Greg Ray, Author at Photo Time Tunnel

Paper seller at BHP Newcastle, NSW, 1962

Your future may depend on READING “the news”.

Post author:Greg Ray
Post published:July 8, 2019
Post category:- Politics, economics etc Greg Ray's Writing
Post comments:3 Comments

HAVING spent decades working in the newspaper industry, I flatter myself that I have learnt how to read newspapers. I don’t mean just reading them: I mean really READING them, which is a different thing. You see, I have come to understand that the news isn’t what I once thought it was. Long ago I thought the daily news was a reasonably accurate account of important events in the world around us, brought to us by professionals who were bound by their ethics to quarantine their personal biases. What is emphasized? What is ignored? I soon…

Boambee, sunk in Newcastle Harbour, NSW, May 1947.

Boambee, an unlucky steamer

Post author:Greg Ray
Post published:July 2, 2019
Post category:History Maritime and shipping Newcastle, NSW, Australia Vintage Photographs and Photography
Post comments:2 Comments

Boambee was an unlucky vessel. The 236-tonne wooden steamer was built in 1908 on the Bellinger River by E.D. Pike and Co for the Manning River Limestone and Steam Ship Company to replace its wrecked ship Kincumber. By the time it ran aground and was dismantled 40 years later (under the name Illalong) it had sunk three times, including once at the wharf in Newcastle. Boambee at Harrington, near the wreck of the Burrawong. Photo from the book The Good Old Days, Volume 2, by Jim Revitt. Contributed to that book by H. Emerton, of Jones…

Swansea Bridge, NSW, as it was

Pet emu ate the engine nuts: a guided tour of 1920s Swansea

Post author:Greg Ray
Post published:July 1, 2019
Post category:History Miscellaneous Newcastle, NSW, Australia Vintage Photographs and Photography
Post comments:6 Comments

Nearly every weekend and holiday from the mid-1920s to 1930, Maitland boy Neville Chant spent at Swansea with his family in their weekender on Black Neds Bay. More than 100 years old when I met him in 2019, Neville retained vivid memories of his beloved childhood haunts, and could paint an evocative word-picture of the people and places he saw. I asked him to take me on a tour of the Swansea of his distant memory. Here is what he told me: Neville Chant, sharing his memories of Swansea in the 1920s You have to understand…

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