© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY
Read more about the article A pleasant personal coincidence
My father on exercise with RAEME at Gan Gan, Port Stephens, in 1960.

A pleasant personal coincidence

WHEN my Dad got called up for National Service he ended up in a section with two other blokes named Geoff. The sergeant didn't like that. It was inconvenient having men with the same names. So one Geoff got to keep his name and other two were renamed on the spot by the sergeant. My Dad's name became "Sam" or "Sammy". Funny how the name stuck. Years later when I met blokes who been in the Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (RAEME) with Dad they honestly believed his name was Sam. Dad in uniform at…

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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 Maitland’s “double-headless” murders of 1960.
Police at the scene of the murder at East Maitland, 1960

Maitland’s “double-headless” murders of 1960.

On Saturday, April 23, 1960, Maitland reeled in shock when news broke of a gruesome double murder in a small isolated hut off Turton Road, not far from the East Maitland brickworks. Sydney Shelley, 34, and his 21-year-old wife Elva had been killed and their heads cut off and removed. The couple’s baby was found alive but distressed in a cot in the house. A post-mortem revealed that Elva had been pregnant with a second child at the time of her death. Sydney and Elva Shelley were murdered and decapitated When news of the murders broke,…

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