Back to Quambatook
It was good to be able to attend another Quambatook re-union on Sunday February 19 2006.
The venue was the Botanic Gardens, White Hills Bendigo which is about half way between Quambatook and Melbourne. The last gathering there was in 2004 and it was a 45c degree day. We were glad that this time the weather was a pleasant 27c degrees.
I would guess that the attendance was over 150 people
There were quite a few elderly folk using walkers. Tom Gross told me he was about 94 years of age. There were old school friends, sons and daughters of the pioneers.
Here is Tom on RHS and the other man is a Keating. I asked Mr Keating if his father was the Blacksmith, Dan Keating. He replied,"No, that was my Grandfather"!
Tempest is fugiting
Here we have Vic Fitcher RHS who was in the grade above me. His father came to the town to build the wheat silos and some of the family is still there. There is possibly a warning here, Don't stay in Quambatook too long or it just might grow on you>. On the LHS is young John Billings with a moustache, he was a few grades below me.
Associate Professor Meehan is the Head of the English Department at Flinders and has written a book which won the Premiers Prize a few years ago. It is called Salt of broken tears. The book would be particularly interesting to any one born at Quambatook, but perhaps not to many others.
The professor has said that he can see no reason why careers could not be made by writing about a "very small patch of earth"
http://www.flinders.edu.au/news/articles/?fj08v11s01
I have the sneaking suspicion that there would be very few places on planet earth that had no significance to at least some people.