Storytime

Jane Sullivan has selected a list of her favourite children’s books that she enjoyed as a child. These books include: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, Winnie the Pooh by A A Milne, The Castle of Adventure by Enid Blyton, Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson, The Silent Three by Horace Boyton and Stewart Pride, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham, The Enchanted Castle by E Nesbit, The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay, The Warden’s Niece by Gillian Avery, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C S Lewis, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner plus stories from The Myths of Greece and Rome by H A Guerber and The Great Tales of the Supernatural edited by Phyllis Cerf Wagner and Herbert Wise.

In each chapter the author recalls her memory of the book as a child and then, after rereading a copy of the book, provides her view of the story today analysing why the book appealed to her as a child and why the book still appeals or does not appeal to her now. She also provides information about each book’s author. Included in each chapter is a short piece, usually half a page, providing an Australian author’s view of a favourite children’s book (or books). The effect of the illustrations in a book in conveying the story is also discussed.

In the first and last chapters the author discusses her introduction to reading books plus the hypotheses for the young Jane enjoying children’s books that she constructed before taking on this project. She later makes a revised list in this book about the experience and joy of reading. In Storytime the reader is invited to take a step back in time to revisit their experience of reading in childhood which may have impacted on their reading choices today.

See also Why you should read children's books ... by Katherine Rundell.

Retro Melbourne

Published in 2014 Fred Williams has collected in this book photographs showing the city of Melbourne (and Victoria) in the 1950s and 1960s. Sections of the book include the city, suburbs, lifestyle and recreation, sport and entertainment, churches, railways plus a section on country towns. The book provides a snapshot of our recent past. Some photos of the buildings are familiar while others show views of Melbourne and suburbs that have disappeared.

Remember the State Savings Bank of Victoria, the newspaper sellers outside Flinders Street Station, the State Library, Art Gallery and Museum housed in one set of buildings, Coop's Shot Tower before the building of Melbourne Central and Ansett-ANA.

With the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday there are photos of fashionable ladies in 1952, 1963 and 1969 as well as photos of the actual race. The Olympic Games in 1956, Australian Rules Football including a photo of Richmond winning the 1980 VFL grand final, Davis Cup tennis at Kooyong and cricket at the MCG feature in the chapter on sport.

Moomba, early television (covers from TV Week), the making of the film, On the Beach, plus phots of the Seekers and Normie Rowe bring back memories. Many of the photographs show buildings built in the 1800s showcasing part of the history of Victoria. The section on the railways provides another glimpse of Victoria's past.

Growing up in Melbourne in the 1950s and 1960s, Metro Melbourne is a book of memories.

A breath on dying embers

Denzil Meyrick has written another gripping installment in the DCI Daley series set in Kinloch, Scotland. When the cruise liner Great Britain spends a few days in the loch so wealthy passengers can learn more about what the area has to offer, go sightseeing and play golf, what could go wrong?

The story is revealed through a variety of voices as gradually the puzzle regarding an impending crime is unravelled. A bird watcher is murdered when trying to locate a rare gull. When a drone crashes into the Great Britain a body is located at the bottom of a cliff. A member of the ship's crew disappears and a police hunt is also underway for another man. Meanwhile authorities have placed a ban on the reporting of any of these events, making it difficult for the Kinloch police to carry out their investigations.

Along with the scenery around the ficticious Kinloch, the life events concerning Jim Daley and his team continue to form an important part of the book. Jim Daley discovers health problems that may terminate his police career. Liz, his wife, returns home with their son and her own issues. Much to his amazement DS Brian Scott is temporarily promoted to cover for Jim during his illness.

Once started, this novel was difficult to put down and the conclusion leaves the reader waiting for the next book to discover the result of the final episode in this book.

James Hardy Vaux's 1819 dictionary of criminal slang

The full title of this work is James Hardy Vaux's 1819 dictionary of criminal slang and other impolite terms as used by the Convicts of the British Colonies of Australia with additional true stories, remarkable facts & illustrations by Simon Barnard. It is two hundred years since the first publication of Vaux's work and with twelve convicts in the family prior to 1808 this was an obvious work to borrow from the library.

