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Ruth Park's Sydney
Book by Park, Ruth, Champion, Rafe
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
7 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
About the author
Ruth Park
83 books112 followersRuth Park was a New Zealand-born author, who spent most of her life in Australia. She was born in Auckland, and her family later moved to Te Kuiti further south in the North Island of New Zealand, where they lived in isolated areas.
During the Great Depression her working class father worked on bush roads, as a driver, on relief work, as a sawmill hand, and finally shifted back to Auckland as council worker living in a state house. After Catholic primary school Ruth won a partial scholarship to secondary school, but this was broken by periods of being unable to afford to attend. For a time she stayed with relatives on a Coromandel farming estate where she was treated like a serf by the wealthy landowner until she told the rich woman what she really thought of her.
Ruth claimed that she was involved in the Queen Street riots with her father. Later she worked at the Auckland Star before shifting to Australia in 1942. There she married the Australian writer D'Arcy Niland.
Her first novel was The Harp in the South (1948) - a story of Irish slum life in Sydney, which was translated into 10 languages. (Some critics called it a cruel fantasy because as far as they were concerned there were no slums in Sydney.) But Ruth and D'Arcy did live in Sydney slums at Surry Hills. She followed that up with Poor Man's Orange (1949). She also wrote Missus (1985) and other novels, as well as a long-running Australian children's radio show and scripts for film and TV. She created The Muddle-Headed Wombat series of children's books. Her autobiographies are A Fence Around the Cuckoo (1992) and Fishing in the Styx (1993). She also wrote a novel based in New Zealand, One-a-pecker, Two-a-pecker (1957), about gold mining in Otago (later renamed The Frost and The Fire).
Park received awards in Australia and internationally.
Winner of the Dromkeen Medal.
During the Great Depression her working class father worked on bush roads, as a driver, on relief work, as a sawmill hand, and finally shifted back to Auckland as council worker living in a state house. After Catholic primary school Ruth won a partial scholarship to secondary school, but this was broken by periods of being unable to afford to attend. For a time she stayed with relatives on a Coromandel farming estate where she was treated like a serf by the wealthy landowner until she told the rich woman what she really thought of her.
Ruth claimed that she was involved in the Queen Street riots with her father. Later she worked at the Auckland Star before shifting to Australia in 1942. There she married the Australian writer D'Arcy Niland.
Her first novel was The Harp in the South (1948) - a story of Irish slum life in Sydney, which was translated into 10 languages. (Some critics called it a cruel fantasy because as far as they were concerned there were no slums in Sydney.) But Ruth and D'Arcy did live in Sydney slums at Surry Hills. She followed that up with Poor Man's Orange (1949). She also wrote Missus (1985) and other novels, as well as a long-running Australian children's radio show and scripts for film and TV. She created The Muddle-Headed Wombat series of children's books. Her autobiographies are A Fence Around the Cuckoo (1992) and Fishing in the Styx (1993). She also wrote a novel based in New Zealand, One-a-pecker, Two-a-pecker (1957), about gold mining in Otago (later renamed The Frost and The Fire).
Park received awards in Australia and internationally.
Winner of the Dromkeen Medal.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 21, 2021
I love Ruth Park's writing. If she rewrote the phone book I think I would enjoy reading it. I especially enjoy reading histories of places I know and have visited, which she has done so well with this book. While some parts were difficult to read (discussion of torture and corporal punishment), Ruth Park's Sydney is a beautifully written book and is well worth a read.
February 18, 2024
Ruth Park is so eminently readable. Here she's managed to write something that is factual, faithful, and funny. It's going to take me quite awhile to type out all the hilarious little histories Park detailed. But as a taste here's one.
This book would easily function as the go to walking guide for Sydney if it had been updated at any time in the last 25 years, it was first published in 1973 and then updated in 1999. As it stands, it can be a little bit hard to follow some of the trails Park has mapped out, as things have either been demolished or obscured by recent development. The easiest stuff to follow are the chapters set in the CBD. The City of Sydney council does a pretty good job of putting their history on display and there are plaques-a-plenty to give further information. It often feels that Park has the inside track on so much of Sydney's history. Like a true reporter she's kept her ear to the ground and listened to the right people to get such strong first hand evidence of how the city has looked through the centuries.
Other than its slightly outdated feel, the guide also isn't great if you don't live in the reasonably small radius Park discusses.
It's also impossible to read and walk with the guide because it's just too detailed. You're far better to read the guide the day before and use it to plan out your walk.
All the stone work connected with this grassy plot looks very old. Beside it run archaic gutters, stones tip to a point, European style. Well, some queer people were turned off here, including in 1803 the wretched Joseph Samuels, ‘the man they couldn't hang’. Samuels was one of four petty criminals accused of robbery and subsequent murder of a constable who chased them. Before an immense and hostile crowd, aghast at what must have been a fearful scene, the executioners endeavoured to do their duty though the rope suspending the unfortunate Samuels broke three times. ‘Some did not hesitate to declare that the invisible hand of Providence was at work’, stated the Sydney gazette. The crowd was so riotous that the half strangled and unconscious Samuels was left on the ground while the Provost-Marshall, who superintended the hanging, galloped off to see what the Governor had to say about it. The latter, the humane King, instantly reprieved the unfortunate victim. "May the grateful remembrance of these events direct his future course!" The Gazette said of Samuels who was always slightly queer in the attic afterwards. His end was odd. He was one of eight convicts who eloped from the Hunter River coal mines in 1806, stole a boat, and pushed out to sea. They were last seen driving before a storm along the north coast and were never heard of again.
This book would easily function as the go to walking guide for Sydney if it had been updated at any time in the last 25 years, it was first published in 1973 and then updated in 1999. As it stands, it can be a little bit hard to follow some of the trails Park has mapped out, as things have either been demolished or obscured by recent development. The easiest stuff to follow are the chapters set in the CBD. The City of Sydney council does a pretty good job of putting their history on display and there are plaques-a-plenty to give further information. It often feels that Park has the inside track on so much of Sydney's history. Like a true reporter she's kept her ear to the ground and listened to the right people to get such strong first hand evidence of how the city has looked through the centuries.
Other than its slightly outdated feel, the guide also isn't great if you don't live in the reasonably small radius Park discusses.
It's also impossible to read and walk with the guide because it's just too detailed. You're far better to read the guide the day before and use it to plan out your walk.
August 22, 2008
One of the better books covering Sydney's history. Written as a sort of walking guide (with MAPS!), it covers both general, well-known facts about Sydney's past, plus plenty of hidden secrets and old tales which have been sucked out of our city.
However, it was written in 1984 with a review in 2000, and already feels a little outdated. Is a definite must of anyone wanting to research the topic.
However, it was written in 1984 with a review in 2000, and already feels a little outdated. Is a definite must of anyone wanting to research the topic.
March 28, 2014
Written with Ruth Park's elegant and inherently readable style, this book does have some interesting nuggets about Sydney's history, but like any travel/city guide, it simply can't age well. Written in 1973 and updated in 1999, it's just too outdated. I don't give up on many books (and never one of Ruth Park's before) but I did give up halfway through this one.
May 18, 2022
Oh how I loved this book! Ruth takes us on a stroll through Sydney, examining its buildings, it’s characters, it’s past in her funny and delightful voice. There are many glaring omissions of course but it’s 1973 and it’s a limited view of history indeed. Makes me want to go for a long stroll
November 3, 2014
My favorite guide to old Sydney haunts.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews