The Donkey Man

The Mirror 14 December 1935, page 25 The Donkey Man – Sun-Tanned Outbacker Who Travelled 19,000Miles Now Cooks for Well-Sinkers on W.A. Station Most Western Australians retain vivid recollections of ‘the man with the donkey’ — the gallant A.I.F. man who with a donkey in the Hades of Gallipoli’s shot and shell conveyed wounded men […]

Seven Brides – the Howie Girls Make History

I was recently contacted by Melissa Atkinson about a photograph I had posted on the Outback Family History Facebook page of the wedding of her great aunt, Edna Howie. She told me that her gorgeous Nana was Beryl Howie, Edna’s sister,  and she told me a wonderful story about how: The Howie girls made matrimonial […]

The Cole Boys – a family story

Sunday Times:  6 June 1920 COLE’S FIND NEAR WILUNA  –    HOW A RETURNED SOLDIER DISCOVERED A GOLDFIELD – By Horace Stirling George Cole, the discoverer of Cole’s Find, 11 miles south of Wiluna, Is a scion of a family of 15, four of whom first saw the light within an interval of eleven months. […]

Cuddingwarra Kate –

Western Mail Perth – 3 March 1906, page 47 CUDDINGWARRA KATE By R. W. Patrick Tho fortnightly-mail coach was due. Jack Crenane, the driver, was generally right up to time, and a big crowd always congregated in front of Corney’s pub just before five o’clock to see it come in. The arrival of the coach […]

The Swagmans Friend –

The Quart-Pot and Billy-Can No utensil is so generally used in the bush as the billy-can; none is more widely distributed, none better known in Australia. It is cheap, light, useful, and a burden to no man. It goes with every traveller, it figures in comedy and tragedy and has been the repository of the […]