Category: Uncategorized

Following are some broad comments on two books read recently, as listed:

• Line in the Sand by Dean Yates [2023] [on the question of PTSD]; and,
• Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra, by Bruce Pascoe and Lyn Harwood [2024];

17^th May           

 ‘Line in the Sand’ by Dean Yates [published in 2023, 335 pages].  The powerful and personal story of the war time journalist, Dean Yates and the way in which he descended into the world of PTSD, arising out of various conflicts and natural disasters he reported on, and essentially brought to the surface by the incident of July, 2007, when two of his Reuter’s staff members [and other bystanders] were brutally gunned down by an American helicopter in Iraq. Yates’ memoirs are based on his extensive personal journals, together with emails and other documents. All brought to a head by the revelations of that 2007 incident that has seen Julian Assange incarcerated for more than a decade when he shared the findings of Chelsea Manning and released the video ‘Collateral Murder’ in April 2010. For years, Yates’ PTSD was accentuated by his feeling of moral failure in that he had not done enough to prevent the deaths of his un-armed colleagues and the other innocent bystanders, nor to press hard enough as a journalist, for the truth to come out.

A difficult book to read at times, from both the deeply personal depiction of PTSD, and the ways in which modern warfare is so often conducted.  One quotation from near the end of Yates memoirs.

‘Can the same be said for Collateral Murder? Absolutely. Americans had a right to know how their government was conducting war in Iraq. How their taxpayer money was being spent.  The cost being imposed on Iraqis.  So did the people of Australia, whose conservative government had eagerly followed Bush into Iraq. It was in the global public interest because up to that moment, so much of the war in Iraq was hidden from view.  ‘Collateral Murder’ runs a mere 38 minutes. But from the pilot chatter and the casual way permission was given to open fire, we can reasonably assume this was the everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan. The attack on the van was not out of the ordinary’ [page 293].

As described in various sources
Dean Yates was the ideal warzone correspondent: courageous, compassionate, dedicated. After years of facing the worst, though, including the Bali bombings and the Boxing Day tsunami, one final incident undid him. In July 2007, two of his staff members were brutally gunned down by an American helicopter in Iraq.
What followed was an unravelling of everything Dean thought he knew of himself. His PTSD was compounded by his moral wound – the devastation of what he thought he knew of the world and his own character and beliefs. After years of treatment, including several stints inside a psychiatric facility, Dean has reshaped his view of the true meaning of life. Here, in all its guts and glory, is that journey to a better way of being. Dean has been to the blackest heart of humanity and come out with strength and hope.
Line in the Sand is a memoir that is going to resonate for generations to come. It tackles the most important topic of our age in an unforgettable way.

About the author

Dean Yates is a workplace mental health expert, public speaker, podcast host, and journalist. He is an outspoken advocate on mental health, press freedom and government accountability.
Dean worked for 26 years at Reuters, the international news agency. He was bureau chief in Iraq, responsible for 100 people, and later head of mental health strategy from 2017-2020.
Dean lives in Evandale in Tasmania with his life partner Mary Binks and their three adult children Patrick, Belle and Harry.

From QBD Books  – a selection from the book, produced for QBD blog readers, and shared for my readers on here:

I was a successful foreign correspondent brought to the brink of suicide by workplace trauma, who recovered because of my obsession to get better and the human connection of my family and a mental health system that worked (yes, you read that right).
A combination of factors tipped me into turmoil after my PTSD diagnosis in early 2016: emotional denial about my condition; a psychiatrist in Hobart who didn’t get me; social isolation; and indifferent bosses. Then I was a risk to myself.

One night in late July 2016 I told my wife Mary that I was “toxic” to my family, I just wanted to find peace. I had a plan. Mary was loving but firm: “You need to be hospitalised in a psych ward, and soon.”
Two weeks later I was in the Ward 17 psych unit run by Austin Health in Melbourne, a specialist PTSD unit that treats veterans and first responders.

Establishing safety began the moment I entered. Sure, my anxiety was sky-high, but the intake interviews eased me into accepting I needed hospitalisation. There was no stigma about the word suicide. The building itself was peaceful. I had a private room. Within 24 hours I was sitting across from Dr Maryam, my new psychiatrist, a woman born in Iran who was curious about me. My mind and body felt safe. My treating team could begin to try to stabilise the symptoms I’d accrued from covering the Bali bombings, the Boxing Day tsunami, the Iraq War, from losing two staff to a US gunship attack in Baghdad on July 12, 2007.

Human connections underpinned the treatment I got during three admissions to Ward 17. Dr Maryam, spiritual care worker Cath and social worker Christina helped change the

course of my life. They opened their hearts and took the journey with me. Psychologists Dee and Wendy did it back home in Tasmania. Mary has always been there, ready to talk, listen and to also challenge me if she thought I wasn’t travelling well. It was Mary who said I needed to return to Ward 17 in 2017, and then again the following year. She shared her observations with my treating team. There were no secrets.
I suspect some practitioners prefer to stay behind walls they call boundaries. It’s safer there. Mary was a journalist for 20 years, took 13 years off to raise our three kids then re-trained as a counsellor. She came across this great quote when counselling refugees from war-torn parts of the world: ‘I’d rather a therapist with a warm heart and no boundaries than a therapist with a cold heart and firm boundaries.’ Of course, no one should take the ‘no boundaries’ thing literally. But I’ve seen 25 doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists about my mental state. I know when someone sees me. I feel connection. I can sense a cold heart from a warm one. I know waitlists are horrendous, but if your gut tells you that your therapist doesn’t want to take the journey with you, find one who will.
I’ve concluded from the seven years I spent writing my book that the most critical factor in trauma recovery is the quality of someone’s support network: family, friends, GP, counsellor, psychologist/psychiatrist, employer, workmates, access to hospital services, housing, the justice system. Yes, a support network extends beyond family and friends. It’s the breadth and depth of those networks and how they function together – not the original trauma – that largely determines recovery outcomes. In other words, whether a trauma survivor can find safety. Process their trauma, rebuild relationships, find purpose in life, and live with dignity.
Human connection is the foundation to this.

Writing in the Australian Book Review [July, 2023], from where I gained the impetus to purchase this book, Kevin Foster begins the article as follows:

We’ve all seen the video. The black and white images are washed out, almost solarised, by the heat and glare of a Baghdad morning in 2007. As the men walk and mingle on the street, we can make out the length of their hair, pick out the skinny from the stocky, and identify what they are wearing, loose trousers, casual shirts – one with distinctive broad stripes. Mercifully, we cannot discern their individual features. All the while, the Apache helicopter hovers, unseen and unheard, its cameras trained on the men below. The crew exchange terse messages with US troops in the area and their commanders back at the flight line. Having identified weapons that the men carry and confirmed that they are not coalition forces, the crew request and receive permission to engage, manoeuvring the gunship to get a clearer shot.

Suddenly, shockingly, the ground around the men erupts as the Apache deploys its 30mm Cannon Chain Gun. This weapon is not a ‘gun’ like a rifle, shotgun, or other small arm, but ‘a combat-vehicle mounted war cannon engineered to take out enemy vehicles, convoys or troop concentrations’. It fires 300 rounds per minute. You can imagine, but probably shouldn’t, what it does to a human body. Most of the men fall where they are hit, some manage a few paces before they are cut down. Through the cloud of dust and debris that has been thrown up by the hail of fire, those still twitching or crawling are shot again. When a minivan driver taking his two children to school stops to help the wounded, his vehicle is riddled with fire, the driver is killed, and the children injured. Besides the driver of the van, Saleh Matasher Tomal, two more of the victims are civilians, both employees of Reuters, one a twenty-two-year-old photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, the other a driver and fixer, Saeed Chmagh, a forty-year-old father of four. The Apache crew had mistakenly identified the telephoto lens on Namir’s camera as an RPG – a rocket propelled grenade launcher.

25^th May

When I read and reviewed Bruce Pascoe’s book ‘Dark Emu’ a few years ago, I admitted to being a little sceptical about some of his claims regarding ancient practices of the Indigenous peoples, while at the same time, recognising that Pascoe was likely to have much more authentic evidence, than the opinions coming from those inflicting  personal attacks after it’s publication,  sprouted by people like Andrew Bolt and the like! Pascoe faced harsh criticism, and vicious innuendos when the book was released, by Bolt in particular, claiming that Pascoe’s claims of Indigenous descent were a pack of lies! And many jumped on that bandwagon. I personally had no reason to disputePascoe’sclaim.
So it was with interest that I have just finished reading ‘Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra’ by Bruce Pascoe [with Lyn Harwood], published in 2024, 290 pages.
This was a fascinating read, and written describing a period of 12 months [and six seasons] with Pascoe, his family, friends, and business and community associates and their daily activities. It was centred around his property at Yumburra [near Mallacoota], where the organisation ‘Black Duck Foods’ was established, as a guideline for developing traditional food growing and land management processes based on old Indigenous practices. As noted in the book blurb, the authors ‘invite us to imagine a different future for Australia, one where we can honour our relationship with nature and improve agriculture and forestry’. I could comment in quite substantial detail about many aspects of this book, but just a few points which stand out from my reading of it.

• The amazing inter-action that Pascoe demonstrates with the native birds and animals that he comes into contact with on a daily, almost hourly basis, over the 12 months of the book’s time line.
• The enormity of the many trips to takes to gives speeches, presentations, attend family get-togethers, and community and regional functions, etc – I could almost feel the exhaustion, and his relief at returning home to Yumburra after those many ventures away;
• Pascoe’s very personal perspectives on the effect on himself and the people of Mallacoota during the 2019/2020 bushfire disaster.
• The extensive glossary of Aboriginal words demonstrated for the many birds, animals and plant life described through the course of the book.
• Pascoe’s frequent references as part of his everyday life, to seemingly minor issues, viz, returning home after a tiring day, and simply didn’t feel; like cooking a meal; regular flashbacks to this sporting achievements [or failures]; the Richmond Football team; and most importantly, the insertion from time to time of the reactions, and the affect on him, of comments and/or criticisms about his Black Emu book, and his almost philosophical attitude to accepting the attacks that arose from that publication.

A few brief quotations to perhaps illustrate this normality so often of much of his life”

• I’m aware that I often complain about tiredness but it is a fact of my life these days’
• Neither am I as tolerant of cold weather. There was a severe frost on the last day of July and it made me ache;
• The lyrebirds had been really loud and active over the last few weeks, as the autumn weather gets hold of the country….Their calls really do take over at this time of year and their increased activity is a delight;
• I wasn’t picked in Mallacoota’s grand final cricket side! What, ..you can’t find a place for a seventy -four-year-old of limited agility whose bowling no longer rotates…..;
• Lyn and I went to a frog identification workshop in the Genoa Community Hall and got very enthused. To celebrate I cooked a roast meal for the family on the BBQ firepit;
• The Murnong [a Yam daisy plant] undergoes a real dieback in late summer but are now shooting again. The lilies never seem to go into recess and we have found that we can get delicious tubers for at least nine months of the year and often twenty to thirty tubers per plant. …I think this will be a staple of Australian Salads in the future. But will Aboriginal people  be allowed in the industry? Or is ir just one more dispossession?
• Wonga pie [from the Wonga Pigeon] is a favourite meal, unsustainable for 26 million people, but very tolerable when the human population  was 1-2 million, and the totemic system ensured no food was over-harvested;
• Their ‘relatively pet’  Ganggang Cockatoo [named Clark] –  A magpie eventually stabbed Clark in the eye and killed him. Just one more reason to hate Collingwood!
• I love the Kings Cross Hotel but, while the view from it is colourful and lively, and I never tire of that vibrance, I do grieve for the struggle of many of those lives. Next morning, I had a sad breakfast in the dirtiest  café I have see in years. Home of the desperate.

And so we could go on!!!   Indeed, as described as part of it’s publicity, this book is –  ‘a deeply personal story about the consequences and responsibility of disrupting Australia’s history’  – [history from the European perspective anyway].

In summary, Bruce Pascoe and Lyn Harwood have invited us onto the Country they call home in Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra, reflecting on life after publishing Dark Emu.  In the aftermath of devastating bushfires in north-eastern Victoria, the couple rebuilt their farm. Here, they run the Aboriginal social enterprise Black Duck Foods, committed to traditional food-growing

I can do a much better job of describing this book through the views of another author – Tony Birch is an Aboriginal Australian author, academic and activist. He regularly appears on ABC local radio and Radio National shows and at writers’ festivals.  Writing for the Sydney Morning Herald on April 4th, 2024,  he described ‘Black Duck’  as ‘At its heart, Bruce Pascoe’s Black Duck is a love story of both people and Country’. I’ve copied his article in full, and it begins with a summary of the outcome of Pascoe’s Dark Emu, and how the success of the book [despite the criticism it received] partially led to the Black Duck project.

Tony Birch writes  – 

‘When Bruce Pascoe published Dark Emu with the Indigenous-owned publishing house Magabala Books, he could not have foreseen the phenomenon that the book would create. Ten years after its release in 2014, Dark Emu has sold close to 400,000 copies. It has had a major impact on our understanding of the relationship between Aboriginal agriculture and Country.

The book has also met with controversy, most of it surfacing when it became obvious that the reception of Dark Emu was also producing energetic dialogues of inclusion and respect between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.

Pascoe’s critics took aim at his argument that Aboriginal people could not be relegated to the status of mere hunter-gatherers. The irony should not be lost that those who suddenly sought to privilege the concept of the hunter-gatherer, were defending a trope that had historically supported the legal sleight of hand, terra nullius, being that Aboriginal peopled wandered on Country and had no productive claim to it.

What Bruce Pascoe highlighted with Dark Emu was a sophisticated interconnection between agriculture, sustainability and Country.

While some argued over the interpretation of archival documents and footnotes, others influenced by the book accepted the generosity offered by Pascoe in subsequent lectures, writers festival conversations and the inevitable Ted-Talk.

Pascoe was able to harness a willingness, or more perhaps an existential desire, among a sector of the non-Aboriginal community to end a narrative of conflict, to reconsider their relationships to Aboriginal people and Country, and to proactively address the ecological damage to land caused by colonial agricultural practices and increasingly, climate change.

Dark Emu was primarily a challenge to existing power structures and the marginalisation of Aboriginal people. Pascoe was able to build strong and sustainable relationships, which were themselves a threat to the inequitable status quo. Aboriginal communities became interested in Pascoe’s work.

It was gratifying for Aboriginal people, particularly in south-eastern Australia, to realise that, finally, their traditional land-management practices were being valued, and that young people in their communities could engage with Country with renewed pride. Non-Aboriginal rural communities and farmers were also influenced by Pascoe’s research. Some have since forged partnerships with him.

Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra is structured as the story of a year’s activities on Yumburra farm, a property on far south-east Gippsland where Bruce Pascoe and his partner, Lyn Harwood, run the enterprise Black Duck Foods. It is a venture they were able to establish due to the commercial success of Dark Emu.

The book visits the six seasons of Indigenous culture on the farm, from “late summer”, through “autumn”, “winter”, “early” and “late spring”, before ending in “early summer” the following year. We are provided with an insight into the commercial operation of the farm, and Pascoe’s poetic eulogising of the bread baked from harvesting indigenous grain. He sure loves his bread.

