Blue Smoke

Blue Smoke is sometimes autobiographical, at times based on fact, but changed slightly to make for a more interesting reading, and at times it is pure fiction. It is what was—what might have been—what could have been—what should have been. All names of characters and some place names have been changed, for obvious reasons. And the author’s own advice? …

If you have only tentatively dabbled at the water’s edge of the river of life and then scurried back to your comfort zone—do NOT read this book.

If the deep, abiding, achingly beautiful, all consuming passion between two people, heart-wrenchingly in love, is beyond your comprehension—do NOT read this book.

If you like all your pills sugar-coated and all your life experiences wrapped and tied with a ribbon—do NOT read this book.

Musings and Memories

As the subtitle states, Musings and Memories is “a compilation of reflections and recollections”. The poems are varying observations of life as witnessed or experienced by the author during her 80-plus years.

War Stories Of Victoria

These Victorian war stories span its history—and span the state from end to end:

• The first war fought in Victoria was over its richest land—the south-west corner where thousands of Australians had been living for thousands of years. When these people realised that whitefella wasn’t a visitor but an invader desecrating their country, they fought with iron spears until a bitter, venereal end.

• The battle over conscription was fought in the public spaces of Melbourne about sending hundreds of thousands of young men to fight and die in a terrible conflagration on the other side of the world.

• The next was part of the greater World War II and was fought by Victorian generals in an utterly unnecessary manner in a jungle using kids against the best jungle fighters in the world.

• The fourth story concerns the wars fought by four leading citizens of Victoria, who, to say the least, did not distinguish themselves in World War II service.

• The last war played out in the corridors of fabrication in Canberra over a monstrous visitation on the country of far East Gippsland.

Dear Cousin Browne

This work is a genealogical and social history of the Anglo-Irish Browne family from 1580. This research was inspired by the letters in Part One.

The Browne letters are a collection that Joy Browne, at the age of about thirteen, saved from being destroyed, when she found her father, Charles Valentine Browne, burning old letters belonging to his father, William Thomas Browne. Charles did not believe that anyone would want these old letters and offered Joy the stamps. We do not know if he had burnt any of the letters, but there are gaps in the correspondence. Burn marks can be seen on one of the letters.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part consists of the Browne letters with comments and explanations. Part two is a genealogical history of one of the branches of the Browne family descending from John Browne, an Englishman who went to County Mayo, Ireland in 1580. The third part is a genealogical history of the descendants of George Caulfield Browne, who also descended from John Browne.

Blood Royal, the Bible’s Secrets

Blood Royal, the Bible’s Secrets reveals the seemingly impossible truth of religion and the Holy Family in the New Testament, in a world first not previously comprehended. The secrets contained within will astonish and shock you; the discovery is so inconceivable that it may result in a shaking of the foundations of the Vatican itself!

Mr Ottaway has discovered that the Holy Family had been the ruling class of Palestine, Iudaea, Galilee, Israel, Syria and north of Syria—the Roman ally kings known as the Herods. In that family, however, lay even deeper secrets that pursued the man known as Jesus Christ and the woman known as Magdalene.

Their true identities and roles bring about a total revision of history. No book has revealed the truth of religion, and the Holy Family, with such astonishing courage, told with understanding and compassion, as never before.

Gold and Stock

Gold and Stock grew from a booklet written for a Family Reunion at the Germantown farm near Bright in December 1996. After the reunion many members of the family sent corrections to the booklet and supplied additional information about family members. The introductory chapters of the 1996 booklet have been further expanded as more information has subsequently been discovered about the pioneering Lawlers as gold miners and pastoralists.

Parts One and Two are introductory giving some general background on Freeburgh and surrounding district. In Part Three, the descendants of each of the first generation appear in chronological order with their descendants as indicated by the index in the table of contents. Each branch can follow through their immediate family sequentially. The quantity of information on descendants depended on that supplied by family members themselves as well as access to private collections of documents and photographs.

thieves of time

These new poems stem from many parts of the world. They are snapshots of life—life raw and unveiled. Snatched moments in time …

“With roots in both Europe and Australia, Joachim Matschoss displays a true traveler’s eye for what most other people are too busy to notice. His mainly short poems have an imagistic sharpness of observation matched with a wry compassion. Many are relatively light-hearted. All are entertaining, one way or another. They will beguile readers who, like Matschoss, are prepared to pause for a while, perhaps over a pavement coffee, and work their way through this new collection.” – Geoff Page

“If you love words and their powerful imagery, then Matschoss is a writer that you should seek out. And don’t just read this collection, go fossick for more of his treasures.” – Wendy O’Hanlon

“The poetry of Joachim Matschoss is so surprising, intelligent and seductive that very soon you find you do not want to miss a word of it.” – Kevin Brophy

