Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 389
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[Page 389]
191
smelling salts, obtained from the Chemistry School, was placed conspicuously on a central table.
It was customary to publish the examination results in the Sydney Morning Herald a day or two before Christmas, which relieved all candidates of any worry or doubts during the Festive Season. I was delighted to find that I had passed in all subjects with a high distinction in engineering drawing and a credit in building construction.
After the examinations I returned to "Rosedernate" for Christmas in the Family's first motor car; a big Hudson with a special custom-built Smith and Waddington - of Camperdown - body. The Parkes agent and I took delivery of it and drove it to Parks, breaking the journey at Bathurst, for the night; the agent did most of the driving, but once over the Blue Mountains gave me some driving instruction on the rest of the way.
There were not more than a dozen privately-owned cars in Parkes then, and they were all of the open-bodied style with buggy-type hoods that folded down completely at the rear, or could be pulled right over the seating accommodation and fastened to the top of the vertical windscreen: in inclement weather, detachable side-curtains of heavy black fabric, with clear celluloid (windows) could be fastened along the open sides. Sedan enclosed cars were not used in the country areas for a few years to come. The "Bendix" self-starting arrangement was a very recent invention and four-wheel brakes were not seen until 1924. There were no shock-absorbers, windscreen-wipers or rear-vision mirrors, these came along a year or two later to be fitted, voluntarily, to existing vehicles, or supplied as extras on new ones.
During the two-month academic recess, I again assisted in my Father's office, but one of my first cares was to get my motor driving licence, which I did after a simple ten-minute test by the good-natured constable in charge of the local lock-up.
Just before I began my University career, the "Frenchmans" had been rented for a year to the owner, Taylor, of Goonoo Goonoo Station between Yeoval and Wellington, and now it was leased for two years to a relative of the Lees of Larras Lake Station near