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The heroine of THE GOLDMINER'S SISTER, Eliza Penrose, is a school teacher (and the working title for the book was THE SCHOOLMISTRESS) Not by choice but by necessity. There were few options for well educated women like Eliza who found themselves down on their luck... governess, companion... school teacher?
One of the ghosts I needed to lay to rest was my own memories of school. I was born in Kenya and I can only think of my early schooling as terribly unhappy (although I'm sure they weren't - after all my best friend from those days, is still one of my oldest and dearest friends). Maybe it was the system of education which had only one end in mind: To equip the students to pass the 11+ examination to permit them to go on to schooling in England. I was doomed to boarding school in England (although a steady diet of Enid Blyton did rather lend a rosy glow to this prospect), only seeing my parents for the long summer holidays. Then fate rolled the dice and my parents decided to go in the opposite direction and moved us to Australia and I discovered school was not a place of terror. It could be fun! I attended a wonderful girls' school in Melbourne from Grade 5 to Year 12 and I am happy to report that apart from being a complete failure in the Maths department, my later school memories are only happy ones. So what made my early schooling in Kenya so miserable? Corporal punishment for starters - one teacher had a cream and blue painted ruler with which she would strike the errant pupil over the knuckles. I remember teachers who were bullies, inedible school lunches... Ah! Do you think I might have used THE GOLDMINER'S SISTER to exorcise some of my ghosts? Although quite why Eliza has a passion for calculus is yet to be explained! Thankfully, as grey as my own memories are, at least I didn't go to school in the nineteenth century (think Jane Eyre's Lowood School). I'm not sure when Eliza Penrose told me she was a schoolmistress but once we had settled on her occupation I realised I needed to do some work! So I took myself off to Sovereign Hill... a living goldfields museum in Ballarat where there are a number of different types of schools set up, complete with teachers and, if it is a school day, pupils. It is a popular outing for schools and the kids get dressed up in clothes of the day. What struck me watching several sessions in progress, how the children fell into the role playing. No talking in class, no cheeking the teacher. They basically did what they were told. Of course the presence of a long birch cane in the teacher's hand was probably a psychological deterrent. Armed with the visual knowledge of schools on goldfields I returned home, only to find that in 1873 (the year THE GOLDMINER'S SISTER is set), the entire system of education in Victoria changed. The 1872 Education Act established a proper Education Department, removed funding from non government schools and effectively established a secular, compulsory education "For the first time in this colony, the young will now have an opportunity of acquiring the rudiments of education unmixed with the leaven of sectarianism, and every child, no matter what its parents' circumstances may be, will receive at the hands of the state that key which, rightly used, unlocks whole stores of knowledge, from whose ample treasures the patient and industrious may freely help themselves. If due effect be given to the compulsory clauses, none will grow up in that gross ignorance which is such a fruitful mother of crime, which fills our gaols, and yearly robs honest industry of a large portion of its reward." (The Argus December 1872). Into the bin went all my notes on education on the goldfields, but what I did have was the 1872 Act and its regulations which gave me the entire structure of the education system, from the classification and licensing of teachers (including the assistant 'pupil' teachers which were older children, paid to assist in the classroom with the younger children), the establishment of the local Boards of Advice, pay scales and... pure gold... the curriculum and yes it did include Military Drills so beloved of Flora Donald. And on the subject of Flora Donald... the tawse. This peculiarly Scottish modification of a belt or a cane sounds absolutely dreadful. Made of heavy leather split into two at one end, it must have instilled terror into a schoolroom. In this BBC article "The Lochgelly Tawse was made by cutting 2ft long strips of leather from pre-tanned and pre-curried hides. The leather would then be dressed and cut halfway up the middle to form the tails. The particular design of the tails provided the searing nip when it struck the student's hand. However, the Lochgelly method was preferable in that the tails were "edged" in order to prevent drawing blood." It was still being used right up until the late 1980s. It makes my teacher's blue and cream ruler look tame, but I can still remember the terror of anticipation as she raised her hand to strike. So what are your memories of school days...? Images from Sovereign Hill Before I begin let me say that nothing in my background has really equipped me to write stories set in gold mines. I completely bombed out of the maths and science stream at school at the age of fifteen. My world was always history and literature and the creative arts. I studied Law (and history) at university. I’ve worked as a lawyer and also served in the armed forces so I am eminently well qualified to write about war and soldiers. I understand that world! I can knock over a book set in the English Civil War as if it were an integral part of my DNA, but hard rock gold mining…? This requires hard rock research! So why on earth would I choose to set a series of books around a gold mine and how, did I go about researching the technical aspects of nineteenth century mining? I am fortunate (some would say… blessed) to be married to a mechanical engineer. Now if any of you have a mechanical engineer in your life, you will know what I mean when I say they know everything about everything… and they really do. Mr S, my engineer, comes from a long line of tin miners in Cornwall. We have visited Geevor Tin Mine in Cornwall where his ancestors worked for generations and nothing quite beats the experience of going down into those hand-hewn tunnels. I can see why they emigrated to Australia! Sharp eyed readers will note the odd reference to Geevor in the book. (see pic of author in Geevor Mine below) The instinct to fossick for gold is in Mr S’s blood and that is how we first came to Walhalla one February many years ago, armed with gold pans and ambition. Needless to say, in all our many trips to Walhalla