Grave of Ann Jane Martin née Hill

Family history research takes us on a journey with many unexpected twists and turns, as Barbara Martin has just discovered. Barbara is a proud and loyal descendant of Ann Forrester's eldest son Charles Robert Martin and has been a great help to me over many years. She and her partner Arthur live in Warwick, QLD, but Arthur has been ill and they have recently spent many months in Brisbane.

This echoes the experience of Barbara's forebear Ann Jane Martin née Hill, the wife of Charles Robert Martin. More than a century ago Ann travelled to Brisbane from Eulo, in outback QLD, but her condition (uterine cancer) proved fatal and she died in Brisbane's Diamantina Hospital on 24 November 1903. Barbara has just written to tell me something important about Ann:

'Whilst we were in Brisbane I contacted the Brisbane City Council re Ann Jane Hill's burial place, and when I was taken to her grave site I was very sad to see it was just a grassy patch of earth with no peg or marker to pinpoint the site. So I arranged for Council to put a plaque on the site - 110 years later, but now it is there for anyone who wishes to visit her resting place. I just felt she would have been so alone in Brisbane, and being so ill and with no family to support her, it must have been awful for her. My photo is attached.'

Well done, Barbara. We all appreciate your act of respect and generosity at a time when you were under great stress yourself.

Lynette Arden, Poet

Lynette Arden is a Forrester descendant who lives in Adelaide. One of her passions is writing poetry and, as one writer to another, some months back she sent me a copy of 'Writers on Parade', the Journal of the Kensington & Norwood Writers Group, Vol 5, 2012.

This well-produced and professional-looking booklet has since been sitting on my desk while I attended to my daughter's affairs in HK and my mother's in Sydney. Belatedly, it's time to blow Lyn's trumpet.

The journal contains some beautiful words by a number of writers, but I particularly loved Lyn's long poem 'When it Rains in Beijing'. The last couple of lines, describing the distant view of tourists walking across the bridge as 'small scribbles outlined against the porcelain sky' was great imagery. Lyn's minimalist Japanese-style piece 'Senryu' was very effective too. Check out Lyn's personal page in that writing group.

PS. I've just discovered Lyn's inclusion in New Poets 15, launched at Writers Week in 2010. The New Poets series is selected competitively State-wide (SA) and contains the work of three poets. Lyn's work was praised in a review of the book, published by Friendly St Poets and Wakefield Press.