The 1930's

The 1930’s…

 

Photo shows the interior of 'Everglades' at Leura, an Art Deco mansion built during the Depression years and now managed by the National Trust.

Ironically, in the period when Australia’s economy struck a collapse of markets leading to awful Depression and widespread unemployment, Warrimoo experienced the kind of growth that established it as a permanent community with nascent institutions and an effective economy. Apart from the ongoing timber-felling industry, the 1930’s saw the development of poultry/egg farming, some attempts at orchardism and the establishment of a local dairy.

 

Main Street, Katoomba, showing tourist bus of the 1930's.

A raw kind of tourism chimed into the opening up of Katoomba and the Upper Mountains to visitors from Sydney, anxious to free themselves of the pong of pan toilets and smoky coal-fired industrialism. Tuberculosis and bronchial sufferers escaped to the peace and ‘clean air’ of the sanatoria of the Blue Mountains and in doing so passed through Warrimoo, another important link in the chain of stops encountered in a full day’s journey to a ‘different world’ of cool, clear climate and healthy atmosphere.

 Even the unemployed sought respite in the ‘Mountains and Warrimoo—the blocks along Torwood Road were said to have been Warrimoo’s own ‘shanty town’ of makeshift shelters and desperate attempts to ‘grow one’s own’ survivalist veggie patches during the ‘hard times’.

 

While this Electoral Roll is labelled "1930", it is actually referring to 1920. These are the original settlers on the Warrimoo Estate founded by Arthur Rickard, or at least those who had registered to vote (adults over 21 years of age).

Certainly, the population grew. A comparative perusal of the ‘Electoral Rolls’ for Warrimoo in 1920, 1930 and 1934, will provide evidence of the increasing number of residents, as well as their addresses in the township and their occupations.

Registration for voting in Federal elections became compulsory in 1912, so that all citizens of Australia, men and women over the age of 21, were recorded on ‘Electoral Rolls’. Naturally, children, and by all accounts there were quite a few straying the dirt roads and bush tracks of Warrimoo, are not mentioned, so we must draw rather general conclusions about their number in the township during the 1930’s.

The Roll of 1930 shows a substantial jump in the number of residents. However, ‘Mrs Simpson’, the war widow who won possession of the ‘Volunteers’ residence, is notable by her absence. ‘The Duchles’—and there are several alternative spellings of this name in other publications, most notably ‘Duckles’—have arrived and are managing ‘The Store’ (present day Monte Italia Pizzeria). They will play a substantial role in Warrimoo’s history from this point.

 

Warrimoo's Electoral Roll for 1930. Note the wide variety of occupations listed. How many of these suffered unemployment in the coming years--1931-32--is anyone's guess, since these were the worst years of the Depression when unemployment hit 30%, a rate unheard of today.

The Watts family lived on the corner of The Avenue, The Mall, and Florabella St., diagonally across from the Ways’ poultry farm, which was directly opposite Henry Todd’s place. The house currently standing on their corner still bears the historic name “Watts’ Bella” (‘Beautiful Watts’).

Henry Todd lived opposite on the Florabella Street corner (Number 3). Henry was one of those for whom the ‘Rejected Volunteers’ and Arthur Rickard had set up the Warrimoo estate—he was a war veteran, but after signing up in 1916 and serving in France he was medically discharged in July 1918 with ‘premature senility’[1]…Given the relative ignorance of the authorities at that time, it can be supposed that this diagnosis in effect refers to what we call “shell-shock” or "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" today. According to Walter Way[2] he built a beautiful glass garden dedicated to his wife, titled “Mons Regina”—“Mountain Queen”. Sadly, he too had gone by the time of the 1930 Electoral Roll.

 

The "Embassy' cinema in Katoomba--1930's--note the 'Art Deco' style yet again. Going to the 'Flicks' was an essential part of life in this decade, and Warrimooians dressed up to the nines if they were ever to engage in such a palatial night out.

