VIDEO DELLA MIA STORIA: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jeB677xr4Q&list=HL1320918345...

FORUM: interventichirurgici.forumfree.it/?t=58478831

 

LA MIA VITA E’ FINITA IL 10/11/2004

E’ passato anche il 7° anno da quando un intervento di stabilizzazione alla colonna vertebrale, che doveva portarmi dei benefici, mi ha invece rovinato la vita. Per chi non ne fosse a conoscenza, aggiungo solo che sto andando avanti quotidianamente con farmaci che mi calmano il dolore per 6-8 ore, e poi si ricomincia da capo. Dallo scorso anno la mia salute è peggiorata e continuerà così ogni anno che passa, se qualche medico specialista(e ne ho visti ancora tanti in questo altro anno), non riesce a trovare la causa di quello che è successo durante l’intervento nel 2004. Tante promesse, tante belle parole, TANTI SOLDI SPESI, ed alla fine i risultati non si vedono. Vedo ai telegiornali vari, di interventi miracolosi, medito e mi chiedo semplicemente perché il mio caso non viene preso in considerazione seriamente, d’altronde sono un essere umano che ha il diritto di vivere una vita dignitosa e non una vita-calvario quotidiana appena si mette giù il piede dal letto al mattino. Ogni medico quando presta giuramento giura di “ esercitare la medicina in libertà e indipendenza di giudizio e di comportamento; di perseguire come scopi esclusivi la difesa della vita, la tutela della salute fisica e psichica dell' uomo e il sollievo della sofferenza, cui ispirerò con responsabilità e costante impegno scientifico, culturale e sociale, ogni mio atto professionale…….di curare tutti i miei pazienti con eguale scrupolo e impegno indipendentemente dai sentimenti che essi mi ispirano e prescindendo da ogni differenza di razza, religione, nazionalità condizione sociale e ideologia politica”. Io ho il massimo rispetto dei medici e del loro lavoro, ma vorrei che anche loro lo avessero nei miei confronti ed almeno uno meditasse ogni tanto che dopo 7 anni una persona avrebbe anche la necessità di ritornare, almeno per gli anni che gli mancano alla fine, a fare le cose che fanno tutti gli esseri umani o almeno la maggior parte di loro. Io ho già dato molto al destino avverso. Sono diventato oramai una cavia umana, dove in tanti ci hanno guadagnato dei bei soldini in questi 7 anni e tutti quelli che non mi hanno portato dei benefici, se leggessero queste righe, dovrebbero solo vergognarsi e chiedermi scusa per non aver risolto minimamente il mio problema.., ma forse è la mia testa che non funziona più, a forza di Contramal ed altri farmaci, visto che sono anche stato considerato un malato immaginario con qualche tendenza alla pazzia. Ora peso 54, ho perso 12 kg dal 2004, la mia schiena non ha più muscolatura, la mia spalla sinistra oramai è solo un arto con dolori lancinanti tutto il giorno, l’orecchio sinistro fischia continuamente da 6 mesi, tu lo fai presente e non glie ne frega niente a nessuno. Io ho sempre giocato a calcio, anche ad ottimi livelli semiprofessionistici; il Gianni sportivo si chiede come sia possibile che ti abbiano ridotto in questo stato. In casa, i parenti, gli amici ti consolano, ma poi nessuno fa niente per aiutarti, tanto loro stanno bene. Gianpaolo, invece, uomo sfortunato come me, dopo un intervento anche lui di stabilizzazione, mi da il coraggio di andare avanti e mi dice sempre di non mollare che prima o poi ce la faremo ad uscirne fuori!!! Spero che queste righe facciano meditare tante persone sull’importanza della salute dell’essere umano, perché senza quella, tutto il resto CREDETEMI non conta nulla!!!

Ho aperto un forum dove basta scrivere:” interventi chirurgici non riusciti” su google e si trova subito con data 10 ottobre 2011 e chi vuole scrivere o commentare , può farlo iscrivendosi in un semplice minuto. Tutte le storie di malasanità raccolte, serviranno per riuscire a farci ospitare in qualche trasmissione televisiva a confronto con i medici e per aiutare tutti coloro che devono effettuare degli interventi chirurgici in futuro.(questo è il link di collegamento)

Sito FORUM: interventichirurgici.forumfree.it/

Gianni.

2009: www.flickr.com/photos/12011974@N07/4093194032/

2010: www.flickr.com/photos/12011974@N07/5163261073/

   

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MY LIFE 'THE FINISHED 10/11/2004

It 'also the past 7 years since an intervention to stabilize the spine, which would bring benefits, but I have ruined my life. For those who do not know it, just add that I'm going on daily with drugs that I soothe the pain for 6-8 hours, and then start over. Since last year my health has deteriorated and will continue so every year that passes, if any specialist doctor (and I've seen many in this yet another year), can not find the cause of what happened during the operation in 2004 . So many promises, so many beautiful words, MONEY SPENT A LOT, and the end results are not seen. I see the various news of miraculous intervention, I meditate and I ask simply because my case is not considered seriously, of course are a human being who has the right to live a decent life and a life-day ordeal as soon as puts down his foot out of bed in the morning. Every doctor when he swears an oath to "practice medicine in freedom and independence of mind and behavior; sole purpose of pursuing the defense of life, protection of physical and mental health of 'man and the relief of suffering, which will inspire with Scientific responsibility and ongoing commitment, culture, society, every act of mine at work ... .... to treat all my patients with the same care and commitment regardless of the feelings they inspire me, and without any distinction of race, religion, nationality, social status and ideology politics ". I have the utmost respect for doctors and their work, but I wish they, too, they had towards me and at least one meditate from time to time after 7 years a person would also need to return, at least for the years that are left to , to do things that make all human beings, or at least most of them. I have already given much to fate. I am now become a human guinea pig, where many have earned pennies in these beautiful 7 years and all those who did not bring benefits, if they read these lines, should just be ashamed and apologize for not having solved my problem at all .. but maybe my head is no longer working, by dint of Contramal and other drugs, as they have also been considered a hypochondriac with some tendency to insanity. Now 54 weight, I lost 12 kg since 2004, my back muscles no longer, my left shoulder is now only a limb with excruciating pain all day, the left ear whistles continuously from 6 months, you do present and daughters do not give a damn to anyone. I always played football, even at high levels semi-professionally, Gianni sport asks you how you can or whether you have reduced to this state. At home, relatives, friends console you, but then nobody does anything to help, so they are good. Gianpaolo, however, unfortunate man like me, after a stabilization action he gives me the courage to go ahead and always tells me not to give up sooner or later we'll manage to get out! I hope that these lines do so many people meditating on the importance of human health, because without that, everything else counts for nothing believe me!

I opened a forum where it would be: "failed surgery" on google and is immediately dated October 10, 2011, and who wants to write or comment may do so by enrolling in a simple minute. All the collected stories of medical malpractice, need to be able to accommodate us in any television compared with physicians and to help all those who must perform the surgery in the future. (This is the link to)

Forum site: interventichirurgici.forumfree.it /

Gianni.

 

2009: www.flickr.com/photos/12011974@N07/4093194032/

2010: www.flickr.com/photos/12011974@N07/5163261073/

 

French postcard by FA, no. 148. Photo: Reutlinger.

 

Marthe Régnier (1880-1967) was a famous French stage actress and singer of the Belle Epoque and beyond. She also acted in six silent and sound films.

 

In 1901 Marthe Régnier entered the Comédie-Française and made her debut in a play called Agnès. After alternating drama (e.g. Hugo) with comedy (e.g Beaumarchais) at the Comédie, she moved in 1903 to vaudeville, where she acted for years at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in plays by e.g. Bernard and Mirbeau. Favorite authors of her were Robert de Flers (l'Ane de Buridan, le Retour), Stève Passeur (Etienne), Paul Gavault (la Petite Chocolatière). In 1934 she acted as Jocaste opposite Jean-Pierre Aumont as Oedipus in Jean Cocteau's La Machine infernale (1934), which premiered at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées in Paris, then the theater of Louis Jouvet. This more or less signed the end of her stage career.

 

Married in 1902 to playwright Abel Tarride, Régnier was the mother of director Jean Tarride and actor Jacques Tarride. She divorced to marry in 1916 José de Oliveira Murinelly, secretary of the Brazilian embassy in France.. From ca. 1920 she was the mistress of Baron Henri de Rothschild, who, aside of being a millionaire, doctor, and founder of the first (1902) modern children hospital in France, had developed as a playwright (as André Pascal), e.g. of the controversial play on medical malpractice, La Caducée. He was theater manager too, taking over the Théàtre Antoine in the early 1920s. In four years he had the new, ultramodern Pigalle Theater built, which opened in 1929 and was the 'baby' of his son Philippe, but the theater didn't fare too well. Philippe fared better afterward with wine: the famous Mouton-Rothschild. After the early death of Henri de Rothschild's wife in 1926, Régnier became his companion, who would follow him in exile during the war.

 

Marthe Régnier was highly interested in fashion and jewelry, and as a businesswoman ahead of her time, she was often photographed to publicize her own creations. In the 1910s she launched her own perfume, entitled Suivez-moi, jeune homme [Follow me, young man]. Régnier was portrayed by famous painters like Giovanni Boldini, who painted a magnificent, dynamic portrait of her in 1905, and photographers such as Reutlinger, Henri Manuel and Adolph Meyer.

 

In 1910, Régnier debuted in the title role of the short film Manon, produced by Pathé Frères and based on the famous novel (1731) by Abbé Prevost and the opera (1884) by Jules Massenet. Her co-actors were also popular stage actors: Jean Périer played Lescaut, while Émile Dehelly played Des Grieux. In 1918 Régnier acted opposite Musidora in Germaine Dulac's film La jeune fille la plus méritante de France (1918). When sound film set in, Régnier returned to the sets to act as the maid in the comedy Y'en a pas deux comme Angélique (Roger Lion, 1931), starring Colette Darfeuil. Next, she was the wife of Jacques Baumer in Étienne (1933), directed by her son Jean Tarride, and with Jean Forrest in the title role. It was based on a play by Jacques Deval, in which she had acted in 1929. Opposite Charles Boyer as Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, Régnier was Danielle Darrieux's mother, Baroness Vetsera, in the romantic historical drama Mayerling (Anatole Litvak, 1936).

 

Régnier's last film was Les hommes sans peur (Yvan Noë, 1942), about the inventors of X-Rays, in which she played a sick woman. Perhaps her shots were taken before the German invasion, because Rothschild's biographer Harry W. Paul and others too write that she remained with Rothschild in Lisbon, Portugal, during the war years. Anyway, she stayed close to him till the end. Rothschild, a heavy smoker and diabetic, died near Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1947, at the age of 75. Marthe Régnier died in Paris on 30 August 1967, at the age of 86. She rests in the cemetery of Marly-le-Roi (Yvelines).

 

In 2011 Boldini’s Portrait of Marthe Régnier was sold to a private European buyer for $1,874,500. In 2012 part of her jewelry was sold in Fontainebleau.

 

Sources: French Wikipedia, IMDB, Wikimedia Commons, and biographies of Henry de Rothschild by Harry W. Paul and Nadège Forestier,

View of the city of Florence from Piazzale Michelangelo with Ponte Vecchio (crossing the Arno river) on the left, Palazzo Vecchio in the centre and the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore on the right, Florence, Tuscany, Italy

 

Some background information:

 

With about 400,000 residents in its city centre and more than 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area, Florence is the capital and also the most populous city of the Italian region of Tuscany. The town lies in a basin formed by several hills. The Arno river, three other minor rivers and some streams flow through its metropolitan area. During the Middle Ages the city was a centre of European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is also considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has been called "the Athens of the Middle Ages". A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 Florence was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy.

 

The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini, who were all born in the city. Florence attracts millions of tourists each year, and its historic centre was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, art, architecture and monuments. It contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Furthermore, Florence is also an important city in Italian fashion, being ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world.

 

Florence originated as a Roman city. Around 200 BC, the Etruscans initially formed the small settlement of Fiesole, which was destroyed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 80 BC in reprisal for supporting the populares faction in Rome. In 59 BC, the present city of Florence was established by Julius Caesar as a settlement for his veteran soldiers. Originally it was named Fluentia, owing to the fact that it was built between two rivers, but its name was later changed to Florentia (in English: "flowering"). Situated along the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre.

 

In centuries to come, the city was often troubled by warfare between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines, which may have caused the population to fall to as few as 1,000 people. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. In 774, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as its capital. The population began to grow again and commerce prospered.

 

Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca at about 1000 AD. The Golden Age of Florentine art began around this time. The city's primary resource was the Arno river, providing power and access for the industry (mainly textile industry), and access to the Mediterranean Sea for international trade. Another great source of strength was its industrious merchant community. The Florentine merchant banking skills became recognised in Europe after they brought decisive financial innovation to medieval fairs, such as bill of exchange and double-entry bookkeeping system.

 

In 1115, the Republic of Florence originated, when the Florentine people rebelled against the Margraviate of Tuscany upon the death of Matilda of Tuscany, a woman who controlled vast territories that included Florence. The Florentines formed a commune in her successors' place. Subsequently, the early, modern state of the republic was ruled by a council known as the Signoria of Florence. The republic had a checkered history of factions and counter-factions. But in 1434, the Medici faction gained governance of the city under Cosimo de' Medici.

 

During this first Medici governance, in 1469, Cosimo’s grandson Lorenzo de' Medici assumed the reins of government. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. As he was also an accomplished poet and musician himself, he brought composers and singers to Florence too. By contemporary Florentines (and since), he was known as "Lorenzo il Magnifico" (in English: "Lorenzo the Magnificent").

 

The Medici kept control of Florence until 1494, when Lorenzo’s son Piero II was expelled by the French king Charles VIII, whose army had invaded northern Italy. In 1498, when the Medici were out of power, Niccolò Machiavelli, a diplomat, politician, historian, philosopher, humanist, writer, playwright and poet of the Renaissance period, became secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence. His prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimisation of political expediency and even malpractice. In other words, Machiavelli was a political thinker, perhaps most renowned for his political handbook, titled "The Prince", which is about ruling and the exercise of power. Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city.

 

In 1512, Giovanni de' Medici (later Pope Leo X) re-conquered the Republic of Florence. However, Florence repudiated Medici authority for a second time in 1527, during the so-called War of the League of Cognac. But again the Medici re-assumed their rule in 1531 after an 11-month siege of the city. The republican government was disestablished in 1532, when Pope Clement VII appointed Alessandro de' Medici "Duke of the Florentine Republic", making the republic a hereditary monarchy.

 

In 1569, the Medici became Grand Dukes of Tuscany, ruling for another two centuries. In all Tuscany, only the Republic of Lucca and the Principality of Piombino were independent from Florence. The extinction of the Medici dynasty and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's temporary inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. From 1801 to 1807 Florence was the capital of the Napoleonic client state Kingdom of Etruria and from 1808 to the fall of Napoleon in 1814, it was the was the prefecture of the French département of Arno. In 1861, Tuscany became a region of the Kingdom of Italy. In 1865, Florence replaced Turin as Italy's capital, but already six years later, it was superseded by Rome.

 

After doubling during the 19th century, Florence's population was to triple in the 20th, resulting from growth in tourism, trade, financial services and industry. During World War II the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943 to 1944) and was declared an open city in late July 1944 as troops of the British 8th Army closed in. The retreating Germans decided to demolish all the bridges along the Arno, making it difficult for troops of the 8th Army to cross. But at the latest moment, the German general was convinced that Ponte Vecchio was not to be destroyed due to its historical value. In November 1966, the Arno flooded parts of the centre, damaging many art treasures.

 

Today, Florence is known as the "cradle of the Renaissance" for its many Renaissance monuments, churches, and other buildings. 600 years after its completion, the dome, built by Filippo Brunelleschi, is still the largest dome built in brick and mortar in the world. Florence also contains numerous museums and art galleries where some of the world's most important works of art are held. Hence, tourism is, by far, the most important of all industries and most of the Florentine economy relies on the money generated by international arrivals and students studying in the city. The value tourism to the city totalled some 62.5 billion € in 2015 and the number of visitors still increases to the present day.

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away some distance from Bundaberg at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850 and in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid out in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mill was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg as emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875.

 

The town was well established by 1880 but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent thus eclipsing all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were established with reliance on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj era. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margaret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced him to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

  

The Photograph

 

A 5" x 10" high-definition glossy photograph published by Rotary Photographic of London EC.

 

George Robey

 

Sir George Edward Wade, CBE, known professionally as George Robey, was an English comedian, singer and actor in musical theatre, who became known as one of the greatest music hall performers of the late 19th. and early 20th. centuries.

 

As a comedian, he mixed everyday situations and observations with comic absurdity. Apart from his music hall acts, he was a popular Christmas pantomime performer in the English provinces, where he excelled in the dame roles.

 

He scored notable successes in musical revues during and after the Great War, particularly with the song "If You Were the Only Girl in the World", which he performed with Violet Loraine in the revue The Bing Boys Are Here (1916).

 

One of George's best-known original characters in his six-decade long career was the Prime Minister of Mirth.

 

Born in London, Robey came from a middle-class family. After schooling in England and Germany, and a series of office jobs, he made his debut on the London stage at the age of 21, as the straight man to a comic hypnotist.

 

Robey soon developed his own act, and appeared at the Oxford Music Hall in 1890, where he earned favourable notices singing "The Simple Pimple," and "He'll Get It Where He's Gone to Now".

 

In 1892, he appeared in his first pantomime, Whittington Up-to-Date in Brighton, which brought him to a wider audience. More provincial engagements followed in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, and he became a mainstay of the popular Christmas pantomime scene.

 

Robey's music hall act matured in the first decade of the 1900's, and he undertook several foreign tours. He starred in the Royal Command Performance in 1912, and regularly entertained before aristocracy.

 

George was an avid sportsman, playing cricket and football at a semi-professional level. During the Great War, in addition to his performances in revues, he raised money for many war charities, and was appointed a CBE in 1919.

 

From 1918, he created sketches based on his Prime Minister of Mirth character, and used a costume he had designed in the 1890's as a basis for the character's attire.

 

George made a successful transition from music hall to variety shows, and starred in the revue Round in Fifty in 1922, which earned him still wider notice. With the exception of his performances in revue and pantomime, he appeared as his Prime Minister of Mirth character in all the other entertainment media including variety, music hall and radio.

 

In 1913 Robey made his film debut, but he had only modest success in the medium. He continued to perform in variety theatre in the inter-war years and, in 1932, starred in Helen!, his first straight theatre role. His appearance brought him to the attention of many influential directors, including Sydney Carroll, who signed him to appear on stage as Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 in 1935, a role that he later repeated in Laurence Olivier's 1944 film, Henry V.

 

During the Second World War, Robey raised money for charities and promoted recruitment into the forces. By the 1950's, his health had deteriorated, and he entered into semi-retirement. George was knighted a few months before his death in 1954.

 

-- George Robey - The Early Years

 

Robey was born on the 20th. September 1869 at 334 Kennington Road, Kennington, London. He would later claim that he was born in the more affluent area of Herne Hill, although this was incorrect. His birthplace in Kennington is a three-storey house above a shop, which was then a hardware outlet. The shop is now home to a sushi restaurant called Sushi Essence.

 

In the 1860's, Kennington Road was a wealthy area mainly inhabited by successful tradesmen and businessmen. By the 1880's however, the area had fallen into a decline, and was considered by locals to be one of the most impoverished areas in London. The comedian Charlie Chaplin, who had a poor and deprived upbringing, was born in the same road 18 years after Robey.

 

George's father, Charles Wade, was a civil engineer who spent much of his career on tramline design and construction. Robey's mother, Elizabeth Mary Wade, née Keene, was a housewife; he also had two sisters.

 

George's paternal ancestors originated from Hampshire; his uncle, George Wade, married into the aristocracy in 1848, a link which provided a proud topic of conversation for future generations of the Wade family.

 

When Robey was five, his father moved the family to Birkenhead, where he helped in the construction of the Mersey Railway. Robey began his schooling in nearby Hoylake at a dame school. Three years later the family moved back to London, near the border between Camberwell and Peckham.

 

At around this time, trams were being introduced to the area, providing Charles Wade with a regular, well-paid job.

 

To fulfil an offer of work, Charles moved the family to Germany in 1880, and Robey attended a school in Dresden. He devoted his leisure hours to visiting the city's museums, art galleries and opera houses, and gained a reasonable fluency in German by the time he was 12.

 

He enjoyed life in Germany, and was impressed by the many operatic productions held in the city, and by the Germans' high regard for the arts.

 

When he was 14, his father allowed George to move in with a clergyman's family in the German countryside, which he used as a base while studying science at Leipzig University. In order to earn money, he taught English to his landlord's children, and minded them while their parents were at work.

 

Having successfully enrolled at the university, George studied art and music, and stayed with the family for a further 18 months so he could complete his studies before returning to England in 1885. He later claimed, apparently untruthfully, to have studied at the University of Cambridge.

 

There is no evidence that Robey enrolled at Cambridge or indeed any other English university, as fees in Victorian England were beyond the reach of someone like Charles Wade. Members of the theatrical community were nevertheless convinced of his attendance at Cambridge.

 

The theatre critic Max Beerbohm wrote that Robey was one of the few distinguished men to emerge from the campus, but the English writer Neville Cardus was more sceptical, wondering how someone from the University of Cambridge could end up in the music hall.

 

Robey's biographer, Peter Cotes, concludes that he likely played along with the assumptions that he was a Cambridge graduate in order to fit in with the higher circles of society.

 

At the age of 18, Robey travelled to Birmingham, where he worked in a civil engineer's office. It was here that he became interested in a career on the stage, and often dreamed of starring in his own circus.