We also meet the many characters, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who have been drawn to Pascoe’s vision. But Black Duck is far more than a log of a farmer’s year on the land, a story of the occasional eccentricities of rural life, or Pascoe’s need to habitually mention the Richmond Football Club. (An annoying, decades-old tic of his.)

This is a deeply philosophical book. It is the story of a man and the woman he loves deeply, their growth as individuals, as a couple, and parents and grandparents, deeply respectful of Country and the need to live humbly with it. At its heart, Black Duck is a story of watching, listening, reflecting and hopefully, growing.

It may seem odd to describe the book as a “comfort read”. The book addresses the difficult issues of frontier violence and massacre, the heartbreak of seeing a loved dog in pain and having to shoot it, and the continuing damage done to Country by the ill-informed and wilfully ignorant. The concept of comfort could also dilute the power of Black Duck, particularly when the political etymology of the work conjures memories of ex-prime minister John Howard’s “relaxed and comfortable” recipe for engaging with the past.

Black Duck reinforces our need to actively care for Country. There are many people across Australia doing so, regardless of the obstacles they face. I take comfort from the fact that having faced damaging bushfires, droughts and the increasing occurrence of un-natural events, people such Pascoe, Harwood and many others reject a sense of helplessness. They are on the front line of ecological activism in the truest sense.

 I take great comfort in my understanding that Aboriginal communities across the continent are the knowledge holders we need to protect Country into the future, and to fully value the non-human animal and plant species that create the balance we require to become genuinely inclusive.’

About the authors

Lyn Harwood has worked as an editor and artist amongst many other things.

Bruce  Pascoe is a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man and a writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children’s literature. He is the enterprise professor in Indigenous Agriculture at the University of Melbourne. He is best known for his work Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture.

This contribution looks at three books read over recent weeks.  I’ve included some parts of professional reviews together with my own brief comments.

• Desert Queen by Janet Wallach;
• The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson; and
• Milat by Clive Small & Tom Gilling

21^st April

I recently watched a 2015 movie about this lady, which encouraged a search for a book about her.  Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Advisor to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia, by Janet Wallach, 1^st published in 1996; 419 pages. The book was ordered from England, and arrived some three months later.

As ‘Goodreads’ describes it – ‘What makes this book remarkable is that it teaches both history, WW1 and the Middle East, and is a biographical exposé on a remarkable woman: Gertrude Bell’ . Indeed it does all of that, and so much more.  ‘Turning away from the privileged world of the “eminent Victorians,” Gertrude Bell (1868—1926) explored, mapped, and excavated the world of the Arabs. Recruited by British intelligence during World War I, she played a crucial role in obtaining the loyalty of Arab leaders, and her connections and information provided the brains to match T. E. Lawrence’s brawn. After the war, she played a major role in creating the modern Middle East and was, at the time, considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire.  In this masterful biography, Janet Wallach shows us the woman behind these achievements–a woman whose passion and defiant independence were at odds with the confined and custom-bound England she left behind. Too long eclipsed by Lawrence, Gertrude Bell emerges at last in her own right as a vital player on the stage of modern history, and as a woman whose life was both a heartbreaking story and a grand adventure.

Amazon goes further – ‘Here is the story of Gertrude Bell, who explored, mapped, and excavated the Arab world throughout the early twentieth century. Recruited by British intelligence during World War I, she played a crucial role in obtaining the loyalty of Arab leaders, and her connections and information provided the brains to match T. E. Lawrence’s brawn. After the war, she played a major role in creating the modern Middle East and was, at the time, considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire’. What is not mentioned there is the actual role she played in helping to create the origins of the modern state of Iraq, as part of the pre-WW1 configuration of the broader Middle East, and this I found of particular interest [see quote from pps 214-215 below].

Writing for Publishers Weekly [www.publishersweekly.com]

‘To Sir Mark Sykes, the pre-WWI British Foreign Office Arabist, “”that damned fool,”” Miss Bell, created an “”uproar”” wherever she went in the Middle East and was “”the terror of the desert.”” Three social seasons were all a young lady of good family was allotted to snare a husband. Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) had thrice failed and received the consolation prize, a trip to Teheran to visit her uncle, the British envoy there. After that, she could not be kept close to the dank family manse in Northumbria but was drawn to the sun-drenched Middle East. Dominated even there by her Victorian father, head of a family-owned ironworks, she was denied permission to marry a moneyless diplomat. She refused–to her later regret–a married lover in the military and assuaged her disappointment by pressing British interests in Arab lands east of Suez, becoming in effect the maker of postwar Iraq. The first woman to earn a first-class degree in modern history at Oxford, she wrote seven influential books on the Middle East and, following WWI, was named oriental secretary to the British High Commission in Iraq. Not just another book about an eccentric lady traveller, this colourful, romantic biography tells of a woman with an inexhaustible passion for place that did not always substitute successfully for continuing heartbreak. Despite some maudlin passages, Wallach, coauthor with her husband, John Wallach, of Arafat, vividly evokes a memorable personality’.

In order to illustrate just a few brief aspects of Gertrude Bell’s life and work, I’ve selected various quotations from throughout the book, and while these snippets from the earlier sections of the book don’t do justice to her life in total, they provide some indication of how she was perceived by those she worked for over a number of decades in the Middle East.

• Jerusalem. To Christians it was the way to God, the site of Christ’s crucifixion and Ascension, the scene of the Last Supper, the Via Dolorosa and the Stations of the Cross, close to Bethlehem, where Christ was born. To Muslims it was the opening to Allah, the third holiest city in Islam, the place where Muhammad was carried from Mecca on his legendary steed and where he rose mystically to heaven. To Jews it was the symbol of their homeland, the capital of ancient Israel, created by King David when he united the Hebrew tribes,  and the resting place of the Ark of the Law, their covenant with God. To some people, such as sixteenth-century German mapmakers, it was the center of the world. To the Ottoman Empire, which ruled it now, it was a prized possession [page 44];
• Re. mountain climbing exploits:  “’Had she not been full of courage and determination, we must have perished. Of all the amateur climbers he had known, he added – men and women – no one had equaled her ‘in coolness, bravery and judgement;” [page 65];
• She adored breaking new ground, being the center of attention, with everyone’s eyes and ears on her. But no less fascinated by those whom she deemed of particular interest, she focused her own attention on the way they thought and behaved. At home however, life had curdled from ennui. The English were too predictable; she could tell in advance what a politician might do or what her dinner partner might say. The one group she had met that was different was the Arabs; they excited her.   They stimulated her imagination; they were romantic, exotic, mysterious, unplumbed. [page 68].
• She wanted to inform the English of the ways of the East. She would tell them about the Arab world and it’s culture; it’s people, Bedouin tribesmen and educated townsmen; it’s language, flowery and circuitous; it’s manners, both primitive and polished; its delicate art; it’s intricate architecture; it’s history of holy wars and conquests; it’s literature filled with symbolism and poetry;  it’s politics thraught with international rivalries and tribal revenge; it’s religion of Islam; it’s wailing music; it’s food stapes of flat bread and yogurt; it’s commerce of bazaar merchants and international traders; it’s agriculture of wheat farming and camel grazing; it’s fertile soil; it’s oil-rich sand; it’s terrain of palm trees, incidental water and endless desert. [page 70];
• The Oriental’s action is guided by traditions of conduct and morality that go back to the beginnings of civilisation, traditions unmodified as yet by any important change in the manner of life to which they apply and out of which they arose. [page 72];
• Gertrude saw herself as the equal of any man, but most women, she was firmly convinced, were not. [page 83];
• When the British troops marched into the Baghdad of 1917, a thousand years of splendour and almost a million people, history had swept most of that away. The tyrannical force the Mongiols, the feudal rule of the Persians, the corrupt occupations  of the Turks, and the plagues and floods of the nineteenth century had wiped out most of the city –  the British found only 200,000 people, mostly Sunni Muslims and Jews living in shabby buildings inside the crumbling city walls. [page 194].
• Regarding Gertrude’s influence on the Arabs:  Upon receiving her eloquent plea, the Arab chief said, he summoned his men from the desert and read the letter aloud. ‘My brothers, you have heard what the woman has to say to us. She is only a woman, but she is a mighty and valiant one. Now we all know that Allah has made all women inferior to men. But if the women of the Anglez are like her, the men must be like lions in strength and valour. We had better make peace with them’. [page 197];
• Regarding the Balfour Declaration of 1917 [basically Palestine for the Jews] – Gertude wrote ‘I hate Mr Balfour’s Zionist pronouncement. It’s my belief that it can’t be carried out, the country is wholly unsuited to the ends the Jews have in view; it is a poor land, incapable of great development and with a solid two-thirds of it’s population Mohammedan Arabs who look on Jews with contempt. To my mind it’s a wholly artificial scheme divorced from all relation to facts and I wish it the ill success it deserves, and will get’. Part of her prediction came true, with the trouble between the Arabs and the Jews lasting to this day. But the wholly artificial scheme of a Jewish national homeland, became a reality [though at great cost to others !!]. [page 202-203];
• Exhilarated as she was over defining the borders, she was even more excited about constructing a brand new state. There had never being an independent Iraq, no political entity, no administrative unit had ever existed.  No borders like these had been drawn since ancient times; no western banner had ever flown over it. Now she was not only deciding a country; she was devising its shape and determining its composition; who would lead it, how it would be governed, who would be included in its citizenry, what would be its laws and institutions. Imperialist and Orientalist both, she was creating an asset for England, constructing an entity for the Arabs. [pages 214-215];
• Gertrude wrote: Muslim women who never go out of the house and see no one are absolutely helpless in the face of their menfolk and there’s such a feeling  against interfering in a man’s domestic affairs that no one does anything to help. [page 329];
• Upon her death in 1926, King George, writing to her parents: ‘The Queen and I are grieved to hear of the death of your distinguished and gifted daughter whom we held in high regard. The nation will wish us mourn the loss of one who by her intellectual powers, force of character and personal courage rendered important and what I trust will prove lasting benefit to the country and those regions where she worked with such devotion and self-sacrifice..’

As noted by a number of reviewers and publishers –  ‘Too long eclipsed by Lawrence, Gertrude Bell emerges at last in her own right as a vital player on the stage of modern history, and as a woman whose life was both a heartbreaking story and a grand adventure’. This was a real personal exercise in learning so much about the make-up of the Middle East prior to World War I, and un the immediate decades following that world conflict. In many ways, also an interesting follow up from two recent books read [and reviewed previously in this Column] in relation to the Australian Light Horse  and their exploits in Egypt and the Middle East and ‘historical’ Biblical areas of that part of the world. I’d not realised just how mch influence and control, Turkey had in that part of the world prior to WWI

26^th April

‘The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson, published in 2024, 430 pages, [plus 72 pages of reflections, appendices and historical notes and photos].  A wonderful historical book, written as a novel, but based on true events – the story of the Nazi occupation of Jersey  in the Channel Islands during 1943 and the surrounding years.  I’d never given much thought to this aspect of World War II and had a limited knowledge of the events in the Channel Islands.

On this occasion, Kate Thompson brings to reality, the severity of the hardships, the brutality, faced by an ordinary peaceful community as their cobbled streets become dominated by the presence of German soldiers during most of the war period, and their lives and daily activities are completely by the occupation forces.

We read of Jerdsey’s only librarian, and her reaction  to the  Nazi orders to destroy certain books,  where instead she hides many such books away in secrecy, and also, in an attempt to raise the morale of the local community, forms a wartime book club, which achieves its aims, bringing into the hearts and souls of much of the population, a need for books and reading which for many had never existed before  –   until eventually, it was  shut down by the Germans.

The other interesting storyline, involved the post office and the workers who attempted, often unsuccessfully, to either stop letters or delay their receipt to the Germans, written by local residents ‘dobbing in’ neighbours for hiding escapees, or breaking some other rule or law imposed by the occupiers.

I found an especially intriguing aspect of the book was that at the beginning of most chapters, some of those banned books are listed and described, some perhaps surprising examples, such as:

• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck;
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickins [because it featured Jewish characters];
• The books of Sigmund Freud [he died in exile in Britain from cancer, while four of his sisters died in concentration camps];
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque [depictions of German failures in WWI];
• Ernest Hemingway’s writings [corrupting influence];
• The Call of the Wild by Jack London;
• Bambi, a Life in the Woods by Felix Salten, banned because of it’s darker origins about persecution and anti-Semitism in 1920s Austria;
• The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, with many of these stories banned, while later, the Allies banned the tales in Germany after the fall of the Nazis, who glorified Little Red Riding Hood into a symbol of the German people saved from the Jewish wolf…………………………..and so on, including a number of German writers who views did not paint the picture desired by the Nazis.

From  Goodreads and other publishers –  ‘From enchanting cliff tops and white sandy bays to the pretty cobbled streets of St Helier, Jersey is known as the land of milk and honey. But for best friends Bea Rose, the local postwoman, and Grace Le Motte, who works in the island’s only library, it becomes the frontline to everyday resistance when their beloved island is occupied by German forces in 1940.  Inspired by astonishing true events, THE WARTIME BOOK CLUB is an unforgettable story of everyday bravery and resistance, full of romance, drama, and camaraderie and a tribute to the joy of reading and the power of books in our darkest hour’.

Or as succinctly described by Booktopia this book ‘Based on astonishing real events, The Wartime Book Club is a ‘love letter’ to the power of books in the darkest of times – as well as a moving page-turner that brings to life the remarkable, untold story of an island at war.’  Well worth a read!!

2^nd May

If the foregoing suggested reading is not grim enough, let me point you to a 2014 publication  ‘Milat: Inside Australia’s Biggest Manhunt: A Detective’s Story’ by Clive Small and Tom Gilling [328 pages]. A detailed former detective’s chilling and forensic description of what was described as the biggest and most complex manhunt in Australian history. The story of Ivan Milat, the serial killer who preyed on young hitchhikers and back-packers who were the innocent victims of a brutal murderer. Belanglo – a place that became synonymous with pure evil.  A very  powerful read,   and quite obviously written from the mind and analytical writing of a former detective, who in fact worked on the case.

Behind the many false leads and dead ends, precious clues emerged that pointed to one man.

The book concludes with very detailed descriptions in a series of appendices of the circumstances [and often minute details] implicating Ivan Milat in the seven backpacker murders and the attempted abduction of an 8^th person, together with detailed technical descriptions of the weapons, etc, used in those crimes.

In summary terms, this is the story of how Ivan Milst was caught. The author, Clive Small, detective in the case, takes the reader inside the operation as he led his team, and how they painstakingly pieced together the evidence that would put Milat behind bars. But as the publicity for the book notes, questions remained, basically unanswered such as did he act alone, were there other victims, and how much did his large family really know?

The book, in its concluding chapters, also examines various other initially unsolved murders, and refers to more than a hundred still not solved at the time of the book publication.

As for the author, Clive Small is a former detective and Assistant Commissioner of the NSW Police. His investigations included the murder of anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay, the Nugan Hand bank, the shooting of police officer Michael Drury, the murder of Cabramatta MP John Newman and this book about  the backpacker murders.

As indicated, the book goes into extremely  detailed analysis of all evidence found during the course of the examination, and if you prefer your reading not to be dominated on ongoing minute details, perhaps you might like to seek our a less investigative descriptions of the crimes and the man involved. But in writing in this fashion, we get an excellent description of the type of detail and evidence that needs to be examined so thoroughly and in many cases repeatedly to achieve a correct outcome.,

This contribution looks at a broad selection of books or publications read over the first three months  of 2024, and is provided for the general interest of readers of this Column.

