A hint of Déjà vu
When I was a kid growing up in the sixties and seventies of the previous century, life was good. But there was an ever-present background noise, like the rattle in an air conditioner on a hot day. I’m talking about … Continued
Let’s all celebrate Australia Day together
It’s Australia Day here in Oz, the day back in 1788 that marked the official founding of the penal colony in New South Wales. It’s a Saturday, as it happens, but after a few years of celebrating the day itself … Continued
The cemetery – stories of the past
Last year Peter and I had gone on a conducted tour of Kingston’s convict ruins with a descendant of the Christian family. I’d strongly suggest that anybody going to Norfolk for the first time attends the tours. The guides are … Continued
The celebration of a nation
It’s the 26th January, 2018. Today is the 230th anniversary of when Captain Arthur Phillip planted the British flag at the site of what became Sydney in the state of New South Wales. The place is New, it’s in the … Continued
Rudesheim, the Rhine Gorge – and Miltenberg
The thing about having done parts of this trip twice or three times is that sometimes I don’t have much more to say than I did in my previous blogs. That was the case with Rudesheim, where we visited the … Continued
Batavia’s Graveyard is being excavated at last #history
It’s been a while since I wrote a Batavia post. It has also been a while since Beacon Island (Batavia’s Graveyard) has been vacated and the fishing shacks removed. With those impediments to a proper investigation out of the way, … Continued
A triumph for an amateur historian
In 1963, the last resting place of the Dutch merchantman Batavia, which hit a reef on the Abrolhos islands off the coast of Western Australia in 1629, was finally found. 1963. It had taken three hundred and eighty-four years before … Continued
Using real history as a plot. Not as easy as it sounds?
It’s time to start a new writing adventure, face the cold, blank screen and begin. For me, it’s the hardest part of the whole process – the empty page. Once something – anything – is down, words are written, then … Continued
The first murders
In my last post, I described how Jeronimus Cornelisz, arch-villain of the Batavia shipwreck survivors, divided his flock by setting up settlements on different islands. He’d promised all of them to supply them with provisions from the central store, a … Continued