Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories
Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories

Author: Jim Haynes

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2016-11-23

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1952535700

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Did you know that in 1932 the Australian army was called out to wage war on an invading army of 20,000...emus? Or that the first royal personage to arrive in Australia was the King of Iceland and he came as a convict? And how about the spooky phenomenon of the mischief-making Guyra Ghost? From Jim Haynes, one of our most successful and prolific tellers of yarns and bush tales, comes this ultimate collection of unbelievable true Australian stories: the unknown, the forgotten, the surprising, the truly weird and the completely inexplicable. Told with a refreshing understatement, Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories vividly evokes a vanishing Australia when anything was possible, when characters were larger than life and the bizarre and strange were normal.

Fashion
Fashion

Author: Gosling Lucinda

Publisher:

Published: 2017-02

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9781742579177

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Forensic Counsellor, John Merrick spent 20 years in what he describes as lsquo;a very unusual environmentrsquo; ndash; the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Office of the State Coroner in Glebe, Sydney ndash; more commonly known as the lsquo;city morguersquo;. Whatrsquo;s it like to work in a morgue? This book describes, first hand, coping with mutilated or decomposed bodies and the carnage of large-scale disasters like the Bali bombings. Equally as traumatic, the suicides, accidental drownings, car accidents and murders. But forensic counsellors do much more, witnessing autopsies, attending crime scenes and coronial enquiries. Itrsquo;s all in a dayrsquo;s work. Find out what itrsquo;s like behind the scenes. Those working at the morgue come face to face with death on a daily basis, and forensic counsellors like John have to find the compassion and kindness to ease the grief of those left behind.

At the Very Heart
At the Very Heart

Author: Storry Walton

Publisher: Wakefield Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1743051344

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This book draws together words and images of the people who live and work across Australia's farthest horizons, together with the staff of the Australian Inland Mission (AIM) and its successor Frontier Services, who have devotedly served remote families and provided vital services which they would not otherwise have received.

Oddball
Oddball

Author: Anna Hille

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Published: 2016-10-06

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1474604846

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Middle Island, Australia, is home to a unique type of bird. At only 40cm tall, the Little Penguin is the smallest of the penguin species. However locals noticed that over time, the numbers in the colony were rapidly decreasing and no one knew why. That was until the culprit was discovered - local foxes. Over the years, the area of water separating the island from the mainland had begun to silt up, leaving a clear path over to the island. A local chicken farmer, nicknamed Swampy Marsh, had an idea. He had trained his Maremma sheepdog, named Oddball, to protect his birds - what if he could do the same for the penguins? This is the true tale of how one dog managed to save the failing colony and Oddball and the penguins became a smash box-office hit film.

Australia's Serial Killers
Australia's Serial Killers

Author: Paul B. Kidd

Publisher: Macmillan Publishers Aus.

Published: 2011-08-01

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 1742627986

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Since its first publication in 2000, Australia's Serial Killers has become a true crime classic. This edition is fully updated, bringing all the cases covered up to the minute. A recognised authority on Australia's most notorious criminals, Paul B. Kidd covers in unwavering detail 33 true stories of serial murder. In this gallery of infamy are world renowned killers the likes of the Night Caller, The Granny Killer, Ivan Milat, Kathleen Folbigg and the Snowtown murderers. Sixteen years in the researching, this comprehensive and ambitious work includes psychological opinions, court-room trials, detailed confessions, and exclusive prison interviews with three of Australia's most infamous serial killers.

Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia
Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia

Author: Jim Haynes

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2023-10-31

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 176118797X

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Australia's most amazing characters of the convict age. 'Aussies love a good story and entertainer Jim Haynes has been telling them for decades' —Courier-Mail In Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia, our master storyteller Jim Haynes has collected a fascinating cast of characters who embody the resourcefulness, bravery, defiance, successes and tragedies of the convict era, the men and women who forged the nation we would one day become. There's Joseph Banks, the true founder of the colony; Surgeon John White, the saviour of the First Fleet; Pemulwuy, the Bidjigal freedom fighter; Mary Reiby, the horse thief who made good; Sapy Lovell, the Eora gypsy convict; John Donohue, the wild colonial boy; Lady Jane Franklin, the true leader of Van Diemen's Land – and many more! Why did transportation occur, why did it end, and what was it like living in Australia from 1788 to 1870? Skilfully researched and told in Jim's warm and witty style, Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia answers these questions and brings to life well-known and unknown figures from Australia's history as a penal settlement. This is the true story of the colonisation of Australia. 'In a year when we could all use a different perspective Jim Haynes came to the rescue with his latest sojourn into history . . . a cast of colourful characters.' —Spectator

Adventurers, Pioneers and Misfits
Adventurers, Pioneers and Misfits

Author: Jim Haynes

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2020-11-03

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1761060538

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From an eccentric musical genius to an escaped convict who ended up Japan, Jim Haynes reveals some of Australia's most amazing, and sometimes unbelievable, true life stories The petty thief... who escaped Van Diemen's Land, twice, stole the government brig and set sail for Japan, where, by the Shogun's decree, all foreigners were to be executed. The world's best cricketer a champion of Aboriginal people who 'invented' Aussie Rules, survived the worst massacre of white settlers in Australia's history and killed himself with a pair of scissors. The eccentric musical genius ...who played in the greatest concert halls in the world but pushed his favourite piano stool between venues in a wheelbarrow. Over the many years Jim Haynes has spent exploring and writing about the quirkier events and people in Australia's history, he has discovered characters who have amazed, surprised and simply baffled him. This is a book about some of those men and women and their remarkable, out-of-the-ordinary and almost unbelievable lives. As he always does, Jim has discovered that there is more to the story than first meets the eye. Who knew that the first man hanged in Australia made an artefact now valued at over one million dollars? Or that an Australian swimmer was the highest-paid act on the American vaudeville circuit and the star of the first million-dollar movie ever made? And that the father of the first Australian woman to serve in parliament was hanged for murder? With a light touch, a wry eye and his gifts as a master storyteller, Jim shares the tales and adventures of a group of heroic, feisty, flawed and pioneering characters who have shaped our nation and introduced Australia to the world.

The Greatest Survival Stories of All Time
The Greatest Survival Stories of All Time

Author: Cara Tabachnick

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2019-07-23

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13: 1612439225

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This collection of survival stories recounts the harrowing true experiences of people across the globe who faced certain death—and survived. The stories in this riveting volume seem too unbelievable to be true. Lost individuals facing the most severe natural disasters, the most dangerous situations, and the most inhospitable conditions . . . somehow making it out alive. From plane crashes and sinking ships to surviving in freezing forests and scorching deserts, this anthology includes some of the most famous, unbelievable tales of beating the odds. This book features gripping tales of sheer bravery and quick thinking, including: Juliane Koepcke, the sole survivor of a plane crash in the Peruvian Amazon Jose Salvador Alvarenga, who floated for thirteen months alone in the Pacific ocean Aron Ralston, who cut off his arm to escape the canyon he’d been trapped in Lincoln Hall, who was abandoned on Mount Everest . . . and many more.

World War Bloody Timor
World War Bloody Timor

Author: Peter O’Hanlon

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-03-30

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 1922615706

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World War Bloody Timor gives a revealing insight into the extraordinary life of the everyday digger and service in a conflict that was far from ordinary. My name is Peter O’Hanlon, but everyone in the military, from the lowest digger to the highest officer, has always called me ‘Irish’. You won't see me, or the service men and women like me, featured in the latest blockbuster, but our service lives include drama, laughs and accounts of deep turmoil that are worth telling. I was a member of the Australian Army for 11 years and during my deployment as part of the INTERFET force, serviced three very impacting tours of East Timor. What was it like, as a 19 year to land at the Dilli Airport in Australia’s largest deployment since Vietnam? What are the little-known battles and obstacles that cause unseen scars through a deployment? What are the impacts on re-integrating into the civilian community? This is my story, an ordinary soldier; the juicy yarns, the laughs, the battles, the devastating lows, the soaring highs, the blood, sweat and tears we give in service every day. It will make you laugh and may make you cry. It's the cold hard truth about the impact of a different type of war fought by many who deployed to Timor.

Great Australian Scams, Cons and Rorts
Great Australian Scams, Cons and Rorts

Author: Jim Haynes

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2017-10-25

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1760639699

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'Australian history is...so curious and strange, that it...does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies... It is full of surprises, and adventures, and incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened.' - Mark Twain Australia is the birthplace and setting of some of the wildest, craziest and least-likely-to-succeed cons and rorts in history. From the cleverest double-crosses to the most unlikely and maddest schemes, master storyteller Jim Haynes reminds us that we've never been shy of pulling a trick or two. So how did a clever bushman who 'couldn't lie straight in bed' steal a thousand head of cattle and get away with it even though he was caught 'red handed'? And what about the disappearing work of art that suddenly dissolved only to reappear at an auction years later? Or how about the butcher from Wagga who passed himself off as a French-born English duke to inherit a small fortune. And then there was the small matter of a horse, a tin of paint and a million dollar double-cross that became known as the Fine Cotton Affair. In only the way he can, Jim Haynes has collected a veritable 'Gullible's Tales' of unexpected and surprising true stories that may seem hard to believe!