Anne Skyvington
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Anne Skyvington

The Craft of Writing

  • Writing
    • Craft
      • Structuring a Short Story
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      • A Grain of Folly
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          • The Sea Voyage: a metaphor
          • How I Created My Debut Novel
          • What I learnt from writing a novel…
          • Short Story
            • At the Swimming Pool
            • The Night of the Barricades
          • Poetry
            • a funny thing happened …
            • An ancient mystic: Rumi
            • A Window into Poetry
            • The Voice of T.S. Eliot
  • Publishing
    • A Change of Blog Title
    • 5 Further Publishing Facts
    • 5 Facts I Learnt About Self/Publishing
    • Highs and Lows of Self Publishing
    • A Perfect Pitch to a Publisher
    • A Useful Site for Readers and Indie Authors: Books 2 Read
  • Book Reviews
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    • Discovering Karrana
    • A Young Adult Novel: My French Barrette
    • Randwick Writers’ Group: Sharing Writing Skills
    • The Trouble With Flying: A Review
  • Mythos
    • Ancient Stories from Childhood
    • Births Deaths and Marriages
    • Duality or Onenness: The Moon
    • The Myth of Persephone and Demeter
    • Pandora’s Box
    • 7 ancient artefacts in the British Museum
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    • Voices From the Past
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    • A Tuscan Village Holiday
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    • Travel to Croatia
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    • A Guest Poem: “First Loves” by Roger Britton
    • A Love Sonnet by Ian Harry Wells
    • “Snakey” by Roger Britton
    • Randwick Writers’ Group: Sharing Writing Skills
    • A Story of a Genteel Ghost told by Roger Britton
  • Psychology
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    • Networking and Emotional Intelligence
    • C.G.Jung’s Active Imagination and the Dead
    • Psychology as a Field of Study
    • Western Influencers Down Through The Ages
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    • Adriatic Romance … Rijeka to Titograd
    • Always something there to remind me…
    • A Well-Loved Pet
    • Candidly Yours…
    • Memoir Writing
    • River Girl: An Early Chapter of my Memoir in Progress
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age-old tradition of the maypole

jacaranda-blossoms
ChildhoodNature

The Grafton Jacaranda Festival of Yesteryear

I’m remembering the Jacaranda Festivals of my childhood at Grafton in northern New South Wales, with a certain nostalgia. Did such a time of innocence really exist? Is this celebration different today?

Below is a photo from my sister’s album of her, Susan, and our little sister, Jill, folk dancing with school friends at the Grafton Jacaranda Festival in the fifties.

jill-susan-dancing-jacaranda-festival

This annual spring-time celebration begins at the end of October and lasts until the first week in November. It has gone on since nineteen thirty-four, and was the first such folk festival in the country.

The Grafton Jacaranda Festival  is in full swing in my hometown as I write this post. It is a spring celebration that is held every year during the first week in November. At this time, the jacaranda trees are in full bloom.

Some childhood memories are golden. Or, in this case, mauve, lilac, purple, and, as Dad once said, “heliotrope”. It’s hard to pin down the actual colour of the flowers that bloom on the jacaranda trees, and form carpets of blossoms on the surface of the roads and avenues. Sometimes they seem lighter hued, mauve in my memory, at other times, darkly purple.

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The Grafton Jacaranda Festival of Yesteryear was last modified: August 11th, 2018 by Anne Skyvington
November 7, 2016 6 comments
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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington

Anne Skyvington is a writer based in Sydney who has been practising and teaching creative writing skills for many years. You can learn here about structuring a short story and how to go about creating a longer work, such as a novel or a memoir. Subscribe to this blog and receive a monthly newsletter on creative writing topics and events.

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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington is a Sydney-based writer and blogger. <a href="http://anneskyvington.com.au She has self-published a novel, 'Karrana' and is currently writing a creative memoir based on her life and childhood with a spiritual/mystical dimension.

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