In the early days of the colony, pies were hawked around the streets of Sydney. They were sold from portable charcoal braziers to the call of ‘Hot pies! Hot pies ….pork, beef, steak and kidney!’ . One of those early pie sellers has entered the realms of
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Browsing through images of paintings relating to early Sydney at the city’s Mitchell Library, I came across a striking portrait of an Aborigine. His eyes seemed to reflect all the pride and sorrow of his people. He was
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Some years ago my partner Rob and I spent an enjoyable day at Sydney’s harbourside Luna Park. It was only enjoyable because I refused to venture onto any ride liable to make me sick. An unfortunate previous experience on the Rotor Ride had made me wary. For the
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THE STRANGE STORY OF THE MACQUARIE MAUSOLEUM Lachlan Macquarie was arguably the most influential and enlightened governor of colonial New South Wales. His burial site is located on the Scottish Isle of Mull, near Salen, the estate village established by Macquarie in 1808. Surrounded by a stone
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JOHN BIGGE; REGIME CHANGER Commissioner John Thomas Bigge (1780-1843) arrived in New South Wales in September 1819. He had been appointed to conduct a wide ranging inquiry into governor Lachlan Macquarie’s administration. Bigge was highly critical of the Governor’s championship of ex-convicts, and his ‘wastefully expensive’ building
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OFF TO SCHOOL! The photo below was among my mother’s ‘treasures’ for many years. It was taken by the Tasmanian Advocate nearly 60 years ago. The children are from the Ulverstone Central State School’s kindergarten class of 1956. I am the chirpy looking kid standing up on
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My father planted his first commercial crop of beans on our farm near Ulverstone on the north-west coast of Tasmania, in 1958. Initially we grew just a couple of acres, without the benefit of irrigation. We picked the crop four or five times over, struggling to fill
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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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Introduced to Australia with the First Fleet, rabbits began to breed in plague proportions, especially in Tasmania. As early as 1827 the Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser reported: ‘…the common rabbit is becoming so numerous throughout the colony, that they are running about on some large estates
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TALL TALES, EMPTY TANKS – AN AUSTRALIAN ODYSSEY On late night radio an elderly man talked about catching giant Murray cod on chicken eggs; ‘I thread a fish hook through the shell of a raw egg then I hard boil it,’ he assured the dubious host. His
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