Full life of former POW marked with state farewell
One of Australia's last surviving World War II prisoners of war has been farewelled at a state funeral, where he was remembered as a dedicated, resilient soldier and cherished member of his community.
Arthur Leggett, who died on April 6 at the age of 106, was honoured with a military procession and service in Perth on Saturday.
A riderless horse, symbolising a dead soldier, led the procession down St Georges Terrace, lined with hundreds of people paying their respects, before a service at St George's Cathedral.
The horse, led by a handler, had reversed boots in the stirrups, indicating the fallen rider.
Mr Leggett enlisted for military service in 1936, becoming part of the newly raised Cameron Highlanders of WA, before joining the first World War II Australian Imperial Force unit raised in WA, the 2/11th Battalion, 6th Division.
Several items were displayed atop his casket, including his cherished sporran badge, which he kept when surrendering his Highland kit upon joining the WA battalion.
The badge accompanied him throughout his time as a prisoner of war during World War II and he often recalled having to hide it from his German captors to protect the item.
Prior to his capture, he trained as a signaller responsible for crucial communications between companies and battalion headquarters in the Middle East, serving with distinction in Libya, Greece, and Crete.
At the age of 22, he was captured by German forces following the Battle of Crete and was a prisoner of war for almost four years, surviving the infamous Lamsdorf Death March.
Mr Leggett dedicated much of his life after the war to highlighting the sacrifices of serving men and women, and was president of the Ex-Prisoners of War Association WA for nearly 30 years.
His youngest daughter, Sue Meagher, said her father was a remarkable man who had touched many lives.
"He was a hardworking man - very gentle, very humble," she said before the event.
It was important for young people to understand what previous generations like that of her father experienced so everyone could enjoy their freedom today, Ms Meagher said.
"When you hear the stories of what some of these older generations went through, they were tough people, they were wonderful, strong men," she said.
Premier Roger Cook said the state's last surviving World War II prisoner of war was "a hero whose bravery and contribution to his community will never be forgotten".
During the service, Mr Leggett was remembered as having a "very full civilian life".
He was also a keen visitor of schools across the state, including Mount Lawley Senior High School, which named its library in his honour in 2018.
One of Australia's last surviving World War II prisoners of war has been farewelled at a state funeral, where he was remembered as a dedicated, resilient soldier and cherished member of his community.
Arthur Leggett, who died on April 6 at the age of 106, was honoured with a military procession and service in Perth on Saturday.
A riderless horse, symbolising a dead soldier, led the procession down St Georges Terrace, lined with hundreds of people paying their respects, before a service at St George's Cathedral.
The horse, led by a handler, had reversed boots in the stirrups, indicating the fallen rider.
Mr Leggett enlisted for military service in 1936, becoming part of the newly raised Cameron Highlanders of WA, before joining the first World War II Australian Imperial Force unit raised in WA, the 2/11th Battalion, 6th Division.
Several items were displayed atop his casket, including his cherished sporran badge, which he kept when surrendering his Highland kit upon joining the WA battalion.
The badge accompanied him throughout his time as a prisoner of war during World War II and he often recalled having to hide it from his German captors to protect the item.
Prior to his capture, he trained as a signaller responsible for crucial communications between companies and battalion headquarters in the Middle East, serving with distinction in Libya, Greece, and Crete.
At the age of 22, he was captured by German forces following the Battle of Crete and was a prisoner of war for almost four years, surviving the infamous Lamsdorf Death March.
Mr Leggett dedicated much of his life after the war to highlighting the sacrifices of serving men and women, and was president of the Ex-Prisoners of War Association WA for nearly 30 years.
His youngest daughter, Sue Meagher, said her father was a remarkable man who had touched many lives.
"He was a hardworking man - very gentle, very humble," she said before the event.
It was important for young people to understand what previous generations like that of her father experienced so everyone could enjoy their freedom today, Ms Meagher said.
"When you hear the stories of what some of these older generations went through, they were tough people, they were wonderful, strong men," she said.
Premier Roger Cook said the state's last surviving World War II prisoner of war was "a hero whose bravery and contribution to his community will never be forgotten".
During the service, Mr Leggett was remembered as having a "very full civilian life".
He was also a keen visitor of schools across the state, including Mount Lawley Senior High School, which named its library in his honour in 2018.
One of Australia's last surviving World War II prisoners of war has been farewelled at a state funeral, where he was remembered as a dedicated, resilient soldier and cherished member of his community.
Arthur Leggett, who died on April 6 at the age of 106, was honoured with a military procession and service in Perth on Saturday.
A riderless horse, symbolising a dead soldier, led the procession down St Georges Terrace, lined with hundreds of people paying their respects, before a service at St George's Cathedral.
The horse, led by a handler, had reversed boots in the stirrups, indicating the fallen rider.
Mr Leggett enlisted for military service in 1936, becoming part of the newly raised Cameron Highlanders of WA, before joining the first World War II Australian Imperial Force unit raised in WA, the 2/11th Battalion, 6th Division.
Several items were displayed atop his casket, including his cherished sporran badge, which he kept when surrendering his Highland kit upon joining the WA battalion.
The badge accompanied him throughout his time as a prisoner of war during World War II and he often recalled having to hide it from his German captors to protect the item.
Prior to his capture, he trained as a signaller responsible for crucial communications between companies and battalion headquarters in the Middle East, serving with distinction in Libya, Greece, and Crete.
At the age of 22, he was captured by German forces following the Battle of Crete and was a prisoner of war for almost four years, surviving the infamous Lamsdorf Death March.
