Hobart City Council

This was a history not of all Hobart but just of the Council, which isn’t as interesting. Stefan wrote up to 1914, and I wrote the rest. You have to include a lot about topics like sewerage and road maintenance, and council ins and outs, without the leaven of sport, education and so on; I don’t feel this is a really gripping book. In fact, only one person has ever told me he’s read it.

At the job interview, it became clear that the panel had, unfortunately, read my second Glenorchy volume. ‘In this book you sound rather opposed to the Hobart City Council’, they said. That stumped me, because it was true. I’m not sure what words I managed to stumble out, but Stefan and I did get the job. Stefan must have answered strongly. 

This was the only book for which I went through the interview process. The rest of them just asked me. It’s also one of the few I had a contract for. The possible inadequacy of contracts was shown here, because Hobart City Council took years to publish, breaking their contract, with no explanation to us – but were Stefan and I going to take them to court? Of course not.