Quick Update

I showed you a new zigzag book I'm making at the beginning of the month.  Here's a quick update on how it's going.

I continued the dotted line across the whole book but once the Posca ink had dried I didn't like it.

So I went back over the dots with a white Posca.  I wrote the words of the chorus of 'We Are Australian' in a thick white Posca and added black dots.

I added some more stencilling.  I also knocked back the copper texture paint with acrylic to soften it.

 However the words looked like Dalmations trotting across the page so I went back over the words with the original white Posca pen.

I don't know whether this side is finished.  I have the other side to do and may or may not come back to this side.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Australian Connections

If you read my post on Fremantle & Perth you may remember I wrote about an exhibition we saw in the museum in Perth.   It got me thinking about my connection to Australia. Not only the fact that my son and his family live there, but that my father was born there. It has set me off on some interesting research.

I'm not interested in family trees but did get a bit involved in some ancestry sites just to find out about my grandparents.  I was wondering why and how they got to Australia and why they settled in Bulimba, a suburb of Brisbane.  It turned out to be fascinating.

It turns out that my grandfather joined the King's Rifles Corp in 1907 possibly as a groom.  He served in Malta and was invalided out in 1909.  I haven't been able to find out why.  In the meantime my grandmother is described as a chocolate packer - presumably at Cadbury's.  I don't know how they met as I know my grandmother was Catholic and the military papers describe my grandfather as Wesleyan.

I knew that they had been given free passage to Australia but didn't know how.  The £10 Poms were after World War 2.  It turns out that after the First World War, there was an Act of Parliament which gave free passage to ex-Servicemen.

I found the passenger lists with my grandparents and my aunt's names.  They sailed on the SS Sophocles to Brisbane in 1923.  It took over 7 weeks.  The papers I was sent from the Queensland State Archives said that my grandmother's brother already lived in Bulimba and had agreed to nominate my grandfather and help him find a job.  So that's why they went to Bulimba.

My father was born in 1924 and his brother a couple of years later.

 

 

I also found out that my great-uncle died in 1926 which might have been an extra reason why the family came back to England in 1931.  I always knoew that my grandmother hadn't liked the heat and was homesick.

They came back on the SS Hobson Bay, landing in Hull.  This photo shows the ship in dock in Adelaide.  I think the little boy hanging over the rail in the middle is my Dad, although it could be his brother!

Currently I am putting together a sketchbook - although it might be better called a scrapbook at this point in time.

I bought some mylar and some SVG stencil files of Australian plants, which my friend Joane kindly cut for me.

I am rather hoping that at some point all this will lead to a textile piece.  However I haven't really found my way into that yet.  I'm going to finish putting all the information I've found together in the book.  Then start on a page about my son.

After that, I shall wait and see.  Hopefully inspiration will strike.  And if it doesn't I'll have a family scrapbook.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

I'm back!

Normal service is resumed.  The 21 word challenge is almost over and I'm back from my travels.

I've been to Australia and I will be sharing photos of our visit over the next few posts but not necessarily in the order they were taken.  I know many of you enjoy seeing the places I've visited.

We were visiting our son, daughter-in-law and 3 grandchildren.  One of the things that Andy arranged for us was a visit to the New South Wales Rail Museum.  I love steam railways and we got to ride on a steam train!

This was a great thing to do on a very rainy day.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Saturday Story

 Last Saturday I talked about storytelling.  So here I am with the first Saturday Story.

A for Australia.  Not K for Koala

I am very aware that I live a highly privileged life.  For most people a trip to somewhere 11,000+ miles away would be a once in a lifetime trip.  We have visited six times between 2006 and 2020.

Some of you may know that my son went to Sydney in 2006 to study at Hillsong College.  He met his wife there who was also a college student.  She comes from Florida but they are both Australian citizens now.  

To be honest Australia wasn't on our list of places in the world to visit.  However we have enjoyed every trip we have made.  We have visited Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Tasmania, Ingham, the WhitSunday islands and various bits of countryside around these towns and cities.   Having three grandchildren in Sydney is a considerable draw to visiting again.  2022 perhaps?  I don't think travel will be available in 2021.

But my connection with Australia goes way back before 2006.

My father's parents went from Birmingham (UK) to live in Brisbane in the early 1920s - I'm not sure exactly when.  My Dad was born there in 1924.  He came to England when he was 7.  My mother and I used to tease him about being born in the street.  For Place of Birth on his birth certificate it said High Street, Bulimba.  We imagined Grandma walking down the street, crouching down and giving birth!

Anyway, in 2008 we took my Dad to Australia.  He had never been on a plane.  When he came from Australia it was on a ship, and the journey took 6 weeks. Once he arrived in the UK he never went outside of the country again.  He didn't get a passport until 2008.

So his first ever trip abroad was London to Singapore, Singapore to Melbourne, Melbourne to Brisbane, Brisbane to Sydney, Sydney to Singapore and lastly Singapore to London.  It took him several months to recover!  Not surprsing since he was 84.

In Brisbane we went to find the High Street in Bulimba.  We took the ferry down the Brisbane River.  The road is now called Oxford Street.

He could remember where the house was that he had lived in and we found it.  I doubt it looked like this in the 1920s.

We went back to Oxford Street and sat outside a cafe.  Dad suddenly said: There used to be a cinema here somewhere!  We looked up and it turned out we were sitting outside the building that had been the cinema.

A is also for Administrator.  I worked as the church administrator for 12 years.

And after administration there is art - both in life and in the dictionary.  (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

According to my grammar school I was no good at art.  Well in terms of fine art, they were right and they would still be right.  But I think art is anything creative involving a variety of media.  However when it came to choosing what GCSE subjects I was to take, I wasn't allowed to take art.  I wasn't allowed to take Physics or Chemistry either.  So I ended up doing Cookery and Needlework.  And many of you will know what I think of cooking these days!

In the Sixth Form, because I wasn't allowed to do 3 'A' levels (I only did two), I had too many free lessons so I was made to do General Art.  The only valuable thing I learned in those lessons was a form of calligraphy.  And if I remember rightly I was kept in Detention to really master the art!!!

Of course the biggest A in my life is my son Andy.  His name is Andrew you understand.  We kept to calling him Andrew right up until he was about 15 when all the teachers at his school parents' evening called him Andy, so we gave in.  My parents never did!  Even for his wedding vows he said 'I, Andy ...'  Harrumph!

That's all for now! 

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice