The Kewpie Doll’s place in Australian social history was cemented when Ray Lawler’s Play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll was first performed in 1955. The seventeen dolls referred to in the title were annual gifts for the Melbourne girlfriends of two Queensland cane cutters. Of course by
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I picked up a 2008 novel by Colleen McCullough in one of our local street libraries. It was titled The Independence of Mary Bennet. My first thought was how brave it was to continue the lives of the Bennet sisters after Jane Austen put down her pen
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Bahr’s Chocolate Shop and Milk Bar was on the corner of Hampden Road and Stowell Avenue in Hobart’s historic Battery Point. My partner Rob remembers buying lollies from this shop when he was a child in the early sixties. I’m not sure what the name was then.
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Rebecca Lucas , from outside the small Tasmanian town of Railton, was just seven years old when she suddenly fell ill in 1937. She was diagnosed with infantile paralysis (polio), as was her older sister Winifred. The girls were admitted to the Devon Hospital at Latrobe for
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The Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston is a highly regarded institution, and the largest outside an Australian Capital City. A WINDFALL In 1904 Lady Clara Dry, wealthy widow of Sir Richard Dry, the first Tasmanian born premier of the State, made a significant bequest of antiques. The
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Professor Frederick McCoy was a highly respected academic at Melbourne University. He resided in the suburb of Brighton. In 1883 he received a letter from a friend, Colonel Mair. The Colonel asked if it was true that McCoy’s adult son Frederick, who had been living and
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FOR THE FIRST PART OF THIS STORY, CLICK HERE The worst scams during the 1913 smallpox epidemic in Sydney were due to money grabbing quacks and even disreputable, registered doctors. NSW health authorities were to blame in large measure, because the State had failed to supply enough
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From the time I moved to Blackheath 25 years ago I have loved this empty property in Wentworth Street, especially in autumn. Blackheath born Larraine Home tells me it was once the fire station. I must admit it doesn’t look like a fire station. However, there is
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Murder Pie is such a great name for a detective novel. This book was published by Sydney’s Angus & Robertson, in 1936. The idea of the book was conceived by poet and author Jean Ranken. She convinced sixteen of Sydney’s well known literary personalities to collaborate on
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Spreading hard butter on soft bread has always been a problem. When I was a child growing up in Tasmania my mother battled with this while trying to make our school lunches in winter. Her solution was to put the butter in a bowl then melt it
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