The well-known cement works ambulance has found its final resting place some years after the closure of the local cement plant where it lived. In an unveiling ceremony at the Kandos Bicentennial Industrial Museum on Saturday, Buzz Sanderson welcomed visitors and said, “One of Kandos’s most treasured items is being unveiled today.”
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Frank White from Cement Australia said it was vitally important that the ambulance stayed in Kandos.
“It’s a very valuable item. It will remain in Cement Australia’s ownership, so it will never move from here,” he said.
Two former Cement works employees, David Fuller and Athol Jenkins who were both heavily involved with the vehicle were on hand at the unveiling and they were able to give a brief history of it.
It was originally stationed at the Rylstone Hospital and had been used to take ill patients to Mudgee and occasionally to Sydney. The trip to Sydney was a gruelling one with four fuel stops and the patient having to be taken out of the ambulance each time because the fuel cap was inside the rear of the patient area.
The Cement works bought the ambulance from the hospital and many years later Athol Jenkins got it ready for the cement works’ 75th anniversary.
“I pulled it apart and put it back together again,” he said. This involved chasing parts and trips to Sydney to have pieces chromed. There were originally five of the 1929-30 Nash six cylinder vehicles in Australia.
The vehicle has taken pride of place in many local street parades over the years and always gets a cheer from the crowd as it passes by.
