JIM'S NEWS  - August - September 2010

BULA everyone !!
As you can guess from the greeting (BULA!) we are just back from a fabulous week in FIJI with John Williamson, Bill Chambers, Felicity Urquhart and .. of course ... Ashleigh Dallas and her band!

What a great time we had - doing shows, visiting schools and relaxing... many thanks to Chris Watson at Tamworth Travelworld and Rydges Hideaway Resort on the Coral Coast!

Incidentally... great news for young Ashleigh - who was a regular with us at Tamworth last January and only just graduated from the CMAA Academy of Country Music Senior Course in July - she will be touring nationally as part of Kasey Chambers' band from September!

I will be taking time out from promoting my new book to do a show at TWIN TOWNS RSL Club - it's a MORNING MELODIES SHOW - 10.30 AM 7th of October, those two LOVELY gals Bre and Jade of the duo BRADE will be there with me and Rustling Russell on the piano.

The BIG news is that my new book has hit the shops.

It is an account of Australia’s participation in World War II. I have written this book for all Australians, not just the war buffs and history buffs.

On all Fronts looks at Australian involvement in the major theatres of World War II. The book is in five sections.

	Section One covers the siege of Tobruk, the failures in Greece and Crete and the Allied triumph at El Alamein.
	The second section looks at the loss of HMAS Sydney, Perth and Canberra and the hospital ship Centaur.
	Section Three examines the fall of Singapore and the struggles against a fierce and unrelenting enemy in New Guinea.
	In Section Four I looked at what happened when the realities of war finally came to our own shores in 1942, when Japanese aircraft bombed towns in northwest Australia 100 times and Sydney was attacked by Japanese submarines.
	Finally I took a look at the 'forgotten campaigns of WW2, like Lebanon, Borneo, Ambon and Timor.

I tried to give accurate and simple accounts of the battles and glimpses into the human and social impact on Australians. On all Fronts is my attempt to explain to ordinary Aussies WHAT happened and WHY it was important.

Hope to see you somewhere SOON!

Jim