© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Author: Greg Ray

This author has written 481 articles
Read more about the article When Winn’s was the place to shop, eat, and dance

When Winn’s was the place to shop, eat, and dance

As a small boy in Newcastle, NSW, in the 1960s, I remember Winn's store mostly for its cafeteria where, if I was lucky on a day out with my Mum, I might be treated to my favourite salmon sandwich and chocolate milkshake. Winn's was a revered Newcastle retail institution with a history that stretched back to October 1878, when local brothers Isaac and William Winn and William Winn's widowed sister-in-law Marian Aird decided to set up shop as drapers on Hunter Street. The brothers had been raised in Newcastle, mostly by their mother, Harriett, since their…

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The yellow clown chorus and other dreams

Some dreams don't seem too hard to interpret. At first they might seem chaotic, novel or bizarre, but on reflection their meaning appears to become clear. Sometimes they seem like advice from the subconscious mind to the conscious workaday self. In my dream of the Yellow Clown Chorus I was a student attending some kind of live-in college. This college was a big organisation with many pupils of many ages and types. It was a carnival day with competitive sports and various other entertaining demonstrations. The atmosphere was busy and exciting. Everybody was participating in separate…

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Read more about the article The riddle of the Ku-ring-gai Sphinx

The riddle of the Ku-ring-gai Sphinx

One of the strangest memorials to the fallen of The Great War in Australia is the peculiar sculpture of the Sphinx, in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. The sculpture, a one-eighth replica of the famous Egyptian monument, is flanked by two small carved pyramids and forms part of a wider memorial walk in the national park. Stonemason and former WWI digger, William Shirley. The Ku-ring-gai Sphinx was created by a dying Great War digger, William Shirley, who served in the AIF's 13th Battalion. Shirley was relatively elderly (40 years old) and had perhaps been unknowingly sick with…

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