Nancy Halpin and Ted Robl from the Seymour and District Historical Society agreed it was interesting to see the difference in the way Seymour’s local paper had been written over time.
Photo by
Billie Davern
One of the Telegraph’s most quintessential artefacts has found its forever home, and soon, you’ll be able to visit it.
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The Seymour and District Historical Society is now the caretaker of the paper’s printing press, a piece of equipment that was instrumental in delivering local news for many years from the early 1900s onwards.
After the Telegraph’s office on Station St closed late last year, the historic press was left without a home, but members of the society came to its rescue, bringing the machinery back to life in its own special area of SDHS’s space on Tallarook St.
“We felt that it was important people know where the press came from,” decade-long member Nancy Halpin said.
“We don’t really know the length of time, or when they started to use it, but it would’ve been the early 1900s.
“It’s carried a lot of information in the years that it’s been used.”
Old Telegraph’s fill the society’s display, exhibiting what was making headlines throughout the decades.
Photo by
Billie Davern
Nestled in the corner of an SDHS display room of relics from an age long since past, the printing press stands tall surrounded by old papers pasted on the walls.
Beside it is a glass cabinet filled with antique inks, and a timeline of the paper’s history.
Ms Halpin said it was interesting to read Seymour’s stories from another time, and she could discern a significant difference in communication from then to now.
“If you look at some of the older papers, the really early papers, the language has changed. The way we express ourselves now is different,” she said.
“You wouldn’t get away today with some of the stuff they put in the papers back then,” member Ted Robl added.
Particularly, SDHS’s members noted the meticulous detail put into articles on weddings and obituaries when doing their research for the display.
Mr Robl said the earlier obituaries seemed to be more thorough than those we saw today.
“The letters that were written for those who died were written in such a way that you thought it was a family member who reported it,” he said.
“They mentioned everything in such a positive vein.”
The Telegraph’s display is all ready for SDHS’s reopening later this year.
Members are welcoming the community to the society’s general meeting on Sunday, September 7, where Tallarook local Jayne Calvert will recount her story being one of the first women to train alongside the men at Kapooka Army Base.
For more information, contact Ms Halpin on 0429 991 688.
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