Topic: Taking Care of Business. My GG Uncle Charles Johnston 1854-1933 was born in Airth, Stirlingshire. He was just two years old when he emigrated to Tasmania with his parents on the ‘Storm Cloud’. He grew up in Launceston, Tasmania but must have moved to Sydney about six years before marrying Charlotte Jane Newsom, daughter… Read more

Topic for Week 18: Love and Marriage. Topic for Week 19: Preserve. I have now missed two deadlines, but looking back I did cover the Week 18 topic last year in Week 34, writing about English schoolteachers Syd Attrill from Plumstead, Kent and Flo Brown, a miner’s daughter from Wingate, County Durham. The Week 19… Read more

Topic: War. My Great Great Grand Uncle John Lyle, eldest son of Scottish weaver and/or farmer Robert Lyle (1768-1793) and Mary Cochrane (1765-1797) was born in Paisley on Feb 24 1789. He was to die of yellow fever in Uppark Military Camp, Jamaica on June 16, 1822, aged 33 and at that time a Colour… Read more

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