26 Panels Erected photographer unknown, 1 August 1930 Sydney Harbour Bridge Photographic Albums 1923

Dr Alec Noble from Tamworth
My father, who was a Dentist in Macquarie St told me once about a patient of his(who was a foreman)and who fell from the bridge during construction. He had often wondered what he would do if this occurred and went through the drill as he fell. Being a foreman he was wearing a long dust coat. As he fell he undid the bottom buttons and held the coat out. As he neared the water he held his nose firmly. He survived the entry and the only injury was a broken nose!

Elizabeth Cook JP from Moruya NSW
My story relates to the "raw materials", ie.the granite used to build the pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This was mostly sourced from a little town on the South Coast called Moruya, a once thriving gold town that was also rich in granite. The mine still exists, and granite is still carried out, and is used now for landscaping, building and carving for statues. The mine is located on North Head Drive, Moruya, and is commemorated with a park & picnic area. The old wharf, now decaying, was where the boats came in with miners & workers, still stands & is used mostly by keen fisherpersons - at their own risk! The owners came over by boat from South Heads, where they lived in a house now demolished for a local business person & his family. There was a tiny school for the children of the workers, where a large Bunya Pine was planted, and the only remains of the site. Local aboriginal people still have memories of schooldays there...come and have a look at our little piece of paradise, and realize that the granite pylons we see were carried by boat over 300klms (as the crow flies!)cheers, Liz Cook

Gren Hatton from Rugby, England
Another -- usually untold -- part of the story concerns Dorman, Long of Middlesbrough. As a young engineer working in the electrical power and control industry in the 1960s, I was involved in visiting steelworks all around the world, including the many steel mills that were still working in the UK in those days; and I often visited Dorman & Long's works in Middlesbrough. However, even in the 1960s the Middlesbrough works was well past its heyday, due chiefly to the long slow decline of the shipbuilding industry on Teesside and Tyneside. I remember wandering through giant gloomy halls of steel where massive old steel mills, outdated by subsequent advances in rolling technology, slumbered under a heavy layer of iron dust ... it was all rather similar to the dwarven "Mines of Moria" in Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" ... Middlesbrough today is far removed from what it was in the 1920s ... relatively little steel is rolled there now by comparison with the old days. However, England is proud of its historic heritage -- and this extends not only to the Roman and Saxon remains that still lie under our earth, and the medieval past that has shaped much of our quaint winding roads and tangled towns, but also to the worldwide heritage in which UK firms have played a part ... including Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Pat Thornton nee Devine from Kiama Downs
My father Michael John Devine was a young merchant seaman, in the 1920's/30s in the UK, and boasts he brought over the steel with which Sydney Harbour bridge was constructed. Each time he arrived in the harbour that he had grown to love he could see the advancing structure. He also grew to love the city of Sydney and Australia. Married later with young children he and mum attempted to migrate (with the assisted passage scheme) not once but 4 times. Each time something happened to delay this event, Mum got pregnant, her Mother died unexpectadly and so on. Dad never did manage to make it to the young, vibrant country he so wanted to live and bring up his family in. However his grandaughter, Claire Thornton (my daughter) spent time travelling and discovered for herself her granfathers lovely city. She 'too fell in love with Australia and its sunny lifestyle, she did migrate with her new husband and has settled now with two children to live in this fair city. I too found myself drawn her and have migrated too with husband to enjoy retirement. What about my Father? he died just before my daughter arrived here as a new migrant but he knew of her plans which made him very, very happy. Some of his ashes now lie under the harbour bridge which has come to mean so much to my family.

Terry Forrest from Mosman
At Twenty Stone on the Coranda road at Warren, there's a piece of the harbour bridge tram track which my family bought during the 1970's at Mascot to put across the Morra Creek. My grandfather Mr Malcom Morrison actually worked on the bridge. He was a geologist, but we don't know exactly what he did. I still have his invitation to the Official Opening of the Bridge ceremony presided over by the Honourable J T Lang.