In 1941, thirteen year old Joan Fewster, of 50 Melville Road, West Coburg, wrote the following essay on the Coconut Palm for the Sunbeam pages in the Sun News-Pictorial. The Sunbeam pages were edited by Corinella.
The Wonder Tree of the World
The coconut palm is often termed the wonder tree of the world, for it furnishes people not only with shade but also with clothing and food.
While the nut is ripening it is eaten, for its flesh is then a delicious creamy pulp, very unlike the hard substance it becomes later. It is at this stage that the milk is at its best, and natives of tropical countries drink quantities of it during the heat of the day.
When the nut is quite ripe it is extracted from the hard shell, broken into pieces and placed in the sun to dry. The nut dried is known as copra, which is exported to Europe, to be crushed for the valuable oil it contains. Some nuts are exported whole, and many are stored by the natives and used when required for food purposes. In India coconut forms one of the chief ingredients of a curry; the flesh is pounded up finely, and then pressed, and the liquor which it yields gives the curry its richness. The nut is also used chopped up and mixed with rice, and sugar, and eaten thus or pounded-up and mixed with flour and sugar, and then baked into crisp brown cakes.
The nut however, is not the only edible part of the coconut palm. High up in the tree is a growth of green leaves termed the cabbage. This is cooked and eaten hot, or pickled. The roots of the coconut are sometimes chewed. Chopped up and mixed with ginger and sugar, they form a medicine for fever; and the addition of oil makes the mixture a gargle for sore throats, while from the bristles on the roots small paint brushes and tooth brushes are made.
On the lower part of the large leaves which branch out from the tree trunk is a light brown fibrous substance resembling cotton; this is used for stopping the flow of blood from wounds. It can also be woven into material for wearing apparel. From the thick fibrous casing with which the nut is surrounded a coarse rope yarn is made, used for knife and sword sheaths, and hats, net and mat making, and for thatching houses.
The leaves of the coconut have many uses. From the ribs of the smallest ones laths for blinds are made, pins, combs for the hair and other ornaments. From the larger leaf ribs, boat-paddles. Portions of the leaves plaited together serve as plates and dishes, as roofing for houses; and leaf fibre yields a superior form of rope. Dried and tied in bundles, the leaves are used as torches, the oil they contain giving a strong, bright light.The shell of the nut provides kitchen and drinking utensils and buttons; as it is hard and takes a high polish, it is carved and used for ornaments. Then there is the trunk of the coconut-palm. This yields excellent timber, which is used for house building.
Colonel Joan Fewster, 50 Melville-rd., West Coburg, W.7.—Red certificate. (1)
Joan was the daughter of Charles Edward and Nellie Blanche (nee Dawson) Fewster. Charles was listed in the Electoral Roll as a woodworker (and their address was Pascoe Vale South, rather than Coburg West). They married in 1918, and Joan Elizabeth was their only child, born September 16, 1927, and she married Ralph Colin Armstrong on October 9, 1948. (3)
They had three children Colin, Judy and Stephen. Joan died July 26, 2018, at the age of 90 (4) I wonder if she kept a scrap book of her Sunbeam entries.?
Footnotes(1) Sun News-Pictorial, March 29, 1941, see here.
(2) Sun News-Pictorial, November 22, 1930, see here.
(3) Electoral Rolls on Ancestry.com; Indexes to the Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages;
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