Not sure about you, but I like to have an objective in mind when I go for a Sunday Drive. I hate just stooging around aimlessly. I need a reason. Actually we don't go for a Sunday Drive much at all, too many others doing it and you can't always get into a decent caff. Much prefer to do it mid week, and we're retired, so why not.
Anyway, being family history buffs, quite a while back we were checking some last resting places of our old colonial ancestors, and found that many of them have no headstones, or any kind of marker at all that says they were once here - born, married, had kids, had jobs, lived, loved, argued, did stuff, died, and were eventually set into the good Aussie earth that had become their homeland.
It just didn't seem right.
It just didn't seem right.
So this was our solution!
The Travelling Tombstone! (Copyrighted by Herself!)
Take a chunk of reinforced plywood cut to tombstone shape, stick on a sheet of that plastic-y whiteboard-y stuff you can write on and then rub off, add a few trimmings, make a frame to help with writing in straight lines, and add a back prop so it'll stand up.
Okay, a bit agricultural, but worth a shot. For the sake of our hard-working ancestors. And besides, it gets us out of the house!
We needed a tryout, so an old WWI digger from Mannum up on the river got volunteered, and it's a good drive, up to Murray Bridge and then follow the river north-ish. And Mannum is worth it just for the walkabout, with a couple of good cafes and a great park along the riverfront. And has bags of history if you do your homework before you go.
But, to Albert....
Albert Skinner was a South Aussie born into the top layers of a good middle class family but never really got it together - never married or had kids, worked as a labourer in Adelaide as a young man, finished up settling in the small shack-y fishing community of Caurnamont, about 20 kms upstream from Mannum on the River Murray, had all the characteristics of a bit of a loner.
Albert Skinner was a South Aussie born into the top layers of a good middle class family but never really got it together - never married or had kids, worked as a labourer in Adelaide as a young man, finished up settling in the small shack-y fishing community of Caurnamont, about 20 kms upstream from Mannum on the River Murray, had all the characteristics of a bit of a loner.
But WWI came along and even though he was 54, he was up for a bit of adventure so he put his age down to 44 and enlisted! And they took him! Two of his younger brothers had also put their ages down to get into the action (and under the 45 cut off) so maybe he just didn't want to be left out.
Albert did a stint in the horror trenches of the Western Front, but was soon in health trouble, and the MO took one look at him and wrote over his file something like "There's NO way this man is 44!" and promptly shipped him across to England where he became a cook and orderly for HQ till the end of the war. But he'd given it his best shot.
And when he came home he went back to fishing upstream from Mannum and that's about his story. Today he lies in an unmarked grave in the Mannum cemetery, so only fitting that we at least do THIS for him. Okay Albert? - this is about the best we can do for you mate. And we love your town.
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