A range of decades, and subject matters, are represented covering the years of publication from 1949 through to 2024.

• Mr Einstein’s Secretary by Matthew Reilly;
• Australian Foreign Affairs’ Issue 20 –  ‘Dead in the Water: The AUKUS delusion;
• ‘The Last Charge of the Australian Light Horses’ by Peter Fitzsimons;
• ‘One Wet Season’ by Ion L. Idriess [published in 1949, including the author’s biography];
• ‘Call Of The Raven’  by Wilbur Smith [with Corban Addison];
• ‘Kidnapped’ by Mark Tedeschi QC [the true story of the kidnapping of 10 year old Graeme Thorne];
• Australia’s Light Horse: The Campaign in the Middle East, 1916-1918, by Phillip Bradley;
• National Geographic special edition – ‘The Story of Jesus’; and,
• Quarterly Essay 93: Bad Cop: Peter Dutton’s Strongman Politics by Lech Blaine.

20^th January

 ‘Mr Einstein’s Secretary’ by Matthew Reilly, published in 2023, 450 pages. This is the first book I have read by that author, generally a writer of crime and thriller fiction which I usually don’t bother with these days.  The title attracted me when I was the QBD bookshelf last Friday when I was in Melton recently..  Described as about ‘A secretary like no other in a Epic spanning 40 years’  – leading up to the 2^nd World War, during the war and beyond, mainly set in either Nazi Germany or the USA throughout that period. A form of historical novel of the kind I usually enjoy – as described by the author himself  –  “This a work of fiction.  Hanna Fischer [the Secretary] is fictitious. But many of the events depicted in this novel really happened and many of the characters in it actually existed.”  He then goes on to describe the real fates of those ‘real’ characters, or events,  such as the Nazis, Bormann or Hitler;  the Ku Klux Klan march of 1925; the Manhattan nuclear project; the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games; the Muhlviertal ‘Hare’ Hunt; and so on.

The book tells  the story of Hanna Fischer, a young woman who aspired to study physics under Albert Einstein. However, her life takes a dramatic turn when she becomes a student, a secretary, a sister, and a spy. The novel takes the reader on a thrilling journey through some of history’s most dangerous times, from racist gangs in Berlin to gangsters in New York City, Nazis in the 1930s, and Hitler’s inner circle during World War II.

As Goodreads describes the novel ……………………

“All Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics under the great Albert Einstein. But when, as a teenager in 1919, her life is suddenly turned upside-down, she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life – as a student, a secretary, a sister and a spy.  From racist gangs in Berlin to gangsters in New York City, Nazis in the 1930s and Hitler’s inner circle during the Second World War, Hanna will encounter some of history’s greatest minds and most terrible moments, all while desperately trying to stay alive.   She is a most unique secretary and she will work for many bosses – from shrewd businessmen to vile Nazis, to the greatest boss of them all, Mr Albert Einstein…  Spanning forty years, this is the thrilling tale of a young woman propelled through history’s most dangerous times. But read it carefully, because all may not be as it seems”.

The book is certainly written in an interesting style  –  in an interview with the author about the book which is a novel about a secretary navigating her way through a world of gangsters, the 1929 stock market crash, Nazi Germany and World War II, with flashbacks and flash-forwards, multiple points of view and characters including Albert Einstein, Albert Speer, Werner Heisenberg, and several geniuses of the atomic age, well does a novel like this even come about?

Reilly:  “I think it’s safe to say….it’s unlike any of my other novels….. In short, I wanted Mr Eistein’s Secretary to be an epic. To be a story that spanned decades. In doing that, I wanted time and place to be characters in the story. Structurally, the story is built on Hanna remembering her life, either during her fake funeral or through the three interrogations she endured [and everything that went in-between].  So if she is recalling been in a particular place or situation, that triggers other memories of being in that place at another time.

Most of the book is written in the first person, from Hanna’s viewpoint and memories, but on occasions, it is her dangerous twin sister [Ooma] relating the memories!!

In writing about the sister, Reilly explains that “I wrote Ooma as a selfish, petty yet brilliant person who has what’s known today as ‘borderline personality disorder’. This story is about Hanna’s remarkable journey – and remarkable growth – through her life. I wanted Ooma to be a wildcard in that life, a constant danger lurking at the edges of Hanna’s world. The way she can change emotions in a heartbeat makes her unpredictable and very dangerous”

I don’t know if I’ll read anymore of Reilly’s books –  as indicated earlier the ‘inclusion of historical reality in the fictionized story’ is what attracted this reader on this occasion………………..

11^th February 2024

Finished reading ‘Australian Foreign Affairs’ Issue 20 –  ‘Dead in the Water: The AUKUS delusion.

The latest issue of Australian Foreign Affairs examines Australia’s momentous decision to form a security pact with the United States and the United Kingdom that includes an ambitious, expensive and risky plan to acquire nuclear-power submarines – a move that will have far-reaching military and strategic consequences.

Dead in the water looks at whether the AUKUS deal will enhance or undermine Australia’s security as tensions between China and the US rise, at the impact on Australia’s ties with its regional neighbours, and at whether the submarines plan is likely to ever be achieved.

Essays by four writers cover the question of whether the deal is a futuristic delusion.

Hugh White examines whether Australia needs nuclear-powered submarines and whether the AUKUS plan will deliver them.

Susannah Patton looks at the lessons for Australia from the region’s responses to AUKUS.

Elizabeth Buchanan explores how Australia could use its valuable geography to enhance ties with AUKUS allies and other partners.

Andrew Davies weighs the benefits of nuclear-powered submarines against the costs of acquiring and maintaining them.

Other writers, such as Hervé Lemahieu propose that Australia pursue a common travel area and an integrated digital market with the Pacific, while Jack Corbett considers Solomon Islands’ economic options in an era of great power rivalry

Meanwhile, from the introductory comment by Jonathan Peasrlman, editor of the Quarterly Essay –

Australia is embarking on the most expensive – and arguably the most ambitious – defence acquisition in its history. Yet the decision to buy nuclear-powered submarines has been subject to little scrutiny, partly because Labor – given hours to consider the AUKUS deal by the Morrison government – duly fell in behind it.  Serious questions are now emerging about the plan’s risks and costs. As Hugh White concludes in a scathing assessment: “Coalition and Labor governments have committed Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines that we do not need, via a plan which will almost certainly fail”. And time is pressing: if AUKUS is destined to fail, it needs to be abandoned quickly – to lower the wasted costs and to ensure that Australia is not left defenceless.

So in summary,  Hugh White [an Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, long-time defence and intelligence analyst, and author who has published works on military strategy and international relations] in particular, argues in much detail, while considering the pros and cons, that AUKUS is ‘a grave mistake’ He concludes his essay with the statement that ‘our political leaders have given us the charade of AUKUS, which will stand as a fitting symbol of our failure, as a country, to respond effectively to the biggest shift in our strategic circumstances since 1788. If we are to recover from this blunder, and do better, we must start by understanding and accepting how much our region, and the world beyond it, is changing’.

The other writers in the issue explore the prospects of AUKUS succeeding, the logistical challenges [i.e., the enormous costs and challenges in terms of ongoing support and maintenance requirements needed should the scheme ever eventuate], the regional responses, and alternative options.

If the subject and its broader implications are of interest, you may consider it worthwhile purchasing a copy, usually available at most good bookstores, or through Schwartz Books, or www.australianforeignaffairs.com

13^th February 2024

 ‘The Last Charge of the Australian Light Horse’ by Peter Fitzsimons, published in 2023, 497 pages

A great read, as always from this author, and another brilliant depiction of an event and circumstances leading up to it from the early ‘European’ history of Australian.

The book description, as provided by Amazon and various other suppliers reads that  –

On 31st October 1917, as the day’s light faded, the Australian Light Horse charged against their enemy. Eight hundred men and horses galloped four miles across open country, towards the artillery, rifles and machine guns of the Turks occupying the seemingly unassailable town of Beersheba. What happened in the next hour changed the course of history.

This brave battle and the extraordinary adventures that led to it are brought vividly to life by Australia’s greatest storyteller, Peter FitzSimons. It is an epic tale of farm boys, drovers, bank clerks, dentists, poets and scoundrels transported to fight a war half a world away, and is full of incredible characters: from Major Banjo Paterson to Lawrence of Arabia; the brilliant writer Trooper Ion Idriess and the humble General Harry Chauvel; the tearaway Test fast bowler ‘Tibby’ Cotter and the infamous warhorse, Bill the Bastard. All have their part to play in the enthralling, sprawling drama of the Australian Light Horse.

Theirs was a war fought in an ancient land with modern weapons; where the men of the Light Horse were trained in sight of the pyramids, drank in the brothels of Cairo and fought through lands known to them only as names from the Bible.

[That fact alone provided a very poignant aspect to the story –  read, and basically written at the same time as the  modern day tragedies of death and displacement take place in areas of the Middle East which feature so prominently in the book such as Gaza].

The Last Charge of the Australian Light Horse traces the hard path of the Light Horse from the bleakest of starts – being deprived of their horses and fighting at Gallipoli in the tragic Battle of the Nek – to triumph and glory in the desert. Revealing the feats of the Australians who built the legend, it is a brilliantly told tale of courage, resilience and derring-do from Australia’s favourite storyteller.

The text included a couple of quotes from Verner Knuckey [my Mother’s father]. One of those –

“Lone comrades are found too, including the discovery of one Australian trooper of the 8th Light Horse who, Trooper Verner Knuckey will recount, ‘had been shot in both legs and lay out for three days and nights..  When the Turks had found him, they had, ‘made him as comfortable as possible and left a bottle of water beside him. That water saved his life.  Any dirty action done can I think be traced to the German and Austrian officers in charge of these Turks”

[from ‘The Last Charge of the Australian Light Horse’ by Peter Fitzsimons, pub. 2023, page 121]

21^st February

Today [or tonight] I finished reading ‘One Wet Season’ by Ion L. Idriess, published in 1949 [272 pages].This book was a Christmas gift by my Mother to my Father in 1949, one of a number of books written by Idriess that were in my father’s possession and passed down to myself.  I’d read a couple of them previously – my attention was drawn back to him after reading Peter Fitzsimons’ latest book about the charge of the Light Horse [previous review], where a number of quotations throughout the book were attributed to the writings of Idriess who also served with the Light Horse in WWI

‘One Wet Season’  is a book about life in the Kimberley region of Western Australia[1] during the wet season of 1934. The book records true stories of the lives of the pioneers and Aboriginals of the Kimberley, centring predominantly on those living in the King Leopold Ranges and spending the wet season in the town of Derby, Western Australia.

Ion Idriess, who has spent many a long ‘Wet’ in the West Kimberley, puts into print a thrilling account of this aspect of Australian life.  Perhaps I mightn’t use the term ‘thrilling’ in describing the book, but certainly enlightening and of historical interest in depicting not just the life of that time & part of Australia, but the attitudes and perspectives from the point of view of those living there and/or passing through. I was especially interested in the attitude to the Aboriginal population by the whites in the area and the many descriptions of interaction between the two races. While far from perfect, in this area of WA in particular, those interactions seemed to come over as less violent in nature, as compared for eg, with the latter part of the C19th century in Queensland.

Times have changed [to some degree] and much of the language used in describing the Aboriginal peoples is no longer acceptable, and rightly so,  would simply not be tolerated in today’s society. But in the 1940s and in writing about our native Australians, Idriess was speaking to the culture of the time. Take the following brief selection of quotations from my copy [originally published by Angus and Robertson].

• “Poor old Venus, [from page 250] I believe she really was the ugliest lubra in the Kimberleys, but that dog loved her.  ‘Google-eyed Maggie on Napier Downs is about the ugliest gin I ever met’, said an old-timer quietly, ‘but I’m not holding that against her. Many a gin in this country has done a white man a good turn’. The boys puffed silently at their pipes a moment; the old-timer had spoken truly. ‘Ever you noticed,’ remarked Jack Knopp, ‘how the abo when he’s been working for a few years with the whites, but particularly the statin bred abo, turns around on his brother’….”
• Yarning the time away [page 260] – “’There’s still a few more or less wild munjons over the Range,’ mused a stockman, ‘but I suppose they’ll all be broken in time, ‘ he added regretfully. ‘They’re all tame along the Fitzroy now,’ yawned a teamster from Go-Go Station, ‘fat as prime beef. And plenty of piccaninnies amongst them’”
• And speaking of a chase by white authorities [page 263] tracking a group of  ‘bush niggers’ who has been spearing the settler’s cattle , but who made their escape despite all precautions by the trackers, one of those chasers noted that  – “And yet those low-browed sons of apes knew exactly  when we were coming, just strolled out of the trap at their leisure”.

Finally, the following description provides an interesting portrayal of the  station Aborigines, certainly on those properties where they were better treated and/or regarded by those they worked for.

From pages 260-261

“The big stations along the Fitzroy, and further east to the Territory border treated their aboriginal stockmen and families well. Food, clothes, quarters, medicines, all that they needed. And all are free to come and go as they wish. The stations were very desirous of holding their aborigines, to keep them contented and healthy, and to encourage families.  The result was that most of the river aborigines clung to the local stations, quite contented, until annual walkabout – the walkabout that every aboriginal must have,  when he and she must return to the Wilds, right back to the primitive for a time. Every wet sees the exodus. Loaded up like camels under food and blankets and billy-cans and all the little treasures accumulated throughout the Dry, the mob stream out  from the station, men, women, children, and digs, the river waterholes ringing with  their farewell calls and promises of speedy return. Soon they will be right out in the bush. And there with cries of relief they throw off the last vestige of clothing in hilarious corroboree, anoint their bodies with bungarra [goanna] fat and worse,  paint themselves with the ochred bars of warriorhood, seize their weapons and stamp and chant and set straight out on the hunt. Once again, they feel they real men and women. And hungry for bush food from Mother Earth.

Well-conditioned now, after nine month’s station feeding. But, after the Wet they will come streaming back to the stations hollow-gutted, ribbed like a stock-horse in drought-time, voracious for plover [flour], tea and tchugar [sugar], and that heavenly luxury, tobacco.

They will gorge like famished wolves until they begin to build up again. For often, during their walkabout, they have gone hungry, cold and wet. Although there is native food in the bush, the hunter must employ constant effort and unremitting bushcraft to secure it. And the station black loses his keen edge of bushcraft, loses his kinship with the Wild, is a child divorced from his Mother Earth.

Yes, most of the ‘tame’ blacks are glad to come back whooping back to the station after a three months’ walkabout. But if tea, sugar, flour, and the precious tobacco grew ready-made in the bush, they would not come back at all”.

About the Author [compliment of a summary from a Wikipedia article].

Ion Llewellyn Idriess  OBE (20 September 1889 – 6 June 1979) was a prolific and influential Australian author.  He wrote more than 50 books over 43 years between 1927 and 1969 – an average of one book every 10 months, and twice published three books in one year (1932 and 1940). His first book was Madman’s Island, published in 1927 at the age of 38, and his last was written at the age of 79. Called Challenge of the North, it told of Idriess’s ideas for developing the north of Australia.  Two of his works, The Cattle King (1936) and Flynn of the Inland (1932) had more than forty reprintings.

