by ROSS FITZGERALD
The Collingwood Magpies desperately need a coach of the calibre of newly appointed Craig McRae. Nicknamed “Fly”, McRae featured prominently in my warts and all study of the 1995 footy season in which Brisbane made the AFL finals for the first time. McRae’s nickname derived from the fact he was such a nuisance to opposing players.
McRae, who in 1995 kicked 28 goals, was one of only five Brisbane Bears players that year to appear in all 23 games. He wore the number four guernsey for the Bears …
Memoirs of a Cold War Warrior
by Keith Harvey
Connor Court, 2021, 258 pages, $34.95
reviewed by ROSS FITZGERALD
This is an important book, particularly for those of us interested in Australian history and politics.
Ever since 1970, when he was a student at my alma mater, Monash University, Keith Harvey has consistently fought for the well-being of workers and for decades staunchly opposed communists and those pro-communists who supported them.
Harvey’s first-hand account of his long-time, courageous involvement in the anti-communist movement, especially in our trade unions, has national implications for the Australian labour movement and …
As the NSW Premier will soon announce all citizens of the state who have both shots of a vaccine will be given more freedom, surely now is the time for the lifesaving meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous to be regarded as essential services, at least for those who have had both jabs. It strikes me as extremely wrongheaded for liquor outlets and for psychologists running group therapy sessions to be regarded as essential services, yet actual meetings of AA and NA are not. Meeting on Zoom is no …
Monash University News Snippets by Michael Headbury, 20 August 2021
Greetings all,
Ross Fitzgerald’s latest book “50 years Sober: An Alcoholic’s Journey” (Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne).
Ross began his stint as an undergraduate in 1962. Obviously a very bright lad who topped every subject in his first two years. He has written 42 books including “My name Is Ross”; fiction (rather naughty) featuring the character Grafton Everest; and many notable non-fiction historical texts which established him as a leading Australian Historian.
His latest book is scary and focusses on his challenges from Melbourne High days …
Australia & the Pacific: A history
By Ian Hoskins
NewSouth Books, 476pp,
$39.99
Review by ROSS FITZGERALD
Author of a brilliant book about Sydney Harbour, Ian Hoskins has now considerably widened his gaze to write a captivating general history of Australia viewed in a Pacific context.
To do so, he effectively has plundered the huge Pacific collections housed at the State Library of New South Wales. As well, Hoskins has conducted extensive research at the State Library of Queensland, the National Library of Australia and the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney, all of which …
I need to correct Byam Wight (Letters, 1 August).
The award-winning biography of Alan Reid which I co-authored with Stephen Holt in 2010 provides a documented account of how the 36 Faceless Men photographs were taken at the Hotel Kingston in 1963. Our account shows how Reid got his friend and fellow angler Val Paral to take and process the photographs.
All of this happened outside of regular office hours. None of Paral’s colleagues at the John Curtin School of Medical Research were aware of what was going on.
Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM, Redfern, …
TIDES THAT BIND:
Australia in the Pacific
By Richard Marles
Monash University Publishing, 89pp, $19.95
Reviewed by ROSS FITZGERALD
Political speeches can be self-serving and tedious in the extreme, but one recently captured my attention. In the House of Representatives, deputy opposition leader and Labor member for Corio, Richard Marles gave a moving insight into his life growing up in Geelong and the real and symbolic importance to his childhood of the Corio oil refinery and its twinkling lights.
How many childhood memories do you know that include an oil refinery? I was so touched that I rang Marles’s office …
The Education of Young Donald Trilogy
By Donald Horne
NewSouth Books, 797pp, $39.99
reviewed by ROSS FITZGERALD
Donald Horne, who died in 2005 aged 83, wrote more than two dozen books, including The Lucky Country and one of the finest general histories of our nation, The Australian People.
Now, published in the centenary of Horne’s birth, comes a timely revisiting of his entertaining autobiographical trilogy, which enables us to re-evaluate the making of one of Australia’s leading writers and public intellectuals.
The Education of Young Donald Trilogy combines in a single volume The Education of Young …
by ROSS FITZGERALD
Given their life-saving work with alcoholics and other addicts, Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are undoubtedly essential services.
In Ireland, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) has recently decreed that AA and NA are both essential services. Surely, here in Australia, as a matter of urgency, our PM, premiers and leaders of local government should be doing the same.
Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM, Redfern
The Daily Telegraph, July 2, 2021, Letters, p 86.
No AA is not OK
Professor Ross Fitzgerald’s call (Letters, 2/7 to regard Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings as essential …
Semut: The Untold Story of a Secret Australian Operation in WWII Borneo
By Christine Helliwell
Michael Joseph, 562pp, $34.99 (PB)
Reviewed by ROSS FITZGERALD
Tales of heroism from World War II keep coming and in hindsight they seem more incredible than ever. What strikes me in this age of risk averseness is the courage of so many under duress. Semut is one of those stories, untold until now.
It involves an operation in late March 1945 when eight Allied operatives, in two groups of four, most of them young Australians, parachuted into the Japanese-occupied island …
by ROSS FITZGERALD
At the National Press Club in Canberra at the start of the year, Scott Morrison said the government’s main task this year would be getting everyone vaccinated so life could return to normal. Well, the year’s half over yet life is as disrupted as ever; and with scarcely a third of Australians with their first shot, and scarcely 5 per cent fully vaccinated, there’s no end in sight.
Initially, the problem was that we didn’t have enough vaccines. Now the problem is we don’t have enough of the “right” vaccine; …
