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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‘Cricket’s greatest obstacle is not an outdated format.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]

This contribution relates to both an exhibition recently held at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, and a book, which was partially published as an outcome of that exhibition held in the UK and USA in recent years.

At the historical Art Gallery of Ballarat, in Victoria, there were two exhibitions run in conjunction with each other  earlier this year –   the ‘Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings and Watercolours’, and ‘In the Company of Morris’. The term Pre-Raphaelite is now used to encompass a style of art that proliferated in Britain for much of the second half of the nineteenth century.

From the Gallery’s promotional material and associated sources, we learn, that in 1848, seven rebellious young artists formed a secret society called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood [PRB]. This international exhibition drew from the extraordinary collections of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford [UK], to tell the story of the artists, their lives and loves, bringing to life the world of John Ruskin, William and Jane Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, John Everett Millais, Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Lizzie Siddall.

Their mission was to challenge and change the popular style of art of the time. These artists loved 15^th century aet, and were inspired by nature, stories, and poetry. The Pre-Raphaelite artists often turned to stories from history for example from Greek mythology, or the tales of King Arthur, and even fairy tales for ideas, as well as illustrating the works of poets of the likes of Geoffrey Chaucer.  It was felt that the literature provided a stimulating springboard for the artists to generate new ideas in relation to narrative, memory, religion, and romance. Tropes of love, heroism, and beauty were subverted and Pre-Raphaelites portrayed knights and damsels in complex social situations.

During their strongest period of influence, they were generally friends, who enjoyed making and producing drawings, paintings, etc, of each other, sharing ideas, and supporting one another, particularly when their work faced criticism.  They often turned to nature for inspiration, concentrating on smaller details, as well as a preference for making art outside, rather than drawing plants or animals from their imagination. In fact, they were described  as the first artists to paint en plain air or outside in nature and were meticulous in their adherence to truth in nature

Meanwhile,  the exhibition held in conjunction the Pre-Raphaelites  In the Company of Morris]  celebrated the ongoing legacy  of the Pre-Raphaelites  and William Morris, in the work of Australian artists in the Art Gallery of Ballarat Collection from the 19^th century until today.

William Morris, was described as a Pre-Raphaelite visionary thinker, designer, writer, artist, poet, environmental crusader [well before his time] and social activist. He believed in the rights of individuals –   to improve the world and that good design should be available for all. Morris’ dream was to bring art into the daily life of every person; he believed that filling a person’s soul with beauty was as important as filling their belly with food.

Further, in reaction to the Industrial Revolution of the time, Morris argued for a rejection of mass production; he was appalled by the cheap ugliness produced by industrial manufacturing and championed the beauty of methods based on medieval craft societies and as an active socialist he advocated that the maker be involved in all aspects of production. In terms of the emphasise of the Group on landscaping, Morris in observing the ill effects of factory on workers, realised that a healthy environment was linked to psychological as well as physical health and that the landscape itself contributed to well-being.

In the gift shop of the Art Gallery, there was a large ‘coffee table’ sized book titled the  ‘Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement’ published in 2018 by the American Federation of Arts [New York] and Del Monico Books -Prestel, 280 pages.   An expensive purchase in my normal terms, but I would later consider it a well worthwhile acquisition; certainly the many wonderful illustrations of the various genres of art undertaken by the movement  were a delight to examine and learn from.

From the inside front cover:

‘Three generations of British artists, designers, and makers revolutionised the visual arts in the second half of the nineteenth century. The reforming zeal and creative brilliance of the Pre-Raphaelites, William Morris and his associates, and the members of the Arts & Crafts movement transformed art and design. Selected from the outstanding collection of the city of Birmingham, England, Victorian Radicals brings together a rich variety of paintings, works on paper, and the decorative arts to tell the story of this most dynamic period of English art.  Many of the works have never been published before.  Among the world’s first and most productive industrial cities, Birmingham holds one of the greatest civic collections in Europe.  It includes extraordinary holdings of Victorian fine and decorative art, and the finest collection of works by the Pre-Raphaelites and their associates and followers anywhere in the world.

Victorian Radicals features key paintings and drawings by the leading figures of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Elizabeth Siddall, and their mentor John Ruskin, and the second wave of Pre-Raphaelite artists, including Arthur Hughes, Frederick Sandys, and Simeon Solomon, as well as the later generation of young men and women around 1900 whose art was influenced by them.

The fine and decorative art featured in this book represents almost the full range of Pre-Raphaelite practice. Included are world-famous paintings, drawings and watercolours, delicate studies from nature, and exquisite illustrations for printed books and magazines. This fine art narrative is balanced by concurrent, interrelated developments in design and the decorative arts. Outstanding examples of stained glass, ceramics by William De Morgan, vessel glass by  James Powell & Sons, textiles and printed books by William Morris, and silver and metalwork  designed by leading architects  of the day all extend an understanding  of the diversity and richness of visual arts in England during the years1840 to1910……..This book also explores key ideas that preoccupied artists and critics at the time, relating to the status and purpose of beauty and the arts in an industrial world, the value of the handmade, and tensions between the concepts of making and designing. These are issues as relevant and actively debated today as they were a century and a half ago.’.

From the Yale Centre for British Art – about this book.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, three generations of young rebellious artists and designers revolutionized the visual arts in Britain and challenged the new industrial world around them. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, William Morris and his associates, and the champions of the Arts and Crafts movement offered a radical artistic and social vision that found inspiration in the preindustrial past and decisively influenced visual culture in Britain and beyond. Victorian Radicals brought together approximately 145 paintings, works on paper, and works of decorative art—many never shown outside the UK—to illuminate this most dynamic period of British art in an exhibition of unparalleled historical and visual richness.

Showcasing the work of Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Elizabeth Siddall, among others, this display represented the spectrum of avant-garde practices of the Victorian period. These artists’ attention to detail, use of vibrant colours, and engagement with both literary themes and contemporary life were illustrated through a selection of paintings, drawings, and watercolours presented alongside superb examples of decorative art.

From Prestel Publishing

This generously illustrated and exciting new study of the Victorian era features rarely seen works, provocative essays, and a striking, period-inspired design.

Although the word “Victorian” connotes a kind of dry propriety, the artists working in the Victorian era were anything but. Starting with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and lasting through the dawn of the 20th century, the era’s painters, writers, and designers challenged every prevailing belief about art and its purpose.

The full spectrum of the Victorian avantgarde is in magnificent display in this book that features nearly 150 works drawn from the Birmingham Museum’s unparalleled collection.

Characterized by attention to detail, vibrant colours, and engagement with literary themes and daily life, the paintings, works on paper, and decorative objects featured reveal the myriad ways Victorian artists and artisans made sense of a rapidly changing world.

Perceptive essays and the latest scholarship illuminate the issues these artists contended with, including the relationship to art and nature, questions of class and gender identity, the value of handmade versus machine production, and the search for beauty in an age of industry.

Designed to reflect the tactile nature of the work and featuring typography inspired by the Victorian era, this beautiful volume is as fresh and bold as the visionaries it celebrates.

One reviewer wrote:

‘The book is a hefty and gorgeous illumination into the Pre-Raphaelite and Arts & Crafts Movement in England. The eleven full page colour details at the front of the book are sublime as well as the full detail colour photographs of objects starting each chapter.

This is first-rate, highest quality printing and after having had a brief chance to view the exhibit in Reno at the Nevada Museum of Art, I was thrilled to come home and read in much more detail the back stories of the artists. I am particularly interested in the women’s roles in this movement and also love seeing the archival photos of the artists themselves.

 Also of keen personal interest are the books and printed materials of this time and this book is loaded with examples. Anyone with an interest in the Arts & Crafts Movement should have this book in their library. I am thoroughly enjoying the design and content of this book!’

These are a few brief comments and general views on a number of books read over recent weeks, continuing with my series of book reviews and comments. The dates indicated are when I completed the book in queation.

15 August 2023

‘The Farmer’s Wife’ by Rachael Treasure, published in 2013, 390 pages –  another light easily read novel of rural life in Australia by this popular author who is also a farmer herself, and often writes from experience.  An enjoyable read again, although on this occasion, I did find the constant references to sex and the male organs a bit off-putting! Putting that aside, a wonderful story read over a couple of nights.

As her website states: ‘Author Rachael Treasure currently lives in southern rural Tasmania with her fiancé Daniel, two comedic teenagers and a collection of blissfully indulged animals’

From a broad range of suppliers and reviewers, the relevant synopsis of the novel reveals the following –

The Deniliquin [NSW] Ute Muster had always been on Rebecca’s wish list, but with the farm and babies, she’d never managed to make it. Tonight, she decided to reclaim herself. After ten years being married to larrikin Charlie Lewis and living on her beloved property, Waters Meeting, Rebecca is confronted by a wife’s biggest fear, a mother’s worst nightmare and a farm business that’s bleeding to death.Can Rebecca find the inner strength she once had as a young jillaroo, to save everything she cherishes? Or is life about to teach her the hardest lesson: that sometimes you simply have to let go.This uplifting and insightful tale deals with the truth about love that the Cinderella stories never tell us. Rebecca’s journey is everywoman’s journey, and a resonant tale for our times.The long-awaited sequel to Rachael Treasure’s bestselling debut, ‘Jillaroo’.

23^rd August 2023

‘The Keeper of Hidden Books’ by Madeline Martin, published in 2023, 387 pages…a tragic, heart-rending, but a wonderfully inspiring story. As the promo on the book cover states: “A heartwarming story about the power of books to bring us together, inspired by the true story of the underground library in WWII Warsaw…”

A couple of quotes taken from the latter stages of the story touched at my feelings and heart.

[1] – ‘They entered the library together, followed by scores of readers ready to celebrate how their love of books helped them through the terrible days of the occupation. For it truly was an event to celebrate when a library whose existence had originated in donated collections almost forty years ago, had now risen from the ashes of war and oppression by virtue of donations once more’ [pages 380-381]………’Good books were like amazing sunsets or awe-inspiring landscapes, better enjoyed with someone else. There was no greater experience in the world than sharing the love of a book, discussing its finer points, and reliving the story all over again’ [page 299].

[2] – ‘Now that it is done, I know I must share these stories so they can never be forgotten. We cannot let the atrocities and persecution of the Jews slip between the cracks of history. We cannot allow education to be stifled or cultures to be erased or books to be banned. Nor can we let the memory of those brave men and women who fought for freedom and what is right disappear in the turning pages of time’ [page 387];

[3] – When Hitler first took Poland, his intent was to relocate or murder 85 percent of Poles, leaving around 15 percent to be used for slave labor, along with completely eradicating the Jewish population. This was part of his Generplan Ost and Lebensraum plans for genocide and German settlement in Eastern Europe, which resulted in the murder of almost three million Polish Jews and almost two million non-Jewish Polish civilians’ [Author’s note];

[4] – ‘The Polish Underground State and Home Army [the military branch of the Polish Underground State] were what coordinated the official Warsaw Uprising [or Rising, as it is referred to in Poland]. In late July, 1944, the Soviet Union promised to help the Home Army defeat their Nazi oppressors. When the Red Army was visible on the other side of the Vistula River in the Praga district, the Home Army assumed their support to be fully ready and decided to attack an August 1 at 5.00 p.m. [a day and time still celebrated in Warsaw today]. It was believed by many that it would be a quick battle lasting only one to three days. As the Polish Home Army and the Nazis fought, however, the Soviets remained in place without offering aid, abandoning the Poles so that they could easily defeat the beleaguered victor and absorb Poland into the Soviet Union……In the end, the Polish Warsaw Uprising that was supposed to last one to three days went on for just over two months. During this time, 150,000 civilians were killed by German troops [40,000 to 50,000 of those were slain in just a few days in the Wola district], with around 20,000 soldiers killed. Of the soldiers fighting with the Home Army, this also included the Gray Ranks, the boys and girls belonging to Poland’s Guides and Boy Scouts, meaning many of these soldiers were between the ages of eleven and eighteen’ [Author’s note].

Shortly after the book was released for publication, Madeline Martin had this to say on her writer’s page, as reviewed on Goodreads    –  “Also, I officially turned this in last month and put everything into writing this book!! What you can expect from The Keeper of Hidden Books – An unbreakable friendship   – Books (including classic authors you know and maybe some Polish ones you don’t)   – A secret book club (oh, yes – I went there)   – Intrepid librarians and true events surrounding the Warsaw public library   – Acts of bravery and kindness and love   – My heart, which I poured into these pages   – To have your tissues handy

26^th August

‘The Sultan and the Queen’  The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam  by Jeremy Brotton, pub in 2016, 338 pages.  An interesting book, a little difficult at times to keep track of places, people, etc And, like the ‘Family History of the World Book’ by Simon Sebag   –  which I’m part of the way through at present, and struggling with, mainly because of the extreme violence depicted page after page    – Bottom’s story also depicts the not so pleasant descriptions of the way royalty and leaders treated their own families let alone their perceived enemies.

A different style of history, where in relating his story of the subject, Brotton often uses the works of writers and playwrights like William Shakespeare and others of that era, to illustrate how the relationship between England [and Elizabeth I] and the Islamic world  was presented to the public of the time [at least those who had the time, interest or money to go to the theatres of the day] – this technique is especially prevalent in the second half of the book, where plays of Shakespeare such as Othello, Twelfth Night and Titus Andronicus amongst others,  are often described in  substantial detail as an illustration of what the book’s author is trying to relate in his writings.

A brief precis of the book, as described by Goodreads, puts it into perspective.

The fascinating story of Queen Elizabeth’s secret outreach to the Muslim world, which set England on the path to empire, by The New York Times bestselling author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps
We think of England as a great power whose empire once stretched from India to the Americas, but when Elizabeth Tudor was crowned Queen, it was just a tiny and rebellious Protestant island on the fringes of Europe, confronting the combined power of the papacy and of Catholic Spain. Broke and under siege, the young queen sought to build new alliances with the great powers of the Muslim world. She sent an emissary to the Shah of Iran, wooed the king of Morocco, and entered into an unprecedented alliance with the Ottoman Sultan Murad III, with whom she shared a lively correspondence.
The Sultan and the Queen tells the riveting and largely unknown story of the traders and adventurers who first went East to seek their fortunes—and reveals how Elizabeth’s fruitful alignment with the Islamic world, financed by England’s first joint stock companies, paved the way for its transformation into a global commercial empire.

From the writer’s point of view, as he describes what he is attempting to depict from the following quotation, on page 299 in the Epilogue

“The story told in this book is one of a largely unknown connection between England and the Islamic world, one that emerged out of a very specific set of circumstances during the European Reformation. English history still tends to view the Elizabethan period as defined by the timeless rhythms of agrarian Anglo-Saxon traditions, ethnically pure and exclusively white. But, as I hope this book has shown, there are other aspects to this island’s national story that involve other cultures, and in the Elizabethan period one of them was Islam. To occlude the role Islam played in this past only diminishes its history. Now, when much is made of the ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and Christianity, seems to me a good time to remember that the connections between the two faiths are much deeper and more entangled than many contemporary commentators seem to appreciate, and that in the sixteenth century Islamic empires like those of the Ottomans far surpassed the power and influence of a small and relatively insignificant state like Elizabethan England in their military power, political organisation and commercial reach.. It turns out that Isla in all its manifestations – imperial, military and commercial – is part of the British national story.

One way of encouraging tolerance and inclusiveness at a time when both are in short supply is to show both Muslim and Christian communities how, more than four centuries ago, absolute theological belief often yielded to strategic considerations, political pressures and mercantile interests.  In a period of volatile and shifting political and religious allegiances, Muslims and Christians were forced to find a common language of messy and uneasy coexistence. Despite the sometimes intemperate religious rhetoric, the conflict between Christian Europe and the Islamic world was then, as now, defined as much by the struggle for power as precedence as by theology”.

29^th August

‘Restless Dolly Maunder’ by Kate Grenville [published in 2023], 242 pages.  An interesting historical fiction novel, easily reads, and quite enjoyable. I would add the following quotation to my Family History, because the story-line was I thought, reflective of much of the family history I have been writing about, even if much of my writings are guesswork, or family assumptions based on what records were or are available at the time of my research..

“I’ve noted, while working through this document, that so often, the ladies in our story, especially through the C19th and early C20th centuries, often don’t seem to have a great deal to add to the family life, eg, on electoral roles their occupation after marriage is usually described as ‘Home Duties’ [once married, any employment ambitions they may have hoped for, disappear] . That’s not the way I want to present them, but often there is little other information to provide, as perhaps illustrated by the following quotation. From a recent book release, which allows us to put that situation into some kind of perspective. The book ‘Restless Dolly Maunder’ by Kate Grenville [published in 2023] is an historical novel where the author uses family memories to imagine the way into the life of her grandmother, a woman who worked her way through a world of limits and obstacles.

Kate writes near the end of the story:

“The only way we know many of these women born in the 1880’s is from stiff, unreal old studio photos. Unless they were privileged or exceptional, most women vanished from the record. Their lives often can’t be reconstructed beyond a few dates – their births and deaths, when their children were born – and maybe a recipe for drop scones or oxtail soup……It’s only two generations ago, but Dolly’s world seems a foreign country. In the old photos those women in their impossible clothes seem like another species, their lives unimaginable” [p.238-89]”

Dolly Maunder , the subject of this book, was born at the end of the nineteenth century, when society’s long-locked doors were starting to creak ajar for women. Growing up in a poor farming family in country New South Wales but clever, energetic and determined, Dolly spent her restless life pushing at those doors.

Most women like her have disappeared from view, remembered only in family photo albums as remote figures in impossible clothes, or maybe for a lemon-pudding recipe handed down through the generations. Restless Dolly Maunder brings one of these women to life as someone we can recognise and whose struggles we can empathise with.  In this compelling new novel, Kate Grenville uses family memories to imagine her way into the life of her grandmother. This is the story of a woman, working her way through a world of limits and obstacles, who was able—if at a cost—to make a life she could call her own. Her battles and triumphs helped to open doors for the women who came after.

From the Art House Book Review [by Ellie Fisher, 22/8/2023]

In her new novel, Kate Grenville takes her grandmother as muse. Weaving familial histories with graceful prose, she uses memory and research to reimagine the life of Dolly Maunder – bringing into being a textured, nuanced appraisal of intergenerational dynamics.

Born in New South Wales in the early 1880s, Dolly is part of a sprawling sheep-farming family. Quick and intelligent, she excels at school. There, Dolly learns that women can live beyond the scope of the domestic. One of the student teachers is ‘the only woman’ she knows who isn’t ‘at home all day, banging the stove door open and closed, heaving the wet sheets around on washday’. Gradually – ‘like water seeping into sand’ – Dolly grasps the idea that the life ahead of her does not promise much in the way of liberation. ‘If you were born a girl,’ Dolly realises, ‘the life you’d have to live’ was that of obedience. Unless, of course, ‘you could find a way out’. Locating a doorway to autonomy, however, proves difficult within the societal confines of the period.

At the age of 14, like most girls, Dolly leaves school. She works in the familial home, the shadow of her father staining her days. Yet Dolly retains her sense that there is more to life than this obedient drudgery. She earns the eponymous epithet of ‘restless’ from the fact that she pushes at the boundaries set down upon her because of her gender – boundaries that are, gradually, flexing at the seams. Dolly is part of a ‘transition generation’, out of which is birthed the prospect of ‘a different future’ for women.

Marriage presents a trap – but also a potential window to freedom for Dolly. Bert Russell, whom she eventually weds, seems to understand that she is more than simply a reproductive vessel or domestic skivvy. While Bert has a wandering eye, he also allows Dolly space to exercise her faculties through business – and, eventually, teaches her to drive. Together, they build a string of enterprises, which leads to financial success.

Yet Dolly is not invulnerable to the structures of misogyny that surround her, or immune to enacting them upon others. While she finds some sense of liberation through her engagement with capitalism, she inflicts the wounds of intergenerational trauma upon her own daughter – Grenville’s mother, Nance – which leads to interesting writerly positionalities the author explores in the novel.

The scope of Nance’s view of Dolly – who forcefully trampled her daughter’s dreams of an artistic career in order to direct her towards a life of relative financial independence – shifts Grenville’s narrative to a place of speculative understanding. Grenville moves to enact a distant reading on her own family history, in an attempt to understand how her grandmother was shaped into appearing ‘uncaring’, ‘unloving’ and ‘dominating’ to her children. Here, the liberties of fiction allow Grenville to theorise, freeing her to examine the subtleties and ‘complicated feelings’ of her family’s history.

In her closing chapter, ‘Thinking About Silences’, Grenville writes towards an acknowledgement that the life of her grandmother took place on the ‘taking of land’, but that the personal archive of remembered family histories from which she wove the novel ‘record no awareness of the enduring sorrow all the taking meant – and means – for First Nations people’. She recognises that the history of her family is but ‘one story’, and that ‘standing beside it is another’, which, while recognised, goes untold.

In Restless Dolly Maunder – which successfully interweaves memoir, biography and remembrance of things past into a nuanced piece of fiction – Grenville has produced a novel that is unafraid of pushing the scope of what it means to unpick the intricacies of family history. There is a tenderness to the weight of the realities Grenville offers us – an awareness that love can wound, but that it can also redeem.

31^st August

‘That Bligh Girl:  by Sue Williams, published in 2023, 391 pages [a gift prize from National Seniors]. This was another wonderful way to recall a bit of history, and from a different viewpoint, albeit, written as a fascinating piece of historical fiction, easily read and enjoyed.  A story written from the perceived point of view of Mary Blyth, daughter of William Blyth [of Mutiny on the Bounty fame] as she unwillingly accompanies him to New South Wales where he is to take up the role of Governor. But as the book describes, she is no ‘shrinking violet’, and after an horrific six-month sea voyage from Britain, she proves as strong-willed as her bloody-minded father.

But despite being bullied, belittled and betrayed, Mary remains steadfast, even when her desperate father double-crosses her yet again in his final attempt to cling onto power. The pair immediately scandalise Sydney with their personalities, his politics and her pantaloons. And when three hundred armed soldiers of the Rum Rebellion march on Government House to depose him, the governor is nowhere to be seen. Instead, Mary stands defiantly at the gates, fighting them back with just her parasol.

But despite being bullied, belittled and betrayed, Mary remains steadfast, even when her desperate father double-crosses her yet again in his final attempt to cling onto power.

While researching the story for the book  ‘Elizabeth & Elizabeth’, Sue Williams was intrigued by the life of Mary Bligh and found it had a few touchpoints with her own. Both Mary and Sue grew up in London, spent time in Portsmouth, lived in Potts Point and were daughters of a strong-willed father. 

Publishers Allen & Unwin say, ‘Sue Williams returns to give a voice to the previously untold stories of the women in colonial Sydney. Sue is known for her meticulous research and fascinating narratives. That Bligh Girl is no exception.  This is her second novel as she continues to explore the untold stories of the women of colonial Sydney, her previous effort being ‘Elizabeth & Elizabeth’ [Elizabeth Macarthur and Elizabeth Macquarie], both of whom feature prominently in this story of the Bligh’s.

A fascinating imaginary depiction of two lives, based on factual events of the early days of Sydney.

19^th September

‘Bryce Courtney: Storyteller” A Memoir of Australia’s most beloved writer by Christine Courtney, published in 2022, 431 pages [completed 3 August 2022]

This was a wonderful read about one of my favourite readers, only one of whose novels I’ve not been able to obtain so far, ‘The Night Country’ which I noted in this book, was no longer in print, and was difficult to come by.  Christine spent years of research writing this book, especially about his early years in Africa –   apart from  the incorporation in the ‘writings and characters’ of many of his novels, Bryce generally revealed little of  his life in apartheid Africa.  Much of that has been discreetly revealed through the characters and lifestyles depicted in his many novels.

From Booktopia:

When Christine Courtenay began penning her own life story during the 2021 lockdown, she found herself increasingly drawn into the story of her late husband and bestselling author Bryce Courtenay. The manuscript that evolved is the memoir his readers have longed for, and is the first biographical work of one of Australia’s most beloved authors.
Bryce Courtenay was a figure larger than life, and his extraordinary, adventurous, rags-to-riches life story reads like one of his epic fictions – and indeed characters, places, episodes and themes have made their way into his novels. He was born in South Africa, an illegitimate son to Maud Jessamine Greer, who gave him the name ‘Courtenay’, and spent his challenging childhood in a number of small African towns. He was later schooled at an exclusive boarding school in Johannesburg, and worked the dangerous mines of Rhodesia in the fifties to pay his way to journalism school in London, where he met his first wife Benita Solomon. Bryce followed Benita home to Sydney, where they married and raised three sons.
He embarked on a career in advertising, first as a copywriter, that spanned 34 years, and was Creative Director at McCann Erikson, J.Walter Thompson and George Patterson before following his childhood dream to become a novelist. The Power of One was published in 1989, and quickly became an international bestseller. Bryce went on to write another twenty bestsellers, and can only be described as an Australian publishing phenomenon. Bryce and Benita parted ways in 1999. Bryce engaged Christine Gee as his publicist in 1997. She became his partner in 2005, and they married in 2011. Bryce passed away on 22 November 2012, ten days after the publication of his last book, Jack of Diamonds.
Bryce Courtenay: Storyteller is a personal memoir and tribute, featuring untold stories, original insights, extracts from his personal letters and previously unpublished photographs – from the woman who knew and loved him dearly.  That author:  Christine Courtenay (nee Gee) was born in north-eastern Victoria in 1954 and grew up on a cattle property before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University. In 1975 she co-founded Australian Himalayan Expeditions, which offered trekking trips to the Himalayas, and became a world leader in adventure travel. In 1989 she created her own marketing company and was engaged by several pioneering tourism projects. She also worked alongside acclaimed authors, world-renowned mountaineers and polar explorers. Christine served as the Nepalese honorary consul-general in NSW from 1987, and as Nepal attaché during the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, and was a founding director of the Australian Himalayan Foundation. She was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2013. Christine was Bryce Courtenay’s partner from 2005, and they married in 2011. She has a son called Nima, and continues to enjoy travelling, writing, and walking in wild and beautiful places. She lives in Sydney.

From the Canberra Times [19/11/2022]

Christine Courtenay, the widow of the best-selling Bryce Courtenay, says she felt she knew what it took to write a book. Until she wrote one herself.

The discovery of a cache of letters Bryce Courtenay had written to his mother throughout his life spurred Christine Courtenay to write a memoir of her late husband, the South African-born ad-man turned novelist who dominated the best-seller lists in Australia from 1989 to his death a decade ago, aged 79, in Canberra.

Every year on February 1, Bryce Courtenay started writing a novel. And every year on August 31, he finished the book. Except the year gastric cancer forced him to miss his usual deadline.

“Sometimes I honestly wished he would maybe take a year off, spend more time relaxing, spend more time with his family, friends. And I think, in the end, you just have to respect that that’s like trying to talk a mountaineer out of climbing mountains,” Christine Courtenay says.  Christine Courtenay had started on another book, a record of her life in and amongst the business of adventure travel, before she stumbled on her late husband’s letters home.

“Bryce had never mentioned it. I’ve never seen them. He had a vast archive of things from his life, his working life, his writing life. He was a bit of a bower bird. He sort of never threw things out, but he also didn’t ever go through them,” she says.  “But when I took them upstairs and sat down to read them, I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe it.  “And also that I could see that there were gaps, but they were written from early childhood years right through until when he was writing The Power of One. And they sort of stopped, I guess, after the next couple of books. And then I guess he probably went on to computers, because people didn’t stop writing letters, I guess.

2^nd October

Finally the book   ‘Saga Land: The island of stories at the edge of the World’  by Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason, published in 2017, 447 pages. A combined travel/personal lifestyle and history of Iceland, and the sagas [stories] that were passed down and saved through the centuries. – these sagas revealing the true stories of the first Viking families that settled on that remote island in the Middle Ages. An unusual book, written jointly by two chaps travelling and living in Iceland for 2 months –  an author [Gislason] and radio blogger & presenter and author [Fidler] who share the input to the writing of the book [their research was also presented as a Series on ABC Radio National].

I’ve previously read two of Fidler’s history-based books [and referred to them at the time through this Column] – The Golden Maze [the biography of Prague] and The Book of Roads and Kingdoms [explorations from Baghdad], both fascinating examinations of the history of those two cities.”

From Saga Land – a quote from page 397/398: “Icelanders didn’t forget about the sagas. The stories of the first settlers were reproduced in manuscripts long after the loss of the commonwealth, and over the centuries came to form part of an array of storey types and scholarly works, from fantastical works to royal biographies. But there were few libraries, and for hundreds of years it fell to farmers and merchants to keep the manuscripts in their own private collections. It wasn’t until the sixteenth century, when the first schools were established, that priests and teachers began to look for the most precious of the documents. Even then, they did so with a view to sending them to Sweden and Denmark, as treasures for the royal households of the most powerful nations in the region”.

From the general reviews of the book, we read:

Broadcaster Richard Fidler and author Kári Gíslason are good friends. They share a deep attachment to the sagas of Iceland – the true stories of the first Viking families who settled on that remote island in the Middle Ages  These are tales of blood feuds, of dangerous women, and people who are compelled to kill the ones they love the most. The sagas are among the greatest stories ever written, but the identity of their authors is largely unknown.  Together, Richard and Kári travel across Iceland, to the places where the sagas unfolded a thousand years ago. They cross fields, streams and fjords to immerse themselves in the folklore of this fiercely beautiful island. And there is another mission: to resolve a longstanding family mystery – a gift from Kari’s Icelandic father that might connect him to the greatest of the saga authors.

Reviewing the book for Readings Books, Marie Matteson writes

Fidler and Gíslason met over a radio interview and immediately hit it off. As firm friends, who Kári describes as having a conversation that will never end, it seemed to make sense when Kári said he was off to Iceland, and Richard said he’d go with him. Saga Land starts as many good Icelandic sagas have: two men head off on an adventure. Along the way, they stop to tell stories of the past, to encounter new people, and to reaffirm their friendly and familial bonds. In alternating chapters, Richard and Kári travel to Iceland with the intention of recording a radio series about the sagas, as they travel to the places they belong to. The Icelandic Sagas form one of the great bodies of literature. Written during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they tell the stories of the Icelanders: from the establishment of Reykjavik in 874 (dated by a volcano eruption) up until the time of writing. They also include the most complete remaining account of Norse mythology.

While the sagas capture and hold the imagination as Richard and Kári travel around Iceland, another family saga closer to home is woven through the tale. Kári’s relationship to his Icelandic heritage has always been complicated by his relationship with his Icelandic family, which had been unacknowledged for much of his childhood. In one of their rare meetings, his father had mentioned a connection to the sagas that Kári had never anticipated. Now was the time to find the end of the tale.

This contribution aims to share my views and those of various more professional reviewers of a number of books I’ve read over recent months.  Books referred to are as listed below.

• The Cartographer’s Secret by Tea Cooper [2021];
• Go As A River by Shelley Read [2023];
• The Digger of Kakoda by Daniel Lane [2022];
• Bill Wannan Selects Stories of Old Australia by Bill Wannan [1976];
• The Porcelain Moon by Janie Chang [2023];
• Rose by Suzanne Faulkner [2022];
• The Fossil Hunter by Tea Cooper [2022];
• The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams [2023];
• The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop [2023];
• Homecoming by Kate Morton [2023];
• The Naked Island by Russell Braddon [1952].

5^th April 2023

‘The Cartographer’s Secret’ by Tea Cooper, published in 2021, 362 pages  –  the second of Cooper’s novels I’ve read, and completed the book over 2 days.  Another one of those rural based novels, with a touch of mystery about it, and written as an historical novel, essentially dealing with the unsolved disappearance of the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt.  An entertaining, easy to read Australian based novel – as with all local novels of this sort, I enjoy the historical element applied to a fictional story.

The book synopsis.

A map into the past. A long-lost young woman. And a thirty-year family mystery.  The Hunter Valley, 1880. Evie Ludgrove loves to chart the landscape around her home—hardly surprising since she grew up in the shadow of her father’s obsession with the great Australian explorer Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt. So when an advertisement appears in The Bulletin magazine offering a thousand-pound reward for proof of where Leichhardt met his fate, Evie is determined to use her father’s papers to unravel the secret. But when Evie sets out to prove her theory, she vanishes without a trace, leaving behind a mystery that haunts her family for thirty years.
Letitia Rawlings arrives at the family estate in her Ford Model T to inform her great-aunt Olivia of a loss in their family. But Letitia is also escaping her own problems—her brother’s sudden death, her mother’s scheming, and her dissatisfaction with the life planned out for her. So when Letitia discovers a beautifully illustrated map that might hold a clue to the fate of her missing aunt, Evie Ludgrove, she sets out to discover the truth. But all is not as it seems, and Letitia begins to realize that solving the mystery of her family’s past could offer as much peril as redemption…………………..Described as a gripping historical mystery, the Cartographer’s Secret follows a young woman’s quest to heal a family rift as she becomes entangled in one of Australia’s greatest historical puzzles –  a Daphne du Maurier Award Winner, 2021.

As reviewed by Gini Grossenbacher for the Historical Novel Society  –

[a couple of errors below –  her brother dies after a boat explosion, and the timeline between the two parts of the story is 30 years].

In 1880, at her house at Yellow Rock, New South Wales, talented Australian sketch artist Evie Ludgrove shares her father’s obsession with the famous explorer Dr. Ludwig Leichardt, who vanished in the Australian wilderness. After creating a map that follows her father’s leads and seeking The Bulletin magazine’s thousand-pound reward, she heads out into the wilderness on a quest to find Leichardt’s last known whereabouts. On her expedition, she vanishes without leaving any clues to her disappearance.

In 1911, following the loss of her brother Thorne in an automobile accident, Letitia Rawlings escapes her wealthy mother’s house in Sydney. She moves to Evie Ludgrove’s former dwelling to stay with her aunt Olivia, who remains haunted by Evie’s disappearance after twenty years. Captivated by Evie’s story and curious about what happened to her, Lettie follows points north from Yellow Rock toward Aberdeen. With the help of the drover Nathaniel and the blacksmith Denman, she embarks on a quest to follow Evie’s map and discover where she vanished. After a series of loops following the crash of her tin lizzie, the group makes startling discoveries that may lead her to Evie’s last known place.

Lettie’s growing attraction for Nathaniel highlights the social rift between the drover society and the landed gentry in Sydney. He becomes involved with Lettie in her search for Evie, helping her navigate her journey’s challenging physical and emotional landscape. Yet, they face an unknown future since they are from different social classes.

Tea Cooper’s meticulous prose and deft phrasing delight the reader. Her storytelling weaves the places on Evie’s map in tandem with the search Lettie makes so that the reader becomes immersed in a distant world. The reader yearns along with Lettie (and Evie, too) for the answer to Leichardt’s disappearance and wants Lettie and Nathaniel to surmount the chasm that separates them. This fascinating novel informs the reader about Australia’s storied past.

8^th April 2023

‘Go As A River’ by Shelley Read, published in 2023, 305 pages –  tuned out to be a beautiful story!

In summary form –    Victoria Nash is just a teenager in the 1940s, but she runs the household on her family’s peach farm in the ranch town of Iola, Colorado—the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land in the Four Corners region, who wants to believe one place is just like another. When Victoria encounters Wil on a street corner, their unexpected connection ignites as much passion as danger and as many revelations as secrets. Victoria flees into the beautiful but harsh wilderness of the nearby mountains when tragedy strikes. Living in a small hut, she struggles to survive in the unforgiving conditions with no clear notion of what her future will be. What happens afterward is her quest to regain all that she has lost, even as the Gunnison River rises to submerge her homeland and the only life she has ever known. Go as a River is a story of love and loss but also of finding home, family, resilience—and love—where least expected.

From Readings Review [March 2023] – “Nestled in the foothills of the Elk mountains and surrounded by sprawling forests, the Gunnison River rushes by the tiny town of Iola. For 17-year-old Victoria Nash, the day promises to be ordinary. But the mysterious drifter who crosses her path that afternoon will set in motion an unstoppable chain of events.  Victoria will be forced to run for the forests, leaving her life – and her most precious possession – behind’

A general synopsis

On a cool autumn day in 1948, Victoria Nash delivers late-season peaches from her family’s farm set amid the wild beauty of Colorado, then heads into the village. As she nears an intersection, a dishevelled stranger stops to ask her the way. How she chooses to answer will unknowingly alter the course of both their young lives.

So begins the mesmerising story of split-second choices and courageous acts that propel Victoria away from the only home she has ever known and towards a reckoning with loss, hope and her own untapped strength.

Gathering all the pieces of her small and extraordinary existence, spinning through the eddies of desire, heartbreak and betrayal, she will arrive at a single rocky decision that will change her life for ever.

From Booklovers’ Review

Go As A River is truly haunting historical fiction. 

Shelley Read’s debut novel has one of the most impactful Prologues I have ever read.

“My home is at the bottom of a lake. Our farm lies there, mud bound, its remants indistinguishable from boat wreckage. Sleek trout troll the remains of my bedroom and the parlor where we sat as a family on Sundays. Barns and troughs rot. Tangled barded wire rusts. The once fertile land marinates in idleness.”

This first-hand perspective really hammers home the impact of building dams has not just on the natural landscape, but also people and their history. 

Go As A River is a literary novel in the sense that Shelley Read’s descriptions are uncommonly vivid, perceptive and nuanced. She brings alive on the page our capacity to connect with and derive energy from nature. But the Prologue aside, Victoria Nash’s heart wrenchingly stoic first-person narrative and painfully swift coming-of-age is basically told chronologically. There’s no overt structural complexity or linguistic swordplay so often found in the genre. For me this novel’s power stems from the depths to which it plumbs raw and authentic emotions.

In Go As A River Shelley Read explores with an engaging juxtaposition of sensitivity and pragmatism, the scars of bigotry, racism, war and women’s inequality. And more specifically the trauma some individuals had to, and in many contexts continue to, endure in society’s painfully slow journey towards open minds and hearts.

Like so many throughout history, Victoria Nash’s fictional life story was no Disney movie. She carried burdens larger than she ever should have had need to, but did so with inspiring grit, determination and dignity.

… I’ve come to understand how the exceptional lurks beneath the ordinary, like the deep and mysterious world beneath the surface of the sea.”

I highly recommend Shelley Read’s Go As A River to those looking for earthy, simply told yet powerful historical fiction that provokes reflection.

12 April 2023

I finished reading ‘The Digger of Kokoda [The Official Biography of Reg Chard]  by Daniel Lane [published in 2022], 333 pages  – in this book, 98 year old Reg Chard shares his story of courage and resilience on the Kokoda Trail [or Track] –   a wonderful, enlightening read, inspiring, deeply moving, healing,  but also sadly in part because of the nature of the story,  horrifically traumatic, with vivid descriptions  of the sheer extreme inculcated brutality, emotional detachment and unrelenting fanaticism of the troops our soldiers were trying to protect Australia from invasion  in the early 1940s.!!.

Brief overview:  Reg Chard endured hell as an 18-year-old Australian soldier who fought in 1942 on the infamous Kokoda Trail in World War II.
Ironically, Kokoda rescued Reg decades later when he decided to take his own life. After losing Betty, his wife of 66 years, the grief-stricken great-grandfather lost the will to live. But he found new purpose through educating young people, giving guided tours of Sydney’s Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway.  On these tours, Reg relives Kokoda every day. He sees an image on the wall of a soldier – a comrade – who succumbed to disease weeks after the photograph was taken. He feels his heart beating as his patrol chases down Japanese troops who had mutilated women in a jungle clearing. He hears the war cry of a samurai sword-wielding officer charging towards him. And he tells these stories along the walkway, preserving the memory of those who never came home.

As one of the last surviving diggers of Kokoda, Reg Chard has become a custodian of its legacy. This deeply moving, healing and inspiring biography of the 98-year-old veteran tells us of Reg’s war in the jungle and how, 80 years after the battle that saved Australia, Kokoda still lives within him.

Some of the praises for this book.

• ‘Reading the story of Reg Chard and his fellow servicemen only reinforces how grateful we all should be to the soldiers who sacrificed everything in order for us to have the privileged life we often take for granted. These men were full of bravery, courage and conviction yet were regularly battling against the odds in the knowledge they may not see out the day. Every word of this story has meaning, importance and impact and I for one am indebted to those who have served our nation to make it what it is today.’ – Steve Waugh
• ‘The Digger of Kokoda is a gripping read about an all-Australian hero, Reg Chard, who like so many of that WWII generation had greatness in him, only revealed when he was called on to put everything on the line for his country. This biography evocatively portrays the hardships of the Kokoda campaign, the sacrifices made, and the irrepressible spirit of the Australian soldiers and nursing sisters. Bravo the lot of them, and this book.’ – Peter Fitzsimons
• ‘The lessons and life experiences of Reg Chard are ones all Australians today could learn a lot from. The Digger of Kokoda was very honest and gave me a new perspective and understanding of what they went through and why. Warm, moving, heartbreaking and inspiring in equal measure. The greatest lesson I take from Reg is his quote: “Make the most of life, because no matter how bad something may seem, life goes on – just make sure you go with it.”‘ – Emma McKeon
• ‘A lifetime ago, no series of battles were more critical nor horrendous than those of the New Guinea campaign – Kokoda and the likes of Sanananda. Reg Chard was a typical and thus extraordinary digger who fought in those battles and survived, to this day mourning and honouring his many mates who fell. This brilliant account by Daniel Lane, of Reg’s war service, reminds us all of the price of peace so many of our predecessors have paid. A great story.’ – General Sir Peter Cosgrove
• ‘I have an immense respect and admiration for Reg Chard – the Digger of Kokoda. He’s a genuine Australian hero whose story could help teach our nation’s youth the importance of resilience, grit, and mateship. Reg, and others like him, should be honoured in our school system to ensure the Anzac/Kokoda spirit thrives . . . reading this man’s powerful story is a perfect start to guaranteeing that.’ – Danny Green
• ‘Reg Chard’s biography transported me straight back to the jungle in New Guinea and rekindled memories of walking the Trail later in my life. The written word of the Kokoda Trail will last long into history like the track itself. The Digger of Kokoda is essential reading for any Australian.’ – Keith Payne VC
• ‘The Digger of Kokoda offers a deeper understanding of what it means to be an Australian and the inspiration to be a better person.’ – Dr Brendan Nelson
  ‘In a world where an internet outage is deemed a catastrophe, The Digger of Kokoda is a masterclass in perspective and relativity. If this book doesn’t get you to the Dawn Service on Anzac Day, nothing will.’ – John Schumann
• ‘Grittily honest, told with great sensitivity, this is the finest account of Kokoda by a front-line soldier that I’ve read. Reg Chard, only 18 when he fought the Japanese in Papua, tells much more than another “mud and blood” story. Now 98, he shows how the experience touched his life and, in an extraordinary twist, saved him from his own demons after his wife died. The true story of a boy soldier who faced some of the worst battles of the Pacific War.’ – Paul Ham
• ‘In Reg Chard’s compelling account of Kokoda, we gain a unique insight into war’s madness … The Digger of Kokoda is a modern digger’s time capsule full of the human lessons of war and soldering that never change.’ -Anthony ‘Harry’ Moffitt
• ‘Reg’s memoir reminds us of all the extraordinary acts committed by ordinary people and fills a Digger like myself with pride in the honour of donning the same badge they wore.’ – Damien Thomlinson
• ‘Raw, vivid and searingly honest, Reg Chard’s personal account of Kokoda is one of the most moving I’ve ever read. From the nightmare of Eora Creek to the terrible swamps of Sanananda, I felt I was right there, and it’s not a pretty place. One of the last true voices, Reg reaches across the decades to remind us of what our men did, and how much they endured.’ – Michael Veitch

The author, Daniel Lane, has been a sports journalist for over 30 years, including time with Australian Consolidated Press, AAP, Network 10 and the Sydney Morning Herald. He has written 18 books, and scripts for three televised documentaries/shows. He has visited the battlefields of Gallipoli, the Western Front, El Alamein, Singapore and Malaya, and for decades has interviewed veterans of the Boer War and both world wars, including Kokoda. The biography of Reg Chard, The Digger of Kokoda, is his first military memoir.

13^th April 2023

This was a little book given to me by a friend back in  2013 – I had kept it in my car glovebox, and was reading a few pages at a time when waiting for an appointment, etc. I finally  decided to take it out of the car,  and finish it.  ‘Bill Wannan Selects Stories of Old Australia ‘ edited by Bill Wannan, published in 1976, with 158 pages.  This edition published by Sun Books, Melbourne.

An interesting selection of stories, and poems from the past, some a bit doubtful as far as comprehending the point of the story was [especially the odd poem], but overall a worthwhile historical collection.

‘Australia’s great store of folklore so richly mined and revived by Bill Wannan contains gems that can be readily retold –  he called them ‘tales of common acceptance’. Stories which have been passed from generation to generation, traditional stories, folk-tales and bush jests  – often changed as they were retold to assure them of a permanent place in Australia’s folk literature.

There are 28 stories and poems, arranged in order of their first appearance in print, and provided with a brief historical background to both story and author..

The collection is a valuable rendition of some of the common themes of Australian folklore, such as the noble savage, the ghostly happening, the lost child, the swearing teamsters and bush giants, gentlemen convicts and bushrangers

23^rd April 2023

Born in Taiwan, author Janie Chang has lived in the Philippines, Iran, Thailand, and New Zealand. She now lives on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada with her husband.

Janie Chang’s latest novel [The Porcelain Moon, published in 2023] is an historical novel about a little-known piece of history, that of the 140,000 Chinese workers brought to Europe as non-combatant labor during WWI, and ‘employed’ by either the British forces, or the French – 90,000 of them as part of the British Expeditionary Forces, while the rest were signed up with the French working for private French companies in war related industries and in agriculture. When the Americans entered the war, the French loaned about 10,000 of the labourers to the Americans.

The Chinese were in fact the largest and longest-serving contingent of non-European labor, manpower that kept the machinery of war running. Afterwards they cleared up battlefields, and cleaned the rubble from devastated towns, so that the local population could start to get back to a normal life; they cleared the trenches and bomb craters, ridding them of decomposing corpses of men and animals,, abandoned equipment, clothing and blankets. . This was particularly the case with those employed by the British military who insisted they had to fulfill their contracts before being allowed to return home. Most were peasants and only about 20% were literate, and the British in particular took full advantage of their lowly status. And while as non- combatants they supposedly were to work behind the frontlines, those lines continually shifted, and many died during their time in Europe from aerial attacks, wartime incidents and accidents, and from disease.

How they were treated [apart from the general hostility from the French population to hundreds of foreigners being present during and after the war, remembering that in 1911, a Census revealed only 238 Chinese living in France], in particular by the British, quite often depended on which military commander was in charge of a particular group

Well, the book ‘The Porcelain Moon’ is a tale of forbidden love, identity and belonging, and what we are willing to risk for freedom., a beautifully written story about this little-known piece of history from the 1st World War, presented for the readers as an historical novel of that time. Worth a read, another lesson in history.

General summary

France, 1918. In the final days of the First World War, a young Chinese woman, Pauline Deng, runs away from her uncle’s home in Paris to evade a marriage being arranged for her in Shanghai. To prevent the union, she needs the help of her cousin Theo, who is working as a translator for the Chinese Labour Corps in the French countryside. In the town of Noyelles-sur-Mer, Camille Roussel is planning her escape from an abusive marriage, and to end a love affair that can no longer continue. When Camille offers Pauline a room for her stay, the two women become friends. But it’s not long before Pauline uncovers a perilous secret that Camille has been hiding from her. As their dangerous situation escalates, the two women are forced to make a terrible decision that will bind them together for the rest of their lives.

