‘It’s the story of a place and its biodiversity, the plants that are still evidence of uniqueness, the physical outcomes of being a living organism in the ecosystem of the ‘species rich’ Southwest Australian Floristic Region‘ Writing a book based on years of research can take… quite a while. The publishing process, marketing and promotion […]
When Georgiana Molloy died in April 1843 her last surviving daughter, named after her, was just six months old. The other Molloy sisters could be cared for by their father at Fairlawn but she was not old enough to be weaned. Mary Ann Heppingstone née Bayliss, widow of George Layman of nearby Wonnerup, had married […]
‘Loch Long, the Gareloch, the Holy Loch & the Clyde were all seen at the same moment & from them the mountains receded into a deep purple mist burnished at the summits with deep golden clouds from the Sun which had sunk never more to rise on that night.’ A year ago, when I […]
‘ …but the scenery, who can describe. I have it in my mind & there it will always rest’ Loch Long, Scotland The first signs of Spring are appearing in the bush, which means many of the native wildflowers of southwest WA are beginning to put on new growth. There’s a vibrant glow […]
“Easy over the cobbles!” I hear that phrase in my memory, in mother’s voice, always said in jest to my father as we set off home in the car from whatever family outing we’d been on. “Home, James, and don’t spare the horses!” That was another. Even as a child, I understood the shared social […]
Everything happens somewhere. As a writer, I see the events I’m describing as they unfold and all I have to do is find the right words to help a reader see what I see. It’s unsurprising that the places I view in my imagination are sometimes the same places I’ve visited myself, often years earlier. […]
I’ve written before about the dramatic changes in Georgiana Molloy’s life when she arrived in the Swan River Colony but the research I’ve been doing this week has made me think about another time of great contrast she had already experienced, a decade earlier. (An extract from one of the documents I’ve been reading is […]
There are so many resources available in our wonderful archives, museums and libraries and, increasingly, many of them are also available online as digital images. Documents I’ve found using the Internet have been invaluable over the years but there’s really nothing that beats the pleasure of holding the real thing in your hand – whether […]
It’s happened again. As if I needed another reminder of the lesson I keep learning: never, ever give up on finding the elusive answer to a research question. It must be eight years since I first discovered the move that Georgiana’s parents made with their young family just before they went to live in newly […]