The Clyde Hotel, scene of the launches of the 2009 and 2010 editions of The Footy Almanac, has a great sporting link. The landlord was once Billy Midwinter, the only man to play Ashes cricket for both England and Australia.
Peter Flynn uncovered two great yarns about Billy. Click on the links below to reveal the full story of Billy Midwinter.
Link 1: The Midwinter File
Link 2: Happy Birthday, Billy (from 2001)
Thanks JTH,
The story of the ‘kidnap’ is a ripper.
What a superb piece of scholarship.
The Clyde should really name something in Bill’s honour.
I DARESAY readers of the first historical yarn are aware that pre-1890s, Bendigo and the Bendigo goldfields area were known as ‘Sandhurst’.
It’s because the officers stationed on that section of the Victorian diggings had graduated from the Sandhurst Military Academy in the Old Dart.
So suburbs such as California Gully, Long Gully et al were part of the burgeoning township of the time.
The present-day city of 100,000-plus did NOT become officially designated as ‘Bendigo’ until the 1890s!!