Sepia Saturday - Four Wheels and an engine

  My final post on this theme. Now for the motorized transport in the family album.

This first shot was taken on the old Batis family property, Daisy Dell, at Nackera which is north of Peterborough in the north of South Australia. The property belonged to my husbands maternal great grandparents. This was taken some time in the late 20s I would think. Have to say they are rather elegantly dressed for the outback. That Number 78 number plate would be worth a lot of money these days.

Here we have a travelling sales rep who was visiting from Peterborough. The gentleman in the white hat is possibly my husband's great uncle. Who knows. Nothing is recorded on the photo.

This photo, taken in the thirties is of my grandfather who was a nurseryman. The nursery still exists, run by his grandsons - my cousins. I love the phone number - ours have 8 numerals

In the forties, my husband's father ran a small mixed farm and also a transport business. He had six sons so I guess he needed several jobs to support them. We saw him in an earlier post driving a horse drawn cart and a sheep.

 I am cheating a bit on this one. This is not our actual car, but in 1955, my father purchased a 1951 Humber Super Snipe - our first family car. Dad was a proud 'pommie' (Englishman) and having come from a well to do family in England, he always wanted the best he could afford, so when he went off to buy a small family car, this is what he came back with - much to my mother's horror as she was going to have to pay it off.

We loved the car however and felt very grand riding around in it. It had real leather seats, a wooden dashboard and a roof window that opened. I wish I could find a photo of it, but I'm not sure I ever took one, to my regret.

When Don and I started dating, neither of us had a car and so we travelled by train, tram or bus or occasionally borrowed his mother's Humber hawk. Great excitement when Don's father, now a used car salesman found us a cheap car - a 1932 B Model Ford which had been converted into a van. We painted it, decorated it, named it Jezzabel and went everywhere in it, usually with a crowd of friends piled into the back which we had fitted out with a double mattress. We loved that car and were devastated when Don's brothers (to whom he had bequeathed it when we married and went to Darwin) sold the old girl to a junk yard a few years later.

Back from Darwin in 1970 we purchased an old Holden ute to use on the farm and this became a familiar sight around the area, carrying everything from hay, to firewood, to Christmas trees, to sheep and whatever else needed moving from one spot to another

We have had many cars since then, but I have to say that the most popular vehicle we have is this one - the grand kids just love it.

Now, I have to say that this last one is not strictly one of our vehicles, but we were in this old tourist bus on Kangaroo Island in 1951 when it broke down and I happened to have my Box Brownie handy. I do enjoy this shot.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Sepia Saturday".