Can you help us identify this photograph?

The library needs assistance in identifying the people and location in the above photograph. The photograph was a recent donation to the local studies section and is not dated. The sign near the front door reads "South British Insurance Company". Do you know where the Campbelltown News Printing Works were located? Please let us know if you do!

Update

This building was located in Patrick Street. In the 1920s this was next to Brunero's Sawmill (now the Coogan Lane car park).

Written by Andrew Allen

The Flying Doctor comes to Campbelltown

The sprawling weatherboard homestead of "Glen Lorne" was built in the 1820s on the Appin Road, not far from Campbelltown. In 1936, the house was used to film the movie The Flying Doctor starring Charles Farrell and Mary Maguire and a special appearance by Don Bradman playing himself. Farrell, an American star of the day, and a British crew were imported. The plot revolves around a complicated love triangle, a doctor who falls in love with a married woman and then becomes a flying doctor in the outback. Box office receipts were poor but the film lead to a flood of donations to the flying doctor service. "Glen Lorne" homestead was destroyed by fire on 9 July 1981.

Another old Campbelltown homestead was the scene for filming in November 1969. St Helens Park was used as a film set for the ABC television series Delta. The series starred Frank Thring, John Gregg and Kirrily Nolan and was based on a fictitious scientific investigation unit. Frank Thring attracted the most interest, playing a "sinister anthropologist" who had returned to Australia after living in the wilds of New Guinea. The house and grounds were described as a "hive of activity" during those days of shooting back in 1969.

Written by Andrew Allen

The Shop Famous for its Snake!

Bursill's Produce Store was an institution in Campbelltown for many years. It supplied the local farmers with all their feed requirements. The building stood on the southern side of a shop run by Bussell Brothers on the corner of Queen and Lithgow Streets. The shop's most infamous occupant was a carpet snake that terrified and fascinated the locals. The snake was used to keep the rodent population down and so protect the produce. Long time former resident of Campbelltown Lily Hepher, now in her late nineties, remembered as a young woman looking at the reptile through the top floor window of the store. It was always a source of fascination for her and other passers by. Another local David Milliken when interviewed remembered that when moving a bag of feed in the shop one day he was startled to find the snake right in front of his eyes. The shopkeeper assured him with an "its alright mate it won't hurt you".

The colourful Dr Ivor Thomas of Campbelltown in the 1940s was one night returning from a call in the early hours of the morning when he saw an obstruction over the trellis in the driveway. The storeman at Bursill's had his sleep interrupted that morning by a phone call from the doctor. "Come down and pick up your bloody snake" was the call. When the man arrived he found Dr Thomas busy photographing the snake which habitually escaped from Bursill's Produce Store and roamed the town at night. So much for Occupational Health and Safety!

Update: Susan Chandler, daughter of local identity Bon Wrightson, also discussed Bursill's snake in an interview she gave the library in August 2011. She said one day as a child she found it in the strawberry patch at her home in Dumaresq Street. She yelled at her grandpa that she found a big lizard. A worker from Bursill's who also lived next door retrieved the snake, knocked it out, wound it around his arm and took it back to Bursill's store! Susan also explained that after it had escaped so many times Dr Thomas lost patience and had it killed.

             This shot was taken from the interior of Bursill's shop in 1950. (Col Clissold Collection)

Do you have memories of or have heard stories about the snake? Please share them with us.

Written by Andrew Allen