Idriess was born in Waverley, a suburb of Sydney, to Juliette Windeyer (who had been born as Juliette Edmunds in 1865 at Binalong) and Walter Owen Idriess (a sheriff’s officer born in 1862, who had emigrated from Dolgellau, in Wales). At birth Ion Idriess’s name was registered as “Ion Windeyer”, although he never seems to have used this name.

From his late teens, he worked in rural New South Wales, particularly in the Narrabri and Moree districts. He travelled extensively around the state, working in a variety of itinerant jobs including employment as a rabbit poisoner, boundary rider, drover, prospecting for gold as well as harvesting sandalwood. He also worked as a shearer and dingo shooter. While working as an opal miner at Lightning Ridge in about 1910, he wrote short pieces for The Bulletin about life on the opal fields. He later headed north, working in several tin mines around Cairns and Cooktown including his own claim. In 1913 he moved to Cape York Peninsula, where he lived with an Aboriginal clan, learning their customs and lifestyle.

With the outbreak of war, in 1914 he returned to Townsville and enlisted in the 5th Light Horse Regiment, AIF, as a trooper.  He saw action in Palestine, Sinai and Turkey, being wounded at Beersheba and Gallipoli – where he acted as spotter for noted sniper Billy Sing.  

After returning to Australia and recuperating from his wounds, he travelled to remote Cape York, and worked with pearlers and missionaries in the Torres Strait islands and Papua New Guinea where he worked as a gold miner. Other ventures included buffalo shooting in the Northern Territory, and journeys to Central and Western Australia.

In 1928 Idriess settled in Sydney where he wrote as a freelance writer. His writing style drew on his experiences as a soldier, prospector, and bushman. He wrote on a multitude of topics, including travel, recollection, biography, history, anthropology and his own ideas on possible future events. His books were generally non-fiction, but written in a narrative, story style. Most of his books were published by Angus & Robertson. Idriess wrote from real life experiences using knowledge he had personally gained by travelling extensively and working at a variety of occupations. “Idriess was no stylist, but his writing was immediate, colourful, well paced and, despite the speed at which it was written, always well structured.”

Although he generally wrote under his name, some early articles for The Bulletin were written under the pseudonym of “Gouger”. When travelling, Idriess was known as “Jack”.

In 1968 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to literature.

Idriess died at a nursing home in Mona Vale in Sydney on 6 June 1979, at the age of 89.[8]

His work slipped from favour after his death, but has experienced a renewal of interest. In 2017, Nicolas Rothwell said: “As so often in Australian letters, an initial fall into obscurity and the harsh judgments of the literary establishment serve as good indicators of a writer’s pre-eminence”. His work was never adapted for the screen although several books were optioned by producers.

8^th March 2024

Read  ‘Call Of The Raven’  by Wilbur Smith [with Corban Addison], published in 2020, 410 pages.

Getting into the final few books by Smith –   I don’t whether this is a sign of my age, but   Smith’s novels have always had a strong element of violence in them, but the last couple I have read, and especially this one, the extremity and prevalence of violence, I found much more noticeable, and at times almost disturbing.

Nevertheless, despite that factor, this novel was another great read by this author whose novels I have been reading since  January 1973 [The Lion Feeds was his first novel].

The action-packed and gripping new adventure by number one bestselling author, Wilbur Smith, about one man’s quest for revenge, and the brutality of slavery in America, and the imbalance between humans that can drive, or defeat us. –  THE DESIRE FOR REVENGE CAN BURN THE HEART OUT OF A MAN.
The son of a wealthy plantation owner and a doting mother, Mungo St John is accustomed to wealth and luxury – until he returns from university to discover his family ruined, his inheritance stolen and his childhood sweetheart, Camilla, taken by the conniving Chester Marion. Mungo swears vengeance and devotes his life to saving Camilla-and destroying Chester.  Camilla, trapped in New Orleans, powerless as a kept slave and subject to Chester’s brutish behaviour, must do whatever it takes to survive.  As Mungo battles his own fate and misfortune, he must question what it takes for a man to regain his power in the world when he has nothing, and what he is willing to do to exact revenge

14^th March 2024

This next book was Kidnapped by Mark Tedeschi QC, published in 2015, 317 pages.   It is the  true story of Australia’s only known kidnapping of a child for ransom, from Barrister and Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi. An easily read but fascinating detailed insight into the crime and the investigations that followed, perhaps at a level not seen previously.

 It was 64 years ago, when eight-year-old Graeme Thorne was kidnapped on his way to school in July 1960, Australia was gripped with fear and loathing. What monster would dare take financial advantage of the most treasured bond of love – between parent and child? Just weeks earlier, Graeme’s parents had won a fortune in the Opera House Lottery, and this had attracted the attention of the perpetrator, Stephen Bradley.
Bradley was a most unlikely kidnapper, however his greed for the Thorne’s windfall saw him cast aside any sympathy for his victim or his victim’s family, and drove him to take brazen risks with the life of his young captive.
Kidnapped tells the astounding true story of how this crime was planned and committed, and describes the extraordinary police investigation that was launched to track the criminal down. Mark Tedeschi explores the mind of the intriguing and seriously flawed Stephen Bradley, and also the points of view of the victim, his family – and the police, whose work pioneered the use of many techniques that are now considered commonplace, marking the beginning of modern-day forensic science in Australia.
Using his powerful research and storytelling skills, Mark Tedeschi reveals one of Australia’s greatest true crime dramas, and what can only be described as the trial of the 20th century.

Mark Tedeschi KC has worked as a Barrister and Crown Prosecutor for more than forty years, working on some of Australia’s most significant criminal cases. He was the Senior Crown Prosecutor in New South Wales for twenty years, during which he also served as President of the Australian Association of Crown Prosecutors. Mark has published many articles on the law, history, genealogy and photography, and is the author of critically acclaimed non-fiction titles Eugenia, Kidnapped, Murder at Myall Creek and Missing, Presumed Dead.

Better Reading provided the following Synopsis of the book

Kidnapped is about Stephen Bradley, who perpetrated the 1960 kidnapping for ransom and murder of eight-year-old Sydney schoolboy, Graeme Thorne. This was not only a vivid example of murder for greed, but also marked the beginning in Australia of modern forensic science as a tool in the investigation of serious crime. Many of the techniques of scientific detection used to implicate Bradley had never before been used in a police investigation, but have since become commonplace. Certainly, there had never before been a case in which so many methods of forensic investigation had been used in combination to detect and implicate the perpetrator of this terrible crime. This case therefore marks a watershed in the annals of modern criminal investigation. Mark Tedeschi has prosecuted many people who were prepared to kill to acquire the object of their desires. As such he is uniquely placed to present an insight into the mind of Stephen Bradley. A man so motivated by greed and self-entitlement that when he read about the winner of the Opera House Lottery, his first thought was how much more he deserved the money. From there he located the Thorne family in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs and proceeded to plan the kidnap and ransom of their young son, Graeme. The taking of Graeme off a Sydney street in daylight hours caused shock and horror across the nation and when his body was found the police used all means available, both old and new, to track down Stephen Bradley and convict him.. Mark’s new book is a gripping account of a terrible crime that many people today still remember.

17^th March 2024

‘The Australian Light Horse: The Campaign in the Middle East, 1914-1918’ by Phillip Bradley, published in 2016, 196 pages.  Again, an interesting [and disturbing in view of the enormous casualties faced on all sides] generally overlooked in comparison with the fighting on Gallipoli and the Western Front  during WW 1.

Again, Grandfather Verner Knuckey is quoted on a number of occasions, in the early part of the campaign, as he did not remain with the Light Horse much beyond the end of 1916.

It was interesting comparing this ‘history’ with the book summarised earlier on the Light Horse by Peter Fitzsimons. In this case Bradley provides a much broader and extended history of the Australian Light Horse during WW I, in comparison with Fitzsimons specific concentration on the events leading up to the Charge of the Light Brigade and that event itself. That ‘historical’ battle is treated no differently to many other battles and campaigns b the Light horse in terms of he space in the book devoted to it.

As with the following review [re. National Geographic] I found it of particular interest to read of the geographical locations of so much of the travails of the Light Horse, especially in view of the current events in the Middle East.

From the Australian War Memorial site. We read that:

“The story of the famous Australian Light Horse in the desert campaigns of World War 1. Throughout history, mounted troops have been known as elite men of arms and the Australian Light Horse is a part of that legendary tradition.

Part cavalry and part infantry and often recognised by the emu feathers in their slouch hats, the light  horsemen, were described by the official historian, H.S. Gullett, as ‘in body and spirit the true product of the Australian countryside’. They remain, today, the embodiment of the digger ethos..

After the Gallipoli campaign most of the Australian Light Horse, commanded by Major General Harry Chauvel, remained in Egypt to defend the Suez Canal. After thwarting the Turkish advance at Romani in August 1916 the Light Horse led the advance into Palestine with sparkling victories at Magdhaba and Rafa.

Twice checked at Gaza despite their bold courage, the light horsemen then broke that stalemate following the legendary charge at Beersheba on 31 October 1917. The fall of Jerusalem, the perilous raids on Amman, the trials of the Jordan Valley and the final breakthrough to Damascus followed before Turkey surrendered on 30 October 1918…In Australian Light Horse their story is brought to vivid life through the diaries, letters and photographs of the light horsemen who took part in the bloody battles of the desert campaigns o f the Sinai and Palestine from April 1916 to October 1918”…

On a personal note, my grandfather is referred to a number of occasions early in the book, though he did not remain long enough with the Light Horse, to participate in the more active campaigns described in this book. For the record, his diaries [which are now held in the Australian War Museum] are referenced on page 8, and on various occasions through pages 36-39.

One of those reads as follows:

“The 8th Light Horse was soon in contact and the firing was pretty brisk. Verner Knuckey was behind the top of a sandhill but was being fired on from the flank. The first thing he knew there was a vicious zip and sand rose about two feet to his right. When the second shot hit the same distance to his left, Knuckey knew it was time to move and sure enough the third bullet hit the ground where he had been lying. His squadron retired soon thereafter, the light horsemen suffering terribly in the heat. The only shade was what the horse threw, Knuckey wrote. In the middle of the day, each man would try to sleep under their horse, which would not move an inch..” …The next four hours was agony for us, wrote Verner Knuckey. Five Echuca boys copped it and only two survived to be invalided home. Knuckey’s tent mate and great friend, Dick Chambers, was one of those killed, along with twelve horses. Poor brutes, Knuckey wrote, there are no half measures about shrapnel pellets…..………“The heat was merciless, the temperature 44 degrees Celsius in the shade, which does not exist. If ever the sun burnt it did that day, Knuckey wrote. The hot sun scorched our skin. Wounded men would crawl off for help. In several cases I saw them crawling on one hand and the other arm practically blown off, blood was everywhere and at last we knew what war was………….[from ‘Australian Light Horse’ by Phillip Bradley, published in 2016, pages 36-39]

The Light Horseman quoted above and in various parts of the two publications was Corporal Verner Knuckey.  From the Writer Biographies [quoted on page  179]:

“Corporal Verner Knuckey served with the 8^th Light Horse Regiment in the Sinai Campaign before transferring to the Australian Flying Corps as a mechanic in January 1917. Before the war, Knuckey was a clerk at the Commonwealth Treasury from East Malvern in Melbourne, Victoria. He enlisted in July 1915 and returned to Australia in September 1919”.

He later married an English girl from Newcastle, UK, whom he met through family friends while on leave in England during WWI.

Verner Knuckey, and that English lass were my Grandparents, and the parents of my mother, Betty Knuckey. His War Diaries from which the foregoing quotes were taken, are in the possession of the National War Museum in Canberra – eight pocket sized booklets, which my wife initially photocopied in their entirety during the 1970’s while she worked for the Army Department. Later, while the diaries were still in  her possession, my Mother painstakingly typed them in full on an ancient typewriter in the late 1970s, while in recent years, those foolscap sized pages were used by my brother, to have the diaries retyped and printed into a modern bound A4 size booklet.

26^th March 2024

I’ve just read a National Geographic special edition – ‘The Story of Jesus’, a publication from around December, 2021. While I have not subscribed to National Geographic for some decades, I was a little surprised to find this subject matter in the magazine, suggesting that National Geographic had substantially broadened the scope of the articles they publish. However, on reflection, I should not have been surprised, as the following second paragraph below,  clearly indicates the relationship of geography as such to the topic in question, as I recall now, have many articles in past years.

Before Jesus became one of the most famous figures in the world, he was a shepherd and teacher in Galilee living an unremarkable life. In this lavishly illustrated portrait of the life of a prophet, scholars unveil what is known and speculated about Jesus’s youth, life, work, plus the larger events that combined to shape the world in which he lived.

Following in Jesus’s footsteps from Bethlehem to Nazareth, some highlights include: Maps of Jesus’ path across the Holy Land, forensic reconstruction of key biblical sites, and insights into Jesus’ childhood and young adulthood. this writer – with most of the story taking place in the Middle East, and having just read two books about the Australian Light Horse serving in that part of the world  – this publication included a number of very detailed maps related to the life of Jesus, and one couldn’t help but take note of the names of towns, rivers. Lakes, etc, all of which had historical Biblical connotations’ –  brought to real life today in view of the current war and conflict involving Israel and Palestine and other sites in the wider Middle East  environment.

30th March 2024

The Quarterly Essay, No: 93, released in March, 2024  is titled ‘Bad Cop: Peter Dutton’s Strongman Politics’, and authored by Lech Blaine, whose writings have appeared in publication such as the Good Weekend, Griffith Review, The Guardian, and the Monthly, and who is currently the 2023 Charles Perkins Centre writer in residence. Covering some 119 pages,

Blaine traces the making of a hardman, from Queensland detective to leader of the current Federal [Liberal] Opposition in Australia, from property investor to minister for Home Affairs. The essay is described as the story of ambition, race and power, and a politician with a plan – to reach the top!

An interesting Essay, which covers Dutton’s family ancestral background, and Dutton’s early career in the police force in Queensland, which would mould many of his attitudes and policies in his political career, especially in respect to security, crime and the risks of immigration and refugees  – perhaps always looking for and anticipating the worst in people and organisations.

In a selected extract from the Essay, we read:

“Peter Dutton eats bleeding-heart lefties for breakfast. He is tall and bald, with a resting death stare. His eyes – two brown beads – see evil so that the weak can be blind. His lips are allergic to political correctness. Peter preaches the gospel of John Howard with the fanaticism of Paul Keating. He wants to do the Labor Party slowly, slowly, slowly, and defeat the woe-is-me heroism of identity politics.

“It’s a movement that seeks to define and divide us by class, sex, race, religion and more besides,” said Dutton in 2023. “Worse, such movements seek to undermine traditional values of ambition, gratitude and forgiveness and replace them with resentment, envy and anger.”

Once upon a time, the federal Opposition leader was a cop in clammy Queensland. He was a listener, a lurker, a watcher; not a storyteller, nor a performer. He set traps for suspects and waited for them to make a mistake. For poker-faced Dutton, leadership isn’t about kissing the cheeks of babies, or the arses of journalists. It is about bleeding for your beliefs and denying the griefs of your enemies. White lies are often the cost of beating the bad guys. “In a different age, we’d be clashing swords,” Dutton told journalist Madonna King in 2014. “I see myself as a contestant in that battle.”

