History Revisited - Armidale aspired to become 'Cambridge of Australia'

"HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY": Jim Belshaw says that the Creeklands' area contributes to the harmony of Armidale

The opening of the Malpas dam in 1968 was important to the greening of Armidale because it removed water constraints. However, other forces were at play as well.

By 1963, Armidale was in the midst of a building boom that would continue for almost twenty years. By 1974, NSW Government population projections suggested that Armidale’s population would pass that of Tamworth, reaching 40,000 people by the year 2000. Few realised just how vulnerable Armidale had become to downturn because of its now overwhelming dependence on a single industry.

In October 1959, the Hon Lionel Brett, a representative of the British Council and a leading town planner, commented during a visit to that “Armidale appeared as a city which could be greatly improved”. Earlier, in August of that year, J H Shaw from the University of NSW had said that with proper planning, Armidale could become the Cambridge of Australia.

These two ideas of civic improvement and of Armidale as a unique education centre were conjoined and could conflict. Civic improvement included modernization and development, while life style was central to the university city concept. 

In retrospect, the Arboretum debate in the first part of the sixties was something of a turning point. Worried about the rate base relative to servicing costs, Council was split between the subdivision of the open space around the lookout or the open space on South Hill that was the site of the proposed Arboretum. 

A resumed proposal to rezone the Arboretum land for residential purposes again led to protests from a variety of civic groups. For the first time, aldermen found themselves greeted by demonstrators with placards. It was a friendly affair, and in the end the land was maintained for public purposes. The Arboretum itself would not officially open until 1988, but the practical effect was to save open space in the north and south of the city.

In 1966 as part of the continuing interest in beautification, recreation and civic improvement, a recreation and playing fields advisory committee was formed following a public meeting.

There was rapid progress. In Armidale in 1968, there were twelve hectares of recreational land. Ten years later there were 26 hectares, with a further 7 hectares nearing completion plus another 8 hectares allocated for equestrian clubs. A further 59 hectares had been allocated for future open space.

The Creeklands were now emerging as a central unified east-west meander, adding to the harmony of the central city in its valley.

Growth in pupil numbers meant expansion in schools as well as in student numbers, leading to new schools and not always appealing new building. Visually, the sympathetic extensions at TAS were especially important in helping anchor Brown Street, while also starting to create a new eastern visual strip from the Police Paddock to the Creeklands.

The transformation period that we are talking about (1963-83) also saw the beginning of the museum precinct in Kentucky Street with the opening of NERAM in 1983, as well as the revitalisation of Beardy Street.

One can argue about Beardy Street, but that’s a different story. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 10 February 2016. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016.

History Revisited - Armidale's blooming colour palette

ADDING TO THE GREENERY: Jim Belshaw discusses the colours usually associated with the city and how they have evolved over time

In 1963, the Armidale palette was heavily white, green and red. White for the weatherboard houses, red and green for the galvanized iron roofs, patches of green for the parks and established gardens. There were other colours, but from the air white, red and green seemed to dominate.

Twenty years later, the colours had greatly changed, become more varied. Part of this was due to the new “heritage” paints. I have put heritage in inverted commas because, at least so far as Armidale was concerned, they were not really heritage at all. But they were attractive, transforming apparently ugly ducking weatherboard into visually appealing houses.

Of more importance was the spread of greenery with its pronounced splashes of autumn and spring colour. Armidale now seemed to nestle among its trees and parks, creating both visual unity and variation. It all seemed to happen very quickly.

The reality was a little different, for the apparently sudden transformation had deep roots.

Armidale had always had great civic pride. Building on earlier work by groups such as the Armidale Horticultural Society which had been involved (among other things) in attempts to create an arboretum in East Armidale to help beautify the city, an Armidale Improvement and Beautification Committee was formed in the 1940s. Between 1948 and 1964, 1500 trees were planted in Armidale streets on the recommendation of the committee. The plantings were a community undertaking with residents planting trees provided by Council.

