A good place to start:
Everything:
extinct on the mainland,
you shouldn’t kick it like a football,
or feed it by the hand.
Most recent:
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Literally —ing the Patriarchy: Introducing Jane.
It should be clear by now that I have no problem mocking my ancestors— when they are bullies, pompous, arrogant, do monumentally stupid things, or are just so completely and utterly full of themselves it is all too easy. Of course, most of whom I have written about so far have been blokes. That’s because…
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Kill the Joke (AKA: “You had to be there”)
The story of Drewy Dyson and the locomotive engine lost in the bush is undoubtedly utter fantasy. Its also the most re-published story of Drewy, retold at least five times in the pages of the Sunday Times between 1914 and 1932.
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Steam Powered Luddites
James Dyson had built something of an empire in Western Australia on the back of supplying timber sourced the old fashioned way—by hand. Pity the other pit-sawyer though, who had to stand in that pit when the logs were being sliced into planks, and pity also the poor sap (pun intended) whose on-the-job-training did not…
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Timber!
Timber was the business of James Dyson from his earliest years in Western Australia. A year after his arrival in 1841 he was working as a labourer. Of the few people from this time we know for sure that he associated with, Stephen Hyde was a carpenter, and his next door neighbour in Perth for…
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The Little Boy Lost: Enter Drewy.
He was a monster. That has to be made plain from the start. He could be very funny, he was creative and he was intelligent. He loved animals. He probably loved his family, but he also hurt them. He hurt them a lot. He also hurt many of the animals he loved as well, and…
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Know your Guv’nor
A sarcastic guide to the gubernatorial incumbents of Western Australia during the 19th Century. Before responsible (ha ha) government was granted to the colony in 1890, the direct representatives of the houses of Hannover and Saxe Coburg Gotha had the final word in (well) governing said territory. Its a bit difficult to remember who was…
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Secret Squirrel Business
It seems like there was nothing the average man in Australia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries enjoyed more than belonging to a secret society. Of course it’s no fun at all if no-one can know that you belong to an exclusive brotherhood*, so you have to make sure that everyone has got the memo…
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Rottnest Island #1: It’s a start
One of the more annoying legends I had to endure when I grew up was how integral Rottnest Island was to the hearts and minds of all true Western Australians. Located only a few kilometres off the coast from Fremantle and easily visible from the continental shore, it was the mythical holiday island of the…
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Leetown to Auchterarder
When certain members of the Dyson clan chose to deny their Lancashire heritage of robbery and mayhem, they liked to pretend their antecedents came from Scotland (As you do.) However, some of them truly did: These were the Brough family from Perthshire, Scotland.
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CSI Halifax
18 June 1833. Halifax, Yorkshire. A heinous crime had been committed the previous evening, Mr Robertshaw had been viciously attacked and robbed in the street that night. That Tuesday morning the wheels of early nineteenth century justice began to turn. A suspicious character was apprehended that very morning. He was from across the border in…
