History Matters

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
So goes L.P. Hartley’s famous opening line from his novel, The Go-Between, a line that wistfully reflects on those characteristics of history which often cause it to elude us. History is distant and intangible, governed by different moralities; sometimes, it is a land lost entirely to us. In attempting to write history, historians will inevitably find themselves occupying the shoes of someone long gone, walking their path and breathing in their air, asking aloud, “What would they have done?”, “What would they have wanted to do?”, and of course, that everlasting, eternal question: “What happened?” Hartley’s quip about history is one that I have loved for many years, and perhaps it is no surprise that the project I have completed over the course of this semester derives a great deal of inspiration from it. But, in a way that I never would have expected, my project handles his conception of the past, as a ‘foreign country’, in an incredibly literal way.
Over the last three months, I have been volunteering for the Heritage Centre, Museum and Archives at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. The project that I have created as a result of my volunteering is a children’s programme for the RPA Museum, consisting of both an activity booklet, and a guided tour. The activity booklet, complete with illustrations and questions that the children will have to answer, interacts with a series of ‘checkpoints’ throughout the museum, marking objects or information of significance. It is at these checkpoints where the children will be able to find answers to the questions in their booklet, or fill in any missing information that the booklet requires them to.
From the very beginning of my volunteering with the Heritage Centre, it was made clear to me that the hospital’s museum was struggling to attract visitors. Over the course of my stay, there could not have been more than about a dozen or so people who wandered in or asked about the items on display. The majority of my time at RPA was thus focused on archival research and organisation, writing and re-writing plaques for objects throughout the museum, and even designing a cabinet of my own. All the work I carried out, though incredibly varied, had a singular focus: to ensure that the rich, and interesting history of the hospital was actually being communicated to the public. My work was just one part of a significant shift taking place within the hospital walls, a move to celebrate the past in a visible, and most importantly accessible way.
Visibility and accessibility were, therefore, at the forefront of my mind when I was creating my project. RPA Museum had hosted children’s tours before, but the last time that they had conducted a guided tour for schoolkids was, as manager Scott informed me, three years ago. When I asked if I could have a look at the activity booklet they had provided, hoping I could have an example to look to, Scott handed me a stack of white A4 sheets stapled together at the corners, filled haphazardly with graphs and paragraphs of medical terminology in miniscule 11-point Calibri font. It was a little amusing to see a children’s history so opposite to the histories that I most commonly see scattered around museums and libraries. Often, I find that the children’s ‘versions’ of history are written somewhat condescendingly and in an overly simplistic way; but here, I was being faced with a written history that would make an academic weep.
What was obvious for me, from that point onwards, was that I had to maintain a crucial balance between making my history accessible, and ensuring that I didn’t speak down to my audience, who were most likely going to be upper-level primary school students. Using sources from the archives, such as the hospital’s annual reports and gazettes, I selected what I believed to be interesting or important, based on the selection of evidence in secondary novels written about the hospital’s history. I made sure that my histories were written in a congenial tone, and that the writing was not too verbose or complicated. Yet I also made an effort to allow room for the children themselves to learn or research the terms they didn’t understand, which resulted in the inclusion of an interactive glossary on the last page of the booklet.
I also tried to include as diverse a history as I could – not only of various buildings, and medical instruments, but focusing also on those histories which are often marginalised. In beginning the activity booklet with an Acknowledgement of Country, I drew on Nathan Sentance’s ideas on the importance of decolonising history. He posed us all a question that we should always consider when telling history: “What responsibility do we have, as non-indigenous historians, towards the communication of indigenous history?” In writing an explanation of the importance of an Acknowledgement of Country, as well as including a biography of Alison Bush, the first Indigenous midwife to be based at a major hospital in NSW, I hoped that I would be contributing to a socially inclusive history, and informing my young audience of the meaning of this reconciliation.
Of course, it is difficult to make history (and words in general) fun for children who detest nothing more than schoolwork. In searching for examples of children’s activity books and histories, I remembered all those that I myself had read as when I was younger. Terry Deary’s Horrible Histories, with all its fun facts and hilarious tidbits was my gateway into studying history all throughout my schooling years, and I wanted to emulate the light-hearted way in which he told stories about the past. I was also determined to include illustrations in my booklet, and there is no illustrator who defined my childhood as much as Quentin Blake. His messy, inky sketches, coloured free-hand with watercolour, decorated the pages of all my favourite Roald Dahl novels, and the illustrations that I have drawn in the activity booklet are very much influenced by Blake’s signature style.
And I also realised, in researching the presentation of my project that I could, very literally, as Hartley says, make the past a foreign country. Now, I’m not a mother, and I’ve never babysat in my entire life, but I am part of a huge family full of young children. If there is one thing I know, it is that children (of all ages, really) love to feel like they’re on a quest. My letter to the reader at the very beginning of the booklet structures the tour like a scavenger hunt, making what is in essence a history lesson, a dangerous exploration through a vast and unconquerable museum. Kathleen McLean’s Whose Questions, Whose Conversations? was a reading of ours that gave me much insight in this regard, and reminded me that in presenting merely cold, hard facts, I was going to exclude my audience from what was in actuality a collaborative learning experience.
My project had a singular objective: to convey the historical significance of Royal Prince Alfred hospital in an accessible, engaging and sustainable way. I hope that in the creation of this children’s programme, I have done my part in contributing to a history that is both charming and critical. In completing these booklets and taking them home, I hope that young visitors will find some joy in owning, and helping create, a small piece of the past.

This has been a challenging, yet also rewarding class experience. It was daunting at first to be thrown straight in with not many boundaries. It was something that I had not yet experienced in my degree. Yet, it was refreshing being able to choose my own project and the organisation that I volunteered with.
I hope the guide that I have created will be of benefit to people, whether they are in their twenties or their sixties who are in the early stages of their research into Tamworth’s history. Perhaps they have an idea, but do not know where to start searching for dates, sources, artefacts or contact details. My project can be used as a constant resource that they can come back to at anytime, and serve a number of different research avenues, whether it is Indigenous History, colonial history, family history or the history of local businesses. I have shaped the project to be appealing to people who do not have a historical background. In using a more informal and personal tone, the project is to be understandable to people from a variety of backgrounds and skill levels. I wanted to make it feel personal and that each of my audience to be engaging with both my and the organisations passion for Tamworth’s history. From conversations with friends and family, I understood that many of them engage with history when it is delivered in a personable and avant-garde way, whether that be through television, film, or a quirky article in the newspaper or on Facebook. This project is about local connections through a love of history and the Tamworth region. My tone and sometimes second person address is to make the audience feel welcome in their own research. I did not want it to sound like a dry history textbook, but something that plants a little seed of curiosity within the reader. Ultimately, my project was to inspire people into digging deeper into their local history. I wanted to craft a resource that would highlight some wonderful organisations around the Tamworth region who are dedicated to helping people investigate the city’s past and how they fit within it.
My final lines of my project read like this;
May this guide be the beginning of your research journey into Tamworth’s history. As it has been shown to you, there are a plethora of exciting historical moments that have happened in Tamworth’s past. History is thriving in this city, we just have to open our eyes and find it. Be inspired and affected by our city’s past and share your discoveries amongst the community.
Thank you again for a wonderful semester.
https://exploringtamworthspast.wordpress.com

“Forget academic history. Go out there, get alongside an organisation, listen to them, and co-construct a public history with them.”
If I were to synthesise the mantra of this unit of study to a lay person, this is how I’d go about it. In fact, when I shared it with people in my life, I’d usually start with “Screw academic history”. Perhaps this is a crude articulation of a more complex and thoughtful unit of study on engaging with ‘History Beyond the Classroom’. However, I think it aptly depicts the jarring provocation and passion that drove a group of 30-odd history students to shift their frames of reference and stretch their conceptualisation of history.
Through working with Parliament on King this semester, I have learnt that public history is a dynamic process that fluctuates and evolves, as the historian and the organisation seek to authentically collaborate and co-construct a shared history for the public. Through engaging with oral history at Parliament on King, I have learnt that the historian needs to throw away the notion of agenda-driven productivity, and take time to build relationships, listen, ask questions and be present. This project is significant as it complicates a linear and static depiction of history or way of remembering, which can so often dominate historical accounts, as it provides an alternative emphasis on experience, stories and narrative. The hope is that this podcast will provide a small scale, experiential representation of Parliament’s public history, rather than merely a linear depiction of Parliament’s historical timeline.
Parliament on King, myself as the student researcher and oral historian, and the wider community are likely to benefit from this project. Lorina Barker acknowledges that in trying to learn about other people’s ‘connections and disconnections to place’, the historian begins ‘their own journey of rediscovery and reconnection’. This reveals the mutual benefit of oral history and equalises the power dynamics that exist in the collection of oral histories, as both parties are recognised as learning, sharing and discovering. This is my hope for this project.

My project involved working with Northern Beaches Council to assist in delivering a series of heritage and arts activation events across the Northern Beaches local area as part of a unique program entitled Our Stories: Yesterday | Today | Tomorrow. This program, the first of its kind for the Northern Beaches local area, was conceived and implemented primarily by Bethany Falzon, Arts & Cultural Development Officer at Northern Beaches Council, along with the rest of the Social Planning & Community Development team. Support and funding for Our Stories came through the NSW Government’s new Heritage Near Me program aimed at increasing community awareness of and engagement with the diverse heritage found across NSW.
Our Stories involved a series of events at three locations across the Northern Beaches local area. Specifically, I was working on the site at Fisherman’s Beach, Collaroy. Sheltered on the northern side of Long Reef headland, nestled on the foreshore behind the tidal rock platforms, sits a heritage-listed Fisherman’s Hut. The Hut is almost 150 years old and, together with a collection of now-rusted winches scattered over the grassy sand dune, the last physical reminder of a small (and illegal) fishing community that became synonymous with the area, hence the name Fisherman’s Beach. Our Stories sought to explore the unique cultural and natural history of this littorally prominent place, using art and community involvement as ways to engage with these special heritage stories. The underlying argument was one of creative heritage conservation. Whilst the Hut itself (along with the surrounding landscape and vegetation) is heritage-listed and as such afforded a certain amount of legislative protection in terms of physical alterations and/or additions to its construction, this does not necessarily entail a strictly preservationist view. Moreover, by creatively engaging with the history of the Hut, Fisherman’s Beach, and the Long Reef headland area more broadly through the medium of artistic interpretation, the story of Fisherman’s Hut becomes situated as one story of many in a rich tapestry of local history, including natural history and Aboriginal heritage stories.
When researching for the project, evidence was scant. As this fishing community was technically an illegal setup there was little in the way of formal, official documentation to consider, save for a few notes in older Warringah Council documents referring to the ‘squatters’ at Fisherman’s Beach. I spent many days trawling online databases and even a visit to the State Library of NSW. The little evidence I did find mostly consisted of photographs of Fisherman’s Beach featuring the huts and boats. A substantial body of evidence came from Tony Davis, current President of the Long Reef Fishermen’s Club, the current owner/occupiers of the Hut, in the form of a loose-leaf folder containing assorted historical items relating to the Hut, including un-archived photographs, newspaper clippings, original heritage data forms and correspondence with Club members. These items were digitally scanned and used in the historical and artistic interpretation of the site. Additional evidence came when local artists Susan Milne and Greg Stonehouse conducted informal oral interviews and story-telling sessions with current members of the Fishermen’s Club. Aboriginal perspectives and stories were sourced from written and oral sources, including informal discussions with Karen Smith, Education Officer for the Northern Beaches branch of the Office of Aboriginal Heritage. Karen is from the Buruberongal clan of the Hawkesbury area and shared many stories about Aboriginal culture and heritage in the Long Reef area that helped to formulate the idea of a guided walking tour. Utilising these various sources, the project explored some complex themes including the overlap of art, history and community engagement in public forms of history and the idea of multiple historical stories existing within a single space.
The primary presentation of this public history project took the form of a community event held on 24th November 2018 at Fisherman’s Beach. This event featured a series of interpretive art installations by local artists Susan Milne and Greg Stonehouse exploring the history and heritage of the Fisherman’s Beach area and the fishing community in particular. This involved several days work prior cleaning out the hut and installing the artworks. I authored a short piece on the history and heritage of the Hut which was used as a temporary plaque mounted on the side of the Hut on the day of the event. The event also included two guided walking tours, one focusing on Aboriginal heritage stories and the other on the unique ecosystem of Long Reef headland and the tidal rock platform. Both were pre-registered tours, with 30-35 people partaking in each. In all, close to 100 people attended the event on the day either as registered participants or as ‘walk-ins’. Cursory feedback on the day was overwhelmingly positive, with many people confessing they had little knowledge of the unique cultural and natural history of this iconic Northern Beaches location – and many just admitting ‘I’ve always wondered what’s inside there’ when exploring the Hut itself. This community event helped to open up and shed light on the unique stories of Fisherman’s Beach and Long Reef.
The event having taken place, the Hut has since been returned to its former state. I spent a day finalising de-installation, moving items and general ‘stuff’ of the Fishermen’s Club back into the Hut. The ephemeral artworks are gone. The historical plaques have been removed. Now it is as if nothing ever happened at the Hut on Fisherman’s Beach. But of course that is just not true. Our Stories will linger.
History can be a lot like fishing. I know that now. You can spend an age doing nothing but looking, searching, trawling to find what you need, or what you think you need. It can be exhausting work, all the while asking those questions tinged with self-doubt and uncertainty: ‘what if I don’t catch anything? Should I just call it a day?’
In the end, it’s not really about whether or not you catch anything. As a historian working on this project, my job was never to write the definitive history of Fisherman’s Beach. No, my job as a historian wasn’t to catch a fish necessarily, but instead to ‘go fishing’, to see what I could find.
What I found on Fisherman’s Beach wasn’t at all what I expected. But I’m so glad I went fishing there.

Enter the Assyrian Universal Alliance’s office and the first thing you will notice is a proud gallery of achievements, trophies, Parliamentary awards, cultural art, sculptures and a heritage flag that was only officially recognised one year ago. Once you’ve managed to stop your eyes from wandering around the room and remind yourself that you’re being rude since you haven’t even been welcomed in yet, you won’t help but notice that sitting behind a desk with towers of paperwork and a laptop screen covering their faces are the leaders of probably the most humbling NGO you could ever come across. Probably a subjective opinion, I know, since I’m an Assyrian myself, but hey, at least they didn’t think I was rude for barging in without an invitation to enter! Instead, I was greeted with a loud, “Shlamalakh” (meaning “peace upon you” in Assyrian) and 2 welcoming smiles. I knew, then, that I hadn’t broken any silent rule and wasn’t going to be left feeling ashamed. No. I was just being an Assyrian– curious and nosy. And, I suppose it took this project for me to actually appreciate and value my ethnicity as one without a country but definitely one with a rich history and a LONG list of achievements.
And that’s exactly what I put together for the AUA- Australian Chapter. The AUA was established exactly 50 years ago with the intent to represent the Assyrian diaspora which had fled their homeland of Iraq following countless persecutions, unrecognised genocides and discriminatory treatment from tyrannical regimes and oppressive forces. But I knew this already. I didn’t think there was anything special to it since I had grown up listening to the same old, sad, depressing stories of genocide from my parents and other older relatives. However, what I had failed to realise from all of this was just how controversial my mere existence as an Assyrian is. And I have the AUA to thank, for opening my ignorant eyes to this realm of endless impossibilities and exciting chaos. Happy to help and always beaming, they extended their resources, including newspaper clippings, photos from the 60s to the present and even private minutes from Congress meetings. It was hard work collating all these sources, sorting them out into a logical timeline that would provide thorough yet succinct detail about the AUA’s achievements. There were days where the “information overload” of it all would get too much but I had to remind myself of why I chose to assist this organisation in the first place. And, no, it had nothing to do with them being Assyrian. Well, kind of.
In a FaceBook post published by the AUA, a “troll” had commented, attempting to squash the AUA organisation into a pulp for being “useless” and ineffective. I responded. And it wasn’t pretty. But I did want to make the point clear that the AUA was working and working very hard, indeed, to voice the concerns of the Assyrian community and urge the Australian government to take action. But I didn’t really have the facts. I only wrote down what I had heard from my family. And it was this specific event which had made me immediately think of the AUA when Professor McDonnell informed us that we would need to choose one NGO and help them out. So, I suppose in helping the AUA out I was actually helping myself out in the process.
Well, after many late, tiresome nights in my room, laying on the floor with my notes and sources (and not to mention that cold cup of tea that lays there sadly forgotten), I was able to produce a not-so-very-humble, 15-paged document of the lists of the AUA’s achievements and history. With this, I hope to show whoever stumbles upon my project that the AUA is useful, is effective and is constantly seeking for new ways that could benefit their community while also facing denigration from all sorts of platforms imaginable.
It has been an absolute honour working with the AUA team and I daresay that I will be continuing my work with them as we aim to upload my work onto their website before the end of this year. With this information on their site, we hope to publicise and, perhaps, memorialise a history of a forgotten empire that continues to take out breaths and breathe in new ones to this day.
*ATOUR is Assyrian for Assyria