Be nice if you could scan the pic and share it with us Ged.
I'm sure others beside me would like to see it
If I can find it you'll see it Steve.
This is really scary. At the weekend, while I was writing about my uncle, six miles away my sister was ferreting through family photos including some of him. On Monday I asked her if she knew of the photo I've described here and she nearly fainted with the shock. Neither of us had looked at the photos or even mentioned them to anyone in I think over twenty-five years.
Anyway it isn't exactly the photo I described, but here's a similar one. The head on this axe is even bigger.
http://www.jubileegroup.co.uk/JOS/misc/uncle_eddie_axe_low_res.jpg
The print is about 80 years old, very faded and damaged, and the negative must be in Australia so it's the best I can do from the print with a scanner. I can email the full resolution image (half a megabyte) if anyone wants a copy.
I think it was taken somewhere around Kempsey, New South Wales (about half-way between Sydney and Brisbane) around the late 1920s or early 1930s. On the back of the print somebody has written in pencil what looks like 8th May, but unfortunately not the year.