Back to the Past

Each year Geraldton hosts a Heritage Week, culminating with a 'day out' where items of yesteryear are on display.

This year we once again headed north on a lovely autumn morning.  The venue was slightly different from previous years, this time being held in Queen's Park adjacent to the Queen's Park Theatre.  We parked in our usual shopping day carpark where date palms help provide shade from the blazing sun.

Old cars, trucks and tractors were parked up on the grass; their windows wound down to allow the curious [mainly males] to peer in at the dashboard, and the bonnet put up to allow those same males to peer into the workings of the engine.  [Me?  I just take photos and admire the colour schemes!]

Rides were available for all.  An oil-fired 'steam' engine chuffed around the ground pulling open wagons filled with eager children.  Two skewbald ponies pulled a little covered cart, here it wasn't only children participating in the rides, as several elderly folks took up the offer. [As an aside, a lady trailed around the grounds carrying a bucket and shovel ... just in case!  I hope they sold the droppings for garden manure!] For the small children a ride-on mower offered a quick trip around the grounds.

A dress parade of cloths from the 1950's onwards brought back a lot of memories, but to my dismay not one of those stiff petticoats that we used to wear to hold out our full skirted dresses was shown ... perhaps none survived!?  Remember crimpolene?  A white crimpolene trouser skirt attracted attention, although it had a different style to my cream crimpolene trouser suit that I wore when Peter Cook and Dudley Moore performed on stage in Dunedin.

A large room housed exhibits of various types, though all of the crafty persuasion.  Old dolls, beautiful satin roses, The Shoemaker and the Elves, a gorgeous crochet rug with pink roses adorning the corners of the squares, embroidered doilies as in days gone by, a finely knitted tea cosy, a collection of tins, some of which I happen to have, a group of elderly sewing machines that many of us remember quite well, but what took my eye at this exhibition was a collection of miniature sewing machines, eminently suitable for a small child to learn the intracies of sewing on.  I pictured a small girl concentrating on sewing a dress for her doll.

While wandering around it did cross my mind that many of the young attendees would have no idea what the exhibits were, little alone how to use them.  Aha, times they are a changing, but old skills are being lost to the detriment of our sense of calm and peace and creativity.