Showing all posts about history
Oranges and Sunshine, a film by Jim Loach, with Emily Watson, David Wenham
10 June 2011
Oranges and Sunshine, trailer, a drama set in 1986, is the debut feature of British TV producer Jim Loach, and is based on the book Empty Cradles by British social worker Margaret Humphreys. Her book chronicles efforts to expose the British government’s child migrants program of the 1950’s and 60’s, where over 130,000 children were forcibly sent overseas.
Many of these children — who came from struggling, or single-parent families, and sent to Australia, and other former British colonies — were under the impression their parents were dead, and that a happier life awaited them elsewhere. The reality was anything but; many were abused by their new carers, or became child labourers.
Humphreys (Emily Watson) is a Nottingham social worker caring for orphaned children. She first becomes aware British children were sent overseas when a woman from Australia asks for help tracing her mother. While searching for the woman’s mother, Humphreys uncovers numerous instances of children being sent overseas.
After learning that Nicky (Lorraine Ashbourne), a woman in a support group she convenes, has a brother Jack (Hugo Weaving), who was sent overseas as a child, Humphreys travels to Australia. There she soon meets many hundreds of others who were taken from their families, including Len (David Wenham), who is trying to find his mother.
It soon becomes apparent that it wasn’t just the children who were lied to. As Humphreys continues to reunite now adult children with their families, she learns the parents, whose children were often forcibly removed from their custody, were also lied to. They were often being told their children had been adopted locally, not sent overseas.
Humphreys’ work however is an uphill battle that takes a physical and emotional toll on her. The British and Australian governments are unhelpful. Meanwhile, the charity and church groups who took the children in are angered by the allegations of abuse levelled at them, which results in Humphreys being threatened by their supporters.
Oranges and Sunshine is an intimate and personal portrayal of a dark chapter in our history. In 2009 then Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the British child migrants, or Forgotten Australians as they are also known. His British counterpart, Gordon Brown, did likewise in 2010.
A compassionately made film that is neither sentimental or sensationalistic, Oranges and Sunshine is a moving, harrowing, and emotional drama. The lid is lifted on a government policy that aimed simply to save money — care for children was cheaper in Australia than Britain — and one that had no regard at all for those the would-be program purported to be helping.
Originally published Friday 10 June 2011, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
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David Wenham, Emily Watson, film, history, Hugo Weaving, Jim Loach, legacy, Lorraine Ashbourne
A short history of the letter J the alphabets last member
14 April 2011
While sitting in the tenth place in the English alphabet, the letter J, which split off from the letter I, was actually the last addition to the writing system.
“J” is a bit of a late bloomer; after all, it was the last letter added to the alphabet. It is no coincidence that i and j stand side by side — they actually started out as the same character. The letter j began as a swash, a typographical embellishment for the already existing i. With the introduction of lowercase letters to the Roman numeric system, j was commonly used to denote the conclusion of a series of one’s – as in “xiij” for the number 13.
Originally published Thursday 14 April 2011.
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The ghost stations of East Berlin by video train
6 December 2010
After the German cities of West Berlin and East Berlin were completely partitioned following the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, accessing one side of the city from the other — was at first — pretty much out of the question for all but a small number of people.
One group unaffected — to a degree — by the separation of the city were West Berlin train commuters who used a small number of underground services whose lines crossed into parts of East Berlin, as they travelled from one area of West Berlin to another.
While trains still ran through East Berlin, they did not stop at stations on the eastern side of the border. Many of these stations closed during the period the city was divided by the wall were dubbed “ghost stations”, and were usually heavily guarded by East German troops.
The YouTube video, above, contains footage filmed from the driver’s compartments of West Berlin trains as they passed through a couple of East Berlin’s ghost stations.
Update: unfortunately the original YouTube video has been taken down as a result of a copyright claim.
Originally published Monday 6 December 2010.
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There was once a place called Doggerland in Europe
3 September 2009
A landmass that connected what is now Great Britain to continental Europe, once existed up until about eight and half thousand years ago, and is known as Doggerland… at least by more contemporary geologists and scientists, that is.
Map/illustration by National Geographic Magazine staff.
Originally published Tuesday 3 September 2013.
