With the announcement in December 2018 that Adelaide will be home to the new Australian Space Agency, it is timely to reflect on South Australia’s more than 70 year involvement in space activities. Memories of Woomera In 1947, the Australian Read More …
Describing the Meadows oval as a sports oval in the early- to mid-1900s is probably being overly generous. In common with ovals in other small towns, it had its shortcomings. Harry Portlock recalled that in the 1940s: The oval was Read More …
Woomera is a dry place – most of the time. Sometimes however it is inundated with rain, and then the landscape changes dramatically. Plants that have laid dormant come to life, and seeds from ephemeral plants germinate and grow. I Read More …
Peter Kolomitsev is an audio engineer working at the State Library of South Australia whom we met in previous posts, talking about his job and providing his top tips for making excellent quality oral history recordings. In this post, I Read More …
Audio engineers working in collecting institutions are in a superb position to provide valuable advice to oral historians, since they look after recordings, and ensure they are stored safely and made available to researchers. They have extensive experience in sound Read More …
I recently went behind the scenes at the State Library of South Australia to interview audio engineer, Peter Kolomitsev, about his job. It quickly became apparent that in helping to preserve the state’s audio heritage, he encounters a diverse range Read More …
The Meadows poultry settlement was established in May 1934, as I described in a previous post. Twenty-four families with a total of 130 children moved in. At this time, the population of Meadows was about 290, so the settlement suddenly Read More …
During the Great Depression of the1930s, several Unemployment Relief Scheme settlements were established in the Adelaide Hills. A contemporary newspaper report predicted that the settlement in Meadows would achieve “success and prosperity.” Settlers were expected to earn 300 pounds per Read More …
One of the many uses of oral history is to help us study the way we use spoken language, and how this can differ from written English. Transcribing interviews to a written form is an important part of the process Read More …
I usually restrict myself to interviewing humans, however I recently overheard two koalas in a nearby tree. Hearing one koala is not unusual in the Adelaide Hills, but this was the first time I had heard two. I couldn’t resist Read More …