Set against the little-known history of the 140,000 Chinese workers brought to Europe as non-combatant labor during WWI, The Porcelain Moon is a tale of forbidden love, identity and belonging, and what we are willing to risk for freedom.

From the Asian Review of Books

During the Great War, 140,000 Chinese laborers were recruited to work in England and France in order to free up men in those countries to fight. Janie Chang uses this corner of history as the backdrop of her new historical novel, The Porcelain Moon. While the two characters at the center of the story—a young Chinese woman named Pauline Deng and a French woman named Camille Roussel—are fictional, Chang indicates in her author’s note that many of the landmarks and other details of the Chinese labor camps she writes about are based on real places.

Pauline is orphaned at a young age after her parents die in an automobile accident and is taken in by her uncle Louis. She moves from Shanghai to Paris a decade before the war when her uncle and cousin Theo set up an antique store called La Pagode, a real shop dating back to the late 1920s. The Dengs take their time getting used to their new city.

 During their first weeks in Paris, the three of them lived in a small hotel, a pension de famille, while her uncle looked for a building suitable for both store and home. Sometimes Theo and Pauline went with him, trailing behind as he inspected one building after another, accompanied by an estate agent and a translator hired through the Chinese consulate in Paris. More often than not, one or two men from Paris’s small community of Chinese merchants also joined them, curious to meet the new arrivals and eager to offer opinions.

 Louis finds the perfect building on the Rue de Lisbonne for both La Pagode and their home. The Dengs establish their new business in Paris and a decade later the story jumps to Noyelles-sur-Mer, a rural town that faces the English channel. It’s there that Chinese workers would be employed three years into the war.

 On a fine April afternoon in 1917 the first Chinese laborers arrived on the train from Calais. They formed rows of four on the platform and then marched smartly through town, following a British officer to the new camp. The entire population of Noyelles—women, children, and old men—rushed out to see them. Children ran alongside the impromptu parade.

 Louis wants Theo to return to Shanghai to marry the woman betrothed to him years earlier, but in order to delay this inevitability, Theo finds work as a translator in the British Chinese Labour Corps, which ran this outpost in Noyelles. He meets a young married woman named Camille in Noyelles and falls into a dangerous affair with her. At the same time, Pauline is pursued by a creepy Chinese national named Mah while her interests instead lie with a young foreign correspondent named Henri Liu.

Camille has her own ties to China, although nefarious. She grew up surrounded by almost as many Chinese antiquities as found at the Dengs’ La Pagode. Her father Auguste had been in the military in Peking during the Boxer Rebellion.

 When Auguste’s troop was dispatched to rescue European civilians and soldiers inside the International Legations, under attack by Chinese Boxers and the Imperial Chinese Army, he had been told they would be fighting barbarians. But everything he saw, the architecture and gardens, the exquisite craftsmanship, the private libraries, told him otherwise. They were plundering a civilized society.

 And plunder they did. Auguste went to confession as soon as he could, but the priest assured Auguste he was just doing his duty as a soldier and that what he took from Peking was simply “spoils of war”. Auguste was haunted by this all his life and made his own confession to Camille while he was on his deathbed.

Other parts of the story also take on a Hollywood ambiance, as most of the loose ends seem to be resolved by the end of the book. Even so, Chang’s storytelling is compelling because she combines this cinematic story with an overlooked part of the Great War.

By Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author

rom the critically acclaimed author of The Library of Legends comes a vividly rendered novel set in WWI France about two young women—one Chinese, one French—whose lives intersect with unexpected, potentially dangerous consequences.

“East meets West in World War I France. In The Porcelain Moon, Janie Chang exhibits her signature trademarks—lyrical prose, deftly drawn characters, and skillful excavation of little-known history—to give us a rare jewel in a sea of wartime fiction!”

22^nd May 2023

For readers of history – a book about a subject and personality that’s probably not familiar to most people  –  ‘Rose’ by Suzanne Falkner, published in 2022.   Not an easy read with regular quotations in the original French used by our correspondent, the main character in the book. This is the extraordinary voyage of Rose de Freycinet, the stowaway [with the knowledge and approval of her sea-faring captain husband] who sailed around the world with him, for love over the years 1817-1820.

I found this a fascinating description  of a world sea voyage of that time, which included visits  to much of the Pacific area, South America, and Australasia as well as a stopover in Sydney Cove in 1819, and much earlier, a period on the isolated west coast of the new colony. Beginning with an exploration of the voyages of  Nicolas Thomas Baudin (1754 –1803) ,  a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer, most notable for his explorations in Australia and the southern Pacific, many of which outcomes were in conflict with the explorations of Matthew Flinders. Those voyages provided the impetus for the three year journey by  Rose’s husband, Louis de Freycinet.

From the book summary  – ‘In 1814,  in the aftermath of the French Revolution, nineteen-year-old Rose Pinon married handsome naval officer Louis  de Freycinet, fifteen years her senior. Three years later, unable to bear parting from her husband, she dressed in men’s clothing and slipped secretly aboard his ship the day before it sailed on a voyage of scientific discovery to the South Seas. Living for three years as the sole female among 120 men, Rose defied not only bourgeois society’s expectations of a woman at that time, but also a strict prohibition against women sailing on French naval ships.  Whether dancing at governors’ balls in distant colonies,  or evading pirates and meeting armed Indigenous warriors on remote Australian shores, or surviving shipwreck in the wintry Falkland Islands, Rose used her quick pen to record her daily experiences, In doing so, she became the first woman to circumnavigate the world and leave a record of her journey”.

Those writings – through her diary, and letters to her mother and sister [most of which took six months or more to reach their destination in France, if they arrived at all] – form the basis of the story of this journey. While various histories of Rose have tendered to doctor her writings to make them more acceptable to the reaching public.  Falkiner’s novel reveals them as they were written.  If you can get through a very concise and detailed piece of writing, through 404 pages  –  where while now and then, Rose’s  French is not always  translated into English   and which ends with an excellent summary of Rose’s legacy to history, and a section on the translation techniques used  –  cope with all that, and it’s worth the effort,.

29^th June 2023

This book is titled  ‘The Fossil Hunter’ by Tea Cooper, an  historical novel, published in 2022, 374 pages.   Another somewhat unusual story, the usual mix of historical facts and the kind of novel which I generally enjoy, also the 3^rd of her books I’ve read in recent months.  A story dealing with archaeology and that general vein of subject matter..

A fossil discovered at London’s Natural History Museum leads one woman back in time to nineteenth century Australia and a world of scientific discovery and dark secrets in this compelling historical mystery.

Buried secrets. An ancient fossil. And one woman’s determination to unravel a nineteenth-century mystery.

Australia, 1847. The last thing Mellie Vale remembers before the fever takes her is sprinting through the bush with a monster at her heels—but no one believes her. In a bid to curb Mellie’s overactive imagination, her benefactors send her to visit a family friend, Anthea Winstanley. Anthea is an amateur palaeontologist who is convinced she will one day find proof that great sea dragons swam in the vast inland sea that covered her property millions of years ago. Mellie is instantly swept up in the dream.

Australia, 1919. Penelope Jane “PJ” Martindale arrives home from the battlefields of World War I intent on making peace with her father and commemorating the deaths of her two younger brothers in the trenches. Her reception is disappointing. Desperate for a distraction, she finds a connection between a fossil at London’s Natural History Museum and her brothers’ favorite camping spot. But the gorge has a sinister incident from seventy years ago, several girls disappeared from the area. When PJ uncovers some unexpected remains, she’s determined to find answers about what happened all those years ago … and perhaps some closure on the loss of her brothers. Weaving together these two timelines, The Fossil Keeper offers everything you need –  history, mystery, suspense, romance, and startling discoveries that will keep the pages turning. Praise for The Fossil “This elegant dual narrative historical from Cooper follows a young woman as she pieces together the fate of a 19th-century paleontologist …

“This elegant dual narrative historical from Cooper follows a young woman as she pieces together the fate of a 19th-century paleontologist … Cooper’s confident prose and deep empathy for her characters will keep readers hooked as she unspools her intrigue-filled mystery. Historical fans will want to dig this one up.” — Publishers Weekly

Tea Cooper writes Australian contemporary and historical fiction. In a past life she was a teacher, a journalist and a farmer. These days she haunts museums and indulges her passion for storytelling.

16^th July 2023 

A wonderful read –   ‘The Bookbinder of Jericho’ by Pip Williams, published in 2023, of 438 pages  –  a beautifully written historical novel, set during the years  of WW I, and into the period of the post-war world wide plague. It is basically written through the eyes of the women of that time in Britain [and in first person narrative by the central character, a bookbinder named Peggy] and relates especially to the effects of the war on employment in Britain as women are required to take over many of the roles formerly carried out by their menfolk, the consequences of the arrival of  Belgian refugees repatriated to Britain after the devastation of that small nation by the Nazis, and the lives of the many volunteer nurses and others on the immediate front lines of battle. In the words of one reviewer – ‘‘Heart wrenching and bittersweet, The Bookbinder of Jericho is a lovingly woven story of hardship, longing and hope. Pip Williams writes with great insight and fascinating detail of working-class women, the war effort and World War I refugees. It was such a pleasure to spend time with these completely charming women.’                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                          . 

A couple of promo reviews.

• In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of studying at Oxford University, but for most of her life she has been told her job is to bind the books, not read them. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has. She is extraordinary but vulnerable. Peggy needs to watch over her.  When refugees arrive from the devastated cities of Belgium, it sends ripples through the community and through the sisters’ lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can use her intellect and not just her hands, but as war and illness reshape her world, it is love, and the responsibility that comes with it, that threaten to hold her back.
• In this beautiful novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams explores another little-known slice of history seen through women’s eyes. Evocative, subversive and rich with unforgettable characters, The Bookbinder of Jericho is a story about knowledge – who gets to make it, who gets to access it, and what is lost when it is withheld.
• ‘A boldly feminist novel that sings with the joy of life and the miracle of the printed word. Williams’ second novel was absolutely worth the wait.’ – Ben Hunter, fiction category manager [Booktopia]

Writing for Readings, by Kate McinIntosh

This story begins in July 1914, several years after Esme hid her first word in The Dictionary of Lost Words. Another young woman is hard at work, this time at the Oxford University Press. The Press was (and still is today) responsible for publishing academic books of all kinds, and the ‘girls’ fold and sew the pages together at the bindery, only ever seeing tiny sections of the pages, a line, half a sentence, enough to tease but not to know. For Peggy Jones, the not knowing is almost too much to bear. Having left school early to help her mother and twin sister at the bindery, being surrounded by books and yet kept away from a decent education, hurts more than she could ever admit. That the bindery sits across the road from Somerville College, a women’s college created when women could not obtain a degree, only adds salt to the wound every working day. And to be folding page after page and not a single one of them written by a woman – why should it be ‘a woman’s place to inspire stories, not to write them’?!

With the outbreak of war, life changes for Peggy. While her sister, Maude, is ‘one of a kind’ and Peggy has always felt responsible for her, that feeling has only increased since the death of their mother. An opportunity arises for Peggy to try to get into Oxford, but her class, role as a carer, her gender, and self-doubt all hold her back. Can she be everything she needs to be to all of those around her, and fulfill her dreams as well? (What woman hasn’t asked herself that exact question at some point in time?)

Williams has given us a historical novel full of relevance for today. She describes a world where women were held back by a lack of education and a voice. Over one hundred years later, women are still prevented from attending school in some countries, and class can still dictate how much a person can achieve. And yet, what I loved most about this story was that in a book about the importance of having a voice and being able to express yourself, it is the characters who say the least, those of Lotte and Maude, who still haunt me. The empathy, the love and the steadfast stubbornness of all of the women in this book make it a joy to read, and the passion for creating something beautiful, something that will last, will resonate with everyone who has ever held a treasured copy of a much-loved book in their hands.

A thoroughly enjoyable, at times disturbing, story  –  I recommend it  to discerning readers out there  😊

19^th July 2023

Another novel from 2023 –   ‘The Anniversary’ by Australia’s Stephanie Bishop,  published in 2023, with 424 pages.  and another  great read  – very in-depth literary writing, perfectly described by one scribe  in terms of ‘Stephanie Bishop’s attention to detail reveals the minutiae of an intimate relationship, pitched against the backdrop of a life-changing traumatic event  –  a style which left myself, who has written various contributions on all manner of subjects [including the written family history still in progress] to realise just how far out of depth I was in terms of ‘real’ writing skills  As the Weekend Australian noted in a recent review – ‘A surprisingly dark and complex novel. It is intelligent and literary in the best sense of the word: fluent in style, self-aware in its deployment of genre’, or from the Saturday Age: ‘The Anniversary is bejewelled with lovely moments and undeniably exquisite writing’. While ‘Good Reading’ simply states – “With its beautiful prose and vivid imagery, this novel  belies the intense emotional turmoil at its heart’.

Written in the first person again  –  “There were things that I wanted to say. Things I knew I couldn’t say but needed to tell someone. And then the things I knew I should say. What they wanted to hear. There is never only one version” [perhaps a reflection of life generally!!].

The outline  –  Novelist JB Blackwood is on a cruise with her husband, Patrick, to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Her one-time professor, Patrick is much older than JB. A maverick when they met, he seemed somehow ageless, as all new gods appear in the eyes of those who worship them. He is a film director. A cult figure. But now his success is starting to wane and JB is on the cusp of winning a major literary prize. Her art, that has been forever overseen by Patrick, is starting to overshadow his.

For days they sail in the sun. They lie about drinking, reading, sleeping, having sex. There is nothing but dark water all around them.  Then a storm hits. When Patrick falls overboard, JB is left alone, as the search for Patrick’s body, the circumstances of his death and the truth about their marriage begins, with all the wrong, sometimes right, assumptions made by the media and public about their relationship!!

The Sydney Morning Herald review [by Helen Elliott, on April 7^th] is worth sharing here.’

That Friedrich Nietzsche. You might roll your eyes and wonder if he could still be saying things folk in 2023 might find interesting. Well, get past that moustache and listen. Here is what he said about desire: “Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.”

He wrote this acute line nearly 150 years ago. And here, in The Anniversary, Stephanie Bishop is doing the forensics on Nietzsche’s astute line in a stout new novel. Because women had yet to be invented, his truth was purely male. Stephanie Bishop’s truth is purely female. She has this enigmatic epigraph (never neglect the epigraphs) from Simone de Beauvoir: “To be sure, the future of the woman I have been may turn me into someone other than myself.”

J. B. Blackwood is a novelist in early middle age. She has just heard that she has won one of the glittering literary prizes and is expected in New York to accept it. Her partner, Patrick, is a famous film director and public intellectual and considerably older. J. B. had met him when she was taking his course at university, she so in awe that she could scarcely speak, and “he one of the most beautiful and elegantly dressed men I had known: crisp shirts and shiny Italian shoes.”

But things happen – desire happens – and they become lovers. They marry. The anniversary of the title is the celebration of the 14th wedding anniversary, the year of ivory, symbolising patience and stability.

J. B. books a luxury cruise of 18 days, starting from Alaska, travelling through Japan and ending in America. The cruise is booked before she knows about the prize because she is determined to do something pleasurable and romantic with an altered Patrick, a man always frantic with work, who falls asleep in front of television and, most appallingly, is no longer elegant. He is even disinclined to showering. The prize ceremony can be tacked on to the end of the cruise, so ever So this bleak tale rolls out. In a wild storm in waters close to Japan’s northernmost island Hokkaido, there’s an accident. Patrick falls overboard and his body is not found until days later. The novel, at this point, turns into a thriller. Or perhaps a mystery? The courteous Japanese investigators seem to believe that someone pushed him into the sea, and J. B. is escorted from the ship to face endless questioning by people who are from a very different culture. The Japanese assume her guilt.

But we are allowed to enter into another tale, told by her, the almost-famous author who, it seems, is no longer the passive, admiring young woman who was only too happy to sleep with the famous professor when he invited her into his taxi one wet night. To her credit, she did not know immediately that he had a partner with a very new baby.