“In cleanly sculpted lines, his acute and tender portraits are caught like sunlight on ripples of water as Matschoss evokes a vivid journey through the streets and bars of Europe. As he returns to his Melbourne home, caught between two worlds, his delicate haiku brush against the ache of loss.” – Philip Casey

From Apples … to Coffee

In 1923, Heathmont was a rural orchard district many hours from the city of Melbourne. That year, in the front room of a house on Canterbury Road, a Miss Marden opened the first shop …

Now in 2013, ninety years later, Heathmont is a residential suburb of Melbourne, and on both sides of where the railway line and Canterbury Road intersect, there is a strip development of more than 70 shops and businesses. Most of the shops were built in the 1950s and 1960s as Heathmont altered from rural to urban …

Against this background of continuity there have of course been changes. Shops and shopping practices have altered—drapers, milk bars and hardware shops have been overpowered by supermarkets and “big box” stores; garages have become service stations then car washes; food outlets, once one, now number more than 20, including many cafes and restaurants, and at these eating places, locals and their friends drink much coffee!

This book is the work of five friends who have enjoyed many a hot coffee to bring this fascinating local history to life.

Joyce Evelyn Barton (née Pye): my life

Not for public distribution.

This memoir began with collaboration between Joyve and her daughter Lois in the early 90s, covering the period up to and including ‘Wedding and Married Life in Yallourn’. After 2009 the conversation with granddaughter Sally. Sally prepared several A4 printed copies of “My Life” for the immediate family. Marge subsequently added a number of comments and additional photographs. Together, these have now been compiled into this new publication. Although it was originally intended to be launched at Joyce’s 100th birthday in August 2013, sadly she passed away before achieving that milestone. Her family decided to launch the book anyway on that day, to celebrate the loving influence of their wonderful Joyce (Gran).

Looking Over My Shoulder

Looking Over My Shoulder is the story of the genetic history of the people for whom it was principally written—the descendants of the people written about in this book: Peter and Mary Edwards and George and Caroline Weston.

Their children Cecil Fawkener Weston and Rebecca Edwards married and had five children whose descendants are recorded here.

It is a collection of family memorabilia.

Success Secrets of a Professional Photographer

Bernie Griffiths has owned a wedding/portrait business for over forty years. While still photographing weddings and portraits, his passion now is in teaching and consulting with photographers, to help them fast track their businesses.

Running a successful photography business has changed rapidly—a totally new approach is needed to keep up. Bernie Griffiths’ new and ground breaking plan to succeed in today’s tough business environment isn’t filled with theory and fluff. It sets out to guide, with proven systems, a sure way to create success and fulfilment in your business.

Some of the things that you will learn in this book:

• How to create a good work/life balance

• Finding your niche market

• How to rethink marketing and sales

• Understanding the correct pricing strategy

• How to take control with an action plan

Mother in the Shadows (revised edition)

This is an extraordinary story.

Imagine that your earliest memories were of life in an orphanage. Imagine yourself adopted at eight years of age by an unmarried woman. Imagine spending a lifetime getting to know this person and her remarkable family, especially her sisters, gradually developing a sense of belonging amongst them, nursing them one by one on their deathbeds.

Imagine only then, after they have all died, discovering that the family you had come to know and love as if it were your own had concealed an extraordinary secret, a secret in which you had a central, hitherto unsuspected part …

This revised edition contains some minor corrections together with some additional text, photographs and documents.

Ad Altiora 125

The purpose of this book is to celebrate 125 years of one of Melbourne’s best-loved Catholic colleges—St Aloysius College, North Melbourne.

Of course, one short book could never hope to encapsulate 125 years of history, so for that reason, it was decided to publish a cross-section of stories, fond recollections and anecdotes from those who were associated with the College over its history.

This oral history approach is woven through with contributions from students, Mercy sisters, teachers, parents, volunteers and many others associated in some way with the college, with additional material from the College archive. It is important to acknowledge that oral history of its nature depends on the fragile human function we call memory. Remembered events may differ in some detail or other from one witness to another. However, in sparking debate these differences may help reignite further memories.

Essays On The Western District Frontier 1835–45

One day, in Camperdown cemetery, Martin Davey came across a monument to the Aborigines of the Western District. It was funded and erected by James Dawson. Curiosity about him prompted this research which uncovered secrets of Victorian history, not the least of which was the role of convicts on the settlement frontier … a theme of Davey’s novel BrownJudy is the brutality meted out to the aborigines by these convicts who were already so brutalised themselves. This theme is also treated in essays in this book. All the other essays are about the Aborigines of the Western District, those who were honoured by Dawson’s twenty-feet-high memorial obelisk …

“What the author has given the reader from his research is his insight and detail about the traditional custodians of the land—the people who were living there for thousands of years before European settlement. He … is attempting, in this small book, to set our history back a bit earlier than it has been recorded before the arrival of Europeans to our shores. The author displays an obvious regard for the customs and society of the Aborigines and is a crusader against the many injustices which took place in the Barwon region and Western Districts of Victoria.” (Mark Beasley, Geelong Heritage Centre)

Horsehair Worms and a Shark

Horsehair Worms and a Shark is four books in one. The first part is an autobiographical memoir offered partly for its own interest and partly as a background to the selection of poems made by the author in the final part of the book. The second part is the diary of her voyage to Australia. The third part is the poignant account of her uncle’s disappearance in World War One, told through numerous letters to, from and about him. The fourth part consists of the poems themselves.

… one day when near the horse pond I picked up stray horsehairs clinging to its edge when it struck me that some of them seemed to have a life of their own! The more I handled them, the more they looked like horsehairs which were alive. Onlookers laughed. But not for long … Horsehair worms not only live among horsehairs but actually look just like them! They grow to six inches, are fine like horsehairs, live in tangled knots, and, until they move, their camouflage is perfect …

Generations of the Ryalls

Generations of the Ryalls has been compiled by two brothers, David and Vic Ryall, for distribution within their family, although doubtless it will be of some interest also to other genealogists whose research leads them along similar family lines. About their work the editors state: “A publication such as this is always a snapshot in time – looking both forward and backward. At the time of publication there are 111 known living descendants of Ernest and Frances Ryall. However in the future there will be additional births, deaths and partnerships within the family. In relation to past records, this publication reveals only the information we have at hand now. Doubtless more information on our forebears will come to light as family members discover it and as more historical information is indexed by genealogists.”

The Lerderderg: yesterday and today

The Friends of the Lerderderg set out to publish a field guide, with an historical background, of the Lerderderg River, the major tributary of the Werribee River. In doing so its aim was to raise the Victorian community’s awareness of an area of pristine wilderness and regrowth forest, 40 kilometres west of Melbourne, and to encourage walkers, four wheel drivers, horse riders, and lovers of the great outdoors to use, appreciate, and learn about this environment.

Illustrated with many photographs and guide maps, the book contains descriptions of walks; glimpses of its social history; an overview of the geological history; tables of gold yields from its mining era, rainfall records since records began; plant and bird species lists; and the story of the area’s eventual preservation as both State Park and Heritage River.

A Gift For Life

Your story is yours and yours alone. It’s unique and worth telling.

This book asks you to write your life story. It’s a bit like an interview on your life. The questions in are there to guide you and to prompt you to write about your life. You can answer them or you can skip them, it’s up to you what you want to write down. There is no right or wrong way. There are empty pages for photographs and memorabilia, perhaps favourite recipes.

Either way it will be a lot of fun and—maybe even a bit sad—writing down all of your memories. The next generations will love you for it. You may not realise it, but the memories are worth sharing.

Leave the book lying on the coffee table, for people to look at, or sit down with your grandchildren or children and let them help you write. The stories will follow … and what a wonderful interaction that would be.

This book can be purchased from the author’s own website: http://agiftforlife.org

The Uncool Salesman

This work of fiction is about turning points in peoples’ professional lives. It is about people who stand on the church steeple but who never come crashing down. A young woman in advertising lies face down on a lonely beach reflecting upon the insider talk that had governed her early years, the in-house de rigueur … Her chief executive struggles to change his approach to leadership but suffers misgivings on how successful this change is likely to be … A young man at university adopts one of those ‘officer and gentleman’ poses as if his mere presence is the qualification. When he eventually becomes an associate in a high technology company his working life becomes more difficult than he first imagined it to be … A highly intelligent man in industry takes on the mantle of the spectator sports chauvinist, one whose expertise is valued to a certain degree because he is aware of every success and every failure since the fall of Nineveh … A chief executive has worked hard to create his fortress company; he can now afford to stand by the picture windows of the boardroom looking out upon the clapboard companies of the dirt plain …

Several working environments are introduced to host the theoretical concepts being proposed here. The universality of beliefs, as distinct from moral behavior, is something that needs to be addressed carefully.

a spider taps its feet in unison

‘This book is more than a meditation on solitude. It is a day-by-day calendar full of poems, stories, fragments of memory and intriguing and wonderful discoveries. The writing has a physical reality and the book is a celebration of a curious mind. Joachim Matschoss is deeply engaged with the world in which we live and his writing is poetic and precise.’ (Lukas Drihy)

‘What is never lost is the primacy of experience and the direct way of finding its expression. This is a beautifully constructed book. The writing is clear-eyed, meditative and full of surprises.’ (Frank Rullow)

‘a spider taps its feet in unison’ is designed to be read day by day—a little companion to the reader; or read at random—wherever the reader happens to open it.