In May 2022, Australia just so happened to elect a good cop as prime minister. Anthony Albanese promised a cuddlier, less bloodthirsty form of leadership. “Safe change,” with a patient embrace of democratic rituals………… Dutton isn’t so happy-go-lucky. He views the world with the pessimism of a Russian novelist. The son of a Brisbane bricklayer, he bombed out of university to become a copper. His earnest conservatism comes from the gut instincts of a suburban upbringing and the racial tensions of being a police officer in Queensland; not from the anti-abortion bootcamps of Bob Santamaria, nor the sermons of Brian Houston.

“I am not the evangelical here, not out and proud on abortion,” Dutton told Niki Savva for her book Plots and Prayers. “I voted for gay marriage.”

Dutton hasn’t fabricated an identity based on feedback from focus groups. “ScoMo” spoke like a NIDA student’s idea of a Queenslander. “Dutts,” as mates call him, doesn’t strain for an ocker accent or drape himself in sporting paraphernalia. His persona? A sombre straightshooter. One tough hombre. The bad cop.”

Worth a read to get a clearer version of the man –  not sure how biased the author is, but Dutton is not generally presented as someone you would especially like, but maybe that’s not a handicap to future aspirations?

Blaine ends the essay with “Dutton wants a country where people don’t worry about the powerful and feel threatened by the defenceless…..This is Peter Dutton. Tall and strong at first glance. But when you watch him for a long time, you can see that the man is small and scared”.

Over the years, I’ve shared articles about Jelena Dokic, and have reviewed her first book ‘Unbreakable’, and generally had much respect for the way she has survived through so much personal and professional adversity. The following article I’ve copied for my Column as a further illustration, of why I’ve maintained that respect. Jelena, who is a former champion tennis player, was one of the principal commentators for the just completed Australian Open, a role she has performed admirably for a number of years now, both here and overseas.

The Age newspaper recently published an interview with Jelena by Australian renowned author, Peter Fitzsimons, and I’ve copied that interview to the Coachbuilder’s Column for the interest of readers.

Why I and so many others needed to apologise to Jelena Dokic –  a Story by Peter Fitzsimons  [as appeared in the Age newspaper, late January 2024]

Fitz: Jelena, congratulations on your successful transition from champion tennis player to the tennis media. Is there a particular commentator you like to emulate?

JD: Yes – Todd Woodbridge and Jim Courier. Todd, particularly, has been a massive influence on me, my friend for 15 years and a great mentor, and I certainly wouldn’t be here in a lot of areas post-tennis if it wasn’t for him, but especially in the commentary box and TV world.

Fitz: And did John McEnroe give you any advice?

JD: No! But I learnt from him. He’s very different. He’s obviously fun and likes to joke around and I actually like the way that he’s quiet, kind of easy going, and he just kind of goes with the flow as well. Everyone’s different: Jim, Todd, and John. But I’ve been able to learn from all of them and I still get very nervous, particularly when I am with John. I just have so much respect for him, and he is my idol of idols when it comes to reinventing yourself after being a tennis player.

Fitz: Most sports people who become commentators and stay around the game can’t help but compare the current crop with their own generation and wonder how they’d go against them. Do you look at the women’s game right now and then think, “I could clean them up”, or do you look at their generation and think, “They have taken the game to a level we weren’t even close to”?

JD: No, I don’t like to compare generations. I don’t think it’s fair. You know, I tried playing with a wooden racket and couldn’t get the ball over the net. It’s just a whole different ballgame and something that you can’t compare. And I think there’s amazing and wonderful players in all generations. I’m lucky that I played in the era of Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport and Kim Clijsters – and they’re all amazing champions.

Fitz: Did you form friendships with those players?

JD: Yes, and even though we don’t live in the same place, we stay in touch. And when I see them, it’s actually really nice now because there is no pressure and we have the best conversations ever.

Fitz: All of those players you mention won many grand slam events. In the 1999 Wimbledon championships you burst on the scene, beating world No.1, Martina Hingis 6-2, 6-0 as a 16-year-old qualifier – perhaps the biggest upset Wimbledon ever saw. Your glorious future was obvious. Do you have any regrets that one way or another, you didn’t end up winning Wimbledon or other majors?

JD: No. I think if you take into account my whole life experience both on and off the court and everything that I went through, to be honest, to have gotten as far as I did is quite an achievement. And I think when I look back, I am very, very lucky to have even survived and to be here today. After what I went through, I’ll take a grand slam semi-final in singles, a final in doubles, and No.4 in the world any day, because at one stage there was a real chance that I was not going to ever be able to live a normal life or even be here, so … no regrets. And especially because a lot of the things that did happen were out of my control. I was a child as well. I’m very proud of where I am today and how far I’ve come.

Fitz: On that subject, you’ve been extraordinarily open about the “mental, emotional and physical abuse” you received from your infamous father, Damir, from the age of six. His explosiveness was no secret. Did the tennis world do enough to protect you, to at least reach out and say, “Hey, Jelena, are you OK?”

JD: Look, I think that’s probably a question for others. Do I know people that definitely knew of things that were going on? Absolutely. Is it a very different world to what it is today, in terms of how we look at general child abuse and domestic violence? Absolutely. But look, that was the whole point of me writing my books and being open about it, to help someone else and to see what changes we can make. I never told my story to blame anyone. We didn’t have enough measures in place to protect kids like me. But we do now.

Fitz: But what of us in the media? I remember having many goes at Damir Dokic, and making merry at his expense, but not doing what we should have done, which was inquiring after your welfare.

JD: I do talk a little bit about the media because I just felt, at the time, they all did interviews with my father who was obviously very aggressive and drunk nine out of 10 times when he was doing interviews. And I just wish someone would have said, “Look, there are two underage kids going home with this person, and that’s not OK,” because my brother was eight years younger than me. And I wish maybe that there was a little bit more concern instead of making him a joke and a punch line. When my book, Unbreakable, came out, I can’t tell you how many journalists came to me personally and apologised, and I really appreciate that.

Fitz: Well, you have my apologies, too. If this is too painful, please ignore and we’ll move on, but when was the last contact you had with your father? And were you able to say, “What you did to me was totally unacceptable”?

JD: [Softly.] I last had contact about 10 years ago. And yeah, I even tried to reconcile with him once or twice … I think no matter what happens, you kind of hope that maybe you can kind of salvage a relationship when it comes to family. Those dynamics are always very difficult. But it’s very hard, when someone doesn’t have any remorse or can’t say sorry. In fact, what he says is that he would do it all again. So, for me, that is very, very hard. I had to make a cut and go, “I don’t need a toxic person or a toxic relationship in my life.”

Fitz: What about your mother and brother? Are you in contact with them?

JD: Yeah, I have a great relationship with my brother, which I’m really glad about because my father used my brother and weaponised our relationship – not allowing me to talk with him for about seven years, because he was so much younger than me. But yeah, today we have a wonderful relationship. We pretty much talk every day, and with my Mum as well. I’ve had some tough conversations with her because she was on my father’s side – but we’re in a good place today.

Fitz: Your mental strength is inspirational, and I also admire very much the way you stand up to trolls on social media. I was shocked, however, by the piece you wrote in the Herald last year, on how vicious those trolls are on body-shaming and so forth. Despite your mental strength, is it not wise for you just to stay away from social media and not read that toxic sludge?

JD: I could take that road. Absolutely. But I don’t want to. I want to be very open and honest. And I want to fight for things that are important – whether it’s domestic violence, child abuse, mental health, or trolling. The easiest thing would be to block the trolls, but why should I? I’m not hurting anyone. I’m not doing anything wrong. In fact, I try and use my platform for something good. So I wanted to take that toxicity on. I want to send the right message out there that we shouldn’t hide behind it every time we stay silent with abuse. It’s kind of like we were allowing it to happen. Silence is the worst thing that we can do when it comes to abuse.

Fitz: When you’re playing, your ambition was to win Wimbledon. What is your ambition now?

JD: Look, I am very content with where I am in my life and professionally. I just want to continue doing what I’m doing. I want to fight for the right things and really important issues in society. I want to be the best commentator I can possibly be, as well as doing a lot of public speaking. I want to continue that and continue spreading that message and continue trying to make a difference.

Fitz: I know I speak on behalf of everybody, Jelena, when I say that although life has dealt you a very strange deck of cards, you’re playing them wonderfully well. Good luck.

JD: Thank you so much.

@Peter_Fitz

[Age Editor’s note: this is an edited transcript of the conversation’.

Australians of the Year Awards for 2024

There were 8 nominees in each category of Award from each of the States & Territories

Melanoma treatment pioneers Georgina Long and Richard Scolyer have been named 2024 Australians of the Year.

Yalmay Yunupiŋu, Emma McKeon, and David Elliott were named winners in other categories. The winning nominees were announced at an awards ceremony in Canberra on Thursday night. More detail of the winnerts follows.

2024 Australians of the Year for New South Wales – Prof Georgina Long AO & Prof Richard Scolyer AO (Sydney)

Their work has already saved the lives of thousands of residents across the country from what is considered our “national cancer”. The pair then turned their treatment in a new direction when Scolyer, 57, was  diagnosed with incurable grade 4 brain cancer in June last year. He risked shortening his lifespan with an experimental treatment based on his and Long’s own work, becoming the world’s first brain cancer patient to have pre-surgery combination immunotherapy.  About eight months later, he has still not seen any recurrence of his incurable brain cancer. Chair of the National Australia Day Council John Foreman said the scientists represented the “very best” of the country.  “Georgina and Richard are leading work which is saving countless lives now and, thanks also to the personal commitment of Richard, will lead to an even more extraordinary impact on the health of people around the world in the future,” he said.

Other nominees were

2024 Australian of the Year for the Australian Capital Territory – Joanne Farrell (Canberra) – a champion for females in the construction industry.
2024 Australian of the Year for the Northern Territory – Blair McFarland (Alice Springs) – Central Australian Youth Link-Up Service founder
2024 Australian of the Year for Queensland – Marco Renai (Gold Coast) – Men of Business founder
2024 Australian of the Year for South Australia – Tim Jarvis AM (Hyde Park) – Environmental scientist and advocate Tim Jarvis is recognised for his work seeking solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss.
2024 Australian of the Year for Tasmania – Stephanie Trethewey (Dunorlan) – rural women’s advocate and Motherland founder 
2024 Australian of the Year for Victoria – Janine Mohamed (Gisborne) – Indigenous health leader
2024 Australian of the Year for Western Australia – Mechelle Turvey (Perth) – Mechelle Turvey is a Western Australian advocate for victims of crime. In 2022, her 15-year-old son Cassius Turvey was assaulted while coming home from school. The Noongar Yamatji boy died of his injuries 10 days later.

2024 SENIOR AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR

Yalmay Yunupiŋu of Yirrkala in the Northern Territory has been named the Senior Australian of the Year for her decades-long work as a teacher and linguist.

Ahead of her retirement last year, she guided teaching at Yirrkala Bilingual School.

She spent the years translating Dr Seuss books at the community library into her local Yolŋu Matha language.

She went on to develop a bilingual teaching approach with her late husband M. Yunupiŋu – of Yothu Yindi fame – and is still in constant demand for consultations, projects and her traditional healing work.

“Yalmay’s long dedication to the education of the Yolŋu people, her cultural stewardship and leadership as a natural teacher continues to bring communities together,” Foreman said. 

Yunupiŋu’s late husband was named the Australian of the Year in 1992.

Other nominees were

2024 Senior Australian of the Year for the Australian Capital Territory – Ebenezer Banful OAM (Canberra) – is  a volunteer and multiculturalism advocate. He arrived in Australia from Ghana more than three decades ago and has dedicated countless hours to helping others understand Ghanaian and African values, and spends much of his free time offering advice and assistance to newly arrived community members.
2024 Senior Australian of the Year for New South Wales – John Ward (Georgetown, Newcastle) – is dedicated to providing medical care for disadvantaged people and ageing Australians. He is the director of the Prison Medical Service and has provided care to inmates and advocated for prison reform.
2024 Senior Australians of the Year for Queensland – Reverend Robyn & Reverend Dr Lindsay Burch (Gold Coast) – who founded Gold Coast food charity Havafeed
2024 Senior Australian of the Year for South Australia – Sister Meredith Evans (Underdale) – Sister of Mercy 
2024 Senior Australian of the Year for Tasmania – Reverend James Colville AM (Bagdad) – who founded Tasmanian housing not-for-profit Colony 47.
2024 Senior Australian of the Year for Victoria – Glenys Oogjes (Heidelberg) – has been a quiet force behind historic changes in Australian animal policy.  She was one of the instigators behind the Australian Animal Welfare Strategy, and the Australian Animal Welfare Standards for Poultry, under which battery cages for egg-laying hens will be phased out across the country.

2024 Senior Australian of the Year for Western Australia – Charles Bass (Applecross) – Centre of Entrepreneurial Research and Innovation founder

2024 YOUNG AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR

2024 Young Australian of the Year for Queensland – Emma McKeon AM (Gold Coast)

Emma McKeon, the country’s most successful Olympian, was named this year’s Young Australian of the Year.

The Queenslander, 29, became the first female swimmer and the second woman in history to win seven medals in a single Olympics at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

She has also broken a host of Commonwealth Games, Olympic and world records.

“Emma shows us, with grace and humility, how commitment, hard work and passion can lead to greatness,” Foreman said.   “She is a true role model for all Australians, young and old, on how to pursue your dreams.”

McKeon became Australia’s most decorated Olympian before her 28th birthday, making her family of swimmers proud. Her father, uncle, brother and mother have all represented the country in the sport.

Other nominees

2024 Young Australian of the Year for the Australian Capital Territory – Caitlin Figueiredo (Canberra) – co-chair of the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition 
2024 Young Australian of the Year for New South Wales – Nikhil Autar (Voyager Point) – Researcher and disability advocate 
2024 Young Australian of the Year for the Northern Territory – Peter Susanto (Darwin) –  medical student and community volunteer,
2024 Young Australian of the Year for South Australia – Tiahni Adamson (Adelaide) – wildlife conservation biologist 
2024 Young Australian of the Year for Tasmania – Naarah (Glenorchy) – is an actor, musician and Indigenous activist. She uses social media to spark important conversations about First Nations identity, culture, and representation and advocates for a diverse entertainment industry.
2024 Young Australian of the Year for Victoria – Bhakta Bahadur Bhattarai (Wodonga) – was born and raised in a Bhutanese refugee camp in Nepal, and came to Australia with his family in 2012.  While he was studying, he founded the Albury Wodonga Multicultural Community Events Inc to foster care and connections in multicultural communities.

2024 Young Australian of the Year for Western Australia – Kate Kirwin (Perth) – founder of She Codes and women in STEM advocate

2024 AUSTRALIA’S LOCAL HERO

2024 Local Hero for Queensland – David Elliott OAM (Winton)
The co-founder of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, David Elliott has been named Australia’s Local Hero for his contributions to science, paleontology and tourism.

His chance discovery of a dinosaur fossil in outback Queensland in 1999 during a routine sheep mustering sent palaeontologists to the region to investigate.

He and his wife Judy would later co-found the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History in 2002 as a not-for-profit charity.

It has risen to become a popular tourist attraction and serves as a centre for the country’s paleontological research and discovery.

