End of an era at Kiama Preschool p3
$1 million for Kiama Harbour p3
Kiama Hospital remembered p7
Christmas services
Kiama Coast Walk vision p8
p13
12 DEC 2020
Gift of rare link to historic flight
John Graham, with the cover he donated.
Gerringong & District Historical Society Life Member, John Graham, has donated it one of the just 10 official postal covers carried in Sir Charles Kingsford Smith’s first commercial flight to NZ. Being a serious collector of Australian stamps, John has been aware of the existence of these covers for many years, and has so far determined the location of five of the ten official covers. Of those five, two were postmarked at Sydney on 9 January, and three were postmarked at Gerringong on 10 January, 1922. Only two of the Gerringong covers were signed by all three crew and two passengers, and it is one of these he has now donated to the new Gerringong Museum. The covers are rarely on the market. Fortunately one of John’s philatelic contacts was asked to appraise a Sydney collection as part of a deceased estate, and finding this cover in the collection, let John know of its availability. John made sure of securing the cover, always with the intention of ultimately donating it to the Gerringong Museum. As the Southern Cross monument at Gerroa attests, the 1933 flight used Seven
Mile Beach as its runway. The beach was selected for his second flight across the Tasman, as it allowed a long, smooth take-off area for the heavy laden aircraft. Flares were lit upon the beach to mark out the runway and several thousand people came from Sydney and the local area to witness the 2.30am take-off, turning on their car headlights to provide extra illumination. The flight, which carried passengers and philatelic mail, landed over 14 hours later at New Plymouth on New Zealand`s North Island. Officially, ten covers were carried, each with proving postmarks, while unofficially a few private covers were carried, all of which were handannotated but not postmarked. While he now lives in Queensland, John has continued his interest in Gerringong history, having digitised the Pioneer Register for Gerringong and compiled numerous booklets for the Society. He is currently preparing a history of Gerroa. “The Society is very grateful for the contribution John has made over the years, and for this most generous donation,” says the Society President, Helen McDermott. The Society has also been continued on p4
FROM THE EDITOR
The Bugle to launch a digital service After hinting we had something new up our sleeves for 2021, it’s now time to tell you about a new smartphone news service we have been working on. The Bugle App will be an additional service to our much loved printed paper. It will enable us to report on a wider range of news than is currently possible with our fortnightly printing and distribution. Until now, we’ve sometimes had to wait more than a week to write about major decisions that have been made by Council or the State Government, or to alert you to initiatives within the community. We will also be able to send notifications to alert you to important developments. This new digital channel is a big step for us, so we’ve invested in proven technology
that is already successfully serving other communities in Australia and New Zealand. Although we are officially launching The Bugle App to coincide with our first issue
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