Hesperian Press

Goodbye Dad – See you in fifteen years. 

by Stanley & Lorraine Spring

ISBN 978-0-85905-753-0, (2019), A4, 150 pp, indexed, illustrated, 455 grams, $25.00* + postage.

Available direct from L. Spring, 4 Council place, East Fremantle, 6158. 0467 061 470. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

The Government Gums and Rattling the Dish

by Peter J Bridge with Gail Dreezens

ISBN 0 85905 399 7, (2007 New), Soft Cover, A4, 51pp, saddle, illust, 180grams

$22.00* + POST

Before the advent of gaols prisoners were chained to trees, a practice surviving in WA until the 1950s. Digger justice was rough, ready, and sure. When the police came crime soared. Perhaps we need local justice committees to be revived.

Grandfather was a Policeman

by Mollie Bentley

ISBN 0 85905 143 9, (1993 new), Soft Cover, 140mm x 215mm, 180pp, illustrated, 250grams

$22.00 + POST

Traces the early Western Australian police force from its inception to the 1890s with an emphasis on the men who served in it.

The Great Unknown & Away Back

by L.O. Dowker

ISBN 978-0-85905-175-0, (2011), A4, 42pp, 150grams

$22.00* + POST

“These narratives are true stories of my own life in the Australian Bush 1888-1897-1903.”

Dowker spent some years on the Gascoyne and later in the South West.

Stories of bush and station work and the men and Aboriginals he worked with.

Grien on Rougemont

by Daily Chronicle, Phil May, Barry Pain

ISBN 978-0-85905-624-3, (1898, R2015), large A4, 38pp, illustrated, 220 grams

$30.00* + POST

De Rougemont's spectacular adventures startled the world in 1898. The tale of shipwreck, rescue by aboriginals, and wondrous happening in the north Australian wilds held the world spellbound.

Ground Crew

by Felix Sainsbury

ISBN 0 85905 302 4, (2001 new), Soft Cover, A4 spiral wire bound, 370grams

$30.00* + POST

This is the true story of desert warfare compiled from the author's diary during his service with No 3 RAAF Fighter Bomber Squadron in the Middle East.  It includes detailed events of action during the Squadron's campaigns in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Tunisia.

Guidebook to the Pegmatites of Western Australia

by Mark Ivan Jacobson, Mark Andrew Calderwood, Benjamin Alexander Grguric

ISBN 0 85905 378 4, (2007 New), Soft cover, French flap, 394pp, well illustrated, 700 grams

$80.00* + POST (Overseas postage on application. Sea Mail and Air Mail only)

Western Australia is a treasure trove. Emeralds, green tourmalines, purple lepidolite, lustrous black tantalite and other minerals are found in pegmatites scattered across the vastness of Western Australia. Fossickers, prospectors, and miners have searched out and mined these pegmatites since the late 1800s. Successive mineral booms for cassiterite, muscovite, beryl, lithium, feldspar and most recently tantalum during the 1990s resulted in further pegmatite exploration. The locations, directions to the deposits and descriptions of these localities areoften buried in obscure or unpublished reports or even kept secret by a handful of fossickers.

GWF

THE LETTERS OF A NATIVE WELFARE OFFICER

1959-1961 Pilbara And Kimberley

Edited By Nan Broad

ISBN 978-0-85905-673-1 (New, 2017), 278 pages, A4, Illustrated, 700 grams

$50.00* + POST

For the indigenous population of the North West of Western Australia the early 1960s held great promise and inevitable disappointment. Social welfare systems went into practice and some of the class barriers started to crumble. Against this progression the entrenched colonial superiority of the pastoralists continued them to dictate employment methods. In this see-sawing milieu Bill Courtney takes up an appointment as Native Welfare Officer in Port Hedland and later in Halls Creek. His first brief is to remove Don McLeod, instigator of Simdan, the mineral prospecting company in Pilbara which has gone broke. He then takes over as the sole officer in Halls Creek, servicing East Kimberley. Courtney's erudite correspondence to a friend during these periods contains it all - his reactions to every aspect of the uniquely individual lifestyle practised by the 'white fellas' and, both funny and sad, the reactions of the 'black fellas.'

GWF. William Joseph Courtney. A biographical note.

Mark Chambers & Peter J. Bridge

ISBN 978-1-875778-04-1, A5, 6pp, $10.00*

A note on the author of the volume, GWF.

The Ghost of Garden Island. The secret of Singing Rock.

by E.G. Murphy.

ISBN 978-0-85905-871-1, (1934 R 2021) $10.00*

A forgotten aboriginal legend.

The Golden Quest INDEX $10

The Goose's Puzzle 

by Peter J. Bridge. ISBN 978-0-85905-713-4, (R, 2018), A5, $10.00*

The biography of prospector Charlie 'The Goose' Harris.

The Great Nor’ West and its Resources.

L. van Praagh & Reginald Lloyd.

ISBN 978-0-85905-912-1, (1904, R, 2022), A3, 116 pp, heavily illustrated, indexed, 1kg, $70.00*

A magnificent reprint of the very rare 1904 book. This A3 book of 116 pages (=232pp A4) has hundreds of photos of the NW before 1904 together with good descriptive text. Period adverts also abound for the enterprises that helped develop the country. Mining, pastoral, agricultural, shipping, transport, pearling, aborigines are well covered.

This is a companion volume to our earlier publications, Nor’ West of West (1908), History of the North West (1915), Nor’ Westers of the Pilbara Breed (1981), Due North (2020), Experiences and Adventures of NW Cooke (2021), and many smaller books.

These are fundamental sources of information on the people and businesses that have developed the North West into the powerhouse of the national economy. They are the foundation for future projects such as our Biographical Dictionary of the North West 1860-1960.

The unusual size of this book creates problems for mailing. Resolution at reasonable costs is being examined.