When I was a child growing up in Tasmania (1950s) there was a small green bowl sitting on the mantlepiece above our wood burning kitchen stove. It is human nature that an empty container becomes a receptacle for small objects, and our green bowl was no different.
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After making his fortune through a wine and spirit business in Sydney’s Pitt Street, Archibald Thompson J.P. bought a harbourside mansion at Potts Point called Clopee. The home had been built by John Solomon in 1858. At the time of the events in this story, Archibald and
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‘Bigger than Ben Hur’. the saying goes. Well that was certainly true of the fire that engulfed Sydney’s Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1902. Impressario J. C. Williamson’s production of Ben Hur had been wowing audiences since opening night on February 8. It was the biggest and costliest
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First up, a silly riddle about Woolloomooloo by C.J. Dennis; Yes, that’s eight o’s. 😛 It’s a small jump to the puzzle of which Aussie icon rhymes with Woolloomooloo. WOOLLOOMOOLOO – affectionately dubbed ‘the Loo’. It once had a reputation as a rough and ready sort of
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The original Parliament House in Canberra was opened by the Duke and Duchess of York on May 9, 1927. The luncheon menu appeared in the papers. Turtle soup would be frowned on nowadays, but I thought Canberra pudding was a creative touch. CANBERRA PUDDING The following recipe
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Miss Mary Latham Clulow, of Sydney’s exclusive Bellevue Hill, had made a lot of money, mainly through property investments. She was an astute business woman, as this 1903 court action demonstrates; Miss Clulow died on October 26 1944 at a private hospital in Rose Bay. Subsequently there
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Dr Edward Drummond had undertaken his medical training in Edinburgh, and spent time in England and Italy. His entry in the 1886 Australian Medical Directory read ‘Formerly Physician Scots. Coll, Rome, Sidmouth Dispensary etc. ‘ He had recently arrived in Sydney from South Africa and was initially
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Where there is a commodity as precious as gold, there is a possibility of fraud. In June 1950 a twenty seven year old Melbourne man arrived in Kalgoolie hoping to do a bit of gold trading. He put the word out and soon found himself being offered
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Stella and Reginald Harrison were married at Hawthorn, Victoria in May 1934. However, married life for the couple began in Sydney, where Reginald had been appointed Manager of the Mansion House Private Hotel in Elizabeth Street. The only shadow on their happiness was that in July Stella,
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