One of our loveliest tasks at the Discovery Centre is dealing with donation offers to Museum Victoria's collection. Today we were offered a rather marvellous poster from 1948 which inspired waves of immigrants to Australia after the War. A mood worth recalling during the gloom of the GFC? 

1948 immigration poster  Source: Stephen Morgan

We often have regular visitors to the Discovery Centre whom we like to get to know a little.

A couple of weeks ago, Jo and I got into a conversation with one of our regulars about Ancient Egypt and he was telling us that he had a papyrus plant growing in his garden (papyrus is a plant that commonly grows along the banks of the Nile river in Egypt that the Ancient Egyptians used to make an early form of paper). He asked us if we'd like to see some of his papyrus.

Anyway, the weeks passed by, and then just this week, our regular visitor suddenly appeared in the doorway of the centre with an enormous bunch of papyrus which he presented to Jo and I as a gift. He also brought with him a photocopy of an article detailing how the Ancient Egyptians took this plant and turned it into paper suitable for writing on.

Photo: Meg Lomax  Source: Museum Victoria

Normally, its our job to provide information to others, but it was quite a nice experience to have one of our visitors provide some information to us!

Photo: Meg Lomax  Source: Museum Victoria

Dark ruddy complexion, pock-pitted, dark black hair to grey, brown eyes, long nose, long double chin. Stout made, slightly pock-pitted. A Jew. Can read and write.

Thus is Aaron Woolf - Australia's first Latvian - described in John S. Levi's These Are the Names. I had looked him up in response to an enquiry from a person in Latvia working on a biography of the man who stole fourteen gold watches and got sentenced in 1828 to transportation for seven years. Fourteen years later, his wife was still looking for him, and a letter was sent to Hobart from the London Rabbinical Court:

His wife living here as a respectable woman wishes to know the truth. We therefore hope you will make every enquiry and will oblige us with every particular thereof to relieve the poor Woman from her anxiety.

(That's how the entry ends.)