24 HOUR PHOTO PRINTING

Nana was interviewed and photographed by a journalist form the Australasian Post magazine when she was 70yo in 1978. This caption for this photo of her with the front beach in the background descibes her as the "old resident on Queensland's Curtis Island".

Mick Barnes wrote the story as an on-the-spot report. It appeared as a double page layout . The magazine being colour lent itself to popular style photos especially bikini clad cover girls. Stories plus the crossword published in it had quite a following.In !978 it siold for 40c on the newstands at newsagent and like. The article was the lead acrticle appearing as double spread on the opening pages of the issue.

The byline to the story was :

The Japanese DID invade Australia during Wortd Was II - and POST has evidence to prove it.

.... The Japanese landed on Curtis Island which nestles beside Gladstone on the central Queensland coast within wading distance of the mainlaind at low tide.

They swarmed over the white sands of Blue Rocks Beach on the island one night in 1942 to the terror and amazement of residents.

Francie Hart, the island's oldest resident, saw them and still recalls the incident vividly. But it would hardly rate as one of the great beachheads of World War 2.

There were 10 of the JApaneses and the only contact between them and their Australian enemy was when Francie shone her torch on them.

Francie, now 71, still likes to tell Curtis visitors of the night she met the invaders head on.

She and her husband had just settled on the island in 1942 and were the only permanent residents. They were building a guest house at what is called the South End.

"Being the only ones there, there was nothing much to do at night," she says. "We were walking along the beach this night and I was carrying a torch."

"Suddenly we sensed movement on the beach. When we stopped we could hear the rustle of oilskins. I shone my touch down the beach and there were these 10 Japanese. We counted them.

It was a funny situation. they just stood there, not uttering a sound. We pretended we hadn't seen them and ran like hell.

It was very scary but, after all, what could we do? We were alone on the island. We watched them as much as we could from the bush. They walked along the beach after a while and then went back to where we had first seen them.

My husband and I had a very shaky nightbut we went back the next day to the spot where I shone the torch on them and there was no sign of them. The tide had been during the night and had washed away the footprints.

Naval experts believe the Curtis Island was probably one of several along the Australian coastline. It happened about the time of the attacks on Sydney and Newcastle when Japanese submarines were terrorising Australian shipping.

Francie says: "They were probably off a submarine looking for fresh water and fruit. They were probably just as happy to ignore me as I was to ignore them."

At any rate, that was the only "incident" in Francie's 36 tranquil years on Curtis where anything except the serene is unacceptable.

There have been a couple of scares, though. Fifteen years ago there were plans to jerk Curtis into the 20th century by resettling the people of Nauru there after their phosphate deposits ran out.

To the relief of Francie and others who moved there the plan fell through when Nauruans opted out.

Curtis Island is now a little piece of paradise most of the world has forfotten, Less than ann hour's run through beautiful Gladstone harbour by launch, it is hilly, fertile and only second in size to Fraser Is. among Queenlsland's offshore landm masses.

Since the Japanese "invasion" in 1942 the population has exploded from two to 15. There are only two workers among the 15,the rest are pensioners who just want to laze in the sun.

The island has a Progress Association, but its main object is to stop the development of multi-storey units and honky-tonk tourist trade.

"We want a place where people can come and enjoy unspoiled beauty and go away refershed," says its vice-president Alan Patterson.

Alan,42, is one of the two workers. The other is the storekeeper. Alan and his pretty wife Margaret left Melbourne and its bleak winters behind niine years ago and worked their way north.

He became a fibre glass boat builder at Ballina (NSW), and then in Gladstone before he discovered Curtis and fell in love with it.

He and Maragaret bought a house on South End for $10,000 two years ago and dropped out. Like everywhere else there they have no reticulated power, water supply or sewerage but that's the way they want it.

We look across at smog-ridden, industralised Gladstone every morning and know we're right," he says. "We couldn't go back to the rat race.

Alan keeps busy by building tanks, septic systems and guttering for locals, and he's buidling up a herd of horses to hire out to holiday-makers.

He catches wild horse

*

Note -- click photo to see against dark background or to see larger size.

*

A photo (a poor one) of the signature on the bottom of the vase. The maker's signature was etched in the glass -- from what I've read -- with acid -- a process which makes it almost impossible to see except at one precise angle -- and -- with just the right kind of light. Extremely difficult to see -- let alone photograph -- this was the best I could do. [Was like trying to photograph a ghost!]

The signature (which is on the base) reads:

"J. Hoare & Co -- 1853 -- Corning"


A bit of web research quickly confirmed that "1853" is the date that the company started -- does Not refer to the age of the vase. Even with the manufacturer's name -- I still haven't been able to locate a matching vase -- one with the same shape -- same patterns -- so haven't been able to date it accurately. I'm just guessing -- may be wrong -- that it likely was made some time between 1900 through 1920 -- from what little I've been able to gather via the web -- J. Hoare & Co. opened their doors in 1853 and closed in 1920.