Gold and Mud

Gold and Mud (2008) Post 347

Gold and Mud is a play, published in book form. Sarah and her family came from Scotland when Sarah was two. Her father has a hat shop, but when the gold rush takes many people away from Sydney, the business declines. Soon, Papa sells up ad the family heads off for the gold fields. It's hard work, but over the next few years things slowly come together. Sarah makes friends with Mr Li, an Irish miner and a brother and sister taking photographs and selling lemonade. Mama despairs of the mud. Little Jamie gets ill and big brother Donald goes off to Canada. In the end, Papa decides to go back to a hat shop, and Sarah, now independent, decides to become a photographic apprentice.

The Gold Rush was a time I'd already researched back in the early '90s for a musical play and also the novel, Fools' Gold. I used some of the research for this story. The photographic and lemonade ventures are based broadly on the successful ventures of Mr Cole, of Cole's Funny Picture Book fame.

 ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist.