The Old Balmain House Read online

The Old Balmain House

  Novel by

  Graham Wilson

  Copyright

  The Old Balmain House

  Second Edition

  Graham Wilson

  Copyright Graham Wilson 2016

  Published by BeyondBeyond Books

  ISBN 9780987197115

  Acknowledgments

  I wish to thank members of my extended family for information on our family’s early history in Australia, particularly my Aunt Edith for passing on many stories compiled by others.

  Also thanks to the various people who have reviewed this novel in the four years since first published. Your advice, mostly positive, is greatly valued. From it and a structural review by KJ Eyre, I have substantially revised this book and released a new edition. It has many changes but keeps the main elements of the original story. So thank you all!

  Authors Note

  This is a work of fiction.

  Balmain is a suburb of Sydney where my wife and I, with three children, lived for seven years. Our house was like the cottage described in the first chapter of this book and we bought it as told here. Our pleasure living there and in Balmain were real.

  However, while many locations and parts of the history of Balmain are true, some locations and most characters are fictitious. For those interested, the factual information behind this story is given in the Appendix at the end of the book. Further information on the Balmain Peninsula is available from sources such as the Balmain Public Library, the State and Mitchell Libraries of NSW and the Balmain Association.

  The purpose of this novel is not to merge fiction and historical fact, but rather to use some historical facts from Sydney’s early development along with a range of geographical locations around Sydney Harbour as a canvas onto which a work of imagination is painted.

  Parts of the canvas are known facts from my early family history, or the history of the area. These are like occasional dots of paint giving reference points and shadowed outlines. All the intervening layered detail to make this word picture has been created within my mind. If some parts approximate but differ from history or current reality, this is entirely accidental. I apologise if it causes offense through appearing to misrepresent true facts.

  The idea which became this novel began soon after we purchased our much loved Balmain cottage. We discovered a sepia photo of a small girl who lived in the house about 100 years ago. Later, in a writing class, I was given an ornate perfume bottle, and asked to imagine the outline of a story based on it. I imagined it was a treasured possession of the girl whose photo we had found and created jotted down headings for a series of scenes which told her story. Those points, imagined over five minutes, became this novel. It is an imagining which I hope gives pleasure. This is the real purpose of this book.

  Family Tree – Main Characters

  Rodgers Family

  Archibald – Great Grandfather of Sophie – migrant to Australia from Scotland in 1841, builder of the first Balmain house, ‘Roisin’, in 1842

  Hannah – first wife of Archibald – died in 1849

  Helen – second wife of Archibald

  Alison – daughter of Archibald and Hannah, grandmother of Sophie

  Maria – daughter of Alison, mother of Sophie, wife of Jimmy Williams

  Edith – (narrator’s aunt), great granddaughter of Archibald Rodgers, through second wife, Helen

  McVey Family

  Tom – First Sydney employer of Archibald and a family friend. Builder of second Balmain house, ‘Ocean View’, in 1843

  Mary – Wife of Tom, close friend of Hannah and surrogate mother to Alison

  Buller Family

  John Buller – close friend of Archibald and joint business owner in Sydney

  Charles Buller – son of John, husband of Alison and father of Maria

  Williams Family

  Michael Williams –Welsh migrant, builder of 1870 Balmain house, Casa Ardwyn, father of Jimmy

  Rosa –wife of Michael, daughter of Sophia, mother of Jimmy

  Sophia –wife of ship’s captain, Edward Martin, of Spanish descent from Philippines, grandmother of Jimmy

  Jimmy – father of Sophie and Rachel, husband of Maria

  Sophie –central character to story, born 1900, missing since 1908

  Rachel– younger sister of Sophie

  Sarah – daughter of Rachel, half cousin to narrator’s Aunt Edith