The running joke in Adelaide is that everybody knows everybody. It isn’t six degrees of separation in this town – it’s one.

If you meet someone new it won’t be long before you discover that you both used to have so and so living next door to you or that you are actually second cousins once removed or that you both dated Jamie Darcy when you were in your twenties.

I  experienced the book form of this phenomenon when I read In My Mothers Hands by Biff Ward on the weekend.

In it there was an interesting anecdote about how her grandfather was the reason that the suburb of Paradise was so named. I had always wondered at the name, and assumed that it was a hopeful moniker slapped on it by a developer. In fact, it was named after the Paradise Bridge Hotel, owned by Joseph Ind. He was quite the character, as were many of Biff’s relatives, including her father, the man who was the first person to collect Australian Settler songs like Click go the Shears.

At one of Wakefield’s book launches, Big Rough Stones by Margaret Merilees. I bumped into a friend of mine who was there with her mother: Biff Ward.

The one degree of separation thing happened again this morning when I picked up our book Colonial Settlers On The River Torrens. This book is about the first generation of European settlers to take up properties on the upper reaches of the River Torrens. They were the first to intensively cultivate the land in the present-day suburbs of Campbelltown, Paradise and Athelstone.

Flicking through the gorgeous pictures I spotted one of the Paradise Bridge Hotel. There I found the story of Joseph Ind, melon grower, hotel owner, and Biff’s grandfather and local character, in what was later to become Paradise.

Joseph Ind and many other local characters are remembered for their many achievements settling the areas which we now know as Paradise, Campbelltown and Athelstone. Importantly, their harsh treatment of the Kaurna people is also remembered, acknowledging that the titular settlers were not the first to live on the land.

As my experiences go, a flick through the beautifully-curated pages of images and research by Dr Roger Irvine might reveal some names familiar to you too – we are in Adelaide, after all.

By Emma Sachsse, Wakefielder by day, writer by night. Find more of her work on Medium.

To purchase a copy of Roger Irvine’s Colonial Settlers on the River Torrens, visit us in our Mile End bookstore, give us a call on (08) 8352 4455, or find the book online at our webstore.

Holden Treasures tells the unique story of the first ten Holden models from the 1946 prototypes to the 1966 HR. The chapters feature these Holden vehicles in their current or recent states as well as including historic images of the vehicles in their heyday. It incorporates over 500 outstanding black-and-white photographs and colour slides, all assembled through Loffler’s devoted and persistent research in automotive social history.

Read on for a sneak peek into the pages of this painstaking labour of love by Don Loffler.

From page 110:

Eddie Sams’s ambulance, which began its life as an FJ panel van, is the only one of its kind to have been fully restored. What gives it additional status is that much of the original first-aid equipment was donated by Mrs Victoria Wadey, whose husband, Fred,

had been the superintendent/ secretary of the Temora District Ambulance Service in New South Wales and had taken delivery of the ambulance in April 1956. The colourful history of this vehicle is told in my book The FJ Holden. The ambulance is much travelled and is often seen at interstate car shows, where it attracts great attention.

From pages 132–134:

‘Igor’ the FB campervan (pictured below in June 2012)

The story of this unique vehicle is best told in the words of Omar Grass, the third owner, who wrote the following description when he was advertising it for sale in 1989: ‘I purchased the van in 1985 for $3000 from a local chap who had bought it from the original owner/builder four years previous to this, so it has had only three owners. The original owner was a retired engineer, who used his low-mileage station wagon as a base for this camper.

‘It’s very evident that everything was done with lots of love, care and attention to detail. For example, the rear end was re-engineered to suit a two-ton Ford Transit double-wheel rear axle, whose propeller shaft connects with a five-speed Toyota Celica gearbox. This is all driven by a Red 179 Holden motor. The brakes are servo assisted with extra large Repco drums on the front.

~

‘The bull bar itself is an engineer’s work of art! It incorporates room for a 10-kilogram gas bottle and two 20-litre jerry cans. It’s a very soundly designed and built car. ‘The camper section is set up as a four-berth and is complete with built-in cupboards, stove, three-way fridge, stainless steel sink, water tank and table. Overall length of vehicle is 171/2 feet (including bull bar).’

After using the van for travelling around South Australia for two years, Omar decided to have some restoration work done on the vehicle by a professional panel worker. Rust and dents were removed from the FB section and all panels were given a bare metal respray. The restorer commented on how little filler there was in the panels. No work had to be done on the rear section. The engine and the gearbox, however, were overhauled, with many new parts being fitted. After four years of ownership, Omar sold the campervan to Gilbert Hallett of Castlemaine, Victoria, who later sold it to Roger and Lesley Johnston of Mount Gambier, South Australia.

From page 140:

During their working lives, the brothers Alex and David Hughes rescued many an early model Holden from impending oblivion, restoring most of them to stock form and creating a few one-off special versions, an example of which can be seen above. The starting point was an HR sedan, making for a smart-looking vehicle.

