Old Film:: Grandmother’s Photographs
My grandmother, Elvie Ruth Bonner (1901-1986), came from old money but was cast out quite early and with at least two children married my dirt-poor grandfather William Lionel Clark sometime after the Great War. She was an avid photographer throughout her life and appears to have preferred medium format in evolving & disappearing types. Albums and negatives are her legacy.
This photograph was taken at Risby’s Basin logging camp at Maydena, Tasmania in the period 1947-1951. I would hazard a guess and say the subject was one of my older aunts – possibly Pat.
My grandmother shot a lot of her work among the itinerant workers, loggers and clear-felled logging coupes that paved the way for how the Tasmanian forestry operates to this day. Clear felling old growth forest is almost a Government tradition. It was a time of great hardship for the family and they helped fill a train with cut firewood each day to earn their keep. My father, Lionel Bruce, had left school at the end of grade 6 to contribute to the labour.
Well beyond this time my grandmother was poor and would shoot her rolls of film then cherry-pick favourites from the contact sheet with a pair of scissors. Often, these scissor cuts are less than elegant so sadly the albums are a bit of a hack with writing on the front and/or back of some photographs.
However, my older sister may have these negatives and a lot more in Queensland so it would be interesting to scan them and push a small number out onto this weblog out of historic interest. Many of the portraits she made would be of interest to the workers’ descendants. I look forward to sharing.
