MAYDA….just one letter short of an S.O.S. THE MAYDA’S LAST PORT OF CALL WAS LAUNCESTON, TASMANIA. SHE SAILED ON APRIL 23 1846, RETURNING TO LONDON AFTER MAKING HER FIRST AND ONLY DELIVERY OF CONVICTS. EMBARKING WITH A HUMAN CARGO LONDON – On August 19 1845 the Morning
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The Eastern Spinebill always looks so neat in his grey and brown suit teamed with a white shirt. Only measuring about 15cms, his curved beak is almost as long as his body. I like to imagine him as a legal clerk, dipping into a pot of black
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Tasmania, as with most of the world, was coping with severe economic depression during the nineteen thirties. The State Government initiated capital works programmes to employ those who were ‘on sustenance’ as it was called. It was considered beneficial to the physical and mental welfare of the
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Finally, ‘properly’ hot days in our little part of the world. At my place I try to keep the birdbaths fresh and full for my sweet, feathered friends. Mind you, the rosellas and king parrots just shelter up in the trees when the temperature rises above 35
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When we moved to Blackheath (Blue Mountains) twenty years ago there was a large crabapple in our garden. I suspect it was planted by a previous owner, a professor of architecture who established the garden in the 1960s. The tree scarcely bore any fruit and eventually I
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Soldier Settlement was a federal, but state administered initiative which began during WWI. Land was purchased by government to provide small farms for returning servicemen, often on leasehold. One person who applied was my great-uncle Arthur Singleton, from Ulverstone. With the 12th Battalion he had taken part
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The resident Wonga pigeons in our Blackheath garden have just completed their fifth hatching in this extraordinary year of 2020. The couple have been with us for a number of years, but had only ever had a single, spring hatching ……until now. We wondered if they sensed
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Our first troops left Australia in late October 1914 following the outbreak of World War I. They disembarked in Egypt at Alexandria, and were then moved to a vast encampment near Cairo, where they continued to train in the shadow of the great pyramids. Soon, it was
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Joseph Aloysius Lyons was four years old in 1883, when his father Michael moved the family to the Tasmanian seaside town of Ulverstone. Mr Lyons Snr. opened a bakery and butcher’s shop, but unfortunately he fitted the description of ‘feckless’ rather well, and lost everything betting on
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One of the most successful Tasmanian racehorse owners of the 1940s and 50s was the controversial surgeon Dr. Victor Ratten. He was Surgeon Superintendent of the Royal Hobart Hospital for many years (1917-1936). Dr. Ratten’s success on the track was despite the fact that in 1911 he
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