Now, to be fair, I’m probably not the best one to tell this story as I was in another hemisphere when all this happened. So here is an appeal to those that are not relying on hear-say or making stuff up to embellish this story.
Uncle Bill and Aunty Margaret lived on the Funny Farm, down in Pheasants Ground. Pheasants Ground was the flat below Robertson that provided a liveable area circled by cliffs that dropped down to the Illawarra coast or Kangaroo Valley. It was where Mum’s generation of Missingham’s grew up and if my childhood memory holds at one point they owned all the land you could see*.
I believe the landholding a included saw-mill, Bugaroo, but not Carrington Falls, and Hell Hole. Remembering my primary school geography the land was typical Australian Dry Sclerophyll with pockets of sub-tropical rainforest.
Now this is relevant as it meant that there was, at one point some huge mother’s of trees there. The Missingham’s harvested these trees and where appropriate used the cleared land and rich red soil to grow potatoes or grass for beef cattle.
One place which in my life time still had a couple of epic trees left was Hell Hole. Now I probably wasn’t paying attention when being told how to get to there (an affliction of youth mehopes) so I don’t really know where Hell Hole is, other than it was protected by cliffs and hot.
At some point Uncle Bill and Aunty Margaret decided to move from the Pheasants Ground to out the back of High Range. I only got to the High Range farm once, it was on top of the range with magnificent views down across the Valleys looking towards the Blue Mountains.
Whether because of this move, or with no connection to it, two very large pieces of log turned up in Dad’s garage one day. I believe the technical term for these particular logs is Burl. I didn’t know this until recently and you can click here for a definition of Burl.
Basically these log pieces have the most beautiful grain and knots.
These log slices sat in Dad’s garage for quite some time whilst they dried out, cracking and gaining character as they did.
Eventually Dad took to cleaning them up and deciding that a table would be their destiny. Many hours of filling, sanding and sealing followed and a table was born.
Of course a table needs legs so Dad set about turning these on his wood lathe. When the time came there was a problem. The table was rather large and rather heavy, so more than one hand was needed to move it.
The table, like a few Misso’s before it, was then transported to High Range where it took pride of place in (some might say filled) the living room.
The good news is that the table’s journey is not over and after it travelled to Bowral, then Canberra it is now being restored by Justin, part of the extended family and I’m guessing a very handy bloke with wood, and getting ready for its next adventure.
*some events in this story may be a little bit made up or exaggerated
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