Ron Williams

Ron Williams is not the oldest author in Australia. He is not even the oldest author in his home suburb of Wickham. But I contend I am the oldest author living in Wickham in Australia who finished 30 Titles in a series of books that describe the Social History of Australia from 1939 to 1968. That is, over a 30 year period. This is my claim to uniqueness.

But nobody cares. I don't care if nobody cares. I am not at all interested in all the folly of fame, or notoriety. I just want to eat my croissants on the porch on Sunday mornings, and enjoy sniffing my little bed of gladdies. And, it is true to say, I enjoyed my researching of the newspapers I used as my source, and whipping the best stories of each year up into a 170 page book.

How nice it was to review 1939 Letters to the Editor from the British Times and see the wonderful range of oh-so-English addresses and the double-barrelled names of their writers. How gruelling it was to see the names of dead men filling Page Five on the Papers in WWII and the Korean and Vietnam wars. How delightfully quixotic to realise that the rise in feminism coincided with the incidence of air conditioning in offices. How nostalgic to remember that Bob Menzies never campaigned in classrooms, being smart enough to realise that the scrubbers had no vote.

Those golden days are now gone for me. I have given my quill back to the family duck. It could be that this will be the very last thing I ever write.