MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
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Diary of a swagman
ALEX HALL is dazzled by contemporary descriptions of life and rural work in 19th century Wales and Australia
UNUSUAL SYMPATHY: Aboriginal Farmers at Parker's Protectorate, Mt Franklin, Franklinford, Victoria, 1858
[Antoine Fauchery and Richard Daintree/CC]
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
The missing sister, the vengeful WAG, cruise ship claustrophobia, and reanimated Avengers
Three great releases of lost concerts by Duke Ellington Orchestra, John Taylor & Stan Sulzman, and Joe Henderson
To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
Pity The Swagman. The Australian Odyssey of a Victorian Diarist
Bethan Phillips, Y Olfa, £16.99
ON a cold December evening in 1868 Joseph Jenkins, a Welsh tenant farmer aged 50 had had enough. He abandoned his wife and eight surviving children and trudged overland to Tregaron Station, thence to Aberystwyth, on to Liverpool and bought a one-way ticket to Australia.
The proximate cause of this sudden departure wasn’t economic, and he wasn’t leaving to remit funds back home. Joseph was good at farming. Despite the Welsh winters his cattle were prize winners. He was a renowned poet, much in demand for verses at weddings. He was instrumental in getting rail services into Cardiganshire. A faithful agent of the aristocracy he canvassed in elections for the preferred landlord class.
But he wasn’t an easy man to live with in and May 1868 his family severely beat him up.
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