Agnes Grant Hay was the very wealthy widow of South Australian pastoralist, merchant and politician, Alexander Gosse Hay. She was an inveterate traveller…and an author; After spending many months in England and Scotland during 1908, Mrs Hay and her unmarried daughter Helen (Dolly) returned home on
Read more →Hello, this is your Christmas correspondent, Editor Des. Have you heard of a Santa’s Nice List? Well a lovely lady called Amelia at our village laundromat put one up in her front window. It’s in Wentworth Street at Blackheath. That’s in the Blue Mountains in case you
Read more →Grandma Shadbolt was born Jane Whitton. She was from Lichfield in Staffordshire. In 1848, when she was 19, she was transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) for seven years. In a first offence she had stolen the sum of three pounds. Unfortunately we don’t have a photo
Read more →Cricket matches, especially Ashes series, do not usually engender goodwill between Australia and England. However, as Christmas approached in 1932, Australia made a remarkable gesture. A giant, Ashes themed cake was sent to London to be distributed to the city’s hospitals and children’s homes . It weighed
Read more →I do realize that Katoomba is a long way from Paris, but we Blue Mountains residents adore croissants as much as anyone else around the world. This sulphur crested cockatoo is no different. But which ones to choose? Well don’t look at me mate, it’s entirely your
Read more →Suzanne (originally Susannah) Evans was one of five children. She was born in 1893 in the gold mining town of Walhalla, Victoria to John and Alice Evans. Her mother died when she was only eight years old. In 1914 the Evans family moved to Melbourne and the
Read more →Sao biscuits are almost as iconic as Anzacs, although they were far too delicate to send to our troops in the first and second world wars. However, in 1933 an anonymous poet did conjure a military connection dating back to a far earlier conflict. Apparently it was
Read more →Picking blackberries and collecting field mushrooms…oh the simple pleasures of a 1950s Tasmanian childhood. There were a couple of uncultivated paddocks on our farm that produced basketfuls of mushrooms every autumn. We used to eat them fried on toast for breakfast. Plain old white bread in those
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