Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist)

© irene waters 2015

© irene waters 2015

1945 saw the first Hills Hoist come off the manufacturing line in Adelaide South Australia, in Lance Hill’s backyard.  Lance produced it at his wife’s request, as a cheap replacement clothes line to the old line slung across the back yard that used a prop to gain some height. When Lance’s brother-in-law returned from the war in 1946 he was instrumental in developing and producing these wind-up, height adjustable, rotary clothes lines as a business. Production remained in the backyard, then moved to a small factory premises but by 1958 they required larger premises and became the Hills company.

Almost every Australian house had a Hill’s hoist in the backyard in the sixties and the house I live now is the first I have experienced without the iconic feature. A friend once said to me that she couldn’t live in my house as you couldn’t see the Hills Hoist from kitchen window. It was one of her joys to watch the clothes flying round in the wind. Certainly I knew a few puppies who were not popular with their owners as they had enjoyed grabbing the clothing as it enticed them on their path. Come to think of it as kids we used to grab hold of it like monkey bars and use it as a piece of rotating playground equipment. Perhaps that is why the Hills Company today also manufactures apparati for playgrounds.

The Hills hoist  is so common it is often used by artists to depict Australia and has been listed as a National Treasure by the National Library of Australia.

In response to Shadow Shot Sunday