© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Charlie and the detective: a vintage Australian true crime epic

I am obliged to my friend Elaine Sheehan, the daughter of Charlie Thompson (who, coincidentally, once lived next-door to my mother), for access to many of the documents relied on for this article. One day in June 1932 Newcastle Sun journalist Charlie Thompson, then living in Denison Street Mayfield, received a surprising letter from a neighbour in nearby Dora Street. The author was a retired Victorian detective, Alfred Stephen Burvett, who had a tempting proposition for the 28-year-old journalist and budding author. “My daughter,” wrote Burvett, “has just read out to me an article of yours…

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Remembering C.K. Thompson, Newcastle journalist and author

Many Australians of a certain age will remember C.K. Thompson's books from their childhood. Thin little hardcover volumes of stories about Australian animals and birds, they were common in school libraries. It couldn't be said that they were great literature, and even among the work of other Australian children's authors they didn't rate with the books of Patricia Wrightson, Nan Chauncy or Colin Thiele. But they were popular, and they may have helped inculcate an interest in nature among young readers. . Growing up in the 1960s I was aware of these books. One or two…

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Read more about the article The real Tomahawk Joe, at last
Tomahawk Joe and friend at Cronulla, February 1938. Photo by Ray Olson, courtesy of the State Library of NSW.

The real Tomahawk Joe, at last

Time and again, over the years, I've heard stories of a "wild white man" known as Tomahawk Joe who made a name for himself in the Newcastle area in the 1930s as a showman, hurling tomahawks at a target, often accompanied by his female assistant, "Lone Star". I've seen photos of him: tall, gaunt and unshaven, always stern-faced and usually dressed in Wild West gear and holding his trademark tomahawk. And once, in a bookshop, I even found a copy of a pamphlet written by Joe and apparently published with the assistance of bookshop owner Jim…

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