....by their tales you shall know them

Ask your friends what they think of, say, someone well known, someone in the public eye (a politician, world leader, celebrity… Mother Theresa) and you’ll hear many different, divergent tales. History isn’t straightforward.

So if you hope to find a good narration about the deeds of heroic figures, precise dates and concrete facts, you’re bound to be disappointed with what you’ll find here.


Ours are stories about people (some extraordinary, but most ordinary like us): for they lived their lives, what they thought, felt and did in meeting the challenges of their times - the strangeness of a new land, droughts and floods, economic depression (yes there were big depressions in Australia before the crash of 1929), the horrors of a penal colony and the 'learning' they had to master to survive.

Local histories often romanticise the past to present, a variant of a ‘Pride and Prejudice’ type TV bonnet-drama. Our stories are less grand, but they’re no less real for that. We hope you’ll find them interesting.

"He either falls into careless habits of accuracy, or takes to frequenting the society of the aged and well informed. Both things are equally fatal to the imagination” Oscar Wilde: The Decay of Lying

…”I moot reherce
Hir tales alle, be they bettre or werse,
Or elles falsen som of my mateere.
And therfore, whoso list it nat yheere,
Turne over the leef and chese another tale…”

Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales