I have written previously about Robert Winthrop, bigamist and bounder. Yesterday I came across some new information which confirms the stereotype.

According to the Western Argus, Winthrop was living in Dugan Street, Kalgoorlie, at the age of 72 in 1922 when he was shot in the thigh by a 35-year-old married woman.

I think she might have been aiming for his groin.

The prosecutor described the accused, Lillian Haight, as Winthrop’s “housekeeper”.

Winthrop protested: “There appears to be some misconception. The accused is not my housekeeper. She is an old friend of mine, and as she was temporarily without a home, I told her she could stay at my place until she obtained a situation.”

Lily said she went to reside at Winthrop’s house in August 1921. Winthrop promised to pay her 20 or 30 shillings per week, the payments to be made when he received his remittances. On February 21, Winthrop received a remittance from England, but did not pay her wages.

Winthrop was drinking, and, knowing he had a revolver, she was afraid he might use it. On February 22 she asked the postman to withdraw the cartridge from the revolver and he did so (and testified accordingly).

On the night of February 23, Winthrop came home with a man named Spain. Winthrop had been drinking, and Lily told him that if he could spend money on liquor he could afford to pay her wages. The court heard Winthrop caught her by the wrists and threw her onto the floor.

During the struggle she caught up the revolver with the intention of frightening Winthrop. She did not think it was loaded. When she caught hold of the revolver, it fired, followed almost immediately by another shot and Winthrop ran out of the room.

The jury returned a verdict of not guilty and Lily was discharged.

I know Dugan Street, Kalgoorlie, of course, from my two and a half years in the gold city.

I also know the Western Argus. There were bound copies in the Kalgoorlie Miner office, where I used to work.

It’s wonderful the National Library is digitizing these old records and placing them on the web. I look forward to finding more snippets about Winthrop, who is sure to have left a trail of litigation.

That’s a substantial difference, and I much prefer the cooler conditions.

Overnight temperatures showed a similar contrast. In Mount Gambier the average minimum was 10.6 (51F) compared with 17 (63F) in Kalgoorlie.

In Mount Gambier the coolest minimum was 6.2 (Kalgoorlie 11.4). The coolest maximum was 14.9 and the warmest was 30.2.

The temperature only reached 30 degrees once in Mount Gambier. It passed that mark 22 times in Kalgoorlie, where the hottest day was 40.5 degrees on December 31.

I didn’t like the relentless heat of summer in Kalgoorlie. Having grown up in Gippsland, I’m a bit soft I suppose when it comes to typical Australian summers.

Mount Gambier is more like what I’m used to.

Here is a comparison of maximum temperatures between Mount Gambier and Kalgoorlie for the first five days of December:

The weather is perfect unless the wind picks up, low 20s, hardly any rain.

Mount Gambier needs rain and nobody audibly complains about the fact there have been showers every day for the past 28, except one.

Jim (4) complained though. He wants to know when it will be spring.

He and Maggie spent more than half their life so far in Kalgoorlie and they don’t appreciate the wet weather. It doesn’t bother me, because I’m either at work or home most of the time, and I’m used to it previously.

Kalgoorlie has an extremely hot summer, which I didn’t like, but you can generally avoid the heat and plan your holidays then.

I think I’ll feel a calling to Kal every year about this time.

I used the service thrice, and although expensive it was a marvellous time saver.

They say it is not economically viable at 50 percent capacity given high fuel prices, operating costs “and the deteriorating economic conditions in Australia”.

However, if one part of Australia is immune from the economic downturn it is Kalgoorlie.

Why didn’t Skywest just cut the service to once a week?

I think it’s a cop out. Skywest cancelled one flight I was booked on without explanation and I was routed via Perth on Qantas, arriving four hours later in Kalgoorlie than planned.

I think they had trouble servicing the route with pilots and aircraft, and never invested sufficiently in marketing.

It’s disappointing the city council and chamber of commerce have been so downcast and resigned in their acceptance of the decision.

The boys are smaller than he’s used to. After starting in his normal midfield position the coach moved him forward because of his strength.

He didn’t see much of the ball in the second half, but the one time it did get to him he scored a goal, and you can’t ask a striker to do any more than convert his opportunities.

While the standard might be a little lower than Kalgoorlie, mainly because of the younger age bracket, it’s good for Michael to assume responsibility. I could see the little kids looking up to him.

The other positive aspects of soccer in Mount Gambier are the club structure and the grounds.

In Kalgoorlie, there were separate associations for junior and senior soccer, with not much continuity or link. All junior matches were played on the one (sub-standard) oval.

In Mount Gambier the clubs have their own grounds and clubrooms. That creates a community atmosphere.

I’m told the clubs had ethnic origins, but the legacy of that is pretty tenuous today except in colors and as reflected in some of the families who support them.

Centrals were originally a Dutch team. Their ground is called Holland Park and they wear an orange strip.

Inter, where Michael played today, have Italian roots and wear blue. I believe Apollo were Greek and Blue Lake Scottish.

The home and away system is new to us. There will be some travelling as well, with games at Portland, Millicent and Naracoorte.

I hoped to develop something similar when I started at the Kalgoorlie Miner in January 2006. Although I stayed long enough to see the Miner’s website launched, it was not the outcome I envisaged.

The Border Watch is a privately owned company, which means the editor and management have greater autonomy.

