The Big Book of Australian Yarns

Preface Part One-Uniquely Australian Introduction Prickly Pear First Shots Sporting Highlights and Lowlights The Love Boat The Act that Brought the House Down Aussie Ups and Downs The Flying Van Tassels Scandal The Very Expensive Penny The First Act of War on Australian Soil The Red Baron's Aussie Send-off The Second Act of War on Australian Soil 'Westralia Shall be Free' April and Other Fools When the End of the World Was Nigh Keep on Truckin' Confessions of a Wheat Dumper (Frank Daniel) Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!-Blame Frank Ifield Part Two-Colourful Characters Introduction The Man Who Went Overboard The Man They Couldn't Hang The Evangelising Blacksmith The Old Commodore The Arrogant Convict Architect Criminal or Insane? The Flying Pieman Blind Freddy Our Only Chinese Bushranger Unaarrimin-Johnny Mullagh The Father of Aussie Boxing 'Professor Miller' Australia's Silent Film Cowboy A Mandarin of the Fourth Degree The Princess and the Pie Jack O'Hagan-Along the Road to Bundaberg? Mr Eternity Bea Miles-Sydney's Favourite Eccentric Big Chief Little Wolf The Adventures of Smoky Dawson Part Three-Mysterious and Spooky Introduction Frederici-The Ghost of The Princess Theatre Fisher's Ghost The Haunting of Sydney Town Hall Ghosts of Darlinghurst Gaol The Lonely Ghost of Lady Elliot Island The Mystery of the S.S. Waratah The Princes Who Saw a Ghost Ship The Yowie Bunyips The Tantanoola Tiger and Other Big Cats The Girl with Peculiar Dark Eyes Stones from Nowhere Part Four-Courageous Women Introduction Esther Abrahams-First Lady of the Colony of New South Wales The First Five-The Sisters of Charity Lucy Osburn-Hospital Reformer Louisa Lawson-Pioneer of Women's Suffrage Helen Porter Mitchell-Dame Nellie Melba Lesbia Harford-Voice of the Invisible People Amy Johnson-'She's There!' (Jillian Dellit and Jim Haynes) Flying Females Nancy, Andre, Hlene, Die Weiss Maus Part Five-Aussie Humour Introduction Laconic Aussie Humour Tall Tales Dad And Dave Graveyard Humour Humorous Memories Sporting Clangers Racetrack Humour Lennie Lower-The Funniest Bastard in Australia Laugh With Lower (Lennie Lower) Part Six-Here's Cheers!-Our Alcoholic History Introduction Phillip Schaffer-Our First Free Settler and Vigneron The Enterprise of Peter Degraves The th Regiment Are Revolting The Oldest Pubs in Australia The Oldest Pub in Sydney? Young And Jackson's-Home of Chloe What's The Difference? Pub Names Booze and Sport The Tragic Life of Henry Lawson-Why Does a Man Drink? The Valentine's Day Mutiny Six O'Clock Madness Mr Sloove's Speech (abridged from Here's Luck, Lennie Lower) Part Seven-All Aboard-Railway Tales Introduction John Whitton-The Man Who Conquered the Mountain Train to Melbourne (Mark Twain) Dark Day at Sunshine Great Train Robberies The Never Never Railway Line Harold Clapp-The Man with the Spirit of Progress Fare Evasion Railway Women-The Great Triple R The End of the Line The Pub with No Railway I'll Walk Beside You The Granville Disaster Part Eight-Fascinating Factual Aussie History Introduction Girt By Sea The Mystery of the 'Mahogany Ship' Runaways and Discoveries Who Crossed the Blue Mountains? The Colony That Couldn't Be Prevented Safe Passage to Melbourne The Colony that Never Was Cobb & Co Eureka Stockade The Wreck that Modernised Sydney The 'Tragic Comedy' of Burke and Wills Lambing Flat The 'Failure' That Succeeded-Mildura Irrigation Colony The Man in Charge of Everything How Sydney was Remodelled by The Plague Paddleboat Problems Those Magnificent Men-Our Pioneer Aviators Captain Ross Smith and the Great Air Race The Extraordinary Life of Hubert Wilkins Shiploads of Migrants Acknowledgements