From the Archives 21.6.08

Light and Heat

In February 1940 light and heat came to Maleny by way of two insulated threads of metal from the national electricity grid; -kept alive by payment of the quarterly electricity bill. Jack Callaway wired most people’s homes. He had an electrical shop in town where the Up-Front Club is now.

 In pioneering days, sources of light and heat were under the direct control of the user. Right back to the time of the first ‘slush lamps’, lit by melting animal fat.  Through the ages there has been the outside ‘galley’, the wood stove, slow combustion stove, kerosene lamps and lanterns, carbide and gas lamps. Fewer people today know of the carbide lamp, which gave a brilliant light burning acetylene gas when the rock-like and evil smelling carbide was moistened. Some of these efficient lights were very simple construction. Others were more complicated. Fitted with reflectors these gave a powerful spotlight. In those days general stores sold carbide by the pound weight. Carbide is a compound of carbon with a metal that yields acetylene when moistened.