The baby, Joshua, is now an implacable, hurt 17-year-old and it is his behaviour that causes J. B. to insist on the cruise. One established fact about desire is that it has consequences in the real world.

The Anniversary has a wide list of characters, all necessary to the plot, but it is narrated by J. B., so we are constantly in her head. It takes energy to remain there because, like hearing other people’s dreams, it just is not that interesting much of the time. Deep into the book she writes about her own way of writing and compares it to Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, the famous 1975 film by Chantal Akerman in which Akerman let the camera stay for a very long time on the face of the female actor.

“We watch her watching her thoughts, watch her having them, sitting so still at the glass-topped dining table.” J. B. continues to explain that when she is writing a novel “there is always something I am waiting to find out”.

The Anniversary is bejewelled with lovely moments and undeniably exquisite writing, a fine education about desire, but perhaps we have to wait too long before we know what we need to find out. It is, though, never less than an admirable and ambitious investigation into some troublesome contemporary things about men and women and the forces of desire, not just sexual but creative desire.

Marcel Proust, always helpful, should have the last word: “Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade.” Proust? Nietzsche? De Beauvoir? Still here, still relevant, still necessary.

From The New York Times [C.J.Hauser, July 16]

In love, in art, in crime, what is done intentionally and what is done unintentionally? This is the question at the core of Stephanie Bishop’s fourth novel, “The Anniversary.”

When we meet our narrator, J.B. Blackwood, a mixed-race Australian author, she has just learned she’s won a major literary prize for a still-unreleased semi-autobiographical novel. The news hasn’t been announced publicly and she has yet to tell her husband, Patrick, a white, British, indie-darling filmmaker 20 years her senior and her former college professor. It will be a nice surprise for him, she tells the reader, but after the international cruise she and Patrick have planned to celebrate their 14th anniversary and to get away from their troubles at home in England.

On the cruise, Patrick and J.B. fight, Patrick gets drunk, and then falls overboard during a storm. Afterward, authorities search for, and find, Patrick’s body; J.B. winds up giving a witness report to police officers in Japan; and she is feted onstage at the prize ceremony for her novel, all in the same week. The cause of the accident and the high-profile publicity for J.B.’s book in the wake of Patrick’s death form the plot of the story, but it’s J.B. herself, an unreliable narrator at once completely confessional and narratively coy, who is the major engine that drives it.

The first half of the novel is eventful and atmospheric. J.B. describes the circumstances of her life — a mother disappeared in her youth, an affair with her professor-now-husband and even his death — with what feels like an eerie calm. Yet this narration turns deliciously complex when the known facts are reshaped as J.B. returns to them with increasing honesty and nuance. In its latter half, “The Anniversary” grows into a feminist commentary on the nature of mysteries and marriages.

Bishop skillfully invokes and revises the “forbidden passion” trope of a relationship between an older teacher and a young ingénue. J.B. tells us that as a student, she climbed into a cab with Patrick both to avoid the rain after a seminar and to satisfy her girlish crush, a small choice that changed the rest of her life. “Maybe I wanted only to want,” she recalls, “but did not really know what it was, exactly, that I desired.” In a virtuosic move, Bishop allows her narrator to recall the early days of their relationship in a romantic way only briefly before revealing the grotesqueness of the power imbalance between the lovers.

The insights throughout the novel, especially the second half, are astute and affecting (“It was here that I discussed the structures of power which a woman’s art must wrestle with before it is permitted to flourish,” J.B. thinks of the author’s note she added at the end of her novel), but the reader might feel wearied by their volume. The meta-conversation in the book is smart — What does it mean to tell a true story? Who is responsible for what? — but it also swamps the action and leaves the novel a little unbalanced and unsatisfying.

Still, when we return to the action at hand, Bishop’s scenes are engaging and unsettling. As J.B. becomes a suspect in Patrick’s death, she returns to Australia for the first time since she got married. There she reunites with her sister and niece, and their moments of conflict are riveting. They have an uncanny, dreamlike quality, unfolding without J.B. quite being able to participate in them fully. Eventually, J.B. becomes disoriented about which parts of her life are memory and which parts are her own fictional creations; which parts were her choices and which were the outcomes of her passivity?

“The Anniversary” is similar to contemporary books like Meg Wolitzer’s “The Wife” and Liane Moriarty’s “Big Little Lies” in the ways it tackles gender and power, but it offers the pleasures of the Gothic novel too — houses and relationships full of secrets, and a narrator with an uncertain grasp on reality. When J.B. first explains her marriage, it seems that she is telling us a romantic tale, but as the details pile up, the story starts looking like something else entirely. J.B. is a very good narrator, but I suspect she is not recounting her saga for the reader — she’s telling it for herself.

30 July 2023

Another wonderful read, albeit a lengthy novel –  ‘Homecoming’ by Kate Morton, published in 2023, with 631 pages.  A quotation from near the end of the book, which touched a nerve, I think.

 “Most of the time, though, Percy was alone. Being old, he had come to realise, was like being stuck inside an enormous museum with hundreds of rooms, each crammed full of artefacts from the past.  He understood now why the elderly could sit, seemingly still and alone, for hours on end. There was always something else to take out, t look at from a fresh angle and become reacquainted with”

From Kate Morton website, we read:

Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959: At the end of a scorching hot day, beside a creek in the grounds of a grand country house, a local man makes a terrible discovery. Police are called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most baffling murder investigations in the history of South Australia.

Many years later and thousands of miles away, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, she now finds herself unemployed and struggling to make ends meet. A phone call summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Nora, who raised Jess when her mother could not, has suffered a fall and is seriously ill in hospital.

At Nora’s house, Jess discovers a true crime book chronicling a long-buried police case: the Turner Family Tragedy of 1959. It is only when Jess skims through its pages that she finds a shocking connection between her own family and this notorious event — a mystery that has never been satisfactorily resolved.

Some brief opinions of Kate Morton’s writing”

Kate Morton is the award-winning, worldwide bestselling author of The Shifting Fog (known internationally as The House at Riverton), The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper, The Lake House and The Clockmaker’s Daughter. Her books are published in 38 languages across 45 territories and have been #1 bestsellers around the world. She holds degrees in dramatic art and English literature and lives with her family in London and Australia.

2^nd August

‘The Naked Island’ by Russell Braddon [ex-POW], 1^st published in 1952 [this edition 1975 ‘Australian Classics’], 266 pages.     Shattering reading depicting life as a Japanese POW from someone who was there, written a few years after the war’s end. One particular paragraph towards the end of the book [page 207] sums up many of the sadly vivid descriptions  of what went on, and the conditions under which the POW survived or died.

From page 207 [of the edition I read], a paragraph which illustrates much of what is described throughout the book…………….“The I.J.A. [Imperial Japanese Army] were now confronted with the problem of what to do with the wreckages of humanity which were the survivors of their Railway.  These did not look like men; on the other hand, they were not quite animals. They had feet torn by bamboo thorns and working for long months without boots. Their shins had no spare flesh at all on the calf and looked as if bullets had exploded inside them, bursting the meat outwards and blackening it. These were their ulcers of which they had dozens, from threepenny bit size upwards, on each leg. Their thigh bones and pelvis stood out sharply and on the point of each thigh bone was that red raw patch like a saddle sore or a monkey’s behind. All their ribs showed clearly, the chest sloping backwards to the hollows of throat and collar bone.  Arms hung down, stick-like, with huge hands, and the skin wrinkled where muscles had vanished, like old men. Heads were shrunken on to skulls with large teeth and faintly glowing eyes set in black wells: hair was matted and lifeless.  The whole body was draped with a loose-fitting envelope of thin purple-brown parchment which wrinkled horizontally over the stomach and chest and vertically on sagging fleshless buttocks….This was what the Japanese and Koreans did to the men who went on Forces F and H and lived. Of the total number who left Singapore , about half had survived. Now, what to do with this wreckage? And when they looked at it, even the Nips were a little unnerved.”

From Penguin Books……

The innocence of the young Australian soldiers sent to Malaya during the Second World War to halt the territorial expansion of the Japanese was quickly shattered by defeat and surrender. Russell Braddon, who himself became a prisoner of war, graphically describes the ghastly suffering and wanton neglect of the Allied soldiers in some of the most infamous Japanese POW camps, from Pudu in Malaya to Changi in Singapore. For more than three years he watched as these men were ravaged by disease, tortured, and deprived of their most basic needs. Braddon recounts his horrifying story with barely suppressed rage, but also with enormous admiration for the amazing ingenuity, spirit and determination of the prisoners, who created a semblance of order out of nightmarish chaos. His remarkable book makes grim but compelling reading.

From Amazon:

In 1941, after graduating from the University of Sydney, Russell Braddon enlisted in the Australian army. Together with thousands of other young Australian soldiers, he was sent to Malaya, where Allied forces were attempting to halt the territorial expansion of the Japanese. Although much vaunted as an impregnable fortress, Singapore proved instead to be a deadly trap, and Braddon spent almost four years as a prisoner of war after the city fell to the Japanese. This is not only the harrowing record of the years he spent struggling for survival in the notorious Pudu Gaol, in Changi, and in the tragic H Force on the Thai-Burma railway, but also of the equally brutal treatment of the native populations by the Japanese and the hollowness of the Greater Asian Co-prosperity Sphere they promised. Braddon emerged from Changi on swollen legs and ulcerated feet, from calls with desperate illnesses such as beri-beri and other starvation diseases, malaria and dysentery. Intelligent, tough, resourceful and tough in body and spirit, he was determined to surmount his ordeal. He even sharpened his mind by memorising the sole available book Mein Kampf!   The Naked Island vividly portrays battle and prison life as experienced in the ranks. It is a tale of heroism, horror, squalor, starvation and disease endured with fortitude, ironic humour and extraordinary ingenuity.

Down in Drummond Street, North Carlton, [an inner Melbourne suburb] we find the Indigenous Hospitality House [IHH]. Current residents share the house in Carlton North, where they host Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander folks who need to come to Melbourne for hospital business. They also try and help non-Indigenous people consider what it means to live on Stolen Land. Since the project started in 2001 IHH has hosted over 2000 hospital guests.

I was pleased to play a ‘small’ role in the initial establishment in 2001 of the IHH together with other supporters from around Melbourne, including members of the Sunbury Uniting Church, and in particular, friend Ruth who joined me in that final clean-up of the house before it officially opened that year. I still retain photos of us scrubbing down walls, floors, etc, generating the kind of energy [and speaking for myself only] I can’t bring to the surface these days

Still operating, the following correspondence was received in recent days, and I share it for the benefit of those interested!!

‘We at the Indigenous Hospitality House (IHH) were uncertain about the future of our project during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thankfully, after a period of discernment and preparation, we have now re-opened the doors and can return to our work of providing stable accommodation to First Nations folks visiting hospitals. Having navigated these trying years, we feel even better equipped to support guests dealing with uncertain futures of their own.

We’d love to share a story with you, that gives a sense of what this support can mean for our guests. We’re sharing it as a reminder of who we are and a celebration of our return; but we’re also hoping you’ll be a part of it.

If you are able, we’d love your contribution to keep this project alive. We’ve weathered so much, and now it’s a matter of keeping the lights on.

Tracey is a single mother from the Snowy River region who was thrown in the deep end when her son Jaicobye required medical care in the city just four days before Christmas last year. For Tracey, the prospect was daunting. Not least of all because she needed to find safe, affordable accommodation for herself and her son – something that had proved difficult on past visits. Thanks to the IHH, this time was different. An Indigenous social worker at the hospital organised for Tracey and Jaicobye to stay with us, and from the moment she arrived, she felt supported and safe.

The IHH has been connected to hospitals and medical services around so-called Australia for 22 years, and is the only service of its kind. The security, comfort and culturally safe space the IHH offers is invaluable. We provide friendly smiles, a hot cup of tea, home cooked meals and a peaceful place to rest during vulnerable moments in our guests’ lives. Tracey and Jaicobye have now stayed with us three times; each has brought an enriching experience that has positively changed their relationship to coming to Narrm/ Melbourne. On her third visit, Tracey was invited to be part of a smoking ceremony led by new volunteer resident Jack – an artist from whadjuk noongar boodja who joined the house in January.

We had other guests staying at the IHH at the time, two aunties from Arnhem Land who loved to endlessly plough through cups of tea and tell long stories.

At the IHH, we provide opportunities for connection, learning, and healing. For Tracey and Jaicobye, they now feel they have “city home and family to go to, and this feels like a new beginning for us too.”

At this time of new beginning for the IHH, Tracey and Jaicobye have generously allowed us to share their story because they want this project to continue.

The challenging realities of re-emergence from the lockdown years have impacted so many, and the IHH is no exception. In order for us to continue hosting folks like Tracey, we need to cover the costs of rent on the guest rooms, food, bills and maintenance. In the past, we’ve also been able to use donations to fund some paid hours of administrative work each work.

The Indigenous Hospitality House only exists today thanks to the amazing generosity and support of our supporters. For that we say thank you.

Over recent weeks, I have enjoyed the following books, etc,  a mix of light and more heavy approaches to literature, which as always, I briefly comment on, and include the occasional  professional review from various sources.  Material read was:

• Bride of an Anzac: My Life Story’ by Queenie Sunderland;
• The Butterfly Collector, by Tea Cooper;
• My Dream Time by Ash Barty;
• Shelter From the Storm by Penelope Janu;
• The Battle of Long Tan by Peter Fitzsimons;
• The Incredible Life of Hubert Wilkins: Australia’s Greatest Explorer by Peter Fitzsimons; and,
• Quarterly Essay 89: The Wires that Bind: Electrification and Community Renewal by Saul Griffith.

28^th January

 ‘Bride Of An Anzac’: My Life Story by Queenie Sunderland [published in 1996 [272 pages]

I picked this book up in the Studio apartment at Beechworth last week, and decided to start reading it  –  as a family historian myself, I found the context quite interesting, though was probably happy to get to the end eventually.  Having two WW I soldiers in my own family who would marry English girls they met while serving in Europe, there was a touch of familiarity.

From the book cover and various reviews we read  –  ‘This is the extraordinary story of Queenie Sunderland spanning her life from 1897 to 2000. This account, written in her 100th year, glows with wit, humour and insight that only ten decades of living and a love of learning can deliver. Her amazing memory brings to life in detail the struggles, the hardships, the journeys and the joys of a century of progress through several generations of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her courage, intelligence and humour shine through on every page and her memories touch all of us with a nostalgic empathy for those small and momentous events that happen in families’.

2^nd February 2023

‘The Butterfly Collector’ by Tea Cooper [Australian author], published n  2022, 363 pages] – the first of this author’s books, read over 2 days [as a change from the mammoth Family History of the World I’m trying to get through!  Very enjoyable light read, which has inspired me to seek out some of her earlier novels  – another great Australian writer of historical fiction, in which at the end of the book, she clearly defines the differences between action history, and the fiction she has incorporated into the story.  I found it both entertaining and educational. While perhaps bordering on the fringes of a Mills & Boon style romance novel [the early influence on the author to write], I enjoyed this novel – both for the ease of reading and for the historical flavour attached to it  Well worth it if looking for a bit of light reading during a quiet period in one’ daily routine!

From the various publicity blurbs:

What connects a botanical illustration of a butterfly with a missing baby and an enigma fifty years in the making? A twisty historical mystery from a bestselling Australian author.
1868 Morpeth Theodora Breckenridge, still in mourning after the loss of her parents and brother at sea, is more interested in working quietly on her art at the family’s country estate than she is finding a husband in Sydney society, even if her elder sister Florence has other ideas. Theodora seeks to emulate prestigious nature illustrators, the Scott sisters, who lived nearby, so she cannot believe her luck when she discovers a butterfly never before sighted in Australia. With the help of Clarrie, her maid, and her beautiful illustrations, she is poised to make a natural science discovery that will put her name on the map. Then Clarrie’s new-born son goes missing and everything changes.
1922 Sydney When would-be correspondent Verity Binks is sent an anonymous parcel containing a spectacular butterfly costume and an invitation to the Sydney Artists Masquerade Ball and on the same day she loses her job at The Arrow, she is both baffled and determined to go. Her late grandfather Sid, an esteemed newspaperman, would expect no less of her. At the ball, she lands a juicy commission to write the history of the Treadwell Foundation – an institution that supports disgraced young women and their babies. But as she begins to dig, her investigation quickly leads her to an increasingly dark and complex mystery, a mystery fifty years in the making. Can she solve it? And will anyone believe her if she does?

