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Frank Masciulli exclaims: “Wow, looking at that photo brings back so many great memories.” Flanked on one side by his sister Diana and on the other by younger brother David, Frank has made the pilgrimage to the National Archives of Australia to admire a photo of the rocket that once adorned the front yard of his childhood home in Weetangera. After noticing the photograph of the home-made rocket in the archives’ exhibition Out of this World: Australia in the space age a few weeks back, your akubra-clad columnist asked readers to help find the owners of the three little faces peering out of the rocket’s portholes. While subsequent owners of the house on Belconnen Way were quickly identified, it took a bit longer to track down the three Masciulli children, but find them we did, and just in time for the trio to take a journey down memory lane at the exhibition before it closed last week. “Dad (Carmine) was a concreter so he asked one of his metal worker mates to build it”, explains Frank, who was only aged 7 at the time of the photograph in 1970. “There was a hatch-door at the back and a ladder that went about half-way up to a platform” recalls Diana, adding, “Dad didn’t want us to go all the way to the top in case we got hurt.” “It was quite narrow quite inside” explains David, “but it was a lot of fun playing in there”. “Yes it sure was” quips Diana, “until then we’d amused ourselves by rolling apples down the driveway for passing cars to run over”. Gee. While for the three Masciulli kids, the rocket was the ultimate adventure playground, the risk averse public servants at the National Capital Development Commission weren’t so impressed. “They argued that it was too distracting to passing traffic so they told Dad to move it to the backyard”, explains Frank. “Unfortunately, we had a big pool out back which meant there was no room for the rocket” explains Frank, “so Dad said ‘if my kids can’t enjoy it, then no one will'”. The rocket was promptly carted away to the nearest tip. While the dismantled rocket no doubt still lies buried in a Canberra tip, the sense of wonder it created among a generation of local kids lives on due to both the archives’ photo and also in official paperwork associated with the house, which the Masciullis sold in 1975. “We learned about the spaceship while searching through a file with the ACT government prior to settling on the purchase of the home” Jenny Hayford says, whose family lived at the Weetangera address from 1983 until 1999. “What a blast from the past” says Jenny’s daughter Vanessa Hayford-Kannane, now of Adelaide. “I remember my school friends telling me about it but I thought they were having me on,” she confesses. While the Weetangera rocket is the best-known, spurred on by the global space race, there were other backyard rockets ready for take-off in the 1970s. Robbie Wallace of Sutton recalls one such rocket in his cousin’s yard at Atherton Street in Downer. “I don’t know what happened to it but it was a replica of the moon lander” he reveals. Meanwhile many readers continue to reminisce about the multi-level metal rocket-cum-slide spaceships that were installed in 37 public playgrounds around Australia in the 1960s and early 70s. “Gosh, my brother and I loved these” exclaims Kren Elisabeth formerly of Canberra and now of Callala Bay who confesses that she “only ever got to the first level before freaking out and coming down”. “I remember the sense of achievement of finally being big enough to climb all the way to the top level,” recalls Angie Good of Spence, musing “and then the disappointment of no longer being able to fit through the very first hole.” However, mention of the rocket playgrounds struck “a fear in the heart” of a handful of readers including Simone Standen of Kaleen who recalls her son “being trapped at the top of a rocket while she was on the ground very pregnant and unable to clamber up to help”. Other readers remember getting singed by hot metal on summer days. “It was a test of bravery to climb the different levels in 100-degree heat, extra credit if you did it in shorts,” attests Geoff Payne. Although there was a rocket installed in the park near the Macquarie shops, arguably the most visited by Canberrans was the one at Winifred Park in Mittagong. “It was an ideal half-way stop on the long drive to Sydney before many of the highway towns were bypassed” writes John Smithers of Kambah. “During the 1970s we would always stop at Winifred Park, ostensibly to use the public facilities but for my brother and me it was a much anticipated opportunity to play on the rocket,” recalls Lyn Parkinson of Sutton. Despite “never