“David, an everyday Queensland pastoralist who discovered something extraordinary, has dedicated himself to sharing Australia’s dinosaur history and the importance of keeping regional Australia viable and sustainable,” Foreman said.

Other nominees

2024 Local Hero for the Australian Capital Territory – Selina Walker (Canberra) – co-chair of the ACT Reconciliation Council
2024 Local Hero for New South Wales – Angus Olsen (Katoomba) – illustrator and author who raises funds for childhood cancer research
2024 Local Hero for the Northern Territory – Witiyana Marika (Yirrkala) – musician and filmmaker he has spent his life celebrating and teaching his culture.  The Rirratjingu (Yolngu) Elder is best known as one of the founding members of famous rock band, Yothu Yindi, but has also worked across other musical projects, films and cross-cultural education.

2024 Local Hero for South Australia – Rachael Zaltron OAM (Ridgehaven) – Backpacks 4 SA Kids founder
2024 Local Hero for Tasmania – Clair Harris (Blackmans Bay) – founder of Tassie Mums
2024 Local Hero for Victoria – Betul Tuna (Shepparton) – co-founded the Point Of Difference  to support vulnerable and marginalised people in regional Victoria.She also co-founded the ‘Hijack’d’ mobile food van, which provides culturally-appropriate food and creates jobs for local young people.

2024 Local Hero for Western Australia – Nick Hudson (Wembley) – founded the push-up challenge to raise awareness and funds for mental health. He experienced depression after having surgery, and focused on making the challenge a public event, which has now raised over $40 million.

The other night on ABC TV, there was a fascinating little program titled ‘A Symphonic Odyssey with Professor Brian Cox.’, a program which took place at the Sydney Opera House early in December, last year. Those who attended, and TV viewers such as myself were invited to share and explore the secrets of the universe with the Professor, who combined groundbreaking science with the power of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra [SSO].

Through the latest extraordinary imagery [portrayed on a huge screen set up behind the orchestra] and some of greatest orchestral music ever written, Professor Cox examined astonishing cosmic ideas and created the links between cosmology and music, showing how both can teach us what it means to be human, and what it means to live in a small, finite life in a vast, spectacular universe. He basically suggested at the end, that despite all that mankind on earth has created and developed, in the total scheme of things at the universe level we are insignificant!  Or as noted in the ‘Guardian’ newspaper at one stage – ‘A jaw-dropping reminder that human life is both irrelevant and hugely precious’.

Who is Professor Cox?  Brian Edward Cox CBE FRS is an English physicist and musician who is a professor of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester and the Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science.   Brian is best known however as the ‘unofficial’ face of science in the UK, where he has hosted dozens of BBC programs and TV specials on everything from the solar system to the science of time. He has set world records with sell-out world tours, and through his ‘Horizons Tours’.

In describing the latter tour, we read that – “Horizons has taken over 250,000 people across three continents on a dazzling journey; a story of how we came to be and what we can become. Using state of the art screen technology, venues across the world from New Zealand to the Arctic Circle have been filled with images of far-away galaxies, alien worlds, supermassive black holes and the latest theories of the origin of the Universe.  What is the nature of space and time? How did life begin, how rare might it be and what is the significance of life in the Cosmos? What does it mean to live a small, finite life in a vast, eternal Universe? “

All of these aspects, and more were covered in some way or other by the Sydney Opera House presentation.

I’ve always found science in its many guises [in particular, science associated with the wider cosmic universe] a fascinating subject matter, while at the same time, admittedly having a lot of trouble understanding most of it. I studied science to the Form 4 level [Year 10 these days] in 1962, and while I admit now that my work effort in wanting to understand what I was been taught at the time was lacking, I’ve always regretted not trying a bit harder, and continuing on with that subject in later years.  With respect to astronomy and all of the scientific findings and discoveries in that area alone, I find it difficult to comprehend the size and complexity of the universe[s], and particularly the concepts when they start talking about millions of light years, eg, photos received of planets and stars which actually ceased to exist millions of years ago!!! In fact, at times I find it difficult to comprehend a period of just 60,000 years [in comparison to cosmic timelines] when we are thinking of the longevity of our original Australians and their time on this continent!!

[Perhaps further expressing my ‘ignorance’,  the other night I watched for the first time the movie ‘2001 Space Odyssey’ – I’d often played the music from that film on my radio shows, but never seen the movie – until now – and while I guess it was made in the early days of that kind of film, I wasn’t sure afterwards if I’d  really understood where the movie was going, or where it got to??  No doubt many of you can ridicule for that impression!!  So be it!!]

Anyway, back to the Opera House performance  –  and also noting one statement that came across during Professor Cox’s address was that   “The arts have a really crucial role to play in actually communicating complex ideas.”

The music provided by the SSO was  intended to provide a calming and moderating mood for the audience, following different parts of the address by Professor Cox   –  which he delivered for an hour without notes, but accompanied by a series of beautiful photos taken over the years from various international space telescopes etc  –  portrayals of exploding galaxies, dying stars, black holes in creation, with sundry other depictions and the stories behind them,  often quite frightening in nature, so much so, that the music presented at each break in the talk, had just that aim –  to provide a calming and safe environment, to encourage the audience to stay around and keep listening to the Professor [and I think it succeeded in that aim]!

Together with the Professor, the musical artists were of course the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Northey, with guest soprano soloist, Jess Hitchcock, while the classical music presented as as complement to the verbal address was:

SIBELIUS Symphony No.5: 3rd Movement
WESTLAKE Missa Solis – Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger)
MAHLER Symphony No.5: 4th Movement, Adagietto
STRAUSS Thus Spoke Zarathustra [the music from this composition featured quite prominently throughout the program].

On another matter, while thinking of things viewed on TV, I was touched by a movie on one of the SBS channels the other night, titled  ‘Hachi, a Dog’s Tale’ – a story of a dog’s lifelong loyalty to its master, for some years after that master died suddenly.  The original film told the true story of the Akita dog named Hachiko who lived in Japan in 1923-1935. This film was an American adaptation of that story, and was set in 1985.

Hachi: A Dog’s Tale is a moving film about loyalty and the rare, invincible bonds that occasionally form almost instantaneously in the most unlikely places. College professor Parker Wilson (Richard Gere) finds a young Akita puppy that’s been abandoned at the local train station, and he’s instantly captivated by the dog. Assuming the dog’s owner will return to the train station to claim him in the morning, Parker takes the puppy home overnight. But when no one comes to get the dog, Parker convinces his wife, Cate (Joan Allen), to welcome him as part of the family. He dubs the puppy Hachiko–Hachi, for short–because of the Japanese symbol for good luck that’s hanging from his collar. Hachi is a somewhat peculiar dog that refuses to learn to fetch or master other people-pleasing tricks, but he is a faithful companion and friend to Parker, alerting him of potential dangers and accompanying him to the train station each morning and meeting him there after his return trip each evening.  As their bond grows deeper, a beautiful relationship unfolds embodying the true spirit of family and loyalty, while inspiring the hearts of an entire town.

 An unforeseen event will continually test Hachi’s devotion, and for the rest of the dog’s life [suggested at 10 years] it will continually return to the train station waiting for its master to return. Prepare to be moved to tears by this beautiful, seemingly simple film—described as been about  so much more than just the relationship between a man and his dog….[and move to tears it certainly did]

A bit of lighter reading this period interspersed with a couple of more serious publications. In summary form:

• The Perfect Wife by Katherine Scholes;
• Black Sheep by Judy Nunn;
• Colonial’s Son by Peter Watt;
• Call of Empire by Peter Watt;
• Quarterly Essay No. 92: The Great Divide: Australia’s Housing Mess & How to Fix it by Alan Kohler;
• The Naturalist of Amsterdam by Melissa Ashley;
• Killers of the Flower moon by David Grann; and,
• Labyrinth by Kate Mosse.

14^th November 2023

‘The Perfect Wife’ by Katherine Scholes, published in 2013;  473 pages.  Read over a couple of days, another enjoyable and interesting read by this African born author, now residing in Australia – a easy read, less strenuous than some of the books I’ve read recently

Another historical fiction novel set in Africa, as I think are most of her other books. Unless there has been a recent publication, there is only one more of her novels I need to obtain.

From the broad general synopsis – A breathtaking story about duty and desire, and about following your heart, wherever in the world it may lead you.  Kitty Hamilton arrives in Tanganyika with high hopes for her new life. An exciting adventure halfway across the world could be just what she and Theo need to recover from the scandal that almost tore them apart.  But in this wild and foreign land, her dreams soon begin to unravel. And there is much more at stake than her quest to be a perfect wife. As old wounds resurface and new passions ignite, Kitty and Theo confront emotions that push them beyond the boundaries of all that they know and believe in.

Katherine Scholes was born in Tanzania, East Africa, the daughter of a missionary doctor and an artist. She has fond memories of travelling with her parents and three siblings on long safaris to remote areas where her father operated a clinic from his Land Rover. When she was ten, the family left Tanzania, moving first to England and then settling permanently in Tasmania. As an adult, Katherine moved to Melbourne with her film-maker husband. The two worked together for many years, writing books and making films. They have now returned to Tasmania, where they live on the edge of the sea with their two sons. Katherine is the author of eight novels, all of which I have and Have read, except for one  –   : The Rain Queen, Make Me An Idol, The Stone Angel, The Hunter’s Wife and The Lioness, plus The Perfect Wife, and Congo Dawn as of 2017. Published in 2020 –  ‘The Beautiful Mother’, still to be purchased.

22^nd November 2023

‘Black Sheep: There’s one in every family..’  by Judy Nunn, published in 2023, 502 pages. 

Anyone who has read and enjoyed any of Australian author, Judy Nunn’s books, will have probably noticed the reviews, etc, relating to her latest novel – ‘Black Sheep’  Another interesting storyline from Nunn which I thoroughly enjoyed, except for the finish – I felt it ended ‘up in the air’ – unanswered questions!! Or at least one specific subject, relating to a theme which seemed to raise it’s head at various points of the story, to such an extent, that this reader was left with some anticipation as to the eventual outcome – yet it faded into oblivion at the sudden end of the story. Perhaps a subtle hint that there might be a sequel? I would be interested to know if any other readers were left with that ‘hole’ from the reading, without my actually revealing what it was I felt was missing! 🙂
Apart from that point, the storyline, together with the historical aspects of both rural life [sheep farming communities in particular] and that of inner Sydney in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s, and Australia’s participation in WW I, allied with the way those aspects were incorporated into the lives of the novel’s characters, I thoroughly enjoyed, being another pleasant sojourn into a touch of ‘lighter’ reading.

As a general synopsis: from ‘Better Reading’

Judy Nunn knows how to deliver a historical blockbuster. Black Sheep is Nunn’s hugely anticipated new novel. It’s a sweeping family saga about a prosperous sheep-farming family and the enigmatic young man they let into their lives. This is historical fiction at its best, pulling on the heartstrings whilst creating a vivid setting that transports us back to another era.  In Black Sheep, we follow the story of two friends brought together by fate and their shared secrets. The action moves from the Shearing Wars of Queensland to the exclusive gentlemen’s clubs of Sydney, Melbourne and London; from the woolsheds of Goulburn to the trenches of the Western Front. Nunn weaves place through this story like she’s sitting right there on the doorstep of history herself. Into these meticulously crafted eras she introduces her main characters, as well as a cast of extras who are as well-rounded as their leads.

Orphaned at sixteen, James Wakefield was determined to be a gun shearer just like his dad. Only his path is not a smooth one; he’s killed twice, changed his name and ended up on the run from the law. But fate steps in in the form of Ben McKinnon, heir to the vast Glenfinnan sheep property near Goulburn. Ben has a secret of his own, one that would shatter the privileged lives of his father and sisters if it were to come out. These two form an unlikely yet powerful friendship and become the keeper of each other’s secret.

When Ben takes his friend back to his family’s sheep station, the drama and intrigue builds as the family saga plays out. Has James finally found the family he’s always longed for? Or has the McKinnon dynasty unwittingly adopted a black sheep?

Nunn’s career has been as multifaceted as the novels she began writing back in the ‘90s, after many successful years as an actor and scriptwriter. She’s a master at bringing Australian history to life. Nunn excels at merging fact with fiction, evident in her long list of previous bestsellers such as Showtime!, Khaki Town and Spirits of the Ghan. All of these deliver a pitch-perfect combination of page-turning drama, relatable characters, and real historical events.

Nunn says that while her latest release, Black Sheep, is ostensibly about the breeding of fine Merino sheep, it’s really more about the genetic strains of those humans who are breeding them. It’s a ‘good seed, bad seed’ story set on a sheep station but with a big twist – and we are all there for it! Nunn once again shows why she’s considered one of Australia’s great storytellers.

26^th November 2023

 ‘Colonial’s Son’ by Peter Watt, published in 2021, 367 pages, the 4^th of the Colonial series

As always, a wonderful mix of history and fiction – of particular interest, the sections dealing with the Palmer River [in Queensland] and the gold rushes of that area and era  – centred on C19th Australia, Europe, London, Afghanistan and onto the battlefield of Kandahar [India].

As a brief precis – As the son of ‘the Colonial’, legendary Queen’s Captain Ian Steele, Josiah Steele has big shoes to fill. Although his home in the colony of New South Wales is a world away, he dreams of one day travelling to England so he can study to be a commissioned officer in the Scottish Regiment. After cutting his teeth in business on the rough and ready goldfields of Far North Queensland’s Palmer River, he finally realises his dream and travels to England, where he is accepted into the Sandhurst military academy. While in London he makes surprising new acquaintances – and runs into a few old ones he’d rather have left behind.  From the Australian bush to the glittering palaces of London, from the arid lands of Afghanistan to the newly established Germany dominated by Prussian ideas of militarism, Josiah Steele must now forge his own path.

As described by the Canberra Weekly, Peter Watt – ‘Australia’s master of the historical fiction novel’ –  I first came across his books, when he was a guest of the Sunbury Library at a reading session I attended many years ago. Have read all of his published books since that day.

I reviewed the first three books in this series in the Coachbuilder’s Column in recent years.

The author, Peter Watt  has been a soldier, articled clerk to a solicitor, prawn trawler deckhand, builder’s labourer, pipe layer, real estate salesman, private investigator, police sergeant and adviser to the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary. He has lived and worked with Aborigines, Islanders, Vietnamese and Papua New Guineans and speaks, reads and writes Vietnamese and Pidgin. He now lives at Maclean, on the Clarence River in northern New South Wales. He is a volunteer firefighter with the Rural Fire service, and is interested in fishing and the vast opens spaces of outback Queensland.

30^th November 2023

 ‘Call of Empire’ by Peter Watt, published in 2022, 352 pages – another enthralling story by this author – the 5^th book in the Colonial Series [and a direct follow-on from the book reviewed above], and judging by the ending pages, possibly at least one more to come. Watt’s usual wonderful mix of fiction and history – not just within Australia, but various conflicts in the latter part of the 1800s around the world, as noted in the following broad review of the book [from the book cover, and various publishers and suppliers].

