© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Read more about the article A Newcastle girl’s letters from the WW 1 home front

A Newcastle girl’s letters from the WW 1 home front

Doris Schuck was 16 years old and living in Newcastle East when "The Great War" broke out. Like most youngsters in the community at the time she was intensely patriotic and she paid particular attention to the fortunes of "Newcastle's Own" 35th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force, so often in the thick of fierce fighting on the Western Front in Europe. Living very close to Newcastle's Fort Scratchley - a relic of the Russian scare of the early 20th Century - she got to know quite a few young soldiers and she wrote to some…

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Read more about the article The water of remembrance
Jack Parsons in WW1 (left), WW2 (right) and the fountain in Gregson Park

The water of remembrance

In Gregson Park, Hamilton (Newcastle, NSW), a drinking water fountain stands near the large war memorial. On one side is a plaque that reads: Dedicated to the memory of John William Parsons who made the supreme sacrifice on the 12th July 1945 while prisoner of war in Ranau, Borneo. 2/3rd Motor Ambulance Corps 2nd AIF Also member 8th Field Co Engineers AIF 1914-1918. Age 49 years Erected by his wife and daughters.” In truth, the fountain memorialises Jack Parsons and his wife Doris, both profoundly affected by the world wars of the 20th Century. The story…

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Read more about the article Time to break free from the robber state

Time to break free from the robber state

Opinion by Greg Ray The biggest mistake Newcastle ever made was in 1967 when its voters helped kill the idea of Northern NSW seceding from the Sydney-dominated south. After decades of agitation and a huge push, the so-called “Northern Separation Movement” had managed to force a formal referendum on the issue. People in the north of the state had brought the issue up repeatedly from the time that Queensland split from NSW. Their complaint was and has always been the same: that the Sydney-based government extracts far more from regional areas than it puts back, that…

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