 

He learned to play the mandolin, and became a skilled performer on the instrument. This drew interest from a group of local musicians and, together with a friend from the group who played the guitar, Robey travelled the local area in search of engagements.

 

Soon afterwards, they were hired to play at a charity concert at the local church in Edgbaston, a performance that led to more local bookings. For his next appearance, Robey performed an impromptu version of "Killaloo", a comic ditty taken from the burlesque Miss Esmeralda.

 

The positive response from the audience encouraged him to give up playing the mandolin to concentrate instead on singing comic songs.

 

-- George Robey's London Debut

 

By 1890 Robey had become homesick, and so he returned to South London, where he worked for a civil engineering company. He also joined a local branch of the Thirteen Club, which charged members a fee of half a crown a year. The club members, including both amateur and professional performers, were devoted to the idea of flouting superstition while staging concerts in public houses and small venues across London.

 

Hearing of George's talent, the founder of the club, W. H. Branch, invited Robey to appear at Anderton's Hotel in Fleet Street, where he performed the popular new comic song "Where Did You Get That Hat?".

 

Robey's performance secured him private engagements for which he was paid a guinea a night. By the early months of 1891, Robey was much in demand, and he decided to change his stage name. He swapped "Wade" for "Robey" after working for a company in Birmingham that bore the latter name.

 

It was at around this time that he met E. W. Rogers, an established music hall composer who wrote songs for Marie Lloyd and Jenny Hill. For Robey, Rogers wrote three songs: "My Hat's a Brown 'Un", "The Simple Pimple," and "It Suddenly Dawned Upon Me".

 

In 1891 Robey visited the Royal Aquarium in Westminster where he watched "Professor Kennedy", a burlesque mesmerist from America. After the performance, Robey visited Kennedy in his dressing room, and offered himself as the stooge for his next appearance.

 

They agreed that Robey, as his young apprentice, would be "mesmerised" into singing a comic song. At a later rehearsal, Robey negotiated a deal to sing one of the comic songs that had been written for him by Rogers.

 

Robey's turn was a great success, and as a result he secured a permanent theatrical residency at the venue. Later that year, he appeared as a solo act at the Oxford Music Hall, where he performed "The Simple Pimple" and "He'll Get It Where He's Gone to Now".

 

The theatrical press soon became aware of his act, and The Stage called him:

 

"A comedian with a pretty sense of

humour who delivers his songs with

considerable point and meets with

all success".

 

In early 1892 Robey starred alongside Jenny Hill, Bessie Bonehill and Harriet Vernon at the Paragon Theatre of Varieties in Mile End, where, according to his biographer Peter Cotes:

 

"He stole the notices from

experienced troupers".

 

That summer, Robey conducted a music hall tour of the English provinces which began in Chatham and took him to Liverpool, at a venue owned by the mother of the influential London impresario Oswald Stoll. Through this engagement Robey met Stoll, and the two became lifelong friends.

 

In early December, Robey appeared in five music halls a night, including Gatti's Under the Arches, the Tivoli Music Hall and the London Pavilion.

 

In mid-December, George travelled to Brighton, where he appeared in his first Christmas pantomime, Whittington Up-to-Date. Pantomime became a lucrative and regular source of employment for the comedian. Cotes calls Robey's festive performances:

 

"The cornerstone of his comic

art, and the source of some of

his greatest successes".

 

-- Music Hall Characterisations

 

During the 1890's Robey created music hall characters centred on everyday life. Among them were "The Chinese Laundryman" and "Clarence, the Last of the Dandies". As Clarence, Robey dressed in a top hat and frock coat, and carried a Malacca cane, the garb of a stereotypical Victorian gentleman.

 

For his drag pieces, the comedian established "The Lady Dresser", a female tailor who was desperate to out-dress her high class customers, and "Daisy Dillwater, the District Nurse" who arrived on stage with a bicycle to share light-hearted scandal and gossip with the audience before hurriedly cycling off.

 

With Robey's popularity came an eagerness to differentiate himself from his music hall rivals, and so he devised a signature costume when appearing as himself: an oversized black coat fastened from the neck down with large, wooden buttons.

 

George also wore black, unkempt, baggy trousers and a partially bald wig with black, whispery strands of dishevelled, dirty-looking hair that poked below a large, battered top-hat.

 

He applied thick white face paint, and exaggerated the redness on his cheeks and nose with bright red make-up; his eye line and eyebrows were also enhanced with thick, black greasepaint. He held a short, misshaped, wooden walking stick, which was curved at the top.

 

Robey later used the costume for his character, The Prime Minister of Mirth. The outfit helped Robey become instantly recognisable on the London music hall circuit. He next made a start at building his repertoire, and bought the rights to comic songs and monologues by several well-established music hall writers, including Sax Rohmer and Bennett Scott.

 

For his routines, Robey developed a characteristic delivery described by Cotes as:

 

"A kind of machine-gun staccato

rattle through each polysyllabic line,

ending abruptly, and holding the

pause while he fixed his audience

with his basilisk stare."

 

-- Success in Pantomime and the Provinces

 

At the start of 1894, Robey travelled to Manchester to participate in the pantomime Jack and Jill, where he was paid £25 a week for a three-month contract. He did not appear in Jack and Jill until the third act, but pleased the holiday crowds nonetheless.

 

During one performance the scenery mechanism failed, which forced him to improvise for the first time. Robey fabricated a story that he had just dined with the Lord Mayor before detailing exactly what he had eaten. The routine was such a hit that it was incorporated into the show as part of the script.

 

In the final months of 1894, Robey returned to London to honour a contract for Augustus Harris at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the details of which are unknown.

 

In September he starred in a series of stand-up comedy shows that he performed every September from 1894 until 1899. These short performances, in English seaside resorts including Scarborough and Bournemouth, were designed chiefly to enhance his name among provincial audiences.

 

For the 1895 and 1896 Christmas pantomimes, he appeared in Manchester and Birmingham respectively, in the title role of Dick Whittington, for which he received favourable reviews and praise from audiences.

 

However despite the pantomime's success, Robey and his co-stars disliked the experience. The actress Ada Reeve felt that the production had a bad back-stage atmosphere, and was thankful when the season ended, while the comedian Barry Lupino was dismayed at having his role, Muffins, considerably reduced.

 

On the 29th. April 1898, Robey married his first wife, the Australian-born musical theatre actress Ethel Hayden (shown in the photograph), at St. Clement Danes church in the Strand, London. Robey and Ethel resided briefly in Circus Road, St John's Wood, until the birth of their first child Edward in 1900.

 

They then moved to 83 Finchley Road in Swiss Cottage, Hampstead. Family life suited Robey; his son Edward recalled many happy experiences with his father, including the evenings when he would accompany him to the half-dozen music halls at which he would be appearing each night.

 

By the start of the new century, Robey was a big name in pantomime, and he was able to choose his roles. Pantomime had enjoyed wide popularity until the 1890's, but by the time Robey had reached his peak, interest in it was on the wane.

 

A type of character he particularly enjoyed taking on was the pantomime dame, which historically was played by comedians from the music hall. Robey was inspired by the older comedians Herbert Campbell and Dan Leno, and, although post-dating them, he rivalled their eccentricity and popularity, earning the festive entertainment a new audience.

 

In his 1972 biography of Robey, Neville Cardus thought that:

 

"George Robey was at his

fullest as a pantomime Dame".

 

In 1902 Robey created the character "The Prehistoric Man". He dressed as a caveman, and spoke of modern political issues, often complaining about the government "slapping another pound of rock on his taxes".

 

The character was received favourably by audiences, who found it easy to relate to his topical observations. That year he released "The Prehistoric Man" and "Not That I Wish to Say Anything" on shellac discs using the early acoustic recording process.

 

Robey signed a six-year contract in June 1904 to appear annually at, among other venues, the Oxford Music Hall in London, for a fee of £120 a week. The contract also required him to perform during the spring and autumn seasons between 1910 and 1912.

 

Robey disputed this part of the contract, and stated that he agreed to this only as a personal favour to the music hall manager George Adney Payne, and that it should have become void on Payne's death in 1907.

 

The management of the Oxford however counter-claimed, and forbade Robey from appearing in any other music hall during this period. The matter went to court, where the judge found in Robey's favour.

 

Robey was engaged to play the title role in the 1905 pantomime Queen of Hearts. The show was considered risqué by the theatrical press. In one scene Robey accidentally sat on his crown before bellowing:

 

"Assistance! Methinks I have

sat upon a hedgehog."

 

'Hedgehog' is a British slang term for an unattractive woman. It is also used to describe a seductively elusive and promiscuous male.

 

In another sketch, the comedian mused:

 

"Then there's Mrs Simkins, the swank!

Many's the squeeze she's had of my

blue bag on washing day."

 

Robey scored a further hit with the show the following year, in Birmingham, which Cotes describes as:

 

"The most famous of all famous

Birmingham Theatre Royal

pantomimes".

 

Robey incorporated "The Dresser", a music hall sketch taken from his own repertoire, into the show.

 

Over the next few years George continued to tour the music hall circuit both in London and the English provinces, and recorded two songs, "What Are You Looking at Me For?" and "The Mayor of Mudcumdyke", which were later released by the Gramophone and Typewriter Company.

 

-- George Robey's Involvement in Sport

 

Off-stage, Robey led an active lifestyle, and was a keen amateur sportsman. He was proud of his healthy physique, and maintained it by performing frequent exercise and following a careful diet.

 

By the time he was in his mid-thirties, George had played as an amateur against Millwall, Chelsea and Fulham football clubs. He organised and played in many charity football matches throughout England, which were described by the sporting press as being of a very high standard, and he remained an active football player well into his fifties.

 

Robey became associated with cricket by 1895 when he led a team of amateur players for a match at Turney Road in Dulwich. In September 1904, while appearing in Hull, he was asked by the cricketer Harry Wrathall to take part in a charity cricket match at the Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

 

Robey played so well that Wrathall asked him to return the following Saturday to take part in a professional game. That weekend, while waiting in the pavilion before the game, Robey was approached by an agent for Hull City A.F.C., who asked the comedian to play in a match that same afternoon. Robey agreed, swapped his cricket flannels for a football kit and played with the team against Nottingham Forest as an inside right.

 

By 1903 Robey was playing at a semi-professional level. He was signed as an inside forward by Millwall Football Club, and scored many goals for them. He also displayed a good level of ability in vigoro, an Australian sport derived from both cricket and baseball which was short-lived in England.

 

Two years later George became a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club, and played in minor games for them for many years. He gained a reputation at the club for his comic antics on the field, such as raising his eyebrows at the approaching bowler in an attempt to distract him.

 

The writer Neville Cardus was complimentary about Robey's cricket prowess, and called him "an elegant player" whose performances on the cricket field were as entertaining as they were on the stage. Although a versatile player, Robey thought of himself as a "medium-paced, right-handed bowler".

 

Robey was asked to help organise a charity football match in 1907 by friends of the Scottish football trainer James Miller, who had died the previous year. Robey compiled a team of amateur footballers from the theatrical profession, and met Miller's former team Chelsea Football Club at their home ground. The match raised considerable proceeds for Miller's widow. Robey was proud of the match and joked:

 

"I just wanted to make sure that

Chelsea stay in the first division."

 

-- George Robey the Violin Maker

 

In his spare time, Robey made violins, a hobby that he first took up during his years in Dresden. He became a skilled craftsman of the instrument, although he never intended for them to be played in public.

 

Speaking in the 1960's, the violinist and composer Yehudi Menuhin, who played one of Robey's violins for a public performance during that decade, called the comedian's finished instrument "very professional".

 

Yehudi was intrigued by the idea that a man as famous as Robey could produce such a "beautifully finished" instrument, unbeknown to the public.

 

Robey was also an artist, and some of his pen and ink self-caricatures are kept at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

 

-- High-Profile Audiences

 

Robey's first high-profile invitation came in the first decade of the 1900's from Hugh Lowther, 5th. Earl of Lonsdale, who hired him as entertainment for a party he was hosting at Carlton House Terrace in Westminster.

 

Soon afterwards, the comedian appeared for the first time before royalty when King Edward VII had Robey hired for several private functions. Robey performed a series of songs and monologues and introduced the "Mayor of Mudcumdyke", all of which was met with much praise and admiration from the royal watchers.

 

He was later hired by Edward's son, the Prince of Wales (the future King George V), who arranged a performance at Carlton House Terrace for his friend Lord Curzon.

 

In July 1912, at the invitation of the impresario Oswald Stoll, Robey took part for the first time in a Royal Command Performance, to which Cotes attributes:

 

"One of the prime factors in

his continuing popularity".

 

King George V and Queen Mary were "delighted" with Robey's comic sketch, in which he performed the "Mayor of Mudcumdyke" in public for the first time. Robey found the royal show to be a less daunting experience than the numerous private command performances that he gave during his career.

 

-- George Robey's Film Debut

 

Robey's first experience in cinema was in 1913, with two early sound film shorts: "And Very Nice Too," and "Good Queen Bess", made using the Kinoplasticon process, where the film was synchronised with phonograph records.

 

The following year, George tried to emulate his music hall colleagues Billy Merson and Charlie Austin, who had set up Homeland Films and found success with the Squibs series of films starring Betty Balfour.

 

Robey met filmmakers from the Burns Film Company, who engaged him in a silent short entitled "George Robey Turns Anarchist", in which he played a character who fails to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

 

George continued to appear sporadically in film throughout the rest of his career, although never achieving more than a modest amount of success.

 

-- George Robey in the Great War

 

At the outbreak of the Great War, Robey wanted to enlist in the army but, now in his 40's, he was too old for active service. Instead, he volunteered for the Special Constabulary, and raised money for charity through his performances as a comedian.

 

It was not uncommon for him to finish at the theatre at 1:00 am and then to patrol as a special constable until 6:00 am, where he would frequently help out during zeppelin raids.

 

George combined his civilian duties with work for a volunteer motor transport unit towards the end of the war, in which he served as a lieutenant. He committed three nights a week to the corps while organising performances during the day to benefit war charities.

 

Robey was a strong supporter of the Merchant Navy, and thought that they were often overlooked when it came to charitable donations. He raised £22,000 at a benefit held at the London Coliseum, which he donated in the navy's favour.

 

In 1914, for the first time in many years, Robey appeared in a Christmas pantomime as a male when he was engaged to play the title role in Sinbad the Sailor; Fred Emney Senior played the dame role.

 

Although the critics were surprised by the casting, it appealed to audiences, and the scenes featuring Robey and Emney together proved the most memorable.

 

During the war the demand for light entertainment in the English provinces guaranteed Robey frequent bookings and a regular income. His appearances in Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Glasgow were as popular as his annual performances in Birmingham. His wife Ethel accompanied him on these tours, and frequently starred alongside him.

 

By the Great War, music hall entertainment had fallen out of favour with audiences. Theatrical historians blame the music hall's decline on the increasing salaries of performers and the halls' inability to present profitably the twenty or thirty acts that the audiences expected to see.

 

Revue appealed to wartime audiences, and Robey decided to capitalise on the medium's popularity. Stoll offered Robey a lucrative contract in 1916 to appear in the new revue 'The Bing Boys Are Here' at the Alhambra Theatre, London.

 

Dividing his time between three or four music halls a night had become unappealing to the comedian, and he relished the opportunity to appear in a single theatre. He was cast as Lucius Bing opposite Violet Loraine, who played his love interest Emma, and the couple duetted in the show's signature song "If You Were the Only Girl in the World", which became an international success.

 

This London engagement was a new experience for Robey, who had only been familiar with provincial pantomimes and week-long, one-man comedy shows. Aside from pantomime, he had never taken part in a long-running production, and he had never had to memorise lines precisely or keep to schedules enforced by strict directors and theatre managers.

 

The Bing Boys Are Here ran for 378 performances, and occupied the Alhambra for more than a year. The theatrical press praised Robey as:

 

"The first actor of the halls".

 

George made two films towards the end of the war: The Anti-frivolity League in 1916, and Doing His Bit the following year.

 

-- Zig-Zag to Joy Bells

 

Robey left the cast of The Bing Boys during its run, in January 1917, in order to star at the London Hippodrome in the lavishly staged revue Zig-Zag!.

 

Robey included a sketch based on his music hall character "The Prehistoric Man", with Daphne Pollard playing the role of "She of the Tireless Tongue". In another scene, he played a drunken gentleman who accidentally secures a box at the Savoy Theatre instead of an intended hotel room.

 

The audience appeared unresponsive to the character, so he changed it mid-performance to that of a naive Yorkshire man. The change provoked much amusement, and it became one of the most popular scenes of the show. Zig-Zag ran for 648 performances.

 

Stoll again secured Robey for the Alhambra in 1918 for a sequel, The Bing Boys on Broadway. The show, again co-starring Violet Loraine, matched the popularity of its predecessor, and beat the original show's run with a total of 562 performances.

 

Robey returned to the London Hippodrome in 1919 where he took a leading role in another hit revue, Joy Bells. Robey played the role of an old-fashioned father who is mystified over the changing traditions after the First World War.

 

He interpolated two music hall sketches: "No, No, No," which centred on turning innocent, everyday sayings into suggestive and provocative maxims, and "The Rest Cure," which told the story of a pre-op hospital patient who hears worrying stories of malpractice from his well-meaning friends who visit him.

 

Joy Bells ran for 723 performances.

 

In the Italian newspaper La Tribuna, the writer Emilio Cecchi commented:

 

"Robey, just by being Robey, makes us

laugh until we weep. We do not want to

see either Figaro or Othello; it is quite

enough for Robey to appear in travelling

costume and to turn his eyes in crab-like

fashion from one side of the auditorium

to another.

Robey's aspect in dealing with his audience

is paternal and, one might say, apostolic."

 

In the early months of 1919, Robey completed a book of memoirs, 'My Rest Cure', which was published later that year. During the run of Joy Bells he was awarded the Legion of Honour for raising £14,000 for the French Red Cross.

 

George declined a knighthood that same year because, according to Cotes, he was worried that the title would distance him from his working-class audiences; he was appointed a CBE by George V at Buckingham Palace instead.

 

On the morning of the penultimate Joy Bells performance, Robey was invited to Stoll's London office, where he was offered a role in a new revue at the Alhambra Theatre. On the journey, he met the theatre impresario Sir Alfred Butt, who agreed to pay him £100 more, but out of loyalty to Stoll, he declined the offer and resumed his £600 a week contract at the Alhambra.

 

-- George Robey in the Inter-War Years

 

On the 28th. July 1919, Robey took part in his second Royal Command Performance, at the London Coliseum. He and Violet Loraine sang "If You Were the Only Girl in the World".

 

A gap in the Alhambra's schedule allowed Stoll to showcase Robey in a new short film. "George Robey's Day Off" (1919) showed the comedian acting out his daily domestic routines to comic effect, but the picture failed at the box office. The British director John Baxter concluded that producers did not know how best to apply Robey's stage talents to film.

 

By 1920 variety theatre had become popular in Britain, and Robey had completed the successful transition from music hall to variety star. Pantomime, which relied on its stars to make up much of the script through ad lib, was also beginning to fall out of favour, and his contemporaries were finding it too difficult to create fresh material for every performance; for Robey, however, the festive entertainment continued to be a lucrative source of employment.

 

Robey's first revue of the 1920's was Johnny Jones, which opened on the 1st. June 1920 at the Alhambra Theatre. The show also featured Ivy St. Helier, Lupino Lane and Eric Blore, and carried the advertisement "A Robey salad with musical dressing".

 

One of the show's more popular gags was a scene in which Robey picked and ate cherries off St. Helier's hat, before tossing the stones into the orchestra pit which were then met by loud bangs from the bass drum.

 

A sign of George's popularity came in August 1920 when he was depicted in scouting costume for a series of 12 Royal Mail stamps in aid of the Printers Pension Corporation War Orphans and the Prince of Wales Boy Scout Funds.

 

Neville Cardus, in The Darling of the Halls (1972), writes:

 

"I think Robey's Mother Goose was, as far

as I know, the greatest piece of acting of

what is called the 'Dame' that I have ever

seen.

But then again his Dame Trot in Jack and

the Beanstalk was great comic acting.

It was incredible. Really a piece of wonderful

acting in a few minutes – acting you would

put on the same plane as you would any

great actor of the time."

 

The revue Robey en Casserole (1921) was next for Robey, during which he led a troupe of dancers in a musical piece called the "Policemen Ballet". Each dancer was dressed in a mock police uniform on top and a tutu below.

 

However the show was the first failure for George under Stoll's management. That December Robey appeared in his only London pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk, at the Hippodrome. His biographer, Peter Cotes, remembered the comedian's interpretation of Dame Trot as:

 

"Enormously funny: a bucolic caricature

of a woman, sturdy and fruity, leathery

and forbidding.

Robey's comic timing was in a class of

its own."

 

In March 1922 Robey remained at the Hippodrome in the revue Round in Fifty, a modernised version of Round the World in Eighty Days, which proved to be another hit for the London theatre, and a personal favourite of the comedian.

 

Stoll brought Robey to cinema audiences a further four times during 1923. The first two films were written with the intention of showcasing the comedian's pantomime talents: 'One Arabian Night' was a reworking of Aladdin, while 'Harlequinade' visited the roots of pantomime.

 

-- Marriage Breakdown and Foreign Tours

 

One of Robey's more notable roles under Stoll was Sancho Panza in the 1923 film Don Quixote, for which he received a fee of £700 a week. However the amount of time he spent working away from home led to the breakdown of his marriage, and he separated from Ethel in 1923. He had a brief affair with one of his leading ladies, and walked out of the family home.

 

Robey made a return to the London Hippodrome in 1924 in the revue Leap Year. Leap Year was set in South Africa, Australia and Canada, and was written to appeal to the tourists who were visiting London from the Commonwealth countries.

