There are many excellent reasons to record and use oral history interviews. Here are the first five of the fifteen reasons why I have found oral history to be useful and important. They are not in any particular order. Oral Read More …
The top five posts for 2018 are revealed. Read More …
Before the introduction of television in Australia in 1956, going to the pictures was a popular entertainment. The first permanent cinema in Adelaide was established in 1908: West’s Olympia Theatre at 91 Hindley Street.* A further fifteen cinemas opened in Read More …
Describing the Meadows oval as a sports oval in the early- to mid-1900s is probably being overly generous. In common with ovals in other small towns, it had its shortcomings. Harry Portlock recalled that in the 1940s: The oval was Read More …
The Meadows poultry settlement was established in May 1934, as I described in a previous post. Twenty-four families with a total of 130 children moved in. At this time, the population of Meadows was about 290, so the settlement suddenly Read More …
My previous post introduced the Unemployment Relief Scheme settlement in Meadows that was established during the Great Depression. Oral history interviewees talked about what it was like to live there in cottages that had been described as ‘roomy tin bungalows’ Read More …
One of the most valuable aspects of oral history is being able to ask someone exactly what it was like to experience a certain event or era. I was fortunate to record interviews with two people who had grown up Read More …
As those of us in Australia head into the hottest part of the year, it seems an ideal time to hear stories about the extreme heat in places such as Woomera, located in desert country in the north of South Read More …
General stores were a central feature of most country towns. They provided a wide range of goods and services, and were run by local families. The general store in Meadows, in the Mount Lofty Ranges of South Australia, was built Read More …
You may not be familiar with the tradition of Father Christmas arriving in a helicopter – unless you lived in Woomera. Woomera was established in 1947 as a rocket range in northern South Australia to test missiles and research rockets. Read More …