Topic: Step. Scottish Country Dancing has three main categories – reels, jigs and strathspeys. “A typical Scottish Country Dance consists of a series of formations that are arranged in a different sequence for each dance, hence, having mastered the basic steps and some of the formations, a Scottish Country Dancer should be able to participate… Read more

Topic: School days My Great Grandfather Francis (Frank) Darchy and most of his nine siblings were born on remote pastoral properties in early outback NSW in the 1850s. Initially they were educated by a private tutor and/or governess, but eventually all seven boys were sent one by one to a prestigious boys’ school in Melbourne,… Read more

Topic: Favourite Recipe I DID have a favourite recipe – “Del’s Banana Cake’ – which I obtained from one of my mothers’ friends when I was about 12. I carefully copied it into my mother’s recipe book. I loved messing around in the kitchen even then. But time rolls on, and the huge amount of… Read more

Topic: Worship. My Great Grand Uncle John Johnston (1831-1909), born in Glasgow, was the 6th son of a shoemaker. His brothers followed various other occupations including tailor, carver and gilder, gas fitter and carpenter. Initially a warehouseman, John married Benjamina “Jessie” Leckie in Glasgow when he was 24, according to the forms of the United… Read more

Topic: Technology. My Paternal Grandfather Alex Johnston, writing under the pen name Spartacus Smith, was a journalist with the ‘Sydney Mail’, a weekly magazine in Sydney, Australia in the twenties. Here is what he wrote about ‘The Magic Disc’ on 24 February 1926: “Of all the inventions given a wondering world there is none more… Read more

Topic: Achievement My Paternal Great Grandfather Frederick Wentworth Wade (1838-1912) was the first of his family to settle in New Zealand, and the first and as far as is known only person in the family to profess Law. His father Robert Wentworth Wade (abt 1795-1870) was a schoolmaster in Dublin. As the fifth of nine… Read more