Nevertheless a new family had moved in (probably the “Ozannes”—Elizabeth and Thomas). Indeed this particular intersection could be said to be the densest population of Warrimoo in 1930, and a veritable hive of activity, with Mrs Watts perpetually encouraging all and sundry to attend Anglican Church services every Sunday.

By the time of the 1934 Electoral Roll the number of registered residents had more than doubled, with a wonderful cross-section of occupations evident, ranging from Bus Driver to Hairdresser to Miner to Bricklayer and Dressmaker, Cabinet Maker, Plumber and Labourer. Warrimoo Historians wonder whether the “Harry Charles Swain, Bookseller” of The Boulevarde was in fact the same “Swain” who came to own an extensive chain of bookstores throughout Sydney.

 

The 1934 Roll--massive upheavals had happened in Australian political life: two Labor Governments, the State under Jack Lang, and the Federal under James Scullin, had been swept out of office. Fascism was on the march in Europe and Asia. Yet the township of Warrimoo had grown by over 100% in the same period...

One must not become too fazed with the broad term used by many women to describe their roles—‘Home Duties’—with any sized family and little support from electrical home appliances we have today, this was indeed a full-time and demanding job, often supplemented by other very worthwhile activities. We already know, for example, that “Catherine Yousen” acted as an “Attendant” for the Warrimoo Station—basically, ‘Station Master’. Many of the women mentioned would have been executing valuable skills such as sewing, boot repair, and vegetable gardening to supplement the family income.

Whatever the case, Warrimoo was becoming a true ‘melting pot’ of varied skills, classes, and interests, maintaining a solid component of mutual respect and assistance common in many Australian communities at the time. There was no real ‘crime’, and people helped out with a cup of sugar, a bowl of milk or a lift when it was needed. Without neighbourly support, life would have been miserable indeed.

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[1] RICHARDSON, E., and MATTHEW, K Warrimoo History Project, Library Records—War Records, ‘Henry Todd’

[2] Op Cit., ‘My Story’, p.10

The Timbergetters

The Timbergetters

No history of Warrimoo in the 1920’s would be complete without reference to the main industry carried out on the northern side during this time, “Timbergetting” or “Logging”.[1]

The area covered by logging activities ran from the rear of Cross Street and Warrimoo Oval across Long Angle Gully to Sun Valley and Singles Ridge Road, which contains rich volcanic soils. The combination of soil fertility, moisture from water sources and sunbeam direction gives this part of Warrimoo some very unique and impressive vegetation, most especially tall, straight timbers.

 

The magnificent 'Mountain Blue Gum' (Eucalyptus Deanei)--a feature of any bushwalk on the northern side of Warrimoo, and the principal target of early Loggers such as the Baxter Brothers

Trees most prized were the ‘Mountain Blue Gum’ (Eucalyptus Deanei—so named after the Railways Engineer who designed much of the Blue Mountains railroad, including the Newnes tunnels, Henry Deane); the ‘Cabbage Gum’ (Eucalyptus Amplifolia), and the turpentine (Syncarpia Glomulifera), a row of which now grows on the Great Western Highway between Warrimoo and Blaxland.

 

'Mountain Blue Gum' from a distance. You can see why they were so prized for telegraph and electricity poles. They occupy a special part of the Blue Mountains Significant Tree Register

The Mountain Blue Gum is a stunning and magnificent tree. So valuable is its preservation in the ‘Mountains that bush regenerators have worked hard restore its habitat in the present-day ‘Deanei Forest’, which can be found surrounding the Council Depot at Springwood, just off Hawkesbury Road. Clearly, the timber derived from the Eucalyptus Deanei is tall, straight, and hard.

 

Henry Deane (1847-1924)--the tree was named after him in 1904, when he was Engineer-in-Chief of  construction for the NSW Railways, and a keen amateur botanist

 At the turn of the century government institutions required such timber for products like railway sleepers and telegraph/electricity poles. Thus evolved the enterprises of two timbergetting families, the Goddard and Baxter brothers, the latter of whom lived on Singles Ridge Road.

