Spotlight on ... The Show

Waiting All Year for the Bowen Show

A grand occasion in the community calendar

One of the most iconic of Australian traditions — The Show — means something different to each of us. For many of us, it sits somewhere deep in childhood memory, wrapped up with noise, colour, food, dust, excitement and the almost unbearable wait for it to come around again.

Here in Queensland, the annual agricultural show has long been one of the great community traditions. Across the winter months, regional shows are still held throughout the state, leading eventually to the Royal Queensland Show — the Ekka — in Brisbane each August.

The show tradition began as a celebration of rural life, with livestock, produce, flowers, baking, needlework and local skill proudly displayed. Over time, though, it became something more - a gathering place, a social occasion, and for many families, one of the most eagerly awaited days of the year.

In my hometown of Bowen, the Show was inextricably woven into the rhythm of community life. The agricultural heart of it was still there, but around it grew all the colour and excitement that made Show Day so memorable — pavilion displays, ring events, sideshow alley, food stalls, showbags and, of course, fireworks.

The Bowen Showground became the place where the district’s rural strength and the town’s social life came together in one bright, noisy celebration.

I lived for Show Day

As a child growing up in the 1960s, I lived for it.

Family photos taken on Show Day at the Bowen Show 1960s-1970s 

- my parents, myself and my brother

All year I dreamt of it, yearned for it, and relived every sight, sound and taste of it. I would have willingly wished 364 days of my life away just to have Show Day arrive again.

Not my birthday.
Not Christmas.
Not even Cracker Night, which probably came a close second.

No — for me, it was the unforgettable, spectacular Bowen Show.

It was a grand occasion, and I dressed for it. I always had new clothes.  

As a very young child, they were often made and sewn by my mother. She even made the hats I wore. That, too, was part of the Show — not just the excitement of going, but the preparation beforehand, and the sense that this was a special outing worthy of new clothes and a little extra care.

Looking back now, I can see how much love and effort sat quietly behind those childhood memories.

Part of the excitement was also knowing I would catch up with family and friends there. Everyone seemed to be going.

The first glimpse of the Ferris wheel

One of my earliest memories of Show Day -
around the age of 3 getting out of the car
and searching for the ferris wheel

Even now, I can still picture that first glimpse of the top of the Ferris wheel in the distance. 

That alone was enough to send a current of excitement through me that could probably have powered the whole town of Bowen.

Then came the moment the car door opened, and the full force of the Show hit me.

Bright flashing lights of every colour imaginable filled my vision. The smells from the food stalls drifted through the air — the sickly sweetness of fairy floss and candy apples, the smell of popcorn and hotdogs, all mingling with those other showground aromas that seemed to belong to that one special day.

But above all, it was the noise that made the biggest impression.

There was the excited babble of the announcer from the show ring, the discordant music and shrieks from sideshow alley, the cries of animals from all over the grounds, and the chatter, laughter and occasional whingeing of the crowds elbowing their way past.

As a child, I found it utterly intoxicating.

Sideshow Alley, chips and showbags

Before the Show opened, my family would sometimes drive past the Showgrounds to take a peek and see what rides had turned up that year.

Would the Big Dipper be there?
What about the Zipper?
Would the Dodgems be back?

The Ferris wheel, of course, seemed to turn up every year.

Showbags from the 1960s

My favourite part, however, was Sideshow Alley. On a tight budget, I was allowed just one precious showbag, and I held on to it as though it were treasure. I could only gaze at most of the game stalls as I wandered past, admiring the prizes and all the excitement around them.

1967  

Me with cupie doll in hand

One thing that especially captured my imagination was the cupie (or is it kewpie?) doll — that little celluloid doll perched on a cane stick, dressed in a frothy tutu dusted with glitter. 

It was an established favourite with every young girl at the Show.

To me, those dolls looked magical. But they were expensive, so they were certainly not something bought every year.

Inside the Pavilion

The Pavilion was a world of its own and an important part of the Show. It gathered together all the careful work that had been done in homes, schools and gardens across the district and put it proudly on display.