When I told the general manager the website would cost nothing to produce he had no hesitation in giving the green light.

At Kalgoorlie, the paper is owned by West Australian Newspapers. That meant there were corporate issues to be worked through and an expectation of consistency across the group.

The regional sites were also secondary to The West Australian and you can see the differences today, although I’m told the regional sites will be upgraded.

Features I wanted in The Border Watch site included:

• Commenting capability on all stories;
• A discussion forum;
• Local weather page;
• Distinct categories for sport, farming, business, etc;
• Unique landing pages for our Millicent and Penola mastheads;
• Email subscription option;
• Local events calendar;
• Multi-user publishing.

Most of those are visible now. The site will be launched officially in a couple of weeks. At this stage I’m freshening the content and checking for bugs.

So take it for a test drive and let me know what you think. Either comment here or send me a message.

The separate category pages mean we can sell advertising that appears only on the wine page, for example, or across the whole site.

Through using back-end plugins I’m able to create users who can only publish to certain categories. I’m hoping volunteers might come forward to post sporting results and community news as it happens.

Down the track we’ll probably add video news. The opportunities are rather exciting.

Update: The Border Watch site has been revamped as part of the Fairfax online network. The Revolution News theme, used for the original Border Watch website, is no longer available, but there is a suite of new elated themes from the same designer.

I only encountered a handful of days when the wind was strong enough and chilly enough to make indoors more attractive than being outside.

Moving back to south-eastern Australia we’ve experienced a very mild start to winter, but there have been a few hints of what’s to come.

Stopping near Ballarat for lunch I wanted to close the door to keep the cold out; haven’t done that for three years.

Mount Gambier and Moe, where I’ve been staying, both have foggy mornings. The mist doesn’t lift until 10am or thereabouts; meanwhile the overnight chill hangs in the air.

I remember foggy mornings at Traralgon when I rode my bike to high school. The moisture from the fog sometimes turned to ice on my school jumper while cycling and I arrived at school looking like a snowman.

I wore gloves though and the frost quickly melted, so that doesn’t qualify as one of my coldest experiences.

Nor does skiing, visiting the snow or travelling around Europe in December. While doing those things I was dressed for the conditions and every building was properly heated.

Cold (and heat) hits you when you’re unprepared or it’s unexpected. The coldest I have ever been:

1) Riding my bike in the freezing rain, aged about 13. I used to go for long bike trips, about 50km from Traralgon to neighboring towns and places.

One day, obviously in winter, coming back from Rosedale the weather changed. A cold front came in from the south-west delivering icy rain and a freezing headwind. I wasn’t appropriately dressed and didn’t have gloves.

After trying to shelter beneath a tree until the rain stopped I got back on the highway until an elderly couple took pity on me and drove me home.

2) Aged 20 and working as a cadet journalist at the Bairnsdale Advertiser, I visited friends at Benambra in the high country,

Benambra is a farming town on the edge of the alps, about 1000 metres abive sea level. It’s probably the highest non-skiing community in Victoria.

My friends (two brothers) lived in a rambling old farm house while their parents sensibly lived in a modern warmer home nearby.

It got to minus eight degrees that night. The wood fire went out and only heated one room anyway. I think I was in a sleeping bag that just wasn’t good enough for the job.

3) Not as extreme, but worth relating. Our first winter at Porepunkah in 1997 was the coldest we experienced there. Again, the house wasn’t properly insulated or heated.

There must have been 50 or more frosts that year and we didn’t have a carport. Nearly every winter morning I had to remove ice from the car before driving to work in Myrtleford. One night, ice formed before 10pm when we had to take Michael into hospital with an asthma condition.

The worst night was when condensation froze on the walls inside the house. The glass of water I kept beside my bed also iced over.

I know Australia doesn’t get cold compared with many other places in the world. It doesn’t snow at sea level, except occasionally in Victoria and Tasmania. But it can get pretty chilly and often we’re not prepared.

We had subsidised housing there, which made it reasonably affordable.

When considering a move to Mount Gambier we calculated the impact of losing the housing assistance against lower costs for education, food and services. We figured it would be a balanced equation.

Arriving in the small town of Moonta Bay for a short break our assessment appears to be vindicated.

A shopping trip to the Foodland store revealed a wide range of specials and marked down items. It was much cheaper than Kalgoorlie. Mount Gambier is a bigger town than Moonta and has more supermarkets, so we expect prices there to be cheaper again.

Young Michael and I went for a haircut today. It cost $26 for both of us. The barber was an experienced Adelaide hairdresser who moved to Moonta for a sea change.

In Kalgoorlie, Michael’s haircuts cost $15 and mine were $24. That’s a saving here of $13 or 33 percent.

I’m not criticising Kalgoorlie business operators. Obviously their costs are much higher than elsewhere, especially for labor, fuel and transported goods.

The point of this post is double edged. People moving to Kalgoorlie should factor in the higher cost of living, especially housing.

And maybe the financial grass isn’t necessarily greener in the mining boom towns. Do your homework.

The Kalgoorlie Miner staff today presented me with a mock front page (see below) as a parting gift. It was clever and thoughtful.

I have no regrets about coming here and no regrets about leaving. It’s been a wonderful experience and a fantastic new time beckons.

PS: Comments here will be held for moderation until I have regular computer access. To fellow bloggers, sorry I can’t visit your sites much over the next couple of weeks.

Here is the mock front page: