Welcome to the Prothero Family Blog Pages!
A short explanation of the banner above. It attests to the wonderful environment within which we live. There is a shot of "our" beach, during winter time, which is no more than 3 minutes walk from my front door! There are a couple of shots of Perths beautiful skyline and a couple of shots of Coral Bay where I hope to spend several weeks of each year during my remaining days on earth!.
As my video editing improves, I hope to put heaps of clips in here over the coming months. Our family name "Prothero" seems to be Welsh, it is the Anglicised form of the Welsh; ap Rhydderch ‘son of Rhydderch
My story tells of my links to places such as Great Barr, West Bromwich & Birmingham in the UK. I hope to chronical some of my associations with Sydney, Warnbro, Perth, Karratha, Wickham, Gove etc in Australia and many other parts of the world.
News
Lauren has finished her first semester at Notre Dame and after a nervous start, got some credits and distinctions. So I guess that she has made a pretty good start. Her Physio course is spot on for me and she will have no shortage of aches and pains to sort out for me when she becomes more proficient! She has decided to do the double major and will do Sports Science, adding a year to her course (5 years). I just don't know why she'd do that to herself but she reckons that life will be easier spread over the extra year? She has completed her swimming instructers qualification. She plans to do a surfing instructors ticket in August. She has already been offered some work as a surfing instructor. This pays $30 an hour which is pretty good for a uni student! Meantime, she is still working as a Lifeguard at the local pools. She had her 18th birthday party last month which seemed to go down pretty well judging by the empty alcohol containers.... Boo Hoo, what happened to my little lass? There will be a group of them going to Melbourne next week for there first taste of real freedom and shopping. Then its back to the saltmine for the second semester.
Me, well this year I've so far been to West Africa, South Africa, New Guinea, Lihir Island in the Pacific and just got back from Indonesia. Mostly I've been teaching an Information Management System to gold mining personnel. Dakar airport in the middle of the night was just how I imagined the yanks last day in Saigon was. It was absolute pandemonium! I went to a place called Sabodala which is, in relative terms, near to Timbuctu (which is across the border in Mali). About the only thing of interest were the wild baboons that roam the area and the great football skills of the Senegalese workers. No wonder that the African teams are coming along so much recently as they are superb athletes and play till they drop!
I travelled via Johannesburg where I had not been for over 30 years. What a difference! I find that there is still a stark black / white divide but I went to the Apartheid museum in Joburg and it hit home what a long way they have come! I went to Mandella square where the malls and shopping areas generally was as good as anything that we have in Australia. Mostly white faces here though! I had to travel to Pretoria where my father spent some time in the 40's. This is the administrative and business center of South Africa and obviously, things aren't travelling too badly. However, my driver (Trevor, a white guy, tells me that business for him just now is not very good at all).
Things are tingling with excitement and anticipation in South Africa just now. The World Cup was just a few weeks away and everywhere you look, there is something to remind you of the event.
Lihir Island was very interesting to me. I was on my way to Bougainville in the Solomon chain of islands many years ago. I got to Melbourne as a civil war broke out and was stranded. Lihir is relatively close and similar in nature to Bougainville so I acheived a long ambition when I got there. I am putting together a video that I took on the island. I will post it here when ready. The island is volcanic and thermals spring out everywhere (plumes of steam). The gold company actually drill to tap into this vast supply of relatively free energy. The island is right on the equator and extremely tropical. It rains just about every day followed by hot sun. This being the reason that so much grows here and everywhere is green jungle. I wont bite the hand that fed me except to say that they could do better with their tailings disposal.
I am back in the classroom teaching people what they can do with computers and must say how much I enjoy the interaction with the students. My website business is quite slow just now but I expect it will pick up if I put some effort into it.
This SiteAs my video editing improves, I hope to put heaps of clips in here over the coming months | Marjories PagesI have often told my mother that her writings should be shared as they are too good to keep gathering dust in her office! It is pretty hard to get her motivated. So this will probably be the last to evolve. On Marjories pages can be found some of her poetry, stories, art and some gossip and pictures. She's nervous about putting too much up for grabs so we may have a login for those seriously interested in her very good works. These days Marjorie lives on the RAAF estate in Bull Creek. She will be putting some pics and trivia up for all to see! | Laurens PagesLauren is a bit of an all rounder who likes tennis, swimming, surfing, music and (lately) designer clothing labels! She is using her part of this site to keep in touch with her friends and to share her photos with anyone who cares to look. Facebook seems to have replaced her initial interest in this site but I'm leaving her stuff here in case she revives the interest. |
Our family name "Prothero" seems to be Welsh, it is the Anglicised form of the Welsh; ap Rhydderch ‘son of Rhydderch’. My story tells of my links to places such as 
There will also be a section which will encompass what I know of my father. Unfortunately he is no longer alive and he was not one to discuss himself much! Like most sons, it was not until I slipped into the role of parent myself that I fully understood and appreciated my father. I now know that if he were here today, that his would be the life which I would most like to know more about.
His life as bomber navigator during WWII was surely his defining era and I have done some research using his log books. The information gleaned from this source viewed in conjunction with gazetted information from RAF Bomber Command makes interesting reading!
Her pages are generally made up of blog, pics. She has followed in the footsteps of her brother Aron & went to Kolbe Catholic College in Rockingham after completing her primary years at Warnbro Primary School (with a small chunk at Wickham Primary School near Karratha). They are both very good schools and I think that she has so far had some quite good years. She is now in her first year at uni and finding that the pace has just gone up, big time!