THE STORY...

Neil has always been deeply affected by the emotion of nostalgia, and has very fond childhood memories of Granpa and Granma’s old workers cottage at Scarness in Hervey Bay in the early 1950s. It had a big wood stove beside which he and his cousins used to sit as small children to watch Granpa, wearing an old leather pilot’s cap to keep his head warm and chewing a smelly and noisy old pipe, feed the wood that he had just chopped out the back, into the firebox of the stove.

 

He recalls that after dinner his Dad Colin and Aunts Doris and Jessie played old-time tunes on the honky-tonk piano for the family sing-song in the lounge. Aunt Jessie used to play piano accompaniment in silent picture theatres in the bush before the coming of the "Talkies”.

 

There could have been a game of Bobs on the dining room table, or perhaps making tinsel Christmas decorations from saved-up aluminium milk-bottle tops all joined together.

 

Conversations often included family memories of life on the farm near Kingaroy before World War 2, where Granpa built the family home and a community hall from timber that he and Colin and his brother Mel felled and milled at the family sawmill. Occasionally there were jokes about the races that they used to have on steam traction engines thru the scrub at frightening speeds of about 3 or 4 miles per hour.

 

It’s easy to understand how Neil had a Passion for collecting items of historical interest, reminding him of his childhood. He has been a licensed antiques and collectables dealer for over 30 years, trading at Paddington Antiques Centre (Now called Empire Revival), in Latrobe Terrace Paddington Brisbane for 25 years.