© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

The one-eyed king and the devil’s picture books

Has life dealt you a bad hand? But do you still manage to come up trumps most of the time? Or, more to my point, have you ever noticed how many playing card expressions have made it into our regular language? After a long period away from card games (I’m a lousy player, actually – can’t keep a poker face), I was recently induced to play a few hands of euchre, and my son taught me a new game called cambio. One thing I liked about this game was that it alerted me to the fact…

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Read more about the article My heart tells me we should change the date
My great uncle John William "Jack" Allsopp.

My heart tells me we should change the date

I’m glad to be Australian, and I cherish my deep roots in this amazing continent. On my father’s side of my family I can find convict ancestors, brought to the penal colony for attempting highway robbery and for stealing a piece of ribbon from an employer. My mother – born out of wedlock to a woman who couldn't keep her and to a father whose identity we don’t know - was adopted by a big-hearted Salvation Army woman descended from English stock and her part-Aboriginal husband. He was a gentle giant of a man whose indigenous…

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Travelling Through Time, dedicated to our Dads

Our 10th book, Travelling Through Time, will always be associated in our minds with sad endings and joyous beginnings. That's because for much of 2018 as we worked on the book, we were painfully aware that both our fathers were dying and - at the same time - we were awaiting the birth in Sweden of our first grandchild. As it happened our fathers died within a week of one another last October, just as the book was being printed, and little Elsie was born on November 1. Naturally we had to make our pilgrimage to…

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