The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle

This novel by Sophie Green is primarily about the special friendship that develops in 1982 between four very different ladies when they meet on the beach each day for an early morning swim.

Marie has lived at Shelly Bay, north of Sydney, all her life. Since her husband died five years previously, she now lives alone in the family home with her dog, Charlie Brown, for company. Marie is lonely but the real escape for her is the morning swim which she undertakes throughout the year unless the weather is really bad and the surf too rough. She is used to swimming alone but then she meets Theresa on the beach one morning as she is about to go for a swim and invites her to join her.

Theresa lives with her husband, two children and her grandmother in Shelly Bay. As well as looking after the house and her family, Theresa volunteers at the local hospital a couple of days a week. A comment from her husband that she is overweight motivates Theresa to take up swimming again, not just for exercise but also for some  'me time'.

At the hospital Theresa meets and befriends Leanne, a nurse in the childrens' department. Leanne has been having swimming lessons and eventually decides to give ocean swimming a try.

The fourth member of the swimming circle is Elaine who has left her home and children in England when her husband decides he wants to return to Australia. Looking for something to do she decides to attempt swimming in the sea.

As friendships among the women develop we, with members of the swimming circle, gradually learn of the problems that each member has experienced in the past as well as in the present. A strong support group develops from the morning swim as each of the swimmers gradually faces up to issues from their past plus current challenges. This results in lifestyle changes for all members of the group.

Once again it is interesting to read a book exploring, as one of its themes, the power of the sea over an individual.

The wasp and the orchid

This book by Danielle Clode has the subtitle: The remarkable life of Australian naturalist Edith Coleman.

Edith Coleman was born in Surrey England on 29 July 1874. Her parents were Henry Harms and Charlotte Edmunds and Edith was the sixth of seven children. The family left England for Australia in August 1887. Edith became well known in the 1920s for her writing in scientific journals and talks to the Field Naturalist Club of Victoria about Australian native orchids. In 1949 she was awarded the Australian Naural History Medallion. Edith was well known during her lifetime in the World of Science but after her death in 1951 her work tended to be forgotten.

When working in the basement of the Museum of Victoria some years ago, Danielle Clode rediscovered the work of Edith Coleman and decided to write about her life. Edith's story has been compiled from journal articles - particularly the Victorian Naturalist -  newspaper and magazine articles and examples of her research. The author has constructed what she could of Edith's story from these sources and with the help of members of Edith's family. Each chapter contains one of Edith's articles, a fictional account of part of Edith's life as well as a reconstruction of the life and work of Edith Colman pieced together from a range of sources.

For much of her life Edith and her husband, James Coleman, lived in a house and garden, Walsham in Blackburn. James was involved with bicycles, motor bikes and motor cars and was a co-founder of the Automobile Club of Victoria (later the RACV). Edith and James had two daughters.

The book provides descriptions of Edith's work with orchids including photographs of many species. At the back of the book are detailed end notes, an index of names and an index of species.

Edith Coleman (1874-1951) - ADB

The Nancys

Eleven year old Tippy Chan waited excitedly at the airport for her Uncle Pike to arrive from Australia.  Pike brings with him his new boy-friend, Devon, and they are returning to Pike's home town in New Zealand to look after Tippy while her mother goes on a cruise.

Growing up Pike loved reading Nancy Drew books and had passed his collection to Tippy who was also a fan. So when Tippy's school teacher is murdered Tippy, Pike and Devon decide to form a group, the Nancys, to investigate the crime, especially when the police appear to arrest the wrong suspect. Tippy is also concerned about a friend, Todd, who fell from a bridge several days before the death of the teacher.

R W R (Rob) McDonald is a New Zealander who now lives in Australia. In this book he has created a collection of eccentric, and sometimes flawed, characters who live in Tippy's community and support her.

As well as being a murder mystery the book is concerned about people, their perceptions of themselves and of others plus the different ways that people cope with grief. Tippy's father had died in a car crash nine months earlier and she is struggling to understand how and why it happened. Her mother is also struggling with coping with the death of her husband and has not told Tippy the full story. She is also cross that Pike left New Zealand when he was young to find a new life.

This is a very readable crime novel, often amusing with loads of over-the top humour.  

R W R McDonald https://rwrmcdonald.com/
AustCrime  https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/nancys-rwr-mcdonald
Nancy Drew books  https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/NAD/nancy-drew

Room for a stranger

In Room for a stranger, the first novel by Melanie Cheng, the author writes about the unusual, tentative friendship between Meg Hughes, aged 75, and Andy Chan, a student from Hong Kong studying Biomedicine at university.

Meg has always lived in the family home in Melbourne and has spent much of her life caring for her parents and her sister. Meg now lives alone in the house except for an African grey talkative parrot, Atticus. When she enters into a home sharing arrangement she encounters twenty-one year old Andy who moves into the spare bedroom. It is soon obvious that Meg and Andy are very different people, each attempting to cope with a range of issues. However an understanding gradually begins to develop between the two of them.

The book covers a range of issues including loneliness, cultural differences, problems faced by overseas students in Australia, racism, family expectations, aging, health issues and difficulties in communicating with other people. However throughout the book a major theme is the inability of the characters to really be able to communicate with each other, to say what they really mean and to have real and meaningful conversations with friends and family. Meg also has to come to terms with what will happen with the family memories that exist in her home after she is gone.

A spanner in the works

The extraordinary story of Alice Anderson and Australia's first all-girl garage is the subtitle of this book by Loretta Smith. I had heard of Alice Anderson and her garage, possibly when I worked at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria in 1995 and again from 2002 to 2011. We may have received an enquiry about Alice and her garage though one of the members of the RHSV, Mimi Colligan, had researched the life of Alice Anderson and published chapters in books on the topic - Double Time Women in Victoria 150 years edited by Marilyn Lake in 1985. Chapter 6 of Eat My Dust: Early Women Motorists by Georgine Clarsen (2008) is based on research undertaken by Mimi Colligan. The topic may have therefore come up in conversation with Mimi.

Alice Anderson was born in Australia in 1897, the daughter of Irish parents. Her father was a talented engineer who at one time worked with John Monash, however his temperament made him difficult to work with and he was frequently in financial trouble. The family moved to New Zealand for a time and then returned to England and Ireland, before, once again, settling in Australia. Alice's education was interupted though she did complete the equivalent to year 10. Automobiles were growing in popularity and when her father decided to run a business transporting passengers between Healesville and Alexandra Alice joined him. Eventually Alice decided to run her own business and, after overcoming a variety of obstacles, established the Miss Anderson's Motor Service staffed exclusively by women. Alice loved driving and earned money driving  groups around Melbourne and to the Dandenongs, plus some interstate trips to New South Wales and Tasmania. The garage also provided driving instruction for ladies as well as training for women to be mechanics. In 1926, Alice and Jessie Webb drove from Melbourne to Alice Springs in a small car to prove that it could be done. Alice was also interested in aviation and had plans to learn how to fly a plane. Alice's death, aged 29, in 1926 left lots of unanswered questions. Friends ensured that her business continued to operate until the early 1940s.

As well as being the story of Alice's short life, this book is a study of the changing role of women in the early twentieth century plus providing an account of the growth and acceptance of the automobile industry in Victoria. This is the story of a determined young woman trying to make a living in a 'man's world'.

Detailed notes and bibliography are included.

How Australia's female garage owner Alice Anderson helped change social attitudes

The story of Alice Anderson and Australia's first all-female garage

Australian Dictionary of Biography - Alice Anderson