There were competitive sections for cookery, with jams and preserves, pickles, chutneys and honey, alongside cakes, sponges, lamingtons, pies, puddings, scones and sweets such as coconut ice, marshmallows, fudge, caramel and jellies. There were sections for produce too, including vegetables, fruit and eggs.

The flower sections must have been a delight for those who loved them. Entries included flower arranging and cut flowers such as roses, gerberas, carnations, gladioli, pansies, snapdragons, pentas, marigolds, phlox, nasturtiums and petunias.

My Dad, a dyed-in-the-wool rose lover and admirer of other flowers, loved lingering there. For him, the flower displays were not just something to admire - they were something he was part of.

Dad loved entering his blooms in the Show each year, and he often won prizes. In my later childhood years, I remember helping him transport his entries to the Show Pavilion ahead of Show Day. I can still picture him packing cotton wool carefully between the petals of his treasured roses so they would travel safely and arrive in the best possible condition.

Roses were a favourite entry, but he also entered gerberas and carnations.  This photo of some of his prize ribbons shows just how remarkable his flowers were.  They were not simply garden blooms taken along on the day - they were outstanding quality, grown with patience, skill and pride.

The Pavilion also celebrated arts and crafts and all the fine handwork that so often filled women’s spare hours. Fancywork sections included knitting, crochet, hand embroidery and needlework, along with smocking, embroidered tablecloths, dressed dolls, patchwork and quilting.

Looking back now, it is easy to see how much patience, pride and quiet skill was represented in those displays.

Children also entered competitions that brought together schoolwork and creativity. There were entries for handwriting, map work, printing, freehand drawing, pencil drawing, pastel drawing and painting. The Show gave children, including me, a place to proudly display both their schoolwork and their imagination.

Not every display in the Pavilion had the same appeal for me as a child. Dad’s beloved flower displays were not always high on my list, and I remember dragging my feet and moaning my way through them often enough.

But I endured them because I knew there were other pleasures waiting.

There were the mouth-watering Dagwood Dogs I had dreamt about for days, the legendary Shannon’s chips, and the chance to watch the ring events while I ate.

The heart of the Show: the ring events

The ring events were a major part of the Show’s appeal in those years. At local agricultural shows in the 1960s, the main ring was the centre of entertainment, bringing together equestrian skill and rural competition in a way that perfectly captured the spirit of the day.

High-jumping contests were major attractions, woodchopping events drew the crowds, and there was always interest in the livestock judging, including the prize bulls.

The Grand Parade, with its winning horses, cattle and local producers, was one of the traditional highlights — a proud display of the district’s effort and achievement.

For me, showjumping was always a particular favourite. I watched it eagerly while biding my time for the great “ooh-ah” event still to come.

That grand finale was the fireworks.

By the time they began, the whole day seemed to have built towards them. They lit up the sky and drew gasps from the crowd, and as a child they felt like the perfect ending to a day that had already overflowed with excitement.

It was one more marvel to store away in memory for another whole year.

A treasured piece of family memory

Looking back now, I think that is part of what made the Bowen Show so special. It brought together the serious business of rural life, the excitement of entertainment, and the small but important family rituals that surrounded a special day out.

The Show has always stood for more than entertainment. It reflects local pride, rural heritage and community resilience.

But for me, as a child, it also lives on as something deeply personal — a treasured piece of community and family tradition, stitched together from the memories of new clothes sewn by my mother, the first sight of the Ferris wheel, the smell of fairy floss and hotdogs in the air, the noise of the ring, the thrill of the Dodgems, the glamour of kewpie dolls with glittering tutus, and the fireworks blazing at the end of the night.

The Story of William McCabe

This is the story of my maternal 1st cousin 2x removed, William McCabe (1885-1959), a man whose life carried him from Ireland to industrial Scotland, through the upheaval of the First World War, and finally across the world to North Queensland.

Our common ancestors are:  Patrick Muckian and Sarah McCann, my maternal 2x great grandparents.

William McCabe
(photo cropped from family group photo shared by my maternal 3rd cousin Trevor White)

When the records of his life are gathered together, they tell not only the story of one man, but of a family shaped by labour, loss, war time service, migration, and perseverance.

Beginnings in Dundalk, Ireland

1885 Birth Record 
Source: Ireland, Civil Registration Births Index, 1864-1958

William McCabe was born on the 11th of May 1885 in Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland. He was the middle child born to Patrick McCabe and Mary Muckian. William's birth record places the family in Chapel Lane and records his father, Patrick McCabe, as a tailor. 

It is only a small detail on paper, yet it evokes so much — a modest working household in late nineteenth-century Ireland, practical, hardworking, and centred on making a living day by day.

At some point during William’s early childhood, the family moved about thirteen miles north to Newry, a town connected with both Counties Armagh and Down. It was the first of several changes of place that would mark William’s life, though at the time it would simply have meant that home had shifted from one town to another.

Growing up in Newry

1901 Census of Ireland
Source: Census of Ireland 1901/1911. The National Archives of Ireland.

By the time of the 1901 Census of Ireland, William was sixteen years old and living in the South Ward of Newry, in County Armagh, Ireland with his parents and siblings. He appears in the census simply as a son in the household, one of the children still at home.

There is something quietly moving about that census entry because it captures William not in some dramatic moment, but in the midst of ordinary family life. It shows a working household in which everyone contributed. It appears that the whole family was employed in some capacity in factories connected with the linen trade of County Down.

William’s father Patrick was recorded as a tailor, while William’s mother and his two sisters worked as flax spinners. William’s own occupation is difficult to read and seems to say rover / cashier. A rover worked in a textile factory, operating machinery that drew out and twisted fibres into thinner, stronger rovings. The reference to cashier is less certain, and it raises an interesting question — perhaps William also helped in some way with his father’s work as a tailor and collected payments from customers.

The “House and Building Return” section of the 1901 census adds another layer to the family’s circumstances. The McCabes were living in a one-room stone dwelling with a slate, iron, or tile roof and one front window. The five family members were living in what was classed as a third-class house at No. 5 Moore’s Lane, South Ward, Newry. So often, it is these simple records that bring an ancestor closer because they preserve the texture of everyday life.

Marriage to Elizabeth Rocks

1910 Marriage Record
Source: Ireland, Civil Registration Marriages Index, 1845-1958

On the 3rd of January 1910, William, aged 24, married Elizabeth Rocks at the Catholic Cathedral in Newry, County Down. On the marriage record, William’s occupation was given as labourer, a description that would follow him through much of his adult life. 

The word - labourer - may look plain on the page, but it reflects the working world William belonged to: physical labour, uncertain opportunities, and the steady effort required to support a household.

Elizabeth, often later recorded as Lizzie, would share all the major turns in his life from that moment onward. Their marriage in Newry marked the beginning of a partnership that would carry them through relocation, war, sorrow, rebuilding, and migration. 

Early family life in Scotland

1911 Scotland Census
Source: National Records of Scotland 1911 Census 652/29/21 p.21 of 20

By the time of the 1911 Scotland Census, William and Lizzie were living in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland. William was recorded as a labourer employed in the tube works, likely the Central Tube Works which was just a street away. This census record places the young couple firmly in the industrial world of early twentieth-century Scotland, where work was heavy, conditions were hard, and daily life was shaped by the rhythm of the factories.

1913 Map of Coatbridge, Lanarkshire
Source: Ordnance Survey 1892-1949, Lanarkshire VII.12, National Library of Scotland

Their address was Kirk Street, surrounded by railway lines, tram lines, various iron works, electric light works, rivet, bolt and nut works, boiler works and other industrial sites. They were living in a tenement property south of Dundyvan Church, in the part of Coatbridge known as the “Slap Up” — a name that says much about the hastily and poorly built housing erected for Irish immigrant families around 1900.

