Times & Tides: A Middle Harbour Memoir
About this ebook
Unlike most Australian city environs, Middle Harbour was almost entirely neglected during the first two centuries of European settlement. As such, it still contains regions of virtually untouched bushland, and a surprising history to match.
Times & Tides by acclaimed historian Gavin Souter is an exploration of this unique – and precious – part of Australia.
In prose that is lucid and informed, Souter trawls back and forth in time to create an evocative and multi-layered narrative encompassing Aboriginal life, European arrival, modern suburbs and the natural history of bays, creeks and the bush.
Fascinating and insightful, Times & Tides is also a very personal account by someone who has lived within sight of Middle Harbour for almost fifty years.
First published in 2004, and rereleased now for the first time digitally, Times & Tides won the North Shore Historical Society’s Isabella Brierley Prize.
About the author
Gavin Souter AO was born in 1929 in Sydney. He was educated at Kempsey High School and Scots College in Warwick, Queensland, before graduating BA from the University of Sydney. He joined The Sydney Morning Herald as a journalist in 1947 and worked there for 40 years, serving as a correspondent in New York and London and later as an Assistant Editor of the newspaper.
He is the author of eleven works of non-fiction, including A Peculiar People, The Australians in Paraguay (1968), which won the Foundation of Australian Literary Studies award; Lion & Kangaroo, The Initiation of Australia 1901–1919 (1976); Company of Heralds (1981), which also won the Foundation for Australian Literary Studies award; and Heralds and Angels, the House of Fairfax 1841–1990 (1992), which won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award.
Gavin was Vice President of the Australian Society of Authors between 1975 and 1978 and Deputy Chairman of the Commonwealth Films Board of Review between 1981 and 1984.
In 1960, he won the W.G. Walkley Award for Australian Journalism; in 1988 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), and raised to Officer level (AO) in 1995; and in 2001 he was awarded the Centenary Medal.
Gavin lives with his wife in Sydney.
