iscover
The Dh.61 Giant Moth, “canberra” Flown By Lh Holden In The Late 1920s And Early 1930s. The Enclosed Cabin Seated Eight Passengers, But The Pilot’s Cockpit Behind It Was Open To The Elements. The Photograph Was Probably Taken At Geelong. Holden, In Flying Overalls And Holding His Helmet And Goggles, Is Standing In The Group Of Three With His Back Partly To The Camera
Air Safety
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An Old Captivity
(With Apologies To Nevil Shute)
The year would have to have been about 1930. Certainly it was before I started school and that was in 1932. Come to think of it, history records the aircraft and its pilot left for New Guinea in May, 1931, so it had to be before that. It happened in Cumnock, a tiny seat of local government in the midwest of NSW where my returned soldier father was the bank manager. Like most little Australian townships in those days, its facilities were primitive, if not its social mores.
Cumnock (pop 500), had no water laid on, no electricity supply and no milkman. Domestic water came from tanks, lighting from kerosene lamps and if you wanted fresh milk regularly, you kept a cow. Its streets were gravel, the nearest “big” town was Orange, 60 kilometres away, where we would go from time to time for shopping or, much less desirably, to the dentist, in any case a full day’s adventure in my father’s 1928 Austin Seven “Chummy”.
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