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Everyone knows Mrs Danvers as a byword for menace in Hitchcock's Rebecca and as a poster girl for lesbians in the movies. But only dedicated fans know her brilliant creator.

 

This book tells Judith Anderson's life story for the first time. It recovers her career as one of the great stars of stage and television and an important character actress in film. Born in Adelaide, Australia, in 1897, brought up by a determined single mother, she parlayed her rich, velvety voice and ability to give reality to strong emotional roles into stardom on Broadway in the 1920s. Not a conventional beauty, she was alluring, with her beautiful body, perfect dress sense, and striking, volatile personality. After playing glamorous roles, she was recognised as a Leading Lady of the American Stage under the direction of Guthrie McClintic in Hamlet and co-starring with Laurence Olivier and Maurice Evans in Macbeth. Her reputation as a great actress was confirmed by her landmark performance in 1947 in the ancient Greek Medea, adapted for her by her friend, poet Robinson Jeffers. In a long career, she appeared in Medea again in 1982 at the age of 85, playing the Nurse to fellow-Australian Zoe Caldwell's Medea.

 

Ambitious and driven, Anderson toured extensively, made numerous highly praised appearances on television, and, after her unforgettable role as Mrs Danvers, was a sought-after character actress in film, playing her last role as Vulcan High Priestess in Star Trek III at the age of 87. She won many awards and was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1960 and Companion of the Order of Australia just before her death in 1992. She had a stormy private life and two short marriages, which, she remarked, were 'much too long.'

This book sees Ted Egan begin with 'Kulilkatima ... Try to understand, this land Australia ...' and then proceed to give us his understanding and experience to point a path forward for the nation. He ranges from teaching ethics in schools to future urban car-parking systems, and he has hopes for a special place for the First Australians in his tomorrow, throwing a flag and a national anthem into our luggage for the journey.

Neddy Smith's life story, smuggled out of Long Bay prison, created a sensation on publication. He wrote that:

- Detective Sergeant Roger Rogerson and other NSW police gave him a rare 'green light' to rob, bash, deal drugs, whatever... without fear of arrest.

- He robbed payrolls, dealt heroin and took full advantage

- He was the star witness at ICAC hearings into police corruption that changed policing in NSW

And he wrote it like he was telling it in a pub - immediate, compelling, straight from the shoulder.

This is the book that inspired the TV drama, Blue Murder

BORN TO RIDE, THE ONES INSIDE

 

Some 'one percenters' have committed criminal acts, 100% crimes. Hells Angel Chris Hudson, stewing in steroid, booze and ice juices, was, in his girlfriend-victim's words, 'completely out of his mind, insane, just completely gone' when his handgun came out, after his fist and boot went in.

 

A lot of crimes were committed on Father's Day 1984, one of the saddest days for outlaws, when Bandido met Comanchero in the car park of the Viking Tavern.

 

What did happen when the Bandidos prez KK - Chaos was another name - was gunned down by two Rebels in the basement of the Blackmarket Café, under the Hellfire S&M club?

 

A sniper in the desert near Kalgoorlie and a Gypsy Joker bomb team in Perth are not two stories, they're one bloody unfinished revenge story.

 

Melbourne Hells Angels Roger, Peter, Ray and Terence - the Greenslopes Angels - took the amphetamine group of drugs from petty contraband into the black mass market. And changed Australia.

Ted Egan was born in Melbourne and spent his first sixteen years there, described in his The Paperboy's War.

Since 1949 he has lived and worked in the Northern Territory, now based in Alice Springs, performing, writing, singing and recording his own songs, and collecting those of others.

He speaks two Aboriginal languages, and often lectures on Aboriginal language and issues. He is an inaugural Life Member of the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame. In 1991 he was awarded the Order of Australia for 'services to the Aboriginal People, and for an ongoing and significant contribution to Australia's literary heritage through song and verse'. He was at one time a member of the Prime Minister's National Reconciliation Council.

Author of numerous books, his last was Justice All Their Own, an account of the clash of cultures when Aboriginals speared a group of Japanese fishermen and a white policeman to death in the early 1930s.

Ted Egan, 17, was going to stop over en route to Brazil, but he still lives in the Territory.

Sitdown Up North scatters our pre-conceptions of what Territorians are like. Egan's palette goes beyond red ochre and sky blue. There are nut-brown metho-drinking scholars, a white man whose first language is Cantonese, a dusky mother who pursued her 'stolen children' and an ebony-coloured son patiently decorating his revered father's bones in rainbows of intricate design, for starters. A love of song tuned his ear superbly to the vagaries of Territorians' speech.

There's the ABC we expect of any good Outback yarn Adventure, Brawls and Close-shaves. But more than that ...

The author's work gave him a rare, privileged position from which to watch change coming over the land. His acquaintanceship has been extraordinarily wide and diverse: bums and bureaucrats, elders and activists, publicians and politicians, stockmen and nurses, all hues, young 'uns and flourbags, Lingari, Coombs, Roberts, Whitlam. Good listener, insatiably curious, historian, Ted Egan knows his Territory. Where the record isn't pretty, he doesn't flinch. Commitment to a fair go, quick sympathies for the oppressed, honest recall of youth and his love of the place and all its people make Sitdown ... moving autobiography, refreshing history and an exotic tour of one of the world's least understood places.

