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MCDOUGALL, Peter

Jan 28, 2021 | *, *Featured books, *listed, Autobiography, New South Wales

Author David Alomes' new book The death of Violence
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ISBN 978-1-922452-89-4 PAPERBACK

She Wouldn’t Eat the Mushrooms

An Autobiography

This tome was commenced in late 2016 when, after retiring from full time work and before I had committed myself to a couple of days a week as a catechist teaching scripture to Catholic children at local state public primary schools under the auspices of St   John Bosco Parish, I found myself with time on my hands.

I honestly can’t tell you why I started it but as my ramblings emerged I thought that it could be of interest to my children to learn things about me that I’m sure they don’t know. Some of it they know of course if they were involved.

The title of this memoir may be confusing to those who aren’t aware of a story I have become infamous for relating whenever I get a responsive audience. It concerns the history of my totally non-existent first three wives and is told with a sad expression and mournful tone. The longer it takes to build suspense the better but briefly this is how it goes.

“I was married quite young and Mary and I were just 21. We had a small farm outside of Townsville and at the bottom of the paddock grew a batch of wild mushrooms. Now, I don’t eat mushrooms but Mary did and a few months after our marriage she picked a bunch and boiled them up for herself.

Within 24 hours she was dead!

Now this was long time ago and there were no such things as post mortems, so life just went on.

About three years later, I married again and this time Cynthia did the same as Mary, picking the mushrooms and boiling them up, and she suffered the same fate.

At this point some in the audience may be becoming a bit suspicious so a sob doesn’t go astray. This usually allays their fears.

Then, “My third wife died of massive head injuries!”

And in answer to the querulous looks,

“SHE WOULDN’T EAT THE MUSHROOMS”

FIGG, Marcia

Jan 27, 2021 | *, *Featured books, *listed, Autobiography, Memoir, South Australia

Author David Alomes' new book The death of Violence
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ISBN 978-0-648490-53-1
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The Battle Within: Chapter One

In Aukland, 1974, a baby girl is handed out of a hospital window to an old man in a taxi. Her name is Marcia, not a Maori name like her sister’s, which often made her wonder. But then, there were to be many more occasions that made Marcia wonder.

Based on the first thirteen years of Figg’s life, The Battle Within is an evocative collection of memories. Reflecting on the events that shaped her, Figg produces immersive moments-in-time, balancing the innocence and lightheartedness of a child with the harshness of society.

“Strikingly deft in its tale, the piece has the opportunity to grab the reader by the scruff of the neck and force them to listen, such is its sadness and portrayal of familiar abuse in a hermetically recognisable environment. Still, there are fine words, crafted with care as the storm settles down and courage resurges once more. Memorable.”
– Austin Macauley Publishers

 

OTTWAY, Meredith

Jan 27, 2021 | *, *Featured books, *listed, Adelaide, Fiction \ Novel, Music, South Australia

meredith ottway author baton of courage book
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ISBN 978-1-922452-36-8 PAPERBACK

Baton of Courage

All profits go to the Eye Surgeon’s Foundation

GORDON HUGHES, A BLIND VIOLINIST, LOSES HIS SIGHT IN HIS MID TEENS DUE TO A TRAGIC ACCIDENT.

Born in Moonta in 1896 to a family of fishermen, Gordon shows an early talent for music, playing both the violin and pedal-organ with an ambition to become an orchestral conductor, contrary to his father’s wishes.

After his loss of sight Gordon experiences disappointment, hardship, romance and eventually gains successes and wisdom from the multiple characters he meets and works with along the way.

Gordon spends his earlier teenage years as a student attending the ‘The School for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb’ founded in 1874 at Brighton, South Australia, and later to be known as Townsend House, before then attending the ‘Blind School’ at North Adelaide where he learns basket weaving, the usual occupation for the unsighted in those times.

On leaving boarding school, Gordon has to now face the hardships of not only being unsighted, but of finding suitable accommodation and fending for himself in a sometimes harsh world.

All profits go to the Eye Surgeon’s Foundation

DINNING, Suzanne

Jan 21, 2021 | *, *Featured books, *listed, Family History, South Australia

ancestral legends of mount Stuart Station book Suzanne dinnings author
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ISBN 978-1-922452-59-7
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Ancestral Legends of Mount Stuart Station

I clearly remember my Mother’s words as we sat on the verandah one afternoon. “If only somebody would come, just to have somebody to talk to.” She had put down the socks she was darning and was looking longingly down the dusty, winding road in front of her. I was a child at the time and I shared her longing for somebody to come to break the monotony and loneliness.

This is the story of the people who established Mount Stuart Station in 1880 on barren land near Tibooburra in northwestern NSW. Working tirelessly through times of drought and isolation, the Thomson family established a successful sheep station that remained in the same family for 126 years. – Sue Dinning