Bøker av Jeff Hopkins

Mick and Leda Daniels' identical twin boys, Alex and Phillip, grow up on Trafalgar Downs Station in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. Their older, musically gifted 'sunshine sister', Helen, brings joy to everyone with her talents. Leda Daniels looks after the twins' early childhood education, then teaches them in classroom situations when she makes an unplanned return to teaching at Leonora District High School. Mick makes sure the boys are well-coached in sporting pursuits and that they learn hard lessons about the responsibilities associated with working on a cattle station.Sent to the historic and traditional Blackwood Boys' Boarding College in the metropolitan area for the last three years of secondary school, both Nick Floyd and Myles Bennett have significant impacts on their lives. The twins have to deal with a family crisis, and they take different pathways but always remain 'two halves of the one person'.Their exceptional swimming talents see both twins selected to represent Australia at the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968. In 1970 they are required to register for National Service and face the dreaded 'ballot of death'.Later, Phillip assumes the responsibility for helping to run Trafalgar Downs Station while Alex studies archaeology and anthropology at university. Jonathan Budd enters Helen's and the twins' lives. The unique connection between identical twins is severely tested by subsequent events.This is all part of the story of the Trafalgar Downs' twins.

With recently discovered information coming to light, the author revisits and presents new stories and pictures illustrating his family's complex genealogy in this reworked edition of the 1992 manuscript 'Life's Race Well Run'. The original concept of 'A Diary of Discovery' has been maintained and the book is now published for the first time.There is a dynasty established by a Foundry owner and his eleven sons who were draftsmen, fitters and turners, machinists, mining engineers and a mercer. They spread worldwide searching for new challenges and in the service of their country. Two elusive grandfathers are eventually tracked down with their fascinating histories and stories revealed. A never before heard of great, great, grandfather is discovered. His seven-year transportation sentence to Van Diemen's Land extends to sixteen years' incarceration at various locations. When he finally gains his ticket of leave and then is emancipated in 1849, he travels to the mainland where his sons and granddaughters link in with the genealogy outlined in the 1992 book. This leads to revelations of more ex-nuptial children and half-brothers that had never been previously known.The exceptional women in the story are not neglected. Their perseverance and endurance is outlined. Aunts, grandmothers, and great grandmothers all have unique tales to tell. They had large families, and many had to face the pain of losing their children to illness, disease, and accidents.Locations where the characters lived and died, religions, occupations, and service in wartime are detailed. The ships, from small sailing ships to luxury ocean liners, on which they travelled are described in detail.Then there is the expanded bloodline genealogy that was never fully explored in the first book. While keeping much of the original material, these new stories open a whole new world of investigating a family history.

Leonora Gaerth was a foster child, and her younger brother, Landor, was adopted. They grew up in the coalmining town of Collie in the southwest of Western Australia. Leonora showed exceptional talent and skills as a dressmaker before winning a scholarship to Modern School in Perth where she matriculated and went on to study law at the University of Western Australia. Landor was often used as a tailor's dummy for Leonora's projects. His big sister kept him interested by teaching him how to cut and stitch and rewarded him by painting his fingernails for the first time. Landor became a plumber's apprentice and met 'Ginger' Sutherland when he was assigned to Ginger's garage and workshop project. Ginger taught Landor the pugilistic arts. A murder at Minninup Pool in Collie threatened to derail both siblings' lives.When the Second World War broke out in 1939. Landor volunteered for the Royal Australian Navy and saw action in the Mediterranean Sea as part of the crew of HMAS 'Parramatta' II before his ship was torpedoed by a German submarine. With seven of his shipmates Landor was plucked from the sea by the Germans and spent the last three and a half years of the war in a German prisoner of war camp, Stalag 334.After the war Landor was reunited with his successful barrister sister in Perth, Western Australia. Leonora reveals what she knows of their joint histories. Landor seeks to find out who his biological parents were. All is revealed at Landor Station near Meekatharra. Landor now knows who he is and in what direction he wants to take in life.

Rufus Enterprise chooses Seal Island in King George Sound in the Southern Ocean of Western Australia as the site for his sealing operation. He appoints Tom Elder as his leader with four ex-convicts, Bob Beater, Dick Dental, Harry Heeler, and Sam Scullion to assist him. A group of boys are shanghaied, press-ganged, and purchased to make up the unpaid workforce on Seal Island. The boys are worked hard and treated badly, but some learn invaluable skills under the tutelage of Harry Heeler and Sam Scullion.A sudden fierce storm sees an East Indiaman ship flounder and founder near Seal Island, but efforts to get a line out to her prove futile. The ship sinks, but there is one survivor, a 'boy in fancy togs' called Adam. Adam is a problem for Rufus Enterprise. He might be worth a ransom or reward, but he also may have seen enough to bring the operation on Seal Island undone. Adam befriends Benjamin and shares with him the dream for a better life. When Rufus Enterprises hears of this so-called dream, he is furious and decides to deal the problem in a wicked way, through a ritual castaway. He retells the terrifying tales and legends of 'Old John' Sullivan to frighten the boys into submission and stamp out all talk of dreams and dreamers.Benjamin shares the dream with six others who become 'outcasts', when a 'snitch' called Jake, brings them undone. Rufus Enterprise, now infused with a black miasma, is teetering on the edge of madness, and his unstable state explodes into death and destruction. How all this is resolved is the story of the Seal Island band.

Jayden Harnett returns in this sequel to Directed by McCardle O'Hanlon. The young star, and emerging ballet dancer, who turned his back on a movie making career to study for a teaching degree, is lured back into the theatrical world. His story is a sprawling saga that covers four continents, two new films, and the revival of a classic play. For more than a year Jayden shoots films on location in Tasmania, and Norfolk Island in Australia, and Kankara Town and Katsina State in Nigeria. He returns to the stage in a revival of a challenging play that opens in London and has seasons in New York and Los Angeles.Jayden is involved in events that are heroic, harrowing, and heartbreaking. All is revealed in Jayden Harnett's story.