Closed Anderson Botanic Gardens . |
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Monday, April 7, 2025
INTRIGUING NAUTICAL YARN
Of particular interest was the above well worn , revised 1942 Henry Ford Trade School Shop Theory , published by McGraw-Hill Book Company , New York and London, 267pp, highly illustrated .
Founded by Henry Ford in l916, with just six students and one instructor, the Henry Ford Trade School, Dearborn, Michigan, gave underprivileged young men the opportunity to earn a living while learning a trade , and provided the Ford Motor Company with trained draftsmen and technicians.
By l931, there were 135 faculty members teaching 2800 students.More than 8000 had graduated from the school when it closed in l952.
The book contains three inscriptions from American Thomas Paul Burns , the first dated August 2, l942. Possibly a second class marine mechanic or engineer , he described himself as being of the US Navy, San Diego, California ; another gives his address as 1228 Elbur Avenue, Lakewood, Ohio .
In large handwriting, the other expresses good luck to Jack Herrmann , of Ascot, Brisbane , Australia.
Somehow, that book made its way to Townsville and was found by our waterfront roundsmen in a box with a run of books , Mathematics for Marine Engineers, published by Thomas Reed Publications Limited, Sunderland and London, in the l960s.
There is another handwritten inscription with the name John . C. Herrmann , 36 Mary Street, Innisfail, Queensland , in volume one , published in l965, 381pp, with the outline of a merchant vessel on the dustjacket of each one .
The Shipping Reporter says he reckons there could be an interesting story ,possibly involving Townsville during WWll when there were many Americans in town and subsequent dealings with shipping in dock and at sea in various locations.
If he is able to flesh out the scenario we will inform our readers. Already he knows of a connection with Queensland's sugar industry.
(Ford. Ohio .Marine.)
Sunday, April 6, 2025
TRUMP CAUSES CYCAD SHOCK HORROR
Ever since boofheaded Donald Trump imposed the trade war , causing Wall Street to become wall-eyed , cycads have turned unhealthy- like the one below in Australia which even looks as if fathered by Trump in a golfcourse bunker and is obviously suffering from the dreaded, highly infectious Oval Office Pox.
Would you believe this is not fake news? |
RISING HOME REAL ESTATE
Due to the flooding rain in Queensland , magpie geese are having to raise the level of their nests in swamps, pools and billabongs.
The rising water level in a lake caused a pair to quickly raise the height of the nest by adding more sticks and pieces off nearby plants. The home alone bird below on its nest seems somewhat nonplussed about the situation.
(Estate , Floods. Queensland. )
Saturday, April 5, 2025
NEW VENICE OF THE NORTH
Because of a so-called rain shadow over Townsville it became known as Brownsville in the dry season. According to the Bureau of Meteorology , Townsville misses out on much rain because most onshore winds from the south- east , which bring showers , bypass the area due to the terrain , unlike Cairns that has mountains .
However, so far this year, Townsville has experienced record rainful of about 2400 millimetres , flooding in some areas , the closure of a large shopping centre due to underground flooding, landslides which closed Castle Hill and the Ross River has been cascading across the weirs.
The usual lotus filled pool in the gardens has also expanded , attracting much more birdlife than usual , including magpie geese, whistling ducks, curlews , peaceful doves, pee wees and finches.
With so many surface pools about it gives rise to arty photographs of the reflections of sky , clouds and surrounds, like the one following , taken by drenched Vallis.
(Venice. Townsville. Rain.)
Friday, April 4, 2025
VIET NAM WAR SURPRISE
Found in a number of war books in the garrison city of Townsville , in the one above, was the loosely inserted photograph of a crouched soldier posing with a rifle and what looks like a cullender , a kitchen utensil used to drain fluids from food , on his head .
The author , Gary McKay, served in South Viet Nam in 1971, where he was badly wounded and awarded the Military Cross for gallantry.
According to the blurb, he interviewed more than 100 veterans and their families to build up a picture of their war.
He spoke to nurses and doctors, Qantas cabin crew and pilots, men who had served with the Army, Navy and Air Force, in helicopters, armoured units , maintenance divisions , destroyers , on the gun line , units attached to American forces and ships carrying troops.
This resulted in a most interesting book , published by Allen and Unwin.
McKay also wrote In Good Company and Delta Four and Sleeping With Your Ears Open : On Patrol with the Australian SAS .
Bullets, Beans and Bandages was first published in l992 as Vietnam Fragments.
There was another inclusion , a Queensland Health Public Patients' Charter pamphlet , in The Accidental Guerrilla, fighting small wars in the midst of a big one , published by Scribe, Melbourne.
Written by David Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer and one of the world's most influential experts on guerrilla warfare, the wide ranging volume includes extensive coverage of the INTERFET force which went into East Timor.
(VIetnam . Guerrillas. Books .)
Thursday, April 3, 2025
CAPE YORK AWASH
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
A DISASTROUS NEWSPAPER
In our exclusive series- Rewind The Press!- we recalled the Northern Territory's colourful media past. In this case , it is a rerun about an unusual publication and the dynamic duo who produced it after Cyclone Tracy destroyed Darwin in l974.
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Damaged Chinese Temple sign in shatttered city. |
Victorian Pete Steedman , a seasoned and scarred ALP warrior, known as the Black Knight , had been in the eye of countless political storms. It was an epic tempest, Australia’s worst natural disaster, Cyclone Tracy, which saw him called in to utilise his skills as a forceful journalist / editor, publisher and communicator in the production of the Darwin Newsletter .
The publication kept tens of thousands of evacuees down south informed about what was happening in the battered Territory capital and where they could go for help and services to try and sort out their lives which had been turned upside down. It became “ the Bible” for Darwin Resident Action Committees across the nation ,with a circulation of 20,000.
Edition number 1 was printed in Melbourne at the Salvation Army’s Citadel Press with money Steedman raised through various sources. It was illustrated with photographs supplied by The Age and included a statement in the Greek language. As the enormity of the problem became more apparent , Steedman was employed as a welfare officer by the Victorian Council for Social Service which had been studying and planning the organisational structures needed to cope with any disaster. Another journalist , John Ball, also a political activist, worked in tandem with Steedman on the Newsletter.
For example, in an article dealing with the delays in handing out the millions donated to help the victims of Cyclone Tracy, administered by the Darwin Relief Trust Fund , held by four different voluntary organisations , it called for “ a quick decision by someone up top “ to allocate the “paltry” $200 per person. It was harder to find anyone who had received any of the money than to find a house that had not been blown away, chided the Newsletter .
It also was not reluctant to raise the issue of profiteering by some Darwin businesses, escalating house prices , problems with insurance companies. Ball was sent to Darwin to gather first hand information on the spot for the newspaper and was joined by Steedman .
Ball had lived in Hong Kong and there were articles, illustrated with a picture of ships swept ashore in tidal surges , about how the British colony coped with regular hurricanes and information about its building code, The byline on one article billed John Ball as "our cyclone-proof obsessed reporter".
A March 1975 edition told how few people in Darwin had known anything about video tapes until Cyclone Tracy. Now videos were flowing to and from Darwin keeping people in touch . Film Australia taught a Darwin team which included a housewife, a teacher and an air traffic controller how to take over the video service . In the first month of operation 260 taped messages were sent south.
Steedman addressed a national conference in Adelaide in April 1975 at which two representatives from all states and territories gathered to discuss the role of Darwin resident groups outside of Darwin and drew up an extensive agenda for future activities in Darwin. One of those was for a community newspaper in Darwin supported by the Darwin Reconstruction Commission. The role and requirements of such a paper were explained in great detail .
The idiosyncratic writing style of the two journalists was evident when Little Darwin recently perused Steedman’s own copies of the Newsletter, mementos of those hectic days. As an example, the May 1975 edition of the paper said Ball had lobbed in Darwin to collect stories , including some from the teams of scribes still resident in the battered city.
Stories about the Patris becoming a Peyton Place may or may not be true , the article continued. From this very paragraph alone it can be seen that the Darwin Newsletter was no bland government publication.