Alex writes: It had been in a rollover and was quite damaged. It had such a first-class floor pan that we didn’t like scrapping it. We didn’t like throwing anything away if we could use it for another project, so we decided to make this one into a convertible.

~~~

Some people guess that Don Loffler is the son or relative of a Holden dealer, or a former Holden factory employee, or someone closely connected with the motor trade. He is none of these, but a retired German, Latin and Chemistry teacher, who is enjoying the process of writing books on his passion – the early Holden models and the history behind them.

Born in Kapunda, South Australia, Don gained an Arts degree and two Education diplomas from the University of Adelaide. His late wife, also a graduate with similar degrees from the same university, was his inspiration in the initial years of his book writing, and the tradition is now maintained by his son Michael and daughter Helen.

Don Loffler regards himself as fortunate indeed to be writing three more books featuring all makes of car on Australian roads in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. In addition, he is preparing a third edition of his original book, She’s a Beauty!.

To find out more about the book, or to purchase a copy, visit us in our bookshop at 16 Rose street, Mile End, or find it online. 

Wakefield Press intern Claire Morey recently graduated from the University of Adelaide with Honours in History. While she was here, she read and reviewed Denise George’s Mary Lee: The life and times of a ‘turbulent anarchist’ and her battle for women’s rights. Natasha Stott Despoja, who launched the book this month, said it should be in every classroom in every South Australian school. Read the review to see if Claire agrees!

Mary Lee: ‘There is no finality in human progress’

In this book, Denise George offers us the wonderful story of women’s suffrage campaigner Mary Lee. Enshrined in a bronze bust outside Government House in 1994, Lee has often been forgotten from Adelaide’s early history, which has long been dominated by the colonial men whose names adorn the city streets. One hundred years before the bust was constructed, Lee spearheaded the campaign for women’s suffrage and sought to improve the rights of all South Australian women, especially those who were considered destitute.

The book begins with a thorough background into Lee’s Protestant working-class upbringing in Northern Ireland where ‘famine, starvation, disease, poverty and death marked her formative years’. Due to the dire situation wrought by the Great Potato Famine, increasing revolutionary sentiment in 1840s Ireland, and Lee’s basic education (even that rare for a woman of her class), she set out to pursue a long life of social justice to improve the rights of the working class and women.

“famine, starvation, disease, poverty and death marked her formative years”

Before Lee arrived in Adelaide as a 59-year-old widow, she lived in Cambridge and later London with her husband George Lee and their children. Shocked by the lack of education for young women in London, she opened The Young Ladies Educational Institute in Hammersmith in 1860. Here, she taught girls literature, history, geography, natural science, language and religion in order for them to seek the same professions as young men. Despite the success of the school, tragedy struck when Lee’s son, Ben, who had recently moved to Adelaide, wrote home about his tuberculosis diagnosis in the late 1870s. So began Lee’s journey to South Australia with her daughter Eve in November 1879 aboard the Orient.

In South Australia, Lee not only advocated for female suffrage, but she also campaigned for the rights of all disenfranchised South Australians. She was shocked by the poverty and prostitution that ravaged the inner city, and as part of The Social Purity Society she helped to raise the age of consent for women. She travelled to countless country towns advocating the rights of both the impoverished rural working-class and women. Likewise, she despaired for the position of Indigenous people and the mentally ill in South Australia.

Her founding role in the Women’s Suffrage League and her controversial position as an outspoken foreign widow pushed her into a long and spiteful war with the press and much of Adelaide society. In part due to her strong Primitive Methodist faith, which was known for its forward-thinking social justice causes, Lee was a revolutionary who despised the conservative colonists in Adelaide. Reacting to British Prime Minister Gladstone’s opposition to female suffrage, Lee declared: ‘Dear old England swathed and mummified in centuries of tradition and prejudice … Will not, cannot, a young vigorous nation create its own precedent?’

‘Will not, cannot, a young vigorous nation create its own precedent?’

Despite the considerable opposition to women’s suffrage, Lee persisted in her constant campaigning efforts, all the while receiving no wage or benefits. In 1894 when South Australian women gained the right to vote and be elected to sit in parliament, the first place in the world to achieve both reforms, Lee found herself in dire circumstances with no money, deteriorating health, and few remaining children to come to her aid.

George begins the epilogue with a quote by Lee – ‘There is no finality in human progress’ – particularly significant, as the revised Commonwealth Franchise Act (1902) allowed women the right to vote, but prevented any Indigenous Australian, Asian, African or Islander the same freedom. George’s book is a fascinating, well-researched, and touching tribute to one of the most important women in our local and global history.

Perhaps most moving is the way George connects Lee’s remarkable life and achievements to the struggles of women in the contemporary Western world today. In the era of the #MeToo movement, when many women continue to be denied their basic rights to gender equality and Western governments are still largely dominated by men, Mary Lee’s remark is just as pertinent as it was in 1893: ‘What is democracy? A government of the people, for the people, by the people. How can a government of men, for men, by men, be a democracy?’

Mary Lee: The life and times of a ‘turbulent anarchist’ and her battle for women’s rights is available in all good bookshops – and at our bookshop at 16 Rose Street, Mile End (or online).