Sepia Saturday 245: 13 September 2014

Alan at Sepia Saturday says:

Three men. One bottle of whiskey. A friendly argument. A woman watching from the sidelines. The photograph was taken in Alberta back in 1916. 100 years later, the discussions still go on and all too often - at our house at least - a decent bottle of single malt will help the participants underline a point or emphasise an argument. The difference is, I am pleased to say, that women no longer hide in the background. There are a bottle full of potential themes for Sepia Saturday participants - drinking, sharing, posing and lurking have been suggested.

Just a short one this week as I haven't really been able to find anything to match the theme.  This is the best I can do I'm afraid.

There's three men and yes they are posing for the shot.  There's a lot of drink lurking behind them.   

The sepia photo above is from the McLoughlin collection.  I think it is part of the set of photos that I posted about before which seem to be set in Papua New Guinea.  The boat railings look the same don't they?  This is the Macdhui.

I have confirmation of this from Trove here.  Although I notice that the hull is painted all white in 1937 so I don't know if this is an earlier photo.  I suspect it is as my mother was born in 1935 and I would be surprised if my grandfather was away then.  Burns Philp owned the Macdhui.  I think I've mentioned before that my grandfather used to work for De Havilland.  The same collection that has photos of the Macdhu (the Chinnery Collection) also has photos of De Havilland planes in New Guinea so maybe my grandfather went up to New Guinea to work on some planes.  I don't know.

Courtesy of National Library of Australia, Tuesday 10 March 1931

I found what looks to be a really interesting book online called Malaguna Road The Papua and New Guinea Diaries of Sarah Chinnery edited and introduced by Kate Fortune which you can access here.  I'm reading the book as much as I can - there's a great index which does mention De Havilland and the Macdhui. The Diaries cover the time period c 1921-1937.  Interestingly the last chapter talks about the Eruptions of 1937 on Vulcan Island and Tavurvur. It makes for fascinating reading.  

If you want to get a sense of what it was like, check out this video from a couple of weeks ago at the same place!



I think the thing that surprised me most with this video was the noise.  I know it seems silly.  I knew that volcanoes have lava and ash but I didn't realise how noisy they are!!

I'm not really sure how I could research my grandfather's possible trip to PNG anymore.  I'm open to suggestions !

For more Sepia Saturday fun go here.