© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Monthly Archives: October 2022

Read more about the article Conductresses on the buses – and back off again

Conductresses on the buses – and back off again

IN late 1942, Australia was committed to total war in the Pacific. Its economy was practically 100 per cent geared to war production and "manpower" was a critical problem. A country with a relatively small population, it was isolated from accustomed imports, had large numbers of men fighting or in enemy captivity overseas and was struggling to boost industrial production. More and more men were drawn from their pre-war occupations and put into uniform, leaving big gaps in the industries from which they had been taken. The government turned to Australia's women for part of the…

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Read more about the article De-privatising the power industry
Liddell Power Station. Photo by Ron Morrison.

De-privatising the power industry

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is right about electricity generation and supply. The system built and maintained by the state with public money should never have been sold to private investors. And his conclusions hold true not just for Victoria but for NSW. I well remember sitting in the office of the editor of The Newcastle Herald, during the inglorious tail end of a long string of Labor governments, listening to ALP heavyweight Michael Costa trying to sell the benefits of privatisation. He wanted positive coverage in the paper, and when reporter Ian Kirkwood pointed out some…

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Read more about the article Henry Leighton Jones: more than just monkeys

Henry Leighton Jones: more than just monkeys

Dedicated to my dear friend, the late historian Dulcie Hartley, whose long-time fascination with Dr Henry Leighton Jones led to many interesting discussions and many lines of research. By the 1920s when Australian doctor and dentist Henry Leighton Jones heard the news that, in far-off Europe, a highly respected surgeon was apparently revitalizing the energy of ageing men by grafting onto their testicles pieces sliced from those of baboons, chimpanzees or monkeys, he was himself already 60 years old, single, and missing a kidney. Not that he was, by all accounts, frail or sickly. Far from…

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