WRITING TO SANTA IS A SERIOUS BUSINESS; AN ILLUSTRATED ESSAY BY EDITOR DES…. ER, THAT’S ME! Well here is a letter to Santa written by a little Australian boy called Paddy, over a hundred years ago. Who do you think Paddy was? (see answer at the bottom
Read more →CHRISTMAS DOWN-UNDER John O’Grady once wrote a best selling book called, They’re a Weird Mob. It was about Australians and yes….we are a bit strange. What do you expect when we live in an upside down world? Alice in Wonderland described our fair country as; WHERE
Read more →My partner Rob and I were looking through some old holiday pics the other day. Suddenly he held one up and said dreamily, ‘I remember that place; it was fantastic.’ As I glanced at what seemed a fairly nondescript town centre he added, ‘It’s where I found
Read more →Hello, Editor Des here. I have been in Sydney lately doing some historical research on Queen Victoria and her husband Albert. However, my trip turned into a real life drama So here’s what happened. I went into the city on the bus with my guardian, Pauline Conolly.
Read more →Let me say at the outset that my darling mother was the most gentle, kind hearted person you could hope to meet. However, she did have a penchant for filling our heads with the most terrifying information imaginable. We kids were both fascinated and appalled. Her stories
Read more →Hello Dear People Well because my vegie growing was so awesome, my guardian Pauline Conolly finally agreed to buy me a little greenhouse. The only trouble was that she took the cheap option (what a surprise….NOT) and it came in at least 100 bits. OMG!!
Read more →AN EASTER STORY, FROM EDITOR DES Well, I read somewhere that lots of people eat fish on Good Friday, so I asked my guardian Pauline to make me a rod. I thought I knew where a rainbow trout might be lurking. It was a bit hot when
Read more →INTRODUCING EDITOR DES OF BLACKHEATH Thanks for agreeing to this interview Editor Des. I must say, you are the personification of sartorial elegance today. A. Thank you. I bought this suit in a posh shop at Henley-on-Thames. Well that’s in England. It does look quite expensive. Now
Read more →‘Oh! All that steam! The pudding had just been taken out of the cauldron. Oh! That smell! The same as the one which prevailed on washing day. It is that of the cloth which wraps the pudding. Charles Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol’ Christmas in Australia is a
Read more →AN EARLY STAMP OF STUPIDITY At the age of seven I decided to become a stamp collector. In a generous act of encouragement I was given a stamp album assembled over many years by an older cousin. I cut out the largest and most exotic of his
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