Hello, I’m Editor Des. I spend most my life buried away in the boring old Blue Mountains…and I don’t even eat gum leaves! However, Pauline Conolly, (she’s my guardian and employer) took me on a little tour of Sydney recently. We only went for a couple of
Read more →My partner Rob and I are making our way home from Sydney to the Blue Mountains by rail; a two hour journey. As the train begins to climb, an American lady sitting behind us asks someone a question across the aisle; ‘Excuse me, will I know when
Read more →Dr James Colthurst is perhaps best known for having been a close friend of the late Princess Diana. He was trusted implicitly by Diana , and acted as a go-between during one of the most difficult periods of her life. It was Colthurst who conveyed the secret tapes she
Read more →TRAVELLING ALONG THE THAMES PATH Apart from Harleyford and Marlow, Thames locations with which I have a close personal association, Reading features unusually heavily in my book, All Along the River; Tales From the Thames. Here is a little extract. Copy from the book is in black,
Read more →One of the true joys of writing narrative non-fiction is visiting all the places associated with the story. Of course the research for my book, The Water Doctor’s Daughters, took me to Paris (such a chore..ha ha) Hastings and St Leonards, Malvern and Cheltenham. Accompanied by
Read more →In The Beginning Yes, well Pauline thinks this touristy story is not very nice because it’s mostly about ….a lavatory. But first I have to give you a bit of background information. In 1985 the very famous artist and fashion designer Jenny Kee, who lives
Read more →Note from Editor Des’ guardian Pauline Conolly…..As you will see at the bottom of the story, fire has swept through the area he wrote about. He is very sad, as we all are. A Double Bunger Day Out, by Editor Des Hello down there! Here’s my first
Read more →ROUTE DU VIN It was thanks to our holiday host across the border in Germany that my partner and I toured the scenic Route du Vin below Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of France. Christine mentioned several ‘not to be missed’ medieval villages nestled into the vine covered
Read more →ARCHITECTURE & AFTERNOON TEA The architecture of 19th century Glasgow prompted English poet and historian John Betjeman to describe it as; ‘The greatest Victorian city in the world’. However, if this conjures an image of florid stone ‘wedding cakes’, nothing could be further from the truth. The
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