Here's to our Far-Flung Empire
Here's to our Far-Flung Empire

Author: Tony Orchard

Publisher: Memoirs Publishing

Published: 2012-03-24

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1909020257

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Here’s To Our Far-Flung Empire is a fascinating and highly entertaining account of 17 unforgettable years of conflict and comradeship, war and romance, adventure and excitement around the world. Tony Orchard was a product of the British Empire at a time when Great Britain's rule across an empire that stretched from India to Singapore and Jamaica to Borneo was fast fading into history. His father had lived and worked in British India and was sent to Mombasa in British Kenya to start a subsidiary of Shell Oil. According to the comedian Tommy Trinder, Britain’s far-flung empire hadn’t been flung far enough. Without the outbreak of World War 2 and the evacuation of British forces at Dunkirk, Tony Orchard would probably never have had the chance to explore the truth of this for himself. In 1940, with the enemy at the gate, he was one of thousands of youngsters who were packed up from boarding school and sent off for their own safety to join their parents working overseas. As a result he spent a tempestuous 17 years travelling the world, with schooling in Calcutta and Durban, adventures in the South Seas serving with the Royal Navy and an eventful post-war sales career with Quaker Oats, selling flour to customers from Canada and the USA to the Caribbean, the Congo and East Africa. It wasn’t until he married a Danish girl and settled down back in England that he finally managed to stay under the same roof for more than three years.

The Changi Book
The Changi Book

Author: Lachlan Grant

Publisher: NewSouth

Published: 2015-08-01

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1742247377

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The story of Changi, told by those who lived through it. In the tradition of The Anzac Book comes this fascinating collection of accounts of life in the notorious Changi prison camp. Changi is synonymous with suffering, hardship and the Australian prisoner-of-war experience in WWII. It is also a story of ingenuity, resourcefulness and survival. Containing essays, cartoons, paintings, and photographs created by prisoners of war, The Changi Book provides a unique view of the camp: life-saving medical innovation, machinery and tools created from spare parts and scrap, black-market dealings, sport and gambling, theatre productions, and the creation of a library and university. Seventy years after its planned publication, material for The Changi Book was rediscovered in the Australian War Memorial archives. It appears here for the first time along with insights from the Memorial’s experts. ‘A moving insiders’ account of life in Changi.’ —Peter FitzSimons ‘A fresh perspective on Changi: illuminating stories from the inside.’ —Les Carlyon

Remembering Television
Remembering Television

Author: Kate Darian-Smith

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2013-01-16

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1443845752

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This path-breaking book extends our knowledge of the social and cultural impacts of television, asking new questions about the ways television’s technologies and programming have been experienced, understood and remembered. Television has served as a companion to the historical events that have unfolded in our everyday lives both on and off the screen, and its presence is intricately bound up in our memories of the past and actions in the present. As this volume demonstrates, the influence of television over individual and family behaviours, national identity and ideas of global citizenship is complex and wide-ranging. Drawing upon recent developments in memory studies, history, media and cultural studies, and with particular reference to Australia, leading scholars explore the histories of television, and how its programs and personalities have been celebrated, recalled with nostalgia or simply forgotten. Topics covered include the pre-figuring of television; memories of the struggle for transmission in remote locations; the transnational experience of television for immigrant communities; the evocation of television programs through spin-off products; televised war reportage and censorship; and the value of ‘unofficial’ television archives such as YouTube. As a whole, these essays offer a striking and original examination of the connections between history, memory and television in today’s world.