Sharon Greenaway

Writing Competition opportuntiy…

Affordable Manuscript Assessments and Workshops is running a writing contest open to anyone attending an Australian school. We have some generous sponsors donating book prizes suitable for various age groups. If you know anyone who would be interested in entering, could you please let them know?

There is no entry fee

Age will be taken into account

There are three pictorial prompts … entrants may pick which one to use

Entry is by email

Open now

Closes June 30th

Details at http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com/contest.htm

Sally Odgers for –

http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com

for manuscript assessment you can afford.

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for affordable workshops

Local and Inspiring Birthday Treat.

Local and Inspiring Birthday Idea.
‘What do you want for your birthday?’ Was the question asked (as usual) by my family coming up to the ‘important occasion.’

As usual I couldn’t think of anything to suggest. Sure more camera gear would be good, (for a keen photographer there is always something we’d like) but then it wouldn’t be something the family had chosen for me, a nice surprise, as I would have to choose it to make sure it was compatible, what I needed etc etc…okay I’m fussy!
In the end my response was ‘Surprise me!’ And so when the day came hubby did just that and instead of ‘thing’, he opted for an ‘experience to be had.’ He surprised me with the announcement that he had booked in a flight over the Lake Eppalock and Bendigo area. It was a great idea and a natural progress to our exploration of this area, started in earnest in 2005, but also dabbled with in 2003.
After a couple of date changes due to bad weather, Bill, our son and I (there was no room for our daughter and so she opted to miss out) met up with our pilot, Guy, at the Bendigo Airport on a slightly overcast Saturday afternoon.
The light plane we were to fly in was a 4 person Cessna 127. It is a small plane and I had not realised just how small until I tried to fit my medium camera bag into the front area- there was no room for it, and if I put it on the floor it might knock one of the pedals which control the plane – not a good idea explained the pilot. So the boys in the back kindly took it for me. I was glad that I had already chosen a short telephoto lens (a 17 to 70- mm zoom), ‘cos I would not have any room to fiddle around changing camera gear.
So, strapped in, I felt a little nervous when the pilot turned the key and the plane, reminiscent of an older car, didn’t turn over on the first try, but on the second. Taking off wasn’t as rocky as I expected and once we were in the air, the flight became quite enjoyable. As we reached Lake Eppalock, Guy instructed that I could now open the side window in order to shoot through. The powerful wind rush was amazing, but the ability to photograph without any distortion from the Perspex was worth it (although I did have a wind-created headache afterwards.)
The view of Lake Eppalock, full to the brim for the first time in years, was stunning. Yachts speckled the water in front of the Bendigo Yacht club, blue green algae formed stunning albeit hazardous patterns in the water, the surrounding countryside peppered with several shades of green and brown, and the water pouring over the spillway looked spectacular even from the height where we were was all lovely to see.
We did a couple of circuits of the lake and then I asked Guy to take us into Bendigo, where the most standout building would have to be the Sacred Heart Cathedral, although the new Lotus flower at the Chinese Museum came a close second.
The return flight highlighted just how much Bendigo is surrounded by eucalyptus forest.
The experience was well worth it and was a wonderful birthday present.

Tips you should know:

When booking, decide if photography is all important, because you will need to book a Cessna which has its wing above where you will see and where you can open a window. If you book a larger plane, the wing is below you and the only way to get good pics is to get the plane to roll onto its side (not my idea of fun), plus you will be shooting through a closed window. The downside of the Cessna is its small size and limited passenger capacity.
Have your camera ready to shoot: there isn’t time or room to change lenses. Ensure your camera batteries are full and your memory card has lots of room.
Cost: not sure what it was as it was a present, but it is not a cheap exercise and you pay for how long you are in the air.
Plan where you want to go and have a map with you. Our pilot was a little uncertain as to where certain roads were for example as we wanted to see our home and he was not certain where our road was. Up in the plane it was easy for us to lose our sense of direction without our own map on board.
Don’t forget to take the camera away from your eye every now and then and simply enjoy the whole experience!
Bendigo Aviation Service can be contacted on 5443 1030 or admin@bendigoaviation.com.au

Cornish Miners’ Women

The Cornish Miner’s Women by Sharon Greenaway.

Having just celebrated International Women’s Day last Tuesday I thought it an appropriate time to share with you this story.

In the library gardens on the Lyttleton Terrace side there is a magnificent bronze statue of a miner, mallet in hand, on the verge of driving a large metal stake into a massive piece of granite which as the dedication signs states is to pay tribute to “…all the underground miners of the Bendigo and District who created the economy from which grew a beautiful city…Cornishmen and their descendants formed the majority of these miners.”

I have passed by this statue many times since living in Bendigo and never really stopped to look at it in great detail. This all stopped after I met the artist Ruth Lyon recently when she was in town to launch an art exhibition (see http://www.ourpatch.com.au/bendigo/users/stlg48/blogs/3054-sadness-of-geography )

Bendigo born sculptor, designer and educator, Ms Lyon, was asked in 1993 by the Cornish community of Bendigo to create a monument dedicated to the Cornish community. “At least 50 percent of the [Cornish miners] died in the process either through injury or respiratory related injuries or infections,” said Ms Lyon. “I said I would take on the project if we could represent the women because the women that were left were unskilled largely and they often had hoards of children to look after. And so there is a panel on that particular base dedicated to what women did to survive the goldfields.

Ruth Lyon on the left at the recent Sadness of Geography opening.

“…Another Ruth, Ruth Ellis, a local historian… wrote a book called ‘What next cousin Jack?’” explained Ms Lyon. “[In the book there is a story] that really struck me… It was about this woman who was left abandoned to look after several children… [she] got this job cleaning the windows of one of the local primary schools. So they [the children] used to carry her on their backs, lift her up to the windows, and so she would clean the windows with them all underneath her…[Also] I do believe down here in High Street there was a red light district where a lot of the women had to resort to peddling their wares to earn enough money to survive and feed their families.”
Other ways the women of the times earned money was from butter churned from goat’s milk. Breeding geese and ducks were also another way of making a living and are featured “running around everywhere” on the monument.

On the monument Ms Lyon has also shown mining collapses and the history of the Old Bendigo Post office, which started off as a tent and ended as a grand Neoclassical Gothic style building. This beautiful building is now the Visitors Information Centre for Bendigo see: http://www.ourpatch.com.au/bendigo/users/stlg48/blogs/2915-old-bendigo-post-office-gallery

The immense detail and the richness of the story, both of the Cornish miners and the Cornish women who played such an important role in the development of Bendigo, is to be commended and worth another detailed look by locals and visitors alike.