making it to the top level which seemed scarily, and vertigo inducingly, high at the time”, Lyn has “fond memories of climbing on that rocket” and “was sad to discover that it was removed (in 1993) as councils became increasingly conscious of safety concerns”. It turns out those safety fears were well-founded. Vicki Smith recalls with horror the day her “toddler fell from the top of the ladder of the Mittagong rocket hitting his chin and almost biting his tongue off”. “It was a very traumatic occasion prompting my lifelong fear of kids on those, in my son’s words, ‘wockets’.” Oh dear. Maybe rolling apples down the driveway is a better option after all. Not surprisingly, this column’s recent call for secret camping spots appears to have largely fallen on deaf ears, with very few readers wanting to share the location of their patch of paradise. One reader happy to spill the beans on his favourite area to pitch a tent is Alan Auzins who has a soft spot for the area around Geehi in Kosciuszko National Park. “There’s lots to see, aside from the five huts built from rounded, uniformly-sized, locally-sourced river rocks, there are the remnants of workers camps from when Geehi Dam was being built, and the walk down to Geehi from the main range which is quite challenging” reports the 75 year old, who, due to poor health, has hung up his walking boots. “Between Tom Groggin campground and Geehi are many fire trails that lead down to beautiful spots on the upper Murray River. Care is needed not just on these tracks but from some very big tiger snakes living along the river bank,” he warns. While Alan won’t cough-up on the exact co-ordinates for his preferred place to lay out a swag, he reckons “the bush loo out the back of old Geehi Hut was THE best bush dunny in Australia”. “If you left the door open you looked out at the main range – a spectacular view,” recalls Alan, disappointed that “its since been replaced by a modern toilet with no view”. Meanwhile, following concern from some readers that the ACT’s much loved bush loo, ‘Sam Aboud’s Dunny’, in Namadgi National Park, may have succumbed to last year’s fire storm, comes good news. “While somewhat charred, it survived” reports Brett McNamara regional manager with the ACT Parks and Conservation Service. For the uninitiated, Sam built the dunny purely as a “loo with a view” while leasing the area in the late 1960s, prior to it being gazetted a national park. The out-of-place loo is located just off the Long Flat Fire Trail, about one kilometre north-west of the northern end of Long Flat. CONTACT TIM: Email: [email protected] or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie St, Fyshwick Clue: Line closed in ’68 Degree of difficulty: Medium Last week: Congratulations to John Morland of Curtin who was first to identify last week’s photo as the former Canberra Space Dome and Observatory at Hawdon Place in Dickson, closed in 2008 and razed by fire in 2010. It was an easy get for first-time winner John, who just beat Roger Shelton of Spence, Ian McKenzie of Fisher and Jonathan Miller of Curtin, as he was a former planetarium operator and astronomer guide at the suburban space centre. The flying saucer-like structure in the photo is a futuro – a funky late 1960s Finnish-designed portable pod complete with airline hatch opening. Less than 100 were made and thankfully this one was salvaged from the planetarium site, restored and is now a classroom and study space for students at the University of Canberra. How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and suburb to [email protected] The first email sent after 10am, Saturday March 27, 2021, wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema. While Gordon Fyfe of Kambah takes the spoils for the tallest tomato plant this season, this specimen growing in Ted Ahearn’s Pearce veggie patch back in 2001 trumps Gordon’s effort by a whopping 1.2m. How tall? 4.2 metres, and yes it did bear tomatoes. Impressive. Very. Meanwhile, Robbie Mac claims his corn stalks are “as high as the house guttering and we are five steps up”. “It’s been a good year for gardening,” he says. Indeed.
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David, Diana and Frank Masciulli peer out of the portholes of the spaceship in front of their family home in Weetangera in 1970. Picture: National Archives of Australia
Frank Masciulli exclaims: “Wow, looking at that photo brings back so many great memories.”
Flanked on one side by his sister Diana and on the other by younger brother David, Frank has made the pilgrimage to the National Archives of Australia to admire a photo of the rocket that once adorned the front yard of his childhood home in Weetangera.
After noticing the photograph of the home-made rocket in the archives’ exhibition Out of this World: Australia in the space age a few weeks back, your akubra-clad columnist asked readers to help find the owners of the three little faces peering out of the rocket’s portholes.
While subsequent owners of the house on Belconnen Way were quickly identified, it took a bit longer to track down the three Masciulli children, but find them we did, and just in time for the trio to take a journey down memory lane at the exhibition before it closed last week.
“Dad (Carmine) was a concreter so he asked one of his metal worker mates to build it”, explains Frank, who was only aged 7 at the time of the photograph in 1970.
“There was a hatch-door at the back and a ladder that went about half-way up to a platform” recalls Diana, adding, “Dad didn’t want us to go all the way to the top in case we got hurt.”
51 years, on David, Diana and Frank Masciulli are tickled pink to discover the photo of their childhood spaceship on display at a recent exhibition at the National Archives of Australia. Picture: Tim the Yowie Man
“It was quite narrow quite inside” explains David, “but it was a lot of fun playing in there”.
“Yes it sure was” quips Diana, “until then we’d amused ourselves by rolling apples down the driveway for passing cars to run over”. Gee.
While for the three Masciulli kids, the rocket was the ultimate adventure playground, the risk averse public servants at the National Capital Development Commission weren’t so impressed.
“They argued that it was too distracting to passing traffic so they told Dad to move it to the backyard”, explains Frank.
“Unfortunately, we had a big pool out back which meant there was no room for the rocket” explains Frank, “so Dad said ‘if my kids can’t enjoy it, then no one will'”.
The rocket was promptly carted away to the nearest tip.
While the dismantled rocket no doubt still lies buried in a Canberra tip, the sense of wonder it created among a generation of local kids lives on due to both the archives’ photo and also in official paperwork associated with the house, which the Masciullis sold in 1975.
“We learned about the spaceship while searching through a file with the ACT government prior to settling on the purchase of the home” Jenny Hayford says, whose family lived at the Weetangera address from 1983 until 1999.
“What a blast from the past” says Jenny’s daughter Vanessa Hayford-Kannane, now of Adelaide. “I remember my school friends telling me about it but I thought they were having me on,” she confesses.
While the Weetangera rocket is the best-known, spurred on by the global space race, there were other backyard rockets ready for take-off in the 1970s. Robbie Wallace of Sutton recalls one such rocket in his cousin’s yard at Atherton Street in Downer. “I don’t know what happened to it but it was a replica of the moon lander” he reveals.
Meanwhile many readers continue to reminisce about the multi-level metal rocket-cum-slide spaceships that were installed in 37 public playgrounds around Australia in the 1960s and early 70s.
The Mittagong rocket, a favourite with many Canberrans parades through the Southern Highlands town before being erected at Winifred Park in November 1968. Picture: BDHS and S Hawkins
“Gosh, my brother and I loved these” exclaims Kren Elisabeth formerly of Canberra and now of Callala Bay who confesses that she “only ever got to the first level before freaking out and coming down”.
“I remember the sense of achievement of finally being big enough to climb all the way to the top level,” recalls Angie Good of Spence, musing “and then the disappointment of no longer being able to fit through the very first hole.”
However, mention of the rocket playgrounds struck “a fear in the heart” of a handful of readers including Simone Standen of Kaleen who recalls her son “being trapped at the top of a rocket while she was on the ground very pregnant and unable to clamber up to help”.
Other readers remember getting singed by hot metal on summer days. “It was a test of bravery to climb the different levels in 100-degree heat, extra credit if you did it in shorts,” attests Geoff Payne.
Although there was a rocket installed in the park near the Macquarie shops, arguably the most visited by Canberrans was the one at Winifred Park in Mittagong. “It was an ideal half-way stop on the long drive to Sydney before many of the highway towns were bypassed” writes John Smithers of Kambah.
The Mittagong rocket in 1983. Picture: @Balkarino
“During the 1970s we would always stop at Winifred Park, ostensibly to use the public facilities but for my brother and me it was a much anticipated opportunity to play on the rocket,” recalls Lyn Parkinson of Sutton.
