I originally published this blog in January 2014.

I posted it again in September 2017  Father’s Day in Australia.

And here we are in 2025 on Father’s Day. A few things have changed. I still make a yearly trip home to Toowoomba (in  Queensland) and now I travel from Melbourne, where I live. The house is sold and the contents gone. Mum has also died and I have more of those special objects.

Here is an added extra sketch from Septemeber 2023. from my wonderful dad’s (1942-1987) shed. now on my window sill . He had a whole wall of these old margarine containers (Dixibell Table Margarine) in his shed full of organised and labelled washers, springs, nuts and bolts etc . I have two and they are still dusty and grimy and I love them.

I thought that I would share the original blog post again. These memories are timeless. 

2014

I have a yearly visit home to Toowoomba (in Queensland) from Sydney at Christmas. It is a week or two catching up with friends and family and falling into a familiar routine. This usually includes de-cluttering cupboards and being highly distracted by childhood memories.

It also involves re-exploring my Dad’s workshed in the backyard. It is a step into the past. Dad died in 1987 and although much of the larger machinery and tools are gone, it still has shelves and cupboards of work tools and bit and pieces. Dad was a panel beater by trade and a handyman, inventor the rest of the time . He seemed to have every possible item to fix, nail, screw, clip, polish, cut, drill … The tools are stored in specially labelled  containers and drawers or hanging up above the workbench, on the wall. Most of these items are still there and have not been moved.

So much of this is part of my childhood.

This year I decided to draw some more of it. These are all done in watercolour pencil and Lamy Safari Joy ink pen. If a clean out is ever done (hopefully this year) it may not be there next time I visit.

I then drew the wall above the main workbench, over two pages. I was not sure where/if to add colour to the page. I do not need any of them in my life in Sydney, but wanted a memory. That gave me the idea to draw some of the tools on the page. I chose a few and brought them up to the house and drew them over two days.

This is what our dining table looked like New Years Eve – a drawing in progress.

I have no idea what many of these objects are, and the labels are a mystery. It was the job of my brother & I (and Mum to ) to sort through and to separate buckets of nuts and bolts ! I did not inherit my Dad’s mechanical and technical nature, although he also had a creative side (woodturning and pottery). This is not the first year I have drawn tools from the shed. Previous Christmas visits have also provided opportunities. I think I am done now.

2011

2010

A reminder that those everyday object can be precious emeories.

Happy sketching everyone.