'This issue of the Journal contains articles that address constant themes in Northern Territory history – travel, settlement and war. We begin with a contribution by Mickey Dewar on the stories of four young men who travelled the Territory in the years preceding the First World War. Their hopes and dreams as they undertook their adventures in this vast and new land serve as a counterpoint to the impending war - one killed in action soon after arriving at the front; two returning to Australia scarred by the horror of their experience; and one, although not serving, subject to suspicion and alienation on account of his heritage. As Dewar concludes, the war years changed everything in the Territory and for those living there.' (Editorial introduction)
'Clyde Cornwall Fenton is well-known as the Northern Territory's first 'flying doctor'. Who hasn't read his book 'Flying Doctor', first published in 1947 and still in print? As the back cover blurb of the 1982 edition says:
'This intrepid adventurer and self-taught pilot flew his own single engine Gypsy Moth, without navigation equipment, charts and landing strips .... A folk hero, he became a Territory legend during his lifetime.'' (Publication abstract)
'These two excellent volumes fortuitously have appeared together, and can be read consecutively. Yikarni is a collection of historical narratives, mainly told in Gurindji, with an English translation on the opposite page. Charlie Ward, in A Handful of Sand, after a prolegomena that effectively takes up half the book, covers the declining fortunes of the Gurindji since Whitlam’s epic handful of sand.' (Introduction)
'Call of the Outback is a biography of Australian writer Ernestine Hill by Dutch/Australian writer and translator Marianne Van Velzen. Her interest in Hill was piqued as a child coming across The Australian Loneliness as part of her father’s English book collection. Her family, immigrants to Australia in the post Second World War period, came to use Hill’s text as both an aid to learning the language and as a cipher to understanding the new country to which they had come.' (Introduction)
