The Legend of Colton H. Bryant

The Legend of Colton H. Bryant by Alexandra Fuller




I never knew that there were so many gas wells in Wyoming! I certainly never knew that the US allowed the workers to work in such horrific conditions. This is a sad story of a lad who was slightly retarded, who had a good friend called Jake, and was loved by his family. Fuller writes the tale of Colton, his joys, sorrows, determination and loves, as he lived his life with family, friends, then a new wife, until his death caused by a fall from one of the gas wells.

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Henry VIII and his Six Wives

The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


While waiting for Weir's Elizabeth 1 I will read this one. That Henry VIII wasn't as bad as I thought he was, that he was under a great deal of pressure from the privy council, parliament, the religious clergy and royalty on the continent to produce an heir. The manipulation of the court to bring about the destruction or displacement of his wives was an eye-opener. I liked it, for I enjoy a book that can teach me something that I didn't know

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Hezekiah IV

Hezekiah IV
by susandayley on August 11, 2010
Last week after Judah received a major defeat at the hands of the Israelites, one of the amazing stories of the Bible occurs involving the prophet Oded. This week fast forwards to shortly after the ceremony that ordained Ahaz as king. Ahaz met with his advisors and led them to decide that a tribute must be sent to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, hoping that Assyria will crush Israel and Syria, but spare Judah. Hezekiah listened to the meeting from a doorway and then descended to where his friend, Eliakim waited.

“Come quickly,” Hezekiah called, motioning to Eliakim. Hezekiah hurried away from where his friend stood in the shadows of the palace gardens. He ran toward the western gate.

“Stop,” Eliakim finally insisted. “What is happening?”

“King Ahaz has received information that Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria is growing bold and is advancing. He will send a message and a gift in hope of avoiding a war.” Hezekiah backed up to a stone wall and tipped his head to stare at the cloud covered night sky above. “He told Shebna to write: ‘I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me.’”

Eliakim stumbled and gripped the wall beside his friend. Hezekiah continued with agitation and no longer hiding his anger, “Does he not know the King of Assyria will see this as a great weakness? He will extort a heavy tribute at best and possibly be tempted to take our land as well. This will not be an alliance with Assyria; it will place us in suzerainty. Ahaz is offering to forfeit our sovereignty!”

Eliakim, in his shock, whispered, “You said the king will send a gift with his message?”

“The king has determined to send a gift of gold and silver to the king of Assyria. He is on his way to the temple treasuries.”

Eliakim’s face went white, his throat constricted and in horror he wrapped his robes around himself. “Is he going to the temple now?” he asked.

Hezekiah looked up to the cold figure beside him. “Follow me,” he said and hurried through the western gate of the palace complex that faced the steps that rose from the city to the temple.

They ascended the steps unseen, but by the time they reached the eastern portico they could hear the sound of a large group coming up to the temple on the hill behind them. Quickly Hezekiah led Eliakim into the outer court. Each court of the temple was built on a higher elevation. Ahead of them, across the court but lined up with the elaborate eastern gate in the outer wall, were the steps that led up to the eastern gate of the inner court. They darted forward and up the steps to where the great wooden gate doors were slightly open. Squeezing between them, they entered the tunnel leading to the inner court. There were four doors, two on each side to chambers within the wall; quickly they tried the doors until one opened. It was a storage room where oil and wine was kept. They crowded into the space and pulled the door shut just as Ahaz drew nearer.

Ahaz was not long in arriving at the portico, though some of his advisors were straggling on the steps up to the temple. He was accompanied also by several of the palace guards. Ahaz led the way through the Eastern gate, through the outer court, up the steps and through the gate tunnel past the room where Hezekiah and Eliakim held their breaths.

Ahaz was carrying his own torch and was followed first by the few men still able to walk, though with uncertain steps. They had been given additional wine to enable them to witness without protest the blasphemy that was to occur. Behind the advisors were the soldiers carrying torches, large baskets and a few wooden boxes.

The gate at the temple end of the tunnel was closed and secured. Ahaz stopped, then using the end of his torch, he beat on the wooden doors, and called loudly for Urijah.

There was a shuffling sound on the other side of the wall, coming from the northern gate which led to the priest’s quarters. Ahaz had continued to shout between periodic blows to the door, demanding that Urijah hurry. The shuffling stopped and a voice came through the gate, “What would you have of me?” It was Urijah, but gone was the confident strength of that day when he had anointed Ahaz as king.

“Open this gate!” Ahaz demanded.

“But it is well into the night,” came the reply. It was an indication that Urijah guessed what their purpose was.

“I am your King!” Ahaz shouted, his voice filled with anger. “Open this gate and stand aside! Open it or we will force it!”

Slowly the mechanisms moved and the gate swung inward. Ahaz brushed by Urijah who still made a feeble protest, and marched right past the altar and the brazen sea to the steps of the temple.

Those behind him stopped. Although the king had gone that far earlier, none else were permitted beyond the altar except priests or those of the Levite tribe. Ahaz spun around when he realized they were no longer right behind him. “What have you come for?” he snarled. “To watch while I do the work myself?” Then a burley Philistine who should never have entered the temple courts, and who still prayed to his own gods, stepped forward with a grin. This time Hezekiah wasn’t quick enough to suppress his gasp.

Hezekiah and Eliakim had left their hiding place, but remained in the shadows of the wall as they watched. With Hezekiah’s loud intake of breath, Eliakim had gripped Hezekiah’s forearm and dug his fingers in while looking around in fear.

But no one had heard Hezekiah’s gasp, and Eliakim’s grip eased as they watched the other soldiers step forward to the left side of the temple. The men who had counseled the king earlier, now found themselves without courage. They sought behind themselves for something to hide behind. Then one by one, without looking up, they slunk away, past where the two young men froze in the darkness. Hezekiah knew they would return to their various apartments to sleep off the haze that gripped their minds, but with the new day they would have to face the condemnation of their consciences.

Urijah had also disappeared with the few priests that had followed him from curiosity. After letting Ahaz in, they quickly retreated and Hezekiah had come out of the tunnel just as the northern gate closed, as if this barrier between the priests and the actions of the king could absolve them of knowing. But the minds of the priests would not be confused with wine, Hezekiah thought. He pictured them lying down on their mats, staring with wide eyes at the darkness in their individual cells.

The next few minutes were a reminder to Hezekiah of the dark deeds Ahaz was capable of, but he remained so that he could witness against his father. He glanced once toward Eliakim who was still as stone beside him. He reached for his friend’s arm while they watched Ahaz lead soldiers to the storage rooms on either side of the temple.

From the deep chambers they began to fill their baskets with treasures of the kingdom as well as sacred relics from past temple worshipping and sacrifices. Golden and silver objects were cast into baskets without heed to their purpose but only their value as would be determined by a set of scales.

Hezekiah and Eliakim had moved closer for a better view. The emptiness of the temple court and the silence of the towering altar casting a deeper shadow in the waning moonlight created a dreamlike atmosphere. Only the hushed noises of the plunderers echoed across the paving stones. The youths had stopped beside the beautifully carved oxen that supported the sea. The gold plated beasts seemed to follow Hezekiah with their eyes. He involuntarily backed away from proximity to the sharp horns and wide nostrils.

“I have seen enough,” Eliakim said. Eliakim turned around, and walked back through the gate tunnel, across the outer courtyard and toward the portico beyond the eastern gates. Hezekiah looked one last time toward the temple just as Ahaz led his soldiers up the temple steps and reached to open the massive doors. Then Hezekiah hurried after his older companion.

He found Eliakim at the far wall of the portico, standing in one of the arched windows that overlooked the terraced courts and then the Kidron valley below. The clouds had moved away and Eliakim was framed against the star-filled sky with his back to Hezekiah. His voice came as if from the depths of the heavens themselves.

“Tonight Ahaz has raided the Temple of the Lord to pay tribute to an earthly king. He has chosen who he will serve and it is not God. His sin will cripple his people. They believe his flattering words and allow their lusts to bind them.” Eliakim spoke with firmness. He turned to look Hezekiah directly in the eyes. “Who do you serve Hezekiah? What kind of king will you be for Judah?”

Another section of Hezekiah

Stripped of his armour, in the aftermath of the battle, Hezekiah is mistaken for a youth of Ramah and is led away with the captives:

Hezekiah, who needed one hand to carry the water bags flung on his shoulder, found he could assist a child with his other hand. By gripping their hands together he could bounce a child along, speeding their pace and saving them the sting of the whip. But his heart was shut from forming attachments.

Each step brought Hezekiah closer to a future of abuse and slavery, far from the marble and golden halls of his palace home. The journey removed the joy and plans of childhood from him and he briefly considered telling the soldiers who he was. Usually the son of a king would be a prize to be ransomed. But Ahaz would not consider Hezekiah one and he remained silent.

The people were driven into the hills, through the pass created by the river’s tributary, and toward the capital city, Samaria. Finally after long days of miserable travel, the army suddenly stopped their march. In the light of late afternoon they could see the walls and towers of Samaria less than an hour away on a hill in the distance. Beneath the city was a fertile valley, filled with grains, olive groves and grape vineyards. The lush landscape spread out and greeted them in the foothills from which they were descending.

A relay of voices called back for a stop and Hezekiah eased the heavy burden of water skins from his shoulders to the ground. He turned so the breeze would wash over his wet back where the water from the skins had run with the sweat from his labor. All around him were women in rent clothing and torn feet who carried babes and tried to cheer dirty, exhausted children. They had been fed little beyond the sting of a whip and they had eyed the water Hezekiah carried vainly, for it was only for the soldiers.

As soon as the army halted, the women and children eased toward a grove of olive trees, hoping to find water in an irrigation channel or muddy puddles. When the stop lengthened Hezekiah took the water bags and worked his way, with stooped shoulders and shuffled steps, as close to the front as he dared. He gave water to any soldier who demanded it as he advanced. Then he heard a voice that was shouting to a muffled crowd.

“Oded, the prophet, has come to speak to the armies of Judah and Israel,” the voice said. The statement was met with silence.

Hezekiah moved forward. There he saw a large group of people that had come out from the city to meet the army. The army had stopped and in the distance between the two groups was a small detachment that had separated from the city group and moved forward. The men of the detachment were well dressed and their faces had not seen the bitterness of war. In the middle, was an elderly man on a donkey that held the attention of all who were gathered. Standing at his right shoulder was a man who would listen to his words and then shout them to the army.

“Behold the Lord God of your fathers,” he called out, “was wroth with Judah, he hath delivered them into your hand, and ye have slain them in a rage that reacheth up unto heaven.”

The tired soldiers who were weary with the march suddenly interrupted in a shout of victory. Surely the Lord God had delivered Judah into their hands. Some congratulated each other and some turned to kick or spit on the captives they had brought. Hezekiah felt a blow to the back of his head that sent him to his knees.

But the man on the donkey raised his hand and eventually they quieted. Then his spokesman called out, “And now,” he said clearly, “ye purpose to keep as bondmen and bondwomen the children of Judah,” they nodded their heads with smiles that quickly faded at his next words. “But are there not even with you sins against the Lord your God?” There was a sudden silence in the ranks; the words stunned them.

“Who has not committed sins?” one of the soldiers shouted. “Are we afraid of the words of an old man?”

“But it is the prophet of the God of our fathers,” a chief captain said steadily in response. The soldiers began to shift uneasily.

“We have sinned,” an older soldiers said loudly. “Have we not forgotten God and offered sacrifices to false idols? If it was God who delivered them into our hands because of their wickedness, should we who are also wicked claim the spoils of the victory?”

Hezekiah looked up stunned. He had not considered that his people had been defeated in battles because of their wickedness. He thought back on the war and how badly it had been going for them. Did nobody in Judah make the connection? Why did the people not repent and turn again to the God of their Fathers? Hezekiah stood up to look around at the faces of captives and soldiers. He suddenly realized there had been no prayers to the Lord during the march. Then Hezekiah knew one answer: Ahaz. Though not yet king, his influence and even commands had done much harm to Judah.

“What are we to do?” someone called out.

The man who was the voice for Oded the prophet paused to listen with his ear near the prophet’s mouth. Then he stepped forward and called out loudly, “The prophet has spoken, ‘Now hear me therefore, and deliver the captives again, which ye have taken captive of your brethren: for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you.’”

There was a great disturbance of noise. Then again the army settled down and turned to watch because the multitude from the city began to part and four men on magnificent mounts rode through them, passed the prophet and his group, then stopped when they were right up to the commanders of the army. Their rich robes flowed over their beautiful horses that pranced restlessly. A tall man with light hair spoke, “I am Azariah the son of Johanan. These are Berechiah the son of Meshillemoth, and Jehizkiah the son of Shallum, and Amasa the son of Hadlai. We fear what will befall our city if you bring these women and children among us. We have come forth this day to say, ye shall not bring in the captives hither.” He looked at each leader in turn and then let his eyes travel the ranks behind. “For whereas we have offended against the Lord already, ye intend to add more to our sins and to our trespass: for our trespass is great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel.”

Hezekiah decided that these men must have been princes for the army began to look at each other as if they knew there were no alternatives. They reluctantly unloaded their packs of the spoils, then quietly, rank on rank, they rode or marched around the group that had come out from the city. They moved forward resentfully, but without further debate. Some of the soldiers went with shame creased into their faces, but many cast angry glances. Some of the captains swore vengeance softly in their beards, but nobody offered resistance to what they had been asked to do.

Hezekiah returned to the thick of the captives where there were several women and children he had travelled with. He related to them the events. Many worried what their fate would be now. They were interrupted by the people from Samaria who began to move among them.
The Samarians carried baskets from which they produced food, spare robes, bandages for wounds, and ointments for sore feet. They brought skins and jugs of fresh cool water and they began to use what they had brought to administer to the worn, hungry and ill treated captives. They worked gently and with kind smiles. They made a camp there in the hills among the grape vines and olive trees. That night everyone slept soundly in the camp. Then the people of Samaria carefully led the captive women and children back the way they had come.

Jack and Jill of *many* trades: Visiting Teaching Handout Dec

Prepared for our Visiting Teaching handout as we are having our annual visiting teaching meeting and yearly programme

Jack and Jill of *many* trades: Visiting Teaching Handout Dec

Jacinta Tynan

Weird how my rello won his fame
Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font September 13, 2008


The wildly popular author "Nino Culotta" was easily forgiven by the public for his subterfuge, writes Jacinta Tynan.



Every family has a claim to fame and ours is this: we're related to Nino Culotta. That counted for a lot as a child of the '70s and surpassed all other family feats, past and present, including a grandfather with a dozen published books and a great-grandfather (his father) who became a barrister in his 50s after being forced off the land due to drought with eight children and a piano.


It's 50 years since Nino Culotta published his rollicking bestseller They're A Weird Mob, about arriving from Italy on a ship and finding work as a brickies' labourer in Punchbowl, where he struggled to comprehend and eventually master the Aussie vernacular and ingratiate himself by bellowing, in a near perfect Aussie accent, "Howyergoinmateorright?"

But what I have never understood is how he got away with it. How did John O'Grady write a book pretending to be Nino Culotta when he was actually someone else entirely and still be warmly embraced, revered even, by the nation? Helen Darville was hammered 35 years later for wearing peasant blouses and feigning Ukrainian ancestry for her award-winning novel. James Frey was rebuked on Oprah for fabricating large parts of his memoir. And Norma Khouri was pilloried for not being a Jordanian woman who had witnessed honour killings, as she claimed in Forbidden Love.

So how come Uncle John pulled it off? That's my great-uncle John O'Grady, of 100 per cent Irish Catholic stock who fooled the entire country that he was a naive but lovable Italian immigrant who lobbed here with nothing but an English phrase book which bore no resemblance to the language being spoken around him in the pub at Kings Bloody Cross. He quickly learns that a "schooner" is not a sailing vessel and a "shout" doesn't mean to yell. Early reviews praise the "New Australian" for his "triumph over a strange and ridiculous tongue" and for "marching boldly but unassumingly into unfamiliar surroundings". Only, the surroundings were not unfamiliar, and there was nothing unassumed about it.

It's not like his deceit was premeditated. It happened by default. John O'Grady never set out to be an author but accepted his lot as a pharmacist until a bet with his younger brother, Frank (my grandfather), who had published several works of historical fiction, spurred him on.

John's son, also John O'Grady, recalls it well. "Every Sunday the family would gather at my grandparents' home at Bronte. One Sunday my Uncle Frank had a new book out and foolishly asked Da what he thought of it. My father used to refer to Frank's books as 'library novels', because they were researched in the library. Da said: 'Not much, and if I couldn't write a better book than that I'd give up.' So Frank bet him �10 that he couldn't write any sort of book and get it published. He said, 'I'll take the bet'."

John had written before - one-act plays for the Sydney Repertory Theatre, which he founded - but never a book. When he took time out from pharmacy to help a mate build a house at Punchbowl, it got him thinking.

"He was fascinated by the people he met on the building site - but couldn't understand the language," recalls John jnr. "They were speaking 'Australianese', as he used to call it. He thought the language was wonderful, but thought, 'If I can't understand it, what about these poor migrants? How do they understand it?' At the same time he'd been learning Italian from his barber, so that's where the idea for the book came from."

John O'Grady wrote They're a Weird Mob in six weeks before heading to Samoa as the Government Pharmacist and forgetting all about it.

"He said, 'toss this in a drawer until I get back'. He certainly didn't think it would get published. But I decided it was too good for that. I really did think it was very funny."

John Jr, who was working with Reg Grundy on Wheel of Fortune on 2CH, decided to act as his father's agent. After a rejection from Angus and Roberston, who suggested that "in spite of some very amusing incidents and a fine command of Australian slang, the story would not make a successful book", he sent the manuscript to the publisher Ure Smith, under the pseudonym of Nino Culotta.

Sam Ure Smith, now in his late 80s, gave the pages to his secretary, Janette Ven Brown, to read while at the hairdresser and will never forget her enthusiasm.

"She came rushing back to the office waving it in the air and said, 'You have to read this now'. So I started reading it on the train and I came back the next morning and said, 'You've picked a winner. It was plain good humour. Very Australian and entertaining. I thought, 'I'll be surprised if this doesn't sell like mad.' I rang John O'Grady, the agent, and said, 'I accept this for publication.'

"I didn't know quite what to tell Sam because he wanted to meet the author," recalls John. "I tried to fudge it but decided to let him in on the secret, that the writer was not Nino Culotta but my father. But Sam decided to leave it as it was. He thought the book would be more successful if people thought it was written by a 'New Australian', so we kept it between us."

Australians new and old lapped it up. It sold a record 130,000 copies in its first year, bragged Ure Smith in a brochure in 1958. "This averages at 3000 per week, 60 per hour and one every minute of the working day!"

My mother, Maggie, also recalls being sworn to secrecy about her uncle's nom de plume.

"I read Weird Mob as a nurse, laughing my head off in the hospital wards. Then I saw in the paper it was Uncle Jack and thought, 'Oh dear. It looks like it's out!'

"I started to get a bit nervous about how long we could keep this going," John explains. "Journalists wanted to talk to Nino Culotta. I kept putting them off, saying he was out of the country, which was technically true because my father was still in Samoa. But they were deeply suspicious.

"I cabled him and said we needed a photo for the book jacket, so he sent a photo of himself sitting on a kerosene tin with his back to the camera. But then a journalist looked up the public records and blew our cover. We were worried it might kill sales but it didn't. They went through the roof."

Sam Ure Smith recalls: "It was well liked by the bookshops and that makes a big difference. It just took off. Boom! It was my greatest success in publishing. We flew ahead after that."

They're a Weird Mob was serialised on radio and newspapers and there were "weird mob" parties across the country, with guests sporting blue singlets and work boots. When O'Grady returned to Australia a few months later, he had no idea of the hype.

"I cabled him to expect press at Mascot and he got off the plane wearing the regalia of a Samoan chief in grass skirt and headdress. The press loved him. We were booked to go straight to the ABC studios for an interview but by then he was officially outed."

John O'Grady himself hinted at fear of retribution for withholding his identity, writing in They're a Weird Mob: "My family name is something quite different, but I can't use it here. Because this little book is about Australians, and if they knew who wrote it, some of them might put bricks through my windows."

As to why his father was let off the hook, John says times were different. "It was a more innocent period. He didn't pretend to live that existence. He thought it was a great hoot."

He encouraged Australians to have a good laugh at themselves, while providing a walloping hint for the tens of thousands of "new Australians" who were gracing our shores: "Get yourself accepted as one of him and you will enter a world that you never dreamed existed."

John O'Grady still has his father's first and only rejection letter framed on his wall. As the former head of situation comedy at the ABC, whose best-known success was Mother and Son, he says it is a reminder to never turn down a hit show. "I always got asked if I was that John O'Grady. My father loved it because he claimed credit for all the TV shows I did, except the ones he didn't like."

The book was reprinted every year for the next 38 years, and in 1966 was made into a hit film starring Italian actor Walter Chiari as Nino alongside Australian actors Chips Rafferty and John Meillon, with a cameo by Graham Kennedy.

John wrote 18 more books including a sequel to Weird Mob, and never went back to the pharmacy. Or Samoa. And yes, some time before he died in 1981, he collected on that �(pound)10 bet with my grandfather. Even though he owed him. Big time.

Jacinta Tynan is an author, columnist and a news presenter with Sky News. Jacinta Tynan presents the news for Sky News Australia. Prior to Sky, Jacinta presented news for ABC TV's international satellite news service and NATIONAL NEWSBREAKS for ABC TV. She was also a relief presenter for the main 7pm news bulletin, WEEKEND NEWS and WORLD AT NOON. Jacinta has been a reporter for THE 7.30 REPORT, LATELINE, the national news on ABC and Seven Network. Her years as a TV presenter have made her a popular choice for master of ceremonies and guest speaker.




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Review & GIVEAWAY: The Jewel of St. Petersburg by Kate Furnivall

The Jewel of St. Petersburg
by Kate Furnivall


Release Date: August 3, 2010

SYNOPSIS: Russia, 1910. Valentina Ivanova is the darling of St. Petersburg's elite aristocracy-until her romance with a Danish engineer creates a terrible scandal and her parents push her into a loveless engagement with a Russian count.

Valentine struggles to claim her own independence. But at the same time she is desperate to protect her young sister from the dangerous tumult that is sweeping through the city.

Meanwhile, Russia itself is bound for rebellion. With the Tsar and the Duma at each others throats, and the Bolsheviks drawing their battle lines, the elegance and opulence of Tsarist rule are in their last days. And Valentina will be forced to make a choice that will change not only her own life, but the lives of those around her forever...

Author Kate Furnivall has written an utterly engrossing story of Valentina Ivanova, a daughter to the finance minister to Tsar Nicholas II, set in St. Petersburg during a time of great civil unrest in Russia’s history. The working class and poor are getting more desperate every day as they fight starvation and disease or get injured, maimed or killed at the un-safe factories they are forced to work in while the upper class grow more rich and spend more extravagantly. The Revolutionaries are killing off government officials left and right and Valentina’s father is among the targets.

Valentina, though born in the upper class, is more interested in taking care of people than of dresses and parties and dreams of one day becoming a nurse. She is a bright, strong-willed girl whom I liked immediately and the rest of the characters were just as engaging - the endearing engineer, Jens; Arkin, the Revolutionary with a heart, Valentina’s sad mother Elizaveta and her unfortunate sister Katya. With exceptional descriptions of 20th century St. Petersburg, from the opulent homes of the Russian nobility to the squalid homes of the working class and the underground tunnels beneath the city, Furnivall draws the reader in and the fast-paced action keeps you flipping the pages quickly to see what happens next.