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Progress? Coming soon, the disassociated WordPress blog
13 May 2007
The wordpressing (my new favourite word) of disassociated is well under way. It’ll be a while before anything happens though, as I’m trying to convert four years of static HTML file blog entries into a format I can upload to a WordPress database.
It’s not all cut and paste work. There’s quite a bit of formatting still to do. Redundant CSS styles and HTML tags need to be removed (to say nothing of dead links, but later for those), and there’s still the risk it won’t work. It should though.
As part of the redesign I have created (and uploaded) photos to a new-ish Flickr page, so go check it out. More photos will be added as I go. Bye for now…
Originally published Sunday 13 May 2007.
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blogs, design, history, legacy, technology
Kennedy assassination was no conspiracy says Kenneth Rahn
27 November 2003
Last week marked the fortieth anniversary of the 1963 assassination of United States President, John F. Kennedy. Kenneth Rahn, Professor Emeritus at the University of Rhode Island, writing for The Guardian, says the horrific shooting was far more straight forward than many people believe:
It is over. We must realise that this horrible event was not some evil plot. It was the product of chance, not conspiracy.
Rahn is part of a group who have studied all aspects of Kennedy’s assassination and have concluded there was no conspiracy, and that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin. There was no second shooter on the grassy knoll.
The real story of the assassination is this: Kennedy was killed by one misfit guy, a cheap but effective rifle, a good vantage point from the building where he worked and a run of fortuitous events.
Originally published Thursday 27 November 2003, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
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history, John F. Kennedy, legacy, politics
Creed Chris O’Hanlon, on the couch, with Mike Walsh, Sydney, October 2003
8 October 2003
Dot-com flamboyance, and web design world domination, are terms synonymous with Australian entrepreneur Creed Chris O’Hanlon. Spike Networks, the web design company O’Hanlon co-founded in 1994, quickly expanded from its base in the Sydney suburb of Double Bay, into Asia, Japan, and the United States, thanks to the backing of numerous venture capitalists.
But Spike didn’t just do extravagant, and expensive, websites. At the height of the dot-com folly, Spike was even operating a radio station.
As with most things dot-com though, Spike came tumbling down in spectacular fashion, although O’Hanlon had left the company long beforehand. Workers (including someone I knew personally) lost jobs, investors were out of pocket by millions, while the rest of us were left wondering how so little could have come of so much hype.
Not helping matters were the stories that began emerging of the indulgent lifestyle led by O’Hanlon, during his time as boss. No expense was spared. Five star hotels, first class airline travel, and gourmet dining the world over, you name it. Then there was the extramarital affair with a Spike employee, which later resulted in allegations of sexual harassment.
So when an email from The Domain, a local media and technology professionals networking event arrived the other week, inviting me to see O’Hanlon speak, I knew I didn’t want to miss out. He would be talking to Australian futurist and speaker Mike Walsh, at the Hotel CBD, in downtown Sydney, as part of Domain’s On the Couch interview series.
Those expecting to see O’Hanlon pelted with projectiles however, would have been disappointed.
This despite Walsh pointing out O’Hanlon, in wearing a red shirt, had readied himself for any rotten tomatoes that might be thrown his way. In the end, the Spike co-founder only had to field a total of three audience questions, none of which related to dubious past activities, business or otherwise. Strategically, O’Hanlon headed off any acrimony, by admitting at the onset the “terrible” things he was accused of, were, “unfortunately true”.
Instead he offered an array of insights into online media and communications in general. He has been working as a consultant in Japan for a well known car manufacturer in recent times, and spoke of how mobile phones had changed the previously rigidly structured fashion in which the Japanese communicated with each other. O’Hanlon also spoke of the death of copyright, and the dearth of ideas when it comes to conceiving creative advertising campaigns for electronic media.
He also mentioned the upcoming publication of a book he is writing, which we were told would be titled The Zen of Failure. If nothing else, all of this shows that there are always opportunities to turn failure into, if not success, at least money. The right attitude is also useful, especially when trying to turn around a tide of negative perception. The gift of the gab, that is, the ability to sound intelligent, articulate, and well worded, is also somewhat useful.
Originally published Wednesday 8 October 2003, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.
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Australia, Creed Chris O'Hanlon, history, legacy, Mike Walsh, technology