© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Read more about the article How Neville got Bill Haley’s autograph
Neville Goodwin's autograph book, with his drawing of Bill Haley

How Neville got Bill Haley’s autograph

When rocker Bill Haley turned up at Newcastle Railway Station in 1957 young teachers college student Neville Goodwin was there waving his trusty autograph book. Neville, who was 78 when he told me this little story a couple of years ago, had drawn a picture of his favourite star and was keen to show Bill. According to Neville, Mr Haley was quite impressed. “He looked at my drawing of him in the book and said, ‘Hey kid. Did you do this?’ He suggested that if I went  with the group to the Great Northern Hotel he’d…

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Read more about the article Old trams became Depression housing
Old Waratah tramcars being towed to the bush as accommodation for single men in the Great Depression.

Old trams became Depression housing

DURING the Great Depression hundreds of Hunter people lived in makeshift humpies cobbled together from whatever materials their owners could scrounge. Some of the camps were Nobbys Camp near Horseshoe Beach, “Texas” in Carrington, “Hollywood” (also known as “Doggyville”) at Jesmond, “Coral Trees” in Stockton and Platt’s Estate and “Tram Car” at Waratah. A Ralph Snowball image of the opening of the Waratah tramway in 1901. Thirty years later the trail cars became housing for unemployed men. According to researcher and author Dulcie Hartley, writing in her book The Hungry Thirties, Tram Car camp housed 17…

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Read more about the article Lost islands of the Hunter River
A view of the Hunter River, showing Platts Channel and Spit Island, from the site of the former Murray Dwyer orphanage, circa 1930s.

Lost islands of the Hunter River

Kooragang Island is a name with little romance for most people in Newcastle, NSW. The name connotes a polluted wasteland near the mouth of the Hunter River, permeated by the toxic legacy of generations of heavy industry. But things weren’t always like that. Before white settlement there were several islands in the Hunter River estuary, forming a jigsaw of shapes cut and criss-crossed by creeks and tidal channels. The wetlands and mudflats were a prolific breeding ground for marine life and a feeding ground for local and migratory birds. The Aboriginal people hunted there and found…

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