‘It is 1885. After a decade spent fighting for Queen and Country across the globe, Colonel Ian Steele is enjoying the quiet life in the colony of New South Wales, reunited with his friend Conan Curry and watching over his children and numerous business enterprises. But the British Empire’s pursuits are ceaseless, and when the colony’s soldiers are required to assist a campaign in Sudan, North Africa, Ian’s son Lieutenant Josiah Steele heeds the call, despite an ultimatum from the love of his life, Marian. Meanwhile, Ian’s younger son Samuel is learning the family business in the Pacific islands with his friend and colleague Ling Lee. However, Lee has become embroiled in a scheme to smuggle guns for the Chinese, which sees the pair sailing directly into danger in Singapore. As the reign of Queen Victoria draws to a close and new battles loom on several frontiers, the Steele family must face loss and heartbreak like never before.

A couple of individual comments , which illustrate my feelings of encouragement to learn more about the different conflicts referred to.

• This book was excellent. Although its number 5 in the series it can easily be read as a standalone. The book moves at a medium pace and is easy to keep up with the story. Peter Watts writing style is easy to read and he is an exceptional storyteller. The chapters in the book are short and set in different countries all over the world. It starts in 1885 and involves different wars.  I connected mainly with the father and his two sons as they are the main characters in the storyline. The characters involved in this book were from the same families but different generations.
• What a brilliant saga, from the first book to the fifth. Memorable characters – men and women behaving well and behaving badly – plenty of globe-spanning action and intrigue, and a wonderful glimpse into Australia’s colonial past.
• Another in the colonial series. I did enjoy the call backs to earlier books, particularly where our protagonists are at fault. An interesting read about some of the conflicts Australians have been involved in that don’t necessarily get the media attention.
• Excellent read covering the formation of Australia and early deployment of Australian troops. Entertaining to the end.

8^th December, 2023

Quarterly Essay No. 92: The Great Divide: Australia’s Housing Mix and How to Fix It by Alan Kohler. today.

One of the great mysteries of Australian life is that a land of sweeping plains, with one of the lowest population densities on the planet, has a shortage of land for houses. As a result, Sydney is the second most expensive place to buy a house on Earth, after Hong Kong.

The escalation in house prices is a pain that has altered Australian society; it has increased inequality and profoundly changed the relationship between generations – between those who have a house and those who don’t. It has caused a rental crisis, a dearth of public housing and a mortgage crunch.

Things went seriously wrong at the start of the twenty-first century, when there was a huge and permanent rise in the price of housing. In this crisp, clarifying and forward-looking essay, Alan Kohler tells the story of how we got into this mess – and how we might get out of it

Written  by Alan Kohler, and while some of the charts and graphs sometimes got beyond my comprehension, the general content was highly informative, and interesting. Some readers will be familiar with Alan Kohler, who among other attributes [including former editors of the Age, and the Australian Financial Review], presents the finance report on the weeknight ABC news bulletins

As recorded on the back cover of the Essay  – 

‘The growth in the value of Australian land has fundamentally changed society, in two ways. First, generations of young Australians are being held back financially by the cost of shelter, especially if they live somewhere near a CBD and especially in Sydney or Melbourne; and second, the way wealth is generated has changed. Education and hard work are no longer the main determinants of how wealthy you are; now it comes down to where you live and what sort of house you inherit from your parents. It means Australia is less of an egalitarian meritocracy’

One of a number of solutions that Alan Kohler  proposes in the Essay,  relates to attention to a fast rail network in Australia –  not so much between the capital cities [which has been, and still is in the ‘pipeline’ for decades], but between their CBDs and regional cities and centres. He is talking about where people are forced to live in relation to where they work.

He writes: “At the moment the viable commuting distance in Australia is no more than 50 kilometres, because the trains are slow and traffic is a nightmare even on expensive toll roads. This can involve a commute of an hour and a half. The fact that most people want to crowd into that fifty-kilometre radius, and that it consists of mostly single dwellings on large blocks of land, is the fundamental cause of Australia’s unaffordable housing……..Unless there is a big and unlikely increase in the density of housing within 50 kilometres of the CBD, the commuting radius needs to extend to 100 to 200 kilometres. To make that happen, commuter trains need to travel 150 kilometres an hour, and preferably 200 kilometres per hour, so there can be a few stops while keeping the travel time to an hour……To be a housing affordability solution, high-speed rail needs to radiate inland from the CBD, as well as up and down the coast. Specifically, commuters need to be able to live in Bathurst, 200 kilometres  from the Sydney CBD and currently a four hour train journey, and get to work in the city within an hour.  Or Bendigo, 150 kilometres from Melbourne. Or Toowoomba, 125 kilometres from Brisbane, which currently takes two hours on the train”. ……..All the talk about a lot more medium-density housing  is just that – talk. It will never actually happen. What’s needed is transport infrastructure”

Kohler goes on to say that –

“There has been talk of fast trains in Australia for about forty years, but the discussion has always been about fast train travel between capital cities to replace air travel, not within the cities to extend them. And even on that subject, Australia has been left standing at the platform. There are now about 60,000 kilometres of high-speed rail in the world…..and there’s a lot more coming……None of them are or will be in Australia……which has stuck with cars and planes. The result is expensive housing.” 

So why are there no fast trains in Australia:

Kohler suggests that  “Transport infrastructure in Australia is controlled by the airlines and the toll-road operators, but no-one rich and powerful is pushing trains, and the projects that are put up are either too ambitious, not ambitious enough or ambitious in the wrong way”.

[Extract from Quarterly Essay 92].

Incidentally, QE 91, the previous essay, provided an excellent expose and personal experience, of the present state of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, written by a ‘recipient’ under NDIS, Micheline Lee, who has lived with a motor neurone disability since birth. Both Essays well worth a read to gain a detailed understanding of both topics.

12^th December

While the subject matter may not appeal to everyone, this book is the beautifully written The Naturalist of Amsterdam, by Melissa Ashley, published in 2023, 393 pages: for someone interested in the natural world, this is based on an historical story of exploration and research, in an age of discovery as naturalists raced to discover the secrets of the world.  Centred in Amsterdam at the turn of the C18th –  where that city is at the centre of that intellectual revolution by artists and scientists seeking the wonders of the natural world.

Of all brilliant naturalists in Europe at the time, Maria Sibylla Merian is one of its brightest stars, and it is she about whom this book is centred.

As per the book description –  ‘From the jungles of South America to the bustling artists’ studios of Amsterdam, Melissa Ashley charts an incredible period of discovery. With stunning lyricism and immaculate research, The Naturalist of Amsterdam gives voice to the long-ignored women who shaped our understanding of the natural world – both the artists and those who made their work possible’

From the author’s words  – “Maria Sibylla Merian was an extraordinary woman: a naturalist, artist, entrepreneur, and claimed by some scholars as the very first ecologist…………..The range of expertise required by Merian and her daughters [and one in particular, Dorothea who attempted to carry on her mother’s work after her death] to create her opus [The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname’] was vast: sketching, composition and watercolour painting; etching and engraving; field observations and laboratory investigations; teaching and operating a successful business, and so much more…”

17^th December.

Of a very different subject, and genre, and written six years ago is Killers of the Flower Moon’ by David Grann, published in 2017, 339 pages  –  again, meticulously researched  over many years, to create a narrative of non-fiction, set in Oklahoma in the 1920s.  A story of oil, money, murder, and the creation of the FBI.

In Osage County, on land which had been allocated to the Osage Indians, oil was subsequently discovered beneath that land, resulting in the Indian population suddenly owning untold wealth. But then, one by one, they began to be killed off as the white population in the area tried to gain control of that wealth. Collusion, cover-ups and corruption within most sections of the non-Indian populace, would mean many of those murders would never be able to be attributed to a particular individual. When the FBI eventually took up the case, they began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.

While as revealed in the book, convictions were eventually made relating to some of those murders, the case has never really closed, and in the end, dozens if not hundreds of murders would never be solved  –  as the author reports in the closing sections:  “While researching the murders, I often felt as though I was chasing history even as it was slipping away..” That outcome was despite extensive investigations and research, even up until just prior to the book’s publication. In a note to the sources, the author writes that “This book is based extensively on primary and unpublished materials. They include thousands of pages of FBI files, secret grand jury testimony, court transcripts, informants’ statements, logs from private eyes, pardon and parole records, private correspondence, an unpublished manuscript co-authored by one of the detectives, diary entries, Osage Tribal Council records, oral histories, field reports from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, congressional records, Justice Department memos and telegrams, crime scene photographs, wills and last testaments,  and the murderers’ confessions…”

The author writes on page 286 – “In cases where perpetuators of crimes against humanity elude justice in their time, history can often provide at least some final accounting, forensically documenting the murders and exposing the transgressors. Yet so many of the murders of the Osage were so well concealed that such an outcome is no longer possible. In most cases, the families of the victims have no sense of resolution…”

25^th December

‘Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, published in 2005; 708 plus pages –  I began reading this book a couple of years ago, came back to it in recent days. It is set in two time periods – July 1209 in Carcassonne [old France], and July 2005, in the French Pyrenees.

An interesting story – I sometimes found the switching back and forth between periods a little annoying, in a  story described by the promotors  as an action-packed adventure of modern conspiracy and medieval passion, set in France, covering a period or gap of 798 years.

In the Pyrenees mountains near Carcassonne, Alice, a volunteer at an archaeological dig, stumbles into a cave and makes a startling discovery-two crumbling skeletons, strange writings on the walls, and the pattern of a labyrinth.

Eight hundred years earlier, on the eve of a brutal crusade that will rip apart southern France, a young woman named Alais is given a ring and a mysterious book for safekeeping by her father. The book, he says, contains the secret of the true Grail, and the ring, inscribed with a labyrinth, will identify a guardian of the Grail. Now, as crusading armies gather outside the city walls of Carcassonne, it will take a tremendous sacrifice to keep the secret of the labyrinth safe.

In summary:

July 1209: in Carcassonne, a seventeen-year-old girl is given a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the true Grail. Although Alaïs cannot understand the strange words and symbols hidden within, she knows that her destiny lies in keeping the secret of the labyrinth safe…
July 2005: Alice Tanner discovers two skeletons in a forgotten cave in the French Pyrenees. Puzzled by the labyrinth symbol carved into the rock, she realises she’s disturbed by something that was meant to remain hidden.
Somehow, a link to a horrific past – her past – has been revealed.

I was just thinking the other day that there is too much international cricket being played these days, with barely a week passing that some other tournament is underway, so often involving India.

Subsequently, I found the following article from the Sydney Morning Herald of interest, written by Daniel Brettig, on the 24^th November, following on from the just completed World Cup of One Day Cricket.

I thought it was worthwhile copying and sharing the full article by Daniel,  on these pages.

‘Cricket’s greatest obstacle is not an outdated format. It is the proliferation of meaningless matches in any form.

One-day cricket was seen, in the lead-up to the World Cup, as the problem area for the game. Lacking the longevity of Tests or the frisson of Twenty20, ODI games appeared to be caught hopelessly in the middle – or so the perceptions were.

But if Australia’s World Cup victory in Ahmedabad proved anything other than the greatness of the current team, it was that 50-over cricket has many enduring virtues, provided it is played in matches with genuine meaning.

As he often does, captain Pat Cummins distilled the value of the cup win beautifully in the moments after accepting the trophy from India’s nonplussed Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.

“Every international team comes together,” Cummins said. “You only get a shot at it every four years. Even if you have a 10-year career, you might only get two chances at it. The whole cricket world stops with this World Cup. So it doesn’t get any better.”

Cummins’ generation, and those of the other competing teams, grew up watching 50-over games at World Cups and elsewhere. For that reason, it was telling to hear Cummins speak of the challenge they provide with the sort of affection once used exclusively by players when talking about Tests.

This is not just nostalgia. It comes from the same place as the admiration for Tests, namely in terms of how the format pushes players and identifies the best practitioners. Tests do so more readily than ODIs, but ODIs are also truer indicators than T20.

The physicality and mental strength of players is tested by a one-day game: Greg Chappell and Aaron Finch are two former captains who have each said they sapped more energy than other forms. Australia’s committed fielding across 50 overs, at the end of such a long year of overseas trials, was as clear a marker of champion status as batting or bowling.

It is also harder to “hide” in ODI matches. The allocation of 10 overs to each bowler allows for multiple spells of varying rhythms, and batters need to be able to play at more than one speed. Two of the best knocks of the cup were by Travis Head in the final, but also by South Africa’s David Miller in the semi. Each had to absorb pressure before returning fire.

Thirdly, the history of ODIs provides a genuine marker point for successive generations to prove themselves. Head joined Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Aravinda de Silva, Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist as centurions in a men’s World Cup final.

If Ponting and Gilchrist were both proven great players by the time they made their bows, Head’s career arc is closer in line with Lloyd, Richards or de Silva. Spectators at Lord’s in 1975 and 1979, then Lahore in 1996, did not yet know how good they might become, but the finals provided a fairly good idea.

All that said, the problem for all of cricket’s formats lies in the space between big events. The game’s economy is largely run from the broadcast money reaped by bilateral events. In most cases, it comes down to how often India tour another country and what that tour is worth to the hosts.

Australia’s current T20 series in India is an obligatory one for Cricket Australia to pay back India for playing matches on these shores. But there is no meaning whatsoever to the games beyond the broadcast arithmetic.

Similarly, the white-ball series to be played against the West Indies – who failed to qualify for the World Cup – in February will have very little contextual resonance, even though the games are still valuable in terms of CA’s broadcast deal with Foxtel. Bilateral ODI matches have been paywalled in Australia since 2018, further limiting their audience size.

Context is not necessarily a new issue. Many will point to the “golden era” of white-ball games where the World Series Cup dominated every January: Michael Bevan’s night of nights in Sydney in 1996 stands as the single most indelible memory. White-ball triangular series also filled stadiums from Sharjah to Singapore.

But don’t forget that those series were the epicentre of cricket’s match-fixing epidemic in the 1990s – a scandal that really could have put world cricket on its knees through the loss of credibility. Meaningless games make for all manner of troubles.

Last week, CA’s chief executive Nick Hockley and chair Mike Baird went to India with the goal of regenerating discussion about reinstating an ODI league between World Cups, turning those series into qualifying matches with wider context.

At the same time, the BCCI remade the case to stick with the current 10-team format for the World Cup. Ostensibly this is because it will mean more guaranteed matches for India, and therefore more broadcast rights value for the International Cricket Council’s main rights holders Star Sports, soon to be sold by Disney to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries.

But in the exhausted satisfaction of Cummins and company, another argument could be made for its retention. Unlike in other cup formats, Australia had been forced to play, and beat, every team in the tournament to win the trophy.

To do so successfully provided a reminder that ODI cricket is not the problem child many around the game have perceived. Just keep it meaningful, and the game played over 100 overs in a single day can have a future just as long as Test matches.’ [Daniel Brettig, Sydney Morning Herald]

Regarding ‘Killing For Country: A Family Story’, by David  Marr, published in 2023 by Black Inc; 468 pages

First published in 1991, David Marr’s massive biography of Australia’s Nobel Prize winning author, Patrick White [over 727 pages] was a fascinating if not time-consuming read. Marr’s written much since then, but I think in 2023, he has exceeded all previous achievements with his latest contribution.

That publication, titled “Killing For Country: A Family Story”, is a book which I believe every Australian should read, but which Marr himself suggested in a recent TV interview, that if you don’t want to hear about what our ancestors did to the Aboriginal people of Australia in the colonial period of the 1800’s and beyond, then ‘don’t read my book’!! If that concerns you, perhaps don’t read any further here, either!