The Loggers cut trails down into the valleys and hauled logs out by bullock teams. Bruce Cameron provides some details:

‘At one stage the Baxters used a light rail system to remove logs to a ridge-top saw mill driven by a boiler, near Rickard Road, Warrimoo. They also operated a bush saw mill built by the Goddard brothers (c. 1918), near the present day Springwood Golf Course. This was close to their home in Singles Ridge Road, where another sawmill operated. A mill was also located in the vicinity of the (old) Sun Valley Nursery, near the highway.

 

The Goddards and Baxters used boilers such as this to provide the steam power for saw mills set in the bush at Warrimoo, Sun Valley and elsewhere

When the Baxters were cutting timber they tapped into all the principle stands around Long Angle Gully. The main product was used for power poles. When the Mountains were first hooked up to the electricity grid, the Baxters supplied poles to the Blue Mountains Council. Other timber was cut primarily for firewood consumption.

The local market was supplemented with orders from other areas. Poles were cut and then loaded onto steam trains for transport to the required location.

 

This scene at Faulconbridge station gives us a clue as to similar sites at Warrimoo, where loggers loaded timber for various destinations up and down the Mountains. Log freight was one of the primary reasons why the siding at Karabar was reopened early in the 20th century and continued beyond the Second World War (note all the telegraph poles in the picture)

The Baxters often camped overnight in make-shift timber camps. Signs of crude bush huts and relics can still be found in the bush near Sun Valley. Old trucks, machinery and watertanks are rusty reminders of the days when the valleys echoed with the sound of the logger’s axe. Numerous slot marks where loggers could place cutting boards in tree trunks can also still be seen. An old dug-out saw-pit is located on private property not far from Long Angle Gully.

 


This picture reveals the combined usage of both Bullock and 'Blitz' power to haul logs up to the mill and/or station at the top of the ridge

 

In later years the Baxters used an ex-army ‘Blitz’ four wheel drive to assist the bullock teams remove logs from the gullies around Long Angle. In the Depression they would save petrol tokens so the Blitz could be used to remove timber. Both the bullocks and the Blitz would tow a large log trailer or ‘jinker’. In the disastrous fires of 1936 the trailer was destroyed by fire near Yellowrock Road. The old loggers road that ran off Singles Ridge Road is now known as Long Angle Gully Road.

The Baxters were fine axemen and often entered woodchops at shows and competitions. They also cut timber near Glenbrook Creek and along Blue Gum Swamp, at Winmalee.[2]

For the most part, today, the impact of the logging industry on Warrimoo is largely obscured by the intensive forest growth of the past two decades. It is hard to envisage the thin bush landscape that prevailed at that end of Warrimoo during the 1920’s and 30’s.

 

Awesomely beautiful Mountain Blue Gum stand on the Sun Valley/Fitzgerald's Creek Walk on the northern side of Warrimoo--a walk well worth doing!

If, however, you are game to do the ‘Sun Valley Trail’ either from the Rosenthal Lane entry (Sun Valley) or the Warrimoo Oval side—if you are game to enough to endure the cacophony of birdcalls along the route, and you keep your eyes peeled, you just may come across some of those evidential remnants and relics of that bygone era.

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[1] CAMERON, Bruce. Sun Valley and Long Angle Gulley—A History, Springwood, 1998 pp21—31 Bruce’s booklet provided the vast bulk of information on this topic. WH thank him for his extensive research.

[2] Ibid., pp 21-22

Arson at Warrimoo? The Christmas night Fire

Arson in Warrimoo? The Christmas night Fire

 

On Christmas night, 1919, the new 'shop building' at Warrimoo burst into flame so that by the early hours of the following morning it was 'too far gone to be saved'.

This is the somewhat tragic story of Henry Varlow[1], one of the original white settlers (1919) of the new Warrimoo Estate--returned serviceman, family man and alleged arsonist. He was the first occupant of the double-storeyed ‘shop’ on the Highway opposite Warrimoo Railway Station, and his stay in the infant community was a rocky one, indeed.

 Originally Henry Varlow was from Leura, further up the ‘Mountains. He was a ‘plumber’ there, and had settled at Mount Street with his wife, Ella Irene Varlow and their two children, when war was declared in August 1914.

 Varlow volunteered to fight overseas on 3^rd of September of the same year. In other words, he was one of the ‘first wave’ of enthusiastic patriots destined to fight in the Middle East against the Turks, for the greater good of Empire.

 

Volunteers line up to join the AIF, September 1914. Henry Varlow, after already serving in the Light Horse for the Boer War, was one of them...

Why a man of 38 years would want to leave his wife and children to go and fight in climes as far away as Europe and Egypt is worth pondering. Was he bored with work and life in Leura? Was he inspired by the tide of patriotism that swept the country in the wake of Germany’s invasion of Belgium and France? Or was it rather, having been born in Stepney, London, Henry felt an overwhelming loyalty to his Mother Country, coupled with a yearning to see it again?

 At 38, he was no spring chicken. He had already served in the Imperial Light Horse at the “cessation of hostilities” of the Boer War fourteen years previous. When he signed up for his physical he was described as 5 foot 7 inches tall, 10 stone in weight, fair complexioned with grey eyes. He was to be paid 9 shillings a day.

 ‘Light Horse glamour’ was not to be his calling this time, however. He was to be a member of the 4^th Infantry Brigade in the 7^th Company of the Army Services Corps. The range of jobs in the Services Corps could be anything from stable-hand, to cook, to transport provision and construction. This may have been a disappointment to him.

 Whatever the circumstances, Henry Varlow’s service record grew steadily more miserable.  It began with minor misdemeanours such as ‘untidy quarters’ but then a series of complaints about his ‘sciatica’ had Henry in and out of hospital as an increasingly disgruntled soldier. Was he a ‘slacker’? The AIF reports are careful to avoid the charge, but ultimately the Army could bear it no longer—Henry Varlow was discharged due to ‘medical unfitness’.

 Warrimoo must have offered Henry and his family an opportunity to put the war behind them and start afresh: to build a new and successful life. A sympathetic landlord in the form of the Rickard Company, a double storeyed dwelling leased to him at discounted rates, and the chance to build a shop’s clientele within a growing community. It required patience and dedication…



The Varlows may well have thought Warrimoo would grow more rapidly and become a modern cosmopolitan centre for tourists--maybe it was all too slow.

 Christmas Day 1919, however, did not bring the cheer the Varlows may have wished for. On that night a fellow ex-serviceman, Henry Todd of Florabella Street, noticed a major blaze in the direction of the shop and sounded the alarm. The fire burned so fiercely that by 3.00am the shop was “too far gone for anything to be saved…”.

 The Blue Mountains Echo of 2^nd January 1920[2], takes up the story, under the heading ‘BIG BLAZE AT WARRIMOO’…

 

…Varlow, who is an ex-Leuraite, was charged as the perpetrator of the blaze. The investigation was held before the District Coroner Arthur Judges on Monday last. Varlow’s statement was to the effect that he went away with his wife and family on the 24^th and was away till the afternoon of the 26^th ultimo. The fire, which took place on the evening of the 25^th, was an enigma to him. He was partly insured (for contents--WH) for 150 pounds and Rickard and Co. had the house insured for 1,203 pounds. Varlow said he was drawing 7 pounds 7 shillings per fortnight from the Repatriation…

 

In short, Henry Varlow’s alibi was that he wasn’t there. He wasn’t rich, but he wasn’t poor. At this stage, the level of business at the store was slight, but there was a good chance the settlement would grow and that Highway traffic too, would increase.

Varlow's alibi was that he was elsewhere on the night of the fire. Surely a cursory check of his whereabouts on Christmas night would have established its truth or otherwise...

