Williamstown High School in Melbourne’s inner western suburbs celebrated its centenary this year. Among the highlights was the centenary concert when alumni who have made their careers in music returned to play alongside current students. Now this magical night is recorded on YouTube.
I had a little to do with publicity, which ensured the Williamstown Town Hall was filled.
We’ve been doing some work for the Project Team planning a new residential development in Dingley Village in south-east Melbourne. The team has some exciting ideas.
Here’s our media release:
(This story was first published on the website Stereo Stories in 2015)
Back in 1980, Poplar Parade, Youngtown, was pretty much the last street in Launceston. Heading south to Hobart it was the final turn-off on the left before you reached the outlying Franklin Village.
I spent the year living there in a 1970s brick-veneer with Wrightee and Tiina. His name was always spelled Wrightee, and Tiina had two iis because her folks came from Finland.
We’d finished uni in Hobart the year before then all secured jobs in Launceston. Somehow Tiina had bought the house in Poplar Parade then signed up Wrightee and me as lodgers. She had the big bedroom in the front while we had adjoining rooms down the back, separated only by a floor-to-ceiling plywood wardrobe affair.
Wrightee and I had lived at college together for three years so privacy wasn’t much of an issue. He had a girlfriend called Barb while I was experiencing something of a lean spell.
(Speech given by Hugh Jones at the launch of “Not Another One!” by Ann Stone, October 26, 2015)
I’m humbled and grateful for the invitation to launch Ann’s book. I’ve known Ann and the Stone family pretty much all my life – in fact, I bob up on Page 3 of the book (before both Don Bradman and Ronnie Biggs) – and Ann and Ron have been among my parents’ greatest friends.
Like everyone who hears the stories from their frequent travels, I’ve harboured a degree of envy. Most of us will never get to half the places Ron and Ann have visited.
It’s been great fun reading about their 40 years of travelling the world and I congratulate Ann and the publishing team at Makor and the Lamm Jewish Library that has edited her diaries into such an attractive read.
The envious reader will soon appreciate that Ann has been fortunate in her life:
(This piece was originally published on The Footy Almanac’s music site, 24/01/2015.)
This summer, for the first time in three years I am not eagerly awaiting a Bruce Springsteen tour to Australia. Thank goodness.
Not that I wouldn’t want Bruce to return, bringing with him his million-dollar entourage, his massive back catalogue and three-hour musical extravaganzas. It’s just that I couldn’t bear the stress of anticipation.
Stress? I’ve been addicted to Springsteen since the late 1970s when a fellow uni student, Ian Wright, introduced me to the man from Freehold, New Jersey.
(This story was first published on the website Stereo Stories in 2012)
American folk singer Don McLean is visiting Australia again later this year on a tour that takes in venues at all capital cities, including Hobart’s Wrest Point casino.
I wonder if he remembers the first time he played Wrest Point in 1982 and his media call in one of the reception rooms there? I hope not.
Now 67, McLean has been travelling the world since the early 1970s, mostly on the back of what Wikipedia calls his magnum opus, American Pie. The song and album of the same name were released in 1971, topping charts all around the world. McLean has been assured of an audience ever since.
Wrest Point Casino had opened 10 years before McLean’s 1982 visit and had been successful at attracting some high-profile stars to its showroom in sleepy Hobart. Jerry Lewis, Ronnie Corbett, Reg Varney, Barry Humphries and dozens of others had been recruited to entertain gamblers at what was then Australia’s only legal casino. The carpets were plush, the bars were shiny and dry, the lighting was moody and people dressed up for a night at “the cas”. This was before poker machines arrived: gambling was glamorous. Continue reading
The Williamstown Literature Festival is in its 10th year, and it’s a big deal where I live. There’s plenty of good sessions and workshops (including a beauty on Sunday morning on being a journalist by this particular blogger):
10.30AM-12:30PM – WILLIAMSTOWN LIBRARY HERITAGE ROOM
A fast-paced, interactive workshop for aspiring news hounds designed to give an insight into the life of a journalist and what it takes to succeed. Ideal for senior school students those considering tertiary studies in journalism or novice journalists keen to polish their skills. With Hugh Jones.
Tickets: Book Online.
And then there’s Footy Town in Williamstown this Wednesday night. Dress code is footy jumper, the older the better. Sure to be good fun.
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Providing solutions to problems of writing, editing, media and communication
