Logo image
The tyranny of distance revisited
Book chapter

The tyranny of distance revisited

G. Bolton
The Fuss that Never Ended: Essays on the Life and Work of Geoffrey Blainey, pp.28-38
Melbourne University Press
2003
url
Google Books PreviewView

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'.

Details

Metrics

71 Record Views
Logo image