The Committee had a clear long term objective. Margaret Waters whose father Alwyn Jones was instrumental in developing the project, defined the group’s objectives in this way: “They wanted to create summer shade and autumn colour, that prior to the plantings was non existent in Armidale.”

Later, this approach would be challenged by the native is best school. However, the plan made sense in visual terms, taking Armidale’s varying seasons into account.

The campaign struggled to a degree because householders did not always look after the trees, more because Armidale’s limited water supply made watering difficult during drought. Trees died and then had to be replanted. 

Armidale’s limited water supply had long been a problem. As early as the 1920s, there had been proposals to build a dam at Malpas to meet the city’s water needs. By the 1950s, the city’s growth made a new water supply critical, with drought periods bringing major water restrictions.

An intense battle followed. There were those who opposed a new water supply on the grounds of cost to ratepayers. Local landowners among others objected, arguing that the Malpas site was unsuitable,. that the water would be undrinkable, that the dam would quickly silt up. A strong group led by local engineer Zihni Buzo argued that the alternative Styx River site was far better.

The argument raged back and forth. Finally, a decision was made to build a dam at Malpas.

The new dam opened in 1968. Whatever the arguments for and against the dam, it meant that Armidale had a secure water supply. Now water was readily available to support the beautification of Armidale.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 3 February 2016. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016.

History Revisited - the changing face of Armidale architecture

PRESERVATION: The practical effect of these various changes was the preservation of a remarkably high proportion of the varied  housing stock within the old city boundaries and especially the older houses. 

In part one of my story of Armidale’s transformation, I said that the city began with good bones, a creek and two hills.

The demolition of the old gaol and the construction of the Armidale Teachers’ College provided a building on one hill that was large enough to be monumental but did not dominate the town. This was potentially matched by the parklands on North Hill, although their development was slow and somewhat patchy.

The area now known as the Creeklands began as private land along the creek, but was also used for recreational purposes such as the first golf club, sometimes creating conflict. Over time, the land transferred to public ownership.

The potential use of the Creeklands as public space was always there. However, the Creeklands as we know them today did not exist in 1963.

Following the end of the Second World War, the Australian population grew rapidly. There were shortages of building materials, while governments struggled to provide services.

Armidale shared the shortages, but initially lagged the population growth. The great Wool Boom that began in 1947 increased rural incomes and consequently town business. However, limited government resources initially limited the growth of the city’s two tertiary colleges.

By the early 1950s, growth was underway. School numbers were increasing, as were student and staff numbers at both the Teachers’ College and University College. Building and construction were also growing.

This growth had a number of features that would be important to Armidale’s subsequent transformation.

Both the Teachers’ College and University College were residential. Pending the establishment and growth of the on-campus college system, students were placed in town houses. This protected some of the old larger homes that might otherwise have been demolished.

The residential requirement had another effect too. In the 1920s during an earlier period of rapid Sydney expansion, the member for Amidale David Drummond quipped that if God had invented the country and man the city, then the Devil had invented the suburbs and built flats.

There was some truth in that. Australian architecture in the 1950s was mediocre. In Sydney, the spreading flats were quite ugly. The requirement that students live on campus initially limited flat construction in Armidale.

As residential requirements were relaxed at the University, flats did begin to appear to house students and single staff, as well as other singles or couples drawn to Armidale by its growth. However, many students in particular went into smaller investor owned rented weatherboard homes in the main city area, effectively preserving them.

For their part. the new staff coming to Armidale after the War began living in rental accommodation before buying or building. Given the size of the city, there was not a lot of choice, nor were housing expectations as high as they are today. Some purchased existing cottages and later extended them, others rented the older, larger homes now being released by the University, still others built new homes on vacant land within the city or, more frequently, outside the city boundaries.

The practical effect of these various changes was the preservation of a remarkably high proportion of the varied if somewhat polyglot housing stock within the old city boundaries. This was central to the transformation now underway. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 27 January 2016. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016.