The timing of that census gives it special poignancy. Only a few days later, on 7 April 1911, their first daughter, Mary Elizabeth McCabe, was born in Coatbridge. The census therefore captures William and Lizzie at the threshold of parenthood, building a life together far from Newry.

Other records from 1911 and 1912 continue that same picture. William was described as a “Stag Hill Labourer” on Mary Elizabeth's birth record, and the family address was listed as Kirk Street in Coatbridge. When their second daughter, Ann, was born in 1912, William's occupation was listed as "Tube Work Labourer" and the family was still living on Kirk Street. These were clearly years of hard work and young family life — years in which William and Lizzie were doing what so many couples did: making a home as best they could, wherever work could be found.

First World War service

When the First World War began, William was a young husband and father whose family life had only just begun to settle.  Then war came, and everything changed.

The surviving military records for William are frustratingly thin. 

There is no full service file to tell us exactly where he was posted, which battalion he served with, or what his movements were during the war years.

Why the record trail may be thin

The absence of a clear service file for William would not be unusual. Many First World War soldiers’ records do not survive. The National Archives’ surviving collections (held at Kew in England) are the well-known WO 363 “burnt documents” and WO 364 pension records, both only partial remains of the original record sets. The National Archives also notes that hospital material survives only in a limited and representative form in MH 106.

So, for William, his story has to be pieced together from smaller surviving fragments — his medal index card, nominal index entry, pension ledger record and family certificates.

Called back to service

On the 22nd of August 1914, only weeks after Britain entered the war, William was drawn back into military service with the Royal Irish Fusiliers. His regimental number was 8384.

William’s regimental number is an important clue. It appears to belong to the pre-war regular numbering sequence of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, rather than to the numbering pattern of a new wartime volunteer. Numbers around his number of 8384 fall in the late 1904 to early 1905 enlistment window, with nearby surviving examples showing men joining in January 1905. That fits him very well as a pre-war regular soldier who later passed into the Army Reserve, rather than a brand-new wartime recruit in August 1914.

This would also help explain why, on the 1914 birth certificate of his son William Joseph, he was described not only as a labourer but also as a Private in the Royal Irish Fusiliers Reserve.

1914 Birth Record - son William Joseph McCabe
Source: Ireland, Civil Registration Births Index, 1864-1958

That matters because it explains why he could be recorded as entering service on the 22nd of August 1914 while already being described as a reservist. He was most likely being recalled to the colours after earlier regular service, rather than entering the army for the first time.

William's medal roll index helps bring his war service into clearer focus.

UK WW1 British Army Medal Roll Index Cards 1914-1920
Source: The National Archives, Kew, England

It appears to show that William was entitled not only to the British War Medal and Victory Medal, but also to the 1914 Star. That is an important detail, because the 1914 Star was awarded only to men who served in France or Belgium between the 5th of August and the 22nd of November 1914.

William’s qualifying date is given as 22 August 1914, which places him in an overseas theatre of war at the very beginning of the conflict. Rather than being kept back in Britain or Ireland, he seems to have been sent abroad almost at once, during those first desperate months of the war. 

As mentioned previously, his regimental number suggests that he was probably not a brand-new recruit, but a former regular soldier recalled from the reserve and William's war began with immediate service overseas.

“Now in hospital in England”

A family record adds a striking and very human counterpoint to the medal card. When William’s son was born just two months later in October of 1914, the birth certificate described William both as a labourer and as a Private in the Royal Irish Fusiliers Reserve, adding the poignant note that he was “now in hospital in England.”

1914 Birth Record - son William Joseph McCabe
Source: Ireland, Civil Registration Births Index, 1864-1958

Read together, these records suggest a clearer sequence than first seemed possible. William appears to have gone overseas early in the war, and then, very soon afterwards, had been returned or evacuated to England and admitted to hospital. The reason remains unknown to me. It may have been illness, exhaustion, or wounds sustained in those opening months of the conflict. The surviving records do not tell me. But they do show that his war service was already disrupted almost as soon as it began.

For the regiment itself, the timing is interesting. The 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers was in England in August 1914, and landed in Boulogne on 23 August 1914.  So if William was said to be “now in hospital in England” in late 1914, that points more naturally to his being attached to the 1st Battalion stream, rather than simply sitting with the reserve battalion in Ireland.

A brief return home during war time 

The hospital stay may also explain the existence of this family photograph taken in 1915.   

McCabe Family Portrait c.1915 (shared & dated by my maternal 3rd cousin Trevor White)

Elizabeth McCabe nee Rocks is seated on the left holding baby William Joseph.
William McCabe is seated on the right with the two eldest children,
younger daughter Annie in the middle & older daughter Mary Elizabeth on William's lap.

William appears in this family photograph with Elizabeth, their two daughters, and baby William Joseph who appears to be a few months old. This significantly narrows the possible date of this photo - it must have been taken in early 1915. It is a precious image, because it captures a brief interval when the family was together again.

Perhaps William had been granted leave after his stay in hospital. Perhaps he was home while recovering before being sent back to duty. Whatever the exact circumstances, the photograph preserves a moment of reunion in the middle of uncertainty. It is not hard to imagine what that return must have meant: the relief of seeing Elizabeth again, the comfort of home, the joy of holding his children, especially his new born son and, behind it all, the knowledge that the peace of that moment might not last.

When he had to leave again, William would have carried with him the familiar sorrow known to so many wartime families — the ache of parting, the uncertainty of return, and the heaviness of leaving wife and children behind once more.

Sadly, the little baby in that photo did not survive much longer.  William Joseph McCabe died in Newry on the 10th of March 1916. It is impossible not to feel the weight of that loss.  Lizzie had already endured the fear and uncertainty of William's absence.  Then, in the middle of the war, she and William also lost their infant son.  I cannot help wondering how long it took for William to learn of that heartbreaking loss.

A memory of France

Decades later, a newspaper report from 1939 recorded William saying that the Home Hill Militia belonged to the 31st Battalion, and that he had seen that battalion "go over the top" in Frances.

1939 Newspaper Item - Speech by William
Townsville Daily Bulletin Fri 30 Jun 1939 p5

It is a brief remark, but a telling one.  If accurate, it strongly suggests that William did indeed serve on the Western Front, returning there after his brief stay with his family, and that he carried a vivid memory of seeing Australian troops attack.  The surviving military paperwork is frustratingly thin, but this later recollection has the feel of lived experience.  It hints that William's war in France was not something abstract, but something he had seen with his own eyes and still remembered many years later. 

Sometimes it is these later fragments - a comment in a newspaper, a story repeated in passing - that preserves what official records leave unsaid or have only partly revealed. 

That claim made by William is certainly historically plausible. The 31st Battalion fought on the Western Front from 1916 to 1918, and several battalions of the Royal Irish Fusiliers also served in France during these years. If William served with the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers for example, the strongest overlap may have been on the Somme and Amiens front in 1918, though an earlier encounter in northern France cannot be ruled out.

The war did not end neatly

UK WW1 Pension Ledgers & Index Cards 1914-1923 - card 1
Source: Forces War Records

William’s pension record adds another quiet but important layer to his story. It shows that he was discharged from the Royal Irish Fusiliers on 22 April 1919, and that afterwards he was living back at 10 Thomas Street, Newry, County Down.

By then the war was over, but its effects had not ended. His pension ledger records a disability assessed at less than 20 per cent, enough for the authorities to award compensation. The exact nature of that disability is not given, so it cannot yet be tied with certainty to his hospital stay in 1914 or to any later period of service. Even so, it tells us something important: William did not come home untouched.

The record also notes that he had three children under sixteen. In one sense, it is simply an administrative detail. In another, it brings the whole document back into the world of family life. This was not just an ex-soldier filing a claim. This was a husband and father trying to rebuild ordinary life after years of disruption and danger.