 

But suspicion fell upon Varlow for two main reasons. One, the Coroner was convinced that the fire was deliberately lit, and two, a witness said he saw a man whom he ‘thought and believed’ to be Varlow at Blaxland station on the night of the 25^th…

 Night officer Hartigan said on the night of the 25^th, he let a man whom he thought and believed to be Varlow out at Blaxland, one and a half miles from Warrimoo. Witness said he had never been introduced to Varlow, but he knew him by his prominent teeth and his voice.

Guard John Lysaught testified to setting a man down on the night of the 25^th and collecting his ticket. He could not identify the man, as he did not take much interest.

Station Master J.T. Neale,* relieving officer, said he received one ticket (produced) on the night of the 25^th…[3]

 

One fact stands out in this evidence: clearly it was unusual for travellers to use the train on Christmas night. Much moreso than today, Christmas was the opportunity for families to attend church in the morning, stay at home for Dinner and remain together for one of the few special days available throughout the year. An individual travelling on such a night would have stood out quite noticeably. Was it impossible for police to clearly identify this man?

 Apparently so, since after an adjournment of a week, the prosecution could come up with no further concrete evidence to fit Varlow to the fire. As to motive, there appeared to be none. While a piano had been removed from the property some weeks beforehand, Mrs. Varlow testified that the couple had lost 105 pounds on furnishings and equipment in their lodgings. The central claimant for insurance damages had been A. Rickard and Co., for the destruction of the building. This was for the amount of 1,203 pounds.

Accordingly the Coroner reluctantly declared an ‘open verdict’—the fire had been deliberately lit, but by ‘persons unknown’. Varlow was discharged.

 For Henry Varlow, however, this was the end of Warrimoo for him and his family. He could no longer live in a community where he was ‘under a cloud’. He left and returned to Leura.

 William Way speaks of another shop operating on the corner of The Boulevarde and the Highway while he grew up in the early 1920’s. The renewed shop opposite the station was not rebuilt from insurance funds till 1926, when it was taken over by ‘the Breakspears’[4]. William Way’s dad was able to use the bricks available at the ‘corner store’—presumably these were the rubble from a fire—to build their own dwelling in Albert Street. There was always a shortage of building materials, which didn’t ease until the 1960’s.

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[1] Information on the biography of Henry Varlow comes from a variety of sources, but the overwhelming effort of drawing them together was carried out by: RICHARDSON, E., and MATTHEW, K Warrimoo History Project, Library Records

[2] TROVE, Blue Mountains Echo, 2^nd January 1920

* Could this be the same ‘Mr. Neil’ who attended a meeting in Glenbrook, representing Warrimoo Progress Association, and who later appears as the Secretary of the Association in the 1930’s?

[3] Ibid

[4] Op. Cit. My Story, p.14

The Roaring 20's

Warrimoo in the ‘Roaring Twenties’

 

Promotional pic for the Blue Mountains 'Roaring 20's and all that Jazz' festival, showing Claudia Chan Shaw modelling 1920's fashion. Photo by David Hill

In truth, the newly-born settlement of Warrimoo didn’t do much ‘roaring’ in the 1920’s. Maybe that was left to Sir Arthur Rickard’s snazzy automobiles as they ploughed up the dusty Highway to ‘Cadia’, or possibly the loco on the new ‘Caves Express’ throwing clouds above and about as it thundered past laden with excited tourists.

