My Profile

A free-lance historian for over twenty five years, 1993 to 2008 I was also local historian for Pittwater Council. I have experience writing local, regional and thematic social history. I have conducted research using a variety of material, including council documents, primary and secondary sources. As a local historian I worked closely with communities gathering information, images and interviews to elicit their history. I have communicated history through writing, talks, guided walks, several exhibitions, outdoor display panels and plaques, and web sites. I have worked in a variety of Sydney suburbs: Liverpool, Rockdale, Ku-ringai, Northern Beaches, Sutherland, Randwick, Lane Cove and several areas in rural NSW. Increasingly I have worked with oral history, interviewing for the National Library of Australia and City of Sydney Oral History, recording voices and experiences that enliven and illuminate the past. I have conducted several significance assessments (National Library Community Heritage grants), including libraries’ local studies, a local museum, a community women’s health centre and the State Library of NSW oral history collection. MA Public History, UTS, 2003, Graduate Diploma in Local and Applied History, UNE, 1996. BA Hons. South Asian History & Social Anthropology, School of Oriental & African Studies, London University, 1977