Oodnadatta and Other Stories

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This book of my grandmother’s stories is the result of chance. In 1981, my father had given me Frances May Brady’s papers, which included a story entitled Oodnadatta. Having read it, I thought that the regional newspaper–the Coober Pedy Regional Times –might be interested in publishing it. And it was! It appeared in print in September and October 2020. The article’s headline read: A grandmother’s memoirs have led grandson Paul Heywood-Smith, an Adelaide Queen’s Counsel, on a journey of discovery into the regions at the edge of the Simpson Desert in the far north of South Australia. Over a century has passed since my grandmother penned her extraordinarily insightful narrative describing Oodnadatta in the early 1900s. And having it published in the Coober Pedy Regional Times has led to more of her writing being published, for posterity, in this book of short stories.