continued:
Tony Matthews was responsible for writing River of Dreams, the definitive history of Maryborough in Queensland — a task which took two years and resulted in a body of work that encompassed two leather-bound volumes of 550,000 words. This was followed by a similar history for the entire South Burnett region of Queensland. This work, Landscapes of Change, completed in 1997 and launched by the then premier, Rob Borbidge, is also published as a two volume set, each about the size of an Encyclopaedia Britannica. The history totals more than three quarters of a million words; it has been widely acclaimed by academic institutions and a copy is currently on deposit with the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. A number of Tony’s books are also at the Library of Congress in America.
Tony Matthews was responsible for writing River of Dreams, the definitive history of Maryborough in Queensland — a task which took two years and resulted in a body of work that encompassed two leather-bound volumes of 550,000 words. This was followed by a similar history for the entire South Burnett region of Queensland. This work, Landscapes of Change, completed in 1997 and launched by the then premier, Rob Borbidge, is also published as a two volume set, each about the size of an Encyclopaedia Britannica. The history totals more than three quarters of a million words; it has been widely acclaimed by academic institutions and a copy is currently on deposit with the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. A number of Tony’s books are also at the Library of Congress in America.
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| The then premier of Queensland, Rob Borbidge, together with the mayors of South Burnett and author, Dr Tony Matthews, at the launch of Landscapes of Change - A History of the South Burnett |
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| Lensie and Tony Matthews with 'Tony's Tower' - some of the books written by Dr Tony Matthews. Photograph by Jocelyn Watts and reproduced with her permission. |
Lensie says "We’ve also produced a number of independent documentary films, one called Centaur, Death of a Hospital Ship involved Tony interviewing the survivors of the sinking of the Centaur in 1943 when a Japanese submarine torpedoed the ship. My uncle Percy Clegg went down with the ship, although I never knew him as I wasn’t born at the time, it was often something I thought about. We’re proud of making the documentary to honour those who lost their lives in such horrible circumstances, and I felt privileged to have been able to talk to those survivors. It had quite an affect on me."
Tony often finds that he is running against time to capture the memories of the people he and Lensie meet. During the production of the history of Chinchilla Shire, Tony interviewed approximately forty members of the community, two of whom died within months of his recording their important reminiscences. These oral history recordings now form a very significant part of Chinchilla’s local history collection at the library. The Chinchilla Shire history was published in two volumes in 2004 and was awarded a ‘Special Mention’ in the Australian Cultural Studies Awards for, ‘...an outstanding contribution to Australian culture’. A third volume, to complete the set, was published following the amalgamation of councils in Queensland.
Over the past five years, as a community service, Tony and Lensie have been in preservation mode spending many long hours remastering all their television documentaries bringing them into the digital world. Wide Bay residents might remember the This Dawning Land series which aired on SEQ Television many years ago. These have been rescued from oblivion to be digitised onto DVDs. Copies of these programs now form part of the Fraser Coast Libraries’ collections as do all of Tony and Lensie’s other programs.
Lensie has commented, "We had only one chance to save these programs because the old analogue video was breaking down. In some instances we had to have the tapes ‘baked’ by a restoration specialist in Melbourne and this procedure could only be performed once. If it failed, all would be lost. Having said that, most of the programs had to be completely remade with new film footage to replace the areas of vision which were beyond use."
Black Death, the last program to be restored and virtually remade from the ground up is also now available through the Fraser Coast Libraries as are most of Tony’s other books and documentaries.
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| Scenes from Black Death Pnemonic Plague Maryborough, Queensland. |
Screenings of Black Death will be occurring at 10am at the Tiaro Library on the 24th of November, the Hervey Bay Library on 2nd of December and the Maryborough Library on the 4th of December. Bookings are required.
Published with Consent of Lensie and Tony Matthews.
Tags: #Blackdeath #Tonymatthews #Lensiematthews ##thisdawningland #crosses #qldhistory #maryborough #Frasercoastlibraries
1 comment:
The output from this couple is astounding. I feel privileged that the original story tellers have trusted and shared their accounts with Tony and Lensie who in turn have painstakingly documented, shared with the wider community and preserved as best they possibly can. Remarkable. Thank you Tony, Lensie and Fraser Coast Library Staff.
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