History Revisited - Tale of a blossoming city

TRANSFORMATION: After once being described as unprepossessing, Jim Belshaw says Armidale is now beautiful

Today Armidale is, rightly, seen as a beautiful city. Yet it’s not always been seen in that way.

Writing in 1963, a geographer at the University described Armidale’s aspect as unprepossessing. With rare exceptions, it was an urban hodge-podge, lacking buildings that were distinguished, elegant or stately. Sometimes its vistas were enhanced by colour changes in its surrounding rural landscapes and in the blossoms and foliage of exotic trees planted a thin profusion in parts of the town. At best this relief was temporary, confined to only a few weeks in Autumn and Spring.

If you lived in the city at the time you could see his viewpoint, although many locals bristled at his words.

The city had grown in fits and starts. Brick homes sat next to sometimes rundown wood cottages. Recurrent droughts and associated water restrictions were common..

Constantly short of money because of its limited rate base, the Council had been reluctant to spend on civic improvements. Indeed, there were moves to try to subdivide open space including Drummond Park and the proposed arboretum to increase population and rates.. Some roads were still un-tarred, although the position here was improving.

Twenty years later, the city was transformed. The apparently ugly duckling had become a swan. There would be losses in that transformation, but by happen stance, sheer luck and some good decisions, the result was a generally harmonious whole creating a unique character.

Armidale began with good bones, a creek and two hills. The visual possibilities of this landscape were always there. It just took time to realise.

The initial town straggled. In 1848, a grid pattern was imposed on this by surveyor John James Galloway. It was meant to run north-south, east west, but Galloway was forced to shift this slightly to accommodate existing buildings. Still, order had arrived.

The area covered by the grid pattern that would become the municipality was limited in size. A bit over 3.2 square miles, 2,060 acres, on the old measurement. And so it remained until, I think, 1961 when the city boundaries were finally extended.

As the city grew in the 1950s it extended into the adjoining Dumaresq Shire. There, freed from restrictions, new road and settlement patterns emerged. You can see this clearly today on the map.

Within the traditional city boundaries, a distinct pattern emerged with different types of architecture linked to time. location and money. Time because the architecture reflected the prevailing fashions. Location and money because that determined where you could afford to live, how much you could afford to spend on your dwelling.

Larger dwellings emerged near the main street and then further up South Hill. Generally on large blocks, these faced north, looking down the valley. Victorian Armidale, what I call the old city, had been born.

The survival of these dwellings would become critical in the transformation of Armidale. However, that is only part of the story of the birth of the Armidale swan. That story I will continue in my next column. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 20 January 2016. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016.

History Revisited - how Tamworth's paper became a leader

CHANGING TIMES: Jim Belshaw's column this week focuses the history of the Tamworth newspaper the Northern Daily Leader

I hope that you had a happy Christmas. May 2016 bring peace and happiness.

My last column summarized the life and career of Ernest Christian Sommerlad. This column continues the story of the Northern pressmen, they were nearly all men, who had such an influence on New England life over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Albert Edward Joseph was born at Gympie in Queensland on 9 November 1873. the third son of Henry and Rebecca Joseph. Following the death of both his parents, the twelve year old Albert was sent to Tamworth to live with his Uncle Solomon, the publisher of the bi-weekly Tamworth News.

While attending the  Tamworth Grammar School, Joseph decided to become a surveyor and joined the Survey Branch of the Land’s Department.. Committed to Tamworth and the North, he managed to stay working at the Tamworth Local Land Board Office for twenty years by the simple expedient of refusing every promotion!

Upon his Uncle’s death, control of the Tamworth News had passed to G A Codrington. Joseph may have been was working as a surveyor, but he retained his interest in newspapers. In 1908, he put together a deal that allowed him to buy the rival Tamworth Observer with effect from 1 January 1909.

Within two years, Joseph floated the Tamworth Newspaper Coy Ltd. This purchased both the News and Observer, with Joseph becoming Managing Director of the new company. In 1920, the Tamworth Daily Observer was renamed the Northern Daily Leader.

Writing later, Albert Joseph said: "There is substance in the; claim that the paper that can be delivered at the breakfast table will dominate the thought's of those amongst whom it circulates. At least it will tend to develop a distinctive community of opinions and ideals. and thus to become a focus of political and social thought in the life of the region.”

With these words as guidance, Victor Thompson as editor, Joseph as business leader, the Observer/Northern Daily Leader aggressively extended its reach following the railway lines. Within a few years, the paper became the dominant daily over a territory extending from Tenterfield on the border to Moree in the west, Murrrurundi in the south. As late as 1960, the Leader was outselling the Sydney Morning Herald in Armidale.

The tone of the paper was unapologetically Northern, campaigning on causes from self government to the university movement. It was also prepared to spend on things that could not be immediately justified in circulation terms, including literary pages. This made the paper a driving force, a focus for Northern activism and a clearing house for the ideas and enthusiasms of the North. .

Beyond the paper, Joseph played a key role in the formation of the Associated Northern Dailies, in the Country Press Association and in a variety of community activities. He was a foundation member of the Advisory Council created to guide the newly created New England University College.

By the time of his death in 1947, Joseph was seen as a key Northern figure whose life was marked not just by his professional career nor by his community activities, but by his kindness and personal contribution to so many.

“Of Joseph it can truly be said”, Profesor A E Bland later said, “that a man s virtue is measured, not by his extraordinary efforts, but by his everyday conduct.”

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 13 January 2016. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016.

Ancient stone artifacts discovered on Sulawesi

Interesting piece by Michael Greshko (Stone Tools Point to Mysterious Neighbor of Flores ‘Hobbit’) in National Geographic reporting on the latest archaeological work on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Stone tools found there appear to predate the arrival of modern humans to the area by more than 60,000 years

The perplexing artifacts, announced on Wednesday in Nature, are most likely between 118,000 and 194,000 years old, though some may be even older. The keen-edged flakes of stone were excavated from an ancient river floodplain in southwest Sulawesi, near the present-day village of Talepu. Some even bear telltale signs of being hammered into shape.But today’s best evidence indicates that modern Homo sapiens didn’t arrive on neighboring islands until about 50,000 years ago, well after the mysterious toolmakers left their wares behind. The find further indicates that some earlier form of human was more successful at traversing the south Pacific’s island networks than previously believed.

................ 

Gerrit van den Bergh of the University of Wollongong in Australia, the study’s lead author, says that the tools likely were made by Homo erectus, an ancient hominin that lived on nearby islands beginning at least 1.5 million years ago. It’s also possible that the toolmakers are yet-undiscovered relatives of Homo floresiensis, a “hobbit” hominin found on the island of Flores, just south of Sulawesi, between 18,000 and 95,000 years ago, if not earlier.

This discovery is the latest of many that has been dramatically transforming our understanding of the more distant human past. In time, these discoveries are likely to affect our interpretation of Aboriginal prehistory.

Recent discoveries on Barrow Island now off the West Australian coast appear to have pushed the confirmed date for Aboriginal occupation of Australia to between 50,000 and 53,000 years ago. The issue then becomes how the Aborigines fitted into a pattern of human dispersal that was far more complex than that realised even a decade ago.

Postscript

I wrote a slightly longer muse piece on my personal blog. The Sulawesi discoveries: where does Australian prehistory fit? John Hawks had a useful perspective piece, Somebody was on Sulawesi before 118,000 years ago, while University of New England's Dr Mark Moore who analysed the stone tools recovered from the excavation, reports that the tools were finely crafted with a high degree of skill involved.

Season's Greetings to all my readers

I am taking a short Christmas break. I wish all my readers seasons greetings. May you have a happy Christmas and a great new year.  

History Revisited - building a New England media empire

MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD: in his Extra column this week, Jim Belshaw explores the background and achievements of journalist Ernest Christian Sommerlad

In 1950, all the Northern media (press, radio and then television) was locally or regionally controlled. By 2000 all this had been swept with local media becoming part of external media empires.