The alphabetical listing of terms provides a short explanation of the term.
For example: Kelp: a hat; to kelp a person, is to remove your hat to him.

A more detailed explanation to the use of the term with examples of use and how it came to be is usally then provided by Simon Barnard.
For example: Kelp is a pun on cap. According to an eighteenth-century treatise on thieving, 'pinchers' bumped into their victims and picked their 'cly' when they raised their hands to secure their 'kelp'. etc (p129)

A cly is a pocket.

Pinch: To purloin small articles of value in the shops of jewellers, etc; while pretending to purchase or bespeak some trinket. This game is called the pinch - I pinch'd him for a fawney, signifies I purloined a ring from him; Did you pinch any thing from that crib? Did you succeed in secreting any thing in that shop? This game is a branch of shoplifting; but when the hoist is spoken of, it commonly applies to stealing articles of a larger, though less valuable, kind, as pieces of muslin, or silk handkerchiefs, printed cotton, etc. See: Hoist (p185)

Pinch-Gloak: A man who works on the pinch

Many hours could be spent following these terms.

'Is that bum trap missing a flesh-bag?' article in The Guardian 20 August 2019

The Land of Dreams: How Australians won their Freedom 1788-1860

Recently I did the Future Learn course, Peterloo to the Pankhursts: Radicalism and Reform in the 19th Century, examining British politics from the end of the 1700s to 1918 when male suffrage was finally achieved.  This course covered the period when the convicts were sent to Australia, looked at revolutions in America and France, England's relations with Ireland, the development of democracy  plus the campaign for political reform, particularly the suffrage campaigns. During the course references were made to political reforms in Australia such as the secret ballot and suffrage campaigns which enabled Australians the right to vote before their relatives in England.

The Land of Dreams by David Kemp looks at the political movements occurring in England during the nineteenth century and their influence on the foundation of the new colony and its management. It investigates how Australians gained the right for self governance and developed solutions to political problems in their own way gaining their own political identity.

The nineteenth century was a time of political change in England as workers banded together to express their need for improved working conditions, increased pay and the right to vote. It was a time when there were movements to improve working conditions, particularly in factories, abolish Britain's involvement in the slave trade, reform parliament creating representation for all men.

Kemp looks at the development of liberal thinking and reform that occurred during the nineteenth century in both England and Australia. Developments in England impacted on Australia however in this country changes affecting employment and political conditions occurred earlier than in England. The movement to create an independent country rather than being a colony of the Britain helped accelerate these changes.

The Land of Dreams is volume one in a proposed five volume series Australian Liberalism. Volume two, A Free Country: Australia's Search for Utopia 1861-1901, was published in April 2019 and describes the challenges of creating one nation from a group of colonies. Three more books are planned for this series which greatly adds to the understanding of the development of Australia into the country that it is today. Detailed notes, biliography and index provided at the end of each volume.

King and emperor

King and emperor: a new life of Charlemagne is a detailed study by Janet L Nelson of the life of Charles the Great, King of the Franks. In this scholarly study of the life of Charlemagne, the author attempts to dispel many of the myths that surround his life and investigates the available resources to explore the life of a man who made and ruled a great European empire. After Charles' death this empire was dismantled by his sons.

Living from 748-814 during the period referred to as the Dark Ages many of the records that may have existed about the life of Charlemagne and his empire have disappeared. However the author has made a detailed study of the records that she has been able to locate and quotes from many of the documents to help record her story.  Each chapter consists of quoted material from documents followed by the author's account. The Carolingian Empire or Holy Roman Empire covered most of Western and Central Europe. Throughout his reign there were many battles and campaigns to expand and protect the borders.

This story of Charlemagne's life consists of 493 pages followed by another 173 pages of notes, bibliography and index. Consequently this book would be an essential guide for anyone researching this period of European history. This is a book that I will need to refer to again when time permits.