© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Author: Greg Ray

This author has written 481 articles
Read more about the article Dog wallopers and woolly tigers on the streets of old Newcastle
View across Cooks Hill, with the Sea Pit in the background, circa 1912.

Dog wallopers and woolly tigers on the streets of old Newcastle

DOG wallopers and woolly tigers were commonplace in Doug Bowman’s Newcastle. Doug was 95 when I interviewed him in 2013, and it took him a while to get warmed up. But once he got started, the stories came thick and fast. Doug was one of those men who could talk his listeners back to the Newcastle of his youth, where they could see and hear with him strange sights and sounds of another city and another time. Doug Bowman, in 2013 Doug’s grandfather, Thomas Mather Bowman, was ‘‘factotum’’ for the mighty Australian Agricultural (AA) Company that…

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Read more about the article On a hot Australia Day in 1945
A broken water main on the corner of King and Darby Streets, Newcastle, NSW, January 26, 1945.

On a hot Australia Day in 1945

Believe it or not, this photograph was taken at the corner of King and Darby Streets, Newcastle, on Australia Day, 1945. A lug on a King Street hydrant had snapped off and for about 15 minutes some local children took advantage of the cooling spray. The photo is somewhat disorienting, since the buildings have long gone and the land they stood on is now part of Civic Park. Even the Salvation Army People's Palace in the background has gone, making way for the Conservatorium of Music. The now-demolished buildings can be seen bottom left in this…

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Read more about the article Maitland’s “double-headless” murders of 1960.
Police at the scene of the murder at East Maitland, 1960

Maitland’s “double-headless” murders of 1960.

On Saturday, April 23, 1960, Maitland reeled in shock when news broke of a gruesome double murder in a small isolated hut off Turton Road, not far from the East Maitland brickworks. Sydney Shelley, 34, and his 21-year-old wife Elva had been killed and their heads cut off and removed. The couple’s baby was found alive but distressed in a cot in the house. A post-mortem revealed that Elva had been pregnant with a second child at the time of her death. Sydney and Elva Shelley were murdered and decapitated When news of the murders broke,…

Continue ReadingMaitland’s “double-headless” murders of 1960.
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