Keith and Neil Phelan, brothers, returned from serving in the Pacific in WW2 and were at a bit of a loss for a while as to what to do next. It turned out all right in the end but one of their business ventures, in 1952, was to take over a company that had been owned by other family members. It was a cordial factory, Euroa Cordials. They closed it down after a year or two because it wasn't profitable.
Here are Neil (left) and Keith (right) watching cheerfully while their father's first cousin, Ford McKernan (also a returned serviceman), does all the hard work! They're installing a new boiler.
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It's clear to me I know nothing about how things work. I wouldn't have thought a boiler would be outside. Such an interesting picture!
ReplyDeleteI do like "work photographs". they seem to give a much more accurate view of what life really like than all those studio set pieces. That photograph of yours is so full of information.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great photo!
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of "cordials" I automatically think of "Anne of Green Gables" and the cordial she and Diana got tipsy on.
That's a really interesting photo. If I didn't know any better, I'd think that was a still. But you don't think of concocting cordials in some illegal kind of way. Cordials sound so innocent. Too bad the business didn't work out.
ReplyDeleteNancy
I'm sure there is something brewing there. It makes me want to see a photo taken from a different angle.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a boiler to run some piece of machinery that's hiding inside the sheds...lots of wooden shipping boxes in the background, too. I'm with Bob here: "work photographs" show so much of life!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful picture! They look happy. What kind of alcohol is in a "cordial" anyway? I will have to look that up.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Kathy M.
I think it's absolutely wonderful that you have this work photo. It's real life, so to speak, as opposed to pose photographs. I wish you would tell us more about the cordials they made.
ReplyDeleteThe cordials in Australia are usually non-alcoholic soft drinks. I'm not sure whether this produced aerated cordials - I'll have to do some more research. And I don't kmow what flavours they produced either. Lemon would have been one.
ReplyDeleteQuite an interesting photo! I wonder who took it and why.
ReplyDeleteThere's a sense of fun in this picture as if they are smiling less for the camera but more at a joke of some kind. I think they might be just filling a tub with hot water for washing up.
ReplyDeleteBeing a former customs officer the photo looks like an illegal distillery to me. That activity is illegal here unless of course you pay excise. But apart from that, the picture is a gem!
ReplyDeletei use to live next door to this factory as a kid I remember that boiler sitting there and my dad run trucks out of the yard
ReplyDeleteThe brick building i think is still there but after the school brought the land they pulled down the wooden shed behind the boiler and the cut down the side wall to keep as a fence to our place The shed was lucky to be still there then, as a kid i would light fires next to it in the grass and see if i could put them out as the fire got bigger