Review: Old Vintage Melbourne - A Culinary Chronicle by Chris Macheras

* Copy courtesy of Scribe Publications *

Old Vintage Melbourne - A Culinary Chronicle is the third book in the Old Vintage Melbourne series by Chris Macheras and this time the author is turning his seasoned eye to Melbourne's rich food and drink culture over the years. Pleasingly dished up in alphabetical order, the author presents approximately 120 culinary venues across Melbourne, comprising everything from hotels, restaurants, pubs, bars, cafés, markets and even a caravan.

It was pleasing to see so many family owned businesses continuing on from generation to generation, while others evolved and changed hands over the years. It was always sad to learn a venue or building had been demolished in the name of progress, especially the Federal Coffee Palace and Menzies Hotel. Meanwhile, fire destroyed some of the venues included in this book while others closed down in 2020 during the pandemic and failed to open again. The foreward by Stephanie Alexander was enjoyable but an index at the end would have been a very welcome addition.

I enjoyed lingering over the photographs and wondering how many special events had been celebrated there; first dates, marriage proposals, business deals, birthdays and anniversaries, along with the inevitable hangovers, relationship breakdowns and seedy workplace Christmas parties. Not to mention the staff waiting tables, pouring drinks and making delectable meals in hot kitchens.

Enhancing the reading experience were the inclusion of items from some of the venues like menus, matchbooks and coasters, all supplied by Di Sandilands from Pubcrock. The photographs for each location appeared to come from a variety of sources and I especially enjoyed reading the appetising contents of the few menus included.

Many of the venues I have visited came in the latter half of the book, with the Limerick Arms on Park Street in South Melbourne; the Mitre Tavern (where we attended a weekly trivia night for several years); Planet Hollywood; The Cuckoo; Vlados and the Windsor Hotel to name a few.

Many years ago I regularly visited the Manchester Unity building to see a chiropractor but had never heard of the murders that took place there so I had to set this lovely large hardback edition aside to find out more about the three jewellers who were killed during a diamond heist in 1978.

Many of the photograph captions didn't include years which was disappointing, but I'm assuming this information just wasn't available in the archives from which they were sourced. Unfortunately, the book could have done with a tighter edit of the image credits accompanying each of the venue profiles. The profile page for Donovans in St Kilda credits a photo that isn't included. The Gaylord Indian Restaurant in Tattersalls Lane features a scrumptious looking photograph of a feast for the taste buds but mentions it pictured on the right, despite it being on the left. The book states the price of a dish relative to 2025 when the book was published just a few days ago, which was another lost opportunity for accuracy and relevance. I noticed a further typo and another image credit error while reading, giving me the impression the book was either rushed to print or poorly edited which is a real shame.

The research behind Old Vintage Melbourne - A Culinary Chronicle is vast, with contributions from many of the family run businesses no doubt taking a determined effort to track down. The profile on milk bars was the most nostalgic given I grew up in a general store and I enjoyed seeing the signage, decor and fashions captured in the photos that span many decades.

Old Vintage Melbourne - A Culinary Chronicle will be a trip down memory lane for many Melbournians and visitors to this great city and is a terrific snapshot of the past. Reading it made me hunger for some of the menu items, and wish I could browse the buffets and perhaps even kick up my heels to the live music on offer back in the day.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

See my other reviews in the series:
Old Vintage Melbourne ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ in 2021
Old Vintage Melbourne 1960 - 1990 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ in 2022

Review: Slime by Susanne Wedlich

Slime - A Natural History by Susanne Wedlich has been translated from German by Ayça Türkoğlu and is a scientific exploration of all things slimy. Susanne Wedlich is a freelance science journalist and quickly defines slime for the reader as an extremely aqueous and viscously fluid hydrogel, which - under certain conditions - can also bear the properties of a solid.

