Saturday, 19 March 1932, the day of the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, one of the most significant occasions in the history of the city of Sydney. The public mood, however, was apprehensive more than it was festive. As one senior journalist later reflected, 'the city was jumpy, jumpy as I've never known it since'. For one thing, the leader of the right-wing New Guard had vowed that Premier Lang would not open the Bridge. The police and security authorities were concerned that the New Guard might kidnap the premier, and stage a coup d'etat. All eyes scanned the horizon, awaiting the approach of an angry right-wing mob.Into these confused and tense circumstances rode a lone horseman, wielding an ex-cavalry sword. He was Captain Francis De Groot, a former Hussar and Irishman- also a senior member of the New Guard. Slashing the ribbon with his sword he declared the Sydney Harbour Bridge open 'in the name of the decent and respectable people of New South Wales'.Relying upon hitherto unused archival material, as well as manuscripts found in Ireland, Andrew Moore tells the story of the Bridge opening in all its colourful detail. This sheds fresh light on the bizarre circumstances that had brought New South Wales to the brink of civil war.Irish Fascist. Australian Legend is also the first biography to be published of Francis De Groot. The handsome, enigmatic Irishman grew up in Dublin, a member of an elite Irish Huguenot family. Prior to World War One he worked as a merchant seaman, coal lumper and antique dealer. After serving on the Western Front, he returned to Sydney to manufacture reproduction furniture of the finest quality.Captain De Groot became part of Australian folklore for his part in the Harbour Bridge opening. Yet, through furniture and antiques, his contribution to the cultural life of his adopted city and country was as profound as his celebrated role in opening Sydney's famous 'Coathanger'.Shortlisted for THE STATE RECORDS NSW - JOHN AND PATRICIA WARD HISTORY PRIZE 2006 (New South Wales Premier' s History Awards). A NSW Sesquicentenary of Responsible Government publication.

‘Remember now as you go by, as you are now so once was I ...’ From unmarked plots to striking monuments, Glasnevin Cemetery has become home to a microcosm of Irish society since it opened its gates in 1832. Every grave has a story to tell, but with more than a million souls resting there, many of these stories have been long forgotten. So Once Was I sets out to celebrate the quirky, strange and sometimes unbelievable tales of lesser-known figures in Ireland’s famous cemetery. Representing all threads of Irish society’s rich tapestry, from lion tamers to pioneering aviators, the mistress of the macabre to a mysterious, murderous count, forgotten revolutionaries to the mammy of Irish cooking, the cemetery’s population is reanimated in this book through vivid retellings of their lives. This intriguing tour through the national necropolis brings back to life those Joyce called the ‘faithful dead’, an intricate mosaic of stories rediscovered among the grandeur of Glasnevin’s famed monuments.

'Bone's voice has definition in an ocean of mediocre peers.' Weekend Australian 'Up We Grew is a reflective, whimsical book full of personal memories, both sweet and sour...Bone offers a deliciously colourful patchwork of memories carefully chosen and beautifully written. Her vivid pictures come easily to life.' The Age '[Bone] has the journalist's sense of looking beneath the veneer of what childhood appears to be, to see what is really going on.' Sunday Tasmanian Resilience. Why do some children in difficult circumstances seem blessed with it, while others struggle to cope with life? And are Australian children generally less resilient than they used to be? In Up We Grew, award-winning journalist Pamela Bone explores the Australian childhood through the prism of her own experience as a daughter, a sister and a mother. Taking as her starting point her own story of growing up in a small town on the Murray River after the war, Bone illuminates the influences that shape us from early life: family, friendships, school. Through interviews with Helen Coonan, Max Gillies, Terry Lane, Mark Latham, Michael Leunig, Joanna Murray-Smith and Natasha Stott Despoja, she considers how some famous and less well-known Australians coped with the death of a parent, divorce, difference, talent, opportunity, money, or the lack thereof. Richly researched and vividly written, by turns nostalgic and unblinkingly sentimental, Up We Grew provides remarkable insight into how we are tempered and transformed by our childhood.