First Fleet On. Williams/ Nash, Pioneers Australia.

new wonder...D.N.A. analyser.

2012-01-28T22:47:00.000-08:00

IT was the talk of Davos, grabbing the imagination of a forum otherwise shrouded in gloom: a miracle machine that cracks the code of life within hours and could revolutionise healthcare.

Patients will no longer have to wait weeks to know if they have cancer and their doctors will know immediately what kind of disease they have, allowing them to target therapies precisely and to avoid harmful delays or mistakes.

Health officials confronted by superbug outbreaks will be able to identify the bug's strain and begin planning treatment within hours rather than days or weeks, potentially saving thousands of lives.

Soon, researchers in the developing world will take portable DNA sequencers into the field to identify new viruses and verify water quality.

And police investigators will be able to develop a suspect's DNA profile as quickly as their fictional counterparts do in glossy television dramas, while commandos on the battlefield will identify the bodies of friend and foe.

The man behind the revolution is Jonathan Rothberg, master biotechnician and CEO of Ion Torrent, owned by US firm Life Technologies, which produces the Ion Proton -- the world's first desktop semiconductor-based gene sequencer.

Business and political leaders at this year's Global Economic Forum were gripped by pessimism over the economy, but -- at a summit boycotted by Mick Jagger -- Rothberg was received in Davos like a rockstar of science.

"He's a genius. I want to buy his machines," Sami Sagol, a leading Israeli neuroscientist and research sponsor, told passengers on a minibus ferrying delegates through the snowbound streets of the Swiss resort.

"I was sat next to him at dinner. He's amazing," declared a young investment banker swigging beer in a nearby bar, admitting he had found Davos' scientific programme more uplifting than the headline economic debates.

The man himself, geekily excited in a woolly ski hat and loud striped shirt, bursts with enthusiasm for a machine that has brought the once laborious task of gene-sequencing to the era of the semi-conductor microchip.

With no false modesty, he compares the revolution to the transition from the era of room-sized computing machines to desktop microprocessors, and predicts that his technology will follow the computer into laptop and hand-held forms.

"It's the first machine that can do an entire human genome for less than 1,000 dollars. It's the first machine than can read the genome in two hours," he told AFP in an interview in Davos.

"Previously machines would cost more than half a million dollars and it would take weeks to get information on your genome," he said. A genome is the complete DNA code, unique to each individual, which shapes our organism.

"The Proton instrument is designed to do discovery -- find new genes that are involved in cancer, find new genes that are involved in autism, find new genes that are involved in diabetes," he said.

"But it's also designed to be used in a clinical practice to make sure that you give the person the right medicine or the right medicine to the right person. And to help diagnose new born children with ailments."

The Desktop Ion Proton was making its European debut, but the technology is not a pie in the sky dream. It is based on a larger predecessor that is already the world's best selling sequencer.

"Last year in Germany there was a terrible outbreak and a number of people died," he said, referring to a enterohaemorrhagic E.coli (EHEC) infection from contaminated food that killed 52 people and left more than 4,000 sick.

"It was the precursor to this machine and one of the first chips we made that decoded that E.coli outbreak and allowed us to understand that superbug, track that superbug and have a diagnostic for that superbug."

Two factors make the Ion Proton unique. It is the only machine to use a semiconductor chip to sequence genes, previously researchers had to study DNA strands under what were effectively powerful microscopes.

Now, DNA samples can be dropped onto a microchip a couple of centimetres (one inch) across, slotted into the Proton like a SIM card into a mobile, and two hours later the enter six-billion-letter code of life is known.

The second factor is size. The current model squats on a desk like a photocopier and, as a scalable device, it will one day shrink, even to the size of a handheld like the science fiction Star Trek "tricorder".

"So investigators in Africa have asked me for machines that they can use to monitor wild game that's caught to see if there's any new viruses coming in that can interact with man for the first time," said Rothberg.

But, while its enthusiastic inventor foresees dozens of tasks for his machine, its inspiration and initial core use will be in healthcare.

"When my son was born, he was rushed to the newborn intensive care unit because he had difficulty breathing," said Rothberg, recounting the personal trauma that led directly to his breakthrough.

"At that moment I realised that I was less interested in the human genome as an abstract concept and I was completely interested in my son's genome.

"I realised two things: I cared about my son Noah's genome and I needed a technology that scales. And during the time he was intensive care I had the idea to move sequencing to a massively parallel substrate, a chip."

Noah recovered, his disease was not genetic after all, but once the Ion Proton is common in world hospitals, other parents will have a shorter wait.

dc/co/mlr

We won the War with ME as president. Don't you all love me?

2012-01-24T20:23:00.005-08:00

US Budget: 60% Military Spending, 40% Everything Else

\60% is the percentage of the president’s proposed 2012 discretionary budget targeted for military spending. This does not include all the budgeted spending, just the programs that get approved every year. Some groups argue if you look through the fine print of the budget that figure could be pushed even higher. It’s likely they are right. The pie chart below shows the same chart in more detail. You can see the full budget proposal on the Office of Management and Budget (our figures are from Summary Table S-11)

“Millions of Iraqis are celebrating the U.S. withdrawal this month, in what is widely viewed as a condemnation of the U.S. military involvement in Iraq. This is especially true with the final attempt by the U.S. government to maintain troops under NATO being rejected by the Iraqis. While President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and other U.S. officials are trying their best to make the U.S. involvement in Iraq sound like a success, the vast majority of Iraqis see the 20 years of war with the U.S. as a major disaster that has destroyed their country.

“There is no victory and no victors in the 20-year war. Except for a few war profiteers, everyone has lost. The U.S.-Iraqi war that started in 1990 has destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure and damaged the Iraqi social fabric. Iraq is far from having a functional democratic government. It is the fourth most corrupt country in the world according to Transparency International, and Baghdad is the worst city in the world according to Mercer’s 2011 Quality of Living rankings. One million Iraqis have been killed in the last eight years alone, and another 5 million displaced. Millions of others have been injured and traumatized for life. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops have been killed and wounded, and hundreds of thousands are back home with mental injuries. Iraq and the U.S. lost hundreds of billions of dollars because of the conflict.

“While ending the U.S. military occupation is a step in the right direction, the U.S. will continue its intervention in Iraq through 16,000 State Department personnel — half of whom are armed mercenaries. Downsizing the U.S. State Department’s mission in Iraq is very important to insure a balanced bilateral relationships is built on mutual respect. There is no reason for the United States to have a larger mission in Iraq than the Iraqi diplomatic mission in the U.S., which is estimated to consist of a few dozen employees.

“Today’s withdrawal is great news for the millions of Iraqis and Americans who have opposed this war all along. But ending the occupation does not end the U.S. moral and legal obligations to compensate Iraq and Iraqis for the crimes and mistakes committed in the last two decades. In addition, holding U.S. officials who caused this mess legally accountable will help achieve U.S.-Iraqi reconciliation, and it will send a strong message to future U.S. politicians that they will be held accountable.”

Is global warning real?

2012-01-22T22:34:00.004-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWZSDi1TV8Y

Living on Thin Ice: Last Days of the Ice Hunters?
Air Pollution
click photos

P.M. Gillard fades away.

2012-01-22T17:34:00.001-08:00

Well anyway, I'm still Prime Minister, aren't I? And I'll get my pension, won't I?

flu shots "useless"

2012-01-19T21:42:00.000-08:00

http://healthimpactnews.com/2011/new-study-exposes-the-60-effective-flu-shot-as-98-5-useless/

"A new study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases reveals that the flu vaccine prevents lab confirmed type A or type B influenza in only 1.5 out of every 100 vaccinated adults … but the media is reporting this to mean “60 percent effective.”

It is estimated that, annually, only about 2.7% of adults get type A or type B influenza in the first place. The study showed that the use of flu vaccines appear to drop this down to about 1.2%. This is a roughly 60% drop, but that ignores the fact that the vaccine has no protective health benefit for 97.5% of adults."

false economic info as jobs go down the drain.

2012-01-15T13:34:00.001-08:00

http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

New York, NY - Financial journalists are supposed to be among the most educated and savvy about the economy. Many have either worked on Wall Street, or have advanced degrees in economics and business.

Over the past few years, their "news hole" has expanded significantly as the financial crisis became a top global news story. As reporting on workers declined, reporting on business surged because it tends to attract corporate and institutional advertising.

And yet is the reporting we are getting on financial issues better than ever? Is it more trustworthy, and better informed?

Unfortunately, some of the same patterns that invariably lead to misunderstandings remain.

Inside Story US 2012 -
Who can fix the US economy?

Here are three reasons:

1. An over-reliance on official sources skilled at spinningdata to bolster politically motivated "consumer confidence", and create impressions, not backed by fact.

2. A tendency to quote and rely on experts and luminaries with questionable track records and personal or ideological agendas.

3. A tendency to look at "progress" through the eyes ofpeople in power or in powerful economic institutions with the assumption that if they do well, wealth/prosperity will trickle down into the lives of ordinary people.

Here are some examples.

Last week, the press dutifully reported the "good news" that US economy had created 200,000 new jobs and that the unemployment rate had dropped. There was practically a celebration on the editorial pages.

Sounded good. Most readers stick with headlines on subjects they find dense or inaccessible and get little more than a quick take. Sometimes, the information is packaged in easy-to-read graphics, especially when the arrows point up.

It can all be misleading.

Economist Dean Baker writes a regular column on the massive mistakes in economics reporting. He calls it Beat The Press. He wrote:

"This was an oversight of astonishing importance, sort of like a physicist not noticing gravity."
- Dean Baker

Economists tend not to be very good at economics. We know this because almost none of them were able to see the $8 trillion housing bubble that was driving the economy from 2002 to 2007. This was an oversight of astonishing importance, sort of like a physicist not noticing gravity.

Their failure to understand the economy has led to enormous misreporting of the December jobs data. There are two basic problems. They fail to accurately put the job growth numbers in the context of the economic downturn and they badly misread the December data leading them to overstate the true growth path we are now on.

He goes on to detail the errors with the most obvious one - mistaking holiday seasonal jobs for permanent employment:

The 200,000 jobs number reported for December was distorted by unusual seasonal factors, the most obvious of which was the 42,200 job growth reported in the courier industry. This is primarily companies like FedEx and UPS who hire additional workers to deal with holiday demand.

There is another dimension to all of this noted by former Labour Secretary Robert Reich who assumes the numbers are right:

This little bit of good news is likely to raise the hopes of the great army of the discouraged - many of whom will now start looking for work. And what happens when they start looking? If they don't find a job (and, let's face it, the chances are still slim) they'll be counted as unemployed.

Now on to the "experts" who turn up again, and again, as analysts on the data. The Financial Times is a leading source on the economy. It has just begun a series that finally admits capitalism is in a crisis:

Greedy bankers, overpaid executives, anaemic growth, stubbornly high unemployment - these are just a few of the things that have lately driven protesters on to the streets and caused the wider public in the developed world to become disgruntled about capitalism. The system, in all its different varieties, is widely perceived to be failing to deliver.

But to whom, then, does the FT turn to for analysis? None other than Larry Summers, who helped create the failed pro-business Obama policies. his argument, predictably, is: things are not as bad as they look. We merely need a "reinvention".

Summers, a master of obfuscation and regurgitating conventional wisdom, asks:

So how justified is disillusionment with market capitalism? This depends on the answer to two critical questions. Do today's problems inhere in the present form of market capitalism or are they subject to more direct solution? Are there imaginable better alternatives?

Huh?

Once the news is reported, it's turned over to the opinion writers to kick it around. Irish journalist Phillip Pilkington thinks that for the most part they don't get the depth of economic problems either. He writes:

Opinion writing, aside from being a comfy way to make a living, gives the writer greater stylistic freedom, and the challenge and opportunity of making a dent in readers' views. The problem is that you have a limited amount of space and, often, an easily distracted readership. Now, that's fine for something like, say, an observation about an upcoming election or the loutish behavior of a major sports figure but it is a patently awful format from which to raise Big Questions.

One of the big questions that tends to get downplayed are financial crimes. Did you know there are more than a million such crimes that are listed in the annual report of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN)?

In the past year, FINCEN tracked 1,446,273 Suspicious Activities reports. This deals with transactions that financial institutions know, suspect, or have reason to believe may be related to illicit activity.

It does not cover other crimes that banks and investment institutions commit with a claim that they are legal.

Financial journalists rarely report about these crimes unless someone big is being investigated or prosecuted. Hence the public doesn't really know the extent of the corruption of the system.

The consequence is that news about the economy is routinely unreliable, written without background and context and incomprehensible to that part of the public whose lives are getting worse.

News Dissector and blogger Danny Schechter called for protests in his film Plunder: The Crime Of Our Time, exposing financial crimes on Wall Street. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

Follow him on Twitter: @DISSECTOREVENTS

Last hours in Japan.

2012-01-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

Tokyo back-street view and (top) Tokyo arcade.

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Yakusa toughie "GIVE ME MONEY!"

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It is easy to get lost or squeezed out of shape in a Tokyo subway.

""It is considered very bad manners to have sex while mixed bathing.

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Where I sold paintings is taken over by a homeless man.

Kiss our Yakuza butts!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6E4PmUytqw

Japan is not really a law-abiding country. It seems to be on the surface, but not far into the hidden culture the real truth emerges.
Where else in the world would you see a middle-aged guy with suit and tie, commuting home while reading a kiddie porn comic? In what subway in the world besides in Japan would you see a male commuter caressing a woman's bottom and rubbing his leg against her? THEN AT A FOLLOWING STATION ONE OF THEM WILL DEPART WITHOUT A GLANCE OR A WORD TOWARDS THE OTHER PERSON?
WHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD WILL A TEENAGE GIRL IN SCHOOL UNIFORM APPROACH YOU AND SUGGESTS YOU BOTH GO TO A"LOVE HOTEL?"
That happened to me and I asked how old was the girl. "Eighteen" she said." Sorry" I replied "I have no money to spare"
"That all right Sir, I pay for hoteru.. I just want the "explerience" with a foreigner. If he good in bed or washout!!!"
...............................................................................................
I used to teach English in Japan, travelling from my house in the Philippines and spending at least three months and sometimes six in Japan .When I was sixty years old I flew to Tokyo and went the rounds of language schools where I usually landed a job but only met with refusals, to my chagrin. It seemed that the law had changed and now language institutes, which gave casual jobs to foreigners could be fined heavily. As well, my age now precluded me from getting any health coverage......My money was running out in expensive Tokyo even though I was sleeping on a futon in a" gaijin house" paying $10 U.S. a night
.I was getting awfully tired of fish and rice at a stand-up lunch-counter with my secondary choice being" tomago", raw egg mixed with hot gohan (rice) the cheapest meals around.
So I had to do something as I had a young pretty and (at that time) faithful Filipina wife and two toddler twin boys dependent on me back in Dagupan, Pangasinan,.
I had been a street artist in Montreal years before, painting and selling Quebec views to tourists. Actually I had done well in that field. So this was my choice again in Tokyo. This decision brought danger and nearly death with erotic connection with girls such as seen here. Mostly though it brought an end to my sojourns in Japan. I was not banned by the government but marked by yakuza. I am hoping that these many years later i might tell the story without some elderly tattooed yakuza member coming to my door in Vancouver and making me an offer I could not refuse..
Another problem was I had left most of my money in several banks, one in the Philippines and one in Canada. Before leaving Canada a few months before going to my family in the Philippines the bank employee in Canada had told me that my bank withdrawal card would would be good in the Philippines and also Japan. This was not so. I tried the Sumimoto bank which i had been told was the designated bank for my Canadian account. The card went into the slot of the A.T.M. but when I put in my pin it was rejected. After three tries, the machine kept the card. I went to a teller and explained the situation
asking for my card back.
The clerk was so sorry but keeping the card was to stop criminals. "Yes, I am aware of that, but I am not a criminal."
I was told to come back in three days and make an appointment with the manager for foreign accounts.
Then I could ask for my card. After a few days I was able to see the manager for foreign accounts.
"Do you have a foreign account with this bank?" he asked.
Not exactly." I tried to explain.
"Then we cannot help you, We suggest you contact your bank in Canada for a replacement. We cannot give you a replacement here as you are not an honoured customer.
So sorry the card would be already shredded."
I was stranded in Tokyo with just a few yen. Tokyo is a very expensive city. I recall looking at an apple and wondering whether I could afford it, and deciding against buying it. This was the first time I had been really hungry for many years. In fact the last time I remember being really hungry was in 1961 in Mexico when I had emerged from hiding on a freighter at Vera Cruz after thirty days at sea, stowing away from Darling Harbour, Sydney ,but that was long ago.
A fellow foreigner (I think he was Swiss) forced a few yen on me (I did not protest too much) and told me that there was a Christian mission in another part of Tokyo which gave free meals to mostly foreigners down on their luck. This described me clearly.
However going to the underground "chica" I found I would have to change from the red line to the yellow line then to the green line. And since all the station signs were in kanji, which I could not read, I knew I would get lost. Another thing the subway tickets (kippu )were not cheap, For the free meal it would cost me about $16 just for fares alone.
For several days I roamed the city looking for casual labouring jobs. Once I ate an orange in a paper sack someone had left at a bus stop. I started to imagine how great it would be just to sit in the park and drink a Kirin beer. No luck for that. Put that out of my mind mate!
Finally a Japanese who had a small grocery store took pity on my situation and my pleas for "shigoto kudesai?" that he steeered me inside to the warehouse and gave me a broom.
I was happy to get even such a menial job and worked very long and hard, leaving the establishment at nightfall with enough to pay for the place on the floor at the gaijin house residential and another bland meal of plain rice and fish at the stand-up stall in the market.
I spent several days painting small landscapes more or less in the style of the how to paint books of the Canadian Rockies. I could do this fast because, like a piece of music I had these paintings in my head. I have a whole repertoire really and give me paints, brushes a small canvas and a kitchen table and I can knock out paintings by the dozens.
Painting pictures I have never considered to be more than a learned art, actually a craft. All the ballyhoo about fine art is mostly just a means to get higher prices.
Anyway the morning came when I found a small unoccupied portion of a market lane. I set up my dozen paintings all of the Rockies, which by chance happened to be very popular with the Japanese public, as many traveled to Canada just to see them or to ski.
My prices were modest but the yen being so high against the dollar, it was worth while. After several hours of exposing my work and telling the onlookers in my simple Japanese:
" Lake Louise in the winter and it was very cold when I painted this work. My hands were frozen, but I just worked on in the cold so I could bring my paintings here to you." etc.... well, I had many admirers and by noon I had sold all the paintings. Counting up the money afterwards I found I had made over a thousand dollars.For three days work this was no fortune, but it was enough for me to live on and send back some money to my Philippine bank.
I kept on this track for about a week and continued to sell.
One morning a tough-looking guy appeared with tattoos and muscles flexing. He demanded money. Of course I would not give him any. He was very angry and spoke Japanese quickly with a loud voice, not at all the polite voice of most Japanese. His fists closed and his body made menacing gestures. I could not understand most of the language .
Suddenly he reached for a painting, threw it on the ground and stomped on it. I could not have that happen again, so grabbed a metal tube from my easel stand and hit his bare ankles with quite a lot of force knocking him over. Then, as I had been taught in the course of unarmed combat many years before, I poked him hard in the belly area. I was aware that I could further disable by hitting the side of his neck. Just as well I stopped in time. A blow like that could kill him .
He yelled in pain and dismay, crawled away and then hobbled to his feet and disappeared in the crowd, which moved rapidly away from him.
A fellow trader who was selling mannikin dolls approached me with concern. I was feeling great. I had just beaten a bully. I expected the other traders would be happy with me. Not so. All the street traders and onlookers seemed shocked and scared.
The mannikin doll guy could speak a little English and in mixed language he explained to me "That man Yakuza. He ask you pay "Yakuza tax". You must give him 15% of daily profit. We all pay, otherwise they destroy our goods, or even us....."
"So you mean if he comes back tomorrow I have to pay him?"
"Too late now. Tomorrow two, three Yakuza will come and maybe to kill you.Maybe just cut off your hand. The one you use for painting. You have brought them shame. They cannot let that happen without revenge."
"What will the police do, if these galoots try it?" I asked.
"The police will not see, even if they are looking...."
I left Japan, that enigmatic nation, on the first available flight out and have never been back.
http://www.asiancemagazine.com/oct_2008/angela_in_japan_pervert_sub_culture

I go with you to love hoteru, desne?
.....to be continued.

of Sutherland, Limerick and Armidale.

2012-01-10T21:25:00.000-08:00

Part of my schooling was at Armidale High and I boarded at St John's Hostel (shown here in earlier times). I was most unhappy even though it was grander than shown here, with tennis courts and facilities. Ric Williams.

These posters painted on the outside of Dorrie Boyle's pub in Sutherland and others of lifesavers drinking beer with pretty beach-girls were my inspiration at age seven in the world of art. I marvelled how they could be painted. I think they spurred me on to a later interest in paintings.

....................................................................................................

Six years ago: The phone rang about 3.15.”Who’s this?” ask I. “Your neighour across the street.”

“Is that you Mary?” “Yes, who else would it be? I want your son to help me. Some messages and bringing up boxes from the basement. How much does he want?”

“He says he wants six dollars an hour. That is what he got working at the Y.”

“Well that is not enough. No one should work for that. I’ll give him eight.”

“You don’t think that is too much?” I asked. I knew how to negotiate.

“Well, I’ll give him seven, then. Send him over after school..”

Mary’s father comes from county Clare. When I was in county Clare I had walked across the bridge near the ruined castle from Limerick headed towards low grassy hills.

A man walked down the rise. “Where are you for?” He asked jovially, pausing. I paused too. “I am maybe going to Ennis. Is it far.?”

“Keep walking for a week at that pace. Or best go back into town and take a coach. Have you been away in America for awhile?” He scratched his eyebrows like my grandfather Dick O”Keefe used to do. He had the same kind of face..

“Yes, by way of Australia and Canada, a good while ago.”

“Well you’re home now, anyway.” He nodded and went down the hill.

Mrs Williams (how can that be an Irish name?) had the guest house. ”The room is up the stairs. The bathroom has hot water until nine. Breakfast is at seven until eight.”

The narrow stairs led up to a room with an open door.. There was no lock. Just a swivel piece to turn on the inside. The room was small. A big feather bed, too soft. A small grate of two shillings a time gas meter. A small window, wide open, on such a cold night. I tried to close it. It would not budge.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Williams” I said descending. ”The window won’t close.”

“Yes, I know.” she replied “Better to get fresh air. And if you smoke, it will let it out.”

“But I don’t smoke and it is very cold.”

“That is why there is the fire, you see.”

“I think you will have to close the window, please.”

“If we close the window, then the gas might get you. Is that what you want?”

“I suppose not.”

“Then I’ll see you at breakfast, then.”

The bed-sheets were icy and I remembered the dorm at school in Armidale in winter. It had been cold there too. I remembered we went supperless if our rugby union team lost to De La Salle. The pumpkin pie I hated and the mince on toast for breakfast. Once, so hungry, I cut chemistry class and went down to Souris Café. A pie, peas and potato with Fountain Brand Tomato Sauce was nine pence.

Too bad, Canon Dickens spotted me as he emerged from the post office with the school mail. Detention and the Emu squad for one week.

The gas fire sputtered and I did not renew it, aware of carbon monoxide poisoning. My feet were still icy and I curled them up and dozed off.

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County Cork to Tipperary.(my mum was an O'Keefe and proud of it.)

This area was held by the O'Keefes, princes of Fermoy and anciently chief of Glanworth (and Glen Avon), before they moved west near Duhallow. Besides Kerrycurrihy and Imokilly, the entire central part of the county, between the rivers Lee and Blackwater, formed a portion of the ancient territory of Muskerry, which name the western portion of it still retains. The remainder, to the north of the Blackwater, formed, before the English conquests, a principality of the O'Keefes, called Fearmuigh

It was the summer of 1998, when the squabble over "Angela's Ashes" was still in the literary news. Driving back to Minnesota after a vacation in the Rockies, I ventured into North Platte, bypassing the franchise land that has sprung up along the I-80 exits and heading into the now mostly forgotten town center. A storefront sign read "Espresso and Irish Specialties." Inside, I found a floor space from another era living out the last chapter in its retail life as a used books and furniture store. At the back of the store, a fountain counter featured espresso drinks, sandwiches and Irish trinkets. An older gentlemen stood behind the counter. Overhearing his accent, I asked him: "So, if you don't mind my asking, where are you from?" "Limerick," he replied with a brevity uncharacteristic of the Irish. I couldn't resist. "So," I continued, "did Frankie McCourt make up all those stories?" "Look at me!" He ordered. "How old do you think I am?" "Middle sixties?" I guessed. "That's right," he said. "And how old do you think Frankie McCourt is?" "About the same." "That's right. Same age, same Limerick, same time." The man was visibly angry. "Now you tell me how could McCourt tell the world all those terrible lies about the Church and the priests?

in 1997 McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" was the first in a series of messages about a trust betrayed by the Irish Catholic Church. In 1998 a story broke about the discovery of a mass grave of 133 young women unearthed when the Good Shepherd Convent was closed in Cork. The women were among the thousands of "Magdalenes." These were young Irish girls committed to orphanages run by the nuns where the girls labored in the infamous Magdalene Laundries. Their crime was to have born a child out of wedlock or perhaps to have impressed a parish priest, teacher or family member as displaying a promiscuous personality.

The Magdalene Laundries 6 min - 9 Jun 2008 www.youtube.com

The Good ShepherdMagdalen Laundry 7 min - 21 Apr 2009 www.youtube.com

Someone once said the only thing really new in the world is the history we don't know. The Irish people are learning that right now and it's a painful experience.

It began five years ago when an order of nuns in Dublin sold off part of its convent to real estate developers. On that property were the remains of 133 women buried in unmarked graves, and buried with them was a scandal. As it turns out, the women had been virtual prisoners, confined by the Catholic Church behind convent walls for perceived sins of the flesh, and sentenced to a life of servitude in something called the Magdalene laundries.

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One of my ancestors who happened to be a king. (Ric)

ENEAS O'KEEFFE, 411 - 489*, King of Munster (1, 3, 4, 5), 453* - 489*, 36 years (3), son of Nadfraich (1, 3, 4, 5). Patrick was welcomed to Cashel and Aeneas was baptized by him about 454 having his foot peierced with the crozier (1, 4). Munster christianized at 3 pence per convert. Aeneas set a royal tax to support the Christian Church payable each 3rd year. Half Aeneas childern went into the service of the Church. South Munster occupied by the Keeffes and other Eoghanachts extended to the Suir on the East, to Tipperary & Kilfinane on the North, to the ocean on the South, and thru Slieve Lougher to a line from the head of Kenmare bay to the Shannon on the West. Aeneas gave Mag Feimhean (East Iffa & Offa, Middle third & a part of Clonmel Barony) to the Deise (distant relative who became hereditary gallowglasses & servants to the Kings of Cashel; their land almost surrounded it.) Aeneas (Aonghus) m. Eithne, daughter of Crevane, King of Leinster, & of Congain, his wife. Eithne was reared by the Deise in Munster and was called singular (Ilathach) because of their having fed her flesh of human infants to make her grow more rapidly. They were told by a priest (Druid) that she would marry a king and that they would receive title to lands as a reward for rearing her (4). (Corc, grandfather to Aeneas & other babies were said to have had their ears cropped by the Deise when infants, the flesh being fed to other children to make them grow healthy.) Aeneas and his wife slain in the battle of Ceall Osnadh, (Col Carlow) in AD 489 (1, 4). Three sons left dynasties, namely Felim for whom the (3, 4) Sullivans & McCarthys, Eanna from whom the O'Dalys of Munster, & the eldest son

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2012-01-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

These stories were written some years ago on my first website which I do not have access too as the format is different. So they are first draft, with grammar and spelling uncorrected. Ric Williams

2012-01-10T19:46:00.001-08:00

Accommodation is a bit hard to find in Sydney. This old codger was lucky enough to rent this little cottage for $600 a month, He is deciding where he is going to put his bed.
He was offerred shares in the Sydney Harbour Bridge also, but wisely declined when he found out he would have to do the repairs himself.

The Dark Side Of the Internet.

2012-01-07T20:40:00.003-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/26/dark-side-internet-freenet

The deep web is currently 400 to 550 times larger than the commonly defined world wide web," "The deep web is the fastest growing category of new information on the internet … The value of deep web content is immeasurable … internet searches are searching only 0.03% … of the [total web] pages available."

Uncle Tom's tale..

2012-01-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

Braidwood- Cooma Express 1930's>

Braidwood, where my Father Hector Griscom Williams

was born in Feb. 1909.

New Highway South. Since 2005. Earlier Princes Highway was along the cliff-face.

From top of Bald Hill, looking towards Wollongong.

Uncle Tom Pike's Tale.

http://www.roots-boots.net/travelau/grandpacific/index.html Grandma Lucy, Uncle Tom's sister, my grandmother.(Ric)> http://www.pleasetakemeto.com/australia/new-south-wales/south-coast-nsw/photos/location/moruya

For decorum's sake and so I will not be assassinated by my relatives, none of the following story is true: (It just seems to be.) When I was about nine, (I was born in 32) we went for a holiday down to Moruya to stay at Uncle Tom and Aunty Lizzie's place which was a small mixed dairy farm They were dad's aunt and uncle. Uncle Tom was grandma Lucy's brother. The family was just me, and Pat my brother four years younger, mum and dad. We went down in my dad's old green Essex truck. We boys were in the back with the luggage and mum and dad in the front seat. There were sides on the back but just boards to sit on and we had to hang on tight over the bumps and there were many on the 193 miles down there. It was windy in the back but we didn't mind because it was summer and the weather was dry and warm. I think we had our dog with us which was an Alsatian named Peter. He liked riding in the back and stuck his nose over the side, barking at any kind of dog in cars coming the other way. I remember we went down the steep Bald Hill at Stanwell Park where Lawrence Hargreaves experimented with box kites and one lifted him off the ground. There was a plaque there on the top of the ridge telling us about him and you could look out east right down the cliffs to the sea and see the breakers swirling against the rocks in the blue-green sea. Going down the pass was scary. Dad went into the lowest gear and kept his handbrake ready because it was so steep. Many vehicles, especially big trucks had careered out of control and some went over the cliffs. That was why at the bottom of each incline there was a run up the adjoining hill just as the road turned so that runaways could slow down as they went up again. Dad said that in about 19o2 when they first made this road (before that it had been a bullock track) the horsedrawn and bullock wagons had to have a big log attached to the axle so that the wagon dragged the log as a brake. Going down Bulli Pass you could see a beach near the bottom and this was Stanwell Park. Looking along the horizon and the coast you could see right down to Port Kembla and Wollongong about forty miles away. As an adult I have travelled the world a bit and seen some lovely views, but I think Stanwell Tops looking down is the best I have ever seen. In later years my brother Pat commissioned me to do a painting from the top and my effort was a dismal failure, though I remember I did have the South Coast Express train winding its way far below, going around bends on its way to Ulladulla about a hundred miles down south. I recall I wanted to stop at the beach and paddle around in the waves of the Pacific, but dad said “We’ve got to get to Kiama and we will have a picnic lunch at the beach there”. O.K., but I was hungry already.

The old car wound round the narrow coast road along the cliffs, sharp bends and past hundreds of little hamlets with small houses, which were where the mine workers lived. There were coal mines all along this area of coast. I never wanted to work down a coal mine when I grew up. I supposed I would be an electrician like dad, but I didn’t want to work with him because he was too bossy, and even Uncle Colin or Uncle Gator wouldn’t work for him anymore.

