"The past is never fully gone. It is absorbed into the present and the future. It stays to shape what we are and what we do."
Sir William Deane, Governor-General of Australia, Inaugural Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture, August 1996.

The Glory Days

Desmond H Foley

Des Foley’s book The Glory Days, published in 2022, traces his ancestors’ history in Australia following their emigration from Ireland and Britain.

The family’s history intersects with that of the Forests Commission in the forests above Erica where they lived and worked in sawmill settlements. The book provides insight into family and social life in these settlements and describes logging operations, sawmills and timber tramlines. Not only did Des’ father, Adrian (Ade), work for the Forests Commission, Ade’s niece, Barbara Tucker, married forester Jack Gillespie who was posted to Erica between 1946 and 1953.

Des has generously permitted the Forests Commission Retired Personnel Association to extract and publish on the website those parts from his book that are relevant to forestry.