By MICK ROBERTS © SAID to be a modest man, publican James Alexander Martin managed to keep from an official government inquest how he saved the life of a drowning man when he gave evidence in 1914. Jim Martin was… Read More ›
Centennial Hotel Helensburgh
The Floyds: Illawarra’s beef & beer barons
By MICK ROBERTS © FOR over a century beef and beer were synonymous with the Floyd family name. Four generations of Floyds were successful butchers and hoteliers in the northern region of the Illawarra, south of Sydney, leaving a legacy… Read More ›
Sutherland’s Railway Hotel, where half-naked, drunken men ‘fought like tigers’, their ‘disfigured faces bruised and torn’
By MICK ROBERTS © THE workers camps that sprang up for the men building the government railway south of Sydney during the mid to late 1880s became notorious for their violence and heavy drinking. The camps, which also included men… Read More ›