Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 111
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[Page 111]
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at about twelve miles an hour, frightened horses in buggies, sulkies and carts, would be either bolting or rearing all over the place. On its first visit it stopped outside Howard's general store to refuel, and a small crowd of idlers, including myself, and several bellicose dogs, gathered around to gaze admiringly at it, whilst a counter-hand from the hardware department brought out a four-gallon tin of petrol and a large funnel, punctured the tin, and carefully poured the contents into the vehicle's tank.
Most of the onlookers waited to see this mechanical marvel take-off up the street in a haze of blue smoke and dust; some rushed off to stand by their horses. When it revisited Parkes some weeks later, I happened to be driving Mother to the Railway Station to meet Father, returning from Sydney on the 8.30 a.m. train. We were in the sulky, drawn by old Bruce (a notorious backer) and just as we were turning into the main street, the car, loudly honking its big horn, was almost crossing our front. Bruce immediately backed us on to the footpath, and would have had us through the corner-draper's shop window, if the proprietor and an assistant had not rushed out and manfully grabbed the spokes of our wheels, and only just in time. Flogging Bruce with the whip only made him back with more determination. He was finally cured of this bad habit by being harnessed to a set of harrows, spikes downward of course.
Incidentally, going down to meet the incoming train from Sydney nearly every morning was a popular pastime with many of the townspeople before getting to work in the shops and offices. This habit was more out of pure curiosity than the need to meet a relative or close friend, and the railway train was still a curiosity to many.
Every year, in the Spring, the Parkes Jockey Club, of which Dad had become a member, held a two-day race meeting on their rather inelegant racecourse, alongside the railway, two miles east of the town. Though some racegoers drove there in horsed buses, or in their own buggies and sulkies, the majority patronised a special train. While I was still in short pants, and attending