Great Australian Aviation Stories

The son of British migrants, Jim attended Sydney Boys’ High and Sydney Teachers’ College, taught in schools and universities in NSW and Britain, has two masters’ degrees in literature, from New England University and the University of Wales in the UK, and is the author of 33 books. Heroes, Rebels and Radicals of Convict Australia, made the top 10 best seller list for history/non-fiction. Jim currently presents three Australian history segments a week on Sydney Radio Station 2GB. A professional entertainer since 1988, he has written many songs, recorded for Festival, Sony, EMI and ABC, had a national hit with ‘Don’t Call Wagga Wagga Wagga’ and is the Australiana expert on 2GB. He was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in the Australia Day Honour's List in 2016, 'for service to the performing arts as an entertainer, author, broadcaster and historian'.

Jillian has written extensively both personally and professionally. Since 2000 she had six articles published in the Curriculum Corporation’s EQ as well as articles in Synergy, The Australian Educational Researcher, Unicorn, Connections, The Practising Administrator, The Australian Library Journal and the Australian College of Educators. She made presentations to, and had papers published as conference proceedings by the Sampoerna Foundation’s Kongres Guru Indonesia, Australian College of Educators, Independent Schools of Queensland, Curriculum Corporation, Canarie (Canada), Communities of Practice (Sheffield), UNESCO-ACEID, the Chinese University of Hong-Kong, and the Australian Library and Information Association. Jillian also co-edited and wrote Great Australian Aviation Stories ABC, Sydney, 2006, with her brother, Jim Haynes. She has an embroidery blog at http://jillian-alwaysstitching.blogspot.com and is researching and documenting her family’s history.

Anna Steen is a Theatre graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). Anna has worked with various theatre companies across Australia, working nationally and internationally. Anna works as a regular voice over artist and has performed in a number of radio dramas and poeticas for Radio National. She has both produced and narrated over 20 novels and anthologies for Audio Books.