© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Author: Greg Ray

This author has written 481 articles
Read more about the article The mystery in the mine: lizard tracks deep below Catherine Hill Bay.
Lizard tracks on the ceiling of Wallarah Colliery, May 1979. Photo by Brian R. Andrews

The mystery in the mine: lizard tracks deep below Catherine Hill Bay.

MILLIONS of years ago, apparently, a large lizard or similar creature was taking a walk on some soft ground. Its feet sank into the mud, and it backed away. The ground hardened, preserving the tracks, which were later filled in with a different type of mud. The ground eventually turned into rock, and other layers formed on top, pressing those layers and the tracks of the creature deep below the surface of the earth. Deep underground at Wallarah Colliery in 1979. Photo used with permission of Brian R. Andrews. In 1979, miners working the coal seam…

Continue ReadingThe mystery in the mine: lizard tracks deep below Catherine Hill Bay.
Read more about the article There’s more to life than books, you know, but not much more . . .

There’s more to life than books, you know, but not much more . . .

When I heard Morissey sing those lines, "There's more to life than books you know, but not much more" (they are in The Smiths song Handsome Devil) I felt I might have found a motto for my life. Because I'm a fiend for books and always have been. When I visit somebody for the first time I can't help myself. My eyes are drawn almost against my will to their bookshelves, as if I can make some kind of assessment of their character by what I see there. I dream about browsing in bookshops. I read…

Continue ReadingThere’s more to life than books, you know, but not much more . . .
Read more about the article No girls, people with disabilities or sons of miners need apply: bad old days of banking in NSW
Hunter Street, Newcastle, in the 1920s. The Bank of Australasia is at the right-hand edge of the photo.

No girls, people with disabilities or sons of miners need apply: bad old days of banking in NSW

During World War 1, when the Newcastle branch of the Bank of Australasia was struggling to recruit the staff it needed to run its business, the organisation still couldn't see its way clear to hire girls, sons of miners or people with disabilities. Fascinating insights into the banking industry in Newcastle during the war years have emerged through some correspondence of William Miles Coverdale, the bank's Newcastle manager at the time. William Miles Coverdale Copies of the letters were kindly loaned by William Coverdale's granddaughter, Pam Parsons, who received them as a gift from a banking…

Continue ReadingNo girls, people with disabilities or sons of miners need apply: bad old days of banking in NSW
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