WARDS RIVER NSW
EPHEMERA FROM THE 1960's
A few pictures of the village of Wards River and some of the people who lived there in the early 1960s.
The pictures were taken from 8mm home movies I made in the early 1960s, shot on a Kodak Brownie wind-up movie camera, so the quality is not great.
I've also included a few pictures from Gloucester and Stroud that I found in the movies.
In retrospect, there aren't a lot of pictures, even though I lived there for quite some time as a kid.
The old story about how you take hundreds of pictures of the places you visit, but almost none of the place where you actually live.
I've grouped them by occasion and the year they were taken and also identified some of the people shown.
You may also know some of the kids names that I've long since forgotten.
Panorama View of Wards River, 1963
This is a panorama of Wards River as seen from Rankin's farm behind the village, looking East to the village.
It's a composite image made by combining 11 frames of 8mm film that were shot from 3 slightly different anges over a period of several months in 1963 - hence the variation to lighting in parts of the panorama.
Click on the image below to open it in a window and then click on the image again to enlarge it.
Wards River Church Xmas Party, Xmas 1963
The church Xmas party was always looked forward to, along with Empire Day (cracker night) at the school.
I bet Mick Moylan and a few others had a rum or two each year after it was all over.
Click on the highlighted text below the image to view a larger picture in a new window.
Not many new cars around in 1963 Keep your arm out the window Finally fixing the road
Hey - it's all muddy here When you could smoke near kids Oops - better get rid of the cig
You kids are starting to annoy me Fingers are nice to chew on Jill Rankin & Janice Forbes
Miss Olive Burton
Our Sunday School teacher
and patient eternal optimist.
(Payne's cottage behind her).
Crop Dusting at McKays Place, Wards River, early 1964
Must have cost an arm and a leg back then for a Cessna.
Filling the scoop ready to load up. Landing uphill to load up. Loading up.
Taking off down the hill. There goes another 20 quid.
Stroud Show, 1964
I rarely chose to go to the Stroud show, so I'm not sure what the occasion was this time.
The old wooden bridge, Stroud Rd. Part of the parade. More of the parade.
Knocked the top rail off. Some nice work.
Gloucester Show, 1964
Must have been a dry summer. Fairy floss was a thing. And girls wore dresses.
C'mon guys . . . No Kias or Toyotas here.
Gloucester Floods, 1967-68
Water, water . . . Everywhere. Driving through it.
Seemed fun at the time. But not for everyone.
Gloucester / Barrington - Clearing Timber, 1967-68
A pretty tough bunch of fellas, given the work practices back then.
Somewhere back of Barrington. Another one down. Watch yer head.
A fair machine for the time. One of Yates' IH - R or V series ? Clearing at Frances St. in town.
And the cause of the above
A small Kodak 8mm wind up movie camera that I persuaded my parents to buy for me in 1963.
One of the cheapest 8mm movie cameras around back then - £16 (about $550 in 2024).
With a small fixed focus lens the the image quality isn't great, but given the negative size of an 8mm frame is only 4.8mm x 3.5mm, it's impressive you can see anything at all.
Here's the actual size of an 8mm film strip with 11 frames:
This is the same number of frames I used to create the panorama of the village, so all things considered the image quality isn't too bad.
Here's some pics of the camera - click on an image for a larger view:
A pity 8mm film went the way of the dodo, but I guess these days a wind up movie camera would be far too complicated for the average smartphone user.
Kind regards,
shotter_nail
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