Bøker av Ian Braybrook

Sentenced to life in the Colony of New South Wales by the Essex Assizes, Abraham Braybrook’s story is unique.On arrival in Sydney in November 1834, convict number 2480 was assigned to a powerful ex-military man and squatter as a farm hand. He worked growing fruit and vegetables at The Field of Mars district near Parramatta. Then in 1837, as part of a pioneering group, he was among the first to overland from Yass to Central Victoria. This made him one of the very first settlers in that area. There, at Maiden Hills Station, he was engaged as a shepherd and bootmaker. By the time of his premature death in 1851, Abraham was a respected small farmer and family man; but he had been on a very rough and adventurous journey.Along the way he was central to a sensational murder trial in Melbourne, was involved in a serious incident involving Aborigines, escaped death by hanging through a stroke of well-timed good fortune and experienced first-hand the tragedy and horror of the worst bushfires in Australia white man’s history.With the permission of the Governor he married an Irish girl in 1842 and was father to five children. He received a Conditional Pardon in 1848. His remains are believed to lie below the famed Queen Victoria Market, the original Melbourne Cemetery. 

Ian Braybrook was a radio broadcaster in Central Victoria for many years. His childhood and early teen years are far removed from the “glamour” of that job.Ian’s family was desperately poor and the early death of his father had a far-reaching effect on his life. By the age of thirteen, when he got his fi rst job, he had lived in twenty homes and changed schools ten times.His story moves from Daylesford, Trentham and Blackwood districts in the Central Highlands to East Gippsland, South Gippsland, the Western District and the Riverina of NSW. His many jobs included a telegram boy, farm hand,builders and general labourer, storeman, shift worker, fruit picker, shearing shed wool presser and truck driver. Along the way he was homeless, suffered two potentially fatal illnesses, experienced violent abuse and suffered a sexual assault. Written originally for family, the story proved to be of far wider interest. The adventures and misadventures crammed into the first eighteen years of Ian’s life provide an important record of the way life was for some in the depression and post-depression era.

In 1874 a woman established an enterprise high on the eastern slopes of Mount Alexander in Central Victoria. Its purpose was to grow thousands of mulberry trees, to feed silkworms, produce silk, and train women in the silk industry. This is a must read account of the efforts of one pioneer woman to establish a silk industry in Australia. It moves from Corowa on the Murray River, to Kings Domain in Melbourne and Mount Alexander in Central Victoria. It includes Switzerland, France, Portugal, Italy and Great Britain.It tells of the passionate resolve of widow, Sarah Florentia Bladen Neill, who had the vision for her country and the courage to fight for it. Hers was a mammoth effort and her story, never before told, deserves a prominent place in Australia’s history."This is the fascinating story of a bold attempt of a woman to start an Australian silk industry, and it is about time it was told." Michael Cannon,  Historian