[Charles Hayes Home Movies: Reel 8]

The Charles Hayes Home Movie Collection is a collection of home movies originally made on 8mm and 9.5mm film between the 1940s and 1970s by Charles Edward Hayes (1914–1993). The resulting footage shows us the life of a family living in Heathmont in Melbourne’s south east with their many pets and farm animals, their family holidays and gatherings, their suburb and their cars as well as scenes from Melbourne at the time.

This film shows the Hayes family on a holiday when they are young parents with their young daughters. The family travels to The Grampians (Gariwerd/Geriwerd), the coastal town of Warrnambool, and the Eildon Weir and Eildon Lake, all in Victoria, before heading to Sydney in New South Wales.

Scenes from a zoo at the time could be distressing to some viewers as contemporary zoological standards are very different to those of the early 1950s.

Originally made using 9.5mm film.

Selected highlights list:
00:00:02:00 children and their parents on board a carnival train ride and the young Hayes girls with enormous bows in their hair stand for the camera, one very unsure and one laughing
00:00:22:00 riding on top of an elephant and monkeys swinging in their cage, followed by goats, a glimpse of a hippopotamus, bears, swimming penguins and a pacing tiger
00:02:26:00 the young Hayes girls sit with their father on a bench
00:02:30:00 Mr and Mrs Hayes and one of the girls at a lookout over a mountain range, likely to be The Grampians (Gariwerd/Geriwerd) in Victoria
00:02:55:00 wandering along creeks and bush and near dramatic waterfalls
00:03:41:00 family members smile at the camera, some lovely sunglasses and one of the Hayes girls shows her tiny handbag to the camera
00:04:00:00 one of the children hand feeds a bottle of milk to a lamb before taking it for a walk on a lead followed by some horse riding lessons
00:04:52:00 a lovely country house set against the mountains in the immediate background and an array of 1940s to 1950s cars parked alongside
00:05:42:00 a sign ‘Silverband Falls’
00:06:07:00 hand feeding cows with food scraps
00:06:30:00 community races for children and adults
00:07:23:00 views of the Eildon Weir and boats on Lake Eildon
00:08:00:00 the girls sit on some used cable spools
00:08:23:00 a small candlelit memorial to King George VI
00:08:30:00 swimming in a pool while an airplane flies overhead
00:09:20:00 a large ferry and the Sydney Harbour Bridge from a distance and up-close followed by street scenes in Sydney
00:10:26:00 beachgoers on the sand, possibly at Manly in Sydney and a family and or friends gathering for the camera
00:11:10:00 views of Sydney’s older city buildings including the AWA building and tower (Amalgamated Wireless Australasia)
00:11:15:00 the koala enclosure at the zoo followed by more elephant rides