he has never found a speck of gold… except once and that incident still rankles. (He found a lump of quartz and broke it open… being a good host he gave it to the young tourist who was with him who threw it away claiming it had to be fools gold. Every time we go back to Walhalla Mr S looks for that lump of quartz. C’est la vie.) So, I have resident expert on all things mechanical and gold related and to give him credit, he’s been brilliant… in fact never has he been so engaged with anything I have written as these Maiden’s Creek books. So much so that he ‘suggested’ it would be wonderful to show the world that mechanical engineers are true hero material. After 35 years of marriage, I am still starry eyed about this wonderful man so I agreed and this is why the hero of THE GOLDMINER’S SISTER, Alec McLeod, is an engineer. But, between us, there were a number of times I nearly gave up on poor Alec. When Ian (Alec’s brother) says to him: ‘She’s strong and healthy and properly raised. That’s all you need in a wife.’ ‘No it’s not. I need a companion who shares my interests.’ Ian laughed. ‘Machinery and mines? Really, Alec?’ ‘My point exactly, Ian.’ That was me, silently screaming at my hero… However, he comes good in a solid, engineer way and turned into one of my favourite heroes. Is he modelled on Mr S? Not really… Mr S is not a tall, good looking Scotsman (Mr S is a tall, good looking South Australian!). However even a detailed blow by blow description of the gold mining process (see my eyes glaze over?) is no substitute for seeing the real thing in action and, being a visual person, I took myself off for a day’s research at our fabulous Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. Apart from indulging myself in a little ride in a coach (authenticity is very important), I braved the wonderful volunteers who keep the authentic gold processing equipment running. These men are fanatics… they live for their steam driven engines and to have a tame visitor who seems genuinely interested in steam boilers- see pic below-, piston engines and battery stampers is their idea of heaven (cue lots more explanation!). I have to say SEEING these great machines in action is worth a million words. It has left me in awe of our nineteenth century forebears and their inventiveness. What staggers me more than anything is how they moved what were ENORMOUS pieces of heavy equipment into the inaccessible sites of the Walhalla goldfields. I give you as an example… the wheel from the Morning Star mine (pic below) can still be seen and has, amazingly, survived bushfires. Walking in to get to it is no mean feat today, let alone carrying it in piece by piece and assembling. Much of the equipment for the Walhalla mines was shipped to Port Albert, loaded on to bullock drays and hauled over the mountains. No train reached Walhalla until the early 1900s by which time the mines were in decline. And I can't go without mentioning the fabulous guides at Walhalla's own LONG TUNNEL MINE (on which the Maiden's Creek Mine is closely based). They are so knowledgeable and so passionate about this amazing tribute to the tenacity of our forebears. If you get to Walhalla... put this top of your visiting list! And mining was inherently dangerous. In THE POSTMISTRESS I touched on one of the risks of the hand drilling operation. In THE GOLDMINER’S SISTER, Alec worries about the new, more efficient pneumatic drills that are coming and he is right to be concerned. These drills would be nicknamed ‘the widow makers’ because the dust they produced killed so many miners. But by far the biggest risk to the mines were collapses and I spent some time researching one of Australia’s worst mine disasters, the Creswick Mine Disaster. When the Australasian Mine collapsed in December 1882, 22 men lost their lives. And to get a taste of what it would have been liked to be a miner trapped in a mine, Sovereign Hill has a recreation of the Creswick Mine Disaster experience. Nothing, but nothing, beats a sensory experience – even though you may only be in the dark for a few seconds with rushing water coming at you… The other joy at Sovereign Hill were the schools and being term time, they were in full swing with modern children at the desks and terrifying teachers in crinolines. I remember taking my own sons to a school there and they were very grateful to be schooled in modern times, although in some ways my own schooling of the 1960s hadn’t really progressed much further! The living museum provided me with plenty of material for Eliza’s school in Maiden’s Creek. Even though I am writing about matters outside my direct experience, the wonderful thing about research is access to good books, knowledgeable people and, if you are lucky, hands-on three-dimensional experiences. I hope I was somewhat successful in bringing all of that together in the book but most of all I hope you love my schoolmistress heroine, Eliza and my engineer hero, Alec, as much as I do! "There’s some will say that Maiden’s Creek is the town of lost souls and broken hearts. We come looking for refuge from our past."  Welcome back to Maiden's Creek... whether you first visited this isolated gold mining settlement in the remote mountains of Gippsland THE POSTMISTRESS or you are new to town, you are assured of an interesting visit. The year is 1873 and over a year has passed since Caleb and Adelaide Hunt left Maiden's Creek to travel to England. Caleb's Shenandoah Mine is now under the management of his partner, Will Penrose, and his position at the Maiden's Creek Mine has been taken by a Scottish Engineer, Alec McLeod. Alec has left a tragic past behind in Scotland and he and his brother, Ian, have come to Australia to start a new life. When he took on the Shenandoah mine, Will Penrose wrote to his sister, Eliza asking her to join him. It has not been easy for Eliza, a teacher in a girl's school and responsible for her mother, to make the voyage but on a cold, winter's day she finally arrives in Maiden's Creek... Readers of THE POSTMISTRESS will recognise the townspeople ... Netty and Amos Burrell, Lil and her girls, the bankers and their wives... and there are a few new faces in this town of secrets! THE GOLDMINER'S SISTER is on sale in print everywhere good books are sold in Australia and New Zealand, as an ebook (click HERE for your favourite links) and also in audio from Audible, Amazon and other audio retailers. And if you would like an autographed copy please click HERE. 
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Alison StuartAlison writes historical romances and short stories set in England and Australia and across different periods of history. Archives
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