Saturday 11 October 2014

Apropos of time standing still

One of the venues for SAG, the Society of Australian Genealogists, is in Lower Kent Street. I catch the 207 bus from the end of my street, which gets me to York Street outside Wynyard Station. From there I hoof it (avec cane!) through a maze of underground passages and cycle paths (bless Clover Moore's little cotton socks!) over to Kent Street. I have not yet been able to walk past "Cava", without a coffee and croissant, warm but otherwise plain.

Today's course was "Researching and Understanding the Convict Sytem in NSW". Which was quite ironic, as whilst sipping my coffee, I was in The Rocks, where the convicts were tossed in those first turbulent days of the colony.

5 comments:

Joan Elizabeth said...

I am reading The Fatal Shore at the moment. The first 100 pages done several hundred left to go. It is a good read on convict history.

Julie said...

It was mentioned by our speaker on Saturday, not totally in praise. He thought it relied too much on the stereotypes which have grown up, rather than going into the details of the individual convict. I have not read it, but it is on my list (now), just for the convict section. Our speaker was from the Paterson Historical Society and gained his PhD by gathering individual details to flesh out the lives of the 141 convicts on John Eales' "Tocal" Estate in the Hunter Valley.

Joan Elizabeth said...

How can one book be everything. It is 600 well written and researched pages. Leave it to the Dr to write another interesting tome on the individuals if he can.

Julie said...

He has written one and I bought it on Saturday. I am also reading his thesis. Shall compare them all when I have finished.

diane b said...

Glad to see that you are still getting around old Sydney town. Hope you didn't get any storm damage.