Later on, she defines slime even further as follows:

"It's the default term for unknown but sluggish fluids or creepily soft solids. It's a thing in between and a feeling and a description of materials, but there is not one prototypical slime. Depending on origin and function, it hides behind a multitude of pseudonyms like gel, biofilm, mucilage, glycocalyx, but also in ecological communities like biological soil crusts, or in phenomena like marine snow." Page 49

Wedlich also explains that slime is a biological substance with physical properties and biological functions while also being a phenomenon - or an idea - which repels and disgusts.

I was hoping the book would consist of an even mix of science and cultural phenomenon, but it's safe to say it was almost all natural science. The author offers a few references to modern culture, with the slime in Alien and The Matrix movies instantly evocative.

"It's no surprise that their uses in nature are extremely varied, including as lubricants and adhesives, tailor-made for the species and organism. Slime is also essential, selectively permeable barrier inside the human body and elsewhere, allowing in nutrients and other desirable visitors, but stopping pathogens and pollutants in their tracks." Page 43

A large part of the book is spent offering examples of species using slimes as lubricants, adhesives, modes of transport and more, and I found myself continually putting the book down to investigate further. I could definitely do without knowing there are spiders in aeroplankton over Greenland - spiders, in the air!! - or that pearl fish live inside the anus of sea cucumbers but loved learning about marine snow. Another interesting rabbit hole involved hagfish, when the author tells us that the US Navy is trialling the use of military lab-grade hagfish slime to stop suspicious ships in their tracks without using force. Now I'd love to see that!

The relatively new discipline of 'mucomics' is research into the ability of slime to be used in the development of new technologies. Historically, slime has been used in all sorts of ways and in Germany and pre-industrial Sweden, the black slug was used as a lubricant on carts.

"When the dry axle began to squeak, a slug would be placed on the wheel hub and crushed as the carriage continued on its way." Page 55

Ewww! Elsewhere, I enjoyed the mention of The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey which is a book I still think of every now and again, despite having read it way back in 2011.

I didn't know deserts and dry regions are covered in a mucilaginous surface which counters erosion and evaporation and that disturbing the soil is like ripping the protective skin layer off, with serious consequences. I learned that even the sea has a skin composed of a delicate layer of gel just a fraction of a millimetre thick.

If Wedlich has an agenda here, it's definitely the importance of the environment and the damage human beings are doing to it. She makes her case firstly by laying out the facts, like explaining that diatoms release at least 20 per cent of all the oxygen we breathe, then pointing out how vulnerable they are to changing temperatures.

The author points out that forest clearing, over-fishing, rising temperatures, acidification and pollution are wiping out species and decimating food webs all over the world. In addition to mass extinctions and the global biodiversity crisis, the author gives us a new reason to care about this, mucomics. If species are wiped out before we can study them, then not only do we lose the opportunity to potentially develop new medicines, we could also lose the opportunity to develop new technologies, based on their unique biological properties.

Much of the content focusses on marine science and I occasionally found the content dry, despite the frequent references to dripping and sticky slime. I was hoping for more about the cultural significance of slime but didn't find it here.

Slime - A Natural History by Susanne Wedlich will appeal to readers with an interest in popular science and the environment.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: The Madman's Gallery by Edward Brooke-Hitching

The Madman's Gallery - The Strangest Paintings, Sculptures and Other Curiosities from the History of Art by Edward Brooke-Hitching is an exploration of art through time, beginning in 38,000BC right up to 2021 and comprises drawings, paintings, sculptures and more. The author makes clear what the reader can expect to find in this illustrated book:

"While the bulk of art history books focus on the revolutionary and traditionally revered works, The Madman's Gallery is intended to offer an alternative guided tour of art history, focusing instead on the oddities, the forgotten, the freakish, all with stories that offer glimpses of the lives of their creators and their eras." Page 10

As I was reading the first half of the book, I didn't think it was an eccentric exploration of the strangest artwork and oddities ever made, but now that I've finished I can begin to appreciate the collection as a whole.

