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Monthly Archives: June 2020

Read more about the article Remembering C.K. Thompson, Newcastle journalist and author

Remembering C.K. Thompson, Newcastle journalist and author

Many Australians of a certain age will remember C.K. Thompson's books from their childhood. Thin little hardcover volumes of stories about Australian animals and birds, they were common in school libraries. It couldn't be said that they were great literature, and even among the work of other Australian children's authors they didn't rate with the books of Patricia Wrightson, Nan Chauncy or Colin Thiele. But they were popular, and they may have helped inculcate an interest in nature among young readers. . Growing up in the 1960s I was aware of these books. One or two…

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Read more about the article Great War treasures of Newcastle’s Christ Church Cathedral
Newcastle's Christ Church Cathedral in June 1979. Photo by Doug Brown

Great War treasures of Newcastle’s Christ Church Cathedral

From our book, The Hunter Region in The Great War The Church of England played an important role in Australia and no less in Newcastle at the time of the Great War of 1914-1918. People turned to their church leaders to help them see and understand moral dimensions to great events and they gathered as congregations to share good times and bad.While many churches across the Hunter retain relics of the Great War, the collection in Newcastle’s Christ Church Cathedral is almost certainly the most significant. Part of The Warrior's Chapel. Photo by Sylvia Ray The…

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Read more about the article Margel Hinder’s Newcastle Civic Park fountain
Civic Park Fountain, Newcastle. Photo by Barry Shoesmith.

Margel Hinder’s Newcastle Civic Park fountain

In these iconoclastic days, when statues are being hauled down and thrown into rivers, it's hardly surprising that some people have raised the question of whether Newcastle's Civic Park Fountain ought any longer to be named the "James Cook Memorial Fountain". In the days before the fountain . . . As a matter of fact, I'd be surprised if a very large proportion of Newcastle people even knew the famous fountain was named for the British explorer, whose reputation is now being revised in some quarters, mostly because of his negative attitude towards Australia's indigenous inhabitants…

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