Trouble was he worked hard and expected others to do the same.

There were houses and buildings built right up to the edge of the high sheer cliffs dropping down to the wild ocean below. I remember some places like Coalcliff and maybe Coledale

. Somewhere along there I called out banging on the cab window that I wanted to do a pee. Pat, my brah wanted to go too.

There was no place to park but dad stopped on a straight stretch of road and called out “Just do it over the back, Siddie and don’t take long.!”

“No Hector” said my mum, “They might overbalance and a car might hit them. Remember Bobby” She sad when she thought of Bobby and I thought she might start crying again like she always did when Bobby was mentioned

“Alright, you boys go into that school yard and do it over at the back fence.”

It was school holidays now and the grounds were deserted.

We climbed down. I was a bit sore from sitting cramped up and Pat was starting to snivel. I gotta do it, Siddie. It’s hurting!”

“Well, wait well.” We went to the back fence and there wooden palings leaning out a bit and they seemed rickety. A couple of palings were missing.

I could see directly down a hundred feet at the surf on the flat ledge of rock below and there was a rock fisherman with a long rod, his line thrown way out over the breakers. He was tied round his waist to a ring set in the rock ledge.

Just then a high wave came looming in and broke over him, hit the cliff-side and ebbed away in a a diminishing stream of foam and another breaker was starting to surge.

The fisherman just kept fishing, even though he was wet all over and seemed to take no real notice of the waves.

Then I saw him reel his rod in rapidly and a big fish, maybe a schnapper almost a foot long hung there twisting on the line.

My little brah peed sideways,or maybe it was the wind, because my bare leg felt a warm splash ”Heh watch it Patty. Don’t do it on me.!”

We went back to the car. "I don’t want to go to school here,” said Pat solemnly “Cause I might fall down and get drownded.”

We reached Thirroul and dad found a garage and bought petrol, and blew his tyres up a bit.. One tyre was leaking and later when we reached the farm dad took off the wheel, took out the inner tube and patched it with a piece of black rubber and I remember him burning the patch to make it stick.

For now, a bit of air every fifty miles was enough to keep us from wobbling off the road into the sea.

It was a tar (bitumen) road and on a hot day it got soft and stuck to the tires and stuck to your shoes too, if you didn’t skip quickly over it. We kids didn’t usually wear shoes though and the tar was real hot as we crossed it quickly.

There were a lot of potholes and even rocks sometimes that had rolled down the steep incline on the western side of the road. We stopped for a breather at a little lolly and soft drink shop which probably sold other stuff, but I didn’t notice except I remember we got meat pies and fish and chips next door at another shop and dad also bought Full Strength Capstan tobacco and he rolled one, while mum bought Shelleys lemonade in two big bottles and Streets ice cream cones for us boys and for herself, because she loved Streets. It was the best and at that time you could not get it in Sydney. It was called “Cream of the Coast.” Now, how did I remember that after 68 years. Human memory is amazing, but what was I supposed to do this afternoon? Phone someone? Who the hell and what about? I was told yesterday to do it. I remember that much.. Yes, I think it was about the hot water system. Good. I am not senile yet. At Thirroul a brother of Tom (Alan) Colfax who was kind of an uncle to us, on account he was auntie Ida's boyfriend and worked at at Sydney University as an Ichtiologist (check spelling)worked as a schoolteacher at the high school but now it was closed and we didn’t know his address. So we kept on our way through the small city of Wollongong and past the smoke-stacks and heavy industry of Port Kembla and I went to sleep. Then we were in Kiama, where the town is right on the sea and there was a line of Norfolk Island pines like there was at south Cronulla beach back home and over at Manly beach too

.Past there the road went inland a bit and I just remember Lake Illawarra was somewhere there and there were lots of water birds, seagulls of course but tern and little wild ducks and there was even a blue heron standing on one leg.

Pat and I did a poop in among the reeds and wiped ourselves with pieces of old telephone pages mum had brought along for that purpose. We never bought toilet paper in those years. Most people didn’t too. Only the lah de dah people on the North shore of Sydney ,who a had cabinet radios and indoor toilets, while we just had the dunny pan in the little house down the back and I had a crystal set uncle Ralph had made me.

I had never seen a refrigerator until Sir Edward Hallstrom (also head of Taronga Park Zoo) brought out a cheap utility brand of Silent Knight refrigerators, and a lot more people could afford one. By the way, the Silent Knight was not that silent. It made a racket in the kitchen sometimes but all the mothers were so happy to have one and enter into the modern world and have a place to keep the baby’s bottle safe. About that time mothers started to stop breast-feeding and took to bottle-feeding. Luckily I no longer needed mother’s milk and I grew up with a healthy immune system, helped no doubt by wallowing around in the dirt I encountered, as I played in the unpaved paddocks and lanes and the nearby bush. The fridge was a step up from the old ice chest where the iceman would run in with a block of ice wrapped up in a Hessian bag over his shoulder and deposit it with a clump on the kitchen table and get his shilling. Sometimes there were small pieces of ice detached fallen on the floor and us (we) kids would pounce on it and suck it until it had dissolved away in our mouths.

When the ice truck was passing and if it was a hot day a few kids would run over to the rough-looking but kindly iceman and ask “Kin we ‘ave some ice, mister. It’s real dinkum hot terdye .” And he would get his ice-pick and breaks off bits and throw them to us. “Now git out, kids! And don’t stand in front of me truck, cause I can’t see yez there when I’m going.!”

Well, I forgot I was telling the story about going to Uncle Tom's place,we found the farm at Moruya. It had mostly cows but one or two horses, because they had a sulky and also they did a bit of plowing because there were several paddocks where something was growing. What I don't remember. There was a barn a piggery a slip-railed fence for the horses and a milking shed. They had a milking machine even though they could not have had more than a dozen milch cows. I don't remember any bull. I would have noticed one, I think.

I don't remember if there were any kids to play with, or maybe I felt too shy. Anyway I stayed near mum and dad and when dad went back to Sutherland, because he had to work, saying he would be back next Saturday morning to pick us up. He took our dog back home, because he had started to chase the chooks.

I felt a bit strange because I had never been away from dad before and now there was this Lionel fellow always seeming to be laughing and talking with mum. I did not like him. I said to him straight, on the day after dad went home. "You stay away from my mum, or I'll tell my dad." This Lionel fellow answered me smiling but his eyes tightened up like a snake before it pounces on a rat "What's there to tell? I am just keeping your mum company so she doesn't get lonely." "Yeah." I said and I was only about nine but I was real angry."That's what I mean.!" "Oh, ho, you are a tough little bugger, aren't you, sonny?" said this fellow." "My name's not sonny and I'm not as tough as my dad, yet." This should have been warning enough for that Lionel fellow. My mother called me inside. She was going to wash the dishes. "Now listen Siddie, Lionel is a nice man and I don't want you saying bad things to him. Or I will be the one to give you the strap, not your dad.

"The strap is behind the kitchen door at home mum, not here." "Don't you be cheeky to me, or I'll get a switch and you'll see." I shut up. Mum never smacked me unless it was serious and I supposed she was serious now. Lionel came in, beamed at mum and took up the dishtowel. I'll help you, luv." "How's it going sport?"He looked at me quizzically. "That's not my name neither." I went outside near the cowshed. The last of the cows were being milked. The sun was going down. I just sat down on the grass near the slip-rails almost sitting in a cow pad. I was unhappy. I wanted to go home to Sutherland. I didn't like the farm. Some ants started to climb up my bare leg. I got up on the old buggy that Uncle Tom used to go into Moruya township. Funny there was a cushion on the seat and it was shaped like a donut with a hole in the middle. I had never seen one like that before, except, wait now! There was one in the dining room on the chair that Uncle Tom used. What was that for? I heard voices and my mum and this fellow Lionel were walking past. I crouched low in the buggy. I didn't know why I felt I had to hide. Mum said quietly "Maybe we shouldn't. Siddie might see us, and he could tell Hec you know....." "We are just going for a walk, that's all. Nothing wrong with that. Anyway he is not around. Must have gone inside to listen to the radio." "Yes", said mum," It's time for "First light Frazer". He never misses an episode. I perked up a bit. I saw them arm in arm going through the gate and heading for a clump of trees on the far side of a paddock. I raced inside. My little brother, Pat was being bathed in a big dish by Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Tom was sitting in his chair smoking a pipe and reading the Illawarra Mercury. "Kin I listen to "First Light Frazer" auntie Lizzie?" (She was really my great aunt though.) What station is it on Siddie? And you have to have a bath too. You can use the same water." "But he probably peed in it. He always does." No, I didn't. You're a liar!" said Pat, indignant. "Oh, all right, I'll heat up some more water in the kettle. She went over to the wood stove, put in a couple of pieces of axe-hewn wood and filled the kettle. "It's on 2GB, 7 o'clock and it is five past now." (I could tell the time from the big grandfather clock with its swinging pendulum, though the Roman numerals were a bit hard.) My voice had an urgency. I did not want to miss an episode. I had missed the Children's Session with Mac, Joe and Elizabeth on 2FC but that was not so important. "Well." said auntie Lizzy. We don't have that station way down here." Uncle Tom put his head up and took the pipe out of his mouth. "It's on the local station, Liz. I don't mind listening to it myself." "What Tom! You only listen to the news and the Country Hour, to my knowledge."Auntie Liz was surprised. "You don't now everything about me, woman." They put on the old radio with its valves and its crackling and the sound coming out of a big horn up on top. It worked though. I sat enthralled at the exploits of First Light Frazer. My brah was out of the bath and with a towel around him sat near the kitchen fire, listening, though I knew he liked littly stories better about the Gumnut Babies and Hoadlies Violet Crumble-bar story of the "Search for the golden Boomerang" on 2CH. After the show, Aunt Lizzie said "Now is your bath time Siddie." "I will do it myself. I'm not a little kid, like Patty." "I'm not neither," said Patty, just four. "Next time I'm going to bath myself, see!" I went outside to the dunny, because I didn't want to pee in the bathwater, and it was hard not to when that warm water was swirling around you. The dunny stinked too much and I did it round the side. I looked out across the dimming light and saw my mum and that fellow coming out of the same clump of trees I saw them go into an hour before. I waited until they crossed the paddock. Good. They weren't arm in arm any more. Mum saw me and looked a bit worried. "Hello Siddie, what are you doing?" "I'm just going to have a bath. You know mummy they only got a big tin dish, not a real bath like we got."" "Well you go in and have your bath." As I went in I heard her say in a low voice "You see! I told you!" "Don't worry Marge I am going to give the kids five bob each tomorrow when I leave." "You're leaving?" "Yeah, I got to get back to my job, too." "You bastard!" said my mum and she broke away hurriedly. Next morning after breakfast Lionel gave us kids five bob each. " What's this for?"asked my brah."You're not my uncle or anything." "Say thank you, boys." Said mum. I didn't ask why he gave it to us, 'cause I remembered the grass-seeds on the back of mum's dress when she came across the paddock. In a few days, after I had learned to ride a pony and gone out looking after the goats and caught a green tree-snake, and learned how to catch whiting from pippees we dug up on the beach at Bateman's Bay, and been in a rowboat on the Shoalhaven River and all the other beaut things you can do in the country. (It wasn't so bad down there after all,)....in a few days when dad was taking us home in the old green truck (I got a new tyre, Marge.) he asked driving along one-handed and the other arm around mum....(I missed you Hector. Don't leave us alone like that again, promise?)....dad asked us all, "Well, did yz all have a good holiday?" I decided I would never tell about the walk and the grass seeds (except now, 68 years later,) because I knew it probably wasn't true(maybe). My teacher Miss Rolley said I had a "wonderful vivid imagination" on my report card." A few miles along the road I asked my mum "Mummy?" She looked startled "Yes, Siddie" she answered slowly. " Why are there cushions with holes in them, where uncle Tom sits?" Mum and dad both started laughing and then dad said. "Uncle Tom was born with three or four vertebrae more than he should have. There was no doctor around to cut them off, because he was delivered by a midwife." "What's a vert i bra?" asked my little brother. "It's a tail", said mum. Your father's uncle has a tail! "Shut-up Marge!" exclaimed my dad crossly. "It could have happened to anybody." So this was the Tale of Uncle Tom's Tail. Ric Williams

