TALE OF EARLY AUSTRALIA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 493, 3 December 1948, Page 19

TALE OF EARLY AUSTRALIA

New Serial from 2YD ON Tuesday, December 7, 2YD will present the’ first instalment of a romafhtic story about old Australia which is to be heard twice weekly-at 7.30 pm. on Tuesdays amd 7.20 p.m, on Thursdays. The story, in five books each containing 52 fifteen-minute episodes, tells of people whd overcame the difficulties and hardships of pioneer settlement in the Australian colony of Port Jackson. John Appleton is the scriptwriter and Therese Desmond the producer. The title is Hester’s Diary. The heroine, Hester Veronica Carmichael (nee Bamford) was borh in 1788 at Bamford Priory, Norfolk. Her father was a country gentleman whose fortune declined through his uneconomic interest in things other than the farming of his lands. But the Bamford family was in the fashion of the day. There were five girls and three boys, whose

mother was mainly concerned with launching her daughters in London society and establishing her sons in lucrative professions. The Diary opens at this point (the year is 1809) and follows Hester to the infant colony- of New South Wales in 1813. There she marries an Army officer who resigns his commission and takes up land, becoming one of the pioneer "free settlers." With this development in the story-when Hester and her husband become identified with the early life of the Port Jackson colony-Hester’s Diary reaches the end of Book I. The remaining four books! describe how Hester fared for the remainder of her life in the romantic days of Australian colonisation. The role of Hester is played by Elaine Montgomerie and the part of John Carmichael (her husband) by John Tate. There are 31 other players in the cast.