#david sorning

In a Melbourne street, a T-Model Ford truck precedes a procession of horse drawn wagons piled up with old pianos, which are on their way to West Melbourne Swamp to be burnt. At the swamp a man plays a piano on top of a pile of the old pianos, before they are doused with kerosene and set on fire. 

Still image from ‘A Collection of Worn Out Pianos Committed to the Flames at West Melbourne Swamp’, newsreel, c. 1915. National Film & Sound Archive of Australia,  Title No. 76719. Reproduced in David Sorning, The Blue Lake: Finding Dudley Flats and the West Melbourne Swamp (Brunswick, Victoria: Scribe Publications, 2018).