And from ‘Goodreads’, another brief synopsis of the book;

1868 and Clarrie and Sid were sweethearts when Clarrie realised she was pregnant. Sid would stand beside her, working everything out so Clarrie wasn’t left destitute. Maud was a midwife and would assist with Clarrie’s birth, then the lay-in period, and when Clarrie found work at the Breckenridge home as an all purpose maid, helping out Theodora as well as working in the house, they were happy. Sid worked at the local newspaper office – “The Morpeth Want” – and visited his newborn son as often as he could. But the day he was snatched, everything changed…
Verity Binks missed her grandpa Sid immensely, though she was grateful for the home he’d left her in Sydney. It was 1922 and Verity worked at a newspaper in the city, cycling everywhere. It was when Verity was commissioned to write a piece about the Treadwell Foundation that history reared its head and Verity’s interest was aroused, especially after she spotted a painting she recognised. She was determined to discover the secrets of the past, secrets which had affected her family as well as others. Returning to Morpeth, meeting a newspaper man there, they joined forces. But would they discover the truth? Plus Verity knew she needed proof…

Tea Cooper writes Australian contemporary and historical fiction. In a past life she was a teacher, a journalist and a farmer. These days she haunts museums and indulges her passion for storytelling.

12 February

My Dream Time’ by Ash Barty, published in 2022, 353 pages  –  an interesting enough read.  She writes simply and with blunt honesty. Enjoyed her recollections of specific matches, sets, points, though probably aided by research and general records. My only ‘dis-quietness’ about the book  – though it does run in some degree of chronological order, she jumps around in time a fair bit throughout her biography, which tended to annoy me a little. But then again, for many people and readers, that probably allowed for more enjoyment rather than a straight series of chapters from birth to marriage .

In the words of Ash herself…….: It’s a tennis story. It’s a family story. It’s a teamwork story. It’s the story of how I got to where and who I am today.

I’m only in my mid-twenties, and some might think that’s young to write a memoir. Who does that, right? But for me and my team it’s always been important to reflect on every part of the journey, especially the end. In that context, the timing is perfect to share my story, from the first time I picked up a racquet as a 5-year-old girl in Ipswich to the night I packed up my tennis bag at Melbourne Park after winning the 2022 Australian Open. This book gives me a chance to look back at every moment of the 20 years in between, and to think carefully through the highs and lows, the work and the play, the smiles and the tears.

Telling my story also gives me an opportunity to do more than simply thank those who mean the most to me – it provides a way to honour them as an integral part of that tale, as the very secret behind my success. Some of them you might know – such as my longtime coach, Craig Tyzzer – and some of them you might not – like my first childhood coach, Jim Joyce. There are mates like Casey Dellacqua and Alicia Molik. Mentors such as tennis icon Evonne Goolagong Cawley and mindset coach Ben Crowe. My parents and sisters and my husband have sacrificed as much as I have over the years – this book is also for them.

My Dream Time is about finding the path to being the best I could be, not just as an athlete but as a person, and to consider the way those identities overlap and compete. We all have a professional and a personal self. How do you conquer nerves and anxiety? How do you deal with defeat, or pain? What drives you to succeed – and what happens when you do? The answers tell me so much, about bitter disappointments and also dreams realised – from injuries and obscurity and self-doubt to winning Wimbledon and ranking number 1 in the world.

My story is about the power and joy of doing that thing you love and seeing where it can take you, about the importance of purpose – and perspective – in our lives.

25^th February

‘Shelter From The Storm’ by Penelope Janu [published in 2023, 435 pages], the 7^th novel by this Australia but only the first I have come across.

Purchased seeking some pleasant relief from a couple of more serious books I’m currently wading through. Another Australian novel, set in Australia, a mix of rural, environmental, and Navy related issues, which I found quite interesting, and a relaxing read.

Book blog:  When Patience Cartwright is stranded in her home town, the last thing she expects is a second chance at love…  Fiercely independent naval officer, Patience Cartwright has never had a place to call home, but she knows where she doesn’t belong. After an unhappy childhood and a badly broken heart, she’ll never return to the country.  But to save her career, Patience is forced to accept a secondment – to an environmental team working near the town where she grew up. There she encounters once more the infuriatingly attractive biologist Hugo Halstead – the very man she’s sworn never to forgive.  Given their history, Hugo, as self-assured and honest as Patience is secretive and self-contained, has vowed never to trust her again, but that doesn’t stop him feeling just as helplessly drawn to her complicated mix of courage and fragility as he ever was.  As Patience recuperates from a life-threatening illness in the small country town of Horseshoe Hill, she realises the beauty of the landscape and close-knit community promise something very different to the future she’s mapped out.  But could the secrets she keeps and the shadows of her past, send her adrift all over again?

As the concluding paragraph in a Review by one Amanda Barrett explains  –

‘A fine cast of supporting characters, such as colleagues and family members add to the drama in Shelter from the Storm. The audience will warm to figures such as Hugo’s mum and Patience’s siblings, who are all genuinely great protagonists to meet. Community ties are potent in this novel, drawing the reader in to the very fabric of the local region. With themes of naval pursuits, careers, past secrets,  homecoming, illness, personal health, belonging and support, Shelter from the Storm is a book that will secure your heart and mind for the duration that you spend with this delightful read’.

5^th March 2023

‘The Battle of Long Tan’ by Peter Fitzsimons, published in 2022, 460 pages –  another brilliant piece of writing by Fitzsimons, but a story that left one horrified [again] at the brutality of war, and the senselessness of it all. Of particular personal interest – had my birthday date being drawn out in hose conscription ballots of the early 1960s [essentially for service – or cannon fodder – in Vietnam], well I most likely would not be here to rite this, because somehow I doubt, that knowing my personality and humane view of the world’s people, I could not have survived  – even if I’d got as far as Vietnam – not sure if I could have survived the Army discipline imposed on new recruits from the very start!  And if I had returned –   I somehow feel the psychological affect would have been quite severe!

What was the Battle of Long Tan  about?   –   From ABC Conversations of 8/1/2022 –    “Peter FitzSimons has written many books on Australian military history, but pulling out the remarkable stories from the Battle of Long Tan was a long process, despite the fact that many of the participants in this great defining moment are still alive.  In August 1966, a company of Australian soldiers found themselves alone and separated in a Vietnamese rubber plantation, trying to survive wave after wave of enemy onslaught. While the Battle of Long Tan became Australia’s deadliest encounter in the Vietnam War, many of the men from Delta Company survived against all odds, with the help from insubordinate helicopter pilots, and dogged comrades on the ground.”

Certainly, a powerful read, quite disturbing, the author hides nothing back, and little is left to the imagination. It was noted that most of those servicemen involved in the battle  – well,  they didn’t think they would survive, they wanted to, but felt death was inevitable. –  and for so many, it is death that came, or terrible wounds and pain.  And what was it all for, what did it achieve?

As noted on page 402 – “As North Vietnam kept flooding ever more of their cadres to the South, America and her allies lost the stomach for the fight. Nui Dat was handed over to the South Vietnamese Army by November 1971 and the last Australian infantry battalion left Vietnam the following month.  At the time of departure, Australian forces had suffered a total of 423 fatalities during their time in Vietnam, with 2398 wounded. Not surprisingly, the ARVN proved incapable of  filling the vacuum  left by the Australians and the VC soon ruled unchallenged once more”.

And on page 403: “Even by that time the very premises on which the Vietnam War had been based had been completely discredited, generating great bitterness, which exists to this day, over he USA – and Australia – being there in the first place”.

As always, I like the way in which Fitzsimons rounds up his story –  with his findings and examination of where all the main characters in the story ended up.  And he doesn’t hold back on the so-called military leaders, who after the war, received most of the medals and honours, in relation to the Long Tan exercise, even though in some cases, sitting back well away from the action, they procrastinated and delayed in the decisions about support  for the troops in the heat of the battle.  In one particular case, it was argued that the citations given “could be considered as Tantamount to perjury. After all…the idea that  [one Brigadier] personally directed the battle is demonstrable nonsense, when during the course of the entire action……he was decorated for personal leadership but he should have faced a military inquiry into why he didn’t assess the intelligence he was getting’ [pages 423-424].

From page 424: “The ugly truth about Long Tan, and in fact the entire Vietnam War over  decade, is that senior officers took most of the awards at the expense of soldiers who fought in action. There were 726 awards given out in those ten years, and of those Private soldiers received only 61 awards, of which just 22 were medals.  Many more went to major-generals, brigadiers, colonels and lieutenants far from the action. [Just 3% medals for Privates].

Fitzsimons went on to say [on page 426]  that the “Americans  were faster to honour the men of Delta Company [the Australian force] than the Australian Governments, by about four decades. General Westmoreland was so enamoured  by the effort of the ‘Ossies’ that he arranged a Presidential Citation for Delta Company, a rare and deserved honour, bestowed on 18 August, 1968”.

One interesting story –  at the August 2016 memorial service and display of a new National Memorial  Honour Roll of Vietnam veterans lost in the war, one soldier who came to pay respects to a mate who was killed during the campaign, became incensed that his mate’s name was not on the Honour Roll.  When he voiced his complaint, he was told that his friend’s name was not on the Roll, because he as still very much alive   He had been repatriated from Vietnam with brain damage, and was living peacefully in a psychiatric hospital in Sydney. I suppose in a way, you could call that a good story, he was regularly visited by his wife and daughter since the War, having only being  married 2 weeks before he went to Vietnam, and yes returned, but a different person!! 

The following is just one of many reviews about the book – from Farrell’s Bookshop  – obviously a promotional exercise –  but a useful summary of the contents

From the bestselling author of Kokoda and Gallipoli comes the epic story of Australia’s deadliest Vietnam War battle.

• 4.31 pm: Enemy [on] left flank. Could be serious.
• 5.01 pm: Enemy … penetrating both flanks and to north and south.
• 5.02: Running short of ammo. Require drop through trees.

It was the afternoon of 18 August 1966, hot, humid with grey monsoonal skies. D Company, 6RAR were four kilometres east of their Nui Dat base, on patrol in a rubber plantation not far from the abandoned village of Long Tan. A day after their base had suffered a mortar strike, they were looking for Viet Cong soldiers.

Then – just when they were least expecting – they found them. Under withering fire, some Diggers perished, some were grievously wounded, the rest fought on, as they remained under sustained attack.

For hours these men fought for their lives against the enemy onslaught. The skies opened and the rain fell as ferocious mortar and automatic fire pinned them down. Snipers shot at close quarters from the trees that surrounded them. The Aussie, Kiwi and Yankee artillery batteries knew it was up to them but, outnumbered and running out of ammunition they fired, loaded, fired as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army forces just kept coming. And coming.

Their only hope was if Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) could reach them before they were wiped out. The APCs did their best but low cloud and thunderstorms meant air support was stalled. A daring helicopter resupply mission was suggested but who would want to fly that? The odds against this small force were monumental…

By far the deadliest battle for Australian forces in Vietnam, the Battle of Long Tan has a proud place in the annals of Australian military history – and every ANZAC who fought there could hold his head high.

Peter FitzSimons, Australia’s greatest storyteller, tells the real story of this classic battle. He reveals the horror, the bravery, the wins and the losses that faced our soldiers. He brings to life the personal stories of the men who fought, the events leading up to that memorable battle and the long war that followed, and the political decisions made in the halls of power that sealed their fates. The Battle of Long Tan is an engrossing and powerful history that shows the costs of war never end.

In conclusion  –  By far the deadliest battle for Australian forces in Vietnam, the Battle of Long Tan has a proud place in the annals of Australian military history – and every ANZAC who fought there could hold his head high. Peter FitzSimons, Australia’s greatest storyteller, tells the real story of this classic battle. He reveals the horror, the bravery, the wins and the losses that faced our soldiers. He brings to life the personal stories of the men who fought, the events leading up to that memorable battle and the long war that followed, and the political decisions made in the halls of power that sealed their fates. The Battle of Long Tan is an engrossing and powerful history that shows the costs of war never end.

31^st March 2023

‘The Incredible Life of Hubert Wilkins [Australia’s Greatest Explorer], by Peter Fitzsimons,  published in 2021, 549 pages. This was a Christmas present at the end of 2021, and on my brother, Robert Kirk’s recommendation early in 2022, I began to read it then, but subsequently put it aside for other books.  After reading ‘The Battle of Long Tan’, I decided to get back to Hubert Wilkins, of whom I knew very little about – as it seems do most Australians. – a man who generally apparently didn’t rate with the more well-known early Australian explorers.

A fabulous read of an amazing man, explorer, scientist [in mind] and adventurer, with a seemingly charmed life., His explorations of the Polar regions  for had to comprehend –  the isolation, and extreme weather conditions that had to be faced, made at times quite chilling reading [no pun intended].  Afterwards, I found it strange that our school history books about explorers, as far as I can recall, made little if any reference to this man –  certainly deserving of much mire attention than history has given him.

From Hachette Australia, the book is described as follows.

The extraordinary, must-read story of the brave, bold Hubert Wilkins – Australia’s most adventurous explorer, naturalist, photographer, war hero, aviator, spy and daredevil – brought to life by Australia’s greatest storyteller.

Sir Hubert Wilkins is one of the most remarkable Australians who ever lived.

The son of pioneer pastoralists in South Australia, Hubert studied engineering before moving on to photography, then sailing for England and a job producing films with the Gaumont Film Co. Brave and bold, he became a polar expeditioner, a brilliant war photographer, a spy in the Soviet Union, a pioneering aviator-navigator, a death-defying submariner – all while being an explorer and chronicler of the planet and its life forms that would do Vasco da Gama and Sir David Attenborough proud. As a WW1 photographer he was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire, the only Australian photographer in any war to be decorated. He went on expedition with Sir Ernest Shackleton, led a groundbreaking natural history study in Australia and was knighted in 1928 for his aviation exploits, but many more astounding achievements would follow. Wilkins’ quest for knowledge and polar explorations were lifelong passions and his missions to polar regions aboard the submarine Nautilus the stuff of legend.

With masterful storytelling skill, Peter FitzSimons illuminates the life of Hubert Wilkins and his incredible achievements. Thrills and spills, derring-do, new worlds discovered – this is the most unforgettable tale of the most extraordinary life lived by any Australian.

‘Peter FitzSimons has done his level best to return George Hubert Wilkins to the pantheon of the greatest Australians. He has told a story for the nation.’ – Michael McKernan, The Canberra Times

One reviewer [Gary Daly] wrote:   ‘History as collated by a committee of specialists and written in the style of a ‘boy’s own adventure’. It’s a rich adventure narrative and how much is this a biographical history? The telling of history and in this case the historical biography of the most incredible and unknown Australian adventurer, Hubert Wilkins. Photographer, soldier photographer WW1, polar explorer, pilot, daredevil and the luckiest man alive. Survives every bomb, every bullet, every plane crash and even in his 50s a survivor of a French Military plane shot down over occupied France in 1940. Stranded and without speaking an inch of French makes an incredible solo journey through German occupied France to safety. Not many recorded details of his work in WW2 in comparison to the massive detail that follows Hubert Wilkins from his naive journey from South Australia to Sydney and ends up a Captain in the Australian Army as Charles Bean’s official war photographer. Unbelievable and seat of your pants adventure double plus journey. Great read but I decided early on to take the well-formed narrative and enjoy it as a factualised/fictionalised reading experience. I’m positive Hubert Wilkins achieved what has been says of him, I just needed to suspend my biographical mindset in order to fully enjoy the boy’s own adventure story written’.

Certainly, one of our own, worth reading and learning about, a man seemingly without fear, sometimes even to the potential detriment of those ‘travelling’ such as the aborted attempt to take a basically unseaworthy submarine underneath the North Pole – a visionary of the future indeed.