 

Robey was much to their tastes, and his rendition of "My Old Dutch" helped the show achieve another long run of 421 performances.

 

Sky High was next, and opened at the London Palladium in March 1925. The chorus dancer Marie Blanche was his co-star, a partnership that caused the gossip columnists to comment on the performers' alleged romance two years previously. Despite the rumours, Blanche continued as his leading lady for the next four years, and Sky High lasted for 309 performances on the West End stage.

 

The year 1926 was lacking in variety entertainment, a fact largely attributed to the UK general strike that had occurred in May of that year. The strike was unexpected by Robey, who had signed the previous year to star in a series of variety dates for Moss Empires.

 

The contract was lucrative, made more so by the comedian's willingness to manage his own bookings. He took the show to the provinces under the title of Bits and Pieces, and employed a company of 25 artists as well as engineers and support staff.

 

Despite the economic hardships of Great Britain in 1926, large numbers of people turned out to see the show. George returned to Birmingham, a city where he was held in great affection, and where he was sure the audiences would embrace his new show.

 

However, censors demanded that he omit the provocative song "I Stopped, I Looked, I Listened" and that he heavily edit the sketch "The Cheat". The restrictions failed to dampen the audiences' enthusiasm, and Bits and Pieces enjoyed rave reviews. It ran until Christmas and earned a six-month extension.

 

In the spring of 1927 Robey took the opportunity to tour abroad, when he and his company took Bits and Pieces to South Africa, where it was received favourably. By the time he had left Cape Town, he had played to over 60,000 people, and had travelled in excess of 15,000 miles.

 

Upon his return to England in October, George took Bits and Pieces to Bradford. In August 1928, Robey and his company travelled to Canada, where they played to packed audiences for three months.

 

It was there that he produced a new revue, Between Ourselves, in Vancouver, which was staged especially for the country's armed forces. The Canadians were enthusiastic about Robey; he was awarded the freedom of the city in London, Ontario, made a chieftain of the Sarcee tribe, and was an honorary guest at a cricket match in Edmonton, Alberta. George described the tour as "one of unbroken happiness."

 

In the late 1920's Robey also wrote and starred in two Phonofilm sound-on-film productions, Safety First (1928), and Mrs. Mephistopheles (1929).

 

In early 1929 Robey returned to South Africa and then Canada for another tour with Bits and Pieces, after which he started another series of variety dates back in England. Among the towns he visited was Woolwich, where he performed to packed audiences over the course of a week.

 

In 1932 Robey appeared in his first sound film, The Temperance Fête, and followed this with Marry Me, which was, according to his biographer A. E. Wilson, one of the most successful musical films of the comedian's career. The film tells the story of a sound recordist in a gramophone company who romances a colleague when she becomes the family housekeeper.

 

By the later months of 1932, Robey had formed a romantic relationship with Blanche Littler (1897–1981), who then took over as his manager. The couple grew close during the filming of Don Quixote, a remake of the comedian's 1923 success as Sancho Panza.

 

Unlike its predecessor, Don Quixote had an ambitious script, big budget and an authentic foreign setting. Robey resented having to grow a beard for the role, and disliked the French climate and gruelling 12-week filming schedule. He refused to act out his character's death scene in a farcical way, and also objected to the lateness of the "dreadfully banal" scripts, which were often written the night before filming.

 

-- Venture Into Legitimate Theatre

 

Until 1932 Robey had never played in legitimate theatre, although he had read Shakespeare from an early age. That year he took the part of King Menelaus in Helen!, which was an English-language adaptation by A. P. Herbert of Offenbach's operetta La belle Hélène.

 

The show's producer C. B. Cochran, a longstanding admirer of Robey, engaged a prestigious cast for the production, including Evelyn Laye and W. H. Berry, with choreography by Léonide Massine and sets by Oliver Messel.

 

The operetta opened on the 30th. January 1932, becoming the Adelphi Theatre's most successful show of the year. The critic Harold Conway wrote that, while Robey had reached the pinnacle of his career as a variety star, which only required him to rely on his "breezy, cheeky personality", he had reservations about the comedian's ability to "integrate himself with the other stars ... to learn many pages of dialogue, and to remember countless cues."

 

After the run of Helen!, Robey briefly resumed his commitments to the variety stage before signing a contract to appear at the Savoy Theatre as Bold Ben Blister in the operetta Jolly Roger, which premiered in March 1933.

 

The production had a run of bad luck, including an actors' strike which was caused by Robey's refusal to join the actors' union Equity. The dispute was settled when he was included as a co-producer of the show, thus excluding him as a full-time actor. Robey made a substantial donation to the union, and the production went ahead.

 

Despite its troubles, the show was a success, and received much praise from the press. Harold Conway of the Daily Mail called the piece:

 

"One of the outstanding triumphs

of personality witnessed in a

London theatre".

 

Later that year, Robey completed his final autobiography, 'Looking Back on Life'. The literary critic Graham Sutton admired Robey for his honest and frank account, and thought that he was "at his best when most personal".

 

-- George Robey's Shakespearean Roles

 

According to Wilson, Robey revered Shakespeare and had an "excellent reading knowledge of the Bard" even though the comedian had never seen a Shakespeare play. As a child, he had committed to memory the "ghost" scene in Hamlet.

 

Writing in 1933, Cochran expressed the opinion that Robey had been a victim of a largely conservative and "snobbish" attitude from theatre managers, that the comedian was "cut out for Shakespeare", and that if he had been frequently engaged in playing the Bard's works, then "Shakespeare would probably have been popular."

 

In 1934, the theatre director Sydney Carroll offered Robey the chance to appear as Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, but he initially declined the offer, citing a hectic schedule, including a conflict with his appearance in that year's Royal Variety Performance on the 8th. May.

 

George was also concerned that he would not be taken seriously by legitimate theatre critics, and knew that he would not be able to include a comic sketch or to engage in his customary resourceful gagging.

 

In the same year, Robey starred in a film version of the hit musical Chu Chin Chow. The New York Times called him "a lovable and laughable Ali Baba".

 

At the start of 1935 Robey accepted his first Shakespearean role, as Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1, which surprised the press and worried fans who thought that he might retire the Prime Minister of Mirth.

 

The theatrical press were sceptical of a music hall performer taking on such a distinguished role; Carroll, the play's producer, vehemently defended his casting choice. Carroll later admitted taking a gamble on employing Robey, but wrote that:

 

"George Robey has unlimited courage

in challenging criticism and risking his

reputation on a venture of this kind; he

takes both his past and his future in both

hands, and is faced with the alternative

of dashing them into the depths or lifting

them to a height hitherto undreamt of."

 

Carroll further opined that:

 

"Robey has never failed in anything he

has undertaken. He is one of the most

intelligent and capable of actors."

 

Henry IV, Part I opened on the 28th. February at Her Majesty's Theatre, and Robey proved himself to be a capable Shakespearean actor, though his Shakespearean debut was marred initially by an inability to remember his lines.

 

A journalist from The Daily Express thought that Robey seemed uncomfortable, displayed a halting delivery and was "far from word perfect".

 

Writing in The Observer, the critic Ivor Brown said of Robey's portrayal:

 

"In no performance within my memory

has the actor been more obviously the

afflicted servant of his lines and more

obviously the omnipotent master of the

situation".

 

Another journalist, writing in the Daily Mirror, thought that:

 

"Robey gave 25 percent of

Shakespeare and 75 percent

of himself".

 

In any event, such was Robey's popularity in the role that the German theatre and film producer Max Reinhardt declared that, should the opportunity arise for a film version, the comedian would be his perfect choice as Falstaff.

 

Cotes described Robey as having:

 

"A great vitality and immense command

of the role. He never faltered, he had to

take his audience by the throat and make

them attentive at once because he couldn't

play himself in."

 

Although George was eager to be taken seriously as a legitimate actor, Robey provided a subtle nod in the direction of his comic career by using the wooden cane intended for the Prime Minister of Mirth for the majority of his scenes as Falstaff.

 

The poet John Betjeman responded to the critics' early scepticism:

 

"Variety artistes are a separate world

from the legitimate stage. They are

separate too, from ballet, opera, and

musical comedy.

It is possible for variety artists to

appear in all of these. Indeed, no one

who saw will ever forget the superb

pathos and humour of George Robey's

Falstaff".

 

Later, in 1935, Blanche Littler persuaded Robey to accept Carroll's earlier offer to play Bottom, and the comedian cancelled three weeks' worth of dates. The press were complimentary of his performance, and he later attributed his success to Littler and her encouragement.

 

-- George Robey's Later Career: 1936–1950

 

Robey was interviewed for The Spice of Life programme for the BBC in 1936. He spoke about his time spent on the music hall circuit, which he described as the "most enjoyable experience" of his life.

 

The usually reserved Robey admitted that privately he was not a sociable person, and that he often grew tired of his audiences while performing on stage, but that he got his biggest thrill from making others laugh.

 

He also declared a love for the outdoors, and mentioned that, to relax, he would draw "comic scribbles" of himself as the Prime Minister of Mirth, which he would occasionally give to fans. As a result of the interview he received more than a thousand fan letters from listeners.

 

Wilson thought that Robey's "perfect diction and intimate manner made him an ideal broadcast speaker". The press commented favourably on his performance, with one reporter from Variety Life writing:

 

"I doubt whether any speaker other than

a stage idol could have used, as Robey

did, the first person singular almost

incessantly for half an hour without

causing something akin to resentment. ...

The comedian's talk was brilliantly

conceived and written."

 

In the later months of 1936, Robey repeated his radio success with a thirty-minute programme entitled "Music-Hall", recorded for American audiences, to honour the tenth birthday of the National Broadcasting Corporation. In it, he presented a montage of his characterisations, as well as impressions of other famous acts of the day.

 

A second programme, which he recorded the following year, featured George speaking fondly of cricket and of the many well-known players whom he had met on his frequent visits to the Oval and Lord's cricket grounds over his fifty-year association.

 

In the summer of 1938 Robey appeared in the film A Girl Must Live, directed by Carol Reed, in which he played the role of Horace Blount. A report in the Kinematograph Weekly commented that:

 

"The 69-year-old comedian

is still able to stand up to the

screen by day, and variety

by night."

 

A journalist for The Times opined that Robey's performance as an elderly furrier, the love interest of both Margaret Lockwood and Lilli Palmer, was "a perfect study in bewildered embarrassment".

 

Robey made his television debut in August 1938, but was unenthused with the medium, and only made rare appearances. The BBC producer Grace Wyndham Goldie was dismayed at how little of his "comic quality" was conveyed on the small screen.

 

Goldie thought that Robey's comic abilities were not limited to his voice, and depended largely on the relation between his facial expressions and his witty words. She felt that:

 

"He should be forbidden, by his own

angel, if nobody else, to approach

the ordinary microphone".

 

Nonetheless, Goldie remained optimistic about Robey's future television career. The journalist L. Marsland Gander disagreed, and thought that Robey's methods were "really too slow for television".

 

That November, and with his divorce from Ethel finalised, Robey married Blanche Littler, who was more than two decades his junior, at Marylebone Town Hall.

 

At Christmas, he fractured three ribs and bruised his spine when he accidentally fell into the orchestra pit while appearing in the 1938–39 pantomime Robinson Crusoe in Birmingham. George attributed the fall to his face mask, which gave him a limited view of the stage.

 

The critic Harold Conway was less forgiving, blaming the accident on the comedian's "lost self-confidence" and opining that the accident was the start of Robey's professional decline.

 

-- George Robey in the Second World War

 

Aware of demand for his act in Australia, Robey conducted a second tour of the country at the start of 1939. While he was appearing at the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney, war broke out with Germany.

 

Robey returned to England and concentrated his efforts on entertaining in order to raise money for the war effort. He signed up with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) for whom he appeared in a wide range of shows, and also in his own one-man engagements.

 

He would sometimes turn up unannounced to perform at hospitals, munition factories, airfields, anti-aircraft posts and other venues where there was an audience of just a few people.

 

During the 1940's, Robey appeared predominantly in troop concerts as himself, but caused controversy by jokingly supporting the Nazis and belittling black people during his act. His intentions were to gently poke fun at the "Little Englanders", but audiences thought that he was sympathising with Nazism.

 

George's jocular view that a defeat for Hitler would mean a victory for bolshevism was highlighted in a series of controversial interviews, which caused him much embarrassment when challenged and which he regretted afterwards. His views became known in the press as "Robeyisms", and they drew increasing criticism, but his Prime Minister of Mirth remained popular, and he used the character to divert the negative publicity.

 

Cotes wrote that:

 

"Robey was not a politician, merely a

jingoist, who lived long enough to feel

that his little-Englander outlook was

causing him acute embarrassment, and

his army of admirers deep dismay."

 

Robey starred in the film Salute John Citizen in 1942, about the effects that the war had on a normal British family. In a 1944 review of the film, Robey was described as being "convincing in an important role" but the film itself had "dull moments in the simple tale".

 

That Christmas, Robey travelled to Bristol, where he starred in the pantomime Robinson Crusoe. A further four films followed in 1943, one of which promoted war propaganda while the other two displayed the popular medium of cine-variety. Cine-variety introduced Robey to the Astoria in Finsbury Park, London, a venue which was used to huge audiences and big-name acts and was described as "a super-cinema".

 

During the early months of 1944, Robey returned to the role of Falstaff when he appeared in the film version of Henry V, produced by Eagle-Lion Films. The American film critic Bosley Crowther had mixed opinions of the film. Writing in The New York Times in 1946, he thought that:

 

"It showcased a fine group of British film

craftsmen and actors who contributed to

a stunningly brilliant and intriguing screen

spectacle. Despite this, the film's additional

screenplay was poor, and Falstaff's deathbed

scene was non-essential and just a bit

grotesque."

 

Late in 1944, George appeared in Burnley in a show entitled Vive Paree alongside Janice Hart and Frank O'Brian. In 1945, Robey starred in two minor film roles, as "Old Sam" in The Trojan Brothers, a short comedy film in which two actors experience various problems as a pantomime horse, and as "Vogel" in the musical romance Waltz Time.

 

-- George Robey's Final Years

 

George spent 1947 touring England, while the following spring he undertook a provincial tour of Frederick Bowyer's fairy play The Windmill Man, which he also co-produced with his wife.

 

In June 1951, now aged 81, Robey starred in a midnight gala performance at the London Palladium in aid of the family of Sid Field who had died that year. For the finale, Robey performed "I Stopped, I Looked, I Listened" and "If You Were the Only Girl in the World". The rest of the three-hour performance featured celebrities from radio, television and film.

 

The American comedian Danny Kaye, who was also engaged for the performance, called Robey:

 

"A great, great artist".

 

The same month, Robey returned to Birmingham, where he opened a garden party at St. Mary and St. Ambrose Church, a venue in which he had appeared at the beginning of his career. On the 25th. September George appeared for the BBC in an edition of the radio series Desert Island Discs for which he chose among others "Mondo ladro", Falstaff's rueful complaint about the wicked world in Verdi's opera Falstaff.

 

For the rest of the year Robey made personal appearances opening fêtes and attending charity events.

 

Robey took part in the Festival of Variety for the BBC in 1951, which paid tribute to the British music hall. For his performance, he adopted an ad-lib style rather than use a script. His wife sat at the side of the stage, ready to provide support should he need it. Robey's turn earned the loudest applause of the evening.

 

The following month Robey undertook a long provincial tour in the variety show Do You Remember? under the management of Bernard Delfont. After an evening's performance in Sheffield, he was asked by a local newspaper reporter if he considered retiring. The comedian quipped:

 

"Me retire? Good gracious, I'm too

old for that. I could not think of

starting a new career at my age!"

 

In December 1951, he opened the Lansbury Lodge home for retired cricketers in Poplar, East London; he considered the ceremony to be one of the "happiest memories of his life."

 

By early 1952, Robey was becoming noticeably frail, and he lost interest in many of his sporting pastimes. Instead, he stayed at home and drew comic sketches featuring the Prime Minister of Mirth.

 

In May he filmed The Pickwick Papers, in which he played the role of old Tony Weller, a part which he had initially turned down on health grounds. The following year, and in aid of the games fund, he starred as Clown in a short pantomime at the Olympic Variety Show at the Victoria Palace Theatre.

 

Organisers asked for him to appear in the Prime Minister of Mirth costume instead of the usual clown garb, a request the comedian was happy to fulfil.

 

-- Sir George Robey's Knighthood and Death

 

In the early months of 1954, a knighthood was conferred on Robey by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother at Buckingham Palace. However during the following weeks, George's health declined; he became confined to a wheelchair, and spent the majority of his time at home under the care of his wife.

 

In May he opened a British Red Cross fête in Seaford, East Sussex, and, a month later, made his last public appearance, on television as a panellist in the English version of The Name's the Same.

 

Wilson called Robey's performance "pathetic" and thought that:

 

"He appeared with only

a hint of his old self".

 

By June George had become housebound, and quietly celebrated his 85th. birthday surrounded by family; visiting friends were organised into appointments by his wife Blanche, but theatrical colleagues were barred in case they caused the comedian too much excitement.

 

Robey suffered a stroke on the 20th. November 1954, and remained in a semi-coma for just over a week. He died at the age of 85 on the 29th. November 1954 at his home in Saltdean, East Sussex, and was cremated at the Downs Crematorium in Brighton.

 

Blanche continued to live on the Sussex coast until her death at the age of 83 in 1981.

 

-- Sir George Robey's Legacy

 

Following his death, Robey's costume for the Prime Minister of Mirth was donated to the London Museum.

 

In his lifetime, Robey helped to earn more than £2,000,000 for charitable causes, with £500,000 of that figure being raised during the Great War.

 

In recognition of his efforts, the Merchant Seaman's Convalescent Home in Limpsfield, Surrey, named a ward after him, and the Royal Sussex Hospital later bought a new dialysis machine in his memory.

 

-- Tributes to George Robey

 

News of Robey's death prompted tributes from the press, who printed illustrations, anecdotes and reminders of his stage performances and charitable activities. A reporter from the Daily Worked wrote:

 

"Knighthood notwithstanding, George

Robey long ago made himself a place

as an entertainer and artist of the people."

 

A critic for the Daily Mail wrote:

 

"Personality has become a wildly

misused word since his heyday, but

George Robey breathed it in every

pore."

 

In Robey's obituary in The Spectator, Compton Mackenzie called the comedian:

 

"One of the last great figures of

the late Victorian and Edwardian

music-hall."

 

In December 1954, a memorial service for Robey was held at St. Paul's Cathedral. The diverse congregation consisted of royalty, actors, hospital workers, stage personnel, students and taxi drivers, among others.

 

The Bishop of Stepney, Joost de Blank, said:

 

"We have lost a great English music

hall artist, one of the greatest this

country has known in the late

nineteenth and twentieth centuries."

 

Performers gave readings at the service, including the comedian Leslie Henson, who called Robey:

 

"That great obstinate

bullock of variety".

 

Robey's comic delivery influenced other comedians, but opinions of his effectiveness as a comic vary. The radio personality Robb Wilton acknowledged learning a lot from him, and although he felt that:

 

"Robey was not very funny, but

he could time a comic situation

perfectly."

 

Similarly, the comedian Charlie Chester admitted that:

 

"As a comedian, Robey still didn't

make me laugh, although he was

a legend whose Prime Minister of

Mirth character used a beautiful

make-up design."

 

Robey's biographer Peter Cotes disagreed with these assessments, praising the comedian's "droll-like humour," and comparing it in greatness to Chaplin's miming and Grock's clowning. Cotes wrote:

 

"His Mayor, Professor of Music, Saracen,

Dame Trot, Queen of Hearts, District Nurse,

Pro's Landlady, and of course his immortal

Prime Minister, were all absurdities: rich,

outsize in prim and pride, gloriously

disapproving bureaucratic petty officialdom

at its worst, best and funniest."

 

Violet Loraine called her former co-star:

 

"One of the greatest comedians

the world has ever known".

 

The theatrical producer Basil Dean opined that:

 

"George was a great artist, one of

the last and really big figures of

his era. They don't breed them like

that now."

 

The actor John Gielgud, who remembered meeting Robey at the Alhambra Theatre in 1953, called the comedian:

 

"Charming, gracious, and one of the

few really great ones of the music

hall era."

Monasticism is a familiar custom amongst the religions available in Indian subcontinent, as well as as for neighborhood it's common in Bangladesh. The principal traits of all religions (except Islam in some cases) for monasticism is almost similar, only the outfit and religious activities differs. Buddhist and Christian cultures are the mostly encircled inside the monasteries, and that's why not too common amongst public. The Muslim culture there is no such thing (they define it as Sufism, and there is no specific trait or restrictions except pity). Although it's practiced in all religions, in hindu culture (Santayana/Hinduism) it contains most interesting and remarkable outfits. And it's based on different temples but not encircled within it, and the practitioner can come amongst public for food. Most of the "Shadhu"s (a practitioner of Monasticism) wear a single piece of red colored cloth without stitches, carry a begging pot and a three-pointed spear like weapon called 'trishul', bared faces with long hair and fearful red eyes resulted for marijuana. Being vegetarian, practice celibacy, reluctance to the secular wealth are some other traits of monasticism in Hindu culture. But using only the outfit often, it has become a malpractice for livelihood and that's why monasticism is loosing appeal to the conscious community of the society.

  

______________________________

Photo Taken with Canon EOS 1D MkiiN & EF 50mm f1.8II

Taken From Chandranath Dham, Shitakunda, Bangladesh.

 

Copyright: Abdul Aziz Apu

Contact: apu029@gmail.com

. . . the natural make-up of the women is called Thanaka. It is a cream made out of the bark of specific trees. Thanaka cream has been used by Burmese women for over 2000 years. It has a fragrant scent somewhat similar to sandalwood. The creamy paste is applied to the face in attractive designs, the most common form being a circular patch on each cheek, nose, sometimes made stripey with the fingers known as thanaka bè gya, or patterned in the shape of a leaf, often also highlighting the bridge of the nose with it at the same time. It may be applied from head to toe (thanaka chi zoun gaung zoun). Apart from cosmetic beauty, thanaka also gives a cooling sensation and provides protection from sunburn. It is believed to help remove acne and promote smooth skin. It is also an anti-fungal. The active ingredients of thanaka are coumarin and marmesin.

______________________________________

 

Yangon (Burmese: ရန်ကုန်, MLCTS rankun mrui, pronounced: [jàɴɡòʊɴ mjo̰]; formerly known as Rangoon, literally: "End of Strife") is the capital of the Yangon Region of Myanmar, also known as Burma. Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government relocated the capital to the purpose-built city of Naypyidaw in central Myanmar. With over 7 million people, Yangon is Myanmar's largest city and is its most important commercial centre.

 

Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in the region, and has a unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact. The colonial-era commercial core is centred around the Sule Pagoda, which reputed to be over 2,000 years old. The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda — Myanmar's most sacred Buddhist pagoda. The mausoleum of the last Mughal Emperor is located in Yangon, where he had been exiled following the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

 

Yangon suffers from deeply inadequate infrastructure, especially compared to other major cities in Southeast Asia. Though many historic residential and commercial buildings have been renovated throughout central Yangon, most satellite towns that ring the city continue to be profoundly impoverished and lack basic infrastructure.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Yangon (ရန်ကုန်) is a combination of the two words yan (ရန်) and koun (ကုန်), which mean "enemies" and "run out of", respectively. It is also translated as "End of Strife". "Rangoon" most likely comes from the British imitation of the pronunciation of "Yangon" in the Arakanese language, which is [rɔ̀ɴɡʊ́ɴ].

 

HISTORY

EARLY HISTORY

Yangon was founded as Dagon in the early 11th century (c. 1028–1043) by the Mon, who dominated Lower Burma at that time. Dagon was a small fishing village centred about the Shwedagon Pagoda. In 1755, King Alaungpaya conquered Dagon, renamed it "Yangon", and added settlements around Dagon. The British captured Yangon during the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26), but returned it to Burmese administration after the war. The city was destroyed by a fire in 1841.

 

COLONIAL RANGOON

The British seized Yangon and all of Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, and subsequently transformed Yangon into the commercial and political hub of British Burma. Yangon is also the place where the British sent Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal emperor, to live after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Based on the design by army engineer Lt. Alexander Fraser, the British constructed a new city on a grid plan on delta land, bounded to the east by the Pazundaung Creek and to the south and west by the Yangon River. Yangon became the capital of all British-ruled Burma after the British had captured Upper Burma in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. By the 1890s Yangon's increasing population and commerce gave birth to prosperous residential suburbs to the north of Royal Lake (Kandawgyi) and Inya Lake. The British also established hospitals including Rangoon General Hospital and colleges including Rangoon University.

 

Colonial Yangon, with its spacious parks and lakes and mix of modern buildings and traditional wooden architecture, was known as "the garden city of the East." By the early 20th century, Yangon had public services and infrastructure on par with London.

 

Before World War II, about 55% of Yangon's population of 500,000 was Indian or South Asian, and only about a third was Bamar (Burman). Karens, the Chinese, the Anglo-Burmese and others made up the rest.

 

After World War I, Yangon became the epicentre of Burmese independence movement, with leftist Rangoon University students leading the way. Three nationwide strikes against the British Empire in 1920, 1936 and 1938 all began in Yangon. Yangon was under Japanese occupation (1942–45), and incurred heavy damage during World War II. The city was retaken by the Allies in May 1945.

 

Yangon became the capital of Union of Burma on 4 January 1948 when the country regained independence from the British Empire.

 

CONTEMPORARY YANGON

Soon after Burma's independence in 1948, many colonial names of streets and parks were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. In 1989, the current military junta changed the city's English name to "Yangon", along with many other changes in English transliteration of Burmese names. (The changes have not been accepted by many Burmese who consider the junta unfit to make such changes, nor by many publications, news bureaus including, most notably, the BBC and foreign nations including the United Kingdom and United States.)

 

Since independence, Yangon has expanded outwards. Successive governments have built satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa in the 1950s to Hlaingthaya,

 

Shwepyitha and South Dagon in the 1980s. Today, Greater Yangon encompasses an area covering nearly 600 square kilometres.

 

During Ne Win's isolationist rule (1962–88), Yangon's infrastructure deteriorated through poor maintenance and did not keep up with its increasing population. In the 1990s, the current military government's more open market policies attracted domestic and foreign investment, bringing a modicum of modernity to the city's infrastructure. Some inner city residents were forcibly relocated to new satellite towns. Many colonial-period buildings were demolished to make way for high-rise hotels, office buildings, and shopping malls, leading the city government to place about 200 notable colonial-period buildings under the Yangon City Heritage List in 1996. Major building programs have resulted in six new bridges and five new highways linking the city to its industrial back country. Still, much of Yangon remains without basic municipal services such as 24-hour electricity and regular garbage collection.

 

Yangon has become much more indigenous Burmese in its ethnic make-up since independence. After independence, many South Asians and Anglo-Burmese left. Many more South Asians were forced to leave during the 1960s by Ne Win's xenophobic government. Nevertheless, sizable South Asian and Chinese communities still exist in Yangon. The Anglo-Burmese have effectively disappeared, having left the country or intermarried with other Burmese groups.

 

Yangon was the centre of major anti-government protests in 1974, 1988 and 2007. The 1988 People Power Uprising resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of Burmese civilians, many in Yangoon where hundreds of thousands of people flooded into the streets of the then capital city. The Saffron Revolution saw mass shootings and the use of crematoria in Yangoon by the Burmese government to erase evidence of their crimes against monks, unarmed protesters, journalists and students.

 

The city's streets saw bloodshed each time as protesters were gunned down by the government.

 

In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Yangon. While the city had few human casualties, three quarters of Yangon's industrial infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, with losses estimated at US$800 million.

 

In November 2005, the military government designated Naypyidaw, 320 kilometres north of Yangon, as the new administrative capital, and subsequently moved much of the government to the newly developed city. At any rate, Yangon remains the largest city, and the most important commercial centre of Myanmar.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Yangon is located in Lower Burma (Myanmar) at the convergence of the Yangon and Bago Rivers about 30 km away from the Gulf of Martaban at 16°48' North, 96°09' East (16.8, 96.15). Its standard time zone is UTC/GMT +6:30 hours.

 

CLIMATE

Yangon has a tropical monsoon climate under the Köppen climate classification system. The city features a lengthy wet season from May through October where a substantial amount of rainfall is received; and a dry season from November through April, where little rainfall is seen. It is primarily due to the heavy rainfall received during the rainy season that Yangon falls under the tropical monsoon climate category. During the course of the year 1961 to 1990s, average temperatures show little variance, with average highs ranging from 29 to 36 °C and average lows ranging from 18 to 25 °C.

 

CITYSCAPE

Until the mid-1990s, Yangon remained largely constrained to its traditional peninsula setting between the Bago, Yangon and Hlaing rivers. People moved in, but little of the city moved out. Maps from 1944 show little development north of Inya Lake and areas that are now layered in cement and stacked with houses were then virtual backwaters. Since the late 1980s, however, the city began a rapid spread north to where Yangon International airport now stands. But the result is a stretching tail on the city, with the downtown area well removed from its geographic centre. The city's area has steadily increased from 72.52 square kilometres in 1901 to 86.2 square kilometres in 1940 to 208.51 square kilometres in 1974, to 346.13 square kilometres in 1985, and to 598.75 square kilometres in 2008.

 

ARCHITECTURE

Downtown Yangon is known for its leafy avenues and fin-de-siècle architecture. The former British colonial capital has the highest number of colonial period buildings in south-east Asia. Downtown Yangon is still mainly made up of decaying colonial buildings. The former High Court, the former Secretariat buildings, the former St. Paul's English High School and the Strand Hotel are excellent examples of the bygone era. Most downtown buildings from this era are four-story mix-use (residential and commercial) buildings with 4.3 m ceilings, allowing for the construction of mezzanines. Despite their less-than-perfect conditions, the buildings remain highly sought after and most expensive in the city's property market.

 

In 1996, the Yangon City Development Committee created a Yangon City Heritage List of old buildings and structures in the city that cannot be modified or torn down without approval. In 2012, the city of Yangon imposed a 50-year moratorium on demolition of buildings older than 50 years. The Yangon Heritage Trust, an NGO started by Thant Myint-U, aims to create heritage areas in Downtown, and attract investors to renovate buildings for commercial use.

 

A latter day hallmark of Yangon is the eight-story apartment building. (In Yangon parlance, a building with no elevators (lifts) is called an apartment building and one with elevators is called a condominium. Condos which have to invest in a local power generator to ensure 24-hour electricity for the elevators are beyond the reach of most Yangonites.) Found throughout the city in various forms, eight-story apartment buildings provide relatively inexpensive housing for many Yangonites. The apartments are usually eight stories high (including the ground floor) mainly because city regulations, until February 2008, required that all buildings higher than 23 m or eight stories to install lifts. The current code calls for elevators in buildings higher than 19 m or six stories, likely ushering in the era of the six-story apartment building. Although most apartment buildings were built only within the last 20 years, they look much older and rundown due to shoddy construction and lack of proper maintenance.

 

Unlike other major Asian cities, Yangon does not have any skyscrapers. Aside from a few high-rise hotels and office towers, most high-rise buildings (usually 10 stories and up) are "condos" scattered across prosperous neighbourhoods north of downtown such as Bahan, Dagon, Kamayut and Mayangon. The tallest building in Yangon, Pyay Gardens, is a 25-story condo in the city's north.

 

Older satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa are lined mostly with one to two story detached houses with access to the city's electricity grid. Newer satellite towns such as North Dagon and South Dagon are still essentially slums in a grid layout. The satellite towns - old or new - receive little or no municipal services.

 

ROAD LAYOUT

Downtown Yangon's road layout follows a grid pattern, based on four types of roads:

 

Broad 49-m wide roads running west to east

Broad 30-m wide roads running south to north

Two narrow 9.1-m wide streets running south to north

Mid-size 15-m wide streets running south to north

 

The east-west grid of central was laid out by British military engineers Fraser and Montgomerie after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. The city was later developed by the Public Works Department and Bengal Corps of Engineers. The pattern of south to north roads is as follows: one broad 30 m wide broad road, two narrow streets, one mid-size street, two more narrow streets, and then another 30 m wide broad road. This order is repeated from west to east. The narrow streets are numbered; the medium and broad roads are named.

 

For example, the 30 m Lanmadaw Road is followed by 9.1 m-wide 17th and 18th streets then the medium 15 m Sint-Oh-Dan Road, the 30-foot 19th and 20th streets, followed by another 30 m wide Latha Road, followed again by the two numbered small roads 21st and 22nd streets, and so on.

 

The roads running parallel west to east were the Strand Road, Merchant Road, Maha Bandula (née Dalhousie) Road, Anawrahta (Fraser) Road, and Bogyoke Aung San (Montgomerie) Road.

 

PARKS AND GARDENS

The largest and best maintained parks in Yangon are located around Shwedagon Pagoda. To the south-east of the gilded stupa is the most popular recreational area in the city – Kandawgyi Lake. The 61-ha lake is surrounded by the 45-ha Kandawgyi Nature Park, and the 28-ha Yangon Zoological Gardens, which consists of a zoo, an aquarium and an amusement park. West of the pagoda towards the former Hluttaw (Parliament) complex is the 53-ha People's Square and Park, (the former parading ground on important national days when Yangon was the capital.) A few miles north of the pagoda lies the 15-ha Inya Lake Park – a favorite hangout place of Yangon University students, and a well-known place of romance in Burmese popular culture.

 

Hlawga National Park and Allied War Memorial at the outskirts of the city are popular day-trip destinations with the well-to-do and tourists.

 

Yangon Book Plaza, the first and biggest book shop in Myanmar was opened on February 26, 2017 on the fifth floor of Than Zay Market in Lanmadaw Township, Yangon.

 

ADMINISTRATION

Yangon is administered by the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC). YCDC also coordinates urban planning. The city is divided into four districts. The districts combined have a total of 33 townships. The current mayor of Yangon is Maung Maung Soe. Each township is administered by a committee of township leaders, who make decisions regarding city beautification and infrastructure. Myo-thit (lit. "New Towns", or satellite towns) are not within such jurisdictions.

 

TRANSPORT

Yangon is Burma's main domestic and international hub for air, rail, and ground transportation.

 

AIR

Yangon International Airport, located 19 km from the centre, is the country's main gateway for domestic and international air travel. The airport has three terminals, known as T1, T2 and T3 which is also known as Domestic. It has direct flights to regional cities in Asia – mainly, Doha, Dubai, Dhaka, Kolkata, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Guangzhou, Taipei, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Kunming and Singapore. Although domestic airlines offer service to about twenty domestic locations, most flights are to tourist destinations such as Bagan, Mandalay, Heho and Ngapali, and to the capital Naypyidaw.

 

RAILWAYS

Yangon Central Railway Station is the main terminus of Myanmar Railways' 5,403-kilometre rail network whose reach covers Upper Myanmar (Naypyidaw, Mandalay, Shwebo), upcountry (Myitkyina), Shan hills (Taunggyi, Lashio) and the Taninthayi coast (Mawlamyaing, Dawei).

 

Yangon Circular Railway operates a 45.9-kilometre 39-station commuter rail network that connects Yangon's satellite towns. The system is heavily utilized by the local populace, selling about 150,000 tickets daily. The popularity of the commuter line has jumped since the government reduced petrol subsidies in August 2007.

 

BUSES AND CARS

Yangon has a 4,456-kilometre road network of all types (tar, concrete and dirt) in March 2011. Many of the roads are in poor condition and not wide enough to accommodate an increasing number of cars. The vast majority of Yangon residents cannot afford a car and rely on an extensive network of buses to get around. Over 300 public and private bus lines operate about 6,300 crowded buses around the city, carrying over 4.4 million passengers a day. All buses and 80% of the taxis in Yangon run on compressed natural gas (CNG), following the 2005 government decree to save money on imported petroleum. Highway buses to other cities depart from Dagon Ayeyar Highway Bus Terminal for Irrawaddy delta region and Aung Mingala Highway Bus Terminal for other parts of the country.

 

Motor transportation in Yangon is highly expensive for most of its citizens. As the government allows only a few thousand cars to be imported each year in a country with over 50 million people, car prices in Yangon (and in Burma) are among the highest in the world. In July 2008, the two most popular cars in Yangon, 1986/87 Nissan Sunny Super Saloon and 1988 Toyota Corolla SE Limited, cost the equivalent of about US$20,000 and US$29,000 respectively. A sports utility vehicle, imported for the equivalent of around US$50,000, goes for US$250,000. Illegally imported unregistered cars are cheaper – typically about half the price of registered cars. Nonetheless, car usage in Yangon is on the rise, a sign of rising incomes for some, and already causes much traffic congestion in highway-less Yangon's streets. In 2011, Yangon had about 300,000 registered motor vehicles in addition to an unknown number of unregistered ones.

 

Since 1970, cars have been driven on the right side of the road in Burma, as part of a military decree. However, as the government has not required left hand drive (LHD) cars to accompany the right side road rules, many cars on the road are still right hand drive (RHD) made for driving on the left side. Japanese used cars, which make up most of the country's imports, still arrive with RHD and are never converted to LHD. As a result, Burmese drivers have to rely on their passengers when passing other cars.

 

Within Yangon city limits, it is illegal to drive trishaws, bicycles, and motorcycles. Since February 2010, pickup truck bus lines have been forbidden to run in 6 townships of central Yangon, namely Latha, Lanmadaw, Pabedan, Kyauktada, Botahtaung and Pazundaung Townships. In May 2003, a ban on using car horns was implemented in six townships of Downtown Yangon to reduce noise pollution. In April 2004, the car horn ban was expanded to cover the entire city.

 

RIVER

Yangon's four main passenger jetties, all located on or near downtown waterfront, mainly serve local ferries across the river to Dala and Thanlyin, and regional ferries to the Irrawaddy delta. The 35-km Twante Canal was the quickest route from Yangon to the Irrawaddy delta until the 1990s when roads between Yangon and the Irrawaddy Division became usable year-round. While passenger ferries to the delta are still used, those to Upper Burma via the Irrawaddy river are now limited mostly to tourist river cruises.

 

DEMOGRAPHICS

Yangon is the most populous city by far in Burma although estimates of the size of its population vary widely. All population figures are estimates since no official census has been conducted in Burma since 1983. A UN estimate puts the population as 4.35 million in 2010 but a 2009 U.S. State Department estimate puts it at 5.5 million. The U.S. State Department's estimate is probably closer to the real number since the UN number is a straight-line projection, and does not appear to take the expansion of city limits in the past two decades into account. The city's population grew sharply after 1948 as many people (mainly, the indigenous Burmese) from other parts of the country moved into the newly built satellite towns of North Okkalapa, South Okkalapa, and Thaketa in the 1950s and East Dagon, North Dagon and South Dagon in the 1990s. Immigrants have founded their regional associations (such as Mandalay Association, Mawlamyaing Association, etc.) in Yangon for networking purposes. The government's decision to move the nation's administrative capital to Naypyidaw has drained an unknown number of civil servants away from Yangon.

 

Yangon is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. While Indians formed the slight majority prior to World War II, today, the majority of the population is of indigenous Bamar (Burman) descent. Large communities of Indians/South Asian Burmese and the Chinese Burmese exist especially in the traditional downtown neighborhoods. A large number of Rakhine and Karen also live in the city.

 

Burmese is the principal language of the city. English is by far the preferred second language of the educated class. In recent years, however, the prospect of overseas job opportunities has enticed

 

some to study other languages: Mandarin Chinese is most popular, followed by Japanese, and French.

 

RELIGIONS

The primary religions practiced in Yangon are Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Shwedagon Pagoda is a famous religious landmark in the city.

 

MEDIA

Yangon is the country's hub for the movie, music, advertising, newspaper and book publishing industries. All media is heavily regulated by the military government. Television broadcasting is off limits to the private sector. All media content must first be approved by the government's media censor board, Press Scrutiny and Registration Division.

 

Most television channels in the country are broadcast from Yangon. TV Myanmar and Myawaddy TV are the two main channels, providing Burmese-language programming in news and entertainment. Other special interest channels are MWD-1 and MWD-2, MRTV-3, the English-language channel that targets overseas audiences via satellite and via Internet, MRTV-4 and Channel 7 are with a focus on non-formal education programs and movies, and Movie 5, a pay-TV channel specializing in broadcasting foreign movies.

 

Yangon has three radio stations. Myanmar Radio National Service is the national radio service and broadcasts mostly in Burmese (and in English during specific times.) Pop culture oriented Yangon City FM and Mandalay City FM radio stations specialize in Burmese and English pop music, entertainment programs, live celebrity interviews, etc. New radio channels such as Shwe FM and Pyinsawaddy FM can also be tuned with the city area.

 

Nearly all print media and industries are based out of Yangon. All three national newspapers – two Burmese language dailies Myanma Alin (မြန်မာ့အလင်း) and Kyemon (ကြေးမုံ), and the English language The New Light of Myanmar — are published by the government. Semi-governmental The Myanmar Times weekly, published in Burmese and in English, is mainly geared for Yangon's expatriate community. Over twenty special interest journals and magazines covering sports, fashion, finance, crime, literature (but never politics) vie for the readership of the general populace.

 

Access to foreign media is extremely difficult. Satellite television in Yangon, and in Burma, is very expensive as the government imposes an annual registration fee of one million kyats. Certain foreign newspapers and periodicals such as the International Herald Tribune and the Straits Times can be found only in a few (mostly downtown) bookstores. Internet access in Yangon, which has the best telecommunication infrastructure in the country, is slow and erratic at best, and the Burmese government implements one of the world's most restrictive regimes of Internet control. International text messaging and voice messaging was permitted only in August 2008.

 

COMMUNICATION

Common facilities taken for granted elsewhere are luxury prized items in Yangon and Burma. The price of a GSM mobile phone was about K1.1 million in August 2008. In 2007, the country of 55 million had only 775,000 phone lines (including 275,000 mobile phones), and 400,000 computers. Even in Yangon, which has the best infrastructure, the estimated telephone penetration rate was only 6% at the end of 2004, and the official waiting time for a telephone line was 3.6 years. Most people cannot afford a computer and have to use the city's numerous Internet cafes to access a heavily restricted Internet, and a heavily censored local intranet. According to official statistics, in July 2010, the country had over 400,000 Internet users, with the vast majority hailing from just two cities, Yangon and Mandalay. Although Internet access was available in 42 cities across the country, the number of users outside the two main cities was just over 10,000.

 

LIFESTYLE

Yangon's property market is the most expensive in the country and beyond the reach of most Yangonites. Most rent outside the centre and few can afford to rent such apartments. (In 2008, rents for a typical 60 to 70 m2 apartments in the centre and vicinity range between K70,000 and K150,000 and those for high end condos between K200,000 and K500,000.)

 

Most men of all ages (and some women) spend their time at ubiquitous tea-shops, found in any corner or street of the city. Watching European football (mostly English Premier League with occasional La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga) matches while sipping tea is a popular pastime among many Yangonites. The average person stays close to his or her residential neighbourhood. The well-to-do tend to visit shopping malls and parks on weekends. Some leave the city on weekends for Chaungtha and Ngwesaung beach resorts in Ayeyarwady Division.

 

Yangon is also home to many pagoda festivals (paya pwe), held during dry-season months (November – March). The most famous of all, the Shwedagon Pagoda Festival in March, attracts thousands of pilgrims from around the country.