The Portrait of Gregor Baci - who was a Hungarian nobleman impaled with a lance during a jousting tournament but who shockingly lived another year with the sawn-off piece of wood entering his right eye and exiting through his neck - sent me off to Wikipedia to find out more.

Looking at the portrait of Federico Da Montefeltro by Piero Della Francesca it's impossible not to notice the notch missing from the top of his nose. The initial injury was the result of a jousting accident in 1450, where an opponent's lance pierced his helmet, shattered his nasal bridge and caused the loss of his right eye. According to historical accounts and medical historians, Federico intentionally had surgeons amputate the remaining bridge of his nose to widen the visual field of his remaining left eye. Jousting is dangerous people!

Religious artworks abound in this collection, and predictably the work of Hieronymus Bosch is included and later the controversial and highly offensive 'work' of Andres Serrano (Immersion) was mentioned but thankfully not included in the book.

I couldn't help wondering what 17th century viewers made of The Miraculous Lactation of St Bernard (1645-52) where Alonso Cano depicted the moment when the twelfth-century St Bernard received a miraculous stream of breast milk from a statue of the Virgin Mary. To me it looks both offensive and utterly ridiculous, making it an understandable inclusion in The Madman's Gallery.

I greatly enjoyed learning about Mr Barker's monster panoramas that caused Queen Charlotte to vomit into a lace handkerchief in Leicester Square in London 1794. They were gargantuan hand-painted 360 degree panoramas that spanned 250m2 and they gave the Georgian population of the time the equivalent of a virtual reality experience as they viewed the various city views, landscapes and battle scenes making some viewers feel queasy.

Francisco Goya's Black Paintings which includes the famous Saturn Devouring His Son (1819-1823) that so shocked and interested me at High School is also included.

However a new to me painting was The Coronation of Ines De Castro in 1361 (c.1849) by Pierre Charles Comte which captures the crowning of the wife of the King of Portugal, four years after her death. The King at the time ordered his deceased wife's body to be exhumed and crowned four years after her death in order to legitimise their children together. What a bizarre event and it definitely makes for a strange painting.

In more recent works, The Artist is Present performed by Marina Abramovic in 2010 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York is included and became the subject of The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose years later.

The Madman's Gallery - The Strangest Paintings, Sculptures and Other Curiosities from the History of Art by Edward Brooke-Hitching paints a good picture that will appeal to readers with an interest in art and art history. I'm glad I read it, but I think I preferred his other book, The Madman's Library - The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Castles in the Air by Judy Corbett

Castles in the Air - The Restoration Adventures of Two Young Optimists and a Crumbling Old Mansion by Judy Corbett charts the process of renovating Gwydir Castle located in North Wales. When the couple first purchased this fortified manor house, it was a derelict home to animals, chickens, horses, birds and bats, yet Judy Corbett and her husband Peter Welford had a vision to restore the 500 year old property to its former glory.

Before finding and purchasing Gwydir, the couple had visited several properties and I enjoyed hearing the method by which the author decided if a potential house was suitable to live in.

"The yardstick by which I measured the suitability of any potential house was whether I could imagine myself reading in it. Gwidr was unquestionably a reader's house." Chapter 1

What follows is a description of the renovation process, which began with clearing up the debris left behind from the period the property was used as a nightclub for raves. With a limited budget, the couple do most of the work themselves and Corbett shares how they slowly begin to make money by offering tours of the castle.

The research involved in tracking down historical furniture and wall paneling belonging to Gwydir and sold off at different points in history was inspiring. Some of the furniture has been re-purchased or donated and I found it particularly interesting that the 1640s dining room panelling was located in a warehouse in New York. It was subsequently returned and reinstalled in 1998, however, the 16th century panelling from the oak parlour is still missing and I admired the author's dogged determination to track it down.

I was disappointed when the couple decided not to inform the local police when they unearthed a human skull during the renovation in the cellar. At the time of writing at least the skull sits in Peter's room waiting to be painted and is the focus of a memento mori display, complete with roses and hourglass. I found this to be in poor taste and would have better understood if they'd left it where it was found, rather than handling it and taking it upstairs to be studied. I did enjoy the - unrelated - section about the ghost though.

Published in 2004, I recently watched an interview with the author Judy Corbett - primarily so that I could take a look at the magnificent property - and immediately noticed she doesn't sound like the audiobook narrator at all! Castles in the Air is narrated by the prolific Charlotte Strevens who has a refined and posh sounding accent (at least to my ears) and it gave me the impression the author was a generation or two older and potentially from a wealthy upper class background. Don't get me wrong, the narrator did a terrific job but I didn't understand the reason for this creative direction.

Castles in the Air by Judy Corbett was a comfort listen and will appeal to those interested in Welsh history, Tudor architecture, structural renovation and interior restoration.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Atlas of Paranormal Places by Evelyn Hollow

Atlas of Paranormal Places - A Journey to the World's Most Supernatural Places by Evelyn Hollow is broken down into the following chapters: Haunted Places, Witchcraft, Sacred Sites, Myths & Legends, Strange Nature, and finally Cryptids & Creatures.

There's only one place listed for Australia, and I thought it would be the Devil's Pool, Babinda Boulders in Queensland but it's not. I'd never heard of Wycliffe Well in the Northern Territory but it's included in this atlas for its connection to UFO sightings, spies and ancient spiritual worship.

The atlas includes several locations familiar to this reader like the Catacombs in Paris, the Winchester Mystery House in California USA, Pendle Hill in Lancashire England, the Hanging Coffins of Sagada in the Philippines, Aokigahara Forest in Japan and the Door to Hell in Turkmenistan.

It was also nice to see the inclusion of Scotland's Bannockburn House in this collection as it was featured in the filming of the fantastic Outlander series.

However my favourite discovery of the book was that of Burg Eltz in Germany. Describing this twelfth century medieval German castle as a fairytale castle is an understatement. The home of the Eltz family for more than 800 years, it contains the ghost of a young woman who defended her home from an unwanted suitor and paid for her bravery with her life. Burg Eltz is one of the most wondrous castles I've ever seen and the photos on their website showcases the stunning grandeur of its architecture.

True to its name, the Atlas of Paranormal Places includes a world map at at the beginning of the book with each of the locations marked. Then each separate entry features a map page indicating the specific location of the place being described. My hardback edition borrowed from the library contained suitably themed end papers although I wish there were more photos included.

The Atlas of Paranormal Places - A Journey to the World's Most Supernatural Places by Evelyn Hollow enables the inquisitive reader to journey to paranormal places and explore geographic curiosities around the world, all from the safety of home.

And if you like the sound of this, you might also enjoy reading the Atlas of Improbable Places - A Journey to the World's Most Unusual Corners by Travis Elborough.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Tudor Fashion by Eleri Lynn

I've had Tudor Fashion by Eleri Lynn on my virtual TBR for - ahem - years but when I started reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel back in January, I thought it was finally time to request it from my local library. Eleri Lynn is the former curator of the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection at Historic Royal Palaces and if the name rings a bell, that's because I recently reviewed another of her books Underwear - Fashion in Detail.

During the 1500s, dress was a form of competitive magnificence and was regularly reported on across the continent by ambassadors. And it's thanks to these letters that we have some detailed descriptions of the clothes being worn at court, particularly by the reigning monarch.

During the Tudor period (1485-1603), Sumptuary Laws were still in place and every member of society knew what they were - and were not - permitted to wear, creating clear class divides. However, a book about Tudor fashion is obviously going to focus on the most exquisite fabrics, needlework, embellishments, jewels and accessories of the time as that's where the level of craftsmanship is at its highest.

Much of what we know about fashion in the Tudor period - and earlier - has been obtained by studying the portraits painted at the time. To this end, several artworks are included in the book and serve to complement various descriptions of garments, jewels and accessories. Also included are photographs of several exhibits held by the V&A Museum, Historic Royal Palaces and other Trusts, museums and galleries around the world.

