Author(s): Eric Beardsley

West Coast | Secondhand

Secondhand.

Blackball 08 by Eric Beardsley. 'The Tiny West Coast settlement of Blackball, now in sad decline - 'neither alive nor dead . . . just Blackball' - comes to stirring and startling life in Eric Beardsley's masterly new novel. Why has this tiny mining town in the Grey Valley received so much attention from writers, historians and artist? Blackball 08, the story of an epic mine strike there nearly 80 years ago, provides the answer. From the strike, won hands down by the young Bob Semple, Paddy Webb, and the lesser-known Pat Hickey, emerged the Federation of Labour and, eventually, the Labour Party. Eric Beardsley has skillfully recreated the times, the place, the people and their lives and loves in a warm, intimate and living history.'

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