WITH warm weather seeing people flocking back to the beach, this week the archivists at Vincent Local History Centre continue the series on memories of summer by bringing us back to a time before the beach was a popular swimming spot.  BEACH culture is synonymous with Perth, but this has not always been the case.…

‘ARTWORK’ by artificial intelligence will be banned from sale at this year’s Supanova Comic Con in Perth. The backlash is part of a widespread resistance from artists whose works have been fed into computers without their knowledge or permission, only to see recognisable variants popping up across the internet. “Nothing has ever brought us together…

Missed deadline almost cancels Anzac march A FORGOTTEN application form and a lost email threatened to scupper next April’s Anzac Day parade, but a last-minute decision by Perth council to cough up funding will see it go ahead. The ad-hoc approval sparked concerns from councillor Rebecca Gordon that Perth was reverting to the kind of…

PERTH has “literally no plan” to protect its native vegetation after the McGowan government quietly axed a mapping project under the cover of Christmas, says Greens MLC Brad Pettitt. The Strategic Assessment of the Perth and Peel Region was supposed to outline which areas of remaining bush would be protected and what would be available for…

A GROUP of elderly conscripts say they feel abandoned by their younger comrades who’ve excluded them from a campaign to get extended medical coverage for those who did national service. Nasho Fair Go is lobbying the Albanese government to issue “gold cards” to cover all the medical needs of those who were conscripted in the…

FROM playing street cricket to camping on the coast, the City of Vincent Local History Centre will be featuring local memories of summers past in its suburbs throughout January. This week’s story takes us to a time when backyard swimming pools were as rare as hen’s teeth.   TODAY, there are about 1200 backyard pools…

THEY’RE specks on a map, islands almost overlooked in the Age of Discovery, but legend shrouds them and they could hold the secret to a long-lost treasure. When author and shipwreck hunter Graeme Henderson visited the Cocos (Keeling) and Christmas islands in 2015/16 with fellow members of Wreck Check and a representative from the Cultural…

THE heartwarming story of how a community once notorious for its slaughter of whales opened its heart to a couple of researchers to help speed their recovery is one of four Blue Yarns at the Oceanlife Festival. Albany was home to Australia’s last commercial whaling station and the site of bitter clashes between whalers and…

WITH a full-blown drama playing out next door, around 35 former national servicemen and their wives gathered at the Fremantle Army Museum last Friday to train up for a new battle. As police bailed up an alleged armed robber on the roof of the Naval Store and confined the Nashos (as they’re known) to the…

THE respected Fremantle author and editor who ‘discovered’ Australian classic This Fortunate Life and mentored a generation of WA literati died last week aged 70. Wendy Jenkins had been an editor at Fremantle Press for 40 years before retiring in 2020, and the authors she nurtured included double Miles Franklin Award winner Kim Scott and…