[Ted Parsons Home Movies: Reel 3]

Ted Parsons was a keen amateur filmmaker of the 1940s to 1960s. Ted’s films feature life in and around the Victorian regional city of Wangaratta post-war. This was a period of prosperity and optimism largely due to a successful textile industry that took Wangaratta from a small country town to major rural city, declared in 1959.

Ted captures the many sporting and social events, venues and clubs, holidays and travel along with scenes of everyday life. The collection also shows the broader issues faced by country people such as the regular flooding events around the Ovens and King Rivers.

Wangaratta’s success story as a manufacturing town traces the path of post-war migration and the accompanying growth of Australia’s economy, which makes these films particularly interesting.

The Ted Parsons Home Movie Collection has been donated to ACMI by the filmmaker’s grandson Barry Parsons. The films have been made on 16mm film.

This film captures some travels around Victoria. The Parsons take a trip from Wangaratta to Beechworth, down through Mount Buffalo to San Remo and Phillip Island on the south coast, and back up through the Dandenong Ranges and Healesville.

The film shows scenes of life in country towns of Victoria, including sporting and recreational events, the flooding of Ovens River, some beautiful footage of Phillip Island, the Australian Alps in autumn, and the Tesselaar Tulip Festival in Healesville.

The Parsons’ travels also take them to the Hume Dam, formerly known as the Hume Weir, which was a popular tourist destination during the 1940s and 50s.

A feature of the film is the flooded roads and paddocks of Wangaratta during the 1956 floods, which stemmed from major flooding in the Murray River.

Ted films road signs to indicate each stop on their travels.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:02:00 road sign ‘Wangaratta Please Slow Down’
00:00:13:00 the Wangaratta Flour Mills building
00:00:20:00 the Wangaratta Woollen Mills
00:00:28:00 swimmers - mostly children - at a water hole or river, and diving off a metal tower
00:01:00:00 a great example of a house with blinds against summer heat and 1950s style car
00:01:15:00 views of gladioli and daisies
00:03:30:00 grasshoppers swarming on the bowls club lawn
00:04:06:00 a man and woman walk with children and an old fashioned baby’s pram followed by children playing in a park playground
00:04:40:00 sign ‘Ovens River’ on a bridge filled with cars
00:04:50:00 1950s style trucks and cars drive through flooded roads
00:05:15:00 flooded paddocks
00:05:33:00 two men, one with two walking sticks, stroll over a bridge closed to traffic in the floods, followed by more views of the floods
00:06:07:00 young women in sports attire walk their bicycles across the bridge
00:06:30:00 scenes of tennis players playing on grass courts to crowds of onlookers, with willow and gum trees in background
00:08:38:00 road sign ‘Beechworth’ followed by views around the township, public gardens, flowers and trees
00:11:20:00 shimmering autumn leaves on a tree, with the trunk being shaken by a grinning friend
00:13:09:00 signpost for Gorge Road and One Tree Hill, a scenic drive and hiking area near Beechworth
00:14:11:00 cypress pine trees on the banks of the gorge
00:14:28:00 picnic beside the car surrounded by gum trees
00:15:24:00 road sign ‘Whitfield Please Slow Down’ followed by views of the surrounding landscape and hills
00:16:30:00 road sign ‘Porepunkah Please Slow Down’
00:17:52:00 Eurobin Falls in Mount Buffalo National Park
00:18:15:00 two women and a man waving from the other side of the waterfalls, water gushing over the rocks beside them
00:19:19:00 a man clambers on to a rock in the rushing water, three women looking on and laughing
00:21:00:00 golden poplar trees and cypress pines in autumn
00:23:48:00 friends on a footbridge, leaning over the railings
00:24:03:00 the same group, joined by another man, posing for the camera on a plank across the river
00:24:30:00 a 1950s style car drives along a country road, golden leaves on the trees
00:25:21:00 roadside picnic featuring great examples of picnic utensils of the period - orange thermoses and baskets
00:27:10:00 road sign ‘San Remo Please Slow Down’ followed by the bridge between San Remo and Phillip Island, Victoria
00:27:28:00 the neon San Remo Hotel sign, followed by brick exterior of the hotel
00:27:52 handpainted sign ‘Nobbies Road House’ followed by the road house on the Nobbies, a headland on Phillip Island
00:28:35:00 1950s style car parked on the shoreline, followed by scenes of the ocean off the headland
00:29:55:00 a wide surf beach with groups of people walking along the shore
00:30:19:00 two women and a men walk up from the shore holding hands
00:30:42:00 man fishing from the beach
00:31:00:00 koalas in a gum tree
00:32:46:00 a snake writhing on the ground, bleeding
00:33:16:00 drinking beer at the kitchen table with great printed curtains behind
00:34:25:00 the Isle of Wight Hotel in Cowes on Phillip Island, Victoria
00:34:46:00 canola flowers
00:36:25:00 a boy letting pigeons out of a cage on the coastline
00:36:56:00 a group of friends walking along the shore, wading in the shallows and playing
00:38:47:00 woman in a printed dress rolls a wooden crate across the sand
00:39:00:00 the group picnic on the beach, sitting on the bonnets of cars parked on the sand
00:39:19:00 grinning man in sunglasses cheers the camera
00:39:41:00 a 1950s emerald green Ford Prefect with touring club badges on the grille arrives at the picnic
00:40:08:00 road signs to Gembrook, Cockatoo and the Princes Highway indicate the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria
00:41:23:00 wooden bridge across the Yarra River
00:42:43 road sign ‘Healesville Please Slow Down’ followed by scenes of the town
00:43:24:00 sign for ‘The Sir Colin Mackenzie Sanctuary’, now the Healesville Sanctuary, followed by scenes of wildlife including emus, kangaroos, pelicans, wallabies, echidnas and peacocks
00:47:06:00 a brown snake with a frog in its mouth
00:51:04:00 close up of a woman’s feet wearing large wooden clogs
00:51:13:00 bunch of tulips in a hand
00:51:20:00 a field of tulips with a woman picking flowers wearing a traditional Dutch costume and spectators watching, at what we can take to be the Tesselaar Tulip Festival, established in 1954 in Healesville and held once a year
00:52:17:00 close up of tulips in the ground
00:54:28:00 sign for the ‘Hume Reservoir’, followed by scenes of the Hume Dam, formerly known as the Hume Weir
00:55:30:00 water rushing down the dam wall
00:57:28:00 people on the edge of the dam wall, watching the water from the top
00:58:24:00 scenes of turbulent water