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One of the first houses—if not the first house—designed by Arthur William Purnell is currently for sale for just under $AUS1,000,000. ‘Tarina’ in Newcombe Street, Portalington, was designed and constructed by Purnell & Sons, Arthur’s father’s firm, for Mr. P.M. Browne, in 1896. Arthur began working for Purnell & Sons only the year before. The Read more
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A.G. Barlow, the proprietor of Barlow Motors, was one of A.W. Purnell’s best and most interesting clients. In 1926 Barlow Motors sponsored Francis Birtles, an Australian adventurer, and Barlow’s son Alec (a.k.a. Alex), an adventurer in his own right, to drive from Darwin to Melbourne. They did the journey in eight days and 13 hours, Read more
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Recently we saw the compelling Australian documentary Celebrity: Dominick Dunne. What an amazing life he’s had! Besides experiencing more than his fair share of personal tragedies, knowing ‘everybody’ in Hollywood and covering celebrity trials for Vanity Fair, Dunne also produced the late 1950s-early 1960s TV show Adventures in Paradise starring Gardner McKay as dashing Adam Read more
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Australia has many fine mid-20th century hard boiled detective fiction writers: Carter Brown (Alan Yates), Marc Brody (Bill Williams), Larry Kent (various), Eric North (Bernard Cronin), Otto Beeby, and Ian Hamilton, to name just a few. But my favourite is Bant Singer (Charles Shaw). His detective, Denis Aloysius ‘Del’ Delaney, is not only the coolest, Read more
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Above: James Drury, star of the popular US TV Western series The Virginian, visited Australia in the 1960s (although I’m not sure exactly what year). When he arrived at Essendon Airport in Melbourne he was greeted by TV personality Panda (left) and TV singer Val Ruff (wife of Geoff Corke, a.k.a. ‘King Corky, King of Read more
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Grand Final post script: What a disappointing game for Geelong. Where were our forwards? Where were our goal sneaks? What really hurt us was scoring only one goal nine behinds in the second quarter. It should have been nine goals one behind! Oh well, never mind. Gary Ablett, you’re still a star. Tom Harley, you’re Read more
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A very handsome large format book titled The Architectural Arts of A.W. Purnell and the Modern Society of Lingnan has just been published (ISBN 978-7-218-05804-7). It contains essays on Purnell’s architecture by Shi Hongping, Li Suimei, myself, Peng Changxin, Tang Guohua, Lu Qi, Zheng Lipeng, and Ma Wei. It is liberally illustrated with photographs of Read more
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This spectacular art deco backdrop was designed by Arthur Purnell for the Big Business Ball at the Melbourne Town Hall. So far I haven’t been able to find out anything about this event, but judging by Purnell’s design it presumably took place in the late 1920s or early 1930s. ADDENDUM Since first posting this item Read more
Derham Groves 