Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 413
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[Page 413]
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established. The first crude "Bowser" petrol pumps had appeared outside car agencies in the early twenties and now the first small service stations were springing up in the side streets of the city, where motor traffic had increased to such an extent that the Police Department had to form a special Traffic Branch to control it.
The newly invented radio had quickly been commercialised and rather imperfect sets made available to the public. Messrs David Jones Ltd had a sample one crackling and screeching in the main entrance of their George St store. Hitherto the simple little crystal with its wire "whisker" and ear-phones had been the first receiver, and a great boon to convalescing patients in hospitals.
Early this year (1927) I was accepted as a member of the University Club, then located in the upper three floors of "Kelvin House" in Castlereagh St; afterwards the first headquarters of the Electricity Commission.
With the completion of the reconstruction work north of Wollongong, the Board shifted my headquarteers to Dapto, then a small sleepy dairying centre on the main road, seven miles north of Wollongong and more central to my area. I was able to get comfortable board and lodging in the home of a local resident but still took the train to Sydney for the weekends. Australian Iron and Steel Ltd - later absorbed by Broken Hill Proprietory - were in the throes of erecting their new blast furnace and steel mills on the open scrub-land between Dapto-Unanderra and Port Kembla, and the State Government was building a special railway line from Moss Vale to bring down the iron ore: the necessary hard anthracitic coke was available from nearby collieries (Wongawili) and coke ovens.
A certain amount of maintenance was required on the newly completed northern work, and about once a fortnight I motored right through on inspections to Nowra, and once a month continued on to Batemans Bay.
I was now asked by the Board to build their first large