‘Warrimoo’ was too young to ‘roar’. In 1920 it was a myopic infant, groping for its future, trying to establish an identity, self-absorbed with survival. One newly arrived young boy was Lawrence William Way[1]. Lawrence recalls…

When the war came to an end, six wooden homes were built for returned soldiers to move into the area. We rented the house near (the present) primary school after (my father) paid a deposit on three blocks of land, Lots 4 and 5 in Florabella Street (and another in Albert Street). Another house was built where the Todd family lived in Florabella Street and two houses in Rickard Road, one in The Boulevarde and another one in Waratah Street. Waratahs were numerous on the western side of this ridge and beautiful scented Boronia grew in this area.[2]

So, there was a minute population in Warrimoo at the outset of the 1920’s. According to available records, the only fully recognised “residents” of the estate were Thomas Smiley—worryingly, his wife and child (children?) shown in an earlier photograph, are not mentioned—who presumably lived near the station or the railroad crossing because his occupation was still listed as ‘Railways’.

Then there was Mrs Simpson, the War Widow who lived in the home supplied by the Rejected Volunteers, which Warrimoo Historians consider to have been at some position on the Great Western Highway. A War Veteran by the name of Henry Varlow had occupied the shop building[3], Henry Todd lived on the corner of The Avenue and Florabella Street, neighbouring Lawrence’s parents, Walter and Ellen Way[4].

That was it. The ‘pioneers’ of white settlement in Warrimoo. In the absence of photographs, one can only paint a presumptive sketch of the area. There would have been some very occasional weatherboard buildings, plus the brick exemplar in The Boulevarde, and the shop on the Highway. ‘Thinned’ bush would have prevailed throughout the rest of ‘Warrimoo’, intersected by unsealed roads and very basic drainage. Service provision was non-existent: no electricity, no town water, no sewerage. All settlers had to be self-reliant in this regard.

The nearest institution to supply ‘service provision’ at the time was ‘Blue Mountains Shire Council’ which met at Lawson between 1907 and 1947. It was not yet amalgamated with the Katoomba City Council nor the Municipality of Blackheath, so it was poorly serviced with rates and focused on rural issues—it tended to be slow in catching up with costly modern developments such as water conservation and electricity generation. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1920’s it was able to supply basic electric lighting to sections of the Highway, and households that could afford connection.

Sometime in the early 1920’s the ‘Warrimoo Progress Association’ was formed to make representations to the Council on behalf of local residents. A ‘Mr. Neal’ represented Warrimoo at the launch of Lower Mountains electrification at Glenbrook in 1928, and at a subsequent meeting there the President of the Warrimoo Progress Association, Mr. H.C. Lewis, proposed a vote of thanks to the Blue Mountains Shire Council…

I feel sure that we as residents of this lower end of the mountains are under a debt of gratitude to the Shire Council and what they have accomplished, he said. (Applause)[5]

Lawrence William Way 1920--?

Lawrence was to become one of the truly unique characters of Warrimoo’s history. Much of what we understand about the infant township in the 1920’s is drawn from the recollections in his amazing autobiography, My Story, which he donated to Warrimoo PS Library in 2011…

 

Photo/portrait of Lawrence Way on the cover of his autobiography, My Story

 

Lawrence was the son of a World War I veteran of the AIF, Walter William Worsley Way, avowed athiest. Shot in the jaw on the Western Front in France Walter met his bride-to-be, Ellen Gertrude Chatteris while convalescing in a London hospital. Gertrude was fifteen years younger than Walter, and she already had a two year-old son named Harold.



Ellen Gertrude and Walter Way on their wedding day during World War I in England. Walter had been shot in the  jaw and met Ellen while recuperating in hospital. Believe it or not, the child in the centre of the picture is Lawrence's older half-brother, Harold.

It was a whirlwind romance. Immediately after discharge the couple were married in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, then sailed for Sydney where they rented homes first in Broadway, then West Ryde. Walter worked as a cook in the Australia Hotel. Lawrence was born in Paddington Hospital in April 1920, just as the ‘Warrimoo Estate’ was being opened up. As an ex-serviceman, Lawrence’s dad was able to purchase land at Warrimoo at significantly reduced rates: he bought two blocks in Florabella Street and one in Albert Street. The story is best in Lawrence’s words…

