Does anybody remember the Moyston rattle-trap? This wonderful contraption actually drove down Swanston Street during the Melbourne Moomba procession around 1961 or 62.
Moyston (population 600) is a speck on the map about 240 km north west of Melbourne. Its two claims to fame have been lending its name to a very acceptable red wine and, as the cognoscenti all know, Moyston was the home of the Annual National Rabbit Skinning Championships for many years.
This old bomb was an absolute crowd-winner as it clattered along in the Moomba parade with its propellors whirling, smoke billowing, silliness.
One for the contraptionistas!
PS: It’s fate?  It quietly rusted away in a Moyston paddock.

Verna Joyce was a weapon. She was a Bristol Beaufort, but Australian from end to end, built by Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation at Fishermens Bend in Melbourne in 1942.

The Beaufort brought the Australian manufacturing industry together as it had never worked before. Just over 700 Beauforts rolled off the production lines in Melbourne and Sydney. She was designed in the 1930s as a torpedo bomber, the latest word in modernity and speed, but by 1942 the design was looking distinctly vulnerable. 

It was common practice to name your personal aircraft, and this one was named after the young wife of one of the Pilot Officers. Once she roamed the skies over New Guinea, based on Goodenough Island, serving with 6 Squadron RAAF. She belonged to, or was flown by a chap named Jack Russell who took her into battle against the Japanese. 

I visited Jack in 2007 to hear his recollections of those days, to see his logbook and record his photograph album. My dad had also served in 6 Squadron during the war as an air gunner and I had taken his logbook with me to show Jack. He reverentially went through dad’s book, pausing to make the occasional comment of recognition as he scanned the individual aircraft numbers and pilots.”

Knew him. Good pair of hands.” “Ah, that aircraft was from ‘B’ flight.” Suddenly he did a double take. “Hey - that’s my signature!” Jack had signed my dad’s logbook as commanding officer for the flight. It had made his day, and he realised the last time he had held it was more than 60 years ago. He became even more interested then, poring over the trips dad had done, describing the locations in vivid colours and terms, far more detail than my dad had ever mentioned; it was a sort of epiphany for both of us. You could see the memories flooding back. “I remember dad talking about the native belles” I commented. Jack opened a page in his photo album.”Thats what called them alright and I have some pictures of them here.”

A little later Jack’s wife, a friendly little old lady brought us in a cuppa. Her name?Verna Joyce. As I was leaving Jack commented: “You know, I don’t often have days as good as this.”

It’s was a typical outback solution to a modern day problem. Donald Campbell arrived at Lake Eyre, South Australia, in the winter of 1964 with a dream to break the land speed record in his 4250 hp Bluebird jet powered car. While its Bristol Siddely Proteus gas turbine engine powered all four wheels it wasn’t what you called a 4WD as we know it. So getting the beast through the sandhills around Lake Eyre was the problem.

An oxy welding kit, some lengths of old railway line from the Ghan, axles and tyres and voila! You have a transporter to piggy-back Bluebird out onto Lake Eyre. Bluebird can zip across Lake Eyre at 650 kph. World land speed record done and dusted.

After 43 years this historic contraption is rusting quietly in the outback sun near the southern shore of the lake. Without it there would have been no world record.