A celebration of the life of Kenneth William Gooding (1941-2024)

Hello friends. My name is Ross and I’m an alcoholicJesus, for a second, I thought I was speaking at my local AA meeting, and not at Ken’s favourite Sydney pub, The Merton. I’m so nervous, I nearly said The Merkin! For those who don’t know, a merkin is artificial pubic hair hand tied to skin-coloured lace or netting. They are sometimes still used by sex workers and models, including my late wife Lyndal Moor when she was Australian model of the …

Here is my speech at launch of the ninth Grafton Everest political satire, Pandemonium. The Olsen Gallery, Sydney, 6.30 pm, 14 November, 2023ROSS FITZGERALD   Many critics have claimed to know how Grafton Everest – the bumbling, overweight, teetotal Professor in Life Skills from the University of Mangoland, who’s the central character in all my political satires – got his name.Two claimants stand out.The first – A professor of linguistics who stated that, after analysing my first four fictions, it was obvious that Grafton Everest was a code for ‘Graft and …

NSW STATE MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR JOHN OLSEN, MONDAY 29 MAY 2023 ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Some words from MC Michael Yabsley:

“We are here to honour the memory of Dr John Olsen AO OBE, a man of talent, charisma, generosity, and humility. He was a master of the brush, a truly great explorer and interpreter of everything from beloved massive Australian landscapes to, in the words of his friend, Professor Ross Fitzgerald, “the chaotic splendour of his own kitchen.”

As Prof Fitzgerald wrote about John,  his son Tim Olsen often talked …

Ross Fitzgerald, Di Young & Tim Olsen speak about My Last Drink at The Sydney Institute
Professor Ross Fitzgerald is proud to say that he has been sober for over fifty years. Thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous and the support he found among its members. As a prolific author, Ross Fitzgerald has again taken up the subject of recovered alcoholism in a new book My Last Drink, co-edited with Neal Price, an artist and writer who now lives in Hobart, Tasmania. The book brings together the stories of 32 recovering alcoholics and …

MY LAST DRINK: 32 stories of recovering alcoholics
Speech by Ross Fitzgerald
The Sydney Institute, October 31, 2022.
Thank you, Gerard. It’s very good to be here. Indeed, as my Uncle George used to say, at my age it’s very good to be anywhere.
On his deathbed I said to Uncle George, “You know you were my favourite relative.” To which he responded, “There wasn’t much competition!”
And thanks Gerard for your sage advice concerning this book, My Last Drink: 32 stories of recovering alcoholics.
It was you Gerard who convinced my Tasmanian-based co-editor, Neal Price, …

by Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM
Speech to The Sydney Institute, 47 Phillip Street, Sydney, Monday March 23, 2020.
   I am very pleased that one of my closest friends  in Sydney, Gerard Henderson, is launching my memoir today.
When writing this speech, by mistake I had originally typed … one of my closet friends, Gerard Henderson.
Well I thought that was funny!
After all I do write satirical novels. But often what I think is funny, other people don’t. 
Anyway, despite of everything in these trying times, Gerard Henderson is indeed launching my memoir here at The Sydney Institute,  and I’m very grateful.
To put …

Beating alcoholism
REV BILL CREWS AA ALCOHOLISM
When does drinking become ‘a drinking problem’? Rev. Bill Crews talks with recovering alcoholic Ross Fitzgerald about beating alcoholism.
Ross Fitzgerald is the author of: “My Name Is Ross – An Alcoholics Journey”
Rsadio 2GB, 4BC, & Canberra radio
10.30pm Sunday 30th September, 2018

‘Dying with Dignity: A No-Brainer.’
by Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM.
Speech to Dying with Dignity, New South Wales at Port Macquarie.
Tuesday 21 February 2017.
Ever since having seen my late mother suffer so much when all she wanted was to slip away peacefully, I have been a strong public advocate, for others and for myself, of Dying with Dignity.
After a long struggle in the 1990s with a series of hospital physicians, my mother, Edna Fitzgerald (nee Beecher) of 41 Charles Street, East Brighton, in suburban Melbourne, eventually died in her mid-80s.
A few years …

We all deserve the choice of a voluntary assisted death
By Prof Ross Fitzgerald (AM)
A major source of opposition to voluntary assisted dying is the Catholic Church and other religious hierarchies. “Voluntary and “choice are concepts that churches like to reserve for their autocracies but not apply to individuals. They demand control , not only over their memberships but over the rest of us as well. In Australia, as elsewhere, minority ecclesiastical autocracies still remain powerful in their fight against same-sex marriage and voluntary assisted dying. Yet more than 70 per …

The Sydney Papers Online 7th July 2015
THE BANDAR-LOG : A LABOR STORY OF THE 1950s
by Ross Fitzgerald
Australian Canberra Press Gallery journalist Alan Reid was both a player and an observer of the great Labor split of the 1950s. From his experience, he not only came to a very dark view of political players on all sides but also wrote a novel , The Bandar-Log , depicting the machinations of both key and peripheral participants in the drama that rent the ALP. Reid’s novel remained unpublished after a court case against …

Located 849 km west of Rockhampton, nearly 1400 km north west Brisbane and 186 m above sea level, Winton is the centre of an important cattle and sheep raising region (although the annual rainfall of 410 mm makes it prone to drought) and, since early settlement, has been a vital transportation point.
Winton, originally known as Pelican Waterhole, owes its existence to the abortive Burke and Wills expedition and the subsequent expeditions which scoured central Queensland looking for the missing explorers. During the early 1860s a number of explorers including Frederick …