Post by Don Ricardo on Feb 11, 2012 10:06:22 GMT 10
After the Mount Gambier V V Nationals in 2008, Reddo posted the following photos of a caravan he saw in Portland (Vic) which had 'Holdfast' on the side:
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Reddo suggested that the van was a Hawthorn because of its overall shape and design. However it became evident that it was different in a number of respects to the Hawthorn vans of the mid-50's that Reddo was referring to, and none of us could figure out how this van fitted into the scheme of things.
On 28 April 2010, Reddo posted some further photos of the Holdfast van sent to him by its owner. Unfortunately they were not very good quality, but they do reveal a bit about the internal layout of the van:
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More recently, Raym mentioned Holdfast when he recounted the history of Broadway caravans which were built by his father and some business partners...
On 16 January 2012, Raym posted:
After the World War 2 Mr. Herbert (Bert) Mossop and Mr. John (Spud) Murphy both carpenters & joiners were working for Mr. Bruce Dawe when they decided to have a go on their own. John’s brother, Mr. Frank (Danny) Murphy, also a carpenter joined them. They worked for several years manufacturing and installing kitchens and doing small building jobs. The kitchens were manufactured in the back yard of John and Danny’s parents home located at 50 John Street, Hindmarsh, South Australia. This road has been re-named South Road and the house still stands. In 1949 Mr. Eddie Kessner approached them to build a caravan. He built the chassis and Mr. Brooks sold them. This arrangement went on for some time. At the commencement of the caravan building Danny left to do his own thing and they employed Joe Pallant. After this they met Mr. Bruce Atkin who ran a C.O.R (Commonwealth Oil Refinery) motor garage on Port Road just behind the SA Brewery. At the garage there was enough room to sell approximately 3 or 4 used cars, so Bruce began selling the vans. If the garage became too congested he would simply put the vans in the parklands over the road and sell from there (try that one today and see what would happen). Bruce’s brother-in-law, Rex Murphy (no relation to John), rented part of the garage workshop to carry out his welding and fabrication business. They approached Rex to build the chassis which he did for a number of years. He later went on to build horse floats which he called Holdfast, still plenty on the road today. Up until this point the vans did not have a name, as with many older houses and some other buildings it was a practice to give them a name. The old C.O.R garage was named Broadway; this was simply taken to name the vans. (Emphasis added)
On 17 January, I responded to Raym's comment about Holdfast in relation to the caravan photographed by Reddo:
...reading your post has made me think that possibly the van has a Holdfast coupling, and that at some stage someone figured that that might be its brand name and so wrote it on the side. However, I am wondering if the van could have been one of your father's? It is a different shape to the Broadways shown on this thread, but could it be an earlier model? I note that it has the same rectangular wheel arches that seem to have been typical of Broadways.
And Raym replied on 18 January:
Hi Don
...Re: The Holdfast Caravan, it does not appear to be built by my father, however it may have been built by Rex Murphy (Holdfast Horse Floats) as a one off for his own use. Or, it may have been as you said someone just took the name from the coupling
raym
So, there is still a mystery surrounding the Holdfast van, except that we now know what the origin of the 'Holdfast' name is. Perhaps one day in the future when more info comes to light, we will be able to figure out more of the history of the caravan itself...
Don Ricardo
Reddo suggested that the van was a Hawthorn because of its overall shape and design. However it became evident that it was different in a number of respects to the Hawthorn vans of the mid-50's that Reddo was referring to, and none of us could figure out how this van fitted into the scheme of things.
On 28 April 2010, Reddo posted some further photos of the Holdfast van sent to him by its owner. Unfortunately they were not very good quality, but they do reveal a bit about the internal layout of the van:
More recently, Raym mentioned Holdfast when he recounted the history of Broadway caravans which were built by his father and some business partners...
On 16 January 2012, Raym posted:
After the World War 2 Mr. Herbert (Bert) Mossop and Mr. John (Spud) Murphy both carpenters & joiners were working for Mr. Bruce Dawe when they decided to have a go on their own. John’s brother, Mr. Frank (Danny) Murphy, also a carpenter joined them. They worked for several years manufacturing and installing kitchens and doing small building jobs. The kitchens were manufactured in the back yard of John and Danny’s parents home located at 50 John Street, Hindmarsh, South Australia. This road has been re-named South Road and the house still stands. In 1949 Mr. Eddie Kessner approached them to build a caravan. He built the chassis and Mr. Brooks sold them. This arrangement went on for some time. At the commencement of the caravan building Danny left to do his own thing and they employed Joe Pallant. After this they met Mr. Bruce Atkin who ran a C.O.R (Commonwealth Oil Refinery) motor garage on Port Road just behind the SA Brewery. At the garage there was enough room to sell approximately 3 or 4 used cars, so Bruce began selling the vans. If the garage became too congested he would simply put the vans in the parklands over the road and sell from there (try that one today and see what would happen). Bruce’s brother-in-law, Rex Murphy (no relation to John), rented part of the garage workshop to carry out his welding and fabrication business. They approached Rex to build the chassis which he did for a number of years. He later went on to build horse floats which he called Holdfast, still plenty on the road today. Up until this point the vans did not have a name, as with many older houses and some other buildings it was a practice to give them a name. The old C.O.R garage was named Broadway; this was simply taken to name the vans. (Emphasis added)
On 17 January, I responded to Raym's comment about Holdfast in relation to the caravan photographed by Reddo:
...reading your post has made me think that possibly the van has a Holdfast coupling, and that at some stage someone figured that that might be its brand name and so wrote it on the side. However, I am wondering if the van could have been one of your father's? It is a different shape to the Broadways shown on this thread, but could it be an earlier model? I note that it has the same rectangular wheel arches that seem to have been typical of Broadways.
And Raym replied on 18 January:
Hi Don
...Re: The Holdfast Caravan, it does not appear to be built by my father, however it may have been built by Rex Murphy (Holdfast Horse Floats) as a one off for his own use. Or, it may have been as you said someone just took the name from the coupling
raym
So, there is still a mystery surrounding the Holdfast van, except that we now know what the origin of the 'Holdfast' name is. Perhaps one day in the future when more info comes to light, we will be able to figure out more of the history of the caravan itself...
Don Ricardo
