#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 32 Small

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 32 - Small

This small album came to us recently from Paul’s cousin.  It belonged to her father, Charles Leslie (Les) McCann who was the second child and first son born to Charles and Alma McCann. Paul’father Cecil Eric (always known as Pat) was the eighth of the family of nine children.

The album measures 3’ x 5”.

This is the inside cover:

So it’s a gift from Stan to Les (Mac), in 1917, when Les was 17.  Who was Stan?

There are 24 small photos in the album.  It consists mostly of photos of boys and men with bikes – mostly motorbikes of the period, although there is one of a pushbike and another of a very early touring car fording a flooded causeway. 

All the McCanns were keen on wheels.

Here is Charlie McCann. Les’ father, driving a very fancy motorbike with a sidecar.  Charlie seems to be wearing a “duster” coat of the kind popular at the time for such outings as they were designed to keep the dust and dirt off the clothes underneath. 

The first photo in the album is of Les sitting in the same sidecar with a beach behind him, there’s one of Les leaning nonchalantly against the bike and another photo further in of the same bike disappearing down a dusty road.

 Two photos are of a large group of men and women with an array of bikes – it looks like the beginning of a race or a rally.

There are several beach photos.  As we live in this area, we have tried to match them up with the beaches we know, but so much has changed since 1917 that it’s all guesswork.  There are more buildings now,  and there has been coastal erosion so it’s difficult to be sure.

There are also photos of the river – we assume it’s either the Richmond or Wilson River at Lismore where the family lived.  One shows a cream boat, a sight not seen now since at least the end of WWII.

 Its job was to deliver empty cans and collect full cans of cream from the dairy farms on the river for conveyance to the Norco Factory in Lismore, but the cream boats also carried other goods and occasional passengers.  Improvements in roads and road transport put an end to this leisurely passage up the river by the cream boats.

There is no one alive now who can truly identify these photos.  We can speculate, but we will never know the full story behind the pictures, or the friendship between Les and the mysterious Stan.

Maybe this is him?