One result of these changes is the disappearance in large part of the press figures that once formed such a distinctive part of Northern life. Ernest Christian Sommerlad was one such.

Earnest by nature, constantly active and a devout Christian in belief, E C Sommerlad was part journalist, part community activist and publicist, part politician, part writer, part business man whose influence endures to today.

Sommerlad was born on 30 January 1886 at Tenterfield, the youngest of twelve children. His parents, John and Louisa, had emigrated to Australia from Germany, forming part of the several waves of German immigrants that settled in the Clarence and at various localities on the Tablelands.

At eleven, Sommerlad left school to help on the family farm. Restless, he enrolled at Newington College in Sydney at the age of 21 (his classmates were all 14), passing the junior public examination in 1908. After theological training, Sommerlad left for Fiji as a missionary, but returned after six months because of a throat infection that made preaching difficult.

He remained active within the Methodist Church, this involvement providing one of the continuing threads of his life.

In February 1912, Sommerlad joined the Inverell Times as a reporter, moving three months later to the rival Inverell Argus where he quickly rose to editor. It was during this Inverell period that Sommerlad met a young sharefarmer called David Drummond. Also a devout Methodist and equally earnest, Drummond and Sommerlad formed a close friendship that spread across Sommerlad’s varied interests.

In May 1918, Sommerlad purchased the Glen Innes Examiner, laying the base that would later become Northern Newspapers, a key part of the Sommerlad publishing dynasty.  

Here three threads in Sommerlad’s life come into play.

The first was journalism and writing, interests he retained until the end of his life when in 1950, two years before his death, he published Mightier than the Sword, the first handbook on Australian journalism.

The second thread was his role as a publisher and business man. This was reflected in the growth of his own newspapers, in the role he played in local newspaper consolidation during the 1920s and then in the evolution of the country press and its association. As first general manager, then Managing Director and then Chairman of Country Press Ltd, he built the organisation into a major business.

The third thread was Sommerlad’s involvement in politics and community development.

He became actively involved in the new political movements emerging in the North after the First World War including the Country Party and the New State Movement. Totally committed to the North and Northern development, he used his paper as his pulpit to promote local and regional causes.

E C Sommerlad died in 1952. He left a considerable legacy.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 16 December 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

This is the last column for 2015. The next column will appear in the paper on 13 January 2016, on this blog on 20 January. 

History Revisited - Guyra's link to organic farming origins

A DIFFERENT WAY TO GROW: Harold Fletcher White was one of the pioneers of organic farming from his Guyra property

I suspect that most people think of Australian organic farming as a recent development dating to the 1980s.one thread in the growing environmental movements with their interest in sustainability.

Few Australians would know that the world’s first organic farming organisation, the Australian Organic Farming and Gardening Society, was formed in 1944. Its periodical, the Organic Farming Digest, was the first organics advocacy journal.

If few Australians know of the early history of organic farming, fewer still would know of the New England connection with that early history.

The term organic farming was coined by Lord Northbourne, appearing first in Northbourne’s manifesto on organic farming, Look to the Land, published in London in May 1940. The book reached Australia quite quickly, and was widely and favourably reviewed.

The ideas in the book attracted attention from that linked group of New England farmers and graziers already interested in scientific farming, as well as other Northern causes. .From the beginning, the newly established New England University College had been seen as a vehicle for the advancement and application of agricultural science.

Harold Fletcher White was a key member of the New England group. Known as Bill to his friends and Colonel to everybody else, White was a formal rather stern man of firm views who commanded considerable respect.

Born in 1883, White was part of the first group of pupils at the New England Proprietary School (later The Armidale School). After TAS, he studied arts and engineering at Sydney University for two years, but gave that up to join Pitt Son & Badgery. In 1906 White returned to manage some of the family properties at Guyra.

A member of the 6^th Australian Light Horse since 1906, White enlisted in 1914, finishing the War as a lieutenant-colonel. Upon return to Australia, he continued the pasture and stock improvement work that he had begun on Bald Blair.

As part of his work, White experimented with the application of fertiliser to pastures. This gave great initial yields which then diminished despite increased application of fertiliser. White concluded that much farming was soil mining, that healthy food required healthy soil, that monoculture was part of the problem. To his mind, action to increase the humus content in soils was central to sustainable agriculture.

White began to experiment with various techniques that might increase the humus content. This focus on practical experimentation was one of the features of the New England group as a whole.

White was involved with the Australian Organic Farming and Gardening Society from its formation to demise in 1955. Starting with the first and ending with the last publication, he contributed twenty articles to its periodical, making him the second most prolific contributor.

In 1953, he joined with Professor C Stanton Hicks to write and publish Life from the Soil setting out his ideas in some detail. The book was a considerable success, going through three editions.

The Society was forced to close in 1955 because of lack of support. However, by then it had popularised the concept of organic farming. The ideas that it and White espoused remain relevant today.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 9 December 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

History Revisited - Thomas' death a blow to New England's Aboriginal history

PHOTOGRAPHY PIONEER: Thomas Dick took many photographs of Aborigines in the Hastings Valley in the first decades of the 20th century

The discovery of another collection of Thomas Dick’s Aboriginal photos attracted considerable interest. Oyster grower, naturalist and photographer, Thomas Dick produced 500 photographs of the Hastings Valley that are today seen as works of art.

Thomas Dick’s grandparents settled at Port Macquarie in 1841. Grandfather John was a tanner. Thomas’s father, also John, worked in the family tannery business until taking up one of the first oyster leases on the Hastings River in the 1880s.

Thomas took up his own oyster lease in 1899. Like many at the time, this was the age of the amateur naturalist, he became fascinated by nature. This brought him into contact with the young economic zoologist Theo Roughley who had just started working at the Technological Museum in Sydney and was especially interested in fisheries.

Roughley taught Thomas the rudiments of photography and helped him buy his first camera just before the start of World War One. Thomas became hooked, setting up his own darkroom.

During the working week, Thomas worked his lease, growing and marketing his oysters. Then at the weekend, he explored his interest in natural history and photography, searching for suitable objects and backgrounds. Thomas was clearly knowledgeable, providing information both to Roughley and to Richard Baker, the Technological Museum’s curator.

Thomas is best known now for his Aboriginal photographs. “I set out years ago, he wrote in 1923, “to collect and write the history of these Aborigines, and get together, not only a fine collection of photos, but also a fine collection of implements etc., and …. a remarkable amount of information.”

Thomas’s photos were staged, itself a remarkable feat for he had to persuade his Aboriginal models to remove clothing and pose undertaking traditional tasks. He built trust, aided in some cases by payment of fees.

The photographs may have been staged, but they were authentic nevertheless. Thomas went into the mountains with the Aborigines, gaining trust and the secrets of their laws, information provided on the basis that it would not be made available until after the death of the informants.

“I was fortunate”, he later recorded, “for some of the old men were most intelligent and they recognised that their race was run, as it were, so they gave me under the conditions named, the history of their race.”

“Now by these means I secured all of the marks on the sacred trees, and their meaning, all of the rules of the ‘Waipara’ or man making ceremony.”

Tragically, Thomas Dick died on his fiftieth birthday in 1927. He had gone to study marine life in one of his favourite rock pools and seems to have been caught by a major wave.

Thomas knew the value of the information he had, but had clearly been struggling to get it down. . “I do not known when I will bring out the work for I am now too much handicapped”, he had written sadly in 1923. In that year, he also resigned as a member of the Royal Society of NSW. There were clearly problems.

With Thomas’s death, we lost access to that past he had learned about, lost the chance to establish a bridge between that past, the present and the future. This loss is particularly great for the Birpai/Biripi people themselves. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 2 December 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.