HAPPY TO SERVE Cyril Blakney enlisted in the 12th Infantry Battalion as soon as war was declared in 1914. He was a compositor from Hobart, and also an accomplished musician and amateur actor. Such a fine looking young man. After the Gallipoli campaign Cyril served on the Western
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UPDATE – This story about a Katoomba poet created enormous interest. Most people were highly amused about poor Mr Meyer’s rejection letter, although was some sympathy. Of course if Meyers had seen the following cartoon he may have been spared the wrath of Angus & Robertson.
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BLAST FURNACE SPELLS START OF THE STEEL INDUSTRY On May 13 1907, the Lithgow Blast Furnace , built by William Sandford Ltd., was officially opened by the Premier of New South Wales, Sir Joseph Carruthers. It was essentially the birth of Australia’s steel industry, and a day
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During World War One, seventy seven men from the small Blue Mountains community of Blackheath, NSW volunteered to serve. Their names are engraved on the local war memorial. Six were killed in action; H. CULLEN, R. MURRAY, J. SKEEN, D. SPRAGUE, J. STEENSON, & R. THOMPSON.
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The spectacular waratah (Telopea) is the state emblem of New South Wales, and so much a part of the beautiful Blue Mountains, where I live. The plants flower both in our gardens and in the local bush. They are part of our identity. In 1912, an article
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DISASTER! At three o’clock one afternoon this week my husband Rob called me outside. He looked very upset, and was holding a crimson rosella in an old towel. It had flown into one of the windows. We live in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, and
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HITTING OFF One of Sydney’s first golf courses was laid out in the grounds of Grose Farm; land on which Sydney University was later built. We have proof of an official club being formed in a 1839 diary entry by the prosperous young merchant Mr Alexander Brodie
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In 1918 an article in The Sydney Morning Herald reported on brooms being hand-made in the Blue Mountains village of Blackheath; The brooms are manufactured under the most primitive conditions, the machine for binding them together being home-made, and it is contended by the maker that with
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Fire created havoc in the Blue Mountains and Lithgow during the summer of 2019/20. The heat was extraordinary. I am a firm believer in climate change, even though our beautiful Mountains have suffered very badly in years gone by. THE FURY OF FIRE The summer of 1952
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According to urban mythology, Sydney’s Sacred Ibis are actually a scary mutation of the seagull. The story goes that over succeeding generations, one strain of gull became larger, more aggressive, and far more athletic, until…..voila!; Instead of lolling about at the Sydney Cricket Ground as seagulls do,
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