© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Author: Greg Ray

This author has written 481 articles
Read more about the article The German sailor, the tailor’s daughter and the tragic White Wife of Otterswick
The Bertha in full sail. Postcard by Hood, Sydney.

The German sailor, the tailor’s daughter and the tragic White Wife of Otterswick

MAYBE young German sailor Adolf Nordman dreamed of being more than friends with Nellie Shephard, the tailor's pretty young daughter whom he met in the port of Newcastle, NSW, in 1909. His postcards, written in the years before the outbreak of World War I, hint that way. If so, his hopes were unrequited. Nellie became the wife of an Australian artillery officer who fought against Adolf's countrymen in the war, and Adolf's lovely ship, the Bertha, met a terrible end in the Shetland Islands in 1924, where her figurehead now stands on the shore, looking out to sea, and where the local islanders call her the Wooden Wife,…

Continue ReadingThe German sailor, the tailor’s daughter and the tragic White Wife of Otterswick
Read more about the article Memories of Rhondda Colliery

Memories of Rhondda Colliery

Ernie Eade started work at Rhondda Colliery, Teralba, on January 27, 1927 at the age of 14. He was paid six shillings and sixpence a day, a rate that increased each year by one shilling and ten pence until he reached the adult rate of 17 shillings and sixpence. He worked from 7am to 3pm with a half hour break from 11am. Ernie Eade in December 1930. Photo courtesy of Alan Mitchell. At that time Rhondda was owned by William Laidley and Co, along with the Co-operative mine at Wallsend. The company’s chief clerk came to…

Continue ReadingMemories of Rhondda Colliery

A modest proposal to import politicians

TIME to get rid of that silly section in the Constitution that says Australian federal parliamentarians can’t hold citizenship of foreign nations. Not because so many of our pollies seem to come from other lands and it's sad to think of losing them because they may have forgotten to renounce their alternative allegiances. No, we need to ditch that silly rule because of the tremendous economic advantages. Over the past couple of decades of globalisation Australia has benefited, so big business says, from exporting just about every job imaginable. I get a shock now if I…

Continue ReadingA modest proposal to import politicians
×
×

Cart