Given my motivation for exploring Tudor Fashion while reading Wolf Hall, I was thrilled to see the portrait of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex painted by Hans Holbein the Younger. Wolf Hall is about the life of Cromwell and this very portrait features in Mantel's book. Lynn also explains that Cromwell avoided the trappings of his station and instead chose to dress as a simple lawyer in black robes as he was not born into nobility.

I love reading about the Tudor period in particular but was still shocked to read just how enormous the Tudor household was.

"The Tudor household was vast: Henry VIII's numbered 1,500 at its height. The household consisted of three sections: the household above stairs, which fell under the control of the Lord Chamberlain; the household below stairs, which was presided over by the Lord Steward; and the stables, which was overseen by the Master of the Horse." Page 109

Fascinating isn't it? Lynn goes into further detail, outlining which staff were assigned to which areas of the household, who was entitled to wear livery and how it was produced and funded.

I thoroughly enjoyed the detailed section about dressing a Tudor lady or queen and given women didn't wash their hair often, I appreciated this insight as to how they kept their hair from becoming greasy:

"A combing cloth was then placed over her shoulders while her hair was rubbed with a warm cloth to remove grease and dandruff, then combed. A ready-styled and dressed wig would then be put on her hair." Page 137

It was also a nice reminder - for me - to read how crucial pins were in Tudor dress. Pins were the primary means of holding the various layers of clothing together and in 1559, 24,000 pins of different sizes were supplied to Queen Elizabeth I, with similar numbers provided every 6 months. In How To Be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman I learned that pins from this era are still being found in the Thames today and in Mudlarking - Lost and Found on the River Thames by Lara Maiklem, the author explained that pins accumulate and wash together in tangled metallic nests and that they're one of her favourite treasures to find because they're so ordinary.

Tudor Fashion by Eleri Lynn is an informative and enjoyable read and will appeal to those with an interest in fashion, history, conservation, art and the Tudor period.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Underwear by Eleri Lynn

I've always been curious about underwear across history and I enjoy the snippets that occasionally pop up in the books I read* but where those authors may have touched on one or two fascinating facts from history, in Underwear - Fashion in Detail by Eleri Lynn it's the author's sole focus.

Eleri Lynn is a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the book is published by V&A Publishing which tells me she's at the height of her field with access to some of the best artefacts from history. It also tells me she's more than qualified to guide the reader through an evolution of underwear in this book.

Surprisingly, this evolution doesn't follow a chronological path, and the history of underwear is instead divided into the following chapters: Covering Up, Decoration, Control and Constrict, Fastenings, Support and Uplift, Volume and Inside Out.

This did create a little content overlap from time to time but not so much that I minded and in some cases it was helpful. I did have to smile when I read about drawers and knickers which were open at the crotch and weren't common in Britain until the 19th century.

"Early drawers, called pantaloons or pantalettes (long trouser-like undergarments for women), were introduced around the beginning of the century, but were not popular as they were considered too masculine and unhygienic. They were also considered immodest because they were cut quite long and were visible below the hem of the dress." Page 20

In the middle of the century (1850s) they were cut to a mid-calf length so as not to show beneath the skirt. Contrast that level of modesty with women's leggings, bike shorts and scrunch bum shorts today and I wonder what our ancestors would have made of our modesty standards - or the lack thereof - in the 2020s.

The author highlights the constantly evolving nature of fashion, showing how corset styles and construction changed and adapted across decades and centuries. A detail I found surprising was:

"The average corset was only expected to last about a year, as even very sturdy corsets would distort with wear." Page 94

As you would expect, the photographs of the V&A exhibits were detailed although sometimes it was hard to gain an appreciation of the entire garment. The accompanying illustrations were helpful but as a layperson, I would have appreciated some indication as to the front, back and side views as they weren't always obvious to me.

I've always found the bullet or torpedo shaped bra of the 1950s a strange fashion trend, and cringe when I see photos of Marilyn Monroe wearing them under a sweater. I remember when Madonna wore the conical corset designed by Jean Paul Gaultier in 1990 and in doing so turned soft feminine lingerie into a symbol of power and domination. This book helped me understand why it was that rosy pink colour, which was the most popular colour of underwear in the early to mid 1900s. That aside, I hope the bullet shaped bra never makes a return for the masses.

Here though, the author explains that the conical shaped bra included intricate concentric stitching and required padded inserts called falsies to fill out the shape and keep them from collapsing. I hadn't given much thought as to how the look was achieved so it was fun to consider it here. I wonder what the sweater girls would have made of the silicone chicken fillet inserts popular in the 1990s.

The sports bra gets a mention, but for some reason Lynn doesn't show us the plunge bra, and includes a photograph of the 'Ultrabra Perfection' balcony bra instead which was disappointing.

"Gossard launched the Ultrabra plunge bra in 1994, with the advertising tagline: 'Ultrabra, creating the ultimate cleavage'. It was followed by additions to the range, including 'Ultrabra Perfection', 'Ultrabra Light' and the 'Ultrabra Super Boost', which launched in 1999 with the slogan: 'Biggest Cleavage EVER... Or your money back!'"

I was also surprised not to see the wonder bra or push up bra, both of which seemed like significant fashion developments in the last 50 years and worthy of inclusion in a book like this. There was also no mention of Skims and the current shapewear trend which is as popular as ever.

Underwear - Fashion in Detail by Eleri Lynn ends suddenly and doesn't offer a conclusion on shifting trends over the centuries or any observations about the future of underwear. I did wonder if that was because the Victoria and Albert Museum collection includes historical items and curators focus on the past and present perhaps but not the potential future. That may be the reason, but given her expertise, I was keen to know Eleri's thoughts on the impact of changing technology and how future fabrics and changing materials will impact the underwear we wear in the future.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

* Those interested in intimate snippets about underwear from previous books I've read, might enjoy the following:

In The Dirt on Clean - An Unsanitized History by Katherine Ashenburg we're told the the Marquis d'Argens wore a flannel under-waistcoat to keep warm in the 1700s and wouldn't take it off for fear of catching cold. It was revealed he'd worn the waistcoat for four years, but when he finally agreed to take it off, it had "so fixed itself upon him that pieces of his skin came away with it." Eeek!

In How to Behave Badly in Renaissance Britain by Ruth Goodman I learned that the long tails of shirts once acted as a barrier between the body and the trousers, essentially performing the role of underwear (or drawers) for men. Men's shirts reached down to just above the knees with a slit at both sides, so they could be tucked around one's nether regions without impeding movement. As a result, to see a man with his shirt tails hanging out was 'disgusting' and now I understand why!

More recently in The Stuff of History by Steven Moore, I read about the 14 year old boy who broke into Buckingham Palace between 1838-1841, allegedly lived there in secret by hiding in rooms and chimneys and stole a pair of Queen Victoria's underwear. I was reminded of this when reading Underwear by Eleri Lynn, when we see a pair of Queen Victoria's underwear. Historians know they were worn by the Queen as they're embroidered with her monogram.

When reading Black - The History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau I learned that white was once the most common colour of underwear but that this trend has reversed and black is now the most popular. Wearing black underwear was once transgressive but no longer draws attention the way it once did. Go figure!

Review: Postscript - Life, Love and Loss in Australian Letters

* Copy courtesy of National Library of Australia Publishing *

Intro

Postscript - Life, Love and Loss in Australian Letters contains a small collection of letters from the archives held by the National Library of Australia and is just a tiny sample of the millions of letters in their extensive collection.

A variety of letters have been chosen covering a breadth of topics and were given to contemporary writers who were asked to use them as an inspiration to respond. They each did so by writing their own letter to a recipient of their choice and these were then grouped together in chapters.

In a tribute to the book I've decided to write my review in the form of a letter.