Mr Leggett dedicated much of his life after the war to highlighting the sacrifices of serving men and women, and was president of the Ex-Prisoners of War Association WA for nearly 30 years.
His youngest daughter, Sue Meagher, said her father was a remarkable man who had touched many lives.
"He was a hardworking man - very gentle, very humble," she said before the event.
It was important for young people to understand what previous generations like that of her father experienced so everyone could enjoy their freedom today, Ms Meagher said.
"When you hear the stories of what some of these older generations went through, they were tough people, they were wonderful, strong men," she said.
Premier Roger Cook said the state's last surviving World War II prisoner of war was "a hero whose bravery and contribution to his community will never be forgotten".
During the service, Mr Leggett was remembered as having a "very full civilian life".
He was also a keen visitor of schools across the state, including Mount Lawley Senior High School, which named its library in his honour in 2018.
One of Australia's last surviving World War II prisoners of war has been farewelled at a state funeral, where he was remembered as a dedicated, resilient soldier and cherished member of his community.
Arthur Leggett, who died on April 6 at the age of 106, was honoured with a military procession and service in Perth on Saturday.
A riderless horse, symbolising a dead soldier, led the procession down St Georges Terrace, lined with hundreds of people paying their respects, before a service at St George's Cathedral.
The horse, led by a handler, had reversed boots in the stirrups, indicating the fallen rider.
Mr Leggett enlisted for military service in 1936, becoming part of the newly raised Cameron Highlanders of WA, before joining the first World War II Australian Imperial Force unit raised in WA, the 2/11th Battalion, 6th Division.
Several items were displayed atop his casket, including his cherished sporran badge, which he kept when surrendering his Highland kit upon joining the WA battalion.
The badge accompanied him throughout his time as a prisoner of war during World War II and he often recalled having to hide it from his German captors to protect the item.
Prior to his capture, he trained as a signaller responsible for crucial communications between companies and battalion headquarters in the Middle East, serving with distinction in Libya, Greece, and Crete.
At the age of 22, he was captured by German forces following the Battle of Crete and was a prisoner of war for almost four years, surviving the infamous Lamsdorf Death March.
Mr Leggett dedicated much of his life after the war to highlighting the sacrifices of serving men and women, and was president of the Ex-Prisoners of War Association WA for nearly 30 years.
His youngest daughter, Sue Meagher, said her father was a remarkable man who had touched many lives.
"He was a hardworking man - very gentle, very humble," she said before the event.
It was important for young people to understand what previous generations like that of her father experienced so everyone could enjoy their freedom today, Ms Meagher said.
"When you hear the stories of what some of these older generations went through, they were tough people, they were wonderful, strong men," she said.
Premier Roger Cook said the state's last surviving World War II prisoner of war was "a hero whose bravery and contribution to his community will never be forgotten".
During the service, Mr Leggett was remembered as having a "very full civilian life".
He was also a keen visitor of schools across the state, including Mount Lawley Senior High School, which named its library in his honour in 2018.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Advertiser
20 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Salvaging stories from the region's watery graveyards
MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship.
Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Spellbinding performance does justice to a masterpiece
MUSIC STEPHEN HOUGH PERFORMS MENDELSSOHN Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Opera House, June 4 ★★★★ Reviewed by PETER MCCALLUM In 2023, Sydney Symphony chief guest conductor, Sir Donald Runnicles, introduced Idyllium, by German composer Detlev Glanert to Sydney audiences alongside the work which shaped it, Brahms' Symphony No. 2. Glanert has written musical reflections, or 'distorting mirrors' as Runnicles described them, on all four of Brahms' symphonies. In this concert, Runnicles brought us Vexierbild: Kontrafaktur mit Brahms in which the themes and energy of Brahms' Symphony No.3 float by like afterimages on the retina. Like Brahms' work, Vexierbild starts assertively, the opening trombone notes quickly rising through the orchestra only to disperse into flitting woodwind fragments. After a restless first section driven by syncopated compound rhythms and images of the defining motives of Brahms' first movement, the music subsides to stasis in which memories of Brahms' third movement hover in the air. The opening returns with some energy until it slows down as though being dragged to a halt, before a quiet close on the third of the chord. It is as though the motive that had animated both Brahms' and Glanert's works had been brought to some kind of glowing finality. The SSO followed this with Brahms' actual Symphony No. 3, in which Runnicles eschewed unduly emphatic articulation and strutting energy in favour of naturally shaped ideas which evolved with Brahms' fluid rhythmic regroupings, extensions and elaborations. After idyllic simplicity from clarinets in the opening of the second movement, the strings, under concertmaster Andrew Haveron, embellished this idea's recurrence with rich warmth, rising to memorable intensity at the climax. The cellos were unrushed as they began the lilting third movement (which had haunted the central section of Glanert's piece), but rather unfolded its charming irregularities of line with floating melancholy. The finale busied itself with subdued energy, the second theme on French horn issuing forth with noble confidence before closing quietly. Loading The first half began with Mendelssohn's Overture, The Hebrides Opus 26 (' Fingal's Cave '), played here not as an image of a lonely place on a hostile sea but more as an inner terrain of thoughtful solitude, which eased warmly when clarinettist Francesco Celata brought back the second theme. Stephen Hough then played the same composer's Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Opus 25, with commanding brilliance and consummate maturity, driving its first movement with stormy determination, its second with comely grace and simple beauty and the third with fleet virtuosity and a lively kick of the heel.
ABC News
4 days ago
- ABC News
Trump announces new travel ban for 12 countries
1h ago 1 hours ago Thu 5 Jun 2025 at 2:30am Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Play Duration: 2 minutes 3 seconds 2 m 3 s
