Sepia Saturday 215: 15 February 2014

Alan from Sepia Saturday says:

Our theme image this week features a picture postcard view of Jamaica Street, Glasgow (from the National Gallery of Scotland stream on Flickr Commons). I am not expecting people to match the Glasgow theme, or indeed the Jamaica theme, although knowing the resources and imagination of Sepians, I wouldn't be too surprised if some people took up such a challenge. The thing that came to my mind when I first saw the image was the crowds : we always tend to think of crowded streets as being something new, something twenty-first century, but clearly that isn't the case.

Crowds, huh?

Well the first photo that came to mind was this one....

1954 Victoria Road Drummoyne, Sydney  - Queen's visit to Australia

On the back is my mother's handwriting as follows:

I Googled images of Victoria Road Drummoyne and found this link from 2011 - so we're looking at about 206 Victoria Road or thereabouts.  What was the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the white building at the very end is now the Drummoyne Medical Centre.  

Let's look at another photo from that time.

1954 Victoria Road Drummoyne, Sydney - Queen's visit to Australia

Here is my mother's handwriting again on the back

So if you were the photographer, you would have just turned a bit to the left to capture that view, if you know what I mean.  Once again a Google street view search shows that where Jack's photographic studio is now a Ray White office at 222 Victoria Road Drummoyne.  

So Jack's studios were called Alva Studios.  A search on Trove finds them in Drummoyne from c 1939.  There is an ad in 1934 for some canvassers to work for the studio but they were then based at 2A Hercules Street Ashfield and before that they were located in Orange.

Here is another photo.  This is not from the same set.  I'm not sure where this came from.  I suspect my father's collection or even my paternal aunt's collection.  I think it is of the Queen and I think it is taken near a hospital - possibly Concord Hospital.  See all the nurses?  I love the reflections of the legs in the shiny car surface.

No helpful information on the back of this photo just this

I have talked about my Aunt working at Concord Hospital before here.

This blog post seems to confirm it is the Queen yes?

If you want to see the car (not so shiny now), a Daimler Landaulette, you can check it out at the National Museum of Australia here.

I was part of a crowd once too.  Princess Diana and Prince Charles came to Brisbane in 1983 and we were all agog.  I worked for the ABC then in the Publicity Department and managed to secure a place smack bang in the middle of the Queen Street Mall together with the crew who were doing the Outside Broadcast.  It was terribly exciting.  I don't think I actually got to see her.  All I saw was the media scrum.

Here are some of the slides I took on the day..

The media wagon

Queen Street Mall and yes, that is a woman up a tree...

Janine Walker Talkback show host

The OB crew anxiously waiting

Here is a You Tube video that sums up the visit...

Last but not least, I searched Picture Queensland to see what else has attracted crowds.  I was much struck with the photos of the crowds that greeted Bert Hinkler when he came to Brisbane after flying solo from the England to Australia in 1928.  He was the first to do so.  The crowds look just extraordinary in these photos...

Link to Picture Queensland

The first photo is not very clear here so go and look at it here....George Street is unrecognisable...all those buildings have gone now.  We are looking at the corner of George and Adelaide streets...very sad to see such heritage lost.

Link to Picture Queensland

And here is the Queen Street Mall.  See the men sitting on top of the awning to the Wintergarden Theatre.  That's just about where I would have been watching Diana and Charles nearly sixty years later.

courtesy of Picture Queensland

Not sure which lane way in Brisbane this was...perhaps someone would like to hazard a guess.

Link on Picture Queensland

And this is the one I find most extraordinary.  Just look at all those people standing on the awnings.  Just incredible...

Here's a link to SLQ's blog with an account.

We were only talking about the miracle of flying yesterday at the Gym...how we take it for granted today...how we used to get dressed up to fly....

Here's a link to Bert's message to Australia at the time.  Looks like he got dressed up for radio too.

If you want to check out more crowds, go here.

P.S. I'm a bit excited that there is now a bit of a crowd on this blog!  I have reached the magic number of 50 followers....hoorah!!