The Singing Line: Tracking the Adventure of My Intrepid Victorian Ancestors

by Alice Thomson

The Singing Line was the term given by Australia's Aborigines to the telegraph wire that, once slung across the continent, would open the world and permanently alter their lives. Writer Alice Thomson and her husband Ed follow the trail of the singing line while tracing the path of her great-great-grandparents, Charles and Alice Todd, the latter for whom Thomson was named. Flipping from the present to the mid-18th century in which her ancestors lived, this book offers both a glimpse of the heroic efforts of telegraph surveyors and the changes that these poles and wires wrought.

The tales of Alice Todd are sparse and of little consequence, however, since after arriving from England, the young bride never strays 30 miles from her home in Adelaide. It's her husband, Charles, who propels much of the book, as he oversaw the construction of the Australian telegraph in the 1850s, traveling--sometimes on camel--across desert, bush, and a no-man's-land where white men had never been, battling man-eating alligators, quicksand, monsoons, near-starvation, dehydration, and searing heat along the way.

At its best, The Singing Line is lively, funny, and filled with odd narrative snapshots of Aussies and their land. Like the stringing of the telegraph wire itself, though, this book can become a bit monotonous and fail to fully engage the reader. Ultimately, however, it does succeed in its task--and leaves one with an appreciation of struggles oft-forgotten in the age of modems and cellular phones. --Melissa Rossi

304 pages, Hardcover

First published October 5, 1999

Reviews

[Peter Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a good read,interesting and told with a down to earth style as she follows the route of her great grandfather across Australia south to north and his work making the overland telegraph.His wife has been commemorated in the name Alice Springs hence the author’s wish to see the life of the women she is named after.Good for tourists to read before or while they are in South Australia and for anyone with an interest in Australia.As usual I was impressed by how people survived and created a successful life in the new country of Australia.