2^nd April, 2023

Quarterly Essay No. 89 – ‘The Wires That Bind: Electrification and Community Renewal’ by Saul Griffith  and the responses to ‘Lone Wolf’ by Katherine Murphy [QE 88].

I found this a very interesting read, if not a little disturbing, with various statistical tables and graphs throughout the Essay……………….. The country is at a crossroads. In The Wires That Bind, inventor, engineer and visionary Saul Griffith reveals the world that awaits us if we make the most of Australia’s energy future.

Griffith paints an inspiring yet practical picture of empowered local communities acting collectively when it comes to renewable energy, and benefiting financially. He considers both equity and security – an end to dependence on foreign oil, for instance. He explores the rejuvenation of regional Australia, as well as the rise of a new populist movement driven by Australian women. And he explodes once and for all the trees v. jobs binary.  This is an electrifying essay about building a better world, one community at a time.

“We need a realistic and achievable vision for the future because the future is coming fast. We have only about one-quarter of one century, twenty-five years, one human generation, to get ourselves out of this climate quandary. If we get this right, if we design the incentives and the policies and the regulations correctly, communities will thrive. Every Australian will benefit economically, socially and even health-wise. So let’s hit the road.” Saul Griffith, The Wires That Bind

Occasionally, I find these QE’s sometimes technically difficult to follow completely, this was a pleasant exception – most interesting aspect, the objective [his] of ridding us of gas use completely, and making electricity the principal use of power sources.

There were also some generally supportive response to the previous Quarterly Essay – ‘Lone Wolf’, the essay about Anthony Albanese by Katherine Murphy.[referred to in Coachbuilder Column Volume 13, Issue 1]  The principal response – from the other side of politics, by former Liberal MP and Minister, Christopher Pyne.

On January 25, the Australian of the Year Awards 2023 honoured people young and old who embodied what it means to be Australian.  Since its inception in 1960, the Australian of the Year Awards has provided a forum for the recognition of outstanding achievement across the nation.

Over the years the criteria for the awards has shifted significantly. Initially the focus was on international acclaim and awarding the person who had ‘brought the greatest honour to Australia’. Now, the criteria focuses on excellence in a field and being an inspirational role model for the Australian community.  The 2022 winner was athlete and disability advocate Dylan Alcott.

As well as the Australian of the Year, the Senior Australian of the Year, Young Australian of the Year and Australia’s Local Hero were announced at the awards ceremony in Canberra.

There were 32 finalists across the four categories who were nominated by members of their community and recognised for their contributions.

The respective winners in each category were

Australian of the Year: 

Taryn Brumfitt, a body image activist who directed a documentary about women’s body loathing and her path to accepting her own skin, has been named the 2023 Australian of the Year.  The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, made the announcement at a ceremony at the National Arboretum Canberra on Wednesday night.  Brumfitt, 45, heads the Body Image Movement in Adelaide, an organisation focused on body positivity and acceptance, and directed the 2016 documentary Embrace, which has been seen by millions on Netflix.  Brumfitt has also written four best-selling books, and her most recent documentary, Embrace Kids, was released in September and aims to teach children to nourish and appreciate what their bodies can do.

“Taryn has inspired millions of women around the world to be more comfortable in their own skin,” the chair of the National Australia Day  Council, Danielle Roche, said.

Brumfitt takes over as Australian of the Year from the tennis champion, Paralympian and disability advocate Dylan Alcott. Alcott was named Australian of the Year just before the Australian Open final where he retired from his sporting career.

Young Australian of the Year

The Australian Socceroo, Awer Mabil, was named the 2023 Young Australian of the Year.

The Adelaide-based 27-year-old grew up in a Kenyan refugee camp after his family fled civil war in Sudan and came to Australia when he was 10.  A year after Mabil first played for the Socceroos, his sister died in a car accident in 2019.  Mabil co-founded the Barefoot to Boots not-for-profit organisation aiming to improve health, education and gender equality for refugees.

The sports star was unable to attend the awards due to football commitments in Europe. His mother and uncle accepted his award on his behalf.

Senior Australian of the Year:

The 2023 Senior Australian of the Year is the Kungarakan elder and human rights campaigner Prof Tom Calma. Calma, 69, is currently the co-chair of Reconciliation Australia and chancellor of the University of Canberra.  Calma was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission between 2004 and 2010. His 2005 report calling for governments to commit to achieving equality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in health and life expectancy formed the foundation of the Close the Gap campaign.

Calma also co-led the co-design of the voice to parliament initiative.

Local Hero of the Year:

The 2023 Australia’s local hero was named as Amar Singh, the founder of Turbans 4 Australia, a group that every week packages and distributes up to 450 food and grocery packages to people experiencing food insecurity in western Sydney.  The group also provided hay to farmers during drought, as well as supplies to Lismore flood victims and bushfire victims on the south coast of New South Wales.

Other Australian of the Year Nominees were:

• Former Socceroo and human rights activist Craig Forster is the NSW nominee. He earned international acclaim during his tenure as Socceroo’s captain and since retiring as a player has become a prominent analyst and commentator .Foster’s human rights activism has taken centre stage in recent years. He was involved in advocating for the release of refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi in 2019.
• Queensland finalist William Barton is a proud Kalkadunga man, and a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, didgeridoo player and renowned classical composer.   He was invited to perform with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra at 17, has received numerous prestigious music awards including Best World Music Album at the 2022 ARIAs, and was the 2019 artist in residence at Melbourne Recital Centre.
• Proud Mayili man Samuel Bush-Blanasi is the Northern Territory’s finalist. Bush-Blanasi has worked for decades to empower Indigenous Australians through native title claims and constitutional reform. He is Chair and Deputy Chair of the Northern Land Council.
• From Victoria, paediatrician and co-found of Health Awareness Society of Australia Dr. Angrai Khillan   is the nominee. He works with the Health Awareness Society of Australia to dispel taboos, myths and misinformation about health and deliver reliable information around topics like vaccines in numerous languages.
• Western Australian advocate for end of life care Professor Samar  Auon  is also in the running. She advocates for person-centred approaches to end of life care and is an international leader in in the advocacy of public health approaches to palliative care.
• From the ACT, Olympia Yarger is an insect farming pioneer  and climate action activist. Yarger has developed an innovative waste management system that uses maggots to process food waste and reduce greenhouse gases.
• Tasmanian John Kamara is the co-founder of Culturally Diverse Alliance of. Originally from Sierra Leone, Kamara now works with migrants, refugees and people from culturally diverse communities.

Other Young Australian of the Year nominees  were:

• From Tasmania, Humanitarian and marathon runner Meriem Daoui
• From the Northern Territory, First Nations community leader Jahdai Vigona
• From Victoria,  Advocate for Indigenous health care in prisons Darcy McGauley-Bartlett
• From Western Australia, athlete and olympian Nagmeldin (Peter) Bol
• From NSW, sustainability champion Lottie Dalziel
• From the ACT, performer and songwriter Kofi Owusu-Ansah
• From Queensland, community organiser Talei Elu

Other Senior Australian of the Year nominees  were:

• From South Australia, Indigenous health advocate Sandra Miller
• From the Northern Territory, suicide prevention campaigner Bernard Tipiloura
• From Victoria, pediatrician and founding director of the Centre for Community Child Health Professor Frank Oberklaid
• From Western Australia, community advocate Theresa Kwok
• OFrom NSW, palliative care pioneer and advocate Teresa Plane
• From Queensland, child protection campaigner Claude Lyle Harvey OAM
• From Tasmania, prisoner advocate and frontline COVID-19 worker Dr Frances Donaldson

Other nominees for the Local Hero award were:

• From South Australia, co-founder of Lost Pets of South Australia Christine Robertson
• From the Northern Territory, social worker Sacha King
• From Victoria, founder of Mums of the Hills Belinda Young
• From Western Australia, co-founder of Town Team Movement James Murphy
• From the ACT, scientist and co-founder of SiTara’s Story Dr Shamaruh Mirza
• From Queensland, founder of A Brave Life Melissa Redsell
• From Tasmania, volunteer ambulance officer Keith Parker

Over the past couple of decades or so, much has been written, said and printed about climate change, so much so, that were the problem not so serious, one almost wants to turn off the subject and let others think about it. Perhaps that’s the problem?

Anyway, an excellent article on the subject appeared in the December, 2022 edition of ‘Crosslight’, a bi-monthly magazine produced through \the Uniting Church in Australia Synod of Victoria and Tasmania. The writer was Andrew Humphries, and, while essentially by the nature of the publication, it is written from the Church’s perspective, the many examples therein could and no doubt do, apply to a  range of organisations, etc, be they of a religious or secular nature, that in Australia today,  are a least ‘attempting’ to do their bit to address the issue of climate change.  Apart from that aspect, the article addresses the issue in easily understood [to my mind] layman’s terms in the absence of the cyclopaedic flood of science used in most arguments.

Anyway, I felt it worth sharing on this page.

The Heat is On  by Andrew Humphries [‘Crosslight’, December, 2022, pages 18-29]

Fifteen years ago, Kevin Rudd was Leader of the Opposition when he addressed the National Climate Summit at Parliament House and described climate change as the “great moral challenge facing our generation”. There was no time to waste, he said, as the world faced its greatest crisis. “My intention is to harness the best brains and talent available in the country to get our response and the nation’s response to climate change as right as possible,” he said. “To do that, we have to begin by fashioning, shaping and encouraging a national political and policy consensus on climate change. “Our job is to listen, but subsequent to that, our job is then to act.”

Just over six months later, in November 2007, Rudd became our 26th Prime Minister and, for so many Australians concerned about what was happening to our planet, his climate summit address offered hope for meaningful work to address the impacts of climate change. Yet in the 15 years since, Rudd, Julia Gillard, Rudd again, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison made little headway in addressing that “great moral challenge” facing Australia and, indeed, the world.  The task now rests with Anthony Albanese, as all of the science tells us that we are edging ever closer to midnight in the race to save humanity.

In Melbourne, Uniting Church Senior Social Justice Advocate Mark Zirnsak has watched on as little progress has been made in the 15 years since Rudd’s Parliament House address.

“I would argue that he was correct and that climate change is a great moral challenge globally,” Mark says. “I don’t want to suggest that it’s an end-of-the-world scenario, but obviously its harmful impacts are being felt by hundreds of millions of people around the world, and that would continue to increase due to a lack of action. “We have seen some progress at a global level and some countries have committed to taking action, but the action taken hasn’t lived up to the promises made.

“It’s one of these difficult areas that requires global effort across the board and there can be a selfish advantage a country can get if it doesn’t do its share and everyone else kicks in to make up for what it’s not doing. “So you’ve got this temptation to say ‘we’ll let others fix it and we’ll ride on their efforts’.” It’s also an attitude sometimes expressed by countries such as Australia suggesting they contribute little overall in the way of greenhouse emissions and, on that basis, should be cut some slack. That, says Mark, is a dangerous attitude and it’s countries such as ours that should be leading the way in reducing emissions. “If you actually look at our emissions, we are, from memory, in the top 20 among the biggest emitters,” he says. “If you ran that argument about emissions per country with Australia as your example, you would end up saying ‘oh, there are 170 countries that can afford to do nothing because they emit less than us and therefore all of the heavy lifting has to be done by a handful of large countries who emit more than us. “But if those large countries reduced their emissions to zero, you still wouldn’t get to the emission reduction that we need because those other 170 countries, including Australia, aren’t doing their bit. “It seems a convenient argument to make, but it’s one that sets us on a path towards enormous damage and harm globally.  “A valid counter argument is to say that it’s fairer to compare on the basis of per capita emissions per country and, on that basis, we are right near the top.”

At a national level, the Uniting Church Assembly has called on members to address what it describes as a “climate crisis”. “The Uniting Church calls for urgent action towards a more sustainable planet and support for those most impacted,” it said ahead of the release last year of a National Climate Action Plan which aims to encourage action across the Church. “We seek the flourishing of the whole of God’s Creation and all its creatures. “We act to renew the Earth from the damage done and stand in solidarity with people most impacted by human-induced climate change. “Government, churches, businesses and the wider community work together for a sustainable future.”

The document commits the Uniting Church to reducing emissions by five per cent each year, with an end goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2040. It recognises the danger caused by rising greenhouse gases, which have resulted in rising sea levels, extreme heat and storms, longer droughts and bushfire seasons, and the loss of coral reefs, but also acknowledges the fact that the impacts of climate change are not always distributed equally. “We recognise that the impacts of climate change fall disproportionately on those who have contributed least to human-induced greenhouse emissions, including our neighbours in the Pacific and elsewhere,” our Church says. “For many years, the Uniting Church has spoken out about the need for greater action on climate change and to care for God’s creation. Our statements in 1977, 1991, 2006 and 2018 have outlined the genuine desire of the Uniting Church in Australia to see more done to protect our environment. “We also acknowledge that our words are not enough. “It is time to move from resolutions to urgent, church-wide action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our own activities and build credibility in our continuing advocacy work. “This National Climate Action Plan is intended to drive that action.”

With the Assembly’s net zero target by 2040 in mind, Mark says the Victorian and Tasmanian Synod has begun the process of examining how it might reach that target and what it would mean for the Synod. “A discussion paper, involving the Synod’s Climate Action Taskforce, will go out to members and it seeks to fully explore what it will mean to get to net zero, what kind of efforts we would need to make in doing that, and what the cost would be,” Mark says. “So there isn’t a pre-determined outcome on that and our challenge has been that while there are parts of our Synod that are very dedicated to seeing a reduction in emissions, it would be fair to say that other parts of our organisations believe there are other priorities at this stage and that reaching net zero emissions at a Synod level is going to present quite a challenge.

“A part of the discussion will really be about how we collectively decide how to move forward on this. “At the very least, the Synod should be committing to doing all that we reasonably can to reduce our emissions, but whether we can agree to join the Assembly in the net zero position is something that needs a lot of discussion.” Mark hopes to have the discussion paper released within the next month or two, before a way forward is identified that can be taken to a Synod Meeting. Pressed for a personal opinion on the net zero by 2040 goal, Mark says it requires a delicate balancing act. “Climate action is a really important issue, but at the same time I think the Church is going to see that it has other priorities,” he says. “In terms of my own view, it’s that the Synod membership really needs to own any decision. “I absolutely think we should be doing all that we can, but whether the Synod feels it can put aside sufficient funds to reach net zero is a decision that the membership needs to make, and it will come at the cost of other priorities, and that is the reality. “It’s a complex situation, so yes I’m saying we need to be doing all that we can on climate change while recognising there will be limits to how far the Church can afford to go on it.”

But the tide is turning, as more and more congregations realise the power they have in being able to make meaningful change. At Manningham UC in Templestowe, members are understandably proud of what they have been able to do in promoting sustainability as part of the plan to address climate change. When plans were drawn up to design and build its new complex, the merger of four congregations meant there was sufficient funds to create something special in terms of a building that ticked all of the sustainability boxes. Social Justice Action Group member Don Bartlett uses the words from Luke 12:48 to explain Manningham’s commitment to sustainability. “Luke said ‘to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded’,”  Don says. “We have a responsibility at Manningham Uniting Church to continue our sustainability journey. Our vision is simple: we want to send our community the message that we are committed to a sustainable future for God’s planet.”

The new building includes double-glazed windows, 34 410-watt solar panels which generate 14kw of power, energy-efficient LED lights, and rainwater tanks able to store 45,000 litres of water to be used for flushing toilets and landscape irrigation. “This will be exceptionally helpful, with more than an estimated 30 per cent of the site covered with vegetation,” Don says. “Water-efficient fixtures and fittings ensure that our water is used wisely.” Provision has also been made for the installation of more solar panels when required, electric vehicle charging points in the building’s basement, and changes in the kitchen that encourage sustainability. “At an appropriate time, gas cooktops in the kitchen can be replaced with electric induction cooktops,” Don says. “This brings not only a huge reduction in the amount of energy required for cooking and heating, it eliminates unhealthy gases which cause respiratory problems, especially for children. “Ultimately, we can disconnect our building from the gas network.”

