A DREAM DINNER PARTY

A DREAM DINNER PARTY

Daydreaming in our pandemic iso-world is a national pastime. Here is an imagined dinner, hosted by myself and my partner Rob in our new house at Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. There are four courses (well sort of), and four dinner guests from

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PANDORA’S BOX – A MEDICAL MEMOIR

PANDORA'S BOX - A  MEDICAL MEMOIR

‘You’re playing with Pandora’s box. Sometimes it’s better not to open it. Sometimes, it’s better not to know’. Tatiana de Rosnay. In September 2011 I was completing my research for a narrative non-fiction book in Great Malvern,  a beautiful town in the English  county of Worcestershire. It

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The Water Doctor’s Daughters Literary Walk; St Leonards.

THE MARSDEN SISTERS MOVE SOUTH This is an extension of The Water Doctor’s Daughters’ original literary walk  around the town of  Great Malvern, Worcestershire. In 1876 Dr James Marsden separated from his second wife Mary to pursue an affair with  Sabina  Welch, a servant girl from Malvern.   Emily, the

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NAME THAT BOOK! CHOOSING A TITLE

NAME THAT BOOK! CHOOSING A TITLE

WHAT’S IN A NAME? I recently expressed some disquiet over a book title  chosen by a fellow member of a writers’ group. He  was  actually  seeking advice on whether to include a blurb on the back cover of his memoir. Perhaps rightly, he was not impressed when

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DEAR DAMNED DIARY

DEAR DAMNED DIARY

  It is such a privilege to have access to someone’s diaries. I  find myself handling  them with something akin to reverence. Recently I  have been in Sydney’s Mitchell Library  reading those  of  English writer Sylvia Townsend Warner.  Sylvia began them in 1927,  the year after she

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THE BEST PART OF WRITING A BOOK?

THE BEST PART OF WRITING  A  BOOK?

Some people might say that the best part of writing a book is typing the words THE END.    Or that the most satisfying part is setting  out on the journey and writing that first sentence.  But for me, there is one stand out moment of pure joy

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DEATH AT CHRISTMAS; THE POISONING OF ROSA MARSDEN

DEATH AT CHRISTMAS; THE POISONING  OF ROSA MARSDEN

  CHRISTMAS 1877.  At  St-Leonards-on-Sea,  in the English county of Sussex, a Christmas market was being held in the ‘old town’.  The shops and churches were decorated with laurel, holly and ivy. Nevertheless, perhaps due to the unseasonable mild  weather, the jollity of the Hastings & St

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BOOK REVIEWERS…PLEASE GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!

BOOK REVIEWERS...PLEASE GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!

CLENCH YOUR PEN AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! Authors are  constantly advised  not  to respond to negative reviews.  I fully agree; you  simply cannot argue with another person’s opinion. It is  worth remembering that many literary  classics suffered a hatchet job when first published. I particularly love

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JOHN RASHDALL, ALFRED TENNYSON AND THE MARSDEN CHILDREN

JOHN RASHDALL,  ALFRED TENNYSON AND THE MARSDEN CHILDREN

JOHN RASHALL THE PREACHER AND THE POET ALFRED TENNYSON An interesting aspect of my book The Water Doctor’s Daughters,  is the lifelong friendship of  the poet Alfred Tennyson  and the Reverend John Rashdall.  The pair had grown up together in rural Lincolnshire, and were contemporaries at Cambridge

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MRS MACQUARIE AND THE MYSTERY OF ST JOHN’S TWIN SPIRES

MRS MACQUARIE AND THE MYSTERY OF ST JOHN'S TWIN  SPIRES

APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE, THIS STORY IS A BIT COMPLICATED! When St John’s church at Parramatta  (New South Wales)  was being remodelled circa 1817, Elizabeth Macquarie offered some advice to the project’s architect, Lieutenant John Watts (1786-1873). In 1895 Watts’ daughter, Mrs Margaret Elizabeth Bagot wrote; ‘Mrs Macquarie

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