Letter to NLA

Dear National Library of Australia,

I haven't visited any of your four sites, yet I greatly admire the important work you do to preserve Australia's culture and history. I've long been a lover of letters and snail mail since I wrote in to Dolly Magazine as a teenager asking for a pen pal. I enjoyed reading your latest publication Postscript - Life, Love and Loss in Australian Letters and wanted to share my thoughts.

My favourite letter in this collection was the one from 17 year old student John Ian Wing to the Chairman of the Games Committee in charge of the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics. In his letter, John praises the friendliness of Melbourne people and suggests a march during the closing ceremony that is completely different to the one that took place during the opening ceremony. He proposes the athletes march as one nation, walking freely and waving to the public. In that way, John observes that 'war, politics and nationality will be all forgotten' and the whole world could be made as one nation creating 'a great occasion for everybody and no one would forget it'.

The Chairman loved the idea and John's suggestion was immediately adopted, creating a new Olympic tradition that we continue to enjoy today. I especially loved John's endearing diagram of how it could work.

Shelley Ware is an author, media presenter, educator and Mum and she was paired with this letter, choosing to write a letter to her son. In it she draws on John's vision for unity in a divided time to her son's moral compass and search for truth beyond the headlines expressed in his artwork. This was a terrific pairing and I really enjoyed it.

Another stand out was the letter from Sir John Monash in 1906 to his 13 year old daughter, narrating almost every aspect of her upcoming journey by train and then boat from Spencer Street Station (now Southern Cross Station) to the property of Canally on the Murray River.

Today you might consider his approach evidence of overparenting, but it's clear he loves her dearly and I couldn't help smiling at his advice for when she boards the boat on the Murray River:

"On settling down on the boat, I should advise you to to go bed at once, because you will, no doubt, be very tired, and the scenery is not very interesting for the first few miles. So you had better go to bed comfortably before the boat starts and do not stop up yarning, but get to sleep and tell the Stewardess to wake you quite early - say 7 a.m. - so that you can enjoy the beautiful river scenery for an hour or two before reaching Windomal." Page 26

His letter runs for pages and it made me wonder how many times he'd taken that trip but I didn't see the relevance of the two letters that followed by the late Judith Wright. While detailing the birth of her child Meredith and her subsequent recovery in hospital, I wasn't entirely sure how that related to a parent separated from their child or preparing a child for a life changing journey. However the letter from Maggie Mackellar to her adult daughter certainly embraced the spirit of the letter from Monash in her well expressed anxiety around her daughter travelling far away and the memories of her childhood the absence created.

It must have been difficult for your staff to create a longlist of letters for this project from your extensive archives. Where to start? How long did it take? I've heard from reliable sources that your staff chose letters of interest based on the identity of the sender or the recipient, the story or the writing itself. Then a generous list of potential respondents was collated, drawn from those with an existing relationship to the library, visiting writers or those who might have an interesting angle on a response.

I was pleased to see one of my favourite Australian authors included, Kate Forsyth and enjoyed her response to Jane Austen's letter. I wonder, was she able to view the original in person or online? I bet she would have been thrilled to see it.

I had fun devising my own shortlist of modern authors I'd love to see in a letter writing project like this and the fact that Postscript comes in at <130 pages, surely means there was room for more? Perhaps some of the invitees were overwhelmed by the magnitude of the brief and suffered a touch of analysis paralysis. I did find myself wishing for contributions from more well known Australian authors, as you know, we certainly have a plethora of Australian talent in that regard. Or, I fancy you might be considering a second edition, although you'll have to come up with a better title than Post Postscript; I don't think that'll catch on.

Let me know if you want to see my shortlist of modern respondents, but in the meantime, congrats on an engaging collection.

Yours Affectionately,

Carpe Librum!

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey

This was a brilliant read! The Secret Rooms - A True Gothic Mystery by Catherine Bailey is the result of a tonne of research delivered in a gripping narrative non fiction style that had me telling multiple people about it before I'd even finished.