Mark says the Manningham congregation should be congratulated on taking significant steps in sustainability when it came to designing the new building. “The advantage for them of course was that it was a new church building, but it’s good to see the choices they have made, and they have made significant efforts in what they have done,” he says. “Theirs is an obvious example of places where the Church can act, so they are to be commended for what they have done.” Apart from the building itself, Don says other initiatives are being put in place to ensure Manningham continues to embrace a future based around sustainability. “Sustainability goes far beyond building design,” he says. “Largely thanks to congregation member Alison Smith, we are gearing up to become a significant community recycling hub, while Hugh Spratling’s indoor plants enhance our office space air quality and ambience.

“Our community garden provides an opportunity for locals to grow and share produce and our composting bins recycle organic matter, including that from the Redgum Cafe. “Manningham Uniting Church has long advocated for God’s earth, and we have lots of in-house expertise on how to make our lives and our houses more sustainable. “The sustainability of the environment is everyone’s responsibility.” Don’s message is a simple one: every little bit counts in the battle against climate change. He admits, somewhat ruefully though, that he comes to the issue after a working background that began in 1959 in the coal mining industry as a chemist and chemical engineer. “My first job then was at the old coalfired Newport power station,” he recalls. “I can also remember the building of the Hazelwood power station, which we thought at the time was fantastic because it was done so economically. “Decades later I admit I’m probably living with a little bit of guilt around that early work.” By 1976, though, Don had become aware of the dangers that carbon dioxide had begun to pose to the environment. “I knew about global warming and increases in carbon dioxide even then and I can recall giving a talk in 1976 while I was working for Melbourne Water about the dangers of overpopulation and build-up of carbon dioxide,” he says. “It’s such a huge challenge now because despite everything we have done so far, carbon dioxide levels continue to increase.” Don now devotes his energy towards addressing climate change, something he says is a fundamental part of being a Christian. “We have to be optimistic and, as Christians, we should be at the forefront of the fight,” he says. “Saving God’s planet needs to be our priority and we need to set the example.”

Also setting an example is Brunswick UC, in Melbourne’s inner north, whose congregation members have sent a clear message that there is no time to waste in addressing climate change. In November 2019, the congregation declared a “climate crisis” and, in 2020, adopted a Climate Crisis Action Plan. Congregation member James Clough says the decision grew out of the formation of a climate action group, which then determined a path forward. “The first thing was for the congregation to declare a climate emergency and then establish a   theological basis for setting priorities around that,” he says. While congregation members had declared a climate crisis by 2019, James admits his own concerns had become apparent about two decades earlier. “I would be perfectly happy to say that that was my position by 1999 and since then the pace of change has increased dramatically,” he says. “This was something that was clear to me at primary school in the 1980s and I can recall reading reports about the gravity of the situation even then. “In the last five years, we have been living with the consequences of climate change. “Just a few weeks after we made that climate crisis declaration in 2019, we saw the consequences of climate change in the bushfire crisis. “I remember thinking at that time that I hope we don’t come to see something like these fires as a good day, the fear being that such events might become commonplace.

Even before their climate crisis declaration, Brunswick members had been looking at sustainability issues, with a move towards solar panels in 2015 a natural progression. “A number of congregation members had solar panels on their own homes and we thought as a congregation it was time to look at that as a means of reducing our carbon footprint,” James says. “The obvious first question was what would be the cost involved in installing solar panels and, after crunching the numbers, we found it would be a modest capital investment that would pay off pretty smartly.” That initial cost was just under $13,000 when the panels were installed in 2015, with the investment on track to be paid off after just eight years. It is actions such as this, as well as an increasing worldwide awareness around climate change, that has James believing averting a climate crisis may be possible. “The crisis in Europe has produced a response from people, with so many now saying, ‘we have to fix this energy transition’,” he says. “The electricity future is going to be so much cheaper and cleaner and if we can make it accessible to everyone I think the pace of change towards a future free of fossil fuels is going to increase dramatically. “The last year has seen a huge change in direction and I think we have got a pretty good chance of pulling out of the dive before we hit the ground.”

As the fight against climate change engages us on an individual level, it’s also a battle being fought in the boardrooms of corporate Australia. Uniting Church-aligned investment firm U Ethical began in 1985 and has established itself as one of the country’s largest ethical investment managers, with over $1 billion under management. “We have developed a reputation for our unwavering commitment to ethics driven performance,” U Ethical proudly declares. “Our ethical authenticity is central to who we are, not just what we do. “We aim to provide our clients with competitive returns, and as a social enterprise we contribute the majority of our operating surplus to social justice advocacy and community programs.” Not surprisingly, U Ethical regards climate change as one of the most serious issues facing Australia. That’s why it avoids managing funds for any company that causes unacceptable damage to the natural environment, and lists fossil fuel, uranium mining and nuclear energy industries as those it will not deal with. Instead, it seeks to invest in companies with robust governance, business practices and sound decarbonisation plans.

 “At U Ethical, we believe that climate change is the most defining and complex systemic risk of our time,” the company outlined in its 2021 Annual Sustainability Report. “Climate change is an intergenerational and cross-border issue, a collective action problem that will require extensive collaboration within industry and between countries. “We have reached the point where an emergency response is required.” As Head of Ethics and Impact and with a background in climate science, sustainability and infrastructure planning, Désirée Lucchese is perfectly placed to continue U Ethical’s work within a Uniting Church context in addressing the complex issue of climate change. “Historically we have always been concerned about climate change within the Uniting Church and have looked at it as a major human rights issue,” Désirée says. “In 2014, U Ethical started divesting from controversial oil and gas developments and in 2019 we fully divested from fossil fuels. “So it meant ending all possible exposure across coal, thermal coal, oil and gas.” Désirée says advocacy also plays an important role when driving home the message to corporations that fossil fuels cause climate change. “For example, we engage banks to ensure they decarbonise and reduce their investments in oil, gas and coal, in line with the science that tells us of the harm these fuels are causing,” she says. “So even if we aren’t directly invested in fossil fuel companies, we are still engaging with different sectors, including the most influential ones, to try and have their operations and capital not being invested in fossil fuels.” Désirée suggests there is much we can do on an individual level to ensure those companies managing our money are addressing the issue of climate change. “In my own case, I have my superannuation invested in an ethical fund and I don’t want it being allocated to companies that are destroying the world,” she says. “So my values say that I don’t want to have any involvement in something that impacts the real world.” Désirée urges Uniting Church members who want to take up the climate change challenge to become advocates for our world. “We must press the banks and bigger financial institutions to do the right thing around decarbonisation and reaching targets and commitments made,” she says.

“What I would say to congregations is to ask their members of parliament to invest in renewable energy and social justice and to prepare for climate adaptation. “To get to net zero emissions is a very big challenge for the world and it needs governments to invest in the subsidies, grants and infrastructure that address the issue. “To make the world a stable and adaptable world for climate change we need governments, individuals and the private sector to do their job. “On an individual level, we can look at switching to electric cars, becoming more responsible in our own household and community, trying not to travel too much and writing to our MPs to drive change.” As a university student, Désirée’s Bachelor of Science thesis was on the topic of the economics, science and international relations of climate change and, by the time she finished her studies in her early 20s, she had become increasingly concerned about the impact of climate change. “What I’m interested in are the ways we can influence and effect change and how we change organisations and shift mindsets,” she says. Part of that shifting of mindsets involves promoting the benefits of reaching net zero emissions, a vital task if we are to have any chance of reining in climate change. “You know, it’s very complex and the reality is that emissions are not reducing and we are being forced to adapt to a very rapid decline of the state of nature,” she says. “From an environmental perspective, we face a very daunting prospect. “There isn’t great cause for optimism and the escalation of the crisis is quite astonishing. “When I started looking at climate change, I never thought I would be seeing what I am now, that it would happen so fast.

“The reality is that we are facing a very challenging future, because of geopolitics, social injustice and inequality, and climate change is only going to exacerbate all of those challenges.” Désirée suggests any hope for arresting the enormous impacts of climate change will lie with our younger generations, the students and young people she often talks to about the issue. “I mentor a lot of young people and students and I see there is a lot of interest on their part and a desire to do things differently, so maybe that new generation offers us some hope,” she says.

As a member of the Port Phillip West Presbytery’s Task Group for Climate Action, Sue Strong is able to see firsthand the efforts being made by many congregations in the fight against climate change. She says St Luke’s Uniting Church in Highton, through its Repair Cafe, offers a wonderful example of what can be done to combat climate change. Congregation members are doing their bit for recycling, ensuring as little as possible goes to landfill, and therefore lessening the impact on the environment. Once a month, members of the public are invited to bring in an item that needs repair, with the aim of getting it back to working order. Customers are encouraged to stay and see how the item can be mended, thereby learning skills themselves that they can use at a later date. Mended items are then weighed, and a bell is sounded and, at the end of the day, the number of kilograms that did not go into landfill is recorded and celebrated.

Sue says Queenscliff UC is an example of another congregation determined to tackle climate change. “The Queenscliff community is committed to the gospel and if they deem an issue to be important, because it fits within their values, they will work hard to ensure that it happens,” Sue says. “So they have a natural bent towards tackling climate change. “They have also worked at creating positive relationships with their federal MP, as well as the local mayor and councillors. “Queenscliff speaks of having a profound sense of Jesus being present with people on the edge and as the earth is now on the edge, their efforts are bent towards caring for both. “They shared that, ‘we only care for what we are deeply connected to, so if we love the earth we will care. We need to begin with nurturing our relationships to earth and each other and then science can help’.”

Mark Zirnsak says it’s the actions taken by congregations such as St Luke’s and Queenscliff that will contribute much to the fight against climate change. “There are some easy things that can be done by congregations, like encouraging the use of energy-efficiency measures that will actually save them money,” he says. “It makes sense to look at something like rooftop solar panels, or swapping to green power. “Then we move to big challenges like what do we do about gas usage across all of our properties, and I know that retrofitting gas is not a cheap thing to do. “We can also look at something like the vehicle fleet used by the Synod and how they might be swapped over to electric vehicles. “That won’t be cheap but we do know that the price of electric vehicles will come down over time and that we don’t have to replace the entire fleet of vehicles by tomorrow, so you can progressively switch to EVs. “I actually think congregations can take quite significant steps without there being a big cost.”

While there are obvious economic benefits in arresting climate change, Mark Zirnsak says it’s an issue that also needs to be looked at through a social justice lens. “Climate change brings to the fore issues of global injustice and inequality,” he says. “The irony is that the countries which went through industrial development and created most of the problem with their emissions are not the ones most heavily impacted by climate change. “Those affected most are low-lying Pacific Island countries or those like Bangladesh which are financially impoverished and are feeling the weight of the negative impacts of climate change. “If you live in a Pacific Island country you are facing the real prospect of eventually it becoming uninhabitable and not having access to fresh, clean water due to rising sea levels. There is a real injustice around the fact that these people haven’t created the problem but will bear the brunt of it, and I think something like that should motivate us to take as much action as we can to mitigate climate change.” As he reflects on Kevin Rudd’s words from 15 years ago, Mark clings to a sense of hope around what is in store for us. “I am hopeful but the challenge we face as human beings is that we tend to respond well to immediate crises, whereas climate change is a very substantive problem for us globally that needs immediate action which has to be sustained over decades,” he says.

Quarterly Essay: published four times a year by Black Inc, the final edition for 2022 was Quarterly Essay No.88: Lone Wolf: Albanese and the New   Politics  by Katherine Murphy. In 2016, I read Karen Middleton’s biography of  Albanese, and at the time noted that the book   was ‘one of the more enjoyable and interesting of many political biographies I had  read  over recent years’ and I referred readers to the Coachbuilder’s Column of 22/9/2016.

Katherine Murphy’s Essay is of equal interest but taken from a later perspective when he is the man in charge [as PM]. Albo took the party leadership, and then the Prime Ministership, consequent to that original biography. But as the Essay cover says: “But to win, he had to learn to listen, to trust his team, and   to lead, understanding that sometimes leadership involves holding back rather than imagining its all on you”.

As for the correspondence  replies to the previous Essay  – ‘Uncivil Wars’ by Waleed   Aly and Scott  Stephens  –  the response by A and S made more sense to me than their actual Essay, which at the time I described as ‘a very difficult read, much of it beyond the scope of this reader’s ability to retain or comprehend [obviously a reflection on my own intelligence]. Broadly speaking, I found their Essay unclear  as to which arguments they were trying to concentrate on, and I think that absence of clarity, resulted in a large number of lengthy responses, which as the authors more or less admitted,  the responses didn’t seem to be replying to the essay as such because they likewise didn’t fully follow the   arguments that A & S were making, or misinterpreted them. The authors seem to be criticising many of the responses for misinterpreting and misunderstanding the basis of the arguments put forward in the Essay. ,I highlighted a paragraph on page 143 where A&S admit to been unsure as to how they should respond to the correspondents because they haven’t engaged with the terms of the essay,  However, they did manage to respond to the correspondents  in just over 12 pages [the longest reaction to Essay responses I’ve see previously].

Also to my reading, a number of the respondents were too intent on waving their own flag, with extensive reference to books they had written on the subject!! They would argue that was their way of making their point[s].

As for the current Essay – described as a portrait of a leader in the making, and a nation on the move: In this perceptive, compelling essay, Katharine Murphy offers a profile of Anthony Albanese in motion – a piece about character, the balance of forces, and the mood of the nation.   Are Albanese and his party up for change? Are Australians up for it? What does the new prime minister embody, if anything? Has the centre of the polity shifted, with the success of the Teals and the Greens? Where could – and should – the new government be ambitious?  This is an essay that draws out the meaning of an eventful political year, offers a telling portrait of the new prime minister, and looks to the challenges of the future.

And from the actual Essay promo:   prime minister in the making, and a nation on the move. In Lone Wolf, Katharine Murphy offers a new portrait of Anthony Albanese. She reveals a leader who has always had to think three steps ahead, who was an insurgent for much of his professional life, but had to learn to listen and devise “strategies of inclusivity” to win the 2022 election.

Following that victory, Greens leader Adam Bandt voiced hopes for “a great era of progressive reform,” but it is Albanese and Labor who will ultimately decide whether that potential is reached or not.

Drawing on interviews with Albanese, Bandt, Penny Wong, Jim Chalmers, Mark Butler, Katy Gallagher, Simon Holmes à Court, Zoe Daniel and more, Murphy’s brilliant essay draws out the meaning of an eventful political year. She offers a telling character study of the prime minister, investigates the success of the teals and the Greens, and looks to the challenges of the future.

“Taking the party leadership was both a beginning and an ending. Insurgency was done. New skills were required … Albanese knew how to recruit people to a cause and to get them to a similar place. He’d been doing that since his teens. But to win, he had to learn to listen, to trust his team and to lead, understanding that sometimes leadership involves holding back rather than imagining it’s all on you.” Katharine Murphy, Lone Wolf

With respect to the previous Essay I referred to above, the following summarises Waleed Aly & Scott Stephens subject of ‘Uncivil Wars   –  Is our democracy corroding? In this original, eloquent essay, Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens explore the ethics and politics of public debate – and the threat it now faces.

In a healthy society we need the capacity to disagree. Yet Aly and Stephens note a growing tendency to disdain and dismiss opponents, to treat them with contempt. This toxic partisanship has been imported from the United States, where it has been a temptation for both left and right. Aly and Stephens discuss some telling examples, analyse the role of the media, and look back to heroes of democracy who found a better way forward.

Arguing that democracy cannot survive contempt, they draw on philosophy, literature and history to make an urgent case about the present.

‘So what do we owe those with whom we might profoundly, even radically, disagree? In our time, the answer increasingly seems to be: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We’ve come to regard our opponents as not much more than obstructions in the road, impediments standing between us and our desired end. We have grown disinclined to consider what it might mean to go on together meaningfully as partners within a shared democratic project. To put it bluntly, we see no future with our political opponents because we feel we have nothing to learn from them.‘ -Waleed Aly & Scott Stephens, Uncivil Wars