Brunswick LOTH 2021

Brunswick Lights On The Hill. April 17th, 2021.

When Elaine and Geoff, accompanied by Bob and Brenda, arrived at midday on Friday, Richard was just putting the finishing touches to our site which, as in previous years, was in the shed right at the entrance to the event. He had the trestles set out ready for those of us who required them to start setting up. We were joined by Peter J. and later that day by Robin.                                                                                     We were all down to the shed next morning to finalise our set up and were soon joined by Bill who was assisted by his friend Ross.          The official starting time was 9am, but of course we had the early birds hoping to get a bargain from Bob's sales table. Unfortunately, owing to a back injury, Peter was unable to have tools for sale this year. Bill and Robin had extensive tool displays which were very popular with our visitors. Geoff was demonstrating the 1893 Smiths post boring replica which received a lot of interest.

 Our shed for the day.                                                  Bob and Robin, still setting up and visitors arriving for a look and a chat. .                                                                                                   

Our club raffle, a box of assorted sockets and their drivers, raised a modest $67.00. A lot of the men who looked at them commented that "they already had more sockets than they needed" so declined our generous offer of $2 a ticket or three for $5. The lady who eventually won said she was going to give them to her grandson.

                    As usual, Bill had a wide range of tools on display.

The main raffle for the days event was to win one of the three vintage tractors on offer—Farmall McCormick M Tractor, a 1923 Ford-son Tractor or a 1954 Chamberlain 6G Tractor. The winner had his pick and the other two will go to auction.

As usual, there was plenty going on out in the paddock, with bull-dozers pushing dirt up, tractors ploughing and the tractor pull on the go just through the fence. There was a row of engines, and displays of vintage trucks, utes and cars. Unfortunately, as usual, most of us were too busy in the shed, bashing our gums to visitors to have time to walk around looking at all the other activities.  

                                                            The Blacksmith was kept busy all day.

There was a blacksmith working just behind us and he was kept busy all day. On his display, Bill had a dinner gong in the form of a wrought iron triangle, one of our visitors asked the blacksmith if he could make her one the same, which he agreed to do. Part way through the job someone came up to him and offered $50 for the finished article so the blacksmith had to make another one for his original customer. I think he ended up making three of them.

There is no real finishing time, with the lions Club providing steak sandwiches for tea and ploughing and the tractor pull continuing on well into the night. We started packing up about 4.00 when our visitor numbers, which had been consistent all day, started to drop off.

Thanks to Richard for his efforts in coordinating this event on our behalf.