Mayor Ella Stack told the Newsletter she would like to provide facilities for hippies who passed through Darwin on the route to and from Asia to overcome the smelly Lameroo Beach situation and that drug dealers would get short shrift. A local artist, Eddie Collins, provided cartoons.
Through his involvement with the Chinese community in Bendigo and Melbourne , John Ball arranged for a cutting of the ancient Bodhi tree in Thailand under which Buddha is said to have received enlightenment thousands of years ago to be sent to Darwin for the Chinese Temple rebuilding program. A Chinese message was also included in the paper. Former NT News journalist, Bluey Harley ,evacuated as a result of Cyclone Tracy , supplied a lighthearted column of anecdotes and there were several items from the NT News.
The June 2 edition , the last , contained extensive information about the Darwin Reconstruction Fair, including an interview with Melbourne artist and conservationist, Neil Douglas, photographed with local journalist /author and environmentalist, the late Barbara James , he having interesting views about how the city could be rebuilt, the Hong Kong approach mentioned .
Ball and Steedman were involved in a variety of projects which resulted in them dealing with Sandra and Kerry Byrnes at the Graphic Systems printery, who later ran the independent newspaper, the Darwin Star , the name inspired by the Hong Kong Star.
STORMY OUTLOOK
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
PENAL COLONY EARLY PUBLICATIONS
An historically significant bound volume containing the first eight issues-May to December 1821- of Australia’s first periodical, The Australian Magazine, at $45,000 , is one of the many items of note in the latest acquisitions from Douglas Stewart Fine Books, Melbourne.
Edited by Reverend Ralph Mansfield and printed by Robert Howe , it went out of circulation in September 22, 1822 after 14 issues.
Robert Howe (1795-1829) was a member of Australia’s most important early publishing dynasty.
His father, George Howe (1759-l821) , printed the first book in Australia in l802 , the New South Wales General Standing Order , and Australia's first newspaper , the l803 Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser .
The first issue of The Australian Magazine – printed by Robert Howe – was published on May 1. 1821, 10 days before George Howe’s death . Having already succeeded his father as Government Printer, Robert also became editor, printer and publisher of the Gazette, which he had formerly helped his father to publish .
According to the bookshop, ‘Robert Howe was dissipated as a young man and in 1819 fathered an illegitimate son. Next year, however, he experienced a spiritual awakening and, in his own words, was “wonderfully and mercifully visited by God and snatched from infamy in this world and Hell in the next”.
He joined the group of Methodists who were working in Sydney ,and their influence, particularly that of Reverend Ralph Mansfield, was apparent when he published The Australian Magazine; or, Compendium of Religious, Literary, and Miscellaneous Intelligence, the first periodical to appear in Australia.
Reverend Mansfield (1799-1880), was a recently ordained and zealous Methodist minister who had arrived in Sydney from Liverpool, England, in September 1820.
Mansfield’s editorial Preface, dated December 1, 1821, bound in at the front of the above volume stated:
‘Our design, from the first, has avowedly been, “to disseminate useful knowledge, religious principles, and moral habits.” And though some, we are aware, object to our Magazine, that it wears too grave and religious an aspect, candour must compel them to acknowledge, that we have not swerved from the intentions we distinctly proposed.
Political discussion, and party spirit, and personal allusion, we have scrupulously avoided. Literature and science, while we have devoted to them a portion of attention, have been kept subordinate and subservient to our primary design.
Of Colonial occurrences we have endeavoured to select the most interesting; though this department is, in a great measure, superseded by the weekly Journal [i.e. the Sydney Gazette].’
(Publications.Colonial. Books.)
Monday, March 31, 2025
FIRST WORLD WAR SOUVENIR
Sunday, March 30, 2025
ELECTION EXCLUSIVE: BOB HAWKE RESURRECTED FROM CELLAR
Whether it's one for your mantelpiece, one for your cellar or just one to toast one of our really great Labor Prime Ministers with your friends, I'd encourage you to buy as many tickets as you can so that we can all keep the legacy of Bob and all the other great Labor Prime Ministers alive for the benefit of today's Australians and our future generations.
