© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

– Personal writing

Read more about the article Childhood memories of The Newcastle Show

Childhood memories of The Newcastle Show

Newcastle Show, to me as a child in the 1960s, was an extravagant feast for the senses that marked it as one of the great highlights of the year. The smells, sounds, lights and crowds of the nighttime show made it seem to me like a magical town, with its streets and alleys and the big public square of the main ring. I drank in the excitement of the event with wide-eyed enthusiasm. The Show really seemed like a city to me – so huge, with so many different areas, each with an entirely different feel,…

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Read more about the article Intercity memories and the lure of the railway

Intercity memories and the lure of the railway

A vintage brochure extolling the virtues of the express service. I never knew it like this. I recently received, as a reward for services to ageing, my coveted Gold Seniors Opal card. Armed with this precious token it may be that soon I will be riding the rails - on the cheap - to the four corners of NSW. In anticipation of this delightful possibility I've taken a ride down memory lane and present also some musical tributes to the fabled Newcastle to Sydney rail service. I was 18 or 19, and studying in Canberra. Many…

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Read more about the article Trying to remember the years BC

Trying to remember the years BC

In so many conversations these days the point arrives where somebody says something like: "but that was before Covid". Yesterday it was somebody talking about the new travel gear they bought before the pandemic stopped travel. The day before it was somebody else describing how their childrens' career plans were upended by the virus. The day before that it was something else, then something else again. I'm calling that remembered time the BC years: Before Covid. Not that I can really quite recall all the detail now. So many other shocks have followed. And it's not…

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