“Are you feeling upset by the archives you’re reading?”
Well, bloody grow up! You’re only reading about it, FFS!
The Victorian Archives Centre has a “sanctuary space” so you can be “traumatised “ in private. Good grief…

Just visiting the excellent “1975” exhibition at the National Library of Australia. But look what you see on the very first panel - a warning that it deals with “some sensitive and distressing material “! Er, like every year in human history!

Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the Australian landing on Tarakan, the subject of my forthcoming book, Oboe One: Tarakan, 1945, to be published soon by #BigSky. This is the draft cover - the new one's even better. It's a revised version of my 1997 book Tarakan: An Australian Tragedy.

Dr David Stephens, key player in Defending Country (which tries to hold the Australian War Memorial accountable over its representation of the Australian Wars, aka Frontier Conflict) thinks that the AWM has produced an exhibition about Defending Country, 'Critical Witness'. Apt, but no such luck ...

ArtSound FM Canberra is broadcasting my radio play 'Wanterwrite, Wanterlove' ( dramatising the courtship of Charles and Effie in 1920) at 1pm on Anzac Day, 4pm on the 27th and 10pm on the 28th - and you can listen to it outside Canberra on DAB+ 90.3 or on artsound.fm - listen any time. Enjoy!

I visited the Australian War Memorial yesterday and was pleased to see that the 10-pounder mountain gun, used by the Indian mountain batteries at Anzac, is still on display in the Gallipoli gallery. Their service is documented in my Die in Battle - the first book on Indians on Gallipoli (2015). #AWM

One of the pleasures of a public library in Anzac season is to surreptitiously ensure that the book display features you and your friends.Here in Dickson (ACT), books by (l to r) Mark Johnston, me, Douglas Newton and Ross McMullin - all worth reading this April!

I'm delighted to tell you that at 1 pm on Anzac Day ArtSound FM Canberra will broadcast my radio play 'Wanterwrite, Wanterlove' - about the courtship of Charles and Effie Bean at Tuggeranong while Charles was writing Vol. I of his official history, in the aftermath of the Great War.

I photographed 20 years of this for a good friend - the basis of a future book, I hope and expect. It was fascinating and reminded me of what a fantastic and largely untapped source unit newsletters can be.

Paul Macpherson on The Sherrin:
"... a great read. I was particularly taken by your description of the separate war of the commandos ... I look forward to recommending it to all and sundry."
Thank you Paul!

This evening I had the privilege of moving the vote of thanks to Christina Twomey and Joan Beaumont, who discussed the new edition of Joan’s 1988 Gull Force (on Australian PoWs on Ambon and Hainan 1942-45). Insightful discussion and perceptive questions from the floor. Thank you Colin Steele at ANU.

Yesterday I addressed the active and energetic Blackheath History Forum (iBlue Mountains, NSW) on some issues in current understandings of Australian military history. Very responsive group (if rather reluctant to actually buy books) but an enjoyable encounter with some thoughtful people - thanks!

I have a lot of time for local histories and have often used them in my various Australian, British and British-Indian books, not least Terriers in India, which revealed the experiences of men from Wessex and the South of England in India in the Great War. Thank you, British local historians!

I happened to be in Halifax, West Yorkshire, a couple of months ago and was agreeably surprised to find this striking memorial to the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment- is this the newest British war memorial?