ROADS AND MARITIME SERVICES - Key Persons
Don Fraser and Amie Nicholas detail the history of the timber truss in Chapter 2, ‘Developing the truss'. In an absorbing account, they trace the story from the roofs of Renaissance Venice to the rivers of New South Wales. They show the engineering ingenuity of each of the five distinct truss types named for the leading engineers whose work they were, William Bennett, John McDonald, Percy Allan, Ernest de Burgh and Harvey Dare. These men and their families are the subject of Chapter 3 ‘The designers', where Lenore Coltheart finds new clues to their lives and times. In adding to each portrait the tragic, heroic, sardonic, proud, charming, and persevering traits discovered, a richer understanding of the design achievement is uncovered.
Ian Jack covers the social pages in Chapter 5 ‘People, places and bridges', weaving a vivid tapestry of local communities lobbying for their bridges and celebrating their triumphs. There are banquets and balls, picnics and processions; but beneath each centrepiece of a brand new bridge decorated with foliage and flowers, flow the undercurrents of rivalries and disappointments. The bridge builders themselves are introduced by Ian Berger in Chapter 6. The skills passed from fathers to sons as families followed the work from small towns to remote rivers are assessed, while the stories of success and failure offer rare insights into both the building processes, and the bridges.