In the old days, a Town Hall was as much the heart of a community as the pubs or the parish church. But building a new one requires co-operation and consensus. My Tasmanian home town of Ulverstone drew tourists from very early times, due to its lovely
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At about 3.00am on Sunday January 9, 1921 fire broke out behind a shop in Reibey Street, Ulverstone. A barman at nearby Furner’s Hotel raised the alarm at 3.05am.The hotel is pictured behind the telegraph pole in the following photo. The fire brigade arrived very promptly, but
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My mother cooked on a cast iron Lux fuel stove for many years. She could judge the temperature of the oven simply by putting her hand near it. Her technique never failed, even for delicate sponge cakes or cream puffs. How on earth did she do that?
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Sister Rosa O’Kane was from Charters Towers in Queensland. She was aboard the troopship Wyreema when the armistice was signed in November 1918, and the ship was recalled to Australia. After the Wyreema reached Freemantle, Rosa was one of twenty army nurses who volunteered to care for
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Celebrations for the June 2 Coronation of Elizabeth II started well before that date in Ulverstone. The biggest social event was the Church of England Coronation Ball. According to The Advocate’s expansive piece published on May 22, the town ‘made history’ by holding the first large scale
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The story of HMAT Boonah in WWI should have prepared us better for the challenges of the Covid pandemic. Arthur Thwaites was a chemist’s assistant from Parramatta. He enlisted on October 15 1917 as part of the medical corps, but was not called for overseas service until
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In June 1889, an American woman called Edith O’Gorman (her married name was Auffray) visited Launceston while on a world lecture tour. She professed to be an ‘escaped nun’, who had fled a New Jersey convent in 1868 and converted to the Protestant faith. The most colourful
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The remote ‘Hydro Electric’ town of Bronte Park had two events to celebrate in June 1953; the Coronation of Elizabeth II and the official opening of the Pine Tier Dam. For two local youngsters it was also a celebration of their birthdays. Margaret Fiddes turned 8 and
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In 1906 there were rumours spreading on Bruny Island and mainland Tasmania that one rural Bruny family had 23 children, and that the youngsters had never seen an illustration in any form. The secretary of the charitable Victoria League’s Book Committee had expressed her concern at their
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