17th 2014
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A Tambo Teddy
Mary Sutherland, Charm Ryrie and Joan Sargood came up with the idea of making these sheepskin teddies, stuffed with lambswool and dressed like outback Aussies when their husbands farms were struggling to sell their wool. They have become hugely popular. We decided to stay another day so I got started on the never-ending washing. The machines are set for cold wash so they were only $3 each wash (I had three washes so $9 again). While I was waiting for them to finish, I sang in the laundry, which felt really good. I do it there so the washing machines drown out the sound (at least that’s what I thought – turns out everyone can still hear me!) As I finished one song the cleaner popped her head in and told me not to stop. She was enjoying it and had been walking up and down extra quietly while doing her work so she didn’t disturb me (as if it would). Then while I was hanging up the washing several other people came to say they’d enjoyed it, too, which was nice.
While I was doing that, Barry was cutting a piece of hose pipe off the water pump trying to reduce the pressure on the fixture as he thinks that may be part of the reason for the noise it makes that resonates inside the van every time we turn on the tap when not on town water (which
A Typical Telegraph Office
There was no date on this but it looks like mixture of 1920s or 30s with the crank handle phone and the telegraph machine. is used just by the supplies natural pressure as at home) whenever we do a free camp night. He managed to do it and it has taken the sound back a notch to what it was when we first got the van – but it’s still noisy!
We then did the grocery shopping in IGA. Everything is really expensive here, especially the fruit and veg. One avocado was nearly $3.50; a pineapple was $5 (I paid $1 ea for small ones on the Sunshine Coast) and broccoli was $5.60 a kilo.
Once we’d finished shopping and taken the washing off the line, we went back to finish the Australian Heritage Workers Museum. The displays we saw this time included a school, complete with little joined rows of desks with lids and inkwells (we used to have desks like that in my secondary school, but in pairs not rows and rather taller than these were). There was also a hospital upstairs, above the school, but it didn’t have very much in it and was not a patch on the one in Rockhampton.
More interesting was the display celebrating women in the workforce
School Days - Old Style
Who can remember sitting at desks like these at school? This is a multi level country school from around World War I throughout the ages. It was nice to see Joan Kirner had a case to herself, as did: pioneer aviator Nancy Bird Watson; Loisa Lawson, the editor and author of “The Dawn” – a radical newspaper for women in the 1890s which fought for women’s rights including the vote; Jane Bell, founder of the modern nursing profession, who in 1899 started what became the Royal Australian Nursing Federation and the Royal Victorian College of Nursing, and established the first post-graduate nursing course in Melbourne in 1934. Another board hailed the woman on our $5 notes – Catherine Helen Spence, a writer and champion of the rights of women, who was Australia’s first female published novelist in 1854 (she also wrote many social and political articles and the first Australian Social Studies school textbook) and our first woman political candidate in 1897 when she stood for the Federal Convention.
The story I was most surprised about, and was very interested to read, was the Tambo Teddies and Mary Sutherland, Charm Ryrie and Joan Sargood. Wool prices had been dropping and the town of Tambo, a major wool production centre in western Queensland, was feeling the pinch. This group of
The Echidna Next Door
This Echidna lives around the school next door and doesn't seem too worried by people so long as they don't get too close. They normally dig into the ground fast and hide. women decided to do something to help their community and husbands. They came up with the idea of making teddy bears that were made from sheepskin, stuffed with wool and dressed like outback farmers or stockmen with little Akubra hats, Drizabone leather jackets and even carrying plaited leather stockwhips. Each bear is hand-made and individual and has a name which relates to the property where the wool came from. They are very expensive but have become hugely popular, not only in Australia, and have become a real boom industry for the town. It was very strange reading about this as we had been speaking to someone only a couple of days before who had finally bought one for herself (for $170!) after having given a few as gifts and bought them on behalf of others. I’d never heard of a Tambo Teddy, which surprised her and she told us the story. The business started in 1993 and had sold 20,000 bears by 2002. Amazing.
There was also a display of Emergency Workers, showing some of the early fire fighting equipment (often just an axe as the water supply could fluctuate); a few major fires (like the 1864
Fire Fighter in Brass Helmet
Those early helmets do look nice but I'm not sure they were much protection from a fire! Note the horse drawn fire engine behind him. Great Brisbane Fire, which destroyed 50 houses and businesses in the heart of the city); the start of the Emergency 000 number in 1961; and the early Paramedics who worked long hours, slept on rolled up newspapers on the floor when on duty night call and had to run up to 54 km pushing a litter if called to an accident – no ambulances back then!
Again, we managed to be the last to leave, this time having just about seen everything. We made it back to the caravan park in time for the end of Helen’s concert again, but this time there was no freshly made damper, just shop bought fruit cake. The owner said it was too hot standing beside the fire pit, but I think it was because there were fewer patrons today, because it had been the same temperature for days. Still it was nice to have a sit down with a snack and some tea before I headed to the van to make dinner.
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