 

Yangon's museums are the domain of tourists and rarely visited by the locals.

 

Most of Yangon's larger hotels offer some kind of nightlife entertainment, geared towards tourists and the well-to-do Burmese. Some hotels offer traditional Burmese performing arts shows complete with a traditional Burmese orchestra. The pub scene in larger hotels is more or less the same as elsewhere in Asia. Other options include karaoke bars and pub restaurants in Yangon Chinatown.

 

Due to the problems of high inflation, the lack of high denomination notes, and the fact that many of the population do not have access to checks, or credit or debit cards, it is common to see citizens carrying a considerable amount of cash. (The highest denomination of Burmese currency kyat is 10 000 (~US$10.)) Credit cards are only rarely used in the city, chiefly in the more lavish hotels. Credit cards are also accepted in the major supermarket and convenience store chains.

 

SPORTS

As the city has the best sporting facilities in the country, most national-level annual sporting tournaments such as track and field, football, volleyball, tennis and swimming are held in Yangon. The 40,000-seat Aung San Stadium and the 32,000-seat Thuwunna Stadium are the main venues for the highly popular annual State and Division football tournament. Until April 2009, the now defunct Myanmar Premier League, consisted of 16 Yangon-based clubs, played all its matches in Yangon stadiums, and attracted little interest from the general public or commercial success despite the enormous popularity of football in Burma. Most Yangonites prefer watching European football on satellite TV. Teams such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City are among the favorite European teams among the Yangonites. It remains to be seen whether the Myanmar National League, the country's first professional football league, and its Yangon-based club Yangon United FC will attract a sufficient following in the country's most important media market.

 

Yangon is also home to annual the Myanmar Open golf tournament, and the Myanmar Open tennis tournament. The city hosted the 1961 and 1969 South East Asian Games. During colonial times, cricket was played mostly by British officials in the city. First-class cricket was played in the city in January 1927 when the touring Marylebone Cricket Club played Burma and the Rangoon Gymkhana. Two grounds were used to host these matches, the BAA Ground and the Gymkhana Ground. These matches mark the only time Burma and Rangoon Gymkhana have appeared in first-class cricket, and the only time first-class cricket has been played in Burma. After independence cricket all but died out in the country.

 

Yangon has a growing population of skateboarders, as documented in the films Altered Focus: Burma and Youth of Yangon. German non-profit organization Make Life Skate Life has received permission from the Yangon City Development Committee to construct a concrete skatepark at Thakin Mya park in downtown, and plans to complete the park in November 2015.

 

ECONOMY

Yangon is the country's main centre for trade, industry, real estate, media, entertainment and tourism. The city represents about one fifth of the national economy. According to official statistics for FY 2010–2011, the size of the economy of Yangon Region was 8.93 trillion kyats, or 23% of the national GDP.

 

The city is Lower Burma's main trading hub for all kinds of merchandise – from basic food stuffs to used cars although commerce continues to be hampered by the city's severely underdeveloped banking industry and communication infrastructure. Bayinnaung Market is the largest wholesale centre in the country for rice, beans and pulses, and other agricultural commodities. Much of the country's legal imports and exports go through Thilawa Port, the largest and busiest port in Burma. There is also a great deal of informal trade, especially in street markets that exist alongside street platforms of Downtown Yangon's townships. However, on 17 June 2011, the YCDC announced that street vendors, who had previously been allowed to legally open shop at 3 pm, would be prohibited from selling on the streets, and permitted to sell only in their townships of residence, presumably to clean up the city's image. Since 1 December 2009, high-density polyethylene plastic bags have been banned by city authorities.

 

Manufacturing accounts for a sizable share of employment. At least 14 light industrial zones ring Yangon, directly employing over 150,000 workers in 4,300 factories in early 2010. The city is the centre of country's garment industry which exported US$292 million in 2008/9 fiscal year. More than 80 percent of factory workers in Yangon work on a day-to-day basis. Most are young women between 15 and 27 years of age who come from the countryside in search of a better life. The manufacturing sector suffers from both structural problems (e.g. chronic power shortages) and political.

 

problems (e.g. economic sanctions). In 2008, Yangon's 2500 factories alone needed about 120 MW of power; yet, the entire city received only about 250 MW of the 530 MW needed. Chronic power shortages limit the factories' operating hours between 8 am and 6 pm.

 

Construction is a major source of employment. The construction industry has been negatively affected by the move of state apparatus and civil servants to Naypyidaw, new regulations introduced in August 2009 requiring builders to provide at least 12 parking spaces in every new high-rise building, and the general poor business climate. As of January 2010, the number of new high-rise building starts approved in 2009–2010 was only 334, compared to 582 in 2008–2009.

 

Tourism represents a major source of foreign currency for the city although by south-east Asian standards the number of foreign visitors to Yangon has always been quite low - about 250,000 before the Saffron Revolution in September 2007. The number of visitors dipped even further following the Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis. The recent improvement in the country's political climate has attracted an increasing number of businessmen and tourists. Between 300,000 and 400,000 visitors that went through Yangon International in 2011. However, after years of underinvestment, Yangon's modest hotel infrastructure - only 3000 of the total 8000 hotel rooms in Yangon are "suitable for tourists" - is already bursting at seams, and will need to be expanded to handle additional visitors. As part of an urban development strategy, a hotel zone has been planned in Yangon's outskirts, encompassing government- and military-owned land in Mingaladon, Hlegu and Htaukkyant Townships.

 

EDUCATION

Yangon educational facilities has a very high number of qualified teachers but the state spending on education is among the lowest of the world. Around 2007 estimate by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies puts the spending for education at 0.5% of the national budget. The disparity in educational opportunities and achievement between rich and poor schools is quite stark even within the city. With little or no state support forthcoming, schools have to rely on forced "donations" and various fees from parents for nearly everything – school maintenance to teachers' salaries, forcing many poor students to drop out.

 

While many students in poor districts fail to reach high school, a handful of Yangon high schools in wealthier districts such as Dagon 1, Sanchaung 2, Kamayut 2, Bahan 2, Latha 2, and TTC provide the majority of students admitted to the most selective universities in the country, highlighting the extreme shallowness of talent pool in the country. The wealthy bypass the state education system altogether, sending their children to private English language instruction schools such as YIEC or more widely known as ISM, or abroad (typically Singapore or Australia) for university education. In 2014, international schools in Yangon cost at least US$8,000 a year.

 

There are over 20 universities and colleges in the city. While Yangon University remains the best known (its main campus is a part of popular Burmese culture e.g. literature, music, film, etc.), the nation's oldest university is now mostly a graduate school, deprived of undergraduate studies. Following the 1988 nationwide uprising, the military government has repeatedly closed universities, and has dispersed most of undergraduate student population to new universities in the suburbs such as Dagon University, the University of East Yangon and the University of West Yangon. Nonetheless many of the country's most selective universities are still in Yangon. Students from around the country still have to come to study in Yangon as some subjects are offered only at its universities. The University of Medicine 1, University of Medicine 2, Yangon Technological University, University of Computer Studies and Myanmar Maritime University are the most selective in the country.

 

HEALTH CARE

The general state of health care in Yangon is poor. According to a 2007 estimate, the military government spends 0.4% of the national budget on health care, and 40% to 60% on defense. By the government's own figures, it spends 849 kyats (US$0.85) per person. Although health care is nominally free, in reality, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals including the flagship Yangon General Hospital lack many of the basic facilities and equipment.

 

Wealthier Yangonites still have access to country's best medical facilities and internationally qualified doctors. Only Yangon and Mandalay have any sizable number of doctors left as many Burmese doctors have emigrated. The well-to-do go to private clinics or hospitals like Pun Hlaing International Hospital and Bahosi Medical Clinic. Medical malpractice is widespread, even in private clinics and hospitals that serve the well-to-do. In 2009 and 2010, a spate of high-profile deaths brought out the severity of the problem, even for the relatively well off Yangonites. The wealthy do not rely on domestic hospitals and travel abroad, usually Bangkok or Singapore, for treatment.

 

WIKIPEDIA

In Dhaka city, fresh (literally) fruits are perhaps some of the rarest things to find. Most fruits which are locally produced are dipped in preservatives (Formalin) in the orchards, and the imported ones are dipped in preservatives or industrial colors right after they reach our land. No one cares.

 

Because the authorities who are supposed to regulate such malpractice suffer from lack of manpower, scientific equipment and personnel with specialized knowledge.

 

Strange thing is, people hardly seek treatment. Is it likely that people of Bangladesh are developing resilience against these poisonous chemicals?

Narayanganj, Bangladesh, 2011.

 

A veteran (?) dentist on the street with all the equipment, false teeth and medicines practicing dentistry on people who can't afford to go to the dental clinics. The circular pile of teeth is there as a proof of his kills/success/experience.

Lavaur : Festival Rock'&'Cars

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away some distance from Bundaberg at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850 and in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid out in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mill was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg as emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875.

 

The town was well established by 1880 but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent thus eclipsing all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were established with reliance on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj era. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margaret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced him to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

  

View of the cathedral dome on the left and Palazzo Vecchio on the right, photographed from the second floor of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Tuscany, Italy

 

Some background information:

 

The Palazzo Vecchio (in English: "Old Palace") is the old town hall of the city of Florence. Originally it was called the Palazzo della Signoria, after the Signoria of Florence, the ruling body of the Republic of Florence. The construction plan dates back to the year 1299, when the commune and people of Florence decided to build a palace that would be worthy of the city's importance, and that would be more secure and defensible in times of turbulence for the magistrates of the commune.

The cubical building is made of solid rusticated stonework, with two rows of two-lighted Gothic windows, each with a trefoil arch. In the 15th century, decorative bas-reliefs of the cross and the Florentine lily in the spandrels between the trefoils were added. The building is crowned with projecting crenellated battlement, supported by small arches and corbels. Under the arches are a repeated series of nine painted coats of arms of the Florentine Republic. Some of these arches can be used as embrasures for dropping heated liquids or rocks on invaders.

 

The massive building is enhanced by a simple clock tower. This tower contains two small cells, one of them imprisoned Cosimo de' Medici (the Elder) in 1435. In 1540, Cosimo I de' Medici (not to be confused with the former one) moved his official seat from the Medici Palazzo in Via Larga to the Palazzo della Signoria, signalling the security of Medici power in Florence. When Cosimo later removed to Palazzo Pitti, he officially renamed his former palace "Palazzo Vecchio", although the adjacent town square, the Piazza della Signoria, still bears its original name.

 

The Uffizi Gallery is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence. It is not only one of the most important and most visited Italian museums, but also also one of the largest and best known in the world. The Uffizi Gallery holds a collection of priceless works, particularly from the period of the Italian Renaissance.

 

The buildings of the Uffizi complex were commissioned in 1560 by Cosimo I de' Medici to accommodate the offices of the Florentine magistrates, hence the name "uffizi" (in English: "offices"). However, the top floor was meant to be a gallery for the family and their guests, including the Medici collection of Roman sculptures. Over the years, more sections of the palace were recruited to exhibit paintings and sculpture collected or commissioned by the Medici. After the ruling branch of the House of Medici had died out, their art collections were gifted to the city of Florence by Anna Maria Luisa, the last Medici heiress.

 

The Uffizi is one of the first modern museums. The gallery had been open to visitors by request since the sixteenth century, and in 1765 it was officially opened to the public, formally becoming a museum in 1865. In 1989, the Nuovi Uffizi (in English: "New Uffizi") renovation project was started. During this project that lasted until 2017, all of the halls were modernised and the display space of the museum was more than doubled. Key works of the museum include paintings from Leonardo da Vinci, Sando Botticelli, Michelangelo, Albrecht Duerer, Raphael, Titian, Carravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi and Rembrandt.

 

With about 400,000 residents in its city centre and more than 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area, Florence is the capital and also the most populous city of the Italian region of Tuscany. The town lies in a basin formed by several hills. The Arno river, three other minor rivers and some streams flow through its metropolitan area. During the Middle Ages the city was a centre of European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is also considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has been called "the Athens of the Middle Ages". A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 Florence was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy.

 

The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini, who were all born in the city. Florence attracts millions of tourists each year, and its historic centre was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, art, architecture and monuments. It contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Furthermore, Florence is also an important city in Italian fashion, being ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world.

 

Florence originated as a Roman city. Around 200 BC, the Etruscans initially formed the small settlement of Fiesole, which was destroyed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 80 BC in reprisal for supporting the populares faction in Rome. In 59 BC, the present city of Florence was established by Julius Caesar as a settlement for his veteran soldiers. Originally it was named Fluentia, owing to the fact that it was built between two rivers, but its name was later changed to Florentia (in English: "flowering"). Situated along the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre.

 

In centuries to come, the city was often troubled by warfare between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines, which may have caused the population to fall to as few as 1,000 people. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. In 774, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as its capital. The population began to grow again and commerce prospered.

 

Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca at about 1000 AD. The Golden Age of Florentine art began around this time. The city's primary resource was the Arno river, providing power and access for the industry (mainly textile industry), and access to the Mediterranean Sea for international trade. Another great source of strength was its industrious merchant community. The Florentine merchant banking skills became recognised in Europe after they brought decisive financial innovation to medieval fairs, such as bill of exchange and double-entry bookkeeping system.

 

In 1115, the Republic of Florence originated, when the Florentine people rebelled against the Margraviate of Tuscany upon the death of Matilda of Tuscany, a woman who controlled vast territories that included Florence. The Florentines formed a commune in her successors' place. Subsequently, the early, modern state of the republic was ruled by a council known as the Signoria of Florence. The republic had a checkered history of factions and counter-factions. But in 1434, the Medici faction gained governance of the city under Cosimo de' Medici.

 

During this first Medici governance, in 1469, Cosimo’s grandson Lorenzo de' Medici assumed the reins of government. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. As he was also an accomplished poet and musician himself, he brought composers and singers to Florence too. By contemporary Florentines (and since), he was known as "Lorenzo il Magnifico" (in English: "Lorenzo the Magnificent").

 

The Medici kept control of Florence until 1494, when Lorenzo’s son Piero II was expelled by the French king Charles VIII, whose army had invaded northern Italy. In 1498, when the Medici were out of power, Niccolò Machiavelli, a diplomat, politician, historian, philosopher, humanist, writer, playwright and poet of the Renaissance period, became secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence. His prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimisation of political expediency and even malpractice. In other words, Machiavelli was a political thinker, perhaps most renowned for his political handbook, titled "The Prince", which is about ruling and the exercise of power. Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city.

 

In 1512, Giovanni de' Medici (later Pope Leo X) re-conquered the Republic of Florence. However, Florence repudiated Medici authority for a second time in 1527, during the so-called War of the League of Cognac. But again the Medici re-assumed their rule in 1531 after an 11-month siege of the city. The republican government was disestablished in 1532, when Pope Clement VII appointed Alessandro de' Medici "Duke of the Florentine Republic", making the republic a hereditary monarchy.

 

In 1569, the Medici became Grand Dukes of Tuscany, ruling for another two centuries. In all Tuscany, only the Republic of Lucca and the Principality of Piombino were independent from Florence. The extinction of the Medici dynasty and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's temporary inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. From 1801 to 1807 Florence was the capital of the Napoleonic client state Kingdom of Etruria and from 1808 to the fall of Napoleon in 1814, it was the was the prefecture of the French département of Arno. In 1861, Tuscany became a region of the Kingdom of Italy. In 1865, Florence replaced Turin as Italy's capital, but already six years later, it was superseded by Rome.

 

After doubling during the 19th century, Florence's population was to triple in the 20th, resulting from growth in tourism, trade, financial services and industry. During World War II the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943 to 1944) and was declared an open city in late July 1944 as troops of the British 8th Army closed in. The retreating Germans decided to demolish all the bridges along the Arno, making it difficult for troops of the 8th Army to cross. But at the latest moment, the German general was convinced that Ponte Vecchio was not to be destroyed due to its historical value. In November 1966, the Arno flooded parts of the centre, damaging many art treasures.

 

Today, Florence is known as the "cradle of the Renaissance" for its many Renaissance monuments, churches, and other buildings. 600 years after its completion, the dome, built by Filippo Brunelleschi, is still the largest dome built in brick and mortar in the world. Florence also contains numerous museums and art galleries where some of the world's most important works of art are held. Hence, tourism is, by far, the most important of all industries and most of the Florentine economy relies on the money generated by international arrivals and students studying in the city. The value tourism to the city totalled some 62.5 billion € in 2015 and the number of visitors still increases to the present day.

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Portuguese

O Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU) é instituição brasileira prevista na Constituição Federal para exercer a fiscalização contábil, financeira, orçamentária, operacional e patrimonial da União e das entidades da administração direta e administração indireta, quanto à legalidade, à legitimidade e à economicidade e a fiscalização da aplicação das subvenções e da renúncia de receitas. Auxilia o Congresso Nacional no planejamento fiscal e orçamentário anual. Tanto pessoa física quanto pessoa jurídica, seja de direito público ou direito privado, que utilize, arrecade, guarde, gerencie ou administre dinheiros, bens e valores públicos ou pelos quais a União responda, ou que, em nome desta, assuma obrigações de natureza pecuniária tem o dever de prestar contas ao TCU. Conforme o art. 71 da Constituição Federal o Tribunal de Contas da União é uma instituição com autonomia administrativa, financeira e orçamentária. O tribunal não está ligado diretamente a nenhum poder, o que faz com que seja um órgão independente. Sua independência é comparada à do Ministério Público, um órgão que não está ligado a nenhum poder e exerce sua função constitucional.

  

English

The Tribunal de Contas da União (Federal Court of Accounts, often referred to as TCU) is the Brazilian federal accountability office. It is an arm of the Legislative Branch of the Brazilian government, to assist Congress in its Constitutional incumbency to exercise external audit over the Executive Branch. Its members, called ministers, are appointed by the National Congress and the President of Brazil. The TCU employs a highly qualified body of civil servants to prevent, investigate and sanction corruption and malpractice of public funds, with national jurisdiction.

The Tribunal was created in 1891, although its origins are traced back to the Royal Treasury (Erário Régio), established in 1808 by King John VI. It is, therefore, one of the world's earlier institutions charged with national government accountability. Today, the TCU cooperates with the Comptroller-General of the Union (CGU), which centralizes federal executive internal audit. The Tribunal's work is scrutinized by the Public Ministry.

In 1959 it hosted III INCOSAI, the third triennial convention of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions.

The work executed by the TCU in 2011 produced savings of 14 billion reais (USD 7.44 billion) to the Brazilian taxpayer. For each real spent by the court to avert corruption and wasteful spending, 10.5 reais were saved.

 

Wikipedia

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced his to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt as it was in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced his to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt as it was in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away some distance from Bundaberg at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850 and in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid out in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mill was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg as emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875.

 

The town was well established by 1880 but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent thus eclipsing all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were established with reliance on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away some distance from Bundaberg at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850 and in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid out in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mill was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg as emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875.

 

The town was well established by 1880 but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent thus eclipsing all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were established with reliance on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

Le Krewe d'Etat float #24

Mardi Gras 2019

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The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away some distance from Bundaberg at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850 and in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid out in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mill was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg as emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875.

 

The town was well established by 1880 but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent thus eclipsing all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were established with reliance on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj era. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margaret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced him to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

  

Now called Camberley Service Station, and Texaco-branded goo.gl/maps/EJb3eFWLKqCijuK4A.

 

A glorious day/night comparison—publicity photos taken for Conder Canopies, showing their "Flying Wing" style to great effect. There are so many details to enjoy here, made even better by the later photos (see comments below) from an early 1990s issue of Burmah People, showing how the site later evolved, as Camberley Autopoint.

 

At the point these photos were taken, Apex (the brand of Gem Service Stations) was still a plucky (and often somewhat publicity-hungry) independent discounter, before succumbing to a takeover by Burmah in 1969. Note this is a self-service site, partly how Apex was able to keep prices low—there's an article in the comments below explaining the model. The prominent Veedol sign is interesting—once one of Tidewater Oil's lubricants brands, and by this point owned by Getty, it would coincidentally (like Apex) be bought by Burmah just a few years later. Castrol (seen on the sign in the background) was already owned by Burmah. Six Wayne mono pumps all seem to be selling Super—surely there must have been other grades available? Are those boxes on top of the pumps coin / note acceptors, or something else?

 

I recognise the Mini and the Saab 96(?) but what are the other car/s in view? Is that an Opel Rekord C in the daytime photo? EDIT: Thanks to Richard Jefferies on Facebook—It's an HB Vauxhall Viva in the daytime photo and an early Toyota Corona and a Ford Consul Capri in the nighttime one.

 

I haven't fully explored the history, but it seems as though Apex / Gem's initial owners, Sempah Holdings, formerly a Malayan rubber producer, controlled by Major-General Howard Goodfellow (once Director of Supplies and Transport at the War Office), and then taken over by Mitre Tust, became entangled in a complex fraud during the mid-60s (I am not able to judge by whom on on whom) around a company called Town Centre Properties, who were providing sites for (presumably company-owned) Apex stations.

 

According to James Bruce Tabb's 1968 PhD thesis, Accountancy Aspects of the Take-over Bids 1945–1965, "a cabal of Swiss lawyers and financiers had taken over some English shell companies as a means of manipulating a series of deals by which they appropriated £2,800,000 from an investment company, Sempah Holdings Limited which had been a shell company itself. The cabal obtained Bank of England permission to transfer the cash to Zurich for 'investment' where it disappeared into anonymous Swiss bank accounts".

 

By 1968 the Board of Trade were investigating, and by 1972 Sempah was listed in a Commons speech by Arthur Lewis MP, alongside more notorious corporate malpractice examples such as Rolls Razor, as being part of a culture of cover-ups by the DTI of badly handled investigations.

 

Apex/Gem's managing director, Ian Trotter, left Gem to set up Sky Petroleum, with a similar business model, although he also seems to have been involved in producing musical theatre, the production company having an elephant, born 1972, as its real-life mascot.

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced his to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt as it was in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

  

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

Yangon (Burmese: ရန်ကုန်, MLCTS rankun mrui, pronounced: [jàɴɡòʊɴ mjo̰]; formerly known as Rangoon, literally: "End of Strife") is the capital of the Yangon Region of Myanmar, also known as Burma. Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government relocated the capital to the purpose-built city of Naypyidaw in central Myanmar. With over 7 million people, Yangon is Myanmar's largest city and is its most important commercial centre.

 

Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in the region, and has a unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact. The colonial-era commercial core is centred around the Sule Pagoda, which reputed to be over 2,000 years old. The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda — Myanmar's most sacred Buddhist pagoda. The mausoleum of the last Mughal Emperor is located in Yangon, where he had been exiled following the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

 

Yangon suffers from deeply inadequate infrastructure, especially compared to other major cities in Southeast Asia. Though many historic residential and commercial buildings have been renovated throughout central Yangon, most satellite towns that ring the city continue to be profoundly impoverished and lack basic infrastructure.

 

ETYMOLOGY

Yangon (ရန်ကုန်) is a combination of the two words yan (ရန်) and koun (ကုန်), which mean "enemies" and "run out of", respectively. It is also translated as "End of Strife". "Rangoon" most likely comes from the British imitation of the pronunciation of "Yangon" in the Arakanese language, which is [rɔ̀ɴɡʊ́ɴ].

 

HISTORY

EARLY HISTORY

Yangon was founded as Dagon in the early 11th century (c. 1028–1043) by the Mon, who dominated Lower Burma at that time. Dagon was a small fishing village centred about the Shwedagon Pagoda. In 1755, King Alaungpaya conquered Dagon, renamed it "Yangon", and added settlements around Dagon. The British captured Yangon during the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26), but returned it to Burmese administration after the war. The city was destroyed by a fire in 1841.

 

COLONIAL RANGOON

The British seized Yangon and all of Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, and subsequently transformed Yangon into the commercial and political hub of British Burma. Yangon is also the place where the British sent Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal emperor, to live after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Based on the design by army engineer Lt. Alexander Fraser, the British constructed a new city on a grid plan on delta land, bounded to the east by the Pazundaung Creek and to the south and west by the Yangon River. Yangon became the capital of all British-ruled Burma after the British had captured Upper Burma in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. By the 1890s Yangon's increasing population and commerce gave birth to prosperous residential suburbs to the north of Royal Lake (Kandawgyi) and Inya Lake. The British also established hospitals including Rangoon General Hospital and colleges including Rangoon University.

 

Colonial Yangon, with its spacious parks and lakes and mix of modern buildings and traditional wooden architecture, was known as "the garden city of the East." By the early 20th century, Yangon had public services and infrastructure on par with London.

 

Before World War II, about 55% of Yangon's population of 500,000 was Indian or South Asian, and only about a third was Bamar (Burman). Karens, the Chinese, the Anglo-Burmese and others made up the rest.

 

After World War I, Yangon became the epicentre of Burmese independence movement, with leftist Rangoon University students leading the way. Three nationwide strikes against the British Empire in 1920, 1936 and 1938 all began in Yangon. Yangon was under Japanese occupation (1942–45), and incurred heavy damage during World War II. The city was retaken by the Allies in May 1945.

 

Yangon became the capital of Union of Burma on 4 January 1948 when the country regained independence from the British Empire.

 

CONTEMPORARY YANGON

Soon after Burma's independence in 1948, many colonial names of streets and parks were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. In 1989, the current military junta changed the city's English name to "Yangon", along with many other changes in English transliteration of Burmese names. (The changes have not been accepted by many Burmese who consider the junta unfit to make such changes, nor by many publications, news bureaus including, most notably, the BBC and foreign nations including the United Kingdom and United States.)

 

Since independence, Yangon has expanded outwards. Successive governments have built satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa in the 1950s to Hlaingthaya,

 

Shwepyitha and South Dagon in the 1980s. Today, Greater Yangon encompasses an area covering nearly 600 square kilometres.

 

During Ne Win's isolationist rule (1962–88), Yangon's infrastructure deteriorated through poor maintenance and did not keep up with its increasing population. In the 1990s, the current military government's more open market policies attracted domestic and foreign investment, bringing a modicum of modernity to the city's infrastructure. Some inner city residents were forcibly relocated to new satellite towns. Many colonial-period buildings were demolished to make way for high-rise hotels, office buildings, and shopping malls, leading the city government to place about 200 notable colonial-period buildings under the Yangon City Heritage List in 1996. Major building programs have resulted in six new bridges and five new highways linking the city to its industrial back country. Still, much of Yangon remains without basic municipal services such as 24-hour electricity and regular garbage collection.

 

Yangon has become much more indigenous Burmese in its ethnic make-up since independence. After independence, many South Asians and Anglo-Burmese left. Many more South Asians were forced to leave during the 1960s by Ne Win's xenophobic government. Nevertheless, sizable South Asian and Chinese communities still exist in Yangon. The Anglo-Burmese have effectively disappeared, having left the country or intermarried with other Burmese groups.

 

Yangon was the centre of major anti-government protests in 1974, 1988 and 2007. The 1988 People Power Uprising resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of Burmese civilians, many in Yangoon where hundreds of thousands of people flooded into the streets of the then capital city. The Saffron Revolution saw mass shootings and the use of crematoria in Yangoon by the Burmese government to erase evidence of their crimes against monks, unarmed protesters, journalists and students.

 

The city's streets saw bloodshed each time as protesters were gunned down by the government.

 

In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Yangon. While the city had few human casualties, three quarters of Yangon's industrial infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, with losses estimated at US$800 million.

 

In November 2005, the military government designated Naypyidaw, 320 kilometres north of Yangon, as the new administrative capital, and subsequently moved much of the government to the newly developed city. At any rate, Yangon remains the largest city, and the most important commercial centre of Myanmar.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Yangon is located in Lower Burma (Myanmar) at the convergence of the Yangon and Bago Rivers about 30 km away from the Gulf of Martaban at 16°48' North, 96°09' East (16.8, 96.15). Its standard time zone is UTC/GMT +6:30 hours.

 

CLIMATE

Yangon has a tropical monsoon climate under the Köppen climate classification system. The city features a lengthy wet season from May through October where a substantial amount of rainfall is received; and a dry season from November through April, where little rainfall is seen. It is primarily due to the heavy rainfall received during the rainy season that Yangon falls under the tropical monsoon climate category. During the course of the year 1961 to 1990s, average temperatures show little variance, with average highs ranging from 29 to 36 °C and average lows ranging from 18 to 25 °C.

 

CITYSCAPE

Until the mid-1990s, Yangon remained largely constrained to its traditional peninsula setting between the Bago, Yangon and Hlaing rivers. People moved in, but little of the city moved out. Maps from 1944 show little development north of Inya Lake and areas that are now layered in cement and stacked with houses were then virtual backwaters. Since the late 1980s, however, the city began a rapid spread north to where Yangon International airport now stands. But the result is a stretching tail on the city, with the downtown area well removed from its geographic centre. The city's area has steadily increased from 72.52 square kilometres in 1901 to 86.2 square kilometres in 1940 to 208.51 square kilometres in 1974, to 346.13 square kilometres in 1985, and to 598.75 square kilometres in 2008.

 

ARCHITECTURE

Downtown Yangon is known for its leafy avenues and fin-de-siècle architecture. The former British colonial capital has the highest number of colonial period buildings in south-east Asia. Downtown Yangon is still mainly made up of decaying colonial buildings. The former High Court, the former Secretariat buildings, the former St. Paul's English High School and the Strand Hotel are excellent examples of the bygone era. Most downtown buildings from this era are four-story mix-use (residential and commercial) buildings with 4.3 m ceilings, allowing for the construction of mezzanines. Despite their less-than-perfect conditions, the buildings remain highly sought after and most expensive in the city's property market.

 

In 1996, the Yangon City Development Committee created a Yangon City Heritage List of old buildings and structures in the city that cannot be modified or torn down without approval. In 2012, the city of Yangon imposed a 50-year moratorium on demolition of buildings older than 50 years. The Yangon Heritage Trust, an NGO started by Thant Myint-U, aims to create heritage areas in Downtown, and attract investors to renovate buildings for commercial use.

 

A latter day hallmark of Yangon is the eight-story apartment building. (In Yangon parlance, a building with no elevators (lifts) is called an apartment building and one with elevators is called a condominium. Condos which have to invest in a local power generator to ensure 24-hour electricity for the elevators are beyond the reach of most Yangonites.) Found throughout the city in various forms, eight-story apartment buildings provide relatively inexpensive housing for many Yangonites. The apartments are usually eight stories high (including the ground floor) mainly because city regulations, until February 2008, required that all buildings higher than 23 m or eight stories to install lifts. The current code calls for elevators in buildings higher than 19 m or six stories, likely ushering in the era of the six-story apartment building. Although most apartment buildings were built only within the last 20 years, they look much older and rundown due to shoddy construction and lack of proper maintenance.

 

Unlike other major Asian cities, Yangon does not have any skyscrapers. Aside from a few high-rise hotels and office towers, most high-rise buildings (usually 10 stories and up) are "condos" scattered across prosperous neighbourhoods north of downtown such as Bahan, Dagon, Kamayut and Mayangon. The tallest building in Yangon, Pyay Gardens, is a 25-story condo in the city's north.

 

Older satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa are lined mostly with one to two story detached houses with access to the city's electricity grid. Newer satellite towns such as North Dagon and South Dagon are still essentially slums in a grid layout. The satellite towns - old or new - receive little or no municipal services.

 

ROAD LAYOUT

Downtown Yangon's road layout follows a grid pattern, based on four types of roads:

 

Broad 49-m wide roads running west to east

Broad 30-m wide roads running south to north

Two narrow 9.1-m wide streets running south to north

Mid-size 15-m wide streets running south to north

 

The east-west grid of central was laid out by British military engineers Fraser and Montgomerie after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. The city was later developed by the Public Works Department and Bengal Corps of Engineers. The pattern of south to north roads is as follows: one broad 30 m wide broad road, two narrow streets, one mid-size street, two more narrow streets, and then another 30 m wide broad road. This order is repeated from west to east. The narrow streets are numbered; the medium and broad roads are named.

 

For example, the 30 m Lanmadaw Road is followed by 9.1 m-wide 17th and 18th streets then the medium 15 m Sint-Oh-Dan Road, the 30-foot 19th and 20th streets, followed by another 30 m wide Latha Road, followed again by the two numbered small roads 21st and 22nd streets, and so on.

 

The roads running parallel west to east were the Strand Road, Merchant Road, Maha Bandula (née Dalhousie) Road, Anawrahta (Fraser) Road, and Bogyoke Aung San (Montgomerie) Road.

 

PARKS AND GARDENS

The largest and best maintained parks in Yangon are located around Shwedagon Pagoda. To the south-east of the gilded stupa is the most popular recreational area in the city – Kandawgyi Lake. The 61-ha lake is surrounded by the 45-ha Kandawgyi Nature Park, and the 28-ha Yangon Zoological Gardens, which consists of a zoo, an aquarium and an amusement park. West of the pagoda towards the former Hluttaw (Parliament) complex is the 53-ha People's Square and Park, (the former parading ground on important national days when Yangon was the capital.) A few miles north of the pagoda lies the 15-ha Inya Lake Park – a favorite hangout place of Yangon University students, and a well-known place of romance in Burmese popular culture.

 

Hlawga National Park and Allied War Memorial at the outskirts of the city are popular day-trip destinations with the well-to-do and tourists.

 

Yangon Book Plaza, the first and biggest book shop in Myanmar was opened on February 26, 2017 on the fifth floor of Than Zay Market in Lanmadaw Township, Yangon.

 

ADMINISTRATION

Yangon is administered by the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC). YCDC also coordinates urban planning. The city is divided into four districts. The districts combined have a total of 33 townships. The current mayor of Yangon is Maung Maung Soe. Each township is administered by a committee of township leaders, who make decisions regarding city beautification and infrastructure. Myo-thit (lit. "New Towns", or satellite towns) are not within such jurisdictions.

 

TRANSPORT

Yangon is Burma's main domestic and international hub for air, rail, and ground transportation.

 

AIR

Yangon International Airport, located 19 km from the centre, is the country's main gateway for domestic and international air travel. The airport has three terminals, known as T1, T2 and T3 which is also known as Domestic. It has direct flights to regional cities in Asia – mainly, Doha, Dubai, Dhaka, Kolkata, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Guangzhou, Taipei, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Kunming and Singapore. Although domestic airlines offer service to about twenty domestic locations, most flights are to tourist destinations such as Bagan, Mandalay, Heho and Ngapali, and to the capital Naypyidaw.

 

RAILWAYS

Yangon Central Railway Station is the main terminus of Myanmar Railways' 5,403-kilometre rail network whose reach covers Upper Myanmar (Naypyidaw, Mandalay, Shwebo), upcountry (Myitkyina), Shan hills (Taunggyi, Lashio) and the Taninthayi coast (Mawlamyaing, Dawei).

 

Yangon Circular Railway operates a 45.9-kilometre 39-station commuter rail network that connects Yangon's satellite towns. The system is heavily utilized by the local populace, selling about 150,000 tickets daily. The popularity of the commuter line has jumped since the government reduced petrol subsidies in August 2007.

 

BUSES AND CARS

Yangon has a 4,456-kilometre road network of all types (tar, concrete and dirt) in March 2011. Many of the roads are in poor condition and not wide enough to accommodate an increasing number of cars. The vast majority of Yangon residents cannot afford a car and rely on an extensive network of buses to get around. Over 300 public and private bus lines operate about 6,300 crowded buses around the city, carrying over 4.4 million passengers a day. All buses and 80% of the taxis in Yangon run on compressed natural gas (CNG), following the 2005 government decree to save money on imported petroleum. Highway buses to other cities depart from Dagon Ayeyar Highway Bus Terminal for Irrawaddy delta region and Aung Mingala Highway Bus Terminal for other parts of the country.

 

Motor transportation in Yangon is highly expensive for most of its citizens. As the government allows only a few thousand cars to be imported each year in a country with over 50 million people, car prices in Yangon (and in Burma) are among the highest in the world. In July 2008, the two most popular cars in Yangon, 1986/87 Nissan Sunny Super Saloon and 1988 Toyota Corolla SE Limited, cost the equivalent of about US$20,000 and US$29,000 respectively. A sports utility vehicle, imported for the equivalent of around US$50,000, goes for US$250,000. Illegally imported unregistered cars are cheaper – typically about half the price of registered cars. Nonetheless, car usage in Yangon is on the rise, a sign of rising incomes for some, and already causes much traffic congestion in highway-less Yangon's streets. In 2011, Yangon had about 300,000 registered motor vehicles in addition to an unknown number of unregistered ones.

 

Since 1970, cars have been driven on the right side of the road in Burma, as part of a military decree. However, as the government has not required left hand drive (LHD) cars to accompany the right side road rules, many cars on the road are still right hand drive (RHD) made for driving on the left side. Japanese used cars, which make up most of the country's imports, still arrive with RHD and are never converted to LHD. As a result, Burmese drivers have to rely on their passengers when passing other cars.

 

Within Yangon city limits, it is illegal to drive trishaws, bicycles, and motorcycles. Since February 2010, pickup truck bus lines have been forbidden to run in 6 townships of central Yangon, namely Latha, Lanmadaw, Pabedan, Kyauktada, Botahtaung and Pazundaung Townships. In May 2003, a ban on using car horns was implemented in six townships of Downtown Yangon to reduce noise pollution. In April 2004, the car horn ban was expanded to cover the entire city.

 

RIVER

Yangon's four main passenger jetties, all located on or near downtown waterfront, mainly serve local ferries across the river to Dala and Thanlyin, and regional ferries to the Irrawaddy delta. The 35-km Twante Canal was the quickest route from Yangon to the Irrawaddy delta until the 1990s when roads between Yangon and the Irrawaddy Division became usable year-round. While passenger ferries to the delta are still used, those to Upper Burma via the Irrawaddy river are now limited mostly to tourist river cruises.

 

DEMOGRAPHICS

Yangon is the most populous city by far in Burma although estimates of the size of its population vary widely. All population figures are estimates since no official census has been conducted in Burma since 1983. A UN estimate puts the population as 4.35 million in 2010 but a 2009 U.S. State Department estimate puts it at 5.5 million. The U.S. State Department's estimate is probably closer to the real number since the UN number is a straight-line projection, and does not appear to take the expansion of city limits in the past two decades into account. The city's population grew sharply after 1948 as many people (mainly, the indigenous Burmese) from other parts of the country moved into the newly built satellite towns of North Okkalapa, South Okkalapa, and Thaketa in the 1950s and East Dagon, North Dagon and South Dagon in the 1990s. Immigrants have founded their regional associations (such as Mandalay Association, Mawlamyaing Association, etc.) in Yangon for networking purposes. The government's decision to move the nation's administrative capital to Naypyidaw has drained an unknown number of civil servants away from Yangon.

 

Yangon is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. While Indians formed the slight majority prior to World War II, today, the majority of the population is of indigenous Bamar (Burman) descent. Large communities of Indians/South Asian Burmese and the Chinese Burmese exist especially in the traditional downtown neighborhoods. A large number of Rakhine and Karen also live in the city.

 

Burmese is the principal language of the city. English is by far the preferred second language of the educated class. In recent years, however, the prospect of overseas job opportunities has enticed

 

some to study other languages: Mandarin Chinese is most popular, followed by Japanese, and French.

 

RELIGIONS

The primary religions practiced in Yangon are Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Shwedagon Pagoda is a famous religious landmark in the city.

 

MEDIA

Yangon is the country's hub for the movie, music, advertising, newspaper and book publishing industries. All media is heavily regulated by the military government. Television broadcasting is off limits to the private sector. All media content must first be approved by the government's media censor board, Press Scrutiny and Registration Division.

 

Most television channels in the country are broadcast from Yangon. TV Myanmar and Myawaddy TV are the two main channels, providing Burmese-language programming in news and entertainment. Other special interest channels are MWD-1 and MWD-2, MRTV-3, the English-language channel that targets overseas audiences via satellite and via Internet, MRTV-4 and Channel 7 are with a focus on non-formal education programs and movies, and Movie 5, a pay-TV channel specializing in broadcasting foreign movies.

 

Yangon has three radio stations. Myanmar Radio National Service is the national radio service and broadcasts mostly in Burmese (and in English during specific times.) Pop culture oriented Yangon City FM and Mandalay City FM radio stations specialize in Burmese and English pop music, entertainment programs, live celebrity interviews, etc. New radio channels such as Shwe FM and Pyinsawaddy FM can also be tuned with the city area.

 

Nearly all print media and industries are based out of Yangon. All three national newspapers – two Burmese language dailies Myanma Alin (မြန်မာ့အလင်း) and Kyemon (ကြေးမုံ), and the English language The New Light of Myanmar — are published by the government. Semi-governmental The Myanmar Times weekly, published in Burmese and in English, is mainly geared for Yangon's expatriate community. Over twenty special interest journals and magazines covering sports, fashion, finance, crime, literature (but never politics) vie for the readership of the general populace.

 

Access to foreign media is extremely difficult. Satellite television in Yangon, and in Burma, is very expensive as the government imposes an annual registration fee of one million kyats. Certain foreign newspapers and periodicals such as the International Herald Tribune and the Straits Times can be found only in a few (mostly downtown) bookstores. Internet access in Yangon, which has the best telecommunication infrastructure in the country, is slow and erratic at best, and the Burmese government implements one of the world's most restrictive regimes of Internet control. International text messaging and voice messaging was permitted only in August 2008.

 

COMMUNICATION

Common facilities taken for granted elsewhere are luxury prized items in Yangon and Burma. The price of a GSM mobile phone was about K1.1 million in August 2008. In 2007, the country of 55 million had only 775,000 phone lines (including 275,000 mobile phones), and 400,000 computers. Even in Yangon, which has the best infrastructure, the estimated telephone penetration rate was only 6% at the end of 2004, and the official waiting time for a telephone line was 3.6 years. Most people cannot afford a computer and have to use the city's numerous Internet cafes to access a heavily restricted Internet, and a heavily censored local intranet. According to official statistics, in July 2010, the country had over 400,000 Internet users, with the vast majority hailing from just two cities, Yangon and Mandalay. Although Internet access was available in 42 cities across the country, the number of users outside the two main cities was just over 10,000.

 

LIFESTYLE

Yangon's property market is the most expensive in the country and beyond the reach of most Yangonites. Most rent outside the centre and few can afford to rent such apartments. (In 2008, rents for a typical 60 to 70 m2 apartments in the centre and vicinity range between K70,000 and K150,000 and those for high end condos between K200,000 and K500,000.)

 

Most men of all ages (and some women) spend their time at ubiquitous tea-shops, found in any corner or street of the city. Watching European football (mostly English Premier League with occasional La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga) matches while sipping tea is a popular pastime among many Yangonites. The average person stays close to his or her residential neighbourhood. The well-to-do tend to visit shopping malls and parks on weekends. Some leave the city on weekends for Chaungtha and Ngwesaung beach resorts in Ayeyarwady Division.

 

Yangon is also home to many pagoda festivals (paya pwe), held during dry-season months (November – March). The most famous of all, the Shwedagon Pagoda Festival in March, attracts thousands of pilgrims from around the country.

 

Yangon's museums are the domain of tourists and rarely visited by the locals.

