Lucy Straughan

http://eu.steinway.com/en/news-events/press-releases/steinway-sons-600000th-piano-fibonacci/ — Mathematics crops up throughout A Distant Prospect as one of the intellectual avenues which Lucy employs to make sense of life in a world that is not always as one would wish. Fibonacci numbers and leg calipers were Lucy’s first impressions on her bemused classmates at St Dominics in February […]

Lucy, Fibonacci and the Golden Mean

November 7, 2015 in Lucy Straughan / Mathematics by francis

Horse market in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway — It’s Melbourne Cup Day 2014, so here’s a moment from Chapter 15, when Lucy visits Pim’s Aunt Rose in Moss Vale. Pim wanted to know all about Ireland. So I began to tell her bits and pieces about the little four-roomed cottage where we lived, about the Claddagh and the […]

Melbourne Cup Day and memories of Irish racehorses

November 4, 2014 in Irish / Lucy Straughan by francis

Keep Calm and let the music teacher handle it — Annette’s character Mrs Epstein is far more than a music teacher. (Most music teachers are!) In Chapter Eight of A Distant Prospect, Mrs Epstein insists that Lucy can, and will, play in a string quartet, for the good of others as well as Lucy’s. Mrs Epstein had very weak, dark […]

Keep calm, and thank your music teacher!

August 17, 2014 in Lucy Straughan / Mrs Epstein / Music by francis

Premature judgement

July 10, 2014 in Lucy Straughan / Premature Judgement / Suffering / Themes by francis

Are you loving the music in Annette’s story? Lots of readers are bringing the rich musical repertoire of A Distant Prospect gloriously to life, by enjoying performances they find online. Here, for instance, Leonard Rose (cello) and Glenn Gould (piano) play the first movement of Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in A […]

Enjoying Beethoven cello and violin sonatas with Lucy and Della

June 5, 2014 in Beethoven / Cello / Della Sotheby / Lucy Straughan / Mrs Epstein / Music / Violin by francis

When Sue-Ellen Paulsen, Principal Cello of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, launched A Distant Prospect in Hobart, it was always going to be her cello performance of “The Swan”, from Camille Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals, to make the crowd swoon! “The Swan” was also Della Sotheby’s first request, upon discovering […]

Everyone’s cello favourite – Saint-Saens’ “The Swan”

April 10, 2014 in Cello / Della Sotheby / Lucy Straughan by francis

Lucy here describes her home in County Galway, which she fled aged 8 in 1921, and how it compares to the house which her da found for them in Sydney’s Newtown. ‘It was a little four room cottage with a thatched roof and a hearth. A kitchen there was in […]

An Irish girl in a strange land

March 16, 2014 in Irish / Lucy Straughan / Newtown / Sydney by francis

St Patrick’s Day vs Empire Week – Erin go braugh!

March 13, 2014 in Della Sotheby / Irish / Lucy Straughan / Newtown by francis

The hapless 2013 England cricketers have so far lost all four Ashes Tests, with Australia now well-placed to pull off a 5-0 whitewash in Sydney next week. How very different from the mighty 1928 England team touring Australia, which comprehensively beat Australia 4-1! (That series was summarised in this earlier […]

Australian cricket’s a credit to the Empire

December 30, 2013 in Cricket / Morgan Straughan / Wally Sotheby by francis

The vibrant cultural scene in December 1928 saw at least five performances of Handel’s Messiah in Sydney Town Hall, so of course Annette Young wrote one into A Distant Prospect! The first Messiah to raise the roof was by the 600-voice Welsh Choral Society on 8 December, repeating its success […]

Christmas isn’t Christmas without Handel’s Messiah

December 21, 2013 in Lucy Straughan / Music / Sydney by francis

In Chapter 48, the eve of the climactic Conservatorium competition, Lucy practices getting her cello to the stage without callipers on her polio-weakened legs, when disaster strikes… I was feeling more optimistic than I had been for months about doing away with my right calliper. As far as walking on […]

The day I broke my cello

December 18, 2013 in Cello / Lucy Straughan / Morgan Straughan by francis

Trust in God. Lucy observes how recently-ordained country curate, Father John Connolly, has to deal with accepting the will of God, when she visits Pim Connolly’s Aunt Rose in Moss Vale, in the winter of 1928. We passed the church and Pim slowed the pony to a walk. Coming towards […]

Life of a young country priest in Moss Vale

December 7, 2013 in Lucy Straughan / Pim Connolly / Suffering by francis

In 1928, the arches of the Bridge were still two years from meeting, but already this massive undertaking was a sign of confidence for a hopeful future, one worthy of such a mighty public work. In A Distant Prospect its slow but inexorable progress symbolises the hope of a better […]

Sydney Harbour Bridge

November 19, 2013 in Lucy Straughan / Morgan Straughan / Sydney by francis

“Infantile paralysis. No known treatment. Do the best you can with the symptoms presenting themselves.” – telegram to trainee bush nurse, Sister Elizabeth Kenny, in 1909. By 1910, the doctor who sent this telegram was amazed to learn that she had treated six children with poliomyelitis, and none were crippled […]

Polio in the 1920s, Sister Kenny and Lucy’s pain

November 17, 2013 in Lucy Straughan / Morgan Straughan / Polio / Suffering by francis

Here is a brief guide to the Irish expressions used by Lucy and her father, Morgan, in A Distant Prospect. A printable version is at Gluais úsáide Gaelach – Glossary of Irish usage. Dia duit: Hello (literal translation: God to you) Dia is Muire duit: Hello (literally, God and Mary to […]

Gluais úsáide Gaelach – Glossary of Irish usage

November 13, 2013 in Irish / Lucy Straughan / Morgan Straughan by francis

Reviewed By Gabrielle Smith A Distant Prospect by Annette Young is a well-written, well-researched novel set in Sydney in 1928. It is basically concerned with the character of an apprehensive, self-conscious, resentful teenager, Lucy Straughan. Following the tragic death of his beloved wife, grieving and poverty-stricken Morgan Straughan escapes the […]

Cardinal Newman Catholic Bookshop reviews A Distant Prospect

October 26, 2013 in Morgan Straughan / Reviews by francis

Annette Young at Sydney Moderns, Art Gallery of NSW, 23 August 2013 — Until October 7, catch Sydney moderns, art for a new world at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, showcasing art and photography from the 1920s and 1930s. Featuring the iconic The Bridge in-curve 1930, by Grace Cossington Smith, which is also the cover art of A Distant Prospect, the […]

Sydney Moderns at the Art Gallery of NSW

July 7, 2013 in Art / Events / Morgan Straughan / Sydney by francis

Lucy faces a dilemma over her cello in A Distant Prospect. So, how do you decide whether to go with Guarneri or Stradivari? Few get a chance to make an informed judgment, but one person who has is the French violinist Renaud Capuçon. For several years, Capuçon played the 1721 […]

Choosing your violin or cello – Guarneri or Stradivari?

November 16, 2012 in Cello / Lucy Straughan / Music by francis

A Distant Prospect – ISBN 9780987435101