Tas That Was – Everyday Life, Extraordinary Times

The digitisation team at Libraries Tasmania have revived a reel of Super 8 footage by Joyce Purtscher, offering a rare glimpse into daily life on the Derwent River after the 1975 Tasman Bridge disaster.

The footage shows the missing span in the Tasman Bridge, but its real impact comes from the glimpses of everyday life that it captures.

Joyce’s father, Thomas ‘Tom’ Stapleton, can be seen standing at the Hobart wharf in his hat, gripping a walking stick as he waits for the ferry to arrive.

Ferries like the James McCabe, Cartela, and Lady Wakehurst come and go, while long queues of passengers line the docks at both Hobart and Bellerive, waiting to cross the river.

Joyce and her husband Josef also went to cross the Tasman Bridge after it was struck by the Lake Illawarra. She recalls:

“We were driving towards the bridge on the Lindisfarne Road, which joined up to the bridge, and we were stopped just short of the bridge. We were stopped by a man who was waving his arms about.

He said, ‘You can’t go over there now, you will have to turn around because the bridge has broken down.’

We were quite shocked and looked out the windscreen, and of course, there was the bridge, broken, and with water pouring out and we had to turn around and go on the Old Beach Road to Bridgewater and it was a narrow road and very windy.

Coming the other way from Hobart and Bridgewater were ambulances and police cars. So, it was a long trip. We got home to Mount Stuart at 1:30 in the morning.”

To view Joyce’s Super 8 footage of daily life on the Derwent River after the Tasman Bridge disaster, click here.

Tas That Was is a column that includes:

• anecdotes of life in Tasmania in the past;
• historical photographs of locations in Tasmania; and/or
• documentaries about locations in Tasmania.

If you have an anecdote or photograph you’d like to share with us, please send it to submit@tasmaniantimes.com.

Callum J. Jones studied English, History, and Journalism at the University of Tasmania and lived in Western Sydney from 2022 to 2024 while working as a journalist for Professional Planner, a leading online publication for financial planners. He has written for Tasmanian Times since 2018 and has also been published in a range of other outlets, including Quadrant and the BAD Western Sydney anthologies.

Tasmanian Times (TT) is a community-based news and current affairs service covering the island state of Tasmania. It exists to provide a diverse view of Tasmanian issues. TT creates and supports independent media content utilising the best of modern technologies and tried-and-true practices of public-interest journalism.

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