 

'A bloody good yarn ... a rambunctious, insightful and compelling account of Territory frontier life' - Tim Bowden

' ... lucky enough to witness the Territory during one of its most interesting stages. He happened to be in the right place at the right time in some cases the wrong time.' - Les Hiddens

Kathleen Folbigg was found guilty of killing her four children by opinions – medical, literary and her estranged husband’s opinion - nearly 20 years ago. There never was hard evidence of homicide in the infants’ deaths. This book traces her life story, the rise and fall of a medical mania that saw so-called ‘smother mothers’ imprisoned and then released as sound science replaced pseudo-scientific nonsense, and how her diaries were mis-read. The way the case against her was pursued will chill the blood of anyone who has ever gone out, fallen in love and considered having children, as that is all this woman did to get sentenced to 40 years. It explains in the language of the lay person why the finest minds in Australian science by the score joined in a petition - just let her out, fix your criminal justice system later – in a move without precedent anywhere. The scientific story is exciting, inspirational and a wake-up call. That Ms Folbigg is still behind bars today is a tale of pig-headedness, scientific illiteracy, poor judgement and perhaps implicit bias. Whatever, a good scrub won’t fix it; some reconstruction is needed. The strong woman at the core of this story has good friends and a legal team whose perseverance will replenish readers’ sense of what can be done. Among the expert witnesses are men and women whose commitment to the truth inspires. Their genetic and medical evidence is here made simple, digestible and compelling. The book lists some ideas for overdue legal reforms.

This book reconstructs the story of Roy Coupland Winn 1890-1963, Australia's first fulltime practising psychoanalyst, of whom it was said that he was 'dedicated to the continual inner search to understand himself and others'.

 

From a background of privilege, he volunteered in 1915 and cut his teeth as a military medic on Gallipoli. On the Western Front he gained a Military Cross, lost his foot and was left wondering if he wasn't losing his mind too. In recuperation, he first encountered psychoanalysis - as a patient. He also wrote Men May Rise, a novel he said was 'rather more biographical than customary'. The author has provided a superb chart of her grandfather's war and early post-war years from it, showing how he had already embarked on the inner search.

 

Back in Sydney, the new psychoanalysis was widely mistrusted in medical circles, but he lived his own life, professional and private, according to his own code, 'seemingly unswayed by the prevailing moral climate or conventional social niceties'. Witty, self-mocking, insightful and inventive, the kindness and tolerance others saw in him is perhaps best expressed in these lines he once wrote:

This book reconstructs the story of Roy Coupland Winn 1890-1963, Australia's first fulltime practising psychoanalyst, of whom it was said that he was 'dedicated to the continual inner search to understand himself and others'.

 

From a background of privilege, he volunteered in 1915 and cut his teeth as a military medic on Gallipoli. On the Western Front he gained a Military Cross, lost his foot and was left wondering if he wasn't losing his mind too. In recuperation, he first encountered psychoanalysis - as a patient. He also wrote Men May Rise, a novel he said was 'rather more biographical than customary'. The author has provided a superb chart of her grandfather's war and early post-war years from it, showing how he had already embarked on the inner search.

 

Back in Sydney, the new psychoanalysis was widely mistrusted in medical circles, but he lived his own life, professional and private, according to his own code, 'seemingly unswayed by the prevailing moral climate or conventional social niceties'. Witty, self-mocking, insightful and inventive, the kindness and tolerance others saw in him is perhaps best expressed in these lines he once wrote:

The most controversial cop in Australian history, in his own words.

Roger Rogerson hasn't been a police officer for more than 20 years. Yet his name makes him, the most well-known 'detective-sergeant' in Australia.

He has been the subject of articles, appearances, profiles and books; portrayed in TV dramas; and recorded by covert listening devices at home for months.

Rogerson took up his own pen in prison. Out, he walked the club and pub speaking circuit, where he found a ready audience for his tales of law and mayhem. He now writes for newspapers.

Here, he tells us of:

- high profile investigations;

- forgotten ones, like when a key from Tassie opened a Sydney murderer's door;

- some of the most interesting dead people he's ever met;

- the hunt for desperados on a deadly robbing spree;

- the bloody night that earned him the award for courageous action;

- meeting a prominent toe cutter;

- besieging the comic Wally and the dangerous Green Man;

- the dogs in a prison he sojourned in;

- bad days in a flattened railcarriage at Granville...

and more...

These untold tales are the ones everyone else has glossed over or ignored, from the horse's mouth, for the first time.

So begins the Ted Egan story. Old Phelan presented Ted's mother with a bill:

TO WINDOW BROKEN BY TEDDY EGAN

£5 5s 0d.

Ted was going to have to find the money.

