WHILE researching World War I servicemen, Betty Sutton stumbled upon an intriguing article from The Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser, printed on Friday 7 June 1918.
It read as follows:
“On the Cootharaba-Tewantin Road stands an empty timber getter’s hut and a rusty derelict wagon; the gear is piled alongside the wall and is rusty, otherwise complete. On the wall in crude letters of white runs the legend: “You all take this notice. I have gone to fight the Germans and I don’t know when I’m coming back. Somebody chip around my humpy against grass fire. All my bullocks is sold except Sambo – him with the cockhorn. Anyone finding him can sell him to the butcher and mind the money till I come back.” Sambo was found and sold… and the money banked ‘against the return’. The humpy is regularly chipped around and the gear is complete as the brave bullock driver left it. God speed him and give him a safe return.”
Which leaves us to wonder – who was the timber-getter? And did he return?
