Hinterland Stories

Sharing the memories of Montville, Flaxton, Balmoral and Hunchy.

If you would like to share your own stories, please get in touch with us.

Flaxton Enlistments

WW1 FLAXTON ENLISTMENTS Slouch Hat with Emu feathers (Courtesy Australian War Memorial) Wilfred Bratton, Wilf enlisted in the First...

The Swain Family of Flaxton and Montville

By Gordon Plowman Leslie Garforth Swain, known by his friends and associates as Les, could look back on his lifetime of achievements with...

The life-story of Flaxton born Rob Muirhead

I was born in Flaxton on 10 October 1910, moving to Montville, living in various places on the front road, now Balmoral Drive, and the...

St Mary’s Hall – Celebrating Memories and Community

Christmas 2019 sees the St. Mary’s Hall in the best condition it has been in for years. Current Chairman of the St. Mary’s Auxiliary,...

St Mary’s Church and Community Hall

Montville Memorial Hall, St Mary’s Church Hall and Community Hall (Former RSL Hall) St. Mary’s Church Hall and Community Centre (c. 1978)...

Rations and Song

Italian POWs in Montville from 1944 to 1945 When long term Montville resident, Les Gittins, told local historian and Montville Village...

Our POW Story Continues in Palmwoods

Hinterland Times ran our follow-up story on the work of Italian POWs along the Blackall Range and across the Sunshine Coast Hinterland in...

Louie made me a cap – More on our POWs in Flaxton

Gordon Plowman remembers a cap made by an Italian POW for him. This one memory has helped tell the story of the Italian POWs at Flaxton....

Italian POWs in Montville

The Story Continues In February 2018, the Hinterland Times published an article, ‘Rations and Song’, on Italian POWs serving on farms...

Gordon Plowman - Knowing Things Military

Born in Palmwoods in 1940, by the time Victory in the Pacific was proclaimed in 1945, I was old enough to remember some aspects of WW2....

Elston – The First Guest House

Ernest and Emma Dalton, two of the earliest settlers in the Montville area (then known as Razorback) purchased about fifteen acres south...

Clive Blair of the Blackall Range

Clive was born on 28 November 1921 in the central west of Queensland, at the Taroom Aboriginal Settlement, a government operated reserve...

Building the Montville Soldier’s Memorial Hall, now St. Mary’s Hall

By Gordon Plowman First, a little history leading up to the establishment of the Soldier’s Memorial Hall in Montville: During World War...

Reminiscences of the Brown Family of Montville (1938-39) by Lucy O’Keefe.

Lucy O’Keefe was appointed as a teacher at the Montville State School in 1938, at the age of 21. In these reminiscences, recorded around...