JOHN BIGGE; REGIME CHANGER Commissioner John Thomas Bigge (1780-1843) arrived in New South Wales in September 1819. He had been appointed to conduct a wide ranging inquiry into governor Lachlan Macquarie’s administration. Bigge was highly critical of the Governor’s championship of ex-convicts, and his ‘wastefully expensive’ building
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DAYDREAMS I was raised on a small dairy farm near Ulverstone, on the north west coast of Tasmania. Many would consider this an idyllic childhood, and in retrospect it was. However, owing to a steady diet of American comic books I eventually longed to be anywhere else
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You know what? Lately my editing hasn’t been going so well, because I missed a few errors in one of my employer Pauline Conolly’s articles. In my defense, she does make a lot of typos. The pay isn’t much good either. Hardly enough to keep a person
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OFF TO SCHOOL! The photo below was among my mother’s ‘treasures’ for many years. It was taken by the Tasmanian Advocate nearly 60 years ago. The children are from the Ulverstone Central State School’s kindergarten class of 1956. I am the chirpy looking kid standing up on
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My father planted his first commercial crop of beans on our farm near Ulverstone on the north-west coast of Tasmania, in 1958. Initially we grew just a couple of acres, without the benefit of irrigation. We picked the crop four or five times over, struggling to fill
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Hello, well bottoms are very funny, aren’t they? Q. WHAT HAS A BOTTOM AT THE TOP? A. MY LEGS! That’s a joke I made up by myself. We have all been talking about our bums lately haven’t we, what with the mysterious shortage of loo paper.
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Hello, Happy Easter from me, Editor Des. Here is the story of my lost Easter eggs. Well I’d been looking forward to the Easter Bunny visiting for weeks, but on Saturday everything started to go wrong. See, we were in Sydney visiting my Granny Jean when
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When I was very young my guardian Pauline Conolly took me to the Sydney Olympics. That’s me on the right in the green and gold. So much classier wearing the bloomin’ flag! 🤑 Since then I have had a go at many different sports. Mind you, I
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A DECIDEDLY FISHY STORY! Back in the 1980s my partner Rob and I owned a little half cabin cruiser called Sixpence. I loved catching blue swimmer crabs in Mosman Bay. We also used to fish for snapper off Sydney Heads, although heavy swells often forced us to
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THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE TASMANIAN ADVOCATE. THE GHOST OF ULVERSTONE HIGH Some years ago I drove past my old high school and realized I had subconsciously avoided writing a single word about my years there. It’s not that I was particularly unhappy at Ulverstone
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