Remember in Australian political history, it's always been Labor Governments that have been the nation builders and it's always been Tory governments that have been the divisive social wreckers.
Saturday, March 29, 2025
BUSH TRACK WALK
Views from Mount Louisa, a Townsville suburb , taking in distant Magnetic Island and mainland Castle Hill,access to latter closed because of landslides caused by the recent heavy rain, taken by Aeronautical Correspondent Abra.
During WWll there were about 4000 Americans in a depot at the base of Mount Louisa, which included the Garbutt aerodrome , now the international airport and RAAF base.
(Track.Townsville. Wartime.)
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
CHINA & THE PHILIPPINES : EARLY EXPLORATION , MISSIONARIES
One of those items, $550, is the above circa l920 London China Inland Mission wooden collection box, thought to have been in use up untill the l960s, with chromolithographic labels on three sides and labels for the Young People's Branch of the CIM, money from which was designed to win boys and girls over to Christ in China.
The above partial set of Historia general de Philipinas by Juan de la Concepcion (1724-1787), priced at $18,000, said to be the best and most exclusive history of the Philippines ever written. There is reference to Spanish possessions in that country and to their Spanish-American territory. It also chronicles the work of the Augustinian Monks and their important missions in China and Japan .
(China. Philippines.Exploration.)
MANY MURDERS AND BUTTERFLIES
Dulcie Gray was the pseudonym and stage name for Dulcie Winifred Catherine Savage Denison,nee Bailey, (l915-2011). Born in Kuala Lumpur, her father a solicitor, and educated in England , she returned to Malaya to teach .
Upon the death of her father , she returned to England and studied at the Academy des Beaux Arts, London , and the Webber-Douglas Dramatic School . She married actor Michael Denison in 1939.
In Murder in Melbourne an Australian airline pilot finds his girlfriend poisoned with strychnine in the bedroom of a squalid hotel . An explanatory note states the first part of the book was written in Melbourne when Dulcie Gray was starring in Tea and Sympathy.
The book thanks Detective Inspector Welby of the Russell Street Criminal Investigation Branch, Melbourne, for help he gave the author about Australian police procedure. Detective Inspector Peters of the CIB is assigned to the case.
Gray was vice-president of the British Butterfly Conservation Society and in 1978 published Butterflies on My Mind, a work on the conservation and life of butterflies in Great Britain. She also wrote a short biography of J.B. Priestly, the English novelist and playwright.
(Murder. Melbourne. Butterflies.)
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Monday, March 24, 2025
SHIPPING REPORTER BRAVES DOWNPOUR , FINDS FAMOUS SHIPWRECK
Our waterfront roundsman has been getting about with a notebook which on its cover declares it is one to be used in all weather condtions . On spotting the notebook, we asked him if he expects an outbreak of southerly busters or if he is planning a trip to Antarctica.
In his salty reply, he said several of the notebooks had been given to him by a contact in the mining indusry who has to take notes, sometimes in the rain or with water spraying about .
The Shipping Reporter is a great scribbler . Sometimes his usual notebook jottings are hard to decipher after coming into contact with rain or spillage from a drinking session with sailors in waterfront grog shops .
In any case, soon after he began using a waterproof notebook he found the revised book about the wreck of the Pandora by Peter Gesner, published by the Queensland Museum, in a Townsville op shop .
HMAS Pandora, sent by Admiralty to the South Pacific to recapture the Bounty mutineers, ran aground on Australia's Great Barrier Reef on August 29 ,1791 ,resulting in the loss of 31 crew and four mutineers.
The mutineers were locked up in a shipboard prison named Pandora's Box.
For more than 200 years the wreck remained untouched,a number of maritime archeology dives made on the site, resulting in a Pandora exhibition in Townsville's Museum of Tropical Queensland.
One of those involved in the project was marine archeologist Vivienne Moran ,late of Magnetic Island , who ran the above art gallery there, dived on the Pandora , and also wrote a book about Southern Ocean shipwrecks.
She knew the late Dr Colin Jack-Hinton who was the inaugural director of the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin, which set up a maritime gallery in his name covering traditional boats and canoes .
(Pandora. Moran. Shipwrecks.)