Adam’s Pop Harry Moffit
Adam’s Pop started making woodwork items at school in Manchester England when he was 13.
He made a dustpan which was used with a soft brush to sweep clean the dining room table.
He started wood turning when he was 55 and his first turned items were a bowl and gavel (courtroom equipment) followed by a large table with turned legs.
This dining table was made from recycled timber off his father-in-law’s farm when they sold the property in 1982.
Pop saw the value in wood and these pieces became cherished heirlooms.
Ashlee’s Grandfather James Kingston
The late James Edward Kingston was Ashlee’s maternal grandfather and he worked in the timber industry all of his life in Tasmania.
From the age of 14years he went to work at the Purdon’s timber mill at Nugent Tasmania.
At the outbreak of the second World War he joined the navy & served 5 years being demobilised in 1946.
In 1946 he married Phyllis Mundy and they moved to the remote timber milling community of Leprena, Tasmania. Jim was involved in the felling and milling of timber which was then shipped to Hobart. While at Leprena, Phyll contracted T B.
After her recovery, Jim worked for Henry Jones & Co stacking timber for export from the Hobart wharves. He then worked for IXL timbers at Lampton Ave, Moonah Tas.
In 1955, the family moved to Geeveston where Jim worked as a tally clerk at the IXL timber mill. He supplied timber to the ships at Port Huon, which was used to line the ships’ hulls for exporting apples & fruit to England. Mary can remember becoming conversant in the various sizes of sawn timber boards as she often had to take phone orders. Jim referred to a particularly wide board as the ‘coffin board”
In 1974 Jim & Phyll moved back to Glenorchy where Jim worked at the timber yard in Brent St. When Lake Peddar was flooded for the hydroelectricity scheme, IXL timbers won the contract to process the Huon pine trees that floated to the surface of the lake after flooding. Jim was such a whizz with figures, that he was given the task of tallying all the timber processed from Lake Peddar.
It was at the Brent Street timber yard that Jim met with an accident whilst unloading the drying kiln, which resulted in his death in 1979.
His legacy is his two daughters who have a lasting memory of Sunday afternoon drives to the Arve Valley Forest.
I shall never forget the smell of the forest. Huon pine, Sassifras and myrtle.
