Ray, As a matter of interest my father and next door neighbour Adrian Jones were the last to walk east to west on the Long Bridge in 1955 before it collapsed. One of Frank Hector's butchers vans drove the other way and would most probably have been stranded in town until the water receded. We lived in Hannan Street at the time and my father carried me out across the bridge not long before it collapsed... Phillip Carruthers Brisbane, Australia +617 3273 5531 ----- Original Message ----- From: Ray To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, October 04, 2009 10:03 AM Subject: Re: [HV] Sketch of Long Bridge WEST MAITLAND Good Morning Phillip. Thank you for this. Greatly appreciated. Yes, to me also, the topography looks wrong, yet all that I could imagine was that the large building and what looks like two huge formal gardens on the bank in front of it would have been the hospital. I just put it down to my lack of knowledge of what Regent Street must have originally looked like. But I couldn't recall having seen any reference to industry requiring a chimney like that on the Regent Street side. Whereas I had read of industry on the eastern side, but again the topography would look wrong for that view too; and I can't place such a grand 'house' and formal garden on the eastern side with that aspect. So overall, it would seem that your feeling of artistic licence would be the most likely one. Thanks again Phillip. Regards: Ray ----- Original Message ----- From: "Phillip Carruthers" <[email protected]> > Ray, > > In my view it's an artists impression with a lot of license. The artist > would have been standing near Hampton Court on the east side and the grand > looking building on the other side right of the picture is the Maitland > Hospital. No idea what the factory is on the left. and the topography to > the left looks wrong. ... ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hello again Phillip. Thanks for this. What a great bit of local and family history that item makes. I wonder if they were grateful that it didn't collapse whilst they were walking on it. I was not aware that the bridge had collapsed. When I searched under "Long Bridge" Maitland at the National Library of Australia pictures web-site, there were lots of photos of concrete work being constructed on the bridge, which I was unaware of; so this would now explain it. At the time of the flood, Phillip, we were living in the western suburbs of Sydney, and being a kid, I had no idea at that stage that the family had originated in Maitland, still living almost adjoining the Long Bridge at the time of the flood -- in Bull Street, formerly called Thompson's Lane -- on the eastern side, on my John THOMPSON ancestor's original Veteran's land grant which had stretched right across from Thompson's Lane to Regent Street; so from the photos at the NLA, it would seem that the entire grant would have looked like a river then. Phew! Thanks for sharing this interesting item. Regards again: Ray ----- Original Message ----- From: "Phillip Carruthers" <[email protected]> ... As a matter of interest my father and next door neighbour Adrian Jones were the last to walk east to west on the Long Bridge in 1955 before it collapsed. One of Frank Hector's butchers vans drove the other way and would most probably have been stranded in town until the water receded. We lived in Hannan Street at the time and my father carried me out across the bridge not long before it collapsed... ...

Hello All. Following Marg's lead in providing us with new helpful web-sites which she discovers, this one just appeared on one of my Irish lists. http://www.belfast-gazette.co.uk >From the home-page where that link opens up, there are options on the top left for the London Gazette and for the Edinburgh Gazette, as well. They appear to be something like our present Government Gazettes here in Oz; and/or like our original Sydney Gazette -- but only posting official notices, not general news items etc. I've just spent hours on the site, sadly without finding any relevant 'hits', but hoping that listers might find something of value in it -- as it goes waaaay back. Good Luck. Ray