HERE IS A GUEST POST FROM MY TALENTED FRIEND JACKIE SAYLE; ARTIST, WRITER, GARDENER…. AND FABULOUS COOK. When Pauline first invited me to write a guest post about cookery you could have knocked me down with a feather ‘500 – 800 words should do,’ she said,
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Behold the lilies of the field, how they grow…. This is a little tribute to my mother, and to the lilies that grow in my garden, as they once did in hers.. When we moved to our property in the Blue Mountains of New South
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VISION FOR A NATION By 1815 Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s extensive building programme and his efforts to raise the moral standards of the colony of New South Wales were bearing fruit. Sydney, which had been little more than a squalid penal camp when he arrived, was becoming a
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LITERARY AGENT ANGST In 2011 I completed a narrative non-fiction book on a controversial, 19th century criminal case. The events in The Water Doctor’s Daughters take place in France and England, and as an opening gambit I aim high and email a query letter to one of
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Much has been written about the mysterious ‘Mr Eternity’, Arthur Stace, who chalked his famous one word sermon throughout the streets of Sydney. Less well known is the fact that Stace served in France during World War I and that, as with so many veterans, the experience
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A RARE AND BAFFLING ILLNESS – CHURG STRAUSS SYNDROME! This is the first time I have written about the very rare auto-immune condition I was diagnosed with in February 2012. I had been rushed to hospital a couple of weeks earlier after collapsing with a suspected heart
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BIG DAY OUT! The month of May can be a bit nippy in the central west of New South Wales. However, for the organizers of the Royal Bathurst Show there is a bonus. Inside the showground are giant elms, in full autumn glory. Having attended Sydney’s Royal
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IN THE BEGINNING – Tasmania, 1950s One of the first articles I sold, many years ago, was about the Ulverstone Agricultural Show. It was the annual highlight of my childhood. My father was on the show committee, so thankfully we attended rain, hail or shine. In good
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CHILDHOOD TRAUMA The movie Raintree County (1957), starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift had a profound effect on me. I think it was the first ‘grown-up’ movie I ever saw. My mother was besotted with Liz Taylor, especially by her violet eyes. We lived in rural Tasmania
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Sixty years ago I was a wide eyed, sharp eared kid growing up on Tasmania’s North West Coast. One weekend my mother and I visited her brother’s family in a nearby town. Over afternoon tea my aunt described an incident that had taken place a few days
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