EPISODE 319 AUSTRALIAN fire recovery 2021… AND the search for the Sunshine Header Harvester 1990
alan skeochApril 2021
THis Episode 319 is dedicated to David Skeoch who sent a note that brought
back memories and also made us feel relieved that some parts of Australia are
recovering from the fires.
UNUSUAL NAME LEADS TO AN INTERESTING TRAIL
Two years ago for no particular reason I wondered if there was anyone on planetearth with the same name as mine? Our surname is unusual…not like Smith or Taylor or Newman…soI just did a little digging prompted by a strange fact that some of my emails went astray.Guess what? i found two other Alan Skeoch’s…two with my name and exact spelling of Alan.One was an American dentist who died. But the other was an Australian bush pilot … a young man.We communicated. His father, David, and I send notes back and forth regularly. Strange world!Today David sent this picture of his farm in a heavily wooded part of Australia…New South Wales…where the fires were quite devastating. Recovery is on its way. He even speaks of many platypuscreatures rebounding. In these days of Covid 19 when all around seems dreary and our self-isolationis harder and harder to accept, these pictures of Australia will be uplifting. Enlarge picture to fullscreen. Beautiful.
The Corang River, in which we have Macquarie Perch and lots of wildlife such as Platypus.
Hi Alan,
Feel free to send to whom you wish! The location is Oallen NSW and it’s the Corang River. Hope to see you here one day!
Kind regards
David.
Note the spider…How did that creature avoid death by fire? The fires just got to the edge of David’s wilderness property.
OUR SEARCH FOR THE AUSTRALIAN HEADER HARVESTER,
David’s note brings back memories of the time Marjorie, Andrew and I visited Australia in search of the famous Australian Header Harvester, an invention
whose principles can be traced back to the vast CARTHAGINIAN grain fields of North Africa in Roman times. We drove into the Blue Mountains of New South Wales
driving blind which is always an exciting way to make discoveries. FOOUND the header harvester in a tiny village bar …then An Australian farmer took us out in the
blackness of night over his fields and Eucalyptus
groves just to show us a tiny stream where a platypus lived under a small farm bridge. His truck had ‘Roo bars’…I bet you do not know what that means.
Partial success when we did find the Header Harvester reproduced on a beer can graphic as well as the real thing placed for all to see in Sydney. The Australians
were wonderful once they knew we were interested. Massey Harris of
Canada bought the patents and made a modern model of the harvester.
NOTE TO DAVID SKEOCH: We never found a header harvester on an Australian farm. Perhaps you have. Is the image still on the beer cans?
Australian FARMER, Tom Bailey, bought an old Number 6, Sunshine header harvester for $300. I bought the image on a couple of beer cans for $3 or so.
Some readers might wonder why we flew all the way to Australia just to find the machine. It was the beer that drew me
and perhaps our youngest son Andrew but not Marjorie.
1935 Model of the Sunshine Header Harvester…the ancient Carthaginian model had the same kind of clipping blades as
I seem to remember.
We visited Australia around 1990. Sad to say I could not find the beer can in 2018 which does not mean it no longer exists. Maybe David Skeoch can
do a little research.
alan skeoch
april 2021
Post Script: The end result of our global wandering was a 300 page MA thesis titled ‘Technology and Change in Agriculture from 1850 to 1891’, University of
Toronto,..It never made the best seller list.