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Monthly Archives: November 2019

Read more about the article The first ocean voyage of the ferry Koondooloo

The first ocean voyage of the ferry Koondooloo

A few weeks ago my sister-in-law gave me a pile of old magazines that had once belonged to her father, Frank Norris, of Kotara in Newcastle, NSW. These magazines, titled Shipbuilding, Ship Repair and Services, didn't seem promising reading material, but knowing as I do that interesting information might be found almost anywhere, I took them home and started leafing through them. Almost immediately I was rewarded by the discovery of a fascinating article, by John Broadhouse, about his voyage from Scotland to Australia in 1924 aboard the Koondooloo, a British-built vehicular ferry that was destined…

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Read more about the article A 100-year-old remembers Maitland

A 100-year-old remembers Maitland

There was an old Chinese man the locals called "No Chin". He had exposed dentures and he slept on cornbags in a shed in Elgin Street, behind the iceworks. There was Billy Kilmartin, who rode around on a pushbike at night with a covered basket on his handlebars, selling hot pies. And there was Jackie Minch, whose mother had a grocery shop and who ran to the bank with every pound note they earned, wearing a felt hat turned up like Tiger Kelly. These and other colourful characters from Maitland in the 1920s and 1930s clung…

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Australia’s bushfire revelation

The spring 2019 bushfire emergency in Australia has been a revelation to many people.Questions that had seemed in doubt have been clarified, and things that had been ill-defined have now been shown in their true light. The first and most obvious is climate change. Vast efforts have been made in Australia (as they have all over the world) to cast doubt over the science of climate change. Those with huge commercial interests in fossil fuels have invested fortunes in protecting their status quo, working simultaneously from many directions. They have sponsored the promotion of alternative views,…

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