Nic's Blog
Death at the Iris tin mine
Stanniferous drift is a term once used to describe tin-bearing ground, but it could just as easily describe the movement of tin mining families—or mining families of any other stripe—from one field to the next in search of better opportunities. Both economics and...
Hedley Higgs’ home-made gold mine
For many people the Wall Street crash of 1929 heralded an era of making do with very little. Some families still earned a crust on the mining fields. In 1931 the pound was devalued, causing a spike in the fixed price of gold.[1] Wallets sprang open like blooms in a...
Mining the Tarkine, European style
Jackie (JH) Robinson: mining field photographer
The rain on the plain falls mainly outside the gauge, or how a black sheep brought meteorology to Middlesex
In summer you can easily wade up the Lea River beneath the beetling cliffs along the northern edge of the Middlesex Plains. Only by then doubling back can you find a mullock dump partially blocking the river, and above it a 30-metre-long tunnel into the cliff, where...
‘Eskimos and polar bears’: Dave Courtney comes in from the cold
Dave Courtney, 66 years old, at Middlesex, 1940. RE Smith photo courtesy of Charles Smith. They said he was in hiding, a man on the run. Some said he was Dan Kelly, escaped from fiery Irish martyrdom at the Glenrowan Inn. Even a co-worker thought he was a mainland...