Life in Australia, 2009. How the books were conceived, composited, designed, and printed. 3
Eleni Kamari Aroney. Generous benefactor.
The initial impetus arose out of collecting research material for the web-site www.kythera-family.net. It became very obvious to James Prineas, Angelo Notaras and George C Poulos, Administrators of the website that Life in Australia, (1916), was a seminal and important book in Greek-Australian history.
Angelo Notaras states in his article in the 2009 Epilogue to the book - My Family's...Life in Australia, pp. 312-313, that around 1943, when he was about 10 years old, his father showed him a family copy of the book. From that time he harboured a desire to see the book re-published.
"60 years after first being introduced to Life in Australia, and 93 years after publication, I am now able to enjoy reading this historic, iconic publication in English. It was Life in Asutralia which inspired me later in life to devote my energies to preserving our Kytherian culture and heritage."
George Poulos first encountered the book in 1974, when he was in his early twenties. He, like so many other Greek-Australians, immediately photocopied the book. This photocopied version has been in his possession ever since. He too aspired to see the book reproduced, and translated.
James Prineas, was also a "fan" of the book. He began to place some photographs and biographical excerpts from the book, onto www.kythera-family.net. A determination to re-publish grew, culminating in 2006, with a plan as to how to carry out the Project.
In 2006, Peter Prineas published his superb book, Katsehamos & The Great Idea. Peter had used a small boutique publisher, Breakout Design & Print. Notaras and Poulos, were very impressed with both the art work, and the design quality.
They arranged a meeting with managing director, Brett Collins, and his team, in their then, Balmain Headquarters.
Breakout Design & Printhave since moved to:
Trades Hall,
Suite 204,
4 Goulburn St
Sydney 2000
Phone (02) 9283 0123
Fax (02) 9283 0112
Email, Breakout
http://www.breakout.net.au/
Notaras and Poulos came armed with two original editions of Life in Australia, one of which was john Comino's, grandson of the original benefactor, John D Comino, and the other which had fallen into the possession of George C Poulos, in circumstances that are worth recounting, here.
The book was sent to me by Eleni (Helen) Aroney - her family's paratsoukli, or nickname, is Kamaris, who lives in Gillman, Adelaide, South Australia. It was originally the copy of her grandfather, Nikolaos P Aroney, who lived in Moree. He had signed his name on the inside cover, in a neat ink, on the 25th September, 1916.
Helen had heard through kythera-family that I needed a copy of the book to fulfil my life-time ambition. She sent me a copy through the post. It arrived unnounced. I was deeply moved. I rang her to thank her, and she said, "I don't have any close relatives who understand the book, or will value it. I know you will make best use of it." The subsequent publication of Life in Australia (1916), has proved her instincts correct. The Kytherian World Heritage Fund has made best use of it.
The reason why Notaras and Poulos felt the need to arrive at the initial meeting with Breakout with two books in hand, was that the quality of the pages in a single issue of Life in Australia was very uneven. Some pages were either unusable, or would have taken far too much time and effort to restore digitally. By having two copies, the compositer and graphic designer could pick and choose the best entries from both books. In this way we have arrived at a much better product.
