Author's Blog 15 April '26:
Here is some dialogue from The Diamond of the Desert describing the English colonial empire into which Western Australia almost accidentally fell. Maggie became obsessed with the idea of the pioneer from the description by her beloved teacher, Mr O’Hara as he first introduced a whole world away from the quiet shores of Blackrock, Ireland:
As he spoke he moved to the wall and a large map of the world, and he traced his finger slowly across the seas that separated first England from Ireland, and then the British Isles from the far distant Australia.
“Imagine you’re on a boat” he began. “A great sailing ship travelling off to the Great Southern Land!” As he spoke his finger moved slowly south, over the seas and away from Blackrock’s quiet shores.
He named the English colonies as he went – a bewildering number of places across the distant shores of Africa, Asia and beyond. New nations and wild and exotic lands, all claimed by the British Empire.
“On the west coast of Africa, here” he pointed. “Gibraltar, The Gambia, Sierra Leone; Gold Coast, Togo, British Cameroon…”
Seemingly forever south his finger continued, naming a further ten colonies of southern Africa. But the Southern Land was still half a world away. His finger moved north then, around the Cape of Good Hope and through even more countries: the colonies of Zanzibar, Tanganyika, the Seychelles, Somaliland, Socotra, Aden and Oman, naming them as he went.
His finger moved east now, sailing them past India and into south-east Asia and he continued to list the colonies as it moved over the miles of sea: “India, Burma, Ceylon, the Andaman Islands, the Maldive Islands, Malaya – and these groups of islands too – Cocos and Christmas Islands…”
Finally, very nearly at the bottom of the map itself, his finger came to rest along the west coast of Australia – a massive land, though the outline and features were still largely incomplete.
“The Great Southern Land” he said, before pausing and taking a closer look to find his target destination, a faint dot on the expansive, world-wide lands of the British Empire.
“And the Swan River Colony – here. The newest colony of them all, children – it’s barely ten years old, so younger than many of you here!
This huge new land so far from here is home to barely a few thousand English and Irish people now. Can you imagine the adventures they must have? The hardships they must endure, striking out a living there, at the very bottom of the world…” He paused a moment for effect.