As Richard King wrote in a recent edition of the ‘Weekend Australian’, the book, while “Modestly described as a ‘family story’, it is in fact as solid a work of history as one could hope to find on the shelves….Marr brings the same forensic approach to this narrative of the frontier wars as he did to his celebrated biography of Patrick White, to his monographs of Tony Abbott and George Pell, and to his indispensable account of the Tampa/Children Overboard affair and Pacific Solution, Dark Victory. It is a magnificent achievement, and a necessary intervention on a subject that still divides Australia: the violent dispossession of its native people”.

It’s also a book with a very personal taste to it. Prior to and during his research and writing ‘David Marr was shocked to discover that some of his own forebears served with the brutal Native Police during the bloodiest years on the frontier, hence the sub-title of a family story!

This contribution aims to include some ‘quotations’ from the book [most of which are tragic and heart-rending] as examples of many of the instances the writer refers to.  Initially however, allow me to quote David Marr’s own thoughts, as they appear in his closing chapter. The book arose partially from the discovery that his great grandmother’s father served with the Native Police, and he and his contemporaries’ figure prominently throughout the story, little of it favourably.  Marr’s words are worth reflecting upon because quite likely there are many Australian families of today’s generations, whose ancestral backgrounds go back to those times and people, but the stories associated with those connections, have not been passed down through the family generations since, perhaps for obvious reasons!!

From pages 408-409, as Marr writes

“We can be proud of our families for things done generations ago. We can also be ashamed. I feel no guilt for what Reg did. But I can’t argue away the shame that overcame me when I first saw that photograph of Sub-Inspector Uhr in his pompous uniform. I checked with Wikipedia. The Native Police were exactly who I thought they were. Wikipedia even had thumbnail accounts of Reg’s and D’arcy’s massacres. I pulled from my shelves everything I had on the frontier wars. The brothers were there but I hadn’t made the connection. It embarrasses me now to have been reporting race and politics in this country for so long without it ever crossing my mind that my family might have played a part in the frontier wars. My blindness was so Australian.

There are many of us descendants of the Native Police. The 442 officers and 927 troopers who served in its ranks over half a century bred many hundreds of families. Because I made no secret of what I was writing over the last few years, people have told me of their own murdering ancestors. Some were in the Native Police. Others were squatters. One was a magistrate. The great-great-grandfather of a colleague of mine poisoned two dozen men and women on the Clarence River in New South Wales in the 1840s. She will tell that story one day. [Poisoning became a cheaper option than expending time and money on bullets!! Groups of Aboriginals would be invited to share a meal, which included flour laced with arsenic!].

I have been asked how I could bear to write this book. It is an act of atonement, of penance by storytelling. But I wasn’t wallowing in my own shame. None of us are free of this past. James Boyce told me: ‘Men like D’arcy become a part of the story that we are ALL implicated in. His deeds are our responsibility, his legacy belongs to us all’. My links to the Uhr brothers made the obligation to come to grips with this past personal. For a man of my trade, the outcome was obvious – I had to write their story.

What began as an account of the bloody exploits of the brothers turned into a history of an invasion in which they were foot soldiers. I was drawn into the worlds of sheep, money, merchants, the press, the church, the law and London’s imperial cowardice. I was intrigued by the shadowy forms of today’s politics emerging from the frontier wars – particularly the still potent belief in many quarters that the Aboriginal people deserve nothing for the continent they lost. Polls show hostility is strongest where most blood was shed [Queensland]. Despising those we have wronged is another way we humans have of dealing with our shame.

But these investigations always led me back to the killings and unaccountable victims from Maryborough [Qld] to the Cape, across the Gulf, into the Territory and down to the West Australian goldfields. There were days at my desk I was ambushed by dread and disgust. I tried as best I could to stick to the promise I made myself at the start – no excuses.”

In a review of Marr’s book, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald on the 4^th October, Frank Bongiorno [Professor of History at the Australian National University] notes that in reading the book, he “was sometimes reminded of Robert Hughes’ study of convict transportation, The Fatal Shore (1987), in the epic quality of this book. And as Marr occasionally reminds us, he is traversing some of the territory also travelled by Judith Wright, in her admired family histories of colonisation. Like that great poet’s writing last century, which contributed to the reappraisal of the darker aspects of Australia’s history, Killing For Country is a timely exercise in truth-telling amid a disturbing resurgence of denialism’.

That review by Bongiorno is worth highlighting in full, as it provides an excellent synopsis of Marr’s story-telling.

As Bongiorno writes:

“In the early years of this century, Keith Windschuttle produced two volumes of a projected trilogy, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, which became central to the history wars of the era. The first, published in 2002, purported to show that the colonisation of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) was a relatively peaceful affair. The numbers killed in frontier violence, he argued, were far fewer than historians had claimed. Volume three in the trilogy claimed to demonstrate that the Stolen Generations were a myth. Oddly, no volume two has ever appeared. As a result, we have never been allowed to see how Windschuttle might go about proving that the notorious Queensland frontier, or, for that matter, the blood-soaked estates of the other mainland colonies, were tranquil places where God-fearing colonists attached to British law and order established their sheepwalks and cattle runs without much bloodshed.

David Marr’s powerful Killing For Country: A Family Story might help explain, as well as to fill, this apparent gap. Marr’s account is a relentless exposé of the violence at the heart of the colonisation of Australia. It is also something of a family saga: Marr is a descendant of the migrants on which the book focuses, the Uhr family.

Their Australian career unfolded mainly under the patronage of a sticky-fingered emigrant merchant, pastoralist, politician and philanthropist, Richard Jones. Jones engaged a brother-in-law, Edmund Uhr, in helping him to expand his pastoral holdings. With ambition that well and truly outstripped his ability, Uhr later ran – badly – a sheep boiling-down works in Maryborough, served as a magistrate, and ended up as Sergeant-at-Arms of the Queensland Parliament.

Killing Aboriginal people became a family business when Reg, Edmund’s son, established a career as an officer in the Native Mounted Police. Younger brother D’arcy, also in this force for a time, and rather more wild and more famous, was celebrated as a cheeky and hard-living larrikin of the type Australians are said to love. A compulsive liar, aggressive racist and serial killer, he was responsible over many decades for murders of Indigenous people in Queensland’s Gulf country, the Northern Territory, and the Western Australian goldfields.

Land-grabbing and its corollary, the massacre of Indigenous people, provided the unifying theme of this family’s early history. There must be many Australians who have such stories in their genealogy. They, like the rest of us who have inherited this history, will recently have heard from Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price that, far from having suffered from colonisation, Indigenous people have it to thank for benefits such as running water. Those being killed in their tens of thousands in frontier warfare would not have been aware of such advantages, even if they had been invited to consider them before they were shot.

Marr shows that colonists evolved a discreet system for clearing Aboriginal people from their land through slaughter without incurring serious risk of interference by the authorities. Indeed, the vague instructions issued by British-appointed governors and, later, elected colonial governments about what was and was not permissible gave something close to carte blanche to white vigilantes and Aboriginal “police” charged with keeping order.

The latter were usually recruited from distant places such as the southern colonies, so that they would be as foreign to the Aboriginal people of Queensland as the white colonisers who had hired them. The violence was often extreme and fuelled by the “spoils” that the Native Police, in essence a military force, gained from their efforts, such as access to women.David Marr has uncovered a huge amount of evidence. The recruitment of other Aboriginal men to do this dirty work also gave white officers an alibi should the killing be questioned by their superiors. They could allow the Aboriginal men under their command to kill freely in the bush and then obfuscate about what had gone on. That killing did not only happen in the backblocks: Marr details a chilling massacre in the town of Maryborough itself, in plain sight of residents. There was, as usual, no punishment for the perpetrators.

Marr suggests that after the Myall Creek massacre of 1838, that saw the execution of some of the killers of Aboriginal women and children, colonists adapted. Some turned to poisoning, which would be nearly impossible to trace and punish. Colonists also became more discreet, establishing what Marr calls “a curious but brutally effective omertá … a code that let so much be written in the papers about massacres but saw nothing done about them in the courts”.

“Dispersal” was a favourite euphemism, but colonial scribes were masters of evasion. It is chilling to read the offhand way a contemporary could refer to police having “inflicted punishment on the savages in the usual manner.”

Marr has uncovered a vast array of evidence of this killing in a monumental research effort. He has made excellent use of the richness of colonial newspapers, now accessible via the National Library of Australia’s superb Trove database. These are often surprisingly revealing of frontier violence. Marr’s archival research is also deep, and he has been assiduous in working with family and local researchers, as well as historical societies and regional archives. He is familiar with all the major historical and archaeological research. It is a fabulous feat of scholarship.  This evidence is brought to life by one of the country’s most accomplished non-fiction writers” [Frank Bongiorno, 4^th October 2023]

Finally, a selection of quotations from the book, which only give a very partial indication of the research and investigations that Marr put into the writing of it.

• [1] from page 126:  “On board the Shamrock’  with Uhr was Colin Mackenzie of Kilcoy, one of the lairds of the upper Brisbane Valley.  A week after he disembarked, at least fifty Aboriginal people were poisoned on his run. The deaths of two shepherds and the spearing of a bullock had provoked the Mackenzies’ supervisor to ask: ‘Don’t you think it would be a good thing to give these fellows a dose?’. When blacks next gathered asking for flour, tobacco and sugar, a meal of maize porridge – or perhaps stewed mutton – mixed with arsenic – was given to them.  Back at their camp on the lagoon, the poison soon took effect……In the grim history of frontier slaughter in Australia, the Kilcoy poisoning of 1842 carries a unique stench. Blacks thereabouts came to call poison Mackenzie. Bloody as the fighting had been at Moreton Bay, it grew even bloodier. The Kilcoy killings set off a war that lasted many years. Yet no one was ever punished for this crime. It was barely investigated”.
• [2] from page 131: “The preferred squatter strategy was to attack their sleeping camps at dawn. It didn’t matter that in the barely lit confusion of horses, bodies and guns it was impossible to identify the men the vigilantes were pursuing. Nor did it give them pause that only after the sun came up could they hunt for some shred of evidence – a shirt, a tomahawk, a book or a side of beef – to justify the attack”.
• [3] from page 192:  “Transportation was again at the centre of contention, with squatters demonised everywhere for polluting a pure young nation – not by slaughtering the original inhabitants, but by importing British prisoners to mind their sheep”.
• [4] from page 202:  “The squatters knew…who was guilty of murdering their shepherds and stealing their sheep. But the courts asked for proof. What was the point of tracking down malefactors, taking them to a lock-up, turning up art a trial to give evidence against them only to have a judge acquit them for want of witnesses to their crime? Justice was surely more efficiently delivered in the bush with a gun”.
• [5] from page 222 -23:  “ Not content with scouring the scrubs and forest country they were bold enough to ride up to the Head statins and shoot down the tame blacks whom they found camping there….the party in scouring the bush perceived an old blind blackfellow whom they immediately fired [upon]…this old man had been for a long time a harmless hanger on at the different head stations and of course could have been in no Way identified with the [sought after] murderers”…… “Where, he asked, were the magistrates of Maryborough”.  ‘I reply our magistrates are all here and they might as well be at Jericho they do not care a fig for either law or justice and in short knowing how matters stand they are as guilty of every act of cruelty as the actual perpetuators of them. They are traitors every man of them and unworthy the confidence of the people’”.
• [6] from page 271:  Reg [Uhr] spent three of the next four years clearing the Biri, Yangga, Miyan and Yilba people from the hinterland of Bowen. The squatters wanted an empty landscape for sheep to graze. It was an article of faith with them…that peace was only possible if the blacks were gone. From time to time, squatters were reminded that the terms of their leases guaranteed the right of the first inhabitants of the country to continue hunting and fishing on their land. This was ignored. Already it was been taken for granted in Australia that the men of the bush could decide which laws applied to them. Stockmen and shepherds were armed and put to the task. So were the Native Police”.
• [7] from page 298: “The Native Police  was a reckless force, and its only effect was the extirpation of the blacks. He admitted that when blacks committed crimes they ought to be punished, and there was only one way of punishing them, namely, shooting them down”.
• [8] from page 311, spelling, etc, as originally written: Isaac Watson, a resident of the Gulf, complained to the Colonial Secretary in 1880, as follows [and as was customary at the time, nothing was done about the complaint, other than squatters complaining about do-gooders]. He wrote: “It has been customary for several years past and also up to the present time for the Sub Inspectors [the white officers in charge] and their troopers to go into the Bush round up the Blacks and shoot them indiscriminately and Kidnap the Gins and little Boys and take by force either to stations or to the township of Normanton and their made slaves of and if any attempt to escape is made they are shot down like wild beast…I think therefore it is quite time to put an end to such disgraceful proceedings”.
• [9] from page 314 [a slur on Queensland’s history] – despite attempts by some at the time to see those guilty of massacres etc of the native populations, the general tone of response was “I don’t think there is any means of punishing  these men…The obvious solution to the problem – legislation in the Queensland parliament, enforced by the colonial authorities – never happened. Despite the lives ruined and blood spilt, slavery and kidnapping were everywhere and officially tolerated in Queensland”,
• [10] from page 322-323: ‘D’arcy then took his men down to Urilla to avenge the death of two shepherds’ – as reported in the Brisbane Courier at the time: “Mr Uhr went off immediately in that direction, and his success I hear was complete. One mob of fourteen he rounded up; another mob of nine, and a last mob of eight, he succeeded with his troopers in shooting. In the latter lot was one black who would not die after receiving eighteen or twenty bullets, but a trooper speedily put an end to his existence by smashing his skull. Everybody in the district is delighted with the wholesale slaughter dealt out by the native police, and thank Mr Uhr for his energy in ridding the district of fifty-nine myalls”.

[NB, if you read that quote outside of the context of the book, you might think the newspaper was writing about the ridding of a group of feral animals, such was the broad attitude of the European populace of the time urged on by the squatter class, and ignored by those in authority and the powers that be back in the ‘old country’!!].

• [11] from page 325: “Lieutenants Uhr and Murray, two first-class officers, were quickly at the scene of the murder and after running the tracks of the blacks with their troopers, came upon the camp, where the police found sundry articles  of Mr Clarke’s clothing, and inflicted punishment  on the savages in the usual manner”.
• From page 336 [adverse reaction back in Britain] – “When a man because his skin happens to be black can with impunity be shot dead with a rifle for an offence punished with a few weeks’ imprisonment when committed by a European, civilisation has evidently sunk  to a very low degree in the individual guilty of such a deed.  But when armed men in the government employ surround and shoot down scores of unarmed and defenceless wretches, for the pettiest of larcenies, the crime become national and affects the character of the entire population”.

And finally, though far the complete story;

• From page 378:  Senior officials, police and civilians, knew what was happening and they did nothing:  “Despite this knowledge, the native police, particularly in central Australia, operated with only minimal controls. Police records were brief and sometimes written up from memory. The native police were brutal and operated outside the law when they wantonly killed other Aboriginal people. Police violence was at the extreme coercive end of the violence continuum and remained there until the native police were disbanded”.

Those very isolated selected passages will either encourage the reader to seek out the full story as told by David Marr, or alternatively, convince he or she to ignore the whole thing, and like many of Australians, even today, turn a blind eye and pretend none if these events happened. But as research of history is continuing to prove the authenticity of this disgraceful aspect of this country’s development since 1788, the truth continues to be ignored at all our peril!!

[Bill Kirk]