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.
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…
1927 Chinese Commemorative Scroll This was given by Kwang Lim Kwong, the manager of a touring Chinese soccer team, to Ernest Lukeman, the secretary of the Australian Soccer Football Association, in appreciation for his help in coordinating a team from China to tour Australia in 1927. The Lukeman family has lived in Drummoyne for several…
Leslie Kenneth Garfield Browning, MC and Bar When war broke out in August 1914 the Australian Naval and Military Expedition Force was hurriedly assembled and dispatched to New Guinea to seize control of the German colony. After limited resistance, the German forces surrendered and the expeditionary force returned to Australia leaving a small detachment to…
Sydney is made up of many fascinating suburbs and areas, many of which are such a normal part of Sydneysiders lives that they spare little thought for the history of these areas, let alone for the names they go by. Today most are simply residential suburbs, home to countless families. Mortlake is just one such…
What would have happened if the three wise men had been three wise women? They would have . . . asked for directions arrived on time helped deliver the baby cleaned the stable brought practical gifts made a casserole. And what would they have said as they left the manger? “Have you heard that Joseph…
Daisy May Bates was born Margaret May O’Dwyer, on 16 October 1859 at Roscrea, County Tipperary, Ireland. At the age of twenty-four she travelled on the Almora to Australia. She stayed at the home of the Bishop of North Queensland and later with several family friends who had migrated previously. Because of this she later said ‘Australia…
