The tyranny of distance revisited

Bolton, G. (2003) The tyranny of distance revisited. In: Gare, D., Bolton, G., Macintyre, S. and Stannage, T., (eds.) The Fuss that Never Ended: Essays on the Life and Work of Geoffrey Blainey. Melbourne University Press, Carlton, VIC, pp. 28-38.

Abstract

At the beginning of 1950 I was the editor of the pelican, the student newspaper for the University of Western Australia. At one time I had Rolf Harris for my cartoonist and John Stone for my business manager. I used to boast of this, until someone remarked that it would have been better for Australia if I had used John Stone as my cartoonist and Rolf Harris as the business manager. At the time it occurred to me that a national conference of student editors would be a good idea, and an approach was made through the National Union of Australian University Students to host such a conference in Perth. The response was uneqivocal. Yes, it was a good idea to hold a conference of editors, but I must be crazy if I thought the others would come all the way to Perth. Instead the conference would take place in Melbourne. As I had never been to Melbourne, and had secretly hoped that some such outcome would eventuate, I readily agreed. So it was that in May 1950 I met Geoffrey Blainey for the first time, then co-editor of the University of Melbourne's Farrago. He said that he couldn't quite see the necessity for the conference; I replied that he would if he lived in perth. This was our first, rather unlikely, exchance on the subject of 'the tyranny of distance'.

Item Type:	Book Chapter
Murdoch Affiliation(s):	Vice Chancellery
Publisher:	Melbourne University Press
Copyright:	2003 Melbourne University Publishing
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/15535

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