Gillies and Judd Family History
EAT LESS BREAD “London is so full of soldiers,” says Mrs. Holman, who returned yesterday from her trip to Europe, “that one wonders if any have come back to Australia.” “What is war bread made of,” somebody asked casually. “Anything at all.” said Mrs. Holman, laughing. You certainly don’t want...
HOBART TOWN, FROM MOUNT WELLINGTON As personal impressions with regard to a place afford the best materials for describing it, this writer’s own impressions, derived from a recent trip to Tasmania, will be appropriately serviceable for a description of Hobart Town and its environs. The number of visitors to Tasmania this...
My old man didn’t swear much and the only cussing I ever really heard from him when I was a youngster was the adjective /adverb ‘Plurry’. This piece of (now outdated) Australian slang is supposed to have its origin in the mispronunciation of the word ‘bloody’ by Australia’s indigenous population. According...
John Norton, the editor of the Sydney newspaper Truth from 1891–1916 claimed to have coined the term “wowser”, saying: I first gave it public utterance in the [Sydney] City Council, when I applied it to Alderman Waterhouse, whom I referred to as … the white, woolly, weary, watery, word-wasting wowser...
VITADATIO HOW IT WAS DISCOVERED ……A certain gentleman in Launceston, Tasmania, found himself one day under an obligation to a gentleman of that town, and offered to place him in possession of a secret which he long held. This secret, he declared, had enabled him for many years to cure his...
from the ‘Frankston and Somerville Standard’, 1912-36 Old hands tell me the roads were very bad on the Peninsula in the days when our grand dads were making eyes at grandma on the village green. One wet season two men were walking along the Rye road into Sorrento when they...
THE ODD SPOT GEORGE Bernard Shaw, a vegetarian to the last, gave some thought many years ago to his funeral. He is quoted as once having said: My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by mourning coaches, but by oxen, sheep, flocks of poultry, and...
Nazi Leader Once Dangerous Drug Addict I am able to reveal writes the Stockholm correspondent of the London ‘Daily Herald’ that Captain Goering the ruthless Nazi leader who has been invested with supreme power in Prussia as Hitler’s Commissioner was confined for some time in a Swedish lunatic asylum as...
At 8am on 3 February 1967 I was 14 years old and hanging back anxiously at home so I could listen to the radio and hear whether Ronald Ryan had been ‘hung by the neck until he was dead’ at Pentridge Prison, about 10 miles across town, in Melbourne. Ryan had...
A 1970 Larry Pickering cartoon about the last Victorian Government Premier not to attend a university, Henry Bolte. (click on images to begin slide show)
Like many other cartoonists, I first noticed Ben Strange’s work while trawling through old Australian newspapers online for snippets of family history. Ben Strange was born in Ireland and emigrated to Perth, Australia at 17 years of age. He became known for cartoons in the Perth newspaper, the Western Mail....
A few cartoons from old Australian newspapers (1920-1960) – click on any image to start up the slide show. Ben Bowyang – 1936-1979 Originally drawn by Alec Gurney The Potts – 1920-2001 Originally drawn by Stan Cross Bluey and Curley – 1939-1975 Originally drawn by Alec Gurney Wally and the Major –...
(Note: It’s always interesting to me to find out what thinking was around new discoveries and where the train of thought ultimately led to. The newspaper articles below are both from 1954). Serotonin Maybe Vital Brain Substance By our science writer Melbourne scientists found it 12 years ago, but couldn’t...
The cane toad, Bufo marinus, is a very successful species which has invaded the Australian environment since its deliberate introduction in 1935. The cane toad was introduced to northern Queensland to control the greyback cane beetle, Dermolepida albohirtum, a pest of sugar cane fields. The toad did not, however, have...
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