Grave Tales: Brisbane is a literary collaboration by journalists Chris Adams and Helen Goltz, who dug deep into the past to uncover some lesser-known, but intriguing stories of people buried in five of the city’s cemeteries.
It was the first of what is a growing library, that has the pair uncovering life stories and hunting for history in graveyards across Queensland, and down Australia’s eastern seaboard.
Grave Tales: Bruce Highway, Grave Tales: Sydney; and Grave Tales: Great Ocean Road Country, are others in the collection.
In their words, “The series will travel Australia providing ‘nomads’ the chance to explore our history on their travels.”
Boxer Peter Jackson and fraudster Walter Porriott are both remembered at Toowong Cemetery. The way that they lead their lives couldn’t have been more contrasting, a fact that’s reflected in the style of their headstones.
Theirs are just two of the accounts that are explained within the Grave Tales: Brisbane pages. But it spreads its net wide, including stories of everyday people buried in Lutwyche Cemetery, Lutwyche Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, South Brisbane Cemetery at Dutton Park, Balmoral Cemetery and God’s Acre at Archerfield.
“It’s important to know what happened on the streets that we still walk on, what happened to the people who lived in the houses that we still live in”, says Chris.
And the two history buffs have a new true crime edition due out in April 2019 that is bound to be a page turner.
It’s all about saving Australian history, so they welcome suggestions from readers about interesting graves and background of the people that they memorialize.
The Grave Tales series of stories not laid to rest, are available online. There’s also a weekly podcast that can be accessed on iTunes or Spotify.
