Historical Society - Gwen Bell and 'The Bakers Dozen'

6th April 2022

History Notes

Another week has rapidly passed and we look forward to the Market Day this Saturday.  This is a special day as we have visitors from Tamworth visiting the markets and they want to see as many residents as possible to discuss Barraba and its surrounds.  Are you satisfied with the local roads?  Perhaps the slasher is a bit slow getting around the road verges or you may have an idea to improve our town and district.

Do come along and at least have a social morning at the markets.  Bring your dog for a walk but do have him/her on a lead as a dog fight is not a very good look and the stalls are for people not dogs – keep control.

This week we have probably found the reference to Gwen Bell after much research through the newspapers and church records – just after the poetry book “Baker’s Dozen” was posted to ‘Dubbo’ Turner, a resident was able to turn up a copy of “The Barraba Chronicle” with Gwen’s passing in it.  Well done Barraba. 

The Baker’s Dozen and Just Me and George and Bill were published in 1982 and 1983 respectively and the proceeds were to go to Richardson House.  The author, Ken Baker, was a long-time resident of Barraba and knew lots of the older citizens and the tricks they got up to.

One story is about the kitchen maid at the Cobbadah Hotel who had attracted attention of several lonely local men.  One of these fellows had asked the maid to walk with him down to the Sheepstation Creek Bridge after she finished work.  Another fellow heard this and was going to take a sheet down to the bridge and appear as a ghost to frighten the young couple.  The publican heard about this and organized an old pistol with a few blank cartridges made out of soap for the man who actually thought the girl was his and wanted to get rid of the fellow taking the girl for a walk.

As you can imagine there was quite a disturbance when the first couple found the so called Ghost and then the next fellow arrived on the scene with the pistol, there was a commotion – the poem is well worth a read.

At the last markets we had a visit from Brian Coote and some of his photo collection and we are hoping that we can have a repeat session.  The photos are mostly 100 years old being taken by Percy Williams and they are on glass negatives.  There has been a move to show some of the photos in a continuous stream during one of the market days but I am not sure which one.