Despite “never making it to the top level which seemed scarily, and vertigo inducingly, high at the time”, Lyn has “fond memories of climbing on that rocket” and “was sad to discover that it was removed (in 1993) as councils became increasingly conscious of safety concerns”.
It turns out those safety fears were well-founded. Vicki Smith recalls with horror the day her “toddler fell from the top of the ladder of the Mittagong rocket hitting his chin and almost biting his tongue off”.
“It was a very traumatic occasion prompting my lifelong fear of kids on those, in my son’s words, ‘wockets’.”
Oh dear. Maybe rolling apples down the driveway is a better option after all.
Not surprisingly, this column’s recent call for secret camping spots appears to have largely fallen on deaf ears, with very few readers wanting to share the location of their patch of paradise.
Peter Kallio sitting on Sam Abouds dunny pre-last years fires. Picture: Peter Kallio
One reader happy to spill the beans on his favourite area to pitch a tent is Alan Auzins who has a soft spot for the area around Geehi in Kosciuszko National Park.
“There’s lots to see, aside from the five huts built from rounded, uniformly-sized, locally-sourced river rocks, there are the remnants of workers camps from when Geehi Dam was being built, and the walk down to Geehi from the main range which is quite challenging” reports the 75 year old, who, due to poor health, has hung up his walking boots.
“Between Tom Groggin campground and Geehi are many fire trails that lead down to beautiful spots on the upper Murray River. Care is needed not just on these tracks but from some very big tiger snakes living along the river bank,” he warns.
While Alan won’t cough-up on the exact co-ordinates for his preferred place to lay out a swag, he reckons “the bush loo out the back of old Geehi Hut was THE best bush dunny in Australia”.
“If you left the door open you looked out at the main range – a spectacular view,” recalls Alan, disappointed that “its since been replaced by a modern toilet with no view”.
Meanwhile, following concern from some readers that the ACT’s much loved bush loo, ‘Sam Aboud’s Dunny’, in Namadgi National Park, may have succumbed to last year’s fire storm, comes good news.
“While somewhat charred, it survived” reports Brett McNamara regional manager with the ACT Parks and Conservation Service.
For the uninitiated, Sam built the dunny purely as a “loo with a view” while leasing the area in the late 1960s, prior to it being gazetted a national park. The out-of-place loo is located just off the Long Flat Fire Trail, about one kilometre north-west of the northern end of Long Flat.
CONTACT TIM: Email: [email protected] or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie St, Fyshwick
Recognise this railway station? Picture: John Davenport
Degree of difficulty: Medium
Last week: Congratulations to John Morland of Curtin who was first to identify last week’s photo as the former Canberra Space Dome and Observatory at Hawdon Place in Dickson, closed in 2008 and razed by fire in 2010.
Where in Canberra LAST week. Picture: Craig Collins
It was an easy get for first-time winner John, who just beat Roger Shelton of Spence, Ian McKenzie of Fisher and Jonathan Miller of Curtin, as he was a former planetarium operator and astronomer guide at the suburban space centre.
The flying saucer-like structure in the photo is a futuro – a funky late 1960s Finnish-designed portable pod complete with airline hatch opening.
Less than 100 were made and thankfully this one was salvaged from the planetarium site, restored and is now a classroom and study space for students at the University of Canberra.
The UC Futuro. Picture: Andrew Collins
How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and suburb to [email protected] The first email sent after 10am, Saturday March 27, 2021, wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.
While Gordon Fyfe of Kambah takes the spoils for the tallest tomato plant this season, this specimen growing in Ted Ahearn’s Pearce veggie patch back in 2001 trumps Gordon’s effort by a whopping 1.2m. How tall? 4.2 metres, and yes it did bear tomatoes. Impressive. Very.
Meanwhile, Robbie Mac claims his corn stalks are “as high as the house guttering and we are five steps up”.
“It’s been a good year for gardening,” he says. Indeed.