 

Most of Yangon's larger hotels offer some kind of nightlife entertainment, geared towards tourists and the well-to-do Burmese. Some hotels offer traditional Burmese performing arts shows complete with a traditional Burmese orchestra. The pub scene in larger hotels is more or less the same as elsewhere in Asia. Other options include karaoke bars and pub restaurants in Yangon Chinatown.

 

Due to the problems of high inflation, the lack of high denomination notes, and the fact that many of the population do not have access to checks, or credit or debit cards, it is common to see citizens carrying a considerable amount of cash. (The highest denomination of Burmese currency kyat is 10 000 (~US$10.)) Credit cards are only rarely used in the city, chiefly in the more lavish hotels. Credit cards are also accepted in the major supermarket and convenience store chains.

 

SPORTS

As the city has the best sporting facilities in the country, most national-level annual sporting tournaments such as track and field, football, volleyball, tennis and swimming are held in Yangon. The 40,000-seat Aung San Stadium and the 32,000-seat Thuwunna Stadium are the main venues for the highly popular annual State and Division football tournament. Until April 2009, the now defunct Myanmar Premier League, consisted of 16 Yangon-based clubs, played all its matches in Yangon stadiums, and attracted little interest from the general public or commercial success despite the enormous popularity of football in Burma. Most Yangonites prefer watching European football on satellite TV. Teams such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City are among the favorite European teams among the Yangonites. It remains to be seen whether the Myanmar National League, the country's first professional football league, and its Yangon-based club Yangon United FC will attract a sufficient following in the country's most important media market.

 

Yangon is also home to annual the Myanmar Open golf tournament, and the Myanmar Open tennis tournament. The city hosted the 1961 and 1969 South East Asian Games. During colonial times, cricket was played mostly by British officials in the city. First-class cricket was played in the city in January 1927 when the touring Marylebone Cricket Club played Burma and the Rangoon Gymkhana. Two grounds were used to host these matches, the BAA Ground and the Gymkhana Ground. These matches mark the only time Burma and Rangoon Gymkhana have appeared in first-class cricket, and the only time first-class cricket has been played in Burma. After independence cricket all but died out in the country.

 

Yangon has a growing population of skateboarders, as documented in the films Altered Focus: Burma and Youth of Yangon. German non-profit organization Make Life Skate Life has received permission from the Yangon City Development Committee to construct a concrete skatepark at Thakin Mya park in downtown, and plans to complete the park in November 2015.

 

ECONOMY

Yangon is the country's main centre for trade, industry, real estate, media, entertainment and tourism. The city represents about one fifth of the national economy. According to official statistics for FY 2010–2011, the size of the economy of Yangon Region was 8.93 trillion kyats, or 23% of the national GDP.

 

The city is Lower Burma's main trading hub for all kinds of merchandise – from basic food stuffs to used cars although commerce continues to be hampered by the city's severely underdeveloped banking industry and communication infrastructure. Bayinnaung Market is the largest wholesale centre in the country for rice, beans and pulses, and other agricultural commodities. Much of the country's legal imports and exports go through Thilawa Port, the largest and busiest port in Burma. There is also a great deal of informal trade, especially in street markets that exist alongside street platforms of Downtown Yangon's townships. However, on 17 June 2011, the YCDC announced that street vendors, who had previously been allowed to legally open shop at 3 pm, would be prohibited from selling on the streets, and permitted to sell only in their townships of residence, presumably to clean up the city's image. Since 1 December 2009, high-density polyethylene plastic bags have been banned by city authorities.

 

Manufacturing accounts for a sizable share of employment. At least 14 light industrial zones ring Yangon, directly employing over 150,000 workers in 4,300 factories in early 2010. The city is the centre of country's garment industry which exported US$292 million in 2008/9 fiscal year. More than 80 percent of factory workers in Yangon work on a day-to-day basis. Most are young women between 15 and 27 years of age who come from the countryside in search of a better life. The manufacturing sector suffers from both structural problems (e.g. chronic power shortages) and political.

 

problems (e.g. economic sanctions). In 2008, Yangon's 2500 factories alone needed about 120 MW of power; yet, the entire city received only about 250 MW of the 530 MW needed. Chronic power shortages limit the factories' operating hours between 8 am and 6 pm.

 

Construction is a major source of employment. The construction industry has been negatively affected by the move of state apparatus and civil servants to Naypyidaw, new regulations introduced in August 2009 requiring builders to provide at least 12 parking spaces in every new high-rise building, and the general poor business climate. As of January 2010, the number of new high-rise building starts approved in 2009–2010 was only 334, compared to 582 in 2008–2009.

 

Tourism represents a major source of foreign currency for the city although by south-east Asian standards the number of foreign visitors to Yangon has always been quite low - about 250,000 before the Saffron Revolution in September 2007. The number of visitors dipped even further following the Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis. The recent improvement in the country's political climate has attracted an increasing number of businessmen and tourists. Between 300,000 and 400,000 visitors that went through Yangon International in 2011. However, after years of underinvestment, Yangon's modest hotel infrastructure - only 3000 of the total 8000 hotel rooms in Yangon are "suitable for tourists" - is already bursting at seams, and will need to be expanded to handle additional visitors. As part of an urban development strategy, a hotel zone has been planned in Yangon's outskirts, encompassing government- and military-owned land in Mingaladon, Hlegu and Htaukkyant Townships.

 

EDUCATION

Yangon educational facilities has a very high number of qualified teachers but the state spending on education is among the lowest of the world. Around 2007 estimate by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies puts the spending for education at 0.5% of the national budget. The disparity in educational opportunities and achievement between rich and poor schools is quite stark even within the city. With little or no state support forthcoming, schools have to rely on forced "donations" and various fees from parents for nearly everything – school maintenance to teachers' salaries, forcing many poor students to drop out.

 

While many students in poor districts fail to reach high school, a handful of Yangon high schools in wealthier districts such as Dagon 1, Sanchaung 2, Kamayut 2, Bahan 2, Latha 2, and TTC provide the majority of students admitted to the most selective universities in the country, highlighting the extreme shallowness of talent pool in the country. The wealthy bypass the state education system altogether, sending their children to private English language instruction schools such as YIEC or more widely known as ISM, or abroad (typically Singapore or Australia) for university education. In 2014, international schools in Yangon cost at least US$8,000 a year.

 

There are over 20 universities and colleges in the city. While Yangon University remains the best known (its main campus is a part of popular Burmese culture e.g. literature, music, film, etc.), the nation's oldest university is now mostly a graduate school, deprived of undergraduate studies. Following the 1988 nationwide uprising, the military government has repeatedly closed universities, and has dispersed most of undergraduate student population to new universities in the suburbs such as Dagon University, the University of East Yangon and the University of West Yangon. Nonetheless many of the country's most selective universities are still in Yangon. Students from around the country still have to come to study in Yangon as some subjects are offered only at its universities. The University of Medicine 1, University of Medicine 2, Yangon Technological University, University of Computer Studies and Myanmar Maritime University are the most selective in the country.

 

HEALTH CARE

The general state of health care in Yangon is poor. According to a 2007 estimate, the military government spends 0.4% of the national budget on health care, and 40% to 60% on defense. By the government's own figures, it spends 849 kyats (US$0.85) per person. Although health care is nominally free, in reality, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals including the flagship Yangon General Hospital lack many of the basic facilities and equipment.

 

Wealthier Yangonites still have access to country's best medical facilities and internationally qualified doctors. Only Yangon and Mandalay have any sizable number of doctors left as many Burmese doctors have emigrated. The well-to-do go to private clinics or hospitals like Pun Hlaing International Hospital and Bahosi Medical Clinic. Medical malpractice is widespread, even in private clinics and hospitals that serve the well-to-do. In 2009 and 2010, a spate of high-profile deaths brought out the severity of the problem, even for the relatively well off Yangonites. The wealthy do not rely on domestic hospitals and travel abroad, usually Bangkok or Singapore, for treatment.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Bob Marley planted the seed of One love with his song and by the example of his short life. This expression though simple for a complex human problem; is a powerful panacea that every one who wish to have peace can execute on an individual level, and make huge change. This seed is growing into something big. Even with violence plaguing many parts of our planet; from regional conflicts and wars to gangs. That seed which he planted is growing into something powerful and tangible. It is our duty as peace lovers to nourish that tree and let it grow. This poster was designed in the same spirit of One Love.

 

Bob Marley - One Love

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8onbDZmAwhE

 

One love U2

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjdyOY3rCjs

  

Playing for Change

 

www.playingforchange.com/journey/introduction

  

MULINDI JAPAN ONE LOVE PROJECT was established by a Rwandan, Mr. GATERA RUDASINGWA, and a Japanese, Ms. MAMI YOSHIDA RUDASINGWA in 1996.

 

Gatera was born in 1954 in Kigali, Rwanda. Medical malpractice rendered him disabled.

Conflict in his home country of Rwanda, led him to escape to Kenya, where he met Mami, who was learning the Swahili language in Nairobi in 1989.

 

As their friendship grew, Mami learnt about the trials and conflict in Rwanda as well as the horrendous plight of the disabled.

 

His stories inspired Mami and in 1992, she decided to learn the art of making artificial limbs in Japan. Meanwhile Gatera looked for a location and the credentials to supply limbs.

 

www.onelove-project.info/oneloveproject.org/index.htm

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced his to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt as it was in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced his to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt as it was in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

  

To all my friends. I have been physically and mentally incapacitated by what has happened to me over the past few months. I fell and broke my hip. Recovery from that is going as good as can be expected. Wobbly but I can walk unassisted. It is what another incompetent surgeon did to me, that was against my will, that is more harm than good and will require two more surgeries to fix what he was supposed to do and undo what he did. He was supposed to repair a hernia that he completely missed and is even worse than before. A strangulated hernia can be fatal in a few hours if not taken care of by a doctor. The surgeon cut me down the middle of my stomach that was very invasive and now it looks like I have a ball there with a protruding bulge and now I have a complete urinary blockage that I never had a problem with before.

If you have a medical emergency do not stop at this hospital. It is a private for profit hospital. Go on down the road to a government hospital. The final bill was horrendously high. I didn’t have the money to pay the full bill. So what did they do? They incarcerated and held me against my will for 39 days. They would not accept a promissory note for what I was unable to pay. Finally after the 39 days they did agree to accept a promissory note and I had to relinquish my USA passport for their keeping until the bill is paid in full. I was released to go home Nov. 14th. And they charged me the daily rate for the hospital room for the 39 days they held me against my will. The room was small with no windows, regardless that it was they that were holding me against my will with out the ability to communicate with anyone. No TV, no radio and no computer to go on line. My only salvation was books my wife would bring me to read and lose myself in through the days. To lose my freedom as they imposed on me is the worse event in my long life ever. A doctor that is not connected to the hospital has examined me and he says I have very good reasons and should sue for malpractice the surgeon that blotched the job and the hospital. A problem is I will need to be very careful to document and make very precise. This litigation will probably take a long time. I paid the hospital by charging my credit card to the max and used my debit card to pay as much as I had in my bank account to the hospital so I could be released. Currently I am in financial ruin not knowing how I will survive the next months. This house where we live is a rental and already we are being threatened with eviction if we don’t catch up our back rent. My plea here is very humiliating but I don’t really have a choice. Please can anyone help me through this devastating period in my life with some financial assistance?

 

What I very much want is to be able to resume my work and enjoyment fixing, cleaning up, and posting old heritage pictures. I want to leave a legacy of important pictures for current and future generations to look back on and discover where they came from and who they are and the pride they deserve to have in them themselves as a people. The Philippines is so very unique that they have so many differing cultures throughout the islands and in some cases from one valley to the next. And Manila the lost Pearl of the Orient and what a beautiful city it was before it was destroyed by WWII.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

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If you are interested in my photos, they are available for sale. Please contact me by email: aragaofrancisco@gmail.com. Do not use without permission.

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Portuguese

O Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU) é instituição brasileira prevista na Constituição Federal para exercer a fiscalização contábil, financeira, orçamentária, operacional e patrimonial da União e das entidades da administração direta e administração indireta, quanto à legalidade, à legitimidade e à economicidade e a fiscalização da aplicação das subvenções e da renúncia de receitas. Auxilia o Congresso Nacional no planejamento fiscal e orçamentário anual. Tanto pessoa física quanto pessoa jurídica, seja de direito público ou direito privado, que utilize, arrecade, guarde, gerencie ou administre dinheiros, bens e valores públicos ou pelos quais a União responda, ou que, em nome desta, assuma obrigações de natureza pecuniária tem o dever de prestar contas ao TCU. Conforme o art. 71 da Constituição Federal o Tribunal de Contas da União é uma instituição com autonomia administrativa, financeira e orçamentária. O tribunal não está ligado diretamente a nenhum poder, o que faz com que seja um órgão independente. Sua independência é comparada à do Ministério Público, um órgão que não está ligado a nenhum poder e exerce sua função constitucional.

  

English

The Tribunal de Contas da União (Federal Court of Accounts, often referred to as TCU) is the Brazilian federal accountability office. It is an arm of the Legislative Branch of the Brazilian government, to assist Congress in its Constitutional incumbency to exercise external audit over the Executive Branch. Its members, called ministers, are appointed by the National Congress and the President of Brazil. The TCU employs a highly qualified body of civil servants to prevent, investigate and sanction corruption and malpractice of public funds, with national jurisdiction.

The Tribunal was created in 1891, although its origins are traced back to the Royal Treasury (Erário Régio), established in 1808 by King John VI. It is, therefore, one of the world's earlier institutions charged with national government accountability. Today, the TCU cooperates with the Comptroller-General of the Union (CGU), which centralizes federal executive internal audit. The Tribunal's work is scrutinized by the Public Ministry.

In 1959 it hosted III INCOSAI, the third triennial convention of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions.

The work executed by the TCU in 2011 produced savings of 14 billion reais (USD 7.44 billion) to the Brazilian taxpayer. For each real spent by the court to avert corruption and wasteful spending, 10.5 reais were saved.

 

Wikipedia

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

Downstairs, Jeffrey and Chrissy were also ready for bed – almost.

 

“What are you looking for?” Chrissy asked as Jeffrey looked out the double front doors.

 

“Who knows what sort of lawlessness unfolds in this room at night. This place has people like Marco Danelli and Rick Ross running around.”

 

[Narrator's Note]: Marco is a nefarious, slick, charismatic Room 1 character believed to be involved in questionable ways to earn money. Jeffrey has never liked Rick Ross, the newly returned doctor who fled town years ago because of medical malpractice allegations.

 

You can see some of Marco’s business dealings unfolding at the coffee shop in this older photo story:

www.flickr.com/photos/bogostick/32718802327/in/photolist-...

  

Chrissy yawned, certain Jeffrey was concerned about nothing. “I’d be more worried with how Marie is doing with the girls."

 

Back in Room 2, Marie believed Chrissy would be satisfied with her babysitting skills, having gotten the ones to bed a few hours ago. It was time for her to apply her lotion and snuggle in bed with a good book before the room’s lights went out.

   

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

Hanging by its tail from the balcony roof. (best viewed large)

 

Costa Rica: Abolished its army to invest in education instead. Almost a carbon neutral country, as all of their electricity comes from hydro, wind and geothermal, and they planted 3 million trees last year. The forest coverage grew from 21% in 1987 to 52% today. They made a bet that ecotourism would be a better use of the land than cattle farming. And now it does earn more than cattle, bananas and coffee combined. And they are still the second largest banana producer in the world.

 

I was reading these stats in Stewart Brand’s new book, Whole Earth Discipline, while ensconced in the Guanacaste Forest he celebrates.

 

And how about the Costa Ricans?

They are the happiest people on Earth (NYT).

 

Here are some provocative quotes from Stewart Brand’s book – a eco-friendly pragmatist’s celebration of urbanization, nuclear energy and genetically modified organisms:

 

“Climate change. Urbanization. Biotechnology. Those three narratives, still taking shape, are developing a long arc likely to dominate this century.

 

In all societies from hunter-gatherers on up through agricultural tribes, then chiefdoms, to early complex civilizations, 25 percent of adult males routinely died from warfare... Humans perpetually fight because they always outstrip the carrying capacity of their natural environment and then have to fight over resources... Peace can break out, though, when carrying capacity is pushed up suddenly, as with the invention of agriculture…trade, or technological breakthroughs. Also a large-scale dieback from pestilence can make for peaceful times... With climate change under way… we face a carrying capacity crisis leading to war of all against all, this time with massively lethal weapons and a dieback measured in billions.

 

The United States and France have the highest birth rates in the developed world, just below replacement level. America does it with immigrants and churchgoers… France does it with socialism.

 

Fully 85 percent of the world’s working age youth, those between the ages of 15 and 24, live in the developing world.

 

Chernobyl: The real damage to people in the region is from poverty and mental stress. Fear of radiation is a far more important health threat than radiation itself. The zone’s evacuation put an end to industrialization, deforestation, cultivation and other human intrusions, making it one of Ukraine’s environmentally cleanest regions… The world’s worst nuclear power plant disaster is not as destructive to wildlife populations as are normal human activities. Even where the levels of radiation are highest, wildlife abounds. I predict there will be a Chernobyl National Park.

 

Nuclear energy has done more to eliminate existing nuclear weapons from the world than any other activity. …currently 10% of the electricity Americans use comes from Russian missiles and bombs.

 

Coal is now understood to be the long-term systemic horror we once thought nuclear was.

 

The environmental movement has done more harm with its opposition to genetic engineering than with any other thing we have been wrong about. We’ve starved people, hindered science, hurt the natural environment, and denied our own practitioners a crucial tool. We make ourselves look a conspicuously irrational as those who espouse ‘intelligent design’ or ban stem-cell research, and we teach that irrationality to the public and to decision makers.

 

As with nuclear, those who know the most are the least frightened.

 

By current estimates, 80% of the genes in microbes traveled horizontally at some point in their past. Parasitic plants and fungi swap genes spontaneously with their hosts. Virus-like genes represent a staggering 90% of the human genome.

 

Despite their best efforts to shut it down or ignore it, environmentalists gained more from the space program than anyone else, and sooner.

 

Ecosystem engineering is an ancient art, practiced and malpracticed by every human society since the mastery of fire.

 

A continental American population estimated to have been between 50 million and 100 million in 1491 was reduced to 6.5 million by 1650. It was the greatest cataclysm in human history; a fifth of the world’s population died. We think of it as a military event, but it was almost entirely biological.

 

China, a nation run by engineers rather than lawyers.

 

When Kevin Kelly was traveling in China in 2006, he found that every elementary school in every village had a sign over the door in Mandarin with the following guidance:

 

LOOK UP TO SCIENCE.

CARE FOR YOUR FAMILY.

RESPECT LIFE.

RESIST CULTY RELIGION.”

Yes, also on tiny islands we have problems with trash and people littering. I have a feeling that the tourists that come here are more concerned with the nature than the locals themselves. I see more than often that local people leave their trash on the beach, where waves will take it upon the sea and usually either a bird or turtle will eat the garbage and suffocate. It saddens me all the time, that the native people are insensitive to their island environment, the prime selling point for tourists. People need to understand, for such an island with a one pillar economy such as tourism their futures are vulnerable. I'm not saying that trash will crash the tourism product, but their attitude of the environment in general. The same could be said of cutting up the hills, overdevelopment, lagoon and coral destruction and the list goes on. Below I would add a description of a dear friend of mine, who made a good interpretation of this picture;

 

" Lawd this is embarrassing.But I think it depicts the situation on the island very well. The beautiful hills and sea on top represent the beauty of St.Maarten and the bottom half of the photo represents the not so pretty side of the island; the littering,, over construction (construction hat and 2x4's), pollution of the sea and endangerment of the animals and plants( cactus, conch shell) etc.

The ' Take pride, don't throw it outside' campaign definately needs to be started again and this should be the campaign poster :) "

 

----Christella Garard

 

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....and others such as Kuow.org blog, Aquahealth blog,

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

"Butcher" #surgeon flees to Pakistan after federal indictment. t.co/wJY9JZeOzp t.co/uuDaah6C4J (via Twitter twitter.com/MarcianoLegal/status/819279094848352256)

Although proving medical malpractice in court can be a daunting process, it is made substantially easier with the help of knowledgeable Charleston medical malpractice lawyers. If you’re unsure of whether or not your situation qualifies for one of the several types of medical malpractice...

 

freemanandchiartas.com/three-categories-medical-malpracti...

Florence (Italian: Firenze, pronounced [fiˈrɛntse]; Old Italian: Fiorenza, Latin: Florentia) is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany and has a population of 367,569 (1,500,000 metropolitan area).

The city lies on the River Arno and is known for its history and its importance in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, especially for its art and architecture. A centre of medieval European trade and finance, the city is often considered the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance; in fact, it has been called the Athens of the Middle Ages. It was long under the de facto rule of the Medici family. From 1865 to 1870 the city was also the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

The historic centre of Florence continues to attract millions of tourists each year and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982.

 

Florence was originally established by Julius Caesar in 59 BC as a settlement for his veteran soldiers. It was named Florentia ('the flourishing') and built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated at the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. The Emperor Diocletian is said to have made Florentia the seat of a bishopric around the beginning of the 4th century AD, but this seems impossible in that Diocletion was a notable persecutor of Christians. In the ensuing two centuries, the city experienced turbulent periods of Ostrogothic rule, during which the city was often troubled by warfare between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines, which may have caused the population to fall to as few as 1,000 people. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to grow again and commerce prospered. In 854, Florence and Fiesole were united in one county.

Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca at about 1000 AD. This initiated the Golden Age of Florentine art. In 1013, construction began on the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte. The exterior of the baptistry was reworked in Romanesque style between 1059 and 1128. This period also saw the eclipse of Florence's formerly powerful rival Pisa (defeated by Genoa in 1284 and subjugated by Florence in 1406), and the exercise of power by the mercantile elite following an anti-aristocratic movement, led by Giano della Bella, that resulted in a set of laws called the Ordinances of Justice (1293).

