by Kathryn Spurling | Jul 1, 2023 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
If you key the words, ‘Women Pirates’ into the web you will immediately be shown skimpy, supposedly sexy outfits that one can purchase to indulge your own or another’s fantasy. Trying to find the truth in an expunged history takes a little more digging. Maritime...
by Kathryn Spurling | Mar 27, 2023 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
He simply arrived at their airfield, a little shy to begin with but then hunger drove him to bravely enter the accommodation of Australian Flying Corps, 4 Squadron. He was small, his clothes had too many holes to keep out the winter chill and he didn’t speak a word of...
by Kathryn Spurling | Jan 31, 2023 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
Albert ‘Bert’ Adrian Stobart was born on 11 April 1921, in Sandringham, Victoria, to John and Beatrice. Initially hoteliers in the gentle green English countryside, his parents migrated across the world to the strong colours of Australia. The family moved to the...
by Kathryn Spurling | May 31, 2022 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
On the evening of 31 May 1942 allied warships flying the flags of several nations moved gently at their moorings in Sydney Harbour. HMAS Canberra was nestled off Farm Cove close to the iconic bridge. From Canberra’s decks the US heavy cruiser Chicago was visible in...
by Kathryn Spurling | May 12, 2022 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
It was 2000 and I received an assignment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, to write a ‘brief for the Queen’. It certainly would be a good addition to the CV, if indeed I was allowed to cite it as such (alas I wasn’t). The assignment nonetheless sounded...
by Kathryn Spurling | May 1, 2022 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
It came in the post, and it was wonderful, a pretty lace postcard from a terrible war. ‘A Kiss from France’ for a mother. He remembered her birthday but given the irregular mail and distance the card had to journey around the world Sapper Horace Mervyn Herrod (6672)...
by Kathryn Spurling | Apr 30, 2022 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
Victor Charles Friberg was born to Anders and Amelia Friberg of ‘Mootala’, Locksley Road, Ivanhoe, Melbourne, Victoria. The family enjoyed a stable middle-class lifestyle thanks to the furniture manufacturing business Anders had established. Victor entered the family...
by Kathryn Spurling | Apr 24, 2022 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
It was a Midshipmen and Cadet Mess Dinner at the Australian Defence Force Academy in the late 1990s. I was teaching History and Strategic Studies at UNSW at ADFA so was asked to attend as a guest with my husband. These mess dinners were to instruct aspiring Australian...
by Kathryn Spurling | Apr 17, 2022 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
It was in the blood, the military heritage thing. She had been raised on the stories; khaki uniforms had filled her home. Her father was born in Ireland in 1876 with the grand name of Harry Lort Spencer Balfour-Ogilvy. From a very prominent Renmark family he was a...
by Kathryn Spurling | Feb 23, 2022 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
It all started with a rather beaten up discarded painting. It was a brown pen and ink painting of a mine shaft, with the signature W.Carter 1979. No one in the auction paid any interest but history attracts historians. What was more architectural artworks are complex...
by Kathryn Spurling | Feb 10, 2022 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
On 30 December 1911 the Australian Government advertised for ‘two competent mechanics and aviators’ to be appointed to the Department of Defence. One of the requirements was for the applicants to advise if they were married or single perhaps an indication as to the...
by Kathryn Spurling | Feb 7, 2022 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
(25 April 1918–14 April 1993) Joan Streeter was born on 25 April 1918 in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn. She entered the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS) as an Assistant Wran Writer WR625) on 25 January 1943. Following her training at HMAS Cerberus,...
by Kathryn Spurling | Dec 4, 2021 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
Robyn Rosenstruss would visit her grandmother in Balmain, Sydney, where the elderly lady would gesture to the small timber chest of drawers which took pride of place in her home. ‘That’s Jimmy’s Box’ she would say. Robyn the child never knew who ‘Jimmy’ was – she...
by Kathryn Spurling | Sep 28, 2021 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
Oh, these poor men! It is simply heartbreaking. Sister Hilda Knox, June 1915. Hilda Mary Knox was born in the pretty Victorian town of Benalla on 29 December 1884. Positioned on the banks of the Broken River it was a pleasant environment in which to grow up. Her...
by Kathryn Spurling | May 23, 2021 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
The achievements of Lauren Jackson are legendary and now recognized by her inclusion in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, only the second Australian, and first Australian woman to be so honoured. Basketball was pretty much Lauren’s life from when she...
by Kathryn Spurling | Apr 27, 2021 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
How many of us have driven to Melbourne passing through the town of Holbrook? And thought how odd it was to have a couple of submarines landlocked in this tiny place? Well, it is in part due to a War Widow named Gundula Holbrook. Lieutenant Norman Holbrook commanded...
by Kathryn Spurling | Apr 13, 2021 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
ABC Four Corners Interview Mon 13 Jun 2011, 8:00pm Transcript of Interview KERRY O’BRIEN, PRESENTER: A former naval recruit recalls an experience in the Defence Force that she says has marred her life forever. Welcome to Four Corners. Back in 1970 Four Corners...
by Kathryn Spurling | Apr 12, 2021 | Blogs - Kathryn Spurling
Article in the Canberra Times… It’s been all systems go lately for Canberra artist Margaret Hadfield and historian Dr Kathryn Spurling, who are now being dubbed – what else but?- The Artist and The Historian. They are also proving age is no barrier...