If you'd asked me if I cared about the life of the 9th Duke of Rutland and his family, I'd have said no. What about the history of Belvoir Castle? I'd probably have given it a Google, marvelled at the impressive architecture, looked at any available images of the interiors and then moved on. So why did I pick this book up? In one word? The blurb! (Or is that two words?) The blurb contained a really good mystery I wanted to know more about and I love when rooms are locked for decades and then re-entered.

In 1940, John the 9th Duke of Rutland was one of Britain's wealthiest men, yet he died holed up in the servant's quarters of Belvoir Castle. Living out his last days secluded in an area comprising five damp rooms, doctors firmly encouraged him to move to luxurious accommodations elsewhere in the castle but John refused.

After his death, John's son closed up the rooms and they remained locked and untouched for sixty years. Author and researcher Catherine Bailey was one of the first to be granted access to these rooms and there she discovered what John had been feverishly working on right up until his death. Of course I wanted to know, don't you?

The Secret Rooms was published in 2012 and it's mentioned in the blurb so it's not a spoiler to say that John was an obsessive collector and had been organising and cataloguing his family's correspondence. The family archive contained hundreds of files spanning nine hundred years of history and contained tens of thousands of documents. On closer inspection, the author discovered that letters for three distinct periods in John's life - in 1894, 1909 and 1915 - had been removed from the collection. Why? Was he trying to hide something? And what was it?

Bailey draws on the contents of the available letters and diary entries in addition to military records and other sources in order to piece together what happened in John's life during these periods that he was trying to conceal.

Belvoir castle is in Leicestershire and built in the Gothic style with 356 rooms and I loved learning about it. It's an impressive looking structure and thankfully the book includes a comprehensive floor plan which was incredibly useful.

"The servants - maids of all descriptions, odd-job men, footmen, the flag man, the hall porter, the telephone boy, the boiler stoker and the stewards' room boy - were seated on the two benches that ran either side of a long table beneath a photograph of King George VI." Page 14

Of course, this wasn't all of the servants, you also have the housekeeper, butler, valet, chaplain, coal carriers, watermen, watchmen, lamp men and more. It's like Downton Abbey on steroids.

"In 1899, the castle had a groom of chambers, a house steward, an usher of the hall, a chef, a pastry chef, a confectioner, a plate butler, a clockman, a steward's room boy - and housemaids, kitchen maids, scullery maids, footmen, odd-job men, and porters galore." Page 169

"In the castle's grounds, there were hundreds more: grooms, stable lads, dairy maids, studmen, brewers, rat catchers, mole catchers, millers, mechanics, gardeners, groundsmen, gamekeepers, river keepers, huntsmen, kennelmen, slaughtermen, stockmen, horsemen, farm hands and woodsmen." Page 169

Bailey explains that in 1914, there were thirty Dukes - the highest honour the Crown could bestow - and they enjoyed privileges that seem scarcely credible to today's reader. This family had ruled over the neighbourhood for eight hundred years and some of the scenes described of family funerals held on the estate were extraordinary.

The astute among you will have noticed that one of the gaps in John's family correspondence occurred during the First World War and it's fair to say that a good deal of the research Bailey relates takes place during the war. This may deter some readers, however the author strings the narrative together so well by including telegrams (damnation!) and letters that keep the pace trucking along and on topic.

Bailey takes the reader along for the ride and has distilled John's life to a ripping tale and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to the bottom of the three 'secrets'.

In the Acknowledgements section of the book, the author thanks her mother Carol for deciphering and typing out the many thousands of letters she found. I have so many questions about this and the book that I'm currently trying to track down the author in order to invite her to conduct an interview with me for Carpe Librum. Catherine, if you're reading this, I'd love to know more about your research for this book so please get in touch.

The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey contains family secrets and cover ups, overzealous matchmaking, military movements and misdeeds, cryptology, pathological behaviour, aristocratic abuse of power and a privileged way of life many of us cannot begin to comprehend.

Highly recommended and an unexpected contender for My Top 5 Books of 2026.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!