In the 1930s the general public still regarded an X-Ray plate with incomprehension and wonder. When a 65 year old coal miner underwent an X-ray of his lungs at Lithgow Hospital the bizarre result only increased that feeling. Beside Thomas Jackson’s ribs was a clear picture of
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Hash browns are best eaten for breakfast in a New York City diner, with eggs over-easy and crispy bacon. I have tried to recapture the experience here in Australia at Maccas……take my advice and just don’t do it. By the way, in case anyone is confused, hash
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I made my first, post bushfires visit to Lithgow recently. This town has such spirit and resilience. Nowhere is it better expressed than in a laneway off the main street featuring art created from discarded bicycles. How’s this for sheer exuberance? The exhibit at the top of
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STEAM POWERED PEOPLE MOVERS FOR SYDNEY We learn that the Works Department is making arrangements for the construction of a temporary tramway from the Redfern terminus to Hunter-Street, to be used by visitors to the International Exhibition. They expect to be able to get the motors from
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How many nuts and bolts are there in the Sydney Harbour Bridge? Well, oddly enough, only a handful. Rivets were used instead, some 6,000,000 of them. The majority of the steel for the bridge’s girders came from Britain, but the government contract stated that all rivets were
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I was fortunate to visit Eskbank House Museum in Lithgow before the pandemic put a stop to my adventures.. The oldest part of the colonial Georgian house was built circa 1842, from local sandstone. Its original owner was Mr Thomas Brown, who established the Eskbank Colliery. There
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The sculptor Tom Bass (1916-2010) was born in Lithgow. Richard Neville (1941-2016) spent much of his later life in the Blue Mountains village of Blackheath. Both men were associated with a work of art regarded as one
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In a now famous reference to Queen Elizabeth; ‘I did but see her passing by, and yet I’ll love her until I die.’ Prime Minister of Australia R.M. Menzies. (1963) Early in February 1954, a group of WWI diggers travelled down to Sydney to see the young
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Engineer George Morris arrived in Australia in the 1890s. He settled in Sydney, marrying Priscilla Walker in 1903. The couple then moved to Lithgow, in the Blue Mountains, where George was initially employed at the town’s blast furnace. In 1910 he left, to open a foundry in
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Dave McSorley was a local barber in Lithgow. He was also a heavy-weight boxer, and consummate showman. He once wagered that he could clean shave 1,000 men without a break. In the end he ran out of bristling chins, but still managed 420 shaves in 54½ hours,
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