SEA CLIFF BRIDGE from BALD HILL, STANWELL PARK

STANWELL PARK in the early part of the 20th Century.

STANWELL PARK 1960

STANWELL PARK looking north to BALD HILL, world famous hang gliding place. Site of Australia's famous aeronautical experimentalist, Lawrence Hargrave.

STANWELL PARK RAILWAY VIADUCT. At 215ft high, this is the highest railway viaduct in Australia. It was built in the late 19th century and is made out of sandstone.

KELLYS FALLS, a beautiful spot in Stanwell Tops.

THE MINERAL POOL has Hargrave Creek run through it and over making Hargrave Falls. The creek continues to the northern lagoon at Stanwell Park. The Mineral Pool is now in the private hands of a developer and there is no longer access by the public.

The NORTHERN ILLAWARRA and ROYAL NATIONAL PARK COASTLINE. The RNP is the 2nd oldest declared park after YELLOWSTONE PARK in the USA. This view would not have changed much since Captain James Cook sailed up the Eastern Coast of Australia in 1770.

Here is a distance view to the north of the SYDNEY SKYLINE. Taken from Mt Mitchell, Illawarra Esarpment at Stanwell Park. The Royal National Park is in between.

The ILLAWARRA ESCARPMENT is basically made of Hawksbury Sandstone, so in some cases the weather has interesting effects causing natural rock sculptures. This is the THUMB AND FINGERS ROCK on Mt Mitchell, above Stanwell Park.

Here is another weather affected ROCK SCULPTURE on the ILLAWARRA ESCARPMENT. This sits above the coastal village of Coalcliff.

Byegone houses of Vancouver.

2011-12-29T13:19:00.001-08:00

I am contemplating drawing this old house with watercolour, if I have enough time, but at 79 and 3/4 years I can't make definite plans.It has come up well on Photoshop.

These houses are not really supposed to be on my Aussie-orientated blogsite, but they'll just be here temporarily (Ric)

House in Burnaby... photoshop (Ric)

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by Michael Kluckner http://www.michaelkluckner.com/newstuff.html

Creeping Censorship.

2011-12-29T11:34:00.000-08:00

Please note: Some internet providers including Internet Explorer and even Firefox seem to delete aspects of my blogs. I have found only one, CHROME to be satisfactory.Please down load CHROME in a couple of minutes (free). thank you (Ric)

http://mirror.wikileaks.info/ wikileaks

- 2 min - 13 Jan 2010
The Australian Federal Government plans on censoring all content not fit for someone under 15 years of age. The filtered content comprises ...
www

New Big Brother Laws Would Reshape Canada's Internet

Three bills would mandate new spyware to scoop your info with no court oversight, and broaden police powers to snoop.

By Michael Geist, 16 Nov 2010, TheTyee.ca

Orwell's vision coming true here?

It's Our Web, Not Theirs
Let's stop big corporations from taking it over.
Police Want Your ISP
Do they really need a law giving them access to your Internet profile?
The End of Privacy?
Laws can't keep pace with digital advances.

The bills contain a three-pronged approach focused on information disclosure, mandated surveillance technologies, and new police powers.The push for new Internet surveillance capabilities goes back to 1999, when government officials began crafting proposals to institute new surveillance technologies within Canadian networks along with additional legal powers to access surveillance and subscriber information. The so-called lawful access initiatives stalled in recent years, but earlier this month the government tabled its latest proposal with three bills that received only limited attention despite their potential to fundamentally reshape the Internet in Canada.

The first prong mandates the disclosure of Internet provider customer information without court oversight. Under current privacy laws, providers may voluntarily disclose customer information but are not required to do so. The new system would require the disclosure of customer name, address, phone number, email address, Internet protocol address and a series of device identification numbers.

While some of that information may seem relatively harmless, the ability to link it with other data will often open the door to a detailed profile about an identifiable person. Given its potential sensitivity, the decision to require disclosure without any oversight should raise concerns within the Canadian privacy community.

The second prong requires Internet providers to dramatically re-work their networks to allow for real-time surveillance. The bill sets out detailed capability requirements that will eventually apply to all Canadian Internet providers. These include the power to intercept communications, to isolate the communications to a particular individual and to engage in multiple simultaneous interceptions.

Moreover, the bill establishes a comprehensive regulatory structure for Internet providers that would mandate their assistance with testing their surveillance capabilities and disclosing the names of all employees who may be involved in interceptions (and who may then be subject to RCMP background checks).

Google row exposes China internet censorship laws
2 min - 23 Mar 2010
Uploaded by AFP
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Al-Jazeera and ChineseInternet Censorship
10 min - 23 Nov 2006
Uploaded by gwood3
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America, Land of the Poor.

2011-12-29T08:32:00.000-08:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/05/opinion/main7121029.shtml

In America, the poverty rate continues to rise, as does homelessness. It is estimated that 20 percent of Americans now live in poverty, millions of them children. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost trillions of dollars and have killed hundreds of thousands of people, while economic policies have wreaked havoc and chaos.

Homelessness too continues to skyrocket as more and more families lose their homes and their jobs. While the government claims only 10 percent of Americans are unemployed, some economists place the figure above 30 percent, especially when considering those who have quit looking for work and those underemployed.

In some regions, homelessness has risen 20 to 30 percent. Without national data, though, it is difficult to estimate how many people are without shelter. Along with those living in poverty, the number of Americans that are suffering is well over 50 million. At the same time, many citizens will continue to lose their homes and jobs in the coming year.

homeless in america
5 min -
Uploaded by rudyflores
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Homeless In America(1/2)
6 min -
Uploaded by obscuredtruth
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Homeless In America
4 min -
Uploaded by sueyetta
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........................................
Simeon Gibbon, new head of Homeland Security.

I'm warning all terrorists. Don't monkey with us!

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Story of a boy convict..,.early Australia.

2011-12-28T23:36:00.000-08:00

It is not known how Hudson survived for almost nine years before he came to official notice. Like most working class children, he was illiterate and kept no diary or written record of his life.

Holden quotes the Old Bailey Session Papers of 1783, where his brief interview with the judge at the time of his trial provide the first documented account of Hudson's existence and some indication of how he lived:

Court to Prisoner: “How old are you?”

“Going on nine.”

“What business was you bred up in?”

“None, sometimes a chimney sweeper.”

“Have you any father or mother?”

“Dead.”

“How long ago?”

“I do not know.”

Coffins of black

As a chimney-sweep, permanently blackened with layers of soot to provide some protection against the fire and heat of chimneys, Hudson was among the most visible of child labourers. But in many other respects his life was not much more wretched than that of his peers. Most children, less visible in mills, mines and foundries, commonly worked 12-hour days, many from an early age.

Many chimney-sweeps were recruited from the age of four. Small boys were needed with bones soft enough to crawl through the tiny chimney flues or “coffins of black” as the poet William Blake called them. Some chimney openings were as small as 9 x 14 inches (23 x 35 centimetres).

Holden provides a picture of the horrendous conditions facing chimney sweeps and the terrible toll it took on their health. “[E]mployed to scrape the soot from the sides of the flue, [the boys also had to] replace the mortar which had become dislodged and repair cracks in the brickwork. Oven chimneys were particularly unpleasant as deposits of congealed fat and soot made it difficult to get any firm grip. Constant lacerations were a permanent part of life. For some a relatively quick death by asphyxiation or by smoke inhalation may have been preferable to the long-term sufferings which were an occupational habit and which might have included asthma, inflammation of the eyes, burned limbs, malformed spines and legs and tuberculosis. Most horrifyingly, these young children often developed cancer of the scrotum.”

The most profitable aspect of the mastersweep's business was extinguishing flue fires. To do this the mastersweep would force the children to climb up the chimneys and extinguish the fires from the inside. “For this task, the boys entered the mouth of the chimney carrying a candle in their teeth and a scraper in their hands. They climbed by way of their knees and elbows to the top and then worked their way down.”

Indicating how much the children hated this work, Holden refers to a chimney-sweep in 1819, who gladly consented to the amputation of a leg crushed in a fall, after being told that he could not ascend another chimney with only one leg.

Hudson was a “sometimes” chimney-sweep because it was an itinerant occupation and their masters traditionally cast out apprentices during the warmer months, usually from May 1 on. The masters then set up as night-carters, a business that did not require small-limbed apprentices, and the boys left to roam the streets. The boys were also dispensed with as soon as they outgrew the narrow flues and chimneys.

Is it surprising that Hudson took to petty theft? Was there any other way to mitigate the wretched circumstances of his life? As Holden concludes, John Hudson in 1780s England was a “little black slave” with nothing to lose.

Transportation to Australia

In 1783 Hudson was charged with breaking into a London house one October night, and stealing, with an accomplice, “one linen shirt, value 10s., five silk stockings, value 5s., one pistol, value 5s., and two aprons, value 2s.”