When we moved from West Ryde to Warrimoo in 1922, we lived in a rented house (a returned soldier’s house) in Florabella Street for a while. Dad built a two-room humpy on Lot 5 Florabella Street covering the wooden frame and roof with a roll of tarred ruberoid. We lived in this until a small house was built on the Albert Street block…

While we were still living in this humpy, news came that my mother, who was in hospital, had just had a stillborn baby…

We moved to our house in Albert Street later in 1923. Around this time I had…a trauma…I had jumped off the verandah and had ripped part of my rear end. This time (the doctor) did not use the knife but stitched me up but I did not appreciate it as much as I should have. I screamed loudly as in those days we did not receive an injection to relieve the pain. I remember twelve years later the pain I experienced when the dentist hit the tooth nerve a couple of times when filling a tooth. How different things are today!

Things were changing in 1920’s and weekenders were popping up here and there. Many people were buying blocks of land. By 1923, Warrimoo could boast of at least twenty houses. At our Albert Street house we had used some bricks which we collected from the first shop in Warrimoo. This shop was the front of a small house and had burnt down around 1925. It was near the corner of The Boulevarde and the Highway.

Harry Todd lived in the house (No. 3) on the corner of Florabella Street. He collected bottles and built a beautiful glass garden with the words at the top “Moms regime meaning mountain queen”. …We came to know the couple who lived there well. Another house was built shortly after on the opposite corner and a family whose surname was Watts lived there. They were Church of England and shortly after settling there, Mrs Watts came to see my mother. I remember as she looked at me she remarked about my fair skin and I hid behind mum. Mrs Watts was looking for people who would be interested in a Church of England meeting. The Church of England minister came from Springwood and a meeting was held on their back verandah.

Warrimoo had a small corner shop and we used to get our bread delivered by horse and cart. It wasn’t uncommon for the bread deliverer to stop and talk, leaving the person’s bread on the horse’s rump before the buyer took possession of it. The meat was delivered in a motor bike sidecar in all kinds of weather. In later years, the meat was sent from Penrith by rail and picked up from the railway station…[6]

The astounding thing about Lawrence’s account is the ‘normalcy’ of his perception. To most of us, what he was experiencing in Warrimoo was little more than ‘hardship’, but to the young boy Lawrence it was just what life was like. There were positives, too…

One day when we were going to Springwood my mother told me she had left her glasses at home. She told me when the train comes tell the driver I will be back in a moment. I did this and the train driver held up the train for about one minute until Mum arrived. It was an early morning train consisting of a tank engine and three box carriages. I marvel as I look back on this incident with many others how people went out of their way to help in any way they could…

…Dad worked in the mid-1920’s as a cook in the northern cane fields. He often obtained clothing from a Queensland warehouse and during the depression days he would still send for clothes from there. I remember going to Parramatta with Mum and, as Dad had returned from the cane fields, he had given her five pounds for shopping to buy clothes etc. Trousers were only a few shillings. In fact, ten years later, I bought myself good quality long trousers for ten shillings at Lithgow.

My sister Helen (who became known as Nell) was born in January 1925 and our verandah sleeping quarters ceased to exist. My brother Harold and I were assigned to a tent just near the kitchen door.

There are two things I recall about this time. One being that in 1926, Dad took us to the zoo.[7]A photo was taken of me sitting on a small column. It was a day of absolute wonder to see so many animals. The other thing was that on Christmas Day 1926, there was a little wooden boat in a Christmas stocking which I was thrilled with…

 

Lawrence William Way photographed at Taronga Park Zoo, when he visited there in 1926--he was six years old.

…Dad took to digging wells for watering gardens as we grew most of our vegetables. One day I was playing near a well full of water about 12 feet by fifteen feet and fell in. Dad dived in and rescued me.