He got it as a paperboy, shouting 'Herooda paper!' on street corners. Jumping on and off the No. 20 tram rattling out of the city of Melbourne into Coburg. Ducking back to the newsagency to get a Women's Weekly for a woman in the Ladies' lounge of Brown's Hotel.

In The Paperboy's War the well-known outback folklorist, singer, songwriter, historian, and television presenter recalls his early days, his priestly vocation, the warmth of family life, the agony of puberty, and Melbourne in the 1940s.

A great and terrible war raged, but here we see it from a unique perspective: the paperboy.

At home the Yanks were taking over leafy Parkville, the dance floors and the women's hearts. Even - black Yanks!

Nights at home would be spent tracing the exploits of brave Timoshenko at Stalingrad, speculating on how 'people who live in paper houses' like the Japanese couldn't cause too much trouble, and gaining an encyclopedic knowledge of divisional shoulder patches, enemy aircraft silhouettes and the classes of warships. Ted Egan rekindles the pride Australians felt for 'the Rats' at Tobruk and those who slugged it out on the Kokoda Trail.

But life and dreams go on, war or no war. Every schoolday the excruciatingly beautiful Norma would hop on the tram at The Grove. Br. 'Slick' Edwards at the Christian Brothers would read Man Shy and there arouse a love of words. The return of cousin Frank, the bronzed Anzac from the Middle East, provided a role model. Aunt Mary's tales of the Murchison Goldfields stirred a wish to travel.

And there was cousin Bill, who had run away to sea at 15, travelled the world and experienced the war at close quarters. He came back wearing Italian suits and gave the young Ted an idea. He too would be a sailor. Ted would leave Melbourne and go to Brazil, via Darwin.

Ted Egan was born in Melbourne and spent the first sixteen years of his life there, the years covered by this book, the first of three telling of his life.

He intended to drop in on the Northern Territorians for a month before going off to become a gaucho in South America, but ended up staying in the Territory for more than 40 years.

Ted Egan studied under lamplight in the outback, gaining a BA from ANU. He is working on a post-graduate historical account of the clash between Aboriginal and western culture when a group of Japanese fishermen and a white policeman were speared to death in 1932. He learned two Aboriginal languages and has taught Aboriginal Studies at Alice Springs High School.

He performs, writes, sings and records his own songs, and collects and records others. He is a television presenter and writer.

He is a member of the Prime Minister's Reconciliation Council.

Awarded the Order of Australia (AM) in 1993 for 'services to the Aboriginal community and contribution to the literary heritage of Australia through song and verse', he lives and works in Alice Springs.

[Lt Col Edward D (Moke) Murray]… an outstanding officer in the Indian Army and became a Gurkha commander in Malaya. In 1939 he fired the crucial shot that dispersed a strike that threatened the Raj. He became an outstanding leader in the fight against the Japanese in Assam and Burma. He suppressed the Viet Minh in Saigon in 1945, in what can be seen as the start of the Vietnam War. He was Allied Land Commander in Cambodia and supervised the surrender of the Japanese there. In 1953 he was cheered by millions along the eight-kilometre route of Elizabeth II’s coronation parade as he marched at the head of the hugely popular Gurkha contingent. But when he died not a single obituary of him appeared, apart from a short notice in the Gurkha gazette.
From Anthony Barnett’s Introduction

What sort of man was ‘Moke’ Murray, this forgotten Achilles of the dying British Empire? He served his King in wars from Waziristan to Burma and helped to shape the future of Indochina. But, as this touching and fascinating biography recounts, he ended his life in lonely poverty as the Empire itself dissolved and fell out of memory.
Neal Ascherson, novelist, reporter and historian

'There is a history with this gentleman of, shall we say, a reluctance to stay in custody.' - Detective Inspector Aldo Lorenzutta

On a sunny Thursday morning, in a helicopter near Silverwater Prison Complex, a woman pulled a gun from a shopping bag and said 'This is a hijack.'

The pilot, options running out, dropped into the prison and lifted John Reginald Killick, armed robber and escapee, to freedom.

This book charts the pathway to that extraordinary act, and its devastating consequenced for those charged. It unfolded in prison visits, correspondence, police stations, pubs and cafes, parks, private homes, courtrooms, libraries and legal offices for the most part. The author's journey has been a revelation to him. Much of what he found was grim by any standard. Hideous things.

But he also found there was a lot of love and friendship abroad in the world as well. Heaps.

The spread of crystal methamphetamine use sees more and more families face a horrifying reality - their child or spouse or parent is an addict. Their world is a hell where Ice rules and it is far from OK.

Ice took families, society and the drug-addiction treatment sector by surprise. Young users often bypassed alcohol, 'soft' and party drug use, so the first mind-altering substance they try is ice, the world's strongest stimulant. A new kind of mature addict emerged, a drug-using individual who seemed to manage to navigate life normally before, and then suddenly abandoned everything. People become withered, psychotic, mumbling ghosts. The speed of their journey broke all previous records. Their unmanageability became legendary.

The core of this book is not the drug, but the people: the addict who desperately needs help, and the people around the addict who need clear and practical information about the solution. With the right treatment, addicts do recover.