The dreaming of William Dawes

Last September, I read Kate Grenville’s The Lieutenant, a fictionalised account of William Dawes, Sydney’s first astronomer, and his friendship with an Aboriginal girl, Patyegarang. There was something in it that caught me, made me want to find out more about the man, their friendship, the story. The only trouble is that such knowledge is rather scant.

As with Arthur Stace, the ‘Eternity man,’ (another of Sydney’s key dreamers), it seems no history of Sydney is complete without mentioning Dawes, his little observatory on the headland now buried beneath the southern pylons of the Bridge, his brief relationship with Patyegarang, the Aboriginal girl who taught him fragments of her language.

On Reading, Part One

Summer is book time. Like winter, it’s full of long days in which you can read yourself stupid, though I don’t suppose that comes as a surprise to anyone. In between working and catching up with friends, I generally unwind with a book; the best way to fall asleep on a warm summer night is to read, to immerse yourself into another world and just let yourself go. (Another thing that I’m quite fond of is drawing connections between books, making links – either implicit or explicit – and seeing what can be made of them. But I’ll save that for later.)