I was fortunate to visit Eskbank House Museum in Lithgow before the pandemic put a stop to my adventures.. The oldest part of the colonial Georgian house was built circa 1842, from local sandstone. Its original owner was Mr Thomas Brown, who established the Eskbank Colliery. There
Read more →In the 1940s and 50s A.P.C pills and powders were one of the most popular ‘over the counter ‘ drugs in Australia. They were sold under the brand names of Vincent’s or Bex. The highly successful advertising slogan for Bex was ‘ Stressed? All you need
Read more →
I have a great fascination for social history, and for our native, satin bowerbirds. Yes, there is a strong link between the two. When the adult blue/black male bowerbirds or the green juvenile ‘apprentices’ build their bowers they decorate them with anything blue they can find. For
Read more →
Bex and similar over- the-counter drugs were at the height of their popularity in Australia during the 1950s and 60s. Claimed as a cure for all manner of complaints, they became a ‘pick-me-up’ for bored, frustrated housewives before the Women’s Liberation movement and the contraceptive pill changed
Read more →
The Cummins family were pioneers of Blaxland, in the lower Blue Mountains of NSW. Bernard Cummins bought land nearby and called his property Mount Riverview. Its far-reaching views across the Nepean and Hawkesbury rivers to Sydney gave him an idea. He constructed a wooden stairway to the
Read more →
Recently I conducted a little social history survey on how the various towns and villages of the Blue Mountains are perceived. Do they have a distinct character? Well certainly most of them do. Most surprising of all to me was that Glenbrook is considered by many to
Read more →
The sculptor Tom Bass (1916-2010) was born in Lithgow, while his father was working at the Small Arms Factory. Richard Neville (1941-2016) spent much of his later life in the Blue Mountains village of Blackheath. Both men
Read more →
In February 1938, 15 countries from what was then known as The British Empire, assembled in Sydney for what would be the last Empire Games until well after the Second World War. It was a huge occasion, especially as the event coincided with Sydney’s 150th anniversary. After
Read more →
William Charles Wentworth; Australian politician, explorer, author, barrister, statesman and landowner. At the height (maybe that should be depth ) of the 1840’s economic depression in New South Wales, sheep were selling at just 9d each and cattle for only a few shillings a head. The crisis
Read more →
A LIGHT-HEARTED ‘JOURNEY’ AROUND SYDNEY SUBURBS Currently Sydney is comprised of 658 suburbs. That’s because the city became so spread out when most of us lived on quarter acre blocks. Let’s face it, you could fit the residents of leafy Killara into one inner city high-rise. The
Read more →