Fabulous Friday

Courtesy of Picture Queensland
Large group of men at Enoggera, Brisbane, ca. 1940

Today I attended a most interesting forum at the State Library of Queensland called Serving Country.  

There was a beautiful welcome to country from Maroochy Barambah and then the day was jam packed with talks about different aspects of the indigenous stories of WW1.  If you are interested in research in this area I encourage you to look at the program and speakers' biographies.  

There is a great article about Indigenous Australians serving on the Australian War Memorial site here.

We got to hear from Wesley Enoch and researcher/historian David Williams about the process of creating the Black Diggers production now showing at the QPAC Playhouse as part of the Brisbane Festival.  You can see a trailer here.

State Library of Queensland looks forward to uncovering many more untold stories of WW1.  To that end, today they announced four fellowships for research into new insights into the Queensland experience of WW1 and its aftermath. Applications for fellowships close 7 November.

If you wanted to get a sense of the forum you can see some of the livestream here.

I liked the last presentation the best by Linda McBride-Yuke.  The enormous pride she had in her menfolk shone in her presentation and she made us laugh and smile.  

Ettie Rout with NZEF Infantrymen 
Courtesy of Archives New Zealand 
Some rights reserved


On the way back to work I was listening to Philip Adam's Late Night Live on the radio from the previous evening.  He was talking to two authors of recent books about WW1.  I was particularly interested in the one called Ettie A Life of Ettie Rout by Jane Tolerton.  Ettie sounds a most interesting character. From this site we learn that she:

 "developed radical ideas early. She became a vegetarian, a committed socialist, a physical culturist, an unorthodox dresser, a publicist and fighter for many causes, and a woman who expressed her opinions freely and often. Many of her opinions were regarded as outrageous, but are commonly held views in today's society. In a letter to her friend, H.G. Wells, she said: "It’s a mixed blessing to be born too soon".

In her work for the New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood during WW1, Ettie became aware of the high venereal disease rate among soldiers and resolved to do something about it.  She campaigned, lobbied, researched preventative practices and eventually produced her own safe sex kit for soldiers.  

The book sounds fascinating and I've asked our library to purchase it.

So altogether a hugely informative Friday - Fabulous!

How was your Friday?