Returning to Newry

For William, the return home must have carried mixed emotions. The war was over, and he was back with his family, but the household had already known sorrow. Their little son had died in 1916, and only a short time before William’s discharge, in March 1919, his mother Mary Elizabeth Muckian had also died in Newry.

So his return from war was not simply a homecoming. It was a return to a family changed by loss.

Still, life moved forward, as it so often had to. In the years after the war, William and Elizabeth’s family continued to grow. Their son James Gerard was born in 1920, Patrick Dermott in 1921, Kathleen Ameldia in 1923, and William Raymond in 1926.

These births suggest a family rebuilding itself after the upheaval of war — quietly, steadily, one child and one year at a time.

Leaving Ireland behind

1928 UK & Ireland Outward Passenger Lists
Source: The National Archives, Kew, England -  UK and Ireland, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960

In 1928, less than a decade after the war ended, William and Elizabeth made the life-changing decision to leave for Australia.

The outward passenger list records them departing England on 21 July 1928 aboard the Orama, with William described once again as a labourer. Their last address was recorded as 10 Thomas Street, Newry, the same address that had appeared on records during the war years. Travelling with them were their six children.

That detail matters. This was not the journey of a single young man leaving home in search of adventure. It was a whole family setting out together, carrying with them all the hope, uncertainty, risk, and determination that migration required.

By the time they arrived in Queensland thirty-five days later, on the 3rd of September 1928, they had crossed not only oceans, but one whole chapter of life into another.

A new life in Queensland, Australia

William’s uncle, Owen McCane (Muckian) — my great-grandfather — sponsored the family and paid for William, Elizabeth, and their children to emigrate.

After arriving in Brisbane, the McCabe family travelled north to Owen McCane’s farm near Gumlu in North Queensland. They stayed there for a short while before settling in the nearby Home Hill district.

It was here that William entered a very different working world. Far from the streets of Dundalk and Newry, and far from the tube works of Coatbridge, he became part of life in North Queensland. By the 1940s he was working at Inkerman Mill, one of the mills that helped shape the sugar industry of the Burdekin.

There is something remarkable in the arc of that life: born into an Irish tailoring household, labouring in industrial Scotland, serving in wartime, and then finding himself in the cane-growing district of Queensland. 

Yet for all those changes, the thread running through William’s life remained much the same — work, family, and the determination to keep going.

The family’s Australian story continued to grow. In 1932, another son, Kevin McCabe, was born at Home Hill. That same year, William’s father Patrick died back in Dundalk, a reminder that even as new roots were being put down in Queensland, the old Irish ties were never entirely left behind.

Final years at Home Hill, Queensland

William Joseph McCabe died on 26 February 1959 at Home Hill, Queensland, aged seventy-three. 

His death certificate lists the causes of death as left ventricular failure, aortic valve incompetence, coronary atheroma, atherosclerosis, and gross pulmonary fibrosis. The language is formal and clinical, but behind those medical terms lies the story of a man whose life had been shaped by years of labour, responsibility, and endurance.

Burial Plot of William and wife Elizabeth
Home Hill General Cemetery

He was buried at Home Hill General Cemetery. The journey that began in Dundalk in 1885 had ended in Queensland in 1959.

Remembering William McCabe

William McCabe’s story is not one of fame or public recognition. It is something much more familiar and, in many ways, more moving than that. 

He was a son, husband, father, labourer, soldier, migrant, and mill worker. He belonged to that great number of ordinary men whose lives were built through effort rather than acclaim, and whose legacy endures through family.

The records he left behind are only fragments when taken one by one, but taken together, they tell the story of a life marked by resilience. 

From Chapel Lane in Dundalk to Thomas Street in Newry, from Coatbridge to the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and from the ship Orama to Home Hill, William’s was a life that crossed borders and generations.

His story reminds me that family history is often found not in grand public achievements, but in the quieter evidence of endurance — in addresses repeated across records, in occupations written plainly on certificates, in a family photograph taken during wartime, and in the courage it took to begin again on the other side of the world.