Anson Cameron remembers looking at an old rust bucket of a Holden and wondering incredulously – ‘that’s Australia’s finest?’
His anecdote is included in It happened in a Holden by Paddy O’Reilly, one of the highlights of the Williamstown Literary Festival.
Cameron, O’Reilly, Gideon Haigh and John Romeril will share other people’s Holden tales and some of their own.
Cameron recounts the story of a rust-coated FX Holden, squatted on withered tyres and leaking brown wire in a paddock strewn with junk near his house.
“Wandering there with my dad one day, he pointed out that car, hunkered sadly on its wheel rims, and said: “The FX, first car Australia ever made”.
This had me believing that poor rust-ridden old banger was, individually, the first car ever manufactured in this country,” he said.
“I gazed around at the other dead machines, thinking us a low and uncultured people and wondering how this watershed in Australian manufacturing ended up in such a poor museum.
“‘Wow,’ I said, ‘It should have a plaque or something’.
“My dad looked at me with muted regret, like he sometimes looked at our dog, which he adored but which was, still, a dachshund.”
More than 70 authors will appear at 50 events during the Williamstown Literary Festival on June 13-14.
Details: willylitfest.org.au.
