On one side of the third storey immense old grain store buildings in Oamaru, the view in this Art Gallery was toward the hill and on the other, the harbour!
Meanwhile on the Jessie's Travel Journal... 1929... she has driven down to St Ives, scrambled round the rocks and become quite poetic:
"St Ives is a grand place for a holiday being picturesque with the tide in or out. It has wonderful beaches and there are numerous delightful walks and we couldn’t have a better room. Twice, I’ve just sat up and seen the sun come up and the day before yesterday, it just peeped above the horizon then up and up until it shone on the water. This morning there was a bank of clouds, but about seven am it appeared very gradually, a huge flame coloured ball, set in a pink tinged sky which gradually turned to blue. There was a gorgeous red line of light on the sea and across the path of which wandered a fishing boat dragging behind two little boats. Gradually, it became coppery then more yellow until a perfectly normal sun shone on St Ives. Away to our left is the 'Island' said once to be an island on which is exposed, fishing nets and washing. Between it and the mainland is a mass of houses, mostly gray stone and slate roofs with just a patch of colour here and there by a red or brown house. In front is the tiny harbour and the blue, brown and black fishing boats – lovely!
She and her sister sat in one of the cafe's writing this diary and reading the paper. Her excerpts from the paper were unknown till I googled.
". That Mr Hatry with Dixon and others has collapsed – his Company, I mean and all London is talking about him. There are involved, Gloucester, Wakefield and the Borough Councils. Austin Trust. Photomaton affair"
Apparently Mr Hatry and Dixon were charged with fraud and deception. His Company folded, worth £.3.75million! And 9 days later Wall Street crashed! This was September 1929.
She went to Lands End and passed the famous Levant Copper mine who Mum stated, was the most up to date in the world! I found out that it closed the year after Mum was there - 1930!
Another interesting fact was a cairn to Joannes Knill who was Mayor of St Ives in 1766. He built a high steeple affair and left enough money to enable a strange ritual to happen every 5 years.
"By his will, it is directed that every five years, 10 girls under 14, [maidens] dressed in white and accompanied by two widows selected from the merits of a fiddler, should dance round this and also sing the 100th Psalm! Certain sums were left to ensure it being carried out. All the councillors and the Mayor as well as the population and hoards of visitors take part!"
I love the photo but must say your mother's diary gets more and more interesting. I loved her description of the sunrise -- and the ritual. Good lord, how strange was Mayor Knill! I don't suppose the ritual is still carried out? It's so bizarre. Thanks for posting. It reminds me of the bits the New Yorker Magazine used to run from time to time under the title "There Will Always be an England."
Great story. So interesting that it would happen around the same time as The Crash.
Fascinating details in the diary.