© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Author: Greg Ray

This author has written 481 articles
Read more about the article Australia Day lament for the common wealth

Australia Day lament for the common wealth

January 26, 2022 Opinion by Greg Ray Australia Day seems a bit irrelevant to me this year. The whole country right now feels like a hijacked airliner. People are squabbling about legroom and locker space and meal choices and window seats and steward service. Wannabes are pushing for upgrades to business class or – dare we even dream? – first class, while nobody seems to have the faintest idea where the flight is heading. I feel like we are hostages, only most of us don’t want to admit it. We want to pretend that whoever is…

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Read more about the article The Mont Pelee eruption of May 1902
Artist's impression of the Roddam escaping the eruption - from a cigarette card.

The Mont Pelee eruption of May 1902

The recent volcanic eruption near Tonga in the South Pacific has reminded me of a gruelling tale of another eruption, 120 years ago, at Martinique in the Eastern Carribean. About 30,000 people died in perhaps the deadliest volcanic eruption in human history. Wikipedia has a comprehensive entry on the topic. This account comes from the book Ships, by Frank C. Bowen. Captain Edward William Freeman, a board of trade examiner, went through a terrible experience . . . with his steamer the Roddam when the disastrous eruption of Mont Pelee destroyed the town of Saint Pierre…

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Read more about the article John Jobson’s BHP and other photographs
A BHP loco in 1927, John Jobson and Ellaroo, the first ship in Newcastle's "new" floating dock, 1929

John Jobson’s BHP and other photographs

A bundle of photographic prints, handed to me recently, jogged my memory somehow. The matt black envelopes in which the photos had been stored - evidently for a long time - were familiar to me for a start. Then there was the compact writing on the back, and the reference to the photos having been taken in the late 1920s and early 1930s by a metallurgist at Newcastle's BHP steelworks. I went scurrying to my filing cabinets and, sure enough, I had two photos by the same photographer, given to me by a woman who had…

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