I grew up in sugar country. A crushing mill below
1951
Campbell St.
Originally grey with maroon trim
When I was about 8 my father had a new house built at 41 Campbell St., Innisfail. Chinese grocers (the Lee Longs) lived next door and there were sugar cane fields out the back with big centipedes and rats in them.
It was a lowset house with Fibrolite (fibrous cement with the fibre reinforcement being the now dreaded "asbestos") internal walls and weatherboard external walls. I remember being rather fascinated by the cover©strip on the joins in the fibro sheets.
My parents painted the house grey with maroon trim. It was little changed when I saw it again in 1989 or thereabouts. The bathroom had an electric bath heater and a "plunge" (in the North to have a bath meant to have a shower. Baths were rare and were called "plunges") and in an annexe at the back of the house there was a lavatory with a septic system so no more weekly visits from the "honey cart" were needed.
Jack (Jacqueline Margaret, my sister) and I had our own bedrooms
My mother had an electric washing machine of sorts with a wringer attached. She still boiled up the copper, however. Bet you don't know what that is! I had the job of "poking" it.
My mother also had her first fridge there -- a "Prestcold" made in England, I think.
I remember the house©warming party. It was there that I first tasted "Barossa Pearl" ©© still in my view a nice Spumante©type wine.
Some guests (including one called "Fordie") were too drunk to go home and slept on the floor. I think it was the only party my parents ever had that I can recollect.
The "Blitz"
After a stint at cane-cutting, my father returned to his usual work cutting down forest tree for timber. At that time he had a share in a "Blitz", to facilitate getting the logs to the railhead.
Pictured above are a couple of "Blitz" trucks in mint condition. There were a number of variations of them. You see above, for instance, that they came in both 6-wheel and 4-wheel versions. They were made in Canada by both Ford and Chevrolet during WWII as part of the huge Canadian contribution to the war effort. Male Canadians and Britons in those days were men, not the whining mice that most seem to have become under Leftist influence in the postwar era.
Unlike his father, my father did not use a bullock-team to "snig" (drag) the log along a bush track to its destination. He used a Blitz. A Blitz was originally designed to negotiate the often difficult terrain leading up to battlefields and it therefore had both 4WD and a double-reduction gearbox. It was slow but tough and versatile and could go almost anywhere -- which made it ideal for forest work after the war. And it was immensely popular after the war. They were all over the place in country areas. They were often used as tow-trucks. The picture below is an indication of how many there were before they all eventually wore out.
What I would like to know is how they originated. They were apparently designed in Britain but look like no other British vehicle. My suspicion is that the design was a copy of an Opel Blitz of the period. Opel is/was the German tentacle of GM. So I suspect that the British just copied a successful German design. I have however not been able to find a picture of the Opel Blitz of that period.
The name "Blitz" certainly suggests a German origin. "Blitz" is the German word for lightning. On the other hand, maybe the name is simply ironical: Whatever else the Blitz was, it was certainly not fast.
There must be a million collectors of military vehicles worldwide and a Blitz in good condition would certainly be most prized in such circles so I hope at least one collector reads this and is able to give me the history behind the "Blitz".
Update:
Wikipedia now has an article that tells you all about the Blitz. And I have now found a pic of Germany's Opel Blitz, a much more conventional vehicle
Books
I started borrowing boy's yarns from both the school library and the School of Arts library in town when I was about 8 and generally read 2 or 3 books a week -- Enid Blyton, Capt. W.E. Johns, Percy F. Westerman etc.
I also read a lot of non-fiction, Ion Idriess and the like. My parents had a lot of trouble getting me to go to bed at night. I used to sit up in my bed reading.
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E.&O.E.
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