Lucky to avoid a death sentence, one of the penalties for burglary, Hudson was convicted of the lesser charge of breaking and entering and sentenced to seven years transportation. He had to endure the labyrinthine stages of the British penal system—first in Newgate prison and then on a number of prison ships—before leaving for Australia three years later.

The vastly overcrowded Newgate, Holden comments, was synonymous with “suffering, despair, viciousness and death". The recent revolt of the American Colonies, which halted the traffic of convicts across the Atlantic, resulted in a 73 percent increase in Britain's domestic prison population.

British prisons were run on a private enterprise basis—the provision of food, clothing and medical care graded according to those who could afford to pay—and the children locked up with hardened adult criminals. That Hudson survived was due, Holden notes, to the fact that the living conditions and experiences in Newgate were not much different than if he had been still at large.

Finally, Hudson, along with almost 50 other children, some convicts, others children of convict women or marines, boarded the First Fleet, arriving in the new Australian colony in 1788. Hudson was by then aged 13.

In Australia Hudson became another government statistic with only one more official reference, made three years later on Norfolk Island. Fear of starvation led to a division of the First Fleeters into two convict settlements. Half remained in Sydney, the others sailed to Norfolk Island, hundreds of miles off Australia's east coast. Hudson was one of those transferred to Norfolk Island, a penal settlement that became notorious over the next hundred years for homosexual rape and child abuse.

The last official government reference to Hudson, a record of punishment meted out to him, provides a clear enough picture that the conditions he endured remained unrelentingly brutal. A single line entry records Hudson's punishment on Norfolk Island as: “50 Lashes for being outside his hutt after nine oClock.”

Hudson's case was not unusual. At least six children aged between nine and 12 at the time of their sentencing were transported to Australia on the Second Fleet in 1789. In 1831 a nine-year-old boy was publicly hanged for arson and in 1837 five children between eight and 11-years-old were sentenced to up to 10 years' transportation. Children under the age of seven were the only ones exempt from the death penalty.

Holden has said that he wants his book to “give voice to those who have not been given a speaking part in our historical drama before". This chilling story about those previously considered to be mere historical “footnotes” is an important contribution to Australia's real history. By exposing what happened to these children, Holden has also provided a powerful argument against all those currently attempting to turn back the clock and abolish the hard-won democratic and legal rights of children.

What Did You Say Again?

2011-12-26T21:26:00.010-08:00

Some people would like to live near the sea and hear the sounds of the breakers and the wind howling.

I don't live near the sea but I hear these sounds.

When I was a boy in Australia, during certain times of summer, the cicadas ( that we called locusts) would dig their way out of the earth where they had lived as grubs for years, would emerge, climb into trees, dry their new wings, then join thousands of others pulsating with shrill whines. It was deafening."Age ten I said to my little brah, age 5, as we were collecting "locusts" in a bucket to give to the chooks "I wouldn't like to hear that noise all me life, would ya?"
"Nah" said Pat "Look, I got a Greengrocer one and there's a Flowery Baker!" All the same, they went into the bucket, crawling around, trying to get out, but we had twisted their wings so they couldn't get away. Chook food.

I am thousands of miles from Australia ( though often I wish I were still there) and it is now Winter, a rainy bleak, cold, Vancouver Winter. No sign of snow.

I have these sounds. Always with me.

There are voices in my consciousness sometimes faraway, sometimes close, always indistinct. Of course no one is there.

I hear the sounds of birds chirping away throughout the night, though real birds are sleeping, feathers puffed and heads tucked in. Sometimes I have heard a sea-gull and looked outside but no gull is wheeling around in the sky..

This cacophony of constant sounds is called Tinnitus and I have it.

It can send people crazy.

I am not yet completely crazy and manage the condition by having the radio on all night and most of the day if I am at home. This helps block out the sounds in my head. Driving helps also. The sound of the motor's hum.

Being in busses and trains tends to block it out a bit.

One problem occurs when I have to pay attention to what someone is saying to me. Mostly I can make out what they are saying among the other noises, unless it is a child's or a high- pitched woman's voice.

People are forever saying "Why don't you get a hearing- aid?"

A hearing-aid just increases the volume. Believe me, I have a volume of sound already.

"Tinnitus" The doctor said. "There is no cure."
Some years ago I was friends with a musician, who unfortunately used to hear voices telling him to do bizarre things, like running out in the mall with nothing on, or slapping a young woman on the buttocks. Even worse.
Dangerous thoughts.
"They are like telling me to do these things and I don't want to like because I know I would be sent to jail or the loony-bin."
"You just have to tough it out, pal" was my inane advice.
Some years later I saw in the Province Newspaper that my friend had killed himself by jumping from the fourth floor of a skid-road hotel.

At least I am still living and it could be worse. I could be blind. Ric.

.......................................
IN THE KINGDOM OF THE BLIND THE MAN WITH ONE EYE IS KING.

2011-12-26T14:04:00.017-08:00

I came up to Canada in 1960.. or was it 1961? Anyway I had been issued my first ever passport from the Australian Consulate in San Francisco and I even remember the vice- consul's name. Keith Brown.
He was a decent bloke but when I had first approached the office a few days before, he seemed reluctant to believe I was an Aussie.
After questioning me for a few minutes he told me frankly.
"Mr Williams (if that is who you are.) you might be Australian but you don't sound like one and possibly
you are an American trying to get to Australia."
At this point I regretted my perfect American accent, which I had cultivated so assiduously
during my illegal residence in the States and Mexico.Now I could not go back to the Aussie accent.
Keith Brown said " You might check out as an Australian as far as far as I can tell....but you have no papers at all.
Your story of how you left Australia, travelled through Mexico speaking Spanish which you admit
you never studied in Australia , entered the U.S.A. illegally....is all too fantastic.....However, I am going
to give you a chance to prove you are who you say you are."
He continued but looked doubtful.
" You realize, I hope that I will have to call the police, if I am not convinced by your story.
Do you want me to continue or do you just want to walk out of this consulate and we will forget you were ever here?"
"Go ahead ."
"Firstly what is the nickname of the main newspaper in Sydney?"
"You mean the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily telegraph, the Sun or the Mirror? I used to read the Mirror.
Actually I worked on the Telegraph as a copy-boy and I was offered a journalist cadetship but the pay for the first year was so low, I went over to Proud's the jewellers' advertising department and became a junior copywriter. To my regret."
"You have not answered the question, Cedric."
"I guess you are alluding to the Sydney Morning Herald that my father works for as an electrician. It is commonly known as Granny Herald."
"Correct. Now you say you went by electric train from Sutherland to Central daily for a number of years.
Do you think you might recall some of the train stations?"
"Sure, counsel, let's see...." my mind went back to the innumerable boring suburban train trips to and from work.
The clouds of cigarette smoke even in the non-smoking compartments, the crowded aisles. Standing up waiting for the rare seats available. The memories came back.
"First, Sutherland, Jannalli, Como, Oatley, Penshurst, Hurstville, Allawha , Carlton..Kogarah, Rockdale. Arncliffe, Cooks River (no that's on another line..)There are a couple more, then Redfern then Central. Sorry, I can't remember them all. Did I pass?"
"Yes, good enough." replied Keith Brown. "Now how did you speak Spanish even imperfectly in Mexico."
He asked this question in Spanish with a heavy Aussie accent.
I understood and told him in my sort of mixed latin language which strangely enough was understood everywhere I went in Mexico. I learned Latin for years in high school and got a special certificate for it. I also studied French and then was sort of married to an ex-teacher of French from the island of Corfu in the Adriatic and she spoke French all the time to me.
As well, as a youth I spent some sweaty time with Sardinians and Calabrasi from Italy killing myself cutting cane in North Queensland.
When I arrived in Vera Cruz Mexico disembarking from the ship I had stowed away in from Darling Harbour, Sydney I found that my mixed Latin dialect was more or less Espanol."
(It was not until years later when I visited my brother in Costa Rica my Spanish- fluent young nephews with beautiful accents made me realize how deficient I was. Even my brother Patrick was more fluent than I was, though his language was, shall I say, "of the people" mixed with frequent swear words.)
Vice consul Brown left the room briefly and returned with a copy of "Granny Herald."
"Cedric, he said " I am going to leave you here with a copy of S.M.H.
Read it, study it and get your Aussie accent back. You have fifteen minutes to try. If you can speak like an Aussie then, I will issue you with a passport."
I sat there reading about the odds at Harold Park dog races and St George beat Balmain. There was a storm at the Heads and one bloke fishing on the rocks at North Head had forgotten to tie himself with a rope to the ring in the rock-shelf. (I knew that place and even the same bloody ring.) Bloody Christ the poor bugger was swept away into the bombora, when a rogue wave broke over the silly drongo!"
When Keith Brown returned I was talking like any dinkum Aussie with a Sutho accent like I had just come up the hill from the Woronora River fishing for bream with my Alsatian dog Peter trotting ahead of me watching out for snakes or blue-tongued lizards. ."
I got my passport.
................................................................................

family letter.

2011-12-26T13:07:00.004-08:00

Walter,

I am happy to hear you were invited to Joel's place. Hope the thaw will continue.. Hand not much better. Cannot play guitar. I tried. yesterday I went with the Firefly and Susan and Wolf to the club dinner. It went well. everyone happy. On the way I went to Brian's place. I stayed in the car and the others delivered some groceries and twenty dollars for the little boy.

I received no greetings for Xmas from my son Brian. Richard sent a HAPPY XMAS. I told him I was no longer angry about the car, but I lied. However no good can come from carrying grudges and I reflect what a troublesome bastard I was at 23.

We went for a drive to Minoru park hoping to see some rabbits but I stopped the car to look at the map (it was Richmond and I am always lost there) and the car would not start again. We had had the heater and the lights on all the while. So we persuaded a reluctant Chinese man to push the car and after twenty seconds of pushing it started in second gear. So we did not see the bunnies but went towards home. Nearly there, Susan asked to go down to the pier. We thought the car would start because we expected there was more power in the battery.

When we started to leave the car would not start. An obliging lady jump-started the car and we went up the hill. At home I noticed that the battery posts are very corroded and loose....So it was not the battery at all....just the connections. Because of my hand and the rain, I have not yet cleaned the posts and tightened them.

So I cannot come down today. Anyway the Magic Jack probably won't work while I am using the bandwidth piggy-backing.

When I move into the one bedroom apartment in early February I will get Shaw internet. No use to do it now.

I felt not so well yesterday and just made the effort to go with Wolf and Susan to the club. Today I feel weak but better, except for the hand. I phoned up Patrick to see if he will work for $8.50 an hour cleaning my place but there just an answering machine.

Can't you get that car of yours fixed? Or use the other car. However I think you should buy your own gas just as I do when I visit you.

