Books
I Might As Well Die In The Sky – the life and work of Robert Stanley Capon (2024)
By the age of 30, Robert Stanley Capon, Oxford scholar, astronomer, mathematician,pianist, WWI pilot, POW, and decorated commissioned officer, was a man of manyaccomplishments. After the War, his Royal Air Force career was distinguished by hisscientific research, as a flight instructor, and innovative work on pattern bombing thatwas instrumental in improving RAF bombing accuracy in WWII.
But in 1940 a conflict not on the battlefield changed R S Capon’s career trajectory. Themystery about why he left the country that had been home for six decades to make anew life in Australia with his wife Maude, daughter Yvonne, and son Brian, has onlyrecently been solved.
I Might as Well Die in the Sky tells how R S Capon put bureaucratic and politicalmeddling behind him, and went on to combine guest lecturing in mathematics andacademic writing with his interest in music and poetry. It documents how as well asbeing recognised as a man of many talents, he is remembered within his family as a manof many dimensions: a polymath, a solicitous but at times difficult husband, and agrandfather who told enthralling war stories.
Just A Dream (2014)
This is Mary Clare Callaghan’s story. Lucy collaborated with her mother to edit and publish the book.
Just a Dream describes Mary’s early life as the second oldest of John and Margaret Weston’s 14 children. The Westons were Soldier Settler farmers in Victoria’s Wimmera region. Their farm flourished until the 1930s Great Depression, which meant Mary, and many of her siblings, had to leave school early and find work with nearby families or in local towns.
In 1941, Mary met and married Gerard Callaghan, teacher at the Lemon Springs school. They raised nine daughters, and with each arrival, she felt ‘a feeling of pride, of humility and gratitude. Another daughter to care for and to love forever. Just a dream.’
Mary Callaghan, known for her beauty and style, combined motherhood with a successful career in fashion retail.
Girls Can Do It
First published in 1986, Girls Can Do It is a collection of interviews with women in non-traditional occupations. Designed for secondary-school students, the book encourages girls to consider a wide range of occupations. It features, for example, the experiences of a truck driver, jockey, lawyer, stockbroker, architect, geriatrician, fitter and turner, civil engineer, and many others.
In the Foreword to the book, Australian author Helen Garner writes:
‘This book can be read as a collection of short stories about work: the joy of work, the human urge to do it, how it connects with personality and society.
‘Each story has its strong main character, its narrating woman, and its story-shape: the search for a goal not yet in focus, the discovery of the right path, the struggle to learn and to become competent, the over-coming of obstacles, the flourishing of newly gained powers, and behind it all the tension of that great balancing act as the centre of every working woman’s life: the ever-changing equilibrium between work and family.
‘Because this tension exists, there are no happy endings. In that sense these stories are real literature, and that’s why they are so fascinating to read.
‘The greatest pleasure in this book, I think, is its repeated themes of determination and enablement: the discovery these women make that their perseverance achieves for them a competence and a sureness which they secretly feared they would never have.’
‘Each story has its strong main character, its narrating woman, and its story-shape: the search for a goal not yet in focus, the discovery of the right path, the struggle to learn and to become competent, the over-coming of obstacles, the flourishing of newly gained powers, and behind it all the tension of that great balancing act as the centre of every working woman’s life: the ever-changing equilibrium between work and family.
‘Because this tension exists, there are no happy endings. In that sense these stories are real literature, and that’s why they are so fascinating to read.
‘The greatest pleasure in this book, I think, is its repeated themes of determination and enablement: the discovery these women make that their perseverance achieves for them a competence and a sureness which they secretly feared they would never have.’