Sepia Saturday: Swimming in the '20s

Swimming in the 1920s, probably at Kow Swamp.

This week's photo is in a family album but I don't know who the people are. I think it was taken at Kow Swamp in the 1920s.

Kow Swamp is a shallow freshwater lake in northern Victoria near Gunbower now used for water storage and some recreational activities such as fishing and birdwatching. It is also a significant archaeological site of Aboriginal heritage and history.

You can find more responses over at Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday: The swimmers

The topic for Sepia Saturday this week is very apt given that here in Australia we're breaking records left (west), right (east) and centre. We've just had our hottest day ever (average of all temperature reports nation wide) and there are fires all over the place creating havoc.

These photos of three sisters are from a family album, taken in the 1920s in central Victoria. There is another one from the same album that I blogged about here.

I think their bathing costumes are wool, and aren't those hats great? (We used to call swimsuits 'togs' when I was young but that word seems to have gone out of use, replaced by 'bathers'.)

Elv

Annie and Edith

Flirting with Flickr

Another hobby of mine is photography and I love to upload to the online photograph community at Flickr. It's a very big community, with millions of members worldwide,  but I love it because I can join groups on Flickr that are specific in nature. So my macro photos of insects go into the Insects of Australia group, my close-ups of native plants go into the plant groups and so on. And the thing I really enjoy is that the other Flickrites are so friendly - we comment on each others photos, we help to identify species, we make suggestions.

As well as my own photos I've been uploading scanned copies of photos from my family's old albums and attaching them to to Flickr groups specific to old photos. I make sure they have tags identifying people and place when I can. And from a family history point of view I've been rewarded by distant relatives making contact with me, or historians interested in local history or researchers after particular images.

Chas Sims (centre) and unknown friends, Mitiamo

Last week I was contacted by a local history group currently putting together a calendar for next year. They want to use one of my old photos (above) for their 'then and now' theme. Don't they look great in their woollen bathers? I imagine the bathing costumes sagged in the water though!!