© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Read more about the article Newcastle’s glorious municipal leaders
Newcastle in the 1870s, from The Town and Country Journal

Newcastle’s glorious municipal leaders

Honestly, I had to laugh out loud. What started out as a more-or-less po-faced description in an 1872 newspaper of the fledgling town of Newcastle, NSW, turned into a hilarious slag at the apparent incompetence of the settlement's council - its municipal "corporation". The paper is The Town and Country Journal, dated February 10, 1872. The article features a lovely woodcut of Newcastle, overlooking the harbour and Nobbys, and most of its column-length is occupied by an account of the history of the Australian Agricultural Company, which ran the city's coal monopoly for the benefit of…

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Read more about the article The Catalinas of Stony Creek
A Catalina flying boat at Stoney Creek, near Toronto, NSW, in 1947.

The Catalinas of Stony Creek

JOHN Cain was with his father, not long after the end of World War II, when surplus Catalina flying boats from the RAAF base at Rathmines were auctioned by the Australian Government's Disposals Commission. "I think it was Newcastle auctioneer Don McHattie who was working his way along the rows of planes and calling the auction from the back of a T-Model truck,’’ John recalled. He said his father, also named John, bought the planes with an idea to turn them into accommodation at Stoney Creek, near Toronto. ‘‘At the time he bought them, people said…

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Read more about the article Ron and Liz Morrison: life behind the lens
Ron and Liz Morrison, circa 1950s

Ron and Liz Morrison: life behind the lens

BECOMING a photographer was Ron Morrison's second choice of career. He'd have preferred to be a teacher, but a combination of lack of self -confidence and chance led him to the lens. ''I wasn't sure I'd get the marks I needed to become a teacher, so in 1948 I took a job as an assistant in a photographic studio in Newcastle," Ron recalled. A man from Tindall Studios in Hunter Street had visited Ron's school to sing the praises of photography as a career, and Ron, who had mucked about taking photos with a box Brownie…

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