Another house was built around 1926 on the fourth corner of Florabella crossroad (No. 3 Florabella Street). There were hardly any children in the area and I took up playing with a girl also named Laurie spelt the same as my name and also my age. The four corners of the crossroad were now built out as a weekender existed at No.2 which was the first house backing off Florabella Street. The Watts’ house fronted The Mall, which was the continuation of The Avenue. Also at the back of the Todd’s place, people by the name of Newton were clearing the land in preparation for building next year. It was the last block of two acres in The Avenue and joined onto our two acre block, Lot 5, which was to be 11 Florabella Street…

 

Springwood Public in 1927--somewhere Harold and Lawrence Way are lurking...



…My brother Harold travelled to Springwood school from Warrimoo and at the age of six, the beginning of 1927, I started school (also)…We used to walk nearly a kilometre to the railway station to catch the train just before 8.00am across the dusty highway with an occasional car appearing. One day a lady stopped and asked where we were going. She travelled to Springwood to work and offered to take us to school. It was an almost new model T Ford and we thought this was wonderful. Those days the school was near Springwood station…

 

Model T Ford--the most affordable automobile in the world--and the most commonly seen vehicle travelling through Warrimoo in the 1920's. Lawrence seems to have hitched many a lift in model T's just like this.

…One day when Harold and I were on Warrimoo station two fire balls came from the highway direction across the eastern end of the station near the overhead bridge near the middle of the station. We saw them moving side by side down the valley towards Long Angle Gully. We would often meet trains to pick up parcels of our meat from the butcher at Penrith (“West” by name). This would mostly be on a weekend and my little sister Helen would come with us. When she was not there it was not uncommon for the guard to ask “Where is your little sister?” or similar questions…

 (Shortly Lawrence came to be enrolled at the newly built ‘Blaxland Public School’ on the Highway)…About the end of the first year at Blaxland School, a school picnic was arranged at the swimming pool in Long Angle Gully about one kilometre down from Warrimoo station where there was a creek from the flat at Valley Heights.  These flats were originally a crater of a very large volcano. It was where Arthur Rickard or someone was influenced to build this swimming pool. It had a concrete wall with a spillway.

On one occasion we had actually been playing across the pool at the other end and I and a boy around the age of five from a family near us were walking across a tree trunk when he slipped. He was holding my hand and pulled me into the water. We were quickly pulled out by a couple of swimmers. Circumstances of this nature are seldom forgotten…

 

Warrimoo pool photographed in the 1920's--you can see the concrete weir and spillway in the foreground. Where Lawrence fell in is open to question.

…It was around 1926 when electric lights were added to streets. They were very poor lights, perhaps 60 watt, and it was quite dark between the lights. If we were not home by dark we would run between the lights…

 …One time I was down at the house in The Boulevarde at the bottom of our street. It was dark and I was afraid to go home by myself. One of my friends said, “I will go to your house with you,” which he did. But no way was he going back on his own! So I then had to take him back and make a dash back the second time on my own. I did not think I would live to tell the tale.

Another time we were at the tennis court opposite the shop when a friend decided to run across the road before he realised a car was coming. He just made it but lost a shoe. We were not sure if the car clipped his shoe or if it just came off. It was certainly close.

So ends some excerpts from Lawrence Way’s vivid account of a young boy’s life in 1920’s Warrimoo. By the end of the decade new settlers were coming to live in this brave new settlement on the edge of Mountain bushland. Most led happy, interesting lives, but some were not so fortunate…

 

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[1] WAY, L. W., My Story, Cliff Lewis Printing, Caringbah, 2011.. Warrimoo Historians are indebted to Lawrence Way for the timely account of his experiences in Warrimoo. His book is available at Warrimoo PS Library, and it provides most of the observations for this chapter of our history.

[2] Ibid., p.9

[3] More information on Henry Varlow is available in another chapter in this section titled :’Arson in Warrimoo?’

[4] RICHARDSON, E., and MATTHEW, K Warrimoo History Project, Library Records

[5] TROVE, Nepean Times

[6] WAY, L. W., My Story, Cliff Lewis Printing, Caringbah, 2011. pp 9-15

[7] Taronga Park Zoo had opened just ten years earlier, in October of 1916