This is the final chapter in the life of Raymon Campbell Miller. When Miller was seven years old, his mother began a passionate affair with an Italian Count. She divorced, abandoned her son, and left Sydney to marry her lover. Three months after the wedding in Rome
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When Sydney tutor Raymond Miller discovered his female student Ngaire Payne was ill-prepared to sit entrance exams for medicine, he came up with a plan. He would dress as a woman and sit the exams at New England University in her place. It sounds crazy and well…it
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Lilian Beatrice Simpson was born in Sydney in 1883. She was the fourth daughter of Elizabeth and William Parker Simpson (died 1889) English born William was a sculptor and it seems Lilian inherited his artistic sensibility. She dreamed of becoming an opera singer. In 1901, Lilian married
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Milk Arrowroot biscuits have been part of Australian life for generations; left out for Santa with a glass of milk, popped into school lunchboxes, and in the early days crushed and fed to babies in their bottles. A large part of the company’s advertising involved
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‘The string bag is the symbol of feminine bondage in Australia’. Thus spoke US consul Mr T.C. Robinson at a conference of the NSW Agricultural Bureau in 1950. He advocated a reorganisation of food distribution (which eventually led to supermarkets and shopping malls), better laundry and dry-cleaning
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Aunty Ed’s seemed a good place to celebrate a significant birthday for a small bear by the name of Editor Des. Reaching a quarter of a century deserves recognition. Not a telegram from the king just yet. but something special from Australia Post. AUNTY ED’S …PERFECT FOR TEDS
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Eric Huxley, 19, a student of the Sydney University, living at Clanalpine Street, Mosman, was struck by a motor car as he was crossing Parramatta Road near the University yesterday. He suffered a fractured skull…..he died late last night. (Sydney Morning Herald, June 13 1930) The young
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Blackheath rocks in their giant, natural form are a tourist’s delight. On a domestic scale, they are a wonderful resource for property owners. Sometimes I think I could turn our entire Blue Mountains garden into a commercial quarry. The rocks that come out the ground here are
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Reflecting on a 1970s wedding. This piece was prompted by finding one of my sticky old photo albums, and is why many of the images used leave a lot to be desired. They are now impossible to remove. OK, so my partner Rob and I first
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What a delight Murder Under the Christmas Tree turned out to be. This book really was under my Christmas tree, a perfect gift to myself. It was first published in 2016, by Profile Books. As the title suggests, it is an anthology of ten short stories with a
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