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A social history of Australia, not of the famous and heroic, but of the small people, the anonymous people who were the heartbeat of a growing nationWhat did kids do in the 1950s when there were no smartphones, tablets, and computers? They roamed the neighbourhood on scooters and bikes. They went on bush hikes. They went to Saturday matinees where the theatres were packed to the rafters, and kids yelled at hero-action and booed kissing. Most of their pleasures were self-made. Besides roaming the streets free of risk, kids enjoyed trips to the beach and zoo. They took a double-decker bus town to see the Christmas displays. Christmas in the city was a wonderland of toys and amusements. The decade of the 1950s now seems idyllic to many now in their seventies and eighties. It was so different from the first decades of the 21st century that those years now seem like another world, an impossible world of social and moral values. In today's atmosphere, it seems hard to imagine it possessed any legitimate social and moral coherence.The author looks back on those years, telling the story as much about the world he grew up in as about himself. He starts from his birth in July 1946 and goes to the end of his second year at primary school, 1953, when he turned six and learnt to read. It was also the year that Princess Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England, a super-nova event for Australia. The author's story involves his lifelong friend, Pete, a rubella baby, a condition which tragically took his already poor sight in his teenage years. Pete's story, told as an adult without sight, is fascinating. The year 1946 was the year after the Second World War had ended. Despite an optimistic outlook, Australia was full of talk of the war - of the threat of war, of the suffering, of the shocking cruelty of the Japanese army, and of lost loved ones. The author's upbeat father, just discharged from the navy with the rank of Chief Petty Officer, put it all behind him and began building the family's first house in Lane Cove, a suburb on the north side of Sydney Harbour, and the scene of his childhood. Their new three-bedroom, double-brick home was like a palace. For a boy, who according to his mother had ants in his pants, the author remembers much about the social and political events that provoked his father into long and loud comment. He has clear memories of the Korean War, the activities of the communist-controlled unions, Prime Minister Menzies' measures against them, and so much more. The local convent under the regime of the Mercy Sisters is an unmissable part of his story. He recalls with affection the sisters' teaching methods and their strict regimentation of their pupils. He thinks some of their disciplinary methods, now condemned by many, are rather amusing to look back on. He regards that class of 1953 as the end of a phase in his development when he learnt to read. The following year, 1954, was rich in social and political events and will start the fourth book in the family history series, COMMUNISTS, BILLYCARTS AND TWO WHEELERS.

SECOND EDITION Revised 2022A history of colonial Australia, not of the famous and heroic, but of the small people, the anonymous people who were the heartbeat of a growing nationIn this first book of the series, A HISTORY OF A CATHOLIC FAMILY, the author sets out on a journey through Australia's colonial history with his ancestors, who gradually take on flesh and blood from the bone-dry official documents. All his ancestors are from British Isles, all arriving by the 1830s, two on the First Fleet in 1788. Most are from southern England: Wiltshire, Lancashire, Middlesex, Essex, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and Huntingdonshire. Astonishingly, four are from two little villages close by each other in Wiltshire: Semley and Donhead St Mary.A small Irish contingent of two convicts and one free settler come from Dublin, Monaghan, and Donegal. A farming family of four from Aberdeen Scotland, the Burgesses, literate people with a keen sense of decorum, make up the full count. It is surprising how much he finds out about them all-joys, successes, and tragedies. Their lives are anything but dull.James Joseph Wilson, who narrowly escaped the gallows and was surprisingly literate for a man thrice convicted of burglary, arrived in Port Jackson on board the Prince Regent in 1827. The colonial authorities assigned him to Robert Lowe, one of the Colony's early landholders. Lowe sent him to Mudgee in north-western New South Wales to shepherd his flocks. Young 18-year-old hutkeeper James Joseph was one of the first inhabitants in the Mudgee area.He teamed up with fellow convict Michael Jones to look for land. They married sisters Jane and Elizabeth Harris, daughters of free settlers, and travelled further north-west to the Coonamble area, 330 miles from Sydney, to set up their farms. The two freed convicts and the Harris sisters became his great-great-grandparents.There are nine convicts in the direct line of his ancestors. He traces their lives against the social and historical background of colonial Australia, presenting a very different picture from the view usually found in school history books. They all thrive, taking advantage of their second chance. This book is the story of their redemption.Besides offering the reader an interesting, sometimes gripping family story, he reveals the cultural continuities in which his ancestors acted and how they responded to those continuities in a totally different physical environment. He seeks to discover to what extent the outlook, culture and character of his ancestors worked to make his extended family and him what they are. And, finally, perhaps most importantly, he sketches a picture of the way Australia developed as a new people and a new nation. In 1950, most Australians had an ancestry like his.This first book is a history of colonial Australia, not of the famous and heroic, but of the small people, the anonymous people who were the heartbeat of a growing nation-people like his ancestors.Since the publication of Prison Hulk to Redemption in 2016, the author has made many adjustments and additions, besides rewriting passages that could have been clearer. In preparing this second edition, besides thoroughly revising the text, the author stresses the social and cultural continuities to bring out his ideas on what it means to be a people and a nation.