Of a population estimated at 80,000 before the Black Death of 1348, about 25,000 are said to have been supported by the city's wool industry: in 1345 Florence was the scene of an attempted strike by wool combers (ciompi), who in 1378 rose up in a brief revolt against oligarchic rule in the Revolt of the Ciompi. After their suppression, Florence came under the sway (1382–1434) of the Albizzi family, bitter rivals of the Medici. Cosimo de' Medici was the first Medici family member to essentially control the city from behind the scenes. Although the city was technically a democracy of sorts, his power came from a vast patronage network along with his alliance to the new immigrants, the gente nuova (new people). The fact that the Medici were bankers to the pope also contributed to their rise. Cosimo was succeeded by his son Piero, who was shortly thereafter succeeded by Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo in 1469. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. Lorenzo was also an accomplished musician and brought some of the most famous composers and singers of the day to Florence, including Alexander Agricola, Johannes Ghiselin, and Heinrich Isaac. By contemporary Florentines (and since), he was known as "Lorenzo the Magnificent" (Lorenzo il Magnifico).

Following the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in 1492, he was succeeded by his son Piero II. When the French king Charles VIII invaded northern Italy, Piero II chose to resist his army. But when he realized the size of the French army at the gates of Pisa, he had to accept the humiliating conditions of the French king. These made the Florentines rebel and they expelled Piero II. With his exile in 1494, the first period of Medici rule ended with the restoration of a republican government.

During this period, the Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola had become prior of the San Marco monastery in 1490. He was famed for his penitential sermons, lambasting what he viewed as widespread immorality and attachment to material riches. He blamed the exile of the Medicis as the work of God, punishing them for their decadence. He seized the opportunity to carry through political reforms leading to a more democratic rule. But when Savonarola publicly accused Pope Alexander VI of corruption, he was banned from speaking in public. When he broke this ban, he was excommunicated. The Florentines, tired of his extreme teachings, turned against him and arrested him. He was convicted as a heretic and burned at the stake on the Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498.

A second individual of unusual insight was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimization of political expediency and even malpractice. Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city. Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established a republic on May 16, 1527. Restored twice with the support of both Emperor and Pope, the Medici in 1537 became hereditary dukes of Florence, and in 1569 Grand Dukes of Tuscany, ruling for two centuries. In all Tuscany, only the Republic of Lucca (later a Duchy) and the Principality of Piombino were independent from Florence.

The extinction of the Medici dynasty and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's temporary inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. It became a secundogeniture of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, who were deposed for the Bourbon-Parma in 1801 (themselves deposed in 1807), restored at the Congress of Vienna; Tuscany became a province of the United Kingdom of Italy in 1861.

Florence replaced Turin as Italy's capital in 1865, and in an effort to modernise the city, the old market in the Piazza del Mercato Vecchio and many medieval houses were pulled down and replaced by a more formal street plan with newer houses. The Piazza (first renamed Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele II, then Piazza della Repubblica, the present name) was significantly widened and a large triumphal arc was constructed at the west end. This development is largely regarded as a disaster and was only prevented from continuing by the efforts of several British and American people living in the city. A museum recording the destruction stands nearby today. The country's first capital city was superseded by Rome six years later, after the withdrawal of the French troops made its addition to the kingdom possible. A very important role is played in these years by the famous café of Florence Giubbe Rosse from its foundation until the present day. "Non fu giammai così nobil giardino/ come a quel tempo egli è Mercato Vecchio / che l'occhio e il gusto pasce al fiorentino", claimed Antonio Pucci in the 14th century, "Mercato Vecchio nel mondo è alimento./ A ogni altra piazza il prego serra". The area had decayed from its original medieval splendor. After doubling during the 19th century, Florence's population tripled in the 20th with the growth of tourism, trade, financial services and industry.

During World War II the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943–1944) and was declared an open city. The Allied soldiers who died driving the Germans from Tuscany are buried in cemeteries outside the city (Americans about 9 kilometres (6 mi) south of the city, British and Commonwealth soldiers a few kilometers east of the center on the right bank of the Arno). In 1944, the retreating Germans decided to blow up the bridges along the Arno linking the district of Oltrarno to the rest of the city, thus making it difficult for the British troops to cross. However, at the last moment Hitler ordered that the Ponte Vecchio must not be blown up, as it was too beautiful. Instead an equally historic area of streets directly to the south of the bridge, including part of the Corridoio Vasariano, was destroyed using mines. Since then the bridges have been restored exactly to their original forms using as many of the remaining materials as possible, but the buildings surrounding the Ponte Vecchio have been rebuilt in a style combining the old with modern design. Shortly before leaving Florence, as they knew that they would soon have to retreat the Germans murdered many freedom fighters and political opponents publicly, in streets and squares including Piazza Santo Spirito.

In November 1966, the Arno flooded parts of the center, damaging many art treasures. There was no warning from the authorities who knew the flood was coming, except a phone call to the jewelers on the Ponte Vecchio. Around the city there are tiny placards on the walls noting where the flood waters reached at their highest point.

 

Florence lies in a sort of basin among the Senese Clavey Hills, particularly the hills of Careggi, Fiesole, Settignano, Arcetri, Poggio Imperiale and Bellosguardo. The Arno river and three other minor rivers flow through it.

 

Florence is usually said to have a Mediterranean climate. It has hot, humid summers with little rainfall and cool, damp winters. Due to being surrounded by hills in a river valley, Florence can be hot and humid from June to August. Because of the lack of a prevailing wind, summer temperatures are higher than along the coast. The rain which does fall in summer is convectional. Relief rainfall dominates in the winter, with some snow. The highest officially recorded temperature was 42.6°C in July 26, 1983 and the lowest was -23.2°C on January 12, 1985.

 

Florence is known as the “cradle of Renaissance” (la culla del Rinascimento) for its monuments, churches and buildings. The best-known site and crowning architectural jewel of Florence is the domed cathedral of the city, Santa Maria del Fiore, known as The Duomo. The magnificent dome was built by Filippo Brunelleschi. The nearby Campanile (partly designed by Giotto) and the Baptistery buildings are also highlights. Both the dome itself and the campanile are open to tourists and offer excellent views; The dome, 600 years after its completion, is still the largest dome built in brick and mortar in the world.

In 1982, the historic center of Florence (Italian: centro storico di Firenze) was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO for the importance of its cultural heritages. The center of the city is contained in medieval walls that were built in the 14th century to defend the city after it became famous and important for its economic growth.

At the heart of the city in Piazza della Signoria is Bartolomeo Ammanati's Fountain of Neptune (1563–1565), which is a masterpiece of marble sculpture at the terminus of a still functioning Roman aqueduct.

The Arno River, which cuts through the old part of the city, is as much a character in Florentine history as many of the people who lived there. Historically, the locals have had a love-hate relationship with the Arno — which alternated from nourishing the city with commerce, and destroying it by flood.

One of the bridges in particular stands out as being unique — The Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge), whose most striking feature is the multitude of shops built upon its edges, held up by stilts. The bridge also carries Vasari's elevated corridor linking the Uffizi to the Medici residence (Palazzo Pitti). Although the original bridge was constructed by the Etruscans, the current bridge was rebuilt in the 14th century It is the only bridge in the city to have survived World War II intact.

The church of San Lorenzo contains the Medici Chapel, the mausoleum of the Medici family – the most powerful family in Florence from the 15th to the 18th century. Nearby is the Uffizi Gallery, one of the finest art museums in the world – founded on a large bequest from the last member of the Medici family.

The Uffizi itself is located at the corner of Piazza della Signoria, a site important for being the centre of Florence civil life and government for centuries (Signoria Palace is still home of the community government): the Loggia dei Lanzi was the set of all the public ceremonies of the republican government. Many well known episodes of history of art and political changes were staged here, such as:

In 1301, Dante was sent into Exile from here (a plaque on one of the walls of the Uffizi commemorates the event).

26 April 1478 Jacopo de'Pazzi and his retainers try to raise the city against the Medici after the plot known as The congiura dei Pazzi (The Pazzi conspiracy) who murdered Giuliano di Piero de' Medici and wounded his brother Lorenzo; the Florentines seized and hanged all the members of the plot that could be apprehended from the windows of the Palace.

In 1497, it was the location of the Bonfire of the Vanities instigated by the Dominican friar and preacher Girolamo Savonarola

On the 23 May 1498 the same Savonarola and two followers were hanged and burnt at the stake (a round plate in the ground commemorates the very spot where he was hanged)

In 1504, Michelangelo's David (now replaced by a reproduction as the original was moved indoors to the Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno), was installed in front of the Palazzo della Signoria (also known as Palazzo Vecchio).

It is still the setting for a number of statues by other sculptors such as Donatello, Giambologna, Ammannati and Cellini, although some have been replaced with copies to preserve the priceless originals.

In addition to the Uffizi, Florence has other world-class museums. The Bargello concentrates on sculpture, containing many priceless works of art created by such sculptors as Donatello, Giambologna, and Michelangelo. The Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno (often simply called the Accademia) collection's highlights are Michelangelo's David and his unfinished Slaves.

Across the Arno is the huge Palazzo Pitti containing part of the Medici family's former private collection. In addition to the Medici collection the palace's galleries contain a large number of Renaissance works, including several by Raphael and Titian as well as a large collection of modern art, costumes, cattiages, and porcelain. Adjoining the Palace are the Boboli Gardens, elaborately landscaped and with many interesting sculptures.

The Santa Croce basilica, originally a Franciscan foundation, contains the monumental tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Dante (actually a cenotaph), and many other notables.

Other important basilicas and churches in Florence include Santa Maria Novella, San Lorenzo, Santo Spirito and the Orsanmichele, and the Tempio Maggiore Great Synagogue of Florence.

Florence has been the setting for numerous works of fiction and movies, including the novels and associated films Hannibal, Tea with Mussolini and A Room with a View.

 

The population of the city proper is 365,744 (2008-11-30), while Eurostat estimates that 696,767 people live in the urban area of Florence. The Metropolitan Area of Florence, Prato, and Pistoia, constituted in 2000 over an area of roughly 4,800 square kilometers, is home to 1.5 million people. Within Florence proper, 46.8% of the population was male in 2007 and 53.2% were female. Minors (children aged 18 and younger) totalled 14.10 percent of the population compared to pensioners, who numbered 25.95 percent. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06 percent (minors) and 19.94 percent (pensioners). The average age of Florence resident is 49 compared to the Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Florence grew by 3.22 percent, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56 percent. The current birth rate of Florence is 7.66 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births.

As of 2006, 90.45% of the population was Italian. An estimated 60,000 Chinese live in the city. The largest immigrant group came from other European countries (mostly from Albania and Romania): 3.52%, East Asia (mostly Chinese and Filipino): 2.17%, the Americas: 1.41%, and North Africa (mostly Moroccan): 0.9%.

 

Tourism is the most significant industry within the centre of Florence. On any given day between April and October, the local population is greatly outnumbered by tourists from all over the world. The Uffizi and Accademia museums are regularly sold out of tickets, and large groups regularly fill the basilicas of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, both of which charge for entry.

Florence being historically the first home of Italian fashion (the 1951–1953 soirées held by Giovanni Battista Giorgini are generally regarded as the birth of the Italian school as opposed to french haute couture) is also home to the legendary Italian fashion establishment Salvatore Ferragamo, notable as one of the oldest and most famous Italian fashion houses. Many others, most of them now located in Milan, were founded in Florence. Gucci, Prada, Roberto Cavalli, and Chanel have large offices and stores in Florence or its outskirts.

Food and wine have long been an important staple of the economy. Florence is the most important city in Tuscany, one of the great wine-growing regions in the world. The Chianti region is just south of the city, and its Sangiovese grapes figure prominently not only in its Chianti Classico wines but also in many of the more recently developed Supertuscan blends. Within twenty miles (32 km) to the west is the Carmignano area, also home to flavorful sangiovese-based reds. The celebrated Chianti Rufina district, geographically and historically separated from the main Chianti region, is also few miles east of Florence. More recently, the Bolgheri region (about 100 miles/200 kilometres southwest of Florence) has become celebrated for its "Super Tuscan" reds such as Sassicaia and Ornellaia.

 

Florence keeps an exceptional artistic heritage. Cimabue and Giotto, the fathers of Italian painting, lived in Florence as well as Arnolfo and Andrea Pisano, renewers of architecture and sculpture; Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio forefathers of the Renaissance, Ghiberti and the Della Robbias, Filippo Lippi and Angelico; Botticelli, Paolo Uccello and the universal genius of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

Their work, together with those of many other generations of artists up to the artists of our century, are gathered in the several museums of the town: the Uffizi, the most selected gallery in the world, the Palatina gallery with the paintings of the "Golden Ages".

The Bargello Tower with the sculptures of the Renaissance, the museum of San Marco with Angelico's works, the Academy, the chapels of the Medicis, Buonarroti' s house with the sculptures of Michelangelo, the following museums: Bardini, Horne, Stibbert, Romano, Corsini, The Gallery of Modern Art, The museum of the Opera del Duomo, the museum of Silverware and the museum of Precious Stones.

Great monuments are the landmarks of Florentine artistic culture: the Baptistry with its mosaics; the Cathedral with its sculptures, the medieval churches with bands of frescoes; public as well as private palaces: Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Palazzo Davanzati; monasteries, cloisters, refectories; the "Certosa". In the archeological museum includes documents of Etruscan civilization. In fact the city is so rich in art that some first time visitors experience the Stendhal syndrome as they encounter its art for the first time.

 

Florentine (fiorentino), spoken by inhabitants of Florence and its environs, is a Tuscan dialect and an immediate parent language to modern Italian. (Many linguists and scholars of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch consider standard Italian to be, in fact, modern Florentine.)

Its vocabulary and pronunciation are largely identical to standard Italian, though the hard c between two vowels (as in ducato) is pronounced as a fricative [h], similar to an English h. This gives Florentines a distinctive and highly recognizable accent (the so-called gorgia toscana). Other traits include using a form of the subjunctive mood last commonly used in medieval times, a frequent usage of the modern subjunctive instead of the present of standard Italian, and a reduced pronunciation of the definite article, [i] instead of "il".

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away some distance from Bundaberg at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850 and in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid out in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mill was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg as emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875.

 

The town was well established by 1880 but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent thus eclipsing all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were established with reliance on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj era. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margaret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced him to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

  

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

 

Gavel, hospital chart, medicine, medical malpractice

 

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Lawsuit in Scrabble blocks, medicine, stethoscope, malpractice, medical malpractice

 

Want to use one of our images on your own site? That's great! We do ask that you please give credit for the image by including a link to www.weisspaarz.com.

 

More details on our attribution policy can be found at www.weisspaarz.com/creative-commons-images/

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away some distance from Bundaberg at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850 and in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid out in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mill was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg as emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875.

 

The town was well established by 1880 but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent thus eclipsing all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were established with reliance on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj era. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margaret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Hinkler House and the Aviation Museum.

Also situated in the Botanic Gardens is the transported home of Bert Hinkler and the Aviation Museum. Bert Hinkler flew the first solo flight from England to Australia in 1928 with his landing spot where the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens now exist. Hinkler was born in Bundaberg in 1892. In 1913 he went to England and joined the Royal Naval Air Service just before the outbreak of World War One. After a distinguished aviation career during the War he remained in England working for an aviation manufacturer A.V Row or Avro as they were known. They later became Hawker Siddeley Aviation which manufactured planes until 1963. Bert Hinkler got his own plane and attempted a flight to Australia in 1920 but war in Syria forced him to abandon this attempt. He set out again on 7 February 1928 reaching Darwin on 22 February and Bundaberg on 27 February. He valiantly flew other record breaking solo flights until his death in Italy in 1933. In 1925 he built a typical two storey detached house in Southampton for his residence. After his death in 1933 it became the property of the City of Southampton and after much negotiation the house was sent brick by brick to Bundaberg in 1983. It was rebuilt in the Botanic Gardens and opened as a museum in 2008. The Commonwealth electorate around Bundaberg is named Hinkler in his honour.

 

The Hinkler Hall of Aviation has six aircraft, paintings, static displays and interactive displays. It contains much memorabilia about Bert Hinkler and his various record breaking flights, and the Arvo airplane manufactory.

  

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

The Bundaberg Region.

The rich volcanic soils of the plains near Bundaberg and the Burnett River were covered with thick scrub and bush but a few adventurous pastoralists tried to establish sheep grazing there in the 1850s. It was easier away from the Bundaberg site at Gin Gin and Gayndah further inland. More white settlers came in the mid-1860s as timber cutters. In these early years clashes with the local Aboriginal people were often violent. Aboriginal massacres are known to have occurred at Gin Gin in 1850, in North Bundaberg in the early 1860s. The first timber cutters arrived in the Bundaberg area 1867 followed by the first white farmers also in 1867. The first saw mill was erected in 1868. The town site was surveyed and laid in 1870. Experimental sugar cane farms began around 1871 and within a few months the sugar mills was built. As sugar plantations increased Bundaberg ended up with four major sugar mills. The sugar cane plantations were usually owned by the mills, run as large plantations and they employed Kanaka or South Sea Islander indentured labourers. Thus like Maryborough Bundaberg became a main entry point for the South Sea Islanders. The town grew quickly as more farmers took up small selections or acreages often growing maize or small amounts of sugar cane. The local Kolan Shire council was formed in 1873 and Bundaberg was emerging as a town. It became a municipality in 1881 and a city in 1913. The discovery of copper and that start of mining operations at nearby Mt Perry in 1871 really boosted the prospects of Bundaberg. The first bank opened in 1872, the first newspaper began publication in 1875 and a coach service operated to Maryborough until the railway line was completed in 1888. The government wharf in Bundaberg was built in 1875 with the main cargoes being timber and maize. The Primitive Methodists built an early brush and timber church in 1877 and the Anglicans completed their first church in 1876. But the Catholics were the first to build a permanent church which was consecrated in 1875. The town was well established but the big transformation occurred in the early 1880s when the land owners developed the sugar industry to its full extent until sugar eclipsed all other crops. In 1881 the Bundaberg region produced 3% of QLD’s sugar crop. In 1883 it produced 20% of QLD’s sugar crop. This domination of sugar persisted from 1880 through to 1915. New sugar mills started up with the new Millaquin mill in 1882 and mills for the Youngs of Fairymead and the Gibsons of Bingera. Stable prices for sugar assisted with this development of sugar mills and by the mid-1880s more sugar farms were being established reliant on European labour instead of South Sea Islander labour. The 1885 QLD Royal Commission into malpractices with the Kanaka trade meant the government intervened more to control conditions of the indentured labourers and limited the trade. These restrictions were lifted in 1891 to boost the sugar industry again but the emerging labour unions and associations of white labourers opposed the revival of the Kanaka trade as their employment suffered because of the trade. The new Commonwealth government of 1901 made the decision to cease the trade from 1906. As the sugar industry had to restructure itself the QLD government started to build and financially back the sugar mills itself at Gin Gin and Isis. They also tried to control the mills of Fairymead and Bingera and CSR (Colonial Sugar Refining.)The Labour government of QLD established sugar price control in 1915 and set up a board of appeal for complaints from growers against the sugar mills. By 1915 Bundaberg was in fierce competition with sugar cane areas in the Far North QLD and the industry was much regulated. But it has survived well to the present day. This has been assisted by a new port at Burnett Heads which was built in 1962.

 

Apart from the sugar industry the growth of Bundaberg has been assisted by mining, fruit and vegetable growing and the development of side products from sugar – molasses and rum distilling. The first rum was distilled from the Millaquin sugar mill in 1888. The town was boosted greatly by the opening of the railway from North Bundaberg to Mt Perry copper mines in 1884 which in turn encouraged the establishment of foundries and works to support the mines in Bundaberg. By the 1880s Bundaberg has some grand buildings appropriate for a regional city. The commercial and civic heart of the town was in Bourbong Street with the Post Office 157 Bourbong St (1891), the War Memorial 180 Bourbong St (1922), the School of Arts building 184 Bourbong St (1889), the former Commercial Bank 191 Bourbong St (1891) etc.

Fairymead Plantation Homestead.

One of the great plantation homesteads, not quite as grand as the Southern American slave homesteads, is Fairymead in Bundaberg. It was built in 1890 in the Indian bungalow style of the British Raj occupation of India. It was built for Ernest and Margaret Young the owners of the Fairymead sugar mill. Margret Young’s brother was an architect and designed the house for the subtropical Bundaberg climate. It has 16 foot ceilings and a wide veranda encircles the house. The house was near the mill on the plantation and after World War One was used as accommodation for mill workers until Ernest Young’s grandson and his family moved back into the house in 1960. In 1988 it was donated to the City of Bundaberg and it was eventually transported into the Botanic Gardens site. The house is furnished as it was in 1890 and the interior arrangement of rooms has been little altered since then. The Fairymead sugar plantation was established by three Young brothers in 1880 when they bought 3,200 acres near Bundaberg. Their first sugar was sent to the Millaquin sugar mill until they completed their own sugar mill in 1884. They introduced a railway system to bring the cane to the mill and from 1902 they had irrigation water available if needed for the plantation. They pioneered mechanised single row harvesting of the cane in 1938 which was developed after World War Two to cover two rows. In the 1970s several Bundaberg mills and companies merged to form the Bundaberg Sugar Company.

 

Glaube der Patient wollte den Mund nicht weit genug aufmachen, und da ist der Mundspreizer etwas zu stark angezogen worden. Aufgenommen während des Zombiewalks 2011.

 

Assume, during inspection the patient did not open his mouth enough, and the doctor over exercised the tool of his trade. Don't think the malpractice insurance will cover this collateral damage.

Picture taken during the Zombiwalk 2011.