Twenty-seven people were all there
were when Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition went awry. Luckily for us (they
were lucky enough, all surviving after months and months), one of those was a
photographer, Frank Hurley, whose amazing photographs documented the 22 months
spent stranded on the world’s most remote continent.
Playing games while waiting for the rescue
Ernest Shackleton set out in 1914
for Antarctica, which he hoped to cross by foot with his men. However, when the
ship was stranded in ice, the crew had no choice but to learn to survive,
hunting penguins for food and playing simple games with one another to keep
occupied.
After ten months, when it was evident that the ice was going to completely take over the ship, Shackleton set out with a small crew on a lifeboat to search for some population of men that could rescue the others. An entire year later, he returned with help and successfully rescued every crewman.
Keeping Time. These days, almost everything has the time. Your computer, your mobile phone, the clock in your car, your blackberry, your iPhone…everything does! But back when the only timekeepers were mechanical tickers, how did you keep time? And how did you know the right time? The Pocket Watch. A hundred years ago, men didn’t…
Strangers in a strange land is a good title for a sci-fi novel. It also accurately reflects how Australia’s founding fathers, our First Fleet convicts, would have felt on being dumped in an alien landscape on the other side of the world back in 1788. Also springing to mind are the 34 Irish convict rebels…
It is with much sadness we wish to inform you of the passing of Betty Stirrat on 2nd June at the age of 96. Betty was a former member of our society and one of our last direct links with Dame Eadith Walker and the Yaralla estate. Her father was the electrical engineer on the estate and…
The armistice of 11 November 1918 was celebrated in Concord with fervour. Citizens immediately formed tin-can bands and took to the street and within twelve hours of the news of armistice the Western Suburbs Master Carriers’ Association had organised what was then the largest procession in the history of the Western Suburbs. Beginning at Concord…
There was an age, not a generation ago, when local news was circulated by suburban and regional newspapers. The lifeblood of such publications were the “classifieds”, commonly referred to as “Hatches, Matches and Dispatches” or births, deaths and marriages. There were also notices of engagement, anniversaries and obituaries. Goods and chattels were advertised for sale,…
In the early days of Australia convicts provided free labour, standards of living were generally poor and the small affluent society managed to live very well with a minimum of conveniences. Gradually the lower classes came to resent being servants. There were two alternatives to the problem. One was to advertise overseas, mainly in Britain,…
