A 1930s photo
album records a young woman’s alpine holiday.
… they say,
that up at ‘Kossie’
There’s lots
and lots of men
So who knows
what the future
Holds in store
for little Em ...
Anonymous Poem,
c. 1930
Thoroughly modern Miss Emily Chambers of Burwood,
NSW, was always eager to try the latest fad, whether it was wearing short
sleeves to the office at the Mutual Life Company in Martin Place, marching with
the Freshwater Surf Life Saving Club, dancing the Charleston on weekends,
skating at Sydney’s George Street Glaciarium, or skiing.
With fun,
adventure (and perhaps love) on the agenda, Emily and a friend (also named
Emily — the other half of the ‘Two Ems’) packed their ski gear, paid their £20
and joined the Public Service Ski Club on a 10-day stint at the snow. Their
stay at the Hotel Kosciusko at Diggers Creek near Jindabyne, from 1 to 11 August
1930, coincided with a heavy snowfall.
The mountain
resort became a winter sports’ paradise, ensuring the novice skiers enjoyed the
best conditions for their first alpine excursion.
Emily’s photo album from this trip captures all the
energy and enthusiasm of a young woman experiencing a visit to the snow
courtesy of the relatively new industry of commercial tourism. Thirty-six black
and white snaps record skiers on the Kerry Course (named for alpine pioneer and
photographer Charles Kerry, the father of Australian skiing) and the Grand Slam
run, a cross-
country ski race,
ice skating and a picnic in the snow at Dainer’s Gap with lunch carried on a
horse-drawn sleigh.
Emily’s search
for love was equally successful. Victorian Ski Club stalwart Gordon Mailler
Brown was also holidaying at Kosciusko. The couple took to each other straight
away; the champion ‘ski-runner’ (as skiers were then known) was soon giving the
pretty learner a few tips, coaching her to first place in the Ladies’ Alarm
Race on the picnic race day, before the annual snow carnival and fancy dress
ball on the last day.
Returning to
Sydney, the holiday romance blossomed into a long distance relationship. That summer
Emily travelled by ship, with her sister Isabel, to meet Gordon’s family; his
father ET Brown was founder of the Brown-built Steel Equipment Company,
Australia’s first manufacturer of all-steel office furniture.
In January 1931
the girls flew back to Sydney on the ‘Southern Sky’, part of Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith’s
short-lived Australian National Airway’s fleet. Emily’s collection also
contains souvenirs of this early experience of commercial air travel, including
her own photographs and ephemera (tickets, timetable, sick bag).
Gordon and
Emily were engaged in May and married later in 1932. The couple had three
children and spent many happy family holidays (both summer and winter) in the
alpine regions of Victorian and NSW, all photographed by Emily. Ironically,
however, it was Gordon’s passion for alpine pursuits — inherited by son Alan
who later participated in the
1947 Australian
National Antarctic Research Expedition — that would eventually drive the couple
apart. Gordon and Emily divorced in 1966, and Emily died in 1977.
This recent
acquisition, presented to the Library by Emily and Gordon’s daughter, Lynette
O’Neill, includes two albums of photographs and associated ephemera. Together,
these items provide a wonderful record of one Sydney woman’s encounters with emerging
modern lifestyle trends in Australia between the wars.