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The Singing Line Paperback – 6 Jul 2000
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Product description
Amazon Review
In 1855 a young scientist called Charles Todd left Greenwich for Australia, where he intended to wire the continent by stringing a telegraph line across the wilderness. In 1997 his great-grandaughter, journalist Alice Thomson, set off to retrace his steps from Adelaide to Alice Springs (which Charles Todd named after his wife, the author's great-grandmother, who never visited the town) to Darwin, where the telegraph wire would join up with an underwater cable from Java.
Needless to say, Todd's journey, reconstructed here through letters and family history, was arduous; more surprisingly, so is Thomson's. As she and her husband cope with breakdowns, illness and the poverty of isolated communities, it becomes clear that parts of the outback haven't changed much since Todd first saw them.
In Charles Todd and his wife Alice, Thomson has chosen intriguing subjects. Charles is brilliant and ambitious but increasingly unaware of the needs of those around him, particularly his large family. Thomson isn't afraid to cast a critical eye: "Certainty had helped Todd to span a continent. It may not always have made him an easy companion." But the strongest presence in the book is the enigmatic Alice, the sparky young woman who made family history by proposing marriage to Charles. Frequently separated from Todd, Alice oscillates between bouts of sociability, fierce spirituality and depression. Was she happy with Charles? The Singing Line is an exploration of personal as well as technological connections and it seeks to answer that question. --Tamsin Todd --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"They were pioneers--in Alice Thomson they have the spirited chronicler they deserve." - "Daily Telegraph""Brilliant--I have not enjoyed a book more for as long as I can remember." - "Spectator"
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What can I say, this is an excellent book, very well written and researched. I really like the fact that Alice & Ed did the journey and we had the comparison between there...Read more
This is the biographical story of Charles Todd, the man who successfully managed to connect Australia with other continents by taking the telegraph across its interior and Alice...Read more
This is an inspiring book for anyone who is planning a trip up the Red Centre of Australia, or who is interested in gaining a further understanding of what the colonists faced on...Read more
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