I wish my three sons could come up with some viable plan so that the little money I have left will not be wasted on buying things and might be used to make more money.

I remember that there was a time about forty years ago that I hardly had my rent and I started my career as a painter .....and did very well.

However a few thousand dollars can make the difference between being able to start a small business and living off welfare.

At least my three sons are working now....but you have to be able to get ahead and not spend every bit of cash you take in.

Walter if you had not scrimped and saved, going to food banks etc, you and Joel would never have been able to build up a bus company.

We know this. but try to explain that to my three sons and in one ear and out the other.

I'll end now. I am getting too upset. Ric.... Happy new years.

On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 11:47 AM,

Back to the old keyboard again. Your previous call faded drastically a while ago. On what number did you reach me ?
How is your hand now; could you drive already, if so, then just come over and bring your MJ. with you. So we could adjust it on my "paid" internet. With my lap-doggie.
I have the Lincoln Key, but there is almost no gas in it. If I go to your place, I would have to take my equipment along, therefore I dislike to carry it on the city bus.
Last night I was invited at Joel's place, for a change.

Williams , Nash and some Pioneer Families of Australia.

2011-12-24T23:28:00.001-08:00

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~garter1/nash%20william.htm

click to enlarge.

Pike Family. Note: the little girl with the light coloured hair marked "L" is Lucy Pike. However my grandmother Lucy Pike had dark hair.

A cousin, Ruth, has told me that it really is our grandmother because her hair changed from fair to dark as she grew up. However I doubt this. Ruth also says that the quality of the photo makes the hair look fairer. Well I ask "Why is the hair of the mother and father dark? It is in the same photo subject to the same lighting.

I believe that our grandmother was substituted for the little girl marked "L" possibly because the tot died from influenza or pneumonia. Our grandmother may have been either an illegitimate child of one of the Pike brothers or perhaps it was as our grandmother relates that she was taken from the black's camp down near the billabong by a governmant trooper(as they used to "save" half-caste kids) and given a foster home with the Pike's.

I would like to hear more information from relatives of my grandmother on the Pike side. So far after four years of my enquiries not one of them has contacted me. I would also like to get some photos of grandma's supposed Pike sisters. Ruth Ross sent some to me, but unfortunately they were stored on an early computer that broke down. Anyway i am not sure about any of this and no one in the family is taking my side in the investigation. (Ric).

When I was a boy I spent a lot of time roaming around the Sutherland Shire and the the surrounding National park and crown land.
I would walk and jog along the tracks and trails mostly every weekend starting off from dad's rented house on Princes highway Kirrawee
up to Sutherland where I attended school during the week, across the railway bridge
at Sutho station, down through the cemetery gates through the passages past the crypts
and graves. Here was the the Crematorium where my grandma Lucy had been burnt
up and her ashes put in the alcove of a wall with hundreds of others, down along to
where my brother Bobby's unmarked grave lay among the weeds straight along and
through the fence where there was a large old redgum onto First Avenue Loftus where
the old bush house of my grandfather Harry stood.
Right at the end it turned into a bush track. Here was the old humpy house of my grandfather
Harry and Grandma Lucy.

Grandfather Harry and Grandma Lucy and children.

.............. http://www.eurekacouncil.com.au/Australia-History/History-Indexes/index-1788-first_fleet.htm

William Nash, Royal Marine, 58th (Plymouth) Company, 1st Fleeter, Prince of Wales, Port Jackson, Captain Shea, Maria Haynes://members.optusnet.com.au/~aashmore/ http://www.monaropioneers.com/pioneers.htm http://www.ulladulla.info/historian/1804deaths.html http://www.hawkesbury.net.au/community/hfhg/November2003.html http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~garter1/firstfleet.htm

http://members.pcug.org.au/~pdownes/

Patricia Downe's Australian Pioneers.

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/parl/hist/primmins.htm

prime ministers of Australia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gilbert_(bushrange

Monaro Pioneers Newsletter

http://www।monaropioneers।com/

convict work party.

Waltzing Matilda.

Oh, there once was a swagman camped in the billabongs, Under the shade of a coolibah tree, And he sang as he looked at the old billy boiling, Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me? Chorus: Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda my darling, Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me? Waltzing Matilda and leading a waterbag, "Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me? Up came the jumbuck to drink at the waterhole, Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him in glee, And he sang as he put him away in the tucker-bag, "You'll come a-waltzing matilda with me." Chorus Up came the squatter a-riding his thoroughbred, Up came policemen one two and three. Whose is the jumbuck you've got in the tucker-bag? You'll come a-waltzing matilda with we. Chorus Up sprang the swagman and jumped in the waterhole, Drowning himself by the Coolibah tree. And his voice can be heard as it sings in the billabongs, "Who'll come a-waltzing matilda with me." Chorus AB ‘Banjo’ Paterson, original lyrics of 'Waltzing Matilda'; the version sung today has a few changes Variations * swagman: an itinerant farmhand, carrying his "swag" (his blankets) rolled into a cylinder * billabong: a creek (normally with a pronounced "oxbow" bend) * coulibah, or coolibah tree: a eucalypt (gum) tree ) * waited till his billy boiled: a billy is a tin can used to heat water over a campfire to make tea * jumbuck: sheep * tucker-bag: bag or box used to store food * squatter: farmer/grazier who simply found good land and took possession; some became extremely rich * trooper: policeman or soldier on horseback

WILLIAMS FAMILY. This was the first website, on Geocities in 2006, but it was very difficult to manage and now it has been taken off the web. There is a reference to it with an old u.r.l. address which no longer works, but I can't get in to delete it. I have difficulty sometimes getting out of it again and into the main blog. Anyway there are a number of family stories, still uncorrected for grammar and spelling.

First Fleeters

press to enlarge.

| Home | Family Stories |

`WELCOME Press to enlarge`

Convict Hulk in the Thames. Where some of my ancestors waited for months and years.

`Charles Pike and his wife Harriet Pike`

Grandma Lucy Williams (nee) Pike. (Grandma Lucie is supposed to be the daughter of the above two persons. Any resemblance?)

John Williams, my father's grandfather.

My father Hector looked very similar.

Grandma Lucy when she was young

Click on images to enlarge.

The Pike family

Click on images to enlarge.

"BETOWYND"

Old bush home of grandpa and grandma

Family stories click

"Prince of Wales" -William Nash and Maria Haynes came on the First Fleet in 1788. Some records say Maria was a convict under a 7 year sentence but others say she was the wife of William Nash. They married later on reaching Sydney Cove. It does not really matter much, anyway. They got here and that is the main thing. That is why we descendants exist today.

The Guringgai Aborigines once occupied the land from the Hawkesbury River in the south to Lake Macquarie in the north. It is known that the tribe wore possum hair belts (in which they carried their few possessions) and, occasionally, possum skin clothing. The men carried spears, boomerangs, stone axes, boomerangs and shields and hunted large prey such as kangaroos and fish which they speared. The women, however, provided most of the food - fish (caught on fishing lines), shellfish, fruit, tubers, insect larvae, snakes, lizards and small mammals. The number of Aborigines occupying the land of the present Gosford and Wyong shires was probably never more than about 360.

Governor Phillip and a party of officers and seamen entered Broken Bay in a whaleboat in 1788, five weeks after establishing the settlement at Sydney Cove. They passed Lion Island at the mouth of Brisbane Water and sheltered from heavy rains behind the rocky headland of Green Point. Phillip observed 'the land is much higher than at Port Jackson, more rocky and equally covered with timber; large trees which grow on the summits of mountains'.

Friendly relations with the indigenous inhabitants got under way with camp fires and sing-songs. Apparently they were impressed with the fact that Phillip had a missing front tooth, as it was an initiation rite amongst them to knock out the front tooth of young men.

Bass and Flinders visited Broken Bay in the 1790s and recruited Bungary from the indigenous population. Bungary accompanied them on a number of journeys, including the circumnavigation of Australia.

The first land grant on the Central Coast was made to ex-marine of the First Fleet, William Nash, in 1811 but he did not settle there. The proximity of a penal colony at Newcastle discouraged settlement and the rugged terrain made the area a haven for smugglers, moonshiners, escapee convicts and ticket-of-leave men. John LEES, 1771-1836: soldier - private in the NSW Corps 102nd Regiment, settler and churchman, "Ganges"1797, married Ann SMITH "Earl Cornwallis" 1801, granted 90 acres at Nepean in the area known as Birds Eye Corner, the second bend of the Nepean River - part of the Hawkesbury system. In 1820 he petitioned for land and received 80 acres which he called "Stoke" after his native place in Staffordshire. Five years later he again applied for another land grant and was rewarded with 284 acres to the east of the 1820 grant of 80 acres. Just prior to his death in 1836 he sold 28 acres of his original land grant to Edward FIELD Snr., his neighbour and father-in-law of his daughter Esther. Some time earlier he had already sold 30 acres to Elizabeth BULLER "Indispensible". His story as the builder of the 1st Methodist Chapel in Australia has already been told. Children: Maria b1802 Sydney,1816 aged 14 years married Charles Molston GORDON, came free per "Experiment", 1804; son of Thomas GORDON, free "E xperiment" and Ann SMITH of Richmond. They sailed for New Zealand on the brig "Active" in 1817 where Charles was superintendent of agriculture at Samuel MARSDEN'S Mission in the Bay of Islands. They remained there for two and a half years. Marie died in childbirth shortly after their return to Australia. Four years later in 1821 Charles married Mary Ann BROWN. Hanna born 1804 Sydney, m John Pitmore COLLITS 1822, son of Pierce Phigginton COLLITS, "Minorca" 1801, and his wife Mary HARDWICK (came free) "Minorca" 1801. Richard b 1805 Castlereagh, m Ann STYLES in 1830 daughter of James STYLES (STILES) "Scarborough 2" 1790, and Mary (?). 2nd marriage to Ann Foley 1824 (?) John b 1807 Castlereagh , m Ann BOLTON in 1830, daughter of Robert BOLTON "Perseus" 1802 and Ann SMITH "Experiment 1" 1804. Mary b1809 Castlereagh,1826 married George NASH, son of William NASH "Barwell"1798 and Maria HAYNES (?)

cannibalism by Maoris, Austalian Natives and others.

2011-12-23T19:39:00.000-08:00

The Maori were the first settlers of New Zealand – arriving many centuries before Europeans. Their culture dates back to the early modern era. They had been known to practice cannibalism during warfare. In October 1809 a European convict ship was attacked by a large group of Maori warriors in revenge for the mistreatment of a chief’s son. The Maori killed most of the 66 people on board and carried dead and alive victims off the boat and back to shore to be eaten. A few lucky survivors who were able to find a hiding spot inside the mast of the boat were horrified as they watched the Maori devour their shipmates through the night until the next morning.

...........................................................................................................

On 20 September 1822 Alexander Pearce and seven comrades escaped from the penal settlement of Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour
in Tasmania's remote south west. Over 100 days later, Alexander Pearce was recaptured in the bush land around Hobart. In custody, Pearce told a grisly tale of how he had survived the crossing the 'uncrossable' interior of the colony by eating his comrades until he was the only survivor! The Reverend Robert Knopwood, in his capacity as magistrate, was amongst the officials who listened to his testimony, before deciding it was obviously an elaborate fabrication, designed to protect his comrades who were now living in the bush around the settlement as bushrangers.

Pearce was accordingly, sent back to Macquarie Harbour. Barely was the year out than Pearce had escaped again, this time with a single prisoner to accompany him--Thomas Cox, a young former farm labourer from Shropshire.

The escape attempt was short-lived however, and before ten days had elapsed Pearce lit a fire to attract the attention of a ship searching for him, and gave himself up. His captors were shocked to find that Pearce was carrying some of the mortal remains of Thomas Cox with him, and he told them that he had killed him and fed on him--even though he still had some of the food he had taken on his escape.

This time Pearce was taken back to Hobart Town and hanged. However that was not the end of his story, because in 1875Marcus Clarke resurrected Pearce as a character--Gabbett--in his novel For The Term of His Natural Life.

Clarke stated openly that most of the incidents in his novel were based on historical fact, and even included a short footnote to the chapter 'The Valley of the Shadow of Death', that stated he would not have introduced so repulsive an incident as this cannibalism of escaped convicts were it not true, as the confession of the convict 'Pierce' had been used as background for the episode. (1)

Alexander Pearce in fact made four recorded confessions, and while Clarke clearly fictionalised his story based on Pearce's narratives, Pearce himself also fictionalised elements of his story, as there are clear differences in the four confessions.

The four confessions, in order they were given are:

1. The Knopwood Confession, made to the Reverend Knopwood, in Hobart, early in 1823 after his first capture. Two transcripts from the missing original manuscript exist, one in the State Library of NSW and the other in the National Library in Canberra, and both are a mix of first person and third person narrative, obviously based on the original confession with added interpretation by the unknown scribe.

2. The Cuthbertson Confession, given to Commandant Cuthbertson on Sarah Island, after his second escape, in 1823. Again the original document is missing, but two slightly different transcripts exist, one in the records of the 1838 Select Committee on Transportation of the House of Commons, and the other in a manuscript in the Mitchell Library in Sydney.

3. The Bisdee Confession, made to his gaoler, Mr. Bisdee, after Pearce's trial in June 1824, which appeared in print in 1825 in a book, Tales of today; or, Modern Facts containing Narratives of the most extraordinary occurrences of recent date.

4. The Conolly Confession, a narrative written by the Catholic Priest, the Reverend Philip Conolly, based on a confession given to him by Pearce the night before he was hanged in Hobart, 18 July 1824.

The confessions all bear the same basic story, but differ from each other in respect of some crucial facts, such as who was the first man killed by the escapees and what was Pearce's role in the killings.

According to the Knopwood confession the man first killed by the escaping convicts was Thomas Bodenham, and it occurred after three other men, Dalton, Brown and Kenelly, had left them to return to the penal settlement. Pearce said that Bodenham "did not appear the least affected" and only asked a few moments to make his peace with his maker before he was slain and eaten.

"Then Greenhill taking the Axe gave the unfortunate Culprit Bodenham a Severe blow on the Head which soon deprived him of his life--then taking his knife began to cut the Body to pieces on the return of the other two who were gathering Wood a fire was immediately kindled & several pieces of the Body placed thereon to Cook which they soon devoured very greedily." (2)

However in the Cuthbertson confession, Pearce stated that Thomas Dalton was the first man killed, and Bodenham was second. He also stated that Robert Greenhill was the one who instigated the killing, and after slaying Dalton, cutting him up and cooking him, "... asked the rest would they have any, but we would not eat any that Night. Next morning the body was Cut up and divided into equal parts which we took and proceeded on our journey a little after Sun rise." (3)

He then told that Kennely and Brown slipped away, after the killing, returning to Macquarie Harbour, where they were to perish soon after from the deprivations of the journey.

In the Bisdee confession, however, Pearce reverts to the story that Dalton ran away with Brown and Kennely before anybody was killed. This is a story he also uses in the final confession to Father Conolly, stating however that the three men fled "on account of Greenhill having already said, that lots must be cast for some one to be put to death, to save the whole from perishing". (4) There is an argument that this is likely to be the most factual confession, being his last chance to seekatonement before death, but it does not adequately explain why he stated Dalton had been killed first in the Cuthbertson confession only.

If Dalton had, in fact, been the first of the men killed, and the graphic detail in the Cuthbertson confession suggests he was, could it be that Pearce was so affected by the horror of the killing that he could not admit to it, even to himself, much as the officials of Hobart refused to believe his story after his first escape?

Alexander Pearce, pencil drawing byThomas Bock.

Also, in the Knopwood and Cuthbertson narratives, Pearce strongly asserts that he was guiltless of complicity in the killings, and often felt his own life at risk, especially from Greenhill and his close mate Travis. The unfortunate Travis (or Travers), however, was bitten by a snake when only he, Greenhill and Pearce remained alive. He states in the Cuthbertson confession: "Travers' foot began to inflame and turn Black, he said it was better for us to go on and leave him there. Greenhill and I went to get a little Wood, he says Pearse it is of no use being detained any longer by Travers, and we will Serve him as the test. I told him I would not have any hand in his Death, when we came back Travers being fatigued of worn out from the pain his foot was in all appearance asleep. Greenhill immediately lifted the Axe and hit him twice on the Head and then Cut his Throat. We stopped two days at this place and then took each of us as much of the Body of Travers as we could carry, and proceeded on our journey ..." (5)

This left, of course, only Greenhill and Pearce--a tense situation which he describes in the Knopwood confession as:

"I should have shared the same fate as the others this piece of Treachery on the part of Greenhill so much affected me that I was determined to embrace the first Opportunity of leaving him but he having possession of the Axe at this time Made me form a resolution of getting possession of the Axe." (6)

And of course there could be only one victor--Pearce slew Greenhill--and as often happens, it is the victor that writes history.

Even in his later two confessions, that cover the second escape with Thomas Cox there are differences in detail. In his confession to the gaoler Bisdee he stated: "I asked Cox if he could swim; he replied he could not: I remarked that had I been aware of it he should not have been my companion: we were unable to make a fire; the arrangement for crossing the river created words and I killed Cox with the axe ... I swam the river with the intention of keeping to the coast round to Port Dalrymple; my heart failed me, and I resolved to return and give myself up to the Commandant." (7)

Yet, in his scaffold confession to Father Conolly, it was described as: "Overcome by famine Pearce determined to take Cox's life, which he effected by the stroke of an axe while Cox was sleeping." (8)

The truth of why Pearce killed Cox has never been fully established. Maybe they fought, as he stated, or maybe he really had developed a taste for human flesh, as has often been conjectured? Pearce's own words, which were used to help convict him were: "No person can tell what he will do when driven by hunger." (9)

Pearce, also known as Pierce or Pearse, has become a little lost in the telling and retelling by historians and popularisers of history. The convict Gabbett portrayed by Marcus Clarke as a " spectacle to shudder at ... so horribly unhuman that one shuddered to think that tender woman and fair children must of necessity confess to fellowship of kind with such a monster." (10) was also a step removed from reality, as death's head portraits of Pearce, undertaken by the convict artist Thomas Brock in 1824, show he was quite mild of countenance. His prison records describe him variously as "a smallpockmarked Irishman" of "insignificant appearance", (11) or "a little, pockmarked, blue-eyed". (12)

Alexander Pearce was not the only convict to escape from Macquarie Harbour, as dozens of attempted escapes were recorded, and he was not the only convict to resort to cannibalism, which also occurred in several other escape attempts. (13) However he is one of the few convicts to have left written confessions of his life, that in their variation perhaps tell us as much about his character as they do in their agreement.

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Cannibalism by Australian Natives.

CANNIBALISM IN AUSTRALIA

There is no doubt that cannibalism existed among them until recent times, and possibly in such dangerous areas as Arnhem Land, in the far north of Northern Territory, may exist to this day. Motives for the eating of human flesh, as elsewhere, are varied, and often closely intertwined. The need for sacrifice; the demands of magic; the desire for revenge; all these are present, as elsewhere; but in the case of the Blackfellows they are perhaps less clearly evolved and crystallized.

Garry Hogg, Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice, p. 179

The eating of human flesh was not practised by the Australian native to the extent that it was by the South Sea Islander. The term ‘cannibalism’ is usually taken to mean gorging on human flesh, and with relish; and that seems a valid description of the cannibalism of the Melanesian indigènes of New Caledonia, who appear to have regarded man-meat much as we regard the Sunday-joint. Not all cannibalism is the same in purpose.
In hard summers, the new-born children were all eaten by the Kaura tribe in the neighbourhood of Adelaide, according to Dr McKinley. In 1933 I was able to talk to old men who had eaten human flesh. The chief of Yam Island described to me how he had eaten finely-chopped man-meat mixed with crocodile-meat, at his initiation. He added that it had made him sick. The purpose, as he put it, was ‘to make heart come strong inside.’
In the Wotjobaluk tribe, a couple who already had a child might kill their new-born and feed its muscle-flesh to the other one to make it strong. The baby was killed ritually, by striking its head against the shoulder of its elder brother or sister.
Human flesh-eating among many tribes was a sign of respect for the dead. At a Dieri burial, relatives received, in strict order of precedence, small portions of the body-fat to eat. ‘We eat him,’ a tribesman said, ‘because we knew him and were fond of him.’ But revenge cannibalism is typified in the custom of the Ngarigo tribe, who ate the flesh of the hands and feet of slain enemies, and accompanied the eating with loud expressions of contempt for the people killed.
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Eating human body parts may be considered taboo, but there are some people who do consume the placenta after giving birth to their baby. Some cultures believe that eating the placenta prevents postpartum depression and other health problems that are associated with childbirth. Most mammals eat their own placenta which helps the mammary cells to eject the milk for the newborn and also helps to clean and shrink the uterus after giving birth. Today, most medical professionals agree that there is no medical reason for well nourished mothers to eat their baby's placenta, but some do believe that it holds the medicinal power, vitamins, minerals and perfectly balanced hormones to help the mother recover from childbirth and avoid the postpartum "baby blues". If you are too squeamish to eat the placenta it can even be dried and encapsulated as a nutritional supplement.