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| Lensie and Tony Matthews |
Tony
Matthews is a Queensland writer and historian. He is the author of thirty
published books, the writer and director of thirteen television
documentaries and hundreds of historical programs broadcast by ABC Radio. His
books have been published in Australia, the United Kingdom and America. One of
his books: Shadows Dancing-Japanese
Espionage Against the West, 1939-45, has been translated and published in
Czechoslovakia.
Tony began writing largely as a result of his university studies and the experiences he gained while travelling. He found that he loved expressing the results of historical research, using both nonfiction and fiction as his literary platforms.
"I
think one of my driving passions is to reveal historical injustices," Dr
Matthews said. "Of course it’s easier to judge events in hindsight, but there
have been many injustices in Australia’s history and if someone doesn’t reveal
them then they will be lost and forgotten forever".
After
his arrival in Australia in 1972, Tony immediately launched himself into
regional historical research. Just two days after arriving in Warwick he was
seated before one of the city’s elderly residents conducting his first
Australian oral history interview. Since then he has interviewed many hundreds
of older generation Australians from all walks of life covering a wide variety
of topics.
Tony’s writing career in Australia really began with the production of a series of three highly-acclaimed historical documentaries which were broadcast on the Seven Network. These were titled: This Dawning Land, and were produced in three separate episodes: A history of Maryborough, Queensland, 1842-1893; A history of the Gympie Goldrush; A history of Bundaberg, Queensland.
Lensie
recalls "A
tremendous amount of work went into the production of this series, for instance
while making the Gympie program, for one of the film-shoots, it was necessary
to build a mining township in the middle of the bush. We had a cast and crew of
around forty people who had to be fed and cared for. It was incredible; we
spent the whole weekend with the crew and everyone worked very hard making it
as authentic as possible. We advertised on SEQ Television for people to donate
their old sheets, and I bought a sewing machine in order to sew the sheets together
thus providing us with plenty of tents for the film-set. "
She continued "The next shoot was on a long weekend in January and it was incredibly hot; we were filming on a property outside Tiaro. The black river-rocks threw the heat back in our faces, and the actors, including the man who played James Nash (Jimmy Pickersgill), were dressed in long pants with thick flannelette shirts. We all cooked in the burning sun. By the end of the day we had worked so hard that poor Jimmy had blisters on his feet, but no-one ever complained."
The
This Dawning Land series was quickly
followed by Crosses, Australia’s War
Experience 1914-18., which was broadcast nationally, prime time, as part of
the Australian Impact series on ABC Television. Tony interviewed a number of WWI
diggers for both the documentary and book that followed. These interviews are
now with the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The book remained within the
top five of the Queensland best-seller list for thirteen weeks.
Dr Matthews said that one of his greatest joys is meeting interesting people during the course of his work. "I once met a Lebanese princess living quietly and anonymously in a small Queensland country town," Tony said. "I’ve interviewed war heroes and loads of real Aussie characters and even one man who was very reluctantly involved in burying crates of stolen gold for the Nazis during the war."
Tony and his wife, Lensie, have been working together most of their married life, from the time Tony went freelance in the mid 80s. His first book, This Dawning Land, was published in 1986. Tony has also worked extensively as a freelance journalist, writing for numerous national newspapers and magazines. Additionally he worked as a lecturer in journalism at the University of Southern Queensland’s Hervey Bay campus. Since that time Tony and Lensie have worked on many major projects, mostly regional histories which sometimes resulted in two or three large volumes, and a number of documentary films.
Tony reflects"All projects begin with many months of research, followed by the writing, finding the images/photographs or creating the film scenes. We both share a great love of historical photographs and in recent years after acquiring professional typesetting and graphics software, Lensie has been able to restore damaged photographs, bringing them up to publishing standards."
Lensie continues "We also both enjoy the creative side of our work, bringing all the elements together: the story, the images, the perfect music to create a mood and finally seeing it all come together is immensely satisfying."
To be continued...
Published with Consent from Lensie and Tony Matthews.
Tags: #Blackdeath #Tonymatthews #Lensiematthews ##thisdawningland #crosses #qldhistory #maryborough #Frasercoastlibraries
1 comment:
Aren't we fortunate that Tony and Lensie moved to Australia? We are all living our own and universal oral histories. Sharing oral histories allows incorporation and contribution to our own